most surnames are derived from localities, and were not hereditary among the nobles till towards the end of the 16th century. The bourgeoisie of that country first adopted surnames at a still later epoch, and the choice of them, when made, arose more from an imitation of the then existing nomenclature of the nobility, than from any such necessity for creating individual distinctions as had operated in England, France, and Germany some time earlier.

Camden, in a list of names of occupations, inserts that of the great father of English poetry, Chaucer, adding by way of necessary explanation, id est Hosier.' We fear that Hosier, used as a surname, stands now in equal need of explanation with Chaucer. It may at first sight appear a little remarkable, that, where the Taylors are so numerous, the members of an almost equally important craft, Cordwainers and Shoemakers, should apparently be wholly wanting. If any such surnames exist among us, there can be very few of them. The Shoesmiths may be disregarded, as mere workers in iron, and not shoemakers in the modern sense of the word. It appears that the corresponding names Cordonnier, Bottier, Savetier, are equally wanting in Normandy, although, under a different orthography, the latter (as Sabatier) is common in the south of France. In Germany the names of Professor Schuhmacher and of Schumann, and Schuster, are common enough.

The Chaussure, commonly used in England when surnames were first adopted by the commonalty, was of leather, covered both the foot and the leg, and appears to have been called Hose.* Hosier therefore is the same with Chaucier, which comes from the Latin Calcearius †, and differs but little in meaning from another word used to denote the man who followed this employment, namely, Suter, Sowter, or Souter, which was in use in English from the time of Chaucer to that of Beaumont and Fletcher, is still preserved in Scotland, and has become a surname in both countries. Although the craft of shoemaking is so distantly represented in our family nomenclature, yet that of glovemaking had long had its obscure Glovers, before the author of Leonidas' elevated the name to a somewhat more prominent position.

'Anglais furent des franc-tenanciers, plutot que des marchands ou 'des fabricants.' (vol. i. p. 313.)

Hose occurs as a surname with Hosatus, &c. in the Close Rolls. † Adelung, Wörterbuch, under Hose and Schuster; Ducange, Glossar. v. Ösa; and Gesenius, Dissertatio Grammatica de Lingua Chauceri, p. 4.

Many of these names of employment survive, and remind us of crafts which have long ceased to exist. Among such names are Archer, Arrowsmith, Fletcher, Billman, Bowmaker, Bowman, Bowyer, Butts (the place of exercising with bow and arrow), Crowder (who played on the crowd), Harper, Furbisher, Hawker, Larbalestier, Lorimer, Massinger, Pikeman, Pointer, Stringer (the maker of strings for bows), Stringfellow, and probably Hooker. Others occur in the following list of names of occupation, all of which existed as surnames in England soon after the year 1200. Le Barbier (barber), Despencer, Le Cuper (cooper), Le Cutiler (cutler), Le Bouteiller (butler), Draper, Naper, and Napier; Faber and Favre, Faucuner (Falconer), Foster (Forester), Le Turnur (Turner), Le Tailleur (Taylor), Le Latimer, Le Mascun (Mason), Marchant, Mercer, Porter, Le Peintur (Painter), Spicer (Grocer), Le Waliker (Walker, that is Fuller) Ward, and Hellier or Helyar, which means in the dialect of Dorsetshire a thatcher or tiler.

Draper and Naper, or Napier, deserve explanation. The former word in its early use seems to have meant simply a cloth merchant: the latter's dealings were not with drapery, but with napery only. Napery denotes table linen, including the nappe or napkin used on washing hands before and after meals. The napier handed these napkins. One part of his duty in the royal household was, to hand over to the king's almoner the old linen of the king's table for distribution to the poor.*

Stories have been invented to account for the origin of many names. Few of such stories are more clearly untrue than that which affects to explain the meaning and origin of the name Naper or Napier. The locality chosen for this etymological explanation is Scotland, a king of which country is said to have owed a victory in battle to the prowess of one Donald; and to have thanked him by saying, that all had fought well, but that Donald had Na pier! (no equal). Such an etymology deserves comparison with that which Rabelais gives for Beauce.†

Some names which may be considered as names of occupation or office, are not so easily accounted for. Most of such names as Pope, King, Duke, Prince, Lord, Earl, Baron, Knight, Squire,

* Ducange, v. Mapparius, and Fleta, vol. ii. p. 19.

La jument de Gargantua, when attacked by flies in a wood thirty-five leagues long, and seventeen leagues wide, elle desgaina 'sa queue, et si bien s'escarmouchant les esmouchat qu'elle en 'abattit tout le bois. Quoy voyant, Gargantua dist à ses gents: "Je "trouve beau ce, dont feut depuis appellé ce pays-la Beauce.” (Rabelais, Gargantua, liv. i. c. 16.).

Bishop, Priest, Monk, and others, must have been originally assumed and transmitted by persons who did not, in fact, hold the station indicated by the name. Nearly 900 Kings are born annually in England and Wales. The family is almost as numerous as the Cooks, and more so than the Parkers. Camden's observation is, that the ancestors of persons of such names must have served such, acted such parts, or were Kings of the Beane, 'Christmas Lords, &c.' Most probably such names were given by mothers or nurses, or play fellows, and adhering to individuals, when surnames began to be hereditary, were handed down to posterity. Mr. Kemble has pointed out a Saxon Bishop, who was so in name only. It is a little curious to find, as early as the reign of King John, a Jew bearing the surname of Bishop, Deulecres le Eveske.' The use of Archbishop as a surname is equally ancient. The origin of this latter surname, in Hugh de Lusignan's case, in France, was singular. This archbishop when, by the death of his brothers, the Lordship of Parthenay Soubise &c. descended to him, was dispensed by the Pope to 'marrie, on condition that his posteritie should beare the sur' name of Archevesque and a mitre over their arms for ever.' (Camden.) The dame of Arcedeckne is also ancient.

The frequency of King as a surname is a little remarkable. It was borne by the old republican Regulus, and was also known as Rex, at Rome: it is very common now-a-days in France, Le Roi, Roi, and in Germany, Koenig. The name of King became distinguished in England about a century and a half ago, in the person of Sir Peter King, who was first Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and afterwards Lord Chancellor, as Lord King, certainly a strongly distinguishing title. When the title, so acquired, was borne by the late Lord King, it could challenge comparison with the noblest names in the country. The present head of that family has thought fit to merge the ennobled name in the comparatively unknown title of Earl of Lovelace, so that it is only the name of a younger brother (Mr. Locke King) that now serves to call to mind either the philosopher Locke, the former Lord Chancellor, or the late Lord King.

A similar wish to get rid of a vulgar name probably created some of the Greek and Latin forms of surnames, now not uncommon in Germany: Osiander is from Hosemann, which differs little from our English Hosier: Neander is a translation of Neumann. The great Reformer Philip Melanchthon was in German Schwarzerdt, and when he appeared as Ippofilo da Terra negra, on the title-page of an Italian translation of one of his theological publications, he was not recognised, and for

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some time escaped the censorship.* Curtius is more closely connected with Kurz (Short), than with the Roman Curtii. The German Musaeus is common enough, and a Marius has written in English on Bills of Exchange. Coccejus comes from Koch (Cook), and not from the gens Cocceja. In Germany latinised names became hereditary as surnames. Adolphus (Adolf), Ludolfus (Leutholf), are instances. Sometimes the Latin genitive was used as in Ernesti, Jacobi, Dietrici, Ulrici, forms which correspond with our Harris and Edwards, and with the French Dantoine, Danton, Dandré, &c., and with Damiani. The Dutch Commentator Torrentius, was known to his fellow countrymen as Van der Beken, and the latinised form Hugo Grotius, prevents our knowing the real name De Groot, which has again become illustrious in the great historian of Greece Mr. Grote.

England furnishes a few instances in which surnames were similarly latinised in the sixteenth century. Dr. Cains was no descendant of the great Roman jurist, but an English physician, whose vernacular name of Key was latinised by Caius, and who, when a Fellow of Gonvile Hall, Cambridge, in 1557, obtained a charter perpetuating his latinised name in the College of 'Gonvile and Caius.' Everyone still writes Caius College;' but Key's College is, at Cambridge, the invariable pronunciation. In the same century, Thomas Caius (also a Key, in English,) was Master of University College, Oxford. The present English and German surname Carus, probably dates from the same period. Magnus is another latinised surname which became hereditary in England. In one case it was assumed by a poor foundling, afterwards an eminent divine, and is said to have been substituted for Tom among us, by which he was first known. Magnus' was the cognomen bestowed on the great Cn. Pompeius, and borne by his descendants until they were deprived of it by the jealousy of the Emperor Caligula.

With us the good old English Smith is corrupted into Smythe, and at last even into Smijthe; just as Simon, the cobbler in Lucian,' when he grew rich, called himself Si

Another form, that of Hippophilus Melangaus, seems also to have been used by Melanchthon, or others for him, as the name of the author of his compendium of Theology, and Commentary on St. Matthew, and found its way into the Index librorum prohibitorum, published at Rome in 1681, and was retained in the more recent Index, published at Madrid in 1747. He had been included, under the same name, in the Catalogue des livres censurès la par Facultè de Théologie de Paris, in 1549.

monides, or as the German Schulz or Butterwecke changes his name into Scholzen or Bouterwek. When such a Smith, Smythe, or Smijthe takes his name from his Furnace, it has sometimes been changed successively by his wealthier descendants into Furniss, Furnice, and Furnese; giving rise to Swift's sneer, I know a citizen who adds or changes a letter in his name with every plum he acquires; he now wants only the change of a vowel to be allied to a sovereign prince (Farnese) 'in Italy.'

6

Such traits of human nature have been frequently observed from the time of Simon, the Greek cobbler, to that of John, the English Smith. Lucian, in his Timon,' describes the way in which a mere slave, Pyrrhias or Dromo, on succeeding to a rich inheritance, was wont to change his name to Megacles or Megabyzus. The orator Æschines is said to have changed his father's name, Tromes, into Atrometus; his mother's, Empusa*, into Glaucothea!

The slave at Rome, on obtaining his freedom, usually received the prænomen (as well as the nomen gentilitium) of his former master, in addition to which he retained his own original slave's name. Many of our readers will remember the sneer of Persius, when Dama, a Syrian slave, is emancipated :

'Hic Dama est non tressis agaso:

Verterit hunc dominus, momento turbinis exit
Marcus Dama! Papae! Marco spondente recusas,
Credere tu nummos? Marco sub judice palles?'

Provincials who obtained the Roman citizenship similarly took the prænomen and nomen of the Roman citizen through whose intervention they had acquired their new character. Hence Cicero writing to the Proconsul of Sicily a letter in favour of a Sicilian Demetrius Megas, and mentioning that he had recently obtained the Roman citizenship at the instance of (P. Cornelius) Dolabella, subjoins, Itaque nunc P. Cornelius vocatur.'†

Lord Byron, if we rightly remember, wished to be called, not by his English name, but by that of the French family of Biron; while, on the contrary, the Emperor Napoleon, at a very early period of his great career, thought it worth while to Frenchify his Italian name of Buonaparte by writing it Bonaparte. Similarly, the great Bohemian family of Czernahora have long since assumed at Vienna the name of Schwarzenberg,

* We once, in a country where surnames are not yet generally hereditary, met with a woman's name Katakhano-pula, Vampire's daughter! Cic. Ep. ad Divers., XII. 36.