A lady wrote to me the other day to inform me that I had made a mistake in ascribing the name “Mason” to the craftsman of that name, for she was sure she was sprung from Mnason in the Acts of the Apostles, and that the family had worked its way through Phrygia, and Italy, and Germany, into England. If she can prove her pedigree, she may boast a genealogy which the proudest monarch in Europe might envy. The fact is, it is as true of a hundred reputed foreign names as of the rhyme of the three Devonshire families, which asserts that
“‘Croker,’ ‘Crewys,’ and ‘Coplestone,’
When the Conqueror came were at home.”
What a pleasant book to look upon would our Directory be if we had all had the selection of our own surnames! There would have been no “Pennyfathers.” This was an old English nickname for a miser. An old couplet says, —
“The liberall doth spend his pelfe,
The pennyfather wastes himself.”
That such a disposition need not be hereditary is proved in the case of one of the most generous, earnest Christian ministers who ever worked for Christ in London. Mr. Pennefather is dead; but who would think of connecting him with the characteristic his name implies? Again, there would have been no “Piggs,” no “Rakestraws” (an old nickname for a dust-heap searcher), no “Milksops,” no “Buggs,” no “Rascals.” But the fact is, the man who had most interest in the matter had least to do with it. All he could do was to accept his sobriquet, if not with thanks, with such grace as he could muster. If his children could shuffle it off, so much the better. Our Directory proves that this was not always possible. ’Tis true, we have got rid of “Alan Swet-in-bedde’s” nominal descendants, not to mention such cognomens as “Cheese-and-bread,” “Scutel-mouth” (what a great eater he must have been!) “Red-herring,” “Drink-dregs,” “Cat’s-nose,” “Pigg’s-flesh,” “Spickfat” (i. e. bacon-fat), “Burgulion” (a braggart), and “Rattlebag.” But many of these names made a hard fight for it, and contrived to hold out till the seventeenth, or even eighteenth, century. “Piggs-flesh,” I say, is gone; but “Hog’s-flesh” has been a name familiar to Brighton and its neighbourhood for six hundred years, and still lives. Charles Lamb’s little comedy, called “Mr. H. – ” (i. e., Hog’s-flesh), had for its hero’s sobriquet no fanciful title. No doubt Mr. Lamb had seen the name in a Sussex Directory. The story is a relation of Mr. H.’s troubles in polite society through the attempt to hide his name under the mere initial. When it is discovered, everybody deserts him. As he quits his hotel, his landlord says: —
“Hope your honour does not intend to quit the ‘Blue Boar.’ Sorry anything has happened.”
Mr. H. (to himself): “He has heard it all.”
Land.: “Your honour has had some mortification, to be sure, as a man may say. You have brought your pigs to a fine market.”
Mr. H.: “Pigs!”
Land.: “What then? Take old Pry’s advice, and never mind it. Don’t scorch your crackling for ’em, sir.”
Mr. H.: “Scorch my crackling! A queer phrase; but I suppose he don’t mean to affront me.”
Land.: “What is done can’t be undone; you can’t make a silken purse out of a sow’s ear.”
Mr. H.: “As you say, landlord, thinking of a thing does but augment it.”
Land.: “Does but hogment it, indeed, sir.”
Mr. H.: “Hogment it! I said augment it.”
Land.: “Ah, sir, ’tis not everybody has such gift of fine phrases as your honour, that can lard his discourse.”
Mr. H.: “Lard!”
Land.: “Suppose they do smoke you – ”
Mr. H.: “Smoke me!”
Land.: “Anon, anon.”
Mr. H.: “Oh, I wish I were anonymous!”
It is curious to notice that many objectionable names still exist, simply because the words themselves have become obsolete, and the meaning forgotten. We will leave them in their obscurity.
CHAPTER III.
IMMIGRATION AND EMIGRATION
I said in my last chapter that nearly half of the names in the London Directory are of local origin, and I proved my statement by an appeal to certain figures. We have not all the brand of Cain on our brow, but certainly man has ever been “a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth.” History, sacred and profane, teems with the records of the flights of nations from one land to another. From the days of the Israelites’ escape from Egypt to the flight of the Huguenots from France, there have been emigrations which have been the direct results of persecution. From the year that saw Babel erected and the language confounded, the races of mankind have struck out a path for themselves in one direction or another of the earth’s vast continent. The curious feature is this, – It is to the dictionary we must go to discover whence each several horde set forth. The language of every nation clearly tells where lies the cradle of its birth.
But emigration and immigration lie not alone with nationalities. The world has not always been a vagabond en masse. From the day that Jacob started for the East to find his uncle, from the morn that saw Ruth clinging to Naomi, while she said, “Whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge,” there has ever been going on a wondrous silent efflux or influx of individual wanderers. Just as the mother-bird at the proper time, with seeming stern but true maternal instinct, pushes out her fledgling brood to seek a home and sustenance for themselves, so it has ever been with man. To go forth and replenish the earth has been a Divine fiat which none could forego. And what the dictionary is to the nation, the directory is to the individual. In the name of each we know the land, the city, the hamlet, whence each set forward to battle with the world. At any rate, this is strictly true of all local surnames.
In the course of the last six hundred years there has not been a single village or town in England that has not found its representative in London. “All roads lead to the capital,” says an old proverb. How true this is, the London Directory shows; for at this moment it would be hard to mention a place, big or small, from John o’ Groats to Land’s End, – the Dan and Beersheba of England, – whose name is not found therein as the title of some individual whose ancestor, long generations ago, left his native home to settle in what was, even then, the big city. I was struck the other day by seeing two shops adjacent, the shopkeepers’ names on the doors being “Dearnally” and “Dennerley.” Dearnally and Dennerley! What a curious circumstance! My mind went back six centuries, and I wove a little story. Six hundred years ago, two brothers, or schoolfellows, or playmates, leave the little secluded hamlet of Dearnley. 5 One is John, the other William. John goes to Bristol. “Whence come you?” say his Bristol associates. “From Dearnley,” he replies. Henceforward he is John o’ Dearnley, by-and-by to become simple John Dearnley. “Whence come you?” says a Norwich artisan to William, who has turned his steps eastwards. “From Dearnley: I wonder shall I see it again,” responds William, sadly, who is already home-sick, – for homes were homes then as well as now. Henceforth he is William o’ Dearnley, or Will Dearnley. Each marries,