YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY CONTRIBUTIONS TO LITERATURE f^istorical, Antiquarian, anb Jletrical. MARK ANTONY LOWER, M.A., F.S.A. TELLOW OP THE ANTnjUAaiAN SOCIETIES OV NOKMANDY, AMERICA, AHD NEWCASTLE-tJPOM-TTKE; MEMBER OP THE ACADEMY OP SCIENCES OP CAEN, ETC. ETC. ETC. - Ubi quid datur otl, Illudo chartiB.- Hoa. Sat. iv. JOHN RUSSELL SMITH, 36, SOHO SQUARE. MDCCCLIV. ;L'bo-.& 1 LONDON: ^ TUCKEB, PEINTEE, PEEET'S PLACE, OXEOED STEEET. ^ \3S- TO TIIE REV. JOHN COLLINGWOOD BRUCE, LL.D., F.S.A. (LONDON AND NEWCASTLE), ETC. ETC. ETC. Author of ' The Roman Wall j ' ' Thc Bayeux Tapestry Elucidated ; ' * Hadrian, the Builder of the Wall,' etc. My dear Sir, Permit me to raark my esteem for your person and character by dedicating to You this little Book. The similarity of our tastes, and the interest which you have taken in some of the topics here discussed, would alone justify my desiring the sanction of your name; but I have a yet stronger motive. You, dear Sir, have given to the world substantial evi dence, that while you have devoted a portion of your time to literature, you have not the less efficiently discharged the important and arduous duties of the responsible position in which you are placed, as the head of one of the largest educational establishments in England. You have shown how gracefully to himself, and how advantageously to the inteUectual world, one who is engaged in the stern labours of scholastic instruction can devote his b VI DEDICATION. few brief hours of leisure to subjects not immediately con nected with his ordinary round of duties. If I, in my similar, but humbler, sphere of action, so dedicate a few hours snatched from periods given up by some to mere vacuity and amusement, I have the satisfaction at least of knowing, that no duty is thereby neglected, no other's right infringed. In the hope that you may long enjoy health and strength, not only to benefit those who come under your valuable tuition and example, but also to render further services to the cause of Retrospective Literature, I remain. My dear Sir, Very faithfully yours, Mark Antony Lower. Saint Anne's House, Lewes ; 30th December, 1853. PREFACE. The foUowing sheets are composed partly of articles which have already been printed ; partly of Essays which hitherto have not seen the light. The paper on Local Nomenclature appeared in nearly its present form in the New Retrospective Review, No. IV. That on the Battle of Hastings is a sUght extension of a Paper read before the Sussex Archaeological Society, and pubhshed in their 'Collections' Vol. VI. The Memoir on the Southern Iron-Works likewise appeared in the second volume of that series. The substance of a portion of the Antiquarian Pilgrimage in Normandy was printed in the same Society's third volume, and subsequently translated into French, and published in the Bevue de Bouen. The Essay on the South-Downs, and the obser vations on Genealogy, together with the minor pieces, are now first printed. Of the metrical viil PREFACE. attempts, the one entitled ' Winchelsea's Deli verance' was printed in a recent number of the New Monthly Magazine : the others now appear for the first time. The Sonnet at page 163 was published some years since in the Literary Gazette and in some local Newspapers. With respect to the first article of this volume, the paper on Local Names, I would remark, that it is a mere outUne of an Essay which I hope at some future time to fiU up. It is somewhat remarkable, that amidst the multifarious sub jects which at the present day occupy the pens of the learned and the philosophical, so little attention should hitherto have been paid to the etymology of the proper names of places and persons. With the exception of my own ' Eng lish Surnames,' which has gone through several editions, I am not aware of any English work worthy of the name that has been devoted to that branch of the subject. On the names of Places there is no independent work, except the small treatise of Dr. Leo, translated from the PREFACE. IX original German by Mr. Williams. There are, it is true, many detached essays of great merit scattered through the pages of various periodical and other publications, but no one seems hitherto to have considered the subject of sufiicient im portance for a distinct volume. Perhaps the difficulties which surround it may have deterred abler pens than mine from attempting the task. However this may be, no one can gainsay the interest attaching to this branch of etymology. I am one of those who are presumptuous enough to think a rough and crude attempt in any species of enterprise better than none at all. All knowledge is progressive, and all efforts in a %iew direction wiU be more or less unsatisfactory. For myself I am content in this and other mat ters to perform the somewhat arduous and thankless task of a pioneer. I have nothing further to remark upon these essays, except that the 'Memoir on the Iron- Works of the South-East of England' is now reproduced in consequence of the interest taken in the subject by many who are unconnected X PREFACE. with the local society for which it was originally written. I have to thank the Committee of the Sussex Archaeological Society for the loan of the wood cuts, made from my own drawings, which accompany the Paper on the Iron- Works, the Portrait of Dr. Andrew Borde, and the Views of the Castle and Church of Bellencombre in Normandy. CONTENTS. Dedication.Peepace.On Local Nomenolatuke. General curiosity on the subject, 1 — Ridiculous etymologies of Udimore, Asian Clinton, and Surstperpoint, 2 — False deri vation of Alfriston, 3 — Pedantic etymologies, Pomfret, 4 — Win chelsea, Oxsteddle Sottom, Viruniitm, 5 — Beauce from Rabe lais. Errors of derivation in ' Baxter's Glossary,' 6 — Names of geograpliical features, as rivers and mountains, of Celtic origin. Quotationa from Cresar and Salverte, showing how old names have been imposed upon new places by Colonists, 7, 8 — Illustra tions from the United States, 9 — Significance of some American names. Practice of borrowing names of distinguished places and men, 10 — Sources of our local nomenclature. Celtic Language, 11 — Aballaba in Cumberland, so named by the Moors stationed there in Roman times, 12 — Retention of some Celto-Roman names, 13 — Lhwyd on names of Rivers, 14 — Mountains, 15 — Celtic remains in Welsh and Cornish names, 16, 17 — Anglo-Saxon, 18 — Teutonic names imposed in Roman times. Burgovicus, &c., 19— Danish Names. Errors of Mr. Worsaae, 20 — Feench Names : their paucity in England, 21, 22 — Practice of affixing names of Norman proprietors, 22 — Modeen English, 23 — Majority of local names Aaglo-Saxon, 24 — Chief terminations, 25 — Tabular view of terminations, 26 — Names derived from the Teutonic Mythology, 27 — Curious derivation of Folkestone by Baxter, 27 — Names from Fairy My thology of tHe Saxons, 29 — Names from those of proprietors of the soil, 29 — From animals, vegetables, and minerals, 30-33 — From positions upon Roads and Rivers, 33 — From Historical events, customs, &c., 34i — Conclusion, 35. On the Battle op Hastings. Erroneous accounts of, 37 — Arrival of Harold from the North ; his camp and army, 38 — Riotous conduct of the Saxons on the eve of the battle, and opposite demeanour of the invaders, 39 — Approach of William's Army, 40 — Authority of the Bayeux xu contents. Tapestry, 41 — Costume of the Normans, 42 — Curious incident at William's arming ; William's disregard of the omen, 43 — His vow to build an Abbey, 44 — William's noble bearing, 45 — Bishop Odo, his gallantry, 45 — Other eminent leaders and their subsequent settlement near the scene of the battle, 46 — ^WiUiam's speech to his soldiers, 47 — Harold's camp ; costume of his soldiers, &c., 48 — The Saxons incapable of fighting on horse back, 49 — Commencement of the battle, 49 — Exploits of Taillefer, 50 — War-cries of the two armies, 52 — Feigned retreat of the Normans, 53 — Slaughter in Malfosse, 54 — Identification of that locality, 56 — Bravery of William and Odo, 57 — of Harold, 58 — Harold wounded in the eye by an arrow, 59 — Anecdotes of personal bravery, 60, 61 — Dreadful slaughter, 62 — Death of Harold, 63 — Precise locality of this event, 63 — Its discovery iu recent times, 64 — Discom fiture of the Saxons, 65 — William sups and sleeps among the dead, 66 — Morning after the conflict, 66 — William buries his dead, 67 — Finding of the body of Harold, 68 — His mother's touching appeal to William for the body, and William's answer 69 — Harold's grave on the Sussex coast ? 69 — Number of the slain, 70 — Identification of localities, 72 — Battel Abbey a me morial of the Conquest, 72. The Loed Daoee — his Mouenpttl End : a teub Histoet. Historical Introduction, 74 — The ballad, 76-84. HiSTOEICAL AND AeCHJEOLOGICAL MEMOIE OF THE IeON-WOEKS OF THE SOUTH-EaST OF ENGLAND. Geological position of the ferruginous strata, 85 — Iron of the district manufactured by the Romans, 87 — Discovery of one of their Works at Marfesfield, 88 — Relics found there and dsewhere, 89-92 — Caesar's account of British Iron; his misconceptions thereon, 93 — ^The Romans' knowledge of our metals, 94 — First actual record of iron-trade, 95 — History during xm and xiv centuries, 96, 97 — ReUcs of the manufacture, §8-103 — Cannons first cast in Sussex by Hogge and Bawd, temp. Henry VIIL, 104 — ^Fine giin in the Tower of London, 107 — An Iron-master's account book, 107 — Richard Woodman the Martyr an Iron master, 108 — Archbishop Parker's dislike of Iron-works, 109 — Aristocratic Iron-masters, 109 — Cannon smuggled abroad, and means adopted to prevent it, 110, 111 — Andirons and other relics of the trade, xvi century, 112-115 — Waste of timber by the Iron-works, and legislative enactments for its preservation under Henry VIII and Elizabeth, 116 — Extract from John CONTENTS. xiii Nordeu's ' Surveyor's Dialogue ' on this subject, 118— Glass works iu the South, 119— Camden's account of Sussex Iron, 120-121— Fuller's, 121— Ordnance presented to the King of Spain by Sir Anthony Sherley, 121— Iron- works limited by Charles I, 122 — Bell-founding practised in Sussex, 123— Brass and steel works, 124— Drayton's ' Polyolbion ' cited as to the destruction ofthe Forests by the Iron-works, 125— Andirons and chimney-backs of the xvii century, 126-128— Monumental slabs of iron in churches, 128— Destruction of royal Iron-works during the Civil Wars, 128— John Ray's desoription of iron- mating, 129-132— Hammer-post at Howboume, 132— Great works at Lamberhurst Furnace : iron rails round St. Paul's cast there, 133— Iron-founders to Charles II, 133 — Flourishing state of the trade in the early part of the xviil century, 133— Export of cannon to India and elsewhere, 134 — Choice of sites, 134— Decline and fall of the trade, 135— Examples of fluctu ation of fortune among the Iron-masters and their descendants —the Fowles and Barhams, 136, 137 — Probable revival of the Manufacture, 138. Winchelsea's Deltveeance, oe the Stout Abbot op Battatlb. The Argument : historical introduction, 139 — The ballad, in three fffttes, 139-145. The South Downs — a sketch. Misapprehensions aa to the beauty of these hiUs, 146 — Pleas ing character of surface : Gilbert WTiite's opinion, 147 — Fine turf and facilities for riding and walking, 148 — A South Down village, 149^ Pure air, 149 — Natural history : sheep, trees, and shrubs, 152 — Bustards and Wlieatears, 153 — Fairy rings; their cause, 154 — Ascribed to the nocturnal dances of the Fairies ; quotation from John Aubrey, 155 — Fairy-tales of the South Downs, 156 — Quotations respecting fairy rings, 157-158 — Story of Chols Packham and the fairy, 159 — Master Meppom's ad venture with the industrious fairies, 161 — Practice of planting snow-drops in church-yards, 163 — Sormet, 163 — Shepherds of the Downs, 164— Their long continuance in the district, 165 — Tenacity of the South-Down farmers to the locaUty, 166 — Old shepherd-life, 167— Smugglers, 169— Nick Cossum and the exciseman, 170— Smuggling connived at by the better classes of society, 171 — Scenery, 172 — Remarkable eminences and depres sions : the Combe at Lewes and the Devil's Dyke, 172 — Mr. Hamper's versified legend, 173 — South Down churches, 174 — XIV CONTENTS. Earthworks and barrows, 175 — Geology, 175 — Dr. Gideon Man tell's researches : Anecdote, 176 — Old feudal fortresses : Lewes : remarkable posthumous history of Gundrada de Warenne, 177 — Remarkable houses and ancient sites, 178 — Towns, 179 — His torioal reminiscences, 179 — Shipwrecks : Beachy Head, 179 — Samphire : remarkable instance of preservation of human life connected with it, 180 — Parson Darby's Hole, near Beachy Head, 182 — -Eccentric characters, 183 — ' Irregular ' parsons and queer clerks, 184 — DroU musical anecdote : " Mine eye's so dim,' ' 185 — Eccentric millers, 186 — MiUer Oliver and his tomb, 187 — The honest miller of Chalvington, 188 — MiUer Coombs and his painted horse, 189 — His supernatural warning against matri mony, 190 — Chalk-pits, 190 — A tale of a Bucket, 191— Con clusion, 192. On Yew-Teees in Chuech-Yaeds. The question, why planted there ? 193 — Vast age of Yews, 194 — Rejuvenescence of Yews, 195. A Lyttel Gesie op a Geeate Eelb. Memorandum : Andrew Borde, the probable author of the story of drowning an Eel, 196 — Rev. L. B. Larking on the practice of drowning criminals at Pevensey, 197 — The Ballad, in two parts, 197-203. A DiscouESE OF Genealogy. Genealogy cultivated in aU ages and by all nations, 204 — Disposition to eUght it now prevailing, 205 — Bums and his democratical sentiments, 205 — Despisers of pedigree, 207 — Genealogy a passion of our common nature, 208 — Distinct from the pride of Rank, 209 — Moral advantages of Genealogy, 210 — Remarkable instances of descent from royalty, 211 — Numerosity of ancestral relations : Blackstone's calculation, 212 — Resem blances between persons not recognized as kindred : ' The two Tuppens,' 213- — Genealogical taste among ancient nations, 214 — High blood v. low blood, 215 — False antiquity ascribed to heraldry, 216 — Early heraldry always connected with war, 217 — Novi homines, their gradual fusion with the old nobiUty, 218 — The heraldic Visitations : unconstitutional powers exercised by the heralds, 219 — Change of notions consequent upon the poUtical struggle of xvii century, 220 — Arms assvmed by the vulgarly ' genteel,' 221 — Desirableness of extending the practice CONTENTS. XV of bearing arms to aU respectable famUies, 222— Its use in Gene alogy, 223— The question, 'What constitutes a gentleman?' 224-227 — Love of the science among the Americans, 227 — Citations from Farmer's Gen. Register, 228— and from Dr. Jenks's Address, 228— The De Courcys and the Grosvenors ; their heirs discovered in humble positions in America, 230 — George Washington a descendant of royalty, 230 — The Ameri can standard borrowed from the Washington Arms, 231 — Retrospective taste of American writers, 231 — Genealogy pur sued by Quakers, 232 — Pleasures of the pursuit, 233— A few directions for tracing pedigrees, 234 — The memory of long by gone events transmitted through few Unks, 237 — Sources of genealogical materials : wiUs, parish registers, national records, visitation books, &c., 238-240. An Antiquaeiau Pilgeimage in Noemandt. Reason for undertaking it, 241 — La ChapeUe, 242 — Longue- vUle, 243 — St. Victor I'Abbaye, 245 — ReUgious procession at, 246 — Shrine of St. Victor and its votaries, 247 — A rustic car riage described, 248 — Bellencombre, 249 — Its castle dilapidated by old DUlard, 252— Church, &g., 254. Miscellanea. ' Vox popuU non vox Dei ' iUustrated : the Parson and the Farmers, 259 — The Rat and the Spoon, 260 — PoUtian's epistle, 261— The pope and his Wife! 262— Mr. Eldershaw on Mathe matics, 263 — and Mathematicians, 266 — "TuUt alter honores," 266 — Mysteries not dreamed of in every one's philosophy, 267 — ^The Anglo-Saxon race over-rated by some, 268 — Derivation of ' Schoolmaster,' 269 — Corruptions in the pronunciation of local names, 269 — Rustic wit, 271 — Alleged natural antipathy between the sheep and the wolf, 271 — An East India anecdote concern ing, 272 — Illustration of the nil admirari, 273 — Life preserved by a Dream, 273 — Remarkable instance of sympathy between mind and instinct, 275 — Corruptions of the EngUsh language deplored, 275-278 — Why is the strongest part of a castle called a keep 1 279 — Odd interpretations of Scripture, 279 — On corruptions in English orthoepy, 280 — On modem archsology, 281 — Firing of beacons, or the mayor's mistake, 283 — The Wilmington giant, 284. Contvtijutuins to ^lUrattire. ?«H' ON LOCAL NOMENCLATURE. 1\ EXT to the curiosity which nearly every one experiences in regard to the origin of his own personal name, that of the appellation of the locality where he resides naturally excites inquiry; and learned clerk and rustic wiseacre ahke apply themselves to the task of discovering an etymon for town and village, valley and hill. This is not unfrequently accomplished with little difficulty, since the component parts of many names of places are but slight departures, if departures at all, from common every-day English words. Eor instance, the names of Hil-ton, Nor-ton, Heath-field, Ling-field, Wood-ford, New-bridge, Ash-ridge, West ham, Beech-land, South-gate, and many hundred other locahties of greater or less magnitude and importance, explain themselves to the " meanest capacity." But it is the more recondite names that supply the choicest food for the speculative inquirer. The results are sometimes quite satisfactory, though much oftener amusingly incorrect — the ne plus ultra of absurdity being not rarely arrived at by men of some pretensions to learning and judgment, as we shall by and bye have occasion to show. But we will first supply a few examples of rustic and traditional etvmology which occur to our recollection. 1 » LOCAL NOMENCLATURE. At Udimore, near Eye, the villagers have a legend that their forefathers, in ages long bygone, began to build themselves a church on the opposite side of the little river Ree, to that where it was eventually reared. Night after night however witnessed the dislocation of huge stones from the walls built on the preceding day, and the pious work bade fair to be interminable. Grave suspicions arose among the parishioners that they had selected an unholy, and consequently improper, site for the building, and these were eventually confirmed. Unseen hands hurled the stones to the opposite side of the stream, and an awful supernatural voice in the air uttered, in warning and reproachful tones, the words, " O'er the mere ! O'er the mere \" — ^thus at once indicating a more appropriate situation for the sacred edifice, and by anticipation conferring a name upon it; for the transformation of the phrase, " O'er the mere," into Udimore, was a difficulty little calculated to shake the faith of the unsophisticated Boeotians who could swallow the more wondrous and remarkable incidents of the legend. The village of Aston-Clinton, in Buckinghamshire, bears a name which few antiquarian readers will be at a loss to account for (the suffix being the appellation of its ancient lords), but here rustic etymology has also been at work, and we were not long since gravely told that it signified " a stone 'dine town," to wit, a town built upon the slope or " incline " of a hill, the ma terial of the houses having originally been stone ! The delightful village of Hurstperpoint, not far from Brighton, has as distinct an etymology as any we happen to call to mind ( — Hyrst, A.-Sax., a wood, and Pierpoint, the surname of its Anglo-Norman feudal possessors, in contradistinction to Hurst-Monceux, a parish not many miles eastward, which once belonged MISTAKEN ETYMOLOGY. 3 to another Norman family — ) ; but, in spite of tliis obvious origin, a certain would-be etymological old gentleman used to assure his friends that local topo graphers were labouring under a great mistake. "Hurst, THJ dear Sir," he would say, "is a Saxon word meaning a wood ; per is, as you will remember, a Latin preposition, signifying by (!) ; and point, the last syllable of the name, clearly refers to yonder pointed hill called Wolstonbury; hence Hurstperpoint is, as you will perceive, the wood by the pointed hill ! " Thus did this modem village oracle, " Like a Cerberus pronounce A leash of languages at once " — beautifully blending into one word a bit of Saxon, a fragment of Latin, and a morsel of Anglo-French ! These rustic etymologies are sometimes much more plausible, though equally erroneous. For example,' the good people of another Sussex village, Alfriston, attribute its foundation to Alfred the Great ; and the known fact that that monarch had several posses sions in the neighbourhood is to them " confirmation strong" of their opinion; but alas for "Alfred's Town," a certain old book cahed ' Domesday ' in the space of a single line demolishes the theory : " Gilbert holds a hide in Aluricestone at farm fi-om the Earl : Aluric did hold it as allodial land." Thus it is to an obscure freeman of the days of the Confessor named Alvric, or .^Elfric, and not to the patriot-king Alfred, that the village is indebted for its designation. We may add here, en passant, a remark on the great utility of etymological investigations as an aid to local history. In the instance just cited we have imbedded in a single word not only the name of the Saxon proprietor who baptized the locality, but — with the 4 LOCAL NOMENCLATURE. light of ' Domesday Book ' — the precise period when he flourished and settled his little colony upon it ; a period shortly antecedent to the Norman Conquest. In the days of the Confessor the then nascent manor brought in a rental of only twenty shillings, but at the making of the great survey, some tliirty or forty years later, the annual value had reached the largely augmented sum of fifty-four shillings. Let us now turn to another class of etymologists — the diggers up of crooked roots from the classical and other ancient languages — -the delvers after glittering whims and fancies which crumble into dust before the daylight of history and truth — the pigmies and pedants of philology, who, in their unde derivatur of a name, content themselves with making a pun upon it,' and then gravely assigning to it a French, a Greek, a Latin, or a Celtic origin — men who have all "the "madness" without any of the "method" of Horne Tooke — men, we mean, who stick at nothing short of extracting sunbeams from a cucumber, or the cucumber itself from the name of Jeremiah King ! We are glad to find this whimsical class fast diminishing; we wish we could pronounce it quite extinct, but alas, whenever we are about to felicitate ourselves upon having at length taken leave for ever of such folly, up starts some new theory about Cold- Harbour or Grimesdyke, which leads us mentally to exclaim, " Quousque tandem abutere patientia nostra ?" Perhaps pseudo-etymology was never so rampant as among the topographical antiquaries of the last two centuries. It was nothing to twist Pomfret into an apple-garden, quasi locus poma ferens, in spite of the known fact that Pontefract was the true original name ' " Conjectures ^tymologiques, qui ne sont que des charades, plus ou moins ingenieuses." — Salverte, ii, 305. PEDANTIC ETYMOLOGY. 5 of the town. Winchelsea was interpreted still more literaUy into Friget mare ventus — " Wind-chiUs-Sea" ! But these are trifles to certain etymologies found out by a Sussex antiquary, one Mr. EUiot, who flou rished somewhat less than a century ago. Here is a sample. Among the South-Down hiUs, a little eastward of Lewes, is a deep and romantic valley which hes at the foot of a pointed hiU called Mount Caburn ; the valley itself being called Ox-settle-bottom. " This name would appear," says our etymologist, " to be formed from the British word, uch, lofty, high, and sittelth, an arrow in Armoric English ; for Mount Caburn appears to the eye of the traveller from the south or east to resemble the barb of an arrow. (!) Perhaps Caburn itself might obtain this name of Uch-sitielth or Ox-settle, originaUy, from the battles that had been fought on its summit," &c. Now, most unfortunately for this learning, the true name of the vaUey or "bottom" was never Ox-settle, but Os-Steddle bottom, and was derived, as everybody except ^Nlr. Elliot knew, from a " steddle," or enclo sure for oxen, which formerly stood in it. An old friend of ours lately deceased, though he could not say as ^d Edie to Mr. Oldbuck, " Praetorium here, praetorium there, I mind the biggin o't," well remem bered the destruction of this enclosure, which the bubulci of a day only sUghtly anterior to Mr. EUiot's own had caused to be made ! This pseudo-etymology is by no means confined to English writers. The name of the Norican town Virunium, according to Suidas, was derived from ' Vir unus.' A wild boar, the instrument of divine vengeance, had devastated the district, when a champion, the only man who deserved the name, like a second Hercules, killed the monster and carried him O LOCAL NOMENCLATURE. off upon his shoulders; and hence the town got its name. Pliny and the Latin poets abound with similar whimsies, which deserve to be classed with Knicker bocker's derivation of Manhattan (Long Island) from the circumstance of a man with a hat on having been seen there by the aborigines ; and with the etymology of Beauce in Rabelais. Gargantua's mare, while swinging her tail to brush away the flies, knocked down an immense forest, upon which Gargantua, delighted with the exploit, remarked to the by standers, " Je trouve beau ce \ " and thus Beau ce became the name of the cleared ground 1 Abundant derivations reaUy not much less far fetched than these lie thickly scattered over most of our county histories and other topographical works ; and we are sorry to say that notwithstanding the great erudition of William Baxter, his Glossarium abounds with derivations so extremely far-fetched that no reasonable philologist or antiquary can travel upon good terms with him through two consecutive pages. Upon the whole, however, we are glad of his aid, for, as the alchemists while in search of the elixir vita and the philosopher's stone, though they failed of their main object brought to light many a serviceable com pound, so this author, albeit he often shoots wide of his mark, sometimes directs us to objects which had previously escaped our observation : besides, he gene rally amuses where he faUs to instruct, which is more than can always be said of more exact writers. To tum from these vagaries of a misdirected inge nuity, let us now come to the more immediate purpose of the present essay which is to show how the various geographical and political divisions and natural features of this country acquired their distinctive appellations — ^the rules upon which our local nomenclature has OLD NAMES GIVEN BY COLONISTS. 7 been formed. Whoever may have been the primitive settlers upon this island, it is certain that it was in very early times extensively occupied by tribes of Celtic origin, and that they impressed their language upon many of the more striking geographical features of the land in names which remain to this day. A very large proportion of the mountains and rivers of Britain, not only in those nooks and corners to which these tribes were ultimately driven by subsequent invasions, but all over the island, bear Celtic names, which no change of occupation or of vernacular language has ever been able to displace. The island itself has several times changed its names, but these features of it retain a nomenclature as imperishable as their own existence. With regard to poUtical divisions, they have usually undergone changes of name with every fluctuation of ownership. Thus, when the Belgae became masters of some parts of South Britain, in an age not long antecedent to the Roman invasion, they gave to their colonies the designations of the districts from which they had set out for these shores. " Mari tima pars," says Caesar, " ab iis [incolitur] qui prsedae ac beUi inferendi causa, ex Belgis transierant; qui omnes fere iis nominibus civitatum appeUantur, qui bus orti ex civitatibus eo pervenerunt." (De Bell. GaU. V. 10.) The feeling which prompted this is deeply seated in human nature, and has been operative throughout the entire history of colonisation. On this subject an elegant French writer remarks : " Une Ulusion non moins douce entraine les voyageurs k retrouver, part out ou iis abordent, la patrie dont iis sont eloignes ; a imposer h des Ueux nouveaux pour eux les noms des Ueux ou s'est developpee leur enfance, oil iis ont laisse des compatriotes, des epouses, des enfants qui soupirent apres leur retour. Fideles h 8 LOCAL NOMENCLATURE. cet usage, les fondateurs de colonies laissent des monu ments durables de la gloire de leur nation en des lieux dont un jour pent etre doivent disparaitre toutes les autres traces de leur presence."^ M. Salverte remarks that the name of Medina, the Arabian city so famous for the tomb of Mahomet, occurs in several places in Spain, recaUing to memory the dominion of the Mussulmans in that country. This may, however, be merely accidental resemblance, for we, too, have our English Medina as the designation of two hundreds and a river in the Isle of Wight, where Arabians never had influence. He also notices the resemblance be tween the names of several places in the Engadine, canton of Grisons, and those of ancient Italy, in which Lavinium, Falisci, Ardea, and the river Albula are almost exactly reproduced, which supports the traditional community of origin between their an cestors, the Rhaeti, and the Etruscans. Again, there were tribes of Brigantes in the north of England, in Ireland, and in the north-east of Spain, though Johnes thinks these had no identity of origin be yond thefr being aU Celtic. Briga, so common as a termination on the Roman maps, as in Lacobriga, Telabrica, Augustobriga, &c., probably means town or community, and the name may eventually have extended itself to the surrounding district or pro vince. Let us glance at the central part of the North American Continent, and we shall find scattered over it everywhere, in the names of its localities, such evidence of the sources of its present population as would serve to reveal the truth were it possible for the annals of its unexampled colonisation to perish. The 2 Salverte, Essai sur les Noms d'Hommes, de Peuples, et de Lieux. Paris, 1824. Tom. ii, p. 247. AMERICAN NAMES. 9 constant recurrence of names of places identical with those of Britain would be demonstration of the strongest possible kind. Perhaps we could not frame a better theory of the method in which local nomencla ture has everywhere been formed than by an attenti\c study of a map of the United States. There we discover many names, particularly those of rivers, lakes, mountain-ranges, and some territorial divisions, which baffle all existing etymology, such as Ohio, Mississippi, Mohawk, Alleghany, Apalachia, Tennessee, Michigan, Massachusets. These are aboriginal names, retained partly for their own euphonious excellence, partly because it is so much easier to adopt an old name than to invent a new one. It is for these reasons, especiaUy the latter, that our Anglo-Saxon ancestors suffered so much ofthe Celtic nomenclature to remain, even after they had subjugated the races who imposed it. Continuing our observations, we remark that another large section of American names are mere transcripts of those of EngUsh localities, with or without the prefix "New," such as New England, Boston, New York, Rochester, New Hamp shire, Cambridge, Plymouth, Litchfield,New Hartford, &c., some of which have greatly surpassed in im portance their namesakes in the mother-country. Thfrdly, we find a multitude of local names derived from the names of eminent men with whom the foun dation or history of the various places has been identified, as weU as the nomina obscurorum vi7'orum which mere property in the soil has introduced. Thus we find alongside of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wash ington, and others of dignified origin, a host of Brownstons, Johnstonvilles, and Mercersburgs. Re ligious feeling and a respect for antiquity and genius have introduced a fourth class, such as Salem, Lebanon, 1§ 10 LOCAL NOMENCLATURE. Rome, Troy, Homer, Milton, Hampden, and nearly every name which ancient and modern history can supply .3 Bad taste is generaUy observable in the selection of such designations, however euphonious they may be in themselves. We very much prefer that fifth class of American nomenclature which describes localities by the use of familiar terms, how ever coarse. Sandy-hook, South-fork, et omne hoc genus, are far preferable in our estimation to names of classical origin. Even " Big-bone-Uck," which has an air of the extremest vulgarity, is justifiable on the ground of its appropriateness. The place which bears this name — we forget in what State it lies — was so called on account of its geological characteristics. A " lick," in American phraseology, is a spot to which cattle resort to lick the saline particles of the soU, and the one in question abounds with fossil bones of unusual size. Now had this place been styled Tus- culum, or Mantua, or Athens, however much might have been gained in the alternative by the ear, nothing would have accrued to the understanding. Euphony is an excellent quaUty, but appropriateness is a better; and to " caU a spade a spade" is after all the wisest policy. It is for the most part upon such common-sense rules that the local nomenclature of England has been formed. A meaning may be said either to lie upon, or to lurk at no great distance beneath, the surface of most names of ancient date. Before analysing the principal materials of our ancient names, it may be weU to classify the various laii- ^ A modem T\Titer (F. Lieber, we think) says, tliat, looking at a map of tho United States, you might almost fancy that all ancient histoiT' and geography had been cliopped up and put into a bag, and then shaken abroad over ths face of the land ! ITS SOURCES. 11 guages which have been drawn upon, which wiU be found to be — I. The Celtic dialects, with Latinizations. II, Anglo-Saxon or Teutonic. III. Danish or Scandinavian. IV. French or Norman-French. V. Modern, or existing, EngUsh. A few words of remark upon each of these wUl suf fice for our present purpose ; and first of the Celtic. This name has been for convenience' sake attributed to the earliest settlers of Western Europe — the first great wave of population from Central Asia, which made its way by successive impulses to the remote parts of this continent, and which was ultimately driven into the nooks and comers of it, and of the adjacent islands, by the second or Teutonic wave. The remains of the Celtae, speaking both ethnologi- caUy and phUologicaUy, either are, or at a compara tively recent period were, to be found principally in the geographical indents or insulations known as Brittany, CornwaU, Wales, Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Of the language or rather languages spoken by the barbarous sun- worshipping and cromlech-building hordes bear ing this name we know little except by inference and hypothesis. They had no literature ; and all that we can certainly know of their intellectual character and culture comes down to us through the vague and misty channel of traditional rhapsody; while the actual media by which they communicated their sentiments to each other can only be inferred by a laborious coUation of what remains in the obsolete or obsolescent tongues caUed Armorican, Cornish, Welsh, Manx, Irish, and Gaelic — tongues only com- 12 LOCAL NOMENCLATURE. mitted to the custody of alphabetic writing within the last few centuries, and corrupted and modified by the multitudinous influences to which the vernacular language of uncultured tribes is alvvays necessarily exposed from time, climate, and amalgamation -ndth other races. It has been very much the practice with etymologists and topographers to ascribe to the Celtic language those names for which no Saxon etymon could be found, especially if they resembled some Welsh or GaeUc word. This has necessarily led to numerous errors. To cite a single instance, let us take the very first word in the ' Glossarium,' Aballaba, which by the way Baxter wrongly identifies Avith Appleby in Westmoreland, whereas its true site is upon the Roman Wall in Cumberland : — " Aballaba, hodie Slpulhg, quasi Britannice dicas Abal (vel Gaval) Ab vel Av ; quod est Furca (vel Sinus,) und(B vel amnis. Ibemiae Scotobrigantibus etiam hodie Abhal pro Furca est ; quo referendum et Anglorum nostrorum ©abl£;0tliJ, seu furcalis finis in aedificUs. Etiam hodiemis Persis Ab pro Aqua est, quam et Veteres nostri Av, Sav, et Tav appeUavere. Eodem plane intellectu et in Cantiacis et in Regnis, et in Damnoniis oppidula occurrunt ^pultlUr et ^^Ipultiurtatn,"* &c. He afterwards goes on to inform us, that according to the ' Notitia ' this was the station of the prefect of a numerus or troop of Moors {Propositus Numeri Mau- RORUM Aurelianorum) , and that it must therefore have been one of the castella of the Brigantes aUuded to by Juvenal [in the passage — * Baxter is quite wrong here, for the Kent and Devonshire Apple- dores and the Sussex Appledram are obviously from the Anglo-Saxon Appuldre, an apple-tree. ITS SOURCES. 13 " Dirue Maurorum attegias, casteUa Brigantum, Ut locupletem aqmlam tibi sexagesimus annus Afferat."— Sat. xiv, 196, &c.] Now to any unprejudiced judgment, the associa tion of a colony of Moors in Britain with so very moresque a name as Aballaba, renders any appeal to Celtic roots totaUy unnecessary. The Moorish troops whom the jealousy of the Roman policy had trans planted to this northern region doubtless imposed upon thefr settlement a word borrowed from thefr vernacular tongue. And since during the prevalence of the Roman power in this island similar bodies of Gauls, Germans, Spaniards, Italians, and other foreigners were also introduced here, we are not assuming too much — though it is beside the scope of the present essay to work out this theory — to assert that many of the names given to localities at that period were derived from roots wholly alien to the aboriginal dialects of Britain. At the same time we must admit that in a great majority of instances the names borne by Roman stations are mere latiniza tions of British words, although the etymons of the latter (in which Baxter takes so much delight) may be altogether vague and uncertain. At the departure of the Romans most of this nomenclature failed, but in some instances the material part of the names is retained to the present day, though of com'se in a very corrupted orthography ; thus we may trace Regulbium in Reculver, Dubris in Dover, Venta (Bel- garum) in Winchester, Branodunum in Brancaster, Londinium in London, Nidum in Neath, Mancunium in Manchester, Camboricum in Cambridge, Uroconium in Wroxeter, and some others mentioned in the 'Notitia' and the 'Antonine Itinerary.' Our rivers, too, in many instances bear the original British 14 LOCAL NOMENCLATURE. names, or rather the geographical expressions and terms employed by the Celtic people. As Lhwyd properly remarks — " As for the names of Rivers. We often find that when a country is new peopled, the new-comers take the appellatives of the old inhabitants for proper names. And hence it is, that our ancestors at thefr first coming (whenever that was) called so many rivers in England by the names of Asc, Esc, Isc, Osc, and Use, which the EngUsh afterwards partly retained (especially in the north) and partly varied into Ax, whence Axley, Axholm ; Ex, whence Exmouth, Exeter ; Ox, whence Oxford for Ouskford ; and Ux, as in Uxbridge. This I say proceeded from our ignorance of the language of our predecessors the Giiydhelian Britains, amongst whom the word sig nified nothing but water, as it doth yet in the High lands and in Ireland. In the same manner have the English mistaken our Avon, which though it signified only RIVER in general, yet serves with them for the proper name of several of thefr rivers." (D. E. Luidii Adversaria (in Baxter's Glossary), p. 265)^ Perhaps the most remarkable family of names of rivers are those which are based upon the presumed Celtic root dur, which is closely alUed to the Greek uJ«p and like it means simply water. We have the word in its primitive form in the river Dur in Ireland, and slightly modified in the Doria, and Duria, in Cisalpine Gaul, the Douro and Dero in Spain, the Dordogne and the Adour in France, the Adder in Scotland, the Adare in Ireland, and the Adur m Sussex, at the mouth of which the Romans placed a station, to which they gave the name of Portus * So ganga signifies river, aud Ganges is the river, par excellence. CELTIC NAMES. 15 Adurni. Dovar, an obsolete Irish word for water, was evidently of the same origin, and the Kentish town probably borrows its name from a similar source. There are also several other Celtic appeUatives mean ing water which have become the proper names of many of our rivers. Such are Tarn or Tav, Uy, Cluyd, &c. In Tam, whence Thames, Tamar, &c., Lhwyd thinks we have the Celtic form ofthe Greek rafio's in -xotu^oq. This root is varied into Tav and Tiv, and may be traced in the modem names of the rivers Tavy, Teivi, Dove, Dee, &c. Uy is the equivalent of the Gothic Aa, the Saxon ea, and the French eau, aqua. Hence Wye and many Welsh rivers. Cluyd is seen in the great Scottish river Clyde, as weU as in the Clydach, Cledach, Cledog, and Clettifr in Wales. With regard to the Celtic names of mountains, Lhwyd presents us with a remarkable theory. (Gloss. pp. 268 et seq.) " The most common way of naming hUls," he says, " was by metaphors from the parts of the body." His instances are principally from Wales, and from localities Uttle known; suffice it to say, that he has found in the mountain nomenclature of that province numerous words signifying head, fore head, scull, face, eyebrow, eye, nose, mouth, neck, arm, breast, belly, hip, side, back, leg, and foot. This theory may at first sight appear more ingenious than true, but we must recollect that we still apply simUar expressions to geographical features : e. g. Beachy Head, Flamhorough Head, to high promontories, and Dungeness, Sheerness (A.-S. ness, a nose) to low projections ; while in every-day parlance we talk of an arm of the sea, the mouth of a river, and the brow, the side, and the foot of a moimtain. The word moel or voel, so commonly applied to Welsh mountains destitute of wood, signifies " bald-pate." 16 LOCAL NOMENCLATURE. From a misunderstanding of this root the good people of Abergavenny, in Lhwyd's time, by a droll cata- chresis, caUed a conical hiU near their town "The Vale." The principal or most usual component parts of British names, as stUl retained to a great extent in Wales and Cornwall, are the syUables tin or din, maes caer, tre, or trev, and llan or Ian. Of these, the first, which was latinized in numerous instances into du- num, as in Muridunum, Camalodunum, is derived from an old Celtic verb, dunadh, signifying to shut in, or inclose. Its Anglo-Saxon representative was tune and tun, whence the modern English, Town. 2. Maes, or more properly magh, signifies field or plain, and is latinized by magus, as in Sitomagus, Caesaromagus, Noviomagus. 3. Caer, or Car, as re tained inCaermarthen, Caernarvon, and in many places in Ireland, Scotland, CornwaU, and Brittany, signifies an enclosed or fortified place — " any trench or bank of an old camp ;" the idea was afterwards extended to mean city. 4. Tre or trev " seems to have signified anciently only a famUy, and to be of the same origine with the Latin tribus. So pueblo, which properly signifies a people, is a common Spanish word for a smaU town or viUage Trev signified not a town anciently, but a house or home Hence so many Tre's in CornwaU, which were for the most part but single houses, and the word subjoined to it only the name of a Briton who was once the pro prietor, as Trev Erbyn, Trev Annian, Trev Vydhig. .... Whether the German dorf, called in England Thorp, Threp, and Thrup, may not put in for the same origine and signification, is left to the English- Saxon Antiquaries." — [Glossary, p. 272.) There are many Tre's or Trev's in Wales, as Trev- alyn, Trelydan, Trevecca ; and we probably see this CELTIC NAMES. 17 root in Trevfri (Treves), and in A-^rei-ates, the people about Arras. 5. Llan in Wales, and Ian in Cornwall and Brit tany, primarUy meant an inclosure, as is satisfactorily shown by the retention of it in the Welsh Ydlan, a hagard ; Perlhan, an orchard ; Gilinlhan, a vineyard ; Corlan, a sheepfold; and Corflan, a churchyard. Lhwyd observes : — " This signification of it is also confirmed by the Cantabrians or Pyrenean Spaniards, who caU a garden landa, and use also the same word for a field or any other enclosure. The reason why we use it for a church was (as I conjecture), because before Christianity, the Druids sacrificed and buried thefr dead in a cfrcle of stones, which had a Cromlech or Kist-vaen, or both, in the midst; as we find at Kerrig y Drudion in Denbighshire and elsewhere. And it is probable that from such a Crug of stones or a circus or round trench, or from both, the Teutonick nations took thefr kirk, corrupted by the southern English into church. Lan besides Wales is common in CornwaU and Basse Bretagne, but scarce used at all in Ireland and Scotland, where the old word is Kil, the derivation whereof I must leave to further inquiry." — [Glossary, p. 272.) This prefix Llan or lan, so prevalent in Wales and Cornwall, is one of the most interestiag component parts of local names in Britain. Signifying, as we have seen, "church," its suffix describes either the situation or some characteristic feature of that edifice, or records its founder or its patron-saint. E. g. Llan dovery is said to be a corruption of Llan-ym-Ddy- froed, " the church among the waters," derived from its location near the confluence of several streams. Llan-daff is the " church on the river Tafi";" Llan- asaph, " the church dedicated to St, Asaph ;" Llanhid- 18 LOCAL NOMENCLATURE. rock, " the church of St. Hidrock ;" and Launceston was anciently Lfflw-S^epAarfora, "St. Stephen's church." But we have exceeded our limits upon the some what unsatisfactory subject of Celtic etymology, and must proceed to the other sources of our local names in the order in which we have iudicated them. II. Anglo-Saxon or Teutonic — The majority of place-names in England are of Teutonic origin. They were mostly substituted for the Romano-British desig nations when the Germanic tribes had displaced the Celtic race, and formed what is popularly known as the Saxon heptarchy. Although this period can be ascertained with some degree of precision, there is no historical problem more difficult to solve than this : When did the Teutonic wave of population first reach these shores ? and its consequent — When did it begin to be influential in modifying the languages spoken by the people of Britain ? Although we are by no means inclined to favour the hyper-sceptical school who almost deny the existence of such personages as Hengist, EUa, and Cerdic, we are willing to admit that they were much less important in influence than the Saxon annalists have made them. Half con querors, half colonists, they were by no means the first of thefr division of mankind who entertained designs for efiecting a settlement here. We beUeve that long before the days of Caesar, a considerable pro portion of the inhabitants of South Britain were of Germanic blood, and that the Belgic Britons of whom he speaks, and who were much farther advanced in dviUsation than the Celtae, used a Teutonic dialect. Although there is no dfrect proof of this, we may infer as much from several passages of Caesar himself, especiaUy the one in which he teUs us that the Celtae ANGLO-SAXON. 19 of Gaul (the acknowledged progenitors of the earUest Britons) differed entfrely from the Belg» in language, customs, and laws. (De BeU. GaU. i, 1.) But the limits of our brief essay preclude our enlarging upon this topic, and we hasten to observe that the ' Notitia' pre sents us vrith some names of stations which mM«f have been imposed by Teutonic colonists, being as unlike anything Celtic as can well be unagined. Such are Burgovicus, now identified with Housesteads near the Roman wall ; and Medioborgus, which Baxter places at the mouth of the Tweed. To this miUtary coloni sation succeeded other settlements from northern Germany, so that at the decUne of Roman power in Britain the south-eastern coast seems from the name which it bore — Littus Saxonicum — to have been prin cipally in the hands of a Teutonic population, not (as is commonly beUeved) hostile to the Roman govern ment, but under the protection of a comes or lieutenant of its appointment. The arrival of Hengist, MHa, and the other reputed founders of the heptarchy, was but the foUowing out of a stream of colonisation which had long flowed from Germany to Britain ; and it was only when those bold adventurers saw the abject condition of the Celtic islanders, after the vrithdrawal of the Roman cohorts, that they aimed at poUtical supremacy and introduced Germanic laws. Thefr language had for ages been that of a large proportion of the population, and it now became the prevailing one. The Britanno-Roman nomenclature of places was retained in a few instances, but for the most part it was utterly superseded by Anglo-Saxon designations. Wherever a Roman station of importance had existed, the termination ceaster (castrum, fortification) was suffixed. Thus Corinium became Ciren-ceaster; Man cunium, Man-ceaster ; and Dorocina, Dor-ceaster. 20 LOCAL NOMENCLATURE. For the most part, however, the name was entirely changed, as Regnum into Cissan-ceaster (Chichester), and Durovernum into Cantwara-burh (Canterbury). In many cases it is only by a laborious coUation of cfrcumstances that the Roman site can be identified with the Roman name, so completely has the Anglo- Saxon superseded it ; for example, Anderida is now Pevensey ; Pons ^lii, Newcastle ; and Ratae, Leices ter. Sometimes there was an adoption of the old name, but from ignorance of its meaning it was often grossly corrupted. Thus Avalaria went through the form WooUover, and is now Wooler ; and Ad Pontem is according to Baxter, the modern Paunton. III. Danish or Scandinavian. — When the fierce sea-kings of the north had formed thefr settlements in Britain, and the eastern portions of the island were occupied by a Danish race, some modification of our local nomenclature of course occurred. It was, how ever; but sUght, for the language used by the North men was a sister tongue to the Anglo-Saxon, and the new-comers had few motives for changing names which must for the most part have been inteUigible to them. Mr. Worsaae, however, in his recent work^ thinks otherwise, and labours with that special pleading which so strongly characterises his discussions, to show that they introduced great changes. He claims for his countrymen the honour of having imposed aU those names which desinate in -by, -thorpe, -thwaite, -with, -toft, -beck, -naes, -ey, -dale, -force, -fell, -tam,-haugh; together with many others in -holm, -garth, -land, -end, -vig, -ho, -rigg, &c. ; but a very slight acquaint ance with Anglo-Saxon vrill convince any unprejudiced inquirer that three-fourths at least of these termi- ' The Danes and Northmen in England.' London, 1852. DANISH AND FRENCH. 21 nations belong also to that language. Some of them, however, are exclusively Scandinavian, as for instance by, which originally meant a smgle habitation, after wards a vUlage, or even tovra. This we beUeve is only found in those parts of the island where Danish influence prevailed— never in the purely Saxon dis tricts. It is mostly prefixed either by an epithet, as Eastby, Westerby, Mickleby, Newby— the eastern, the western, the great, and the new vUlages ; or by the name of a Danish proprietor, as RoUesby, Osgodby, Brandsby, Swainby, the vUlage of Rolf, of Osgod, of Brand, and of Sweyn. Thwaite (O. N. thiveit), an isolated piece of land — tarn, a small hke— force, a waterfall — with perhaps one or two others, also seem to be purely Scandinarian. Sometimes, too, places previously important were rebaptized by the Danes. Thus Streaneshalch gave way to Whitby, and North- weorthig to Deoraby, now contracted to Derby • these are matters of historical record. IV. French. The greatest people since the extinc tion of the Roman name were the Normans. Of Scandinarian origin, they rose almost per saltum from a nation of barbarians to be the most formidable race in Europe, and within an incredibly brief space of time became masters of Northern France, of Eng land, and of SicUy. But while they knew not how to succumb to any aUen power, they readUy laid down their language at the dictation of cfrcumstances and adopted that of the races whom they subdued. They had not long taken possession of Neustria ere they repudiated their old northern dialect, and adopted the softer one of France; and in Uke manner, on thefr acquisition of England they failed to introduce the newly- borrowed tongue here. Hard as the Norman 22 LOCAL NOMENCLATURE. scribes found it to write Anglo-Saxon local names — as witness thefr wretched misspellings in ' Domesday Book' — they never attempted to introduce a new nomenclature, as thefr predecessors in conquest had done. And for the few generations during which French most inconveniently maintained its existence as the language of the royal and legal courts, very little indeed was done in the way of imposing French names upon the seigniories which the Norman sword had acquired. In fact, it would be difficult through out the length and breadth of the land to find fifty places bearing French names of early date. The monastery reared upon the field on which the Con quest occrrred was, it is true, designated L'abbaie de la Bataile (retained in the modern name Battle), and the metropoUs of the newly-acqufred land was ridi culously Frenchified into Londres ; but these are ex ceptional instances. We have, however, Beauheu Malpas, Beaurepaire, Beauvofr, Pontefract [Pons- fractus, from a ruined bridge there). Chateau-vert (now Shotover !), &c. &c. Of course we do not in clude here the Belmonts, Montpeliers, and BeUevues of modem watering-places, the best argument against the adoption of which is furnished in the rile mis pronunciations which render them in vulgar mouths Bell-mount, Mount-peeUer, and BeUy-voo ! We must not, however, overlook the fact that after the Norman Conquest many manors and parishes received as a suffix to thefr Saxon names those of thefr acqufrers. This was generaUy the case where two lordships in the same locality bore the same appeUation, but belonged to different proprietors, as Tarring-Nerille and Tarring-Peverell, Hurst-Mon ceux and Hurst-Pierpoint, Stoke-Gabriel and Stoke- Damerell, Newton-Morrel and Newton-Mulgrave, MODERN ENGLISH. 23 Thorpe-Malzor add Thorpe-Manderille. There are one or two curious instances in which the suffix alone is now retained ; thus the original Saxon name of two Buckinghamshfre manors has become obsolete, and what were formerly Isenhamsted-Cheney, and Isen- hamsted-Latimer, are now caUed and written Cheneys and Latimers. V. Modern English. Little requfres to be said under this dirision. Many names have been imposed since our language has taken its modern and existing form, and additions are continuaUy being made, as new towns, hamlets, and residences spring into exis tence. Some of these have been formed in the ancient mode by the conjunction of the owner's name with some appeUative, as Camois Court, HUl's Place, Camden Town. Sometimes places are contra distinguished by epithets descriptive of their respec tive situations or extent, as East Marden, West Marden, Great Bookham, Little Bookham, Over- Compton, Nether-Compton (or by a Latin phrase, as Weston-super-Mare, Kingston-juxta-Lewes), — and sometimes by the addition of the name of the patron- saint, as Colne St. Denis, Marston St. Lawrence. Such compounds as Cherry-HiU, Oak-lands, Grove- HaU, Brick- waU, &c., explain themselves. Lastly, when places have belonged to royal or ec clesiastical personages, they frequently bear the name of such owners either ui Latin or English, as a prefix or suffix, of which King's Langley and Lyme Regis, Aston-Abbots and Ceme Abbas, Monks' Horton, and Buckland-Monachomm, Bishop's Stortford and Ca nons' Ashby vrill serve as instances. Having thus indicated the sources from whence the local nomenclature of England has been derived, it 24 LOCAL NOMENCLATURE. will be our object in the remainder of this essay to examine the materials out of which it is composed. We have afready done this to some smaU extent in reference to names of Celtic and Danish origin, and shaU not revert to those branches of the subject ex cept perhaps for an occasional analogy. As we have said, the great majority of our local names are of Anglo-Saxon birth, and it is to these that we would now direct the reader's attention. The study of Anglo-Saxon names has been greatly facUitated by the pubUcation of the great body of charters extending from the seventh to the eleventh century, coUected from various authentic sources, and edited by Mr. Kemble, under the title of ' Codex Diplomaticus M\i Saxonici.' Many of these docu ments are in the Anglo-Saxon language, and the rest though written in Latin retain the Saxon proper names. These volumes would furnish matter for a series of disquisitions of great interest ; but on the present occasion we are compeUed to content ourselves with general references and remarks immediately con nected with our subject. If we examine the name of any town or collage we shall generaUy find it composed of two parts — two Anglo-Saxon words in fact. The second of these is a topographical expression, implying valley, enclosure, bridge, wood, hUl, water, island, or the like. The first is a qualifying word which distinguishes the particular vaUey, enclosure, bridge, &c. from other Uke places and objects, and is for the most part either an epithet, a genitive form, or the personal name of its Saxon proprietor. Whoever gives his memory a slight filUp, or takes a cursory glance at his county-map, wUl notice the frequency with which certain terminations occur in CHIEF TERMINATIONS. 2.5 local names. He will also probably call to mind the old proverbial distich : — " In ham, a,\id. ford, and ley, and ton The most of English names do run ;" and although this " wise saw " (like many other wise saws) is rather narrow and incomprehensive, it wUl serve weU as an iUustration of the staple of our local nomenclature. Let us collate it a little vrith our aforesaid memories and county maps, and what scores of Newhams and Oldhams, Westhams and Southams ; Oldfords and Newfords, Freshfords and Littlefords; Hothleys and Bramleys, Horsleys and Cowleys; Nortons and Suttons, Langtons and Altons come at our invocation ! If we possess a turn for such rhyming, we have, like a committee, power to add to our numbers. We wiU try — but stay ! it has already been done for us in a weU-known pubUcation, thus: " In.g, Hurst, and Wood, Wick, Sted, and Field Full many EngUsh place-names yield. With Thorpe and Bourne, Cote, Caster, Oke, Combe, Bury, Den, and Stowe, and Stoke; With Ey and Port, Shaw, Worth, and Wade, Hill, Gate, Well, Stone, are many made ; Cliff, Marsh, and Mouth, and Down, and Sand, And Beck aud Sea with numbers stand." ^ There are at least as many more terminations of 6 ' English Surnames,' London, 1849, vol. i, page 58. The reader wiU probably recollect here the Cornish distich : — " By Tre, Ros, Pol, Lan, Caer, and Pen, You know the most of Comishmen." In Cornwall, local names have the topographical term as the initial instead of the final syllable, which is caused by the Celtic substantive having the precedence of its epithet as in Latin, modem French, &c., whereas the Anglo-Saxon, like modern EngUsh, places the adjective foremost. We may add, that in Como-Celtic tre signifies town, ros a heath, pol a pool, lan a church, ccer a castle, and j)e» a head. 26 LOCAL NOMENCLATURE. less, yet stUl considerable, frequency, but as we wish to indicate general principles rather than to work them out to the full, we must content ourselves at present with the follovring iUustratiye table : Termmation. Example. Ang.-Sax. form. Signification. Analogies. Ham Greatham, Sussex Mm. manor, house, or hamlet heim, Germ. 96' FOKD Brentford, Middlesex ford fordable point in a river field, with some reference furt, do. 47 Liy or Lt Bletchingley, Surrey leak 70 to neighbouring woods Tow Warbleton, Sussex tin inclosure, village, tmm. tuin, Dutch 137 Ing Mailing, Kent „ (explained below) a wood which yields food HUBST Hawkhurst, Kent hi/rst hortt. Germ. for cattle Wood Goodwood, Sussex vmdu wood (lignum) Wiok Warwick wic village, town otKOC, mcus SiED, Stead Stansted, Sussex stede place, station, 'stead* Stat, Germ. 20 Field Huddersfield, York fdd plain open ground \ feld, Germ. velde, Dutch 18 Thoepe Bishop's Thorpe thorp a collection of dwellings dorf. Germ. 20 BOUKHE Winierbourne, Dorset burne a rivulet bom. Germ. 36 Cote "Woodmancote, Sussex cote small dwelling, cottage Chester SUchester, Hants ceaster a fortified Koman station castrum, Lat. — Oke, ock Tipnoak, Sussex Ilfracombe, Devon ac an oak tree Combe cumb a trough-Uke valley town, Dorough aim, Welsh BUKV Wednesbuiy, Staiford burh, byrig hourg, Pr. • 20 Dew Bethersden, Kent denu sheltered place affording food for animals dim, Gaelic Stow Walthamstow,Essex I Basingstoke, Hants S sUm i dwelline-place, habita — Stoke tion Ey Pevensey, Sussex | ed — vmter ig — island waterisland or morass Shaw Henshaw, Northumb. sceaga a small wood, or copse — WOKTH Mouldsworth, Chesh. wurd, wyrd plot of ground surround ed by water, &c. &c., homestead vtHrth, Germ. Wade Biggleswade, Bedford aid a ford— a place near one a hill, or elevation vadum, Lat. Hill, hull Thornhill, Dorset hyl Oate Newdigate, Surrey gceat a gate, or a way SO Well CambeiTvell, Surrey wel — vtyl a spring or its rivulet quelU, Germ. Stoke Ingatestone, Essex Stan some remarkable boun ds or assembly-stone stein. Germ. Clife Kockcliffe, Cumb. clif Hiffe. Germ. Maesh Pebmarsh, Essex mersc a marsh 77Mr*cA,Germ. Mouth Yarmouth, Norfolk mutk the outlet of a river Down, don Kilndown, Kent dun elevated land, down dun, Gaelic Sand Cawaand, Devon sand a sand sand. Germ. Beck Ti-outbeck, Westmorl. bee a stream or rivulet hach. Germ. Sea Whittlesea, Camb. SX a lake or stagnant water see. Germ. 7 The figures in the last column are from the ' Rectitudiues Sin- gularum Personarum' of Dr. Leo, of Halle, who has carefully analysed the 1200 local names occurring in the first two volumes of Kemble's ' Codex Dipl. ;' 96, 47, &c., are therefore to be understood as "iffij, iTOT), &o-> of the names found in those volumes. See Treatise on the Local Nomenclature of the Anglo-Saxons, translated by B. Williams, Esq., F.S.A., London, 1852. TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. 27 It may be remarked that most of these words also occur as place-names without any prefix. With regard to the prefix, it is, as we have remarked, of various kinds, of which the following may be con sidered as the principal sources : I. The Teutonic Mythology. The names of the Anglo-Saxon divinities and heroes not unfrequently occur as the initial syllable of local names ; as that of Woden in Wodnesbeorh (Wansborough, co. Hants, and Woodnesborough, co. Kent), Wodnesbrok (Wam- brook, CO. Dorset) — that of Thor or Thunre in Thun- resfield, and Thunresleah (co. Hants), Thurley (co. Beds), Thurlow (co. Essex) — that of Scyld, a proge nitor of Woden, in Scyldestreow (ShUltry ?) , Other names include the designations of Frea, Grime, and the fabulous OfiFa. We think Mr. Kemble's deduc tions of this kind rather far-fetched, especiaUy where he derives Hamerton, Hammerwick, &c. from the hammer of Thor. In attributing the Hammerponds of Surrey to such a source he is clearly wrong ; for they are weU known to have taken their name from the fact of thefr waters haring been employed to work the hammers of the fron-forges, which untU within the last two or three generations existed there. Connected with the Teutonic mythology, Baxter gives a curious etymology for the town of Folkestone, which is perhaps rather more ingenious than probable. He deduces it from folces stan, "Lemurum sive Larium lapis," the stone of the lemures or lares, fairies or" good, folks." For corroboration he adduces " fox-gloves," the common name of the herb digitalis, which he interprets "lemurum manicse — folks' gloves " — — " veteribus Britannis Menig Eilff Uylhon, cor- 28 LOCAL NOMENCLATURE. rupte hodie Elhylhon, quod idem valet : sunt enim Britannis Eilff Uylhon, noctumi Daemones, sive Lemures; cum Saxonibus Folces dicatur Minuta plebs, et forsan etiam Manes." (p. 5.) On a subsequent page (17) he pursues this curious theory: " Ab "Epos, terra, fit et Ys^ct Macedonum dialecto; imde" Eve^ot^ EvFe^oi, et Romanis Inferi, qui Scoto- saxonibus dicuntur Feries, nostratique vulgo corruptiiis Fairies, Kecretx^ovtoi Axliiova sive Dii Manes." Although the Irish designate fairies as the " good people " or " good folk," we are not aware that the Anglo-Saxon /ofc is ever capable ofthe interpretation " minuta plebs," and in spite of Baxter's argument we are rather disposed to think that the Kentish town derives its name from some stone where the folk of the district in Saxon times were wont to assemble to discuss thefr public affairs. We know that grave con sultations among our ancestors were generaUy carried on in the open air ; and traces of the practice are stUl common, especiaUy at the election of public officials. Connected also with the reUgion of our Anglo- Saxon ancestors was the respect paid to the mystic number seven. Thus in the Codex we find many such names as Seofon-thornas, seven thorns, Seofon wyllas, seven weUs. Traces of this are retained in existing names, as in the town of Sevenoaks in Kent, and the Seven Sisters, a name given to that number of undulations in the Chalk CUffs between Beachy Head and Seaford. To this famUy of local names may be added the long list derived from the fafry mythology which has im printed itself in a hundred forms not only upon streams, fields, and hills, but even upon hamlets and parishes. The names of the elves and nymphs in the poetical FAIRY MYTHOLOGY — PROPRIETORSHIP. 29 traditions of our ancestors are generally monosyUabic : see a Ust of some of them in Drayton's ' Nymphidia :' "Hop, and Mop, and Dryp so clear, Pip and Trip, and Skip that were To Mab their sovereign ever dear. Her special maids of honour ; Fib, and Tib, and Pinck, and Pin, Tick and Quick, and Jil and Jin, Tit and Nit, and Wap and Win, The train that wait upon her ;" most of which, with numerous others, are found in composition with Saxon words to make up a vast variety of local names, such as Hob's Hawth, Hob- well, Hobmoor, Dobb's HUl, Cobb's Close, Cobden, PuckweU, Puckeridge, Pinkden, TickhiU, Winslow, Titsey, EUenden, Elveston, Sibthorpe, WUsham, &c. Mr. Allies, F.S.A., in his 'Antiquities and Folk- Lore of Worcestershfre,' has coUected some hundreds of such names in that county alone, II. Proprietorship. To call one's possessions by his own name has always been a matter of ambition. Upon this principle the numerous villes in Normandy acquired thefr designations : TancarriUe, for example, is "viUa Tancredi" — and CharleriUe, "rilla Caroli." Hence also the Kemp Towns and Somers' Towns of our own times, and the Smithrilles and JonesriUes of America. On the colonisation of this country by the Anglo-Saxons, when any settlement did not already possess a name it would receive that of its proprietor. Thus an Eadward or an ^Elfric haring inclosed a piece of land would caU it Eadwardes-tun, or iElfrices-tun, names which remain to this day in Adferton and Alfriston. In like manner originated Elmundwick, the habitation of Elmund, Wodeman- cote, the cottage of Wodeman, Wimundham (now 30 LOCAL NOMENCLATURE. Wyndham) the manor or residence of Wimund, and a thousand others. Sometimes, however, the prefix impUes a famUy proprietorship rather than a personal one. This is the case in that numerous class of local names which have ing in the middle. This component signifies " descendant," " offspring," and is, in fact, a patro nymic form. Thus a son of ^Elfred was an ^Ifreding, a son of Eadmund, an Eadmunding, and thefr de scendants at large were ^Ifredingas and Eadmun- dingas. Hence the ham or home of the descendants of Beorm became Beorm-inga-ham, and is now by contraction Bfrmingham. So ChUtington was the inclosure of the sons of CUt ; and Bedingfield, the field or plain of the descendants of Beda.^ Numerous analogous instances wiU suggest themselves to the reader. We may remark that those places which now terminate in ing often have in the charters the addi tional syUable ham — subsequently dropped for the sake of brerity. III. Natural Objects, animal, vegetable, and mineral. Very trifling incidents have frequently given rise to names of places on the arrival of settlers in a new region. As Dr. Leo observes, the springing of a hare across their path, the appearance of a particular tree, or some pecuUarity of the groimd, is associated with their first impressions of the spot, which receives a name accordingly. More usually, the abundance of • any particular animal or vegetable production has originated the designation ; an inclosure of ash-trees, has thus come to be caUed jEsces-tun, or Ashton ; a 8 Attention was first called to this field of etymological investiga tion, some years since, by my friend Thos. Wright, Esq., M. A., F.S.A., iu his valuable ' History of Ludlow.' NATURAL OBJECTS. 31 fine bullock-pasture, Oxan-leah, or Oxley; and a stream abounding with trout, Truht-bec or Trout- beck. Tbe foUowing names are derived from qua drupeds. From the hart and its congeners, Hertford, Hindlip, HartweU, Roehampton — from the boar and sow, Eferdon (A.-S efar, a boar), Sowig, Swines- head, Swinford— from the goat, Gatborough, Goatham — from the ox, cow, or calf, Oxenden, Oxwick, Cow- den, Cowley, Calf hanger — from the sheep, Ewecomb, Shipley, Sheppey, Lambourne, Lambhythe, EweU — from the horse, Horsham, Horsley — from the dog, Houndean,' Hounslow — from the hare, Harley, Ha- renden — from the fox, Foxhow, Foxley. Some animals now extinct amongst us, but existing here in Saxon times, have impressed thefr names upon locaUties; for example, the bear on Barcombe, Barley, Barden — the wolf on Wolfridge, WoUpit or Woolpit — the wUd cat on Catcliff, Catsfield — the beaver on Beverley, Beverstone — the seal on Selsey. Dr. Leo derives Apenholt and Apetun (names occurring in the Codex) from the ape ; but surely no species of simius was ever indigenous to this country. The Anglo-Saxon deor, as seen in Deerhurst, Derby, &c. implies not simply deer, but aU wUd ani mals and game in general, and was so understood among the vulgar even in Shakespeare's time. " Mice and rats, and such small deer. Have been Tom's food for seven long year.'' King Lear. Bfrds' names enter largely into the local nomencla ture of England, as in RavenshiU, Cranmer, Goosford, Cockshaw, Henshaw, Swallowchff, Hawksborough, Bfrdham, Fowlmere, Eglesham, Eaglescliff, Crowham, Finchley, Swansbrook, Rookwood, HernhiU, Earnley 32 LOCAL NOMENCLATURE. (A.-S. erne, an eagle), Falconbridge, Falkenham, We must not place here Leighton-Buzzard, the suffix of which is a vile corruption of the French name "Beau- desert." The owl appears in Ulcombe, the cuckoo in Cooksham (Cuceshamm in the Codex), and fowls in general in the prefix /mZ (A.-S. fiigel) as in Fulbrook, Fulham, Fulmere. Fishes have given name to Fishbrook, Fishbourne, Fishvrick, Fishlake, &c., but the particular species is not often denominated: we have, however, Troutbeck, Eelham, Pickford (for Pikeford), and PickersgUl. From the bee come Beeford, Beebrook, &c. ; and from the leech, Leechford, Lechmere, and others. We cannot agree vrith Dr. Leo in assigning the numerous names beginning in the Charters vrith Wifl, to the weeril [curculio granarius) of our bams. It is doubtless the name of an early proprietor. The vegetable world furnishes forth another hand some quota to our local nomenclature, as The oak (A.-S. ac) Oakley, Acton, Acworth. ash [aesc) Ashley, Askham, Ashford. beech [boc) Buckholt, Buckham, BokenhaU, also Coldbeech, Waterbeech, Holbeech. elm [elm) Elmley, Elmsted, Elmsthorpe. pine [pin) Pinehurst, PineweU, Pinhoe. thom [thorn) Thomhurst,Thombury, Thornton. elder [ellen) EUenford, EUenborough. lime [Unde) Linton, Lindworth, Lyndhurst. birch [birce) Bfrchensty, Bfrcham, Bfrcholt. maple imapledern) Mapledurham, Maplested, May- powder. apple or crab ride p. 12, ante. aspen [csps) Apsley, Hapstead, Aspland. ROADS AND RIVERS. 33 The wiUow [welig) WiUoughby, WiUowshed,WiUitoft. hazel [h- can - not gi - ive it out; 186 THE SOUTH DOWNS. Master clerk now began to vent his impatience, by angrUy adding, " Tarnation fools, ye all must be ; " — and this also was duly responded to, vrith many a repe tition of the offensive title — ^^ Tar -na-tion fools, Tar-na-tion fools. Tar - na- tion fools, Tar- na-tion fools ye a - - U must be; The poor old fellow, teazed beyond endurance, now unconsciously completed his common-metre stanza, by furiously demanding, " What be ye all about ? " This was also received in good faith by the folks in the gaUery, who at length got through the weary windings of another stave in manner foUowing : — ~S-r=t:£i&^ o EEl ^^ What be-e-e-e-e-e-e-e ye aU a bout ? But lest we should be considered inridious towards the Church, let us tum to the eccentricities of some of the laity of our Downs. If the vUlage church is frequently associated with some droll anecdote, so is also -the viUage windmUl. We rather Uke miUers. They are a quiet, well-disposed race — useful members of the commonwealth, and frequently better read and better informed than thefr neighbours. They are generaUy ingenious mechanics, and they sometimes dabble a little in the arts of music, dravring, and SOUTH-DOWN MILLERS. 187 poetry, although these accomplishments may not often extend far beyond the playing of a few dusty tunes upon the German flute or clar'net, a " draught of our miU in full sail," or a " copy of varses " lauda tory of the grinding trade. From a production of the latter class, which we remember haring seen — fafrly copied (though badly spelt) and affixed to a miU- post, we quote a specimen : — " The vrindmiU is a Couris thing Compleatly buUt by art ef man. To grind the com for man and beast That they aUke may have a feast. " The mill she is buUt of wood, iron, and stone, Therefor she cannot go aloan ; Therefore, to make the mUl to go. The wind from some part she must blow. " The motison of the mill is swift, The miller must be very thrift. To jump about and get things ready. Or else the mUl wUl soon run empty." Most sea-side health or pleasure-seekers have heard of the "jMiUer's Tomb" on High-down- HiU, near Worthing. Upon one of the most beautiful eminences on the range of South Downs, the eccentric " Master Oliver " prepared an altar- tomb, which he inscribed with scripture texts and "verses of his own com posing," surrounding the whole with an iron fence. In this tomb this singular character was deposited in the year 1793 — the eighty-fourth of his age. His funeral, which is stiU remembered by some old persons, was as quaint as his choice of a burying- place, and attracted thousands of spectators, not from the hUls only, but from distant places. The persons who carried the body to the grave were dressed in white, and many young women in garments of the same hue preceded and followed the coffin. On 188 THE SOUTH DOWNS. arriving at the spot, one of the girls read a sermon over the grave. We should like to know more of this eccentric being and his motives for eschewing conse crated ground. He is stated to have been an inge nious mechanic and to have constructed several singular automata, which were affixed to the roof of his house and moved by the wind. WhUe on the subject of eccentric millers, we wUl, with the reader's leave, step aside a Uttle from the Downs to record a very curious tradition of one, whose mUl stood, however, vrithin four or five mUes of the range ; of a portion of which it commanded a fine riew. At Chalrington there once resided, as the viUagers teU us, the only honest miller ever known. About a century since, this person, finding success in business impos- sible, in a fit of despafr hanged himself in his own null, and was buried — as was then the practice vrith suicides — in a neighbouring " crossways." An oaken stake driven through his body grew into a tree, and threw a singular shriveUed branch, the only one it ever produced, across the road. It was the most sin gular abortion of a tree we ever saw, and had some thing extremely hag-like and ghostly in its aspect. The spot was of course haunted, and many a rustic received a severe shock to his nerves on passing it after nightfaU. The tradition was always received by the inteUigent as a piece of superstitious folk-lore and the story of the only honest miUer looked upon as fabulous, untU about twenty- seven years ago, when a labourer employed in digging sand near the roots of the scraggy oak discovered a human skeleton. For this part of the history we can vouch, having in our boyish days seen some of the bones. One remarkable physiological peculiarity is said to have belonged to MILLER COOMBS. 189 OUT honest miUer — to wit, a tuft or "tot" of hair growing in the palm of each hand ! " But the queerest mUler commemorated in the traditions of the Downs was Master Coombs, a descen dant of a race of men who carried on the same trade in the days of Edward the Ffrst. It was his boast that his antique little miU, not far from Newhaven, had belonged to his ancestors from the days of Henry the Eighth. Master Coombs once made a strong assevera tion as to a statement he had put forth, thatif it were not true he would never enter his miU again. Upon the statement being proved incorrect, he kept his word; he would spend hours every day upon the upper step of the mUl-stafrs, but never, to the end of his Ufe, did he venture to enter the building. One of Master Coombs's oddities was the painting of his mill- horse. Mounted on this steed he would astonish the denizens of some neighbouring vUlage, who had never before set eyes upon a yellow horse ! The next week a whole market-town would be startled from its pro priety by the apparition of the miller's horse in a coat of green. By another metamorphosis the poor thing looked blue, then rose-pink, and so on through aU the varieties of tint improper to the equine race. In Master Coombs's days, some four-score years ago, miUers' carts were almost unknown, and the riUage 1? The substance of this anecdote was commimicated to Notes and Queries, vol. iv. — The ' tet of hair' is said te be the external denote ment not of such a mUler as Chaucer's — " Wel colde he stelen com and toUen thries, — " but of one who deals justly by his customers — grinding their com only, not themselves. A north-country miller who was regarded aa somewhat deficient in understanding was once accosted by a would- be wit with — " WeU, nuUer, you're not an honest man ; where's the bunch of hair in your palm?" — "Oh," said the miUer, "it's there safe enough, only it taks an honest man te see't ! " 190 THE SOUTH DOWNS. grists were carried home upon the back of a horse. When to the weight of several flour-bags that of the mUler himself was superadded, the poor beast had no light load to carry, especiaUy in the then miry con dition of the roads. So Master Coombs, taking this into consideration, whenever his horse had an unusuaUy heavy burden, instead of dismounting, used to take one of the bags upon his own shoulders, at the same time obserring with great complacency, " The marci- ful man is marciful to his baste ! " Like Parson Darby, poor Coombs was rather unhappy in the con jugal relation; but he acknowledged that it was in some measure his own fault, as he had received a supernatural warning against the match. " As I was a gooin' acrass Excete laine to be married at W church, I heerd a voice from heaven a-saying unto me — ' Will-yam Coombs ! Will-yam Coombs ! if so be that you marry Mary you'll always be a miserable man.' .... And so I've always found it," he added, " and 1 be a. miserable man." Many other traits of MUler Coombs might be added, but as they would tend to put both his veracity and his honesty into a bad light, in charity to his memory we wiU only say, that he bore a stiong general resemblance to Chaucer's miller, and that no ' tot ' of hair is known to have grown in his palm. The notice of the stranger on his first risit to the South Downs is generaUy arrested by those great excavations in the escarpment of the hills — the chalk pits, presenting as they do a perpendicular cliff-like appearance of almost snowy whiteness, in strong con trast to the green turf of the hills out of which they are scooped. We well remember the surprise of a httle American girl on first viewing a chalk-pit. Her dehght at " a whole mountain " made of this, in her TALE OF A BUCKET. 191 estimation rare, material was unbounded. To use a slang phrase of her compatriots, it exceeded aU her preconceived notions — "by a long chalk!" These hUls are perforated in several places by railway tunnels of considerable length. During the formation of a short one which runs almost immediately beneath Lewes Castle, a laughable incident occurred. It was frosty weather, and the water-pipe in a cottager's kitchen being frozen up, the old lady of the house requested her next-door neighbour, a cobbler, to procure her some water from a disused weU close at hand. Master Crispin, who was a kind-hearted man, laid down his "lapstone" and proceeded at once to comply with her vrish. The old well-bucket was duly lowered, tum after tum, untU at last it reached the length of its rope, when he felt a sudden jerk as if something heavy had been thrown into it, while sounds of loud and unearthly laughter rose echoing through the shaft. Crispin, frightened out of his wits, left his hold of the vrinch, and ran into the cottage, exclaiming, — " The Deril is in the well — I heard him roar, and felt him tugging at the chain — oh dear me ! " The cause of his consternation, however, was soon ascertained. The bottom of the well had been cut off in the forma tion of the tunnel. The jerk had been caused by the throwing into the descending bucket of a great lump of chalk, while the roar which accompanied the feat proceeded not from Pandemonium, but from some half-a-dozen excavators who had witnessed the act of one of their comrades and given vent to thefr merri ment in a loud and long-continued peal of laughter. " As old as the hiUs " is a common proverb, but "as old as the chalk-pits" would imply a pretty respectable degree of antiquity, since if Solinus is correct, the Romans imported some of their chalk 192 THE SOUTH DOWNS. from South Britain. On the modern utiUties of the chalk-pit it is unnecessary to expatiate, as it affords us lime for the mortar of our houses, and the manure of our lands, whUe its flint supplies us with bottles for our vrine, and its magnesia with medicine for our ailments. FuU easy it were to miUtiply legend and anecdote, and to jot down a hundred sweet reminiscences of our favourite hUls. But we have done. — We have far exceeded our original design, which was simply to rebut the charge of dulness and insipidity often brought against the South Downs. We feel conscious of our inability to do fuU justice to our theme. Oh that some heaven-inspired son of song loved it as well as we do ! ^^ 1' One er two attempts to do honour to the subject in the voice of poesy have been made ; such as Hay's ' Mount Caburn,' Dunvan's ' South Downs,' and some fugitive pieces. We may add, that in an article on 'South Down Shepherds and their Songs,' by R. W. Bleneowe, Esq., M.A., in the second volume of the ' Sussex ArchaBological CoUections,' there are several interesting traits of olden pastoral life to which we have not aUuded in the foregoing sketch. The autobiographical notice of John Dudeney, the South Down shepherd and phUosophical schoolmaster, which accompanies that article, is, we venture to assert, hardly to be surpassed in its wav. 193 ON YEW-TREES IN CHURCH-YARDS. It is a common question, " Why were yew-trees first planted in church-yards ?" — but I have never seen it satisfactorily answered. The popular notion is, that it was for a supply of bows, in the times when archery was not merely a pastime but a very necessary art. But this is untenable ; for in the first place the reU gious feeUng of those days would have been riolated by the removal of boughs from a tree standing within consecrated precincts. Then again the foresight of our ancestors must have been extraordinary indeed, if it induced them to plant for such a purpose, a tree which, at its exceedingly slow rate of growth, would be at least half a dozen generations old before it could supply an equal number of branches adapted for the making of bows, the removal of which would besides have spoUed the tree. Now although in some districts the yew is comparatively rare, yet there was probably in the middle ages a sufficient quantity of it grovring upon unconsecrated ground to answer the demands of the archer. Another prevalent notion is, that yews were planted in church-yards as a shelter for the sacred edifices ; but here again the slow growth of the tree presents itself as an objection ; for the buUding would grow old long before the tree attained such maturity as to offer any material defence against destructive winds, whereas many other species of timber would, in the course of a very few years, reach a sufficient height to be helpful in this respect. It must be noticed, too, that church-yard yews often stand 9 194 YEW-TREES IN CHURCH-YARDS. at such a distance from the buUding and in such situations as to render this supposition as unwarrant able as the other. Why, then, were yew-trees first planted in church yards ? I think the reason must be sought in the veneration in which the yew, in common with some other evergreen trees, was held in times antecedent to the introduction of Christianity, not only among the classical ancients, but also among the barbarians of the north. It has been held sacred to funereal rites among nearly all nations — and it was in special esteem with the Druids. The great age of these trees in some church-yards forbids the idea of thefr having been planted subsequently to the erection of the buUdings, or any others consecrated to the same forms of faith that may have occupied thefr sites. Accord ing to the eminent botanist, DecandoUe, the yews at Fountains Abbey and Crowhurst are each 1200 years old, — that at Fortingal, in Scotland, 1400, — ^whUe a fine specimen oiiheTaxus baccata at Brabome in Kent must, according to the same authority, have been con temporary with Solomon's temple, having reached what FuUer would have called the " stupendous anti quitie " of thirty centuries. We know that it was the temporising poUcy 6f Augustine and the Roman missionaries to connive at many of the pagan super stitions which they found on thefr advent into Britain. PredUections for sacred sites and objects were indulged. Thus a Druidical fountain lost none of its virtues in the popular mind if dedicated as a holy well to some saint, and many of the earUest churches arose upon spots preriously dedicated to pagan worship, as within a Druidical circle. I think it is highly pro bable, therefore, that from this feeUng some churches may have been buUt in immediate proximity to sacred REJUVENESCENCE OF YEWS. 195 yews, and that afterwards — a symbolical meaning having been attached to the tree — it became customary to plant them in church-yards generally. Whether my theory be right or wrong, the great age of some of the specimens referred to sufficiently proves that in those particular instances the church must have been brought to the tree, and not the tree to the church. At the same time, I wiUingly admit that the yew is one of the liveliest of all symbols of eternity, and therefore no inappropriate tenant of every Christian cemetery. Its evergreen foliage and its great longerity beautifuUy typify that " world vrithout end," which is the ultimate aspfration of the Christian soul. In some cases this tree is even rejuvenescent. I have seen one entfrely hoUow, next to nothing of it but its rugose venerable bark and a few green boughs remaining ; in the midst of which springing from the central roots there is a fair young stem which may some ages hence expand itself to a diameter that vriU burst asunder the tegument of the parent tree, and live on again, a fafr and stately yew, tiU dynasties shall have changed, and many generations of mortal men have found a long repose beneath its umbrageous arms ! 196 A LYTTEL GESTE OF A GREATE EELE. g^ fHetnoranlrum. The following baUad is based upon au incident related in Dr. Andrew Borde'a ' Merry Tales ef the Wise Men ef Gotham,' first published in the reign of Henry the Eighth. I have elsewhere' adduced arguments to prove that these gibes were written in order to lampoon the proceedings of a pubUc body connected, not as seme writers have imagined, with the vUlage of Gotham in Nottingham shire, but with another plaoe of the same name on the southern coast. A Sussex tradition, now nearly obsolete, connects this particular jest with the ancient tovra of Pevensey, so noticeable for its historical associations, and its venerable Roman and medieval castle. This is confirmed by the known fact that the leamed, facetious, and eccen tric physician for seme time practised hia science at that place. Like many of its neighbour towns, Pevensey had greatly decUned from its olden importance, and was hardly more than the shadow of its former self. Its charter of privUeges as a Cinque-Port was, how ever, retained in Borde's time — and is so even at the present day. A person ef " old Andrew's " temperament would therefore be extremely Ukely to seize upon the sayings and doings of the freemen of sueh a smaU municipaUty for the purpose of raising a laugh at their expense. Hence in aU probabUity it is, that whUe some tradi tionary jests redounding Uttle to the wisdom of the officials of other decayed corporations are extant, the number of suoh stories related of Pevensey should be unusuaUy large. They are, however, genef raUy of so very puerile a description as to be scarcely worth recording ; aud even did they possess more point, it would be anything but fair towards the constituents of this ancient corporation, who are quite equal in inteUigence and wisdom to their neighbours. The point of the jest before us lies in the drowning of an eel ! Now this is evidently an aUusion to the eld municipal practice, which obtained at Pevensey and some of the other Cinque-Ports, of destroy ing criminals by casting them into deep water. In the Custumal of 1 ArohECologist, and Joumal of Antiquarian Science, 1842, p. 129. Sussex Archseological CoUections, vol. vi, p. 207. A LYTTEL GESTE OF AN EELE. 197 Pevensey, ae copied about the middle of the fourteenth century, we read: — " In judgments of the crown, if a man be condemned te death, the pert-reeve, as coroner, shaU pronounce judgment, and, being seated next the steward shaU say, ' Sir, withdraw, and axe for a priest ; ' and if the condemned be ef the franchise, he shaU be taken te the town bridge at high water, and drowned in the harbour ; but if he be of the geldable [i.e., liable to taxes, wliich the freemen were not], he shall be hung in the Lowy, at a place caUed the Wahztrew." On this singular mode of punishment, and stiU more singular ferm ef sentence, the Rev. Lambert B. Larking observes : — " I do net remember ever before te have seen any Saxon form of sentencing a criminal te death. How courteous and considerate te the feeUngs is the gentle " Sir, withdraw, and axe for a priest ;" and how coarse and rude by contrast with it is " Tou shaU be taken hence to the place from whence you came, and thence te a place ef execution, there to be hanged by the neck tUl you are dead" — a sentence only fit for a dog. The scene must have lost half its terrors by this gentle courtesy in announcing the deem ef the law ; but, deny it who wUl, our Saxon ancestors were highly civUized, and gentlemen in aU they did ; why, what a gentlemanly death was that reserved for the privi leged burgess, to be sUd ofi' the port into the sea, Clarence and his Malmsey -butt is vulgarity itself compared with a " header " down to the " rocks where corals grow : " — " Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea change Into something rich and strange ; Sea-nymphs hourly ring his kneU." . . Highly privUeged were ye, ye men of Pevensey. " O for- tunati sua si bona uorint ! " ^ But to our legend — ^ In dales when Popyshe govemmente Ordayned, agaynst our vrishe. That men sholde, duryng time of Lent, Bothe dyne and suppe on fysshe — There Uv'd a verie honest vright, A free-man of this porte. Who by his neyghbours Perkyn hight. (Hys other name was Shorte.) - Sussex Arohseological CoUections, vol. iv, p. 210. 198 A LYTTEL GESTE OF AN EELE. Now Perkyn never could awaie With dyet slyght and meane ; No man on thys fatte lande, they say. In better case was seene. Hys mutton and his marsh-fedde beefe Hee picked unto y* bone, Untyl he stoode in bolde releefe A man of twentie stone. A ryght goode catholyke was hee. And dulie payd his tythe. From cowe, and pigge, and fowle, and bee. From syckle and from scythe. But yet one item of hys creede Went sore ageynst the vrishe Of hys confessour. Father Speede — He colde not dyne on fysshe. And in y' drearie tyme of Lente, By commonlie transgressinge The rule — on beefe or mutton bente Hee loste the father's blessyng. TyU by adventure on a daye, Whyle wyth a neyghbour faring, Hys heart was muche releeved, thei saye. By tasting a redde-heryng. A LYTTEL GESTE OF AN EELE. 199 Had Perkyn beene a leamyd vright. And knowne a bit of Greek, a Case more than Ukehe 'tis hee might Have cride alowde. Eureka I But since of Latine and of Greek Hee nought at aUe dyd knowe. As sone as joie wold let hym speake He onelie sayd "Hullowe ! ' Why this is somethyng like a fysshe, " A relysshe new and gustful ! ' And Hohe Churche of this same dishe " Wyl nevere be distrustfuUe. " Noe more I'll fret o'er Lenten chere — " Wyth eyght or tenne of these, " Wasshed down vrith goode Octobyr beere, " He dyne and suppe with ease." Anyved at home hee told hys wyfe His newe discovered pleasure ; Hee nevyr hadde, in al hys lyfe. Of joie so fulle a measure. Sayes Perkyn — " Roger, ryde our nagge To Hasting, for to cbuse Of these same ffysh a pretie bagge. To breede them uppe for use." 200 A LYTTEL GESTE OF AN EELE. Y" groome went foorth and soone was backe, (None colde have rydden faster) Wyth fulle three bushels in a sacke. And gave them to hys maister. " Judyth," says Perkyn to his spouse, " My lovinge dame and fonde ; " We'U eate two busshels, and we'U put " One busshel in owre pond. " When Lent comes next there sure wiU be " Of flyshe a large incresse — " Enow for me and eke for thee, " For everie dale a messe." So from the sacke thei straightway drew Of heryngs all the best, Y' whiche into theyr ponde they threw — For foode reserved the reste. ^ Heere endyth y' fyrst parte of thejeaste of y' Eele, and here doth folowe the seconde parte of the samejeste. Agayn is Lenten tyme come round. And layd aside is beefe ; Syr Perkyn trustith from hys ponde To drawe a goode releefe. Sayes Perkin, " Wife, my angles fetch. And eke my rodde and Ijme, I goe some heryng for to cacche, Methinks they'll prove full fyne." A LYTTEL GESTE OF AN EELE. 201 Uilto his pond in blythesom sort Doth Perkyn hie, but, marry ! Fulle colde y' weather for that sporte. At th'ende of February. Sayes Perkyn, " Tis a fyshe that's shie. And verie slowe to byte ; So I a nette must even trye. And dragge the ponde outright." So Roger, John, and Hykke he bade To bryng his fysshynge nette ; But 'twas in vayne — with all theyr aide. No heryng he colde get. Sayes Perkyn, " Thys wyl never doe ; I e'en thys ponde must drayne — PuU up the sluice ! " The water through Then foamed and dashed amayne. Eftsoones y' ponde is drayned right Of water every dele ; But nought appeares to Perkyn's sight Save one Greate Wrygglynge Eele ! " Marry ! " says Perkyn then, " I wis " My lucke is surely evyU — " Yon villaine Eele hath eate my fysshe ; " — Beshrew thee, ravenous Devyl ! " 9§ 202 A LYTTEL GESTE OP AN EELE. Now Perkyn, takyng uppe the theefe. In freful moode did sale : — " Thou shalt be punysshed to thy grief ; "For thou must dye streyghtwaye !" " Goe hange hym, Maister," Roger sayd ; " Choppe off hys head," quoth Hykke ; " Naye, burne hym, Syr," says honest John, " For this soe knavysh trycke !" Echo servaunt hadde a severaU wysshe ; Roger a theefe dyd riew hym — And as a traytour worthy Hykke Looked on hym. — " A foule heretyke," Said John, " he is, to steale Lent fysshe, "By'r Ladye — I beshrew hym !" *i " Peace ! fooles," says Perkyn, " for tis writ, " And in our Charter founde — " That hee who murther dothe committe, " I' the haven must be drownde." Soe to y' bridge thei bare hym fast. To dye for that hys slawghter. And, withowte more adoe, thei cast Y' Eele into the water ! 1 1[ To Father Speede the worthie deede Dyd Perkin then reherse. As hath beene either simge or sayd. In our foregoing verse. CAPITAYLE PUNYSSHEMENT. 203 " Pax tecum ! 'twas weU done," quoth hee ; " And now, for thy releefe, " (By paying HoUe Churche a fee) — " From fasting thou absolved shalt be " Go dine alle Lent on beefe .'" Soe heere's an ende to Perkyn stout. And eke to Father Speede ; The Eele his punisshement (noe dowte) Thought capytalle indeede ! Portrait of Dr. Andrew Borde, from his "Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge.' 204 A DISCOURSE OF GENEALOGY. TeveaKoym — the tracing of one's descent — the find ing out of one's progenitors, avi, proavi, abavi, atavi, tritavi, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, great- great-grandfathers, and their fathers and grand fathers — is a passion inherent in the human family. Under aU cfrcumstances of civUization — whether in Judsea, Greece, Rome, England, China, or New Zealand — it has been cherished with a fondness second only to the preservation of one's own personal honour and reputation. It is a theme that has em ployed alike the pen of the classic poet, and the tongue of the barbarian bard and scald. It was the ambition of most heathen princes and chieftains to deduce their descent from the gods, as it is of modem potentates and nobles to trace up their lineage to the renowned and mighty men of far by-gone ages — and naturaUy; for in spite of the hackneyed Ovidian sentiment — " — genus, et proavos, et qus non fecimus ipsi, Vix ea nostra voco, — ^»^ ) there must of necessity be a pleasure aud a pride in the assurance, or even in the probabUity, of a descent from distinguished progenitors. Men estimate the value of things by their rarity. Some excel in knowledge, others in power, others in wealth. These are all extraordinary advantages, attainable but by the few; honoured and respected, if not aimed at, by the many. But a man, duly gifted and favoured. FALSE NOTIONS. 205 may become wise, rich, and influential, and yet want the qualification of a good or noble descent. It cannot be bought with money, or acqufred by vris- dom or by power. The poor may become wealthy, the ignorant vrise, the feeble potential ; but no man may reverse the decrees of fate and make his dead progenitors what they were not. NobUity of bfrth is transmissible to an idiot ; but the vrisest, the richest, the mightiest, has no more to do vrith the selection of his ancestry than he has with the origination of his own existence. Among the democratic tendencies of our own times none is more striking to the thoughtful mind than 3 disposition to despise pedigree. Titular rank and a good descent are held in little estimation by the mul titude. The sentiment of Burns — " The rank is but the guinea's stamp. The gowd's the gewd for a' that," is a favourite one, and when made use of before a plebeian auditory is sure to secure a large amount of applause. And why ? Because it flatters the self-love of every man, worthy or unworthy, and places him, in his own conceit, upon a level vrith the greatest. But how often, in these cases, is there the want not only ofthe stamp, but of the precious metal too. Bums himself, in spite of his genius (and that by the way is much overrated by his countrymen), was sadly de ficient of both the one and the other. It is not the least among the defects of his moral nature that he too often deUghts in representing the great as the " natural enemies" of the poor. Accepting his creed, we shoidd imagine that every human vfrtue is asso ciated with poverty — all that is base in our nature with the possession of rank and its concomitant wealth. 206 A DISCOURSE OF GENEALOGY. To what bad passions does he pander in such effusions as this : — " See yender poor o'erlaboured vright, So abject, mean, and vUe, Who begs a brother of the earth. To give him leave to toU ; And see his lordly fellow-worm The poor petition spurn ; Unmindful though a weeping wife And helpless offspring moum ! " HappUy for the peace of society, such sentiments are daUy losing ground, and the wider difiusion of the principles of a sound political economy wUl, I trust, ere long dissipate the monstrous idea that the great and wealthy are from the nature of their position neces sarUy wanting in sympathy towards thefr less-favoured brethren. But to retum : those who affect to despise rank closely resemble the fox in .^sop, which thought the grapes that grew hopelessly beyond his reach particu larly sour. The people who sneer at ancestral honours, and deride heraldry as a by-gone foUy, are always those who have no genealogical roll to faU back upon — no " famUy eridences" to prove that their forefathers had a coat (armorial or othervrise) to thefr backs ! Let thefr phUosophy go into partnership vrith that of the poor wretch who pronounces learning useless, because he himself cannot read, and despises, or affects to despise, wealth, when he has not half-a-crown in his pocket. The truly wise man is a truly contented one. H he is poor, he does not covet afiluence — if he lacks influence, he is not ambitious. So also, if he is not of gentle birth, he does not repine at the want of gen- tUitial distinctions. But because he does not possess the first, the second, or the thfrd, he is not therefore DESPISERS OF PEDIGREE. 207 necessarily insensible to their inherent value. We have never known a man whom in our judgment we could pronounce vrise or judicious who despised a good descent. We never yet met vrith one who did not, on the contrary, feel a degree of pleasure in being able to point to weU-bom ancestors, and regard pedigree as quite as essential a thing in himself as in his own horses 1 " WeU," perhaps the caviUer wiU say — " I stand upon my own merits; what matters it whether my predecessors were vrise or foohsh, poor or rich, gentle or simple?" Stay, my friend I Do you call yourself a patriot ? Can you consistently say vrith Terence, "Homo sum?" If you stand entfrely upon the Pharisaical platform of your personal exceUences, it matters little whether your forefathers were English men, Turks, Laponese, or Bushmen, — whether they were made in the Ukeness of God, or in the degraded image of the oran-outang or the baboon. For to be a patriot you must have a national pride, which is in a modified sense to be proud of your descent — to be proud of your manhood, you must felicitate yourself upon the fact of your not having been hatched by a vulture or spawned by a toad ! Again ; is there any man so besotted as to be re gardless whether his progenitors were brave, healthy, virtuous, honest — or whether they were mean, pitiful scoundrels, the scum and offscouring of the earth ? No, verily. TeU your self-sufiicient reriler of pedigree that his grandfather was dishonest, or his great- grand mother unchaste, and he recoUs at once vrith indigna^ tion from the impeachment, be it mere calumny or plain, undeniable truth. The eril fame of base ancestors he feels to be a reproach — an injury to himself. The truth is that he, in common vrith aU mankind, respects 208 A DISCOURSE OF GENEALOGY. descent as a matter of feeling, however slightingly he may affect to regard the quaUfication of a good and unblemished ancestry in his ordinary conversation. I wiU therefore reiterate the sentiment with which I set out ; namely, that a love of ancestry is a passion belonging to our common nature. It is deeply seated in every vfrtuous mind, in spite of the modern cant which pretends to despise it, and treat it as a thing of nought. Men not unfrequently by a per version of reason, like that which induces some to boast of their own rices, profess to disregard that which they in reality respect. Were an iUustration in proof of this observation required, I could adduce from a recent "autobiography" some very sarcastic remarks on family history and the futiUty of genealogical honours and long lines of descent, vrith not a few sneers at " griflBns, mermaids, and other monsters which ought to be exploded from modern education, and from the language of science and art." But that the writer is attempting to expel with a fork that nature which will reassert herself is rather ludicrously shown on the self-same page, where he tells his readers, with no little complacency, "A family coat of arms I could display, fuUy emblazoned, from an old stone authority, and might use it as the Arms ; but this would subject me to taxation, and my taxes are afready more weighty than pleasant." It is an easy matter to flourish rhetorically upon this subject, and to quote such hackneyed couplets as — " What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards ? Alas ! not aU the blood of aU the Howards " — but it is by no means an equaUy easy thing reaUy to scorn a derivation from a noble, historical, and virtuous race, or to regard a man as something the GENEALOGY DISTINCT FROM PRIDE OF RANK. 209 worse for such a descent. It is only when he post pones honour, morality, and every excellent attribute to the pride of ancestry, that he becomes truly worthy of om' contempt ; and it is willingly admitted that he who rests his sole claim to the consideration of society upon the musty eridence of a parchment scroll, how ever elaborated by heraldric art, is a truly despicable object. I know not which is the greater fool — the man who has nothing to boast of but a good descent, and who makes no effort to support in his own person the dignity of worthy ancestors, or he who despises pedigree in toto. Fool the First would be a better man were the axe laid to the root of his genealogical tree, and he rendered oblirious ofthe past : Fool the Second should never plant such a tree ; for how can one who takes no pride in ancestral vfrtues expect to be ac tuated by those ennobling principles which should make him a model and pattern for his descendants ? But I have been in some degree carried away from the object of this discourse, which is not intended so much as an apology for what is called " good blood " or gentUitial distinctions, as an inquiry into the in terest and utUity of genealogical investigations as a science — a science which, I venture to predict, vriU ere long occupy the inteUect and the pens of many by whom it has hitherto been to a great extent neglected. It is a vulgar and very unreasonable mistake to suppose that a love of pedigree (or, more properly speaking, the genealogical taste) relates solely to the Ulustratlon of ancestries that have played a con spicuous part in the history of our species, or that have been distinguished by the possession of broad lands and transmissible honours and titles. It is not so ! As the naturalist expatiates with equal delight upon the stmcture and habits of the beetle and those of the 210 A DISCOURSE OF GENEALOGY. elephant, so the tme genealogist feels as much pleasure in searching out the records of a yeomanry stock, or in tracing the descent of the humblest plebeian, as in imparting additional lustre to the coronet of nobUity. He would as gladly see the FamUy Bible of every inteUigent cottager adorned with the registers of birth, marriage, and death, for a few generations, as he would endeavour to throw light upon the deeds, titles, and alliances of the peer. For my *own part I would wish every family to preserve thefr pedigree as the ancient Jews did, irrespectively of social position and the possession of riches. The moral benefits of such a practice would be very great, for men would learn — or rather would not be permitted to forget — by how many ties of consanguinity the famUies of a district, a county, or a nation are connected. It would then appear that many who now toU and plod at the base of the social mountain, earning every day's bread vrith the sweat of thefr brow, are the coUateral kinsmen of those who range its summit in all the splendour of wealth and distinction. It would also be shown how some famihes have ascended from the vales of poverty to the high places of the earth, and how others, by a decadence more or less gradual, have descended from positions of influence and wealth to those of insignificance and penury. Old Camden has weU remarked, that "the High are descended from the Low, and contrarivrise the Low from the High." Not a few of the peers of this realm spring from graziers, bakers, barbers, and day-la bourers. On the other hand, some men now ride on the box whose ancestors rode inside the carriage, whUe others serve in the kitchen whose progenitors com manded in the ball. In the veins of many a poor LOFTY ANCESTRY OF HUMBLE FOLK. 211 country gentleman flow Plantagenet blood and the ichor of heroes. Indeed there are few famUies of re spectable antiquity who do not in some way or other, tlirough female ancestors, " deduce their birth From loins enthroned and princes of the earth ; " and claim equaUy vrith Maecenas the atavis edite Regibus. WeU may Shakspeare demand — " What ! wUl the aspiring blood of Lancaster Sink in the ground ? I thought it would have mounted." Mr. Charles Long, in his ' Royal Descents,' observes that " when once you are enabled to place your cUent in a current of decent blood, you are certain (by a slight Hibemicism) to carry him up to some one of the three great fountains of honour, Edward the Thfrd, Edward the Ffrst, or Henry the Thfrd ; and in fami Ues of good, or even partially good, descent the deducing of a husband and wife from all the chUdren of Edward the Third, and all the chUdren of Edward the Ffrst, has been successfully established by per severance and research." On the other hand, Mr. Long satisfactorUy shows the right of a carpenter, a gravedigger, a saddler's apprentice, a shoemaker, and a taUor, to quarter the royal arms as lineal descendants of Edward the Third; while a stiU greater disparity presents itself in the descent of George WUmot from King Edward the Ffrst. Poor George in 1845 kept the tumpike-gate at Cooper's Bank, near Dudley, almost contiguous to ' the very waUs of those feudal towers that gave name to the barony' of which he was a genuine and indisputable cohefr. The following considerations wUl serve to show how wonderfuUy men and famUies are knit together by the ties of blood. When one reflects that his ancestry doubles in every ascent, or, to speak more correctly. 212 A DISCOURSE or GENEALOGY. increases in a two-fold geometrical progression, he wiU easUy see this. Thus, as everybody has one father, two grandfathers, four great-grandfathers, eight-great great-grandfathers, and so on (the case being of course the same on the female side), if we go back to the time of King John, which (allowing three generations to a century) would be about nineteen generations, we shaU find that in the space of little more than six centuries, every one of us can boast of the astounding number of five hundred and twenty-four thousand, two hun dred and eighty-eight ancestors ; that is to say, that the blood of more than half a million of the human race flows in our veins. This calculation supposes, however, that aU one's male ancestors have married strangers in blood, which has probably not been the case in any instance. A few matches with cousins, near or remote, vastly reduce the number. Black stone, long since, caUed attention to this multitu- dinousness of ancestral relations, in his 'Commentaries,' where he gives a table of numbers extending to the twentieth genealogical remove. At thefortieth remove, a period extending over about sixteen or seventeen hundred years, the total number of a man's progenitors amounts to more than a million millions ! The same eminent lawyer also shows, from the most satisfactory data, that "we have aU now subsisting nearly two hundred and seventy miUions of kindred in the fifteenth degree; and if this calculation should appear incom patible vrith the number of inhabitants on the earth, it is because by intermarriages among the several descen dants from the same ancestor, a hundred or a thousand modes of consanguinity may be consolidated in one person, or he may be related to us in a hundred or a thousand different ways " — and that without our being aware of it ! ALL MEN BRETHREN. THE TWO TUPPENS. 213 It is thus that I account for the extraordinary re semblance, both personal and mental, often occurring between persons not recognised as kinsmen. We know how both physical and inteUectual characteristics are often transmitted by overleaping several generations and reappearing at intervals like a comet. A due consideration of these facts would be of great moral advantage to mankind, as serring to induce a kindli ness of feeUng to aU, whether lowly or exalted, since we know not by how many ties of blood they may be connected with us, — in a stronger sense than is usuaUy affixed to the words, "All men are Brethren." I may append here a Uttle illustrative anecdote. About seventy or eighty years since, a shepherd named Tuppen was sent by his master, who resided near Eastbourne, Sussex, to drive some sheep into South Devon. The man haring discharged his commission was returning homewards from his somewhat toilsome pilgrimage, when, on passing a cottage at least two hundred mUes from his own habitation, and on a spot which he had never before visited, he was greeted vrith the familiar words, " How d'ye do. Master Tuppen ? " The shepherd vrith a rather bewildered air turned round and found that the salutation had been addressed to him by a peasant's vrife, the tenant of the cottage, a person of whom he had not the slightest knowledge. He told her as much ; where upon she apologized by saying that she had mistaken him for one Master Tuppen, a man who lived in a neighbouring hamlet, but of whom the Sussex shep herd had never heard. There can, however, be no doubt of the common origin of these two " Master Tuppens," though aU remembrance of kindred was lost. To return — All ancient nations seem to have pre- 214 A DISCOURSE OP GENEALOGY. served genealogies, of at least thefr more powerful famiUes, with a scrupulousness Uttle regarded among the most cirilized nations of the present day; and even now some of the barbarous peoples of the East and of the southern ocean, though ignorant of any graphic art, preserve by oral tradition the names of thefr ancestors for many generations. It would be far from fair to infer from this, that a love of genealogy is a feeUng more adapted to barbarians than to ciri lized men ; for we find that the greatest nations of antiquity, the Greeks and the Romans, cherished it as well as the rudest. How often do we meet in the classical writers of history and biography expressions implying the respect in which a good descent was held. Perhaps the reason why in modem times so much less respect has been paid to it lies in this. The feudal system of the middle ages having acted oppressively upon the lower orders of society — on the abolition of that system, the plebeian part of mankind, regarding genealogical honours as one of the prerogatives of thefr ancient oppressors, and possessing little power to discriminate between cause and concomitant — between what was essential to the existence of the old misrule, and what was merely a harmless offshoot of it — riewed them with positive dislike. Another cause of the unpopularity of genealogy may be the arrogant tone of the majority of its advocates in old times. After feudalism had passed away, and tbe revival of hterature, consequent upon the invention of the printing-press, had revolutionized society by the abrogation of old stereotyped forms of thought, there arose a department of literature hitherto scarcely known, the design of which was to assert the super- excellence of lofty birth, and to degrade plebeianism to the dust. All the old heraldric writings from Dame HIGH BLOOD V. LOW BLOOD. — MISCONCEPTIONS. 215 JuUana Berners' 'Boke of St. Alban's' dovra to John GuUlim's * Display,' are more or less tinctured vrith this superciUous contempt of whatever relates to humUity of bfrth and position. Between the " gentylman " and the " un-gentylman" these writers attempt to fix a great and all but impassable gulf — a barrier based upon assumptions as ridiculous as those which diride the Castes of Hindostan. In this they were but pandering to a pride really entertained by too many of thefr patrons ; for the proprietor of an estate in Carolina or Vfrginia, in our own days, scarcely carries himself more haughtUy towards his negro slaves, than did many of the " noblesse " of those times towards thefr humble, though now manu mitted, neighbours. With a contempt (among right-minded men of aU classes) for such arrogant pretensions, there not un naturaUy arose, among plebeians, a dishke of the ex ternal denotements of nobUity; and heraldric distinc tions began to be riewed as the symbols of a worn-out and obsolete wrong. This feeling is stUl entertained by many inteUigent persons, who do not seem to have sufficiently reflected upon the distinction which I am anxious to establish between the mere pride of high birth, and the real interest attaching to scientific genealogy. In order to make my meaning fully understood, it may be well to glance at the origin of heraldry, and to vindicate it from the sneering defini tion that has been applied to it, viz : " The science of fools with long memories." Notvrithstanding the extravagant antiquity ascribed to heraldry by the writers ofthe sixteenth and seven teenth centuries, who assigned armorial bearings to aU the distinguished persons of the earliest ages, there is not any eridence to prove that the science 216 A DISCOURSE OF GENEALOGY. existed until within the last seven centuries. Ac cording to the best modem authorities, the latter half of the twelfth century furnishes us with the first actual specimens of the armorial shield. Mr. Planche, who is the latest, as he is unquestionably one of the best, writers upon the subject, after the research of many years, cannot discover one instance of a shield decorated with heraldric insignia before the year 1164, when the lion -rampant of PhUip I, Count of Flanders, occurs upon his seal. " There is, we re peat, no proof of the existence of heraldry — by which we mean an arrangement of the lines, colours, and figures, that make up what are caUed coats of arms by a certain fixed and systematic code of laws — until the twelfth century. Even our honoured national ensign, which is boastfully described as haring bome the brunt of breeze and battle for a thousand years, has only enjoyed that honour for some six centuries and a half; the three golden Uons-passant-guardant appearing for the first time upon the great seal of Richard Cceur de Lion, in the year 1195. We do not say that shields and banners were not decorated with certain symbolical figures at a much earlier date; there is abundant evidence that they were from the remotest periods so adorned. Art in some respects as weU as Nature may be said to abhor a vacuum. The broad face of a well-formed shield, and the graceful expanse of a floating banner, inrited ornamentation, and ac cordingly we find the buckler of the Homeric hero and the earliest flag of the barbarous chieftain ahke enriched with apposite derices ; but these, beyond perhaps the suggestion of the original idea, had no relation to the hereditary armorial compositions of the middle ages. Feudalism, the Crusades, and the adoption of fixed hereditary surnames in the famUies EARLY HERALDRY. 217 of the greatt, may have all had some hand in the origination of heraldry, as they all certainly promoted its growth ; but we search in vain among the records of the times for the first germ of a science or practice — call it what you will — which adds so much of the picturesque and the romantic to the days of the Plantagenets and Tudors, and which led to the pro duction of some of the most extraordinary books that exist in the whole circle of European literature." ^ Early heraldry, it is hardly necessary to state, was always connected with war. In the older times the eagle had been the standard of imperial Rome, and Saxons and Danes had respectively flocked around their banners of the white horse and the raven. Under feudaUsm every baron and well-landed knight was a petty sovereign, and as such had his own parti cular banner, and this not so much as a matter of ostentation as one of actual necessity, for the better raUying of his dependents upon the battle-field, where many of these little feudal armies were aggregated against the common foe. It was not until the banner of a particular race had been rendered conspicuous by tbe prowess of its successive owners in Crusade or other remarkable war, that it began to be regarded as the symbol or external sign of the rirtues of a family, and to be looked upon as a thing which elevated it above the general mass of mankind. Thus what had been among the indispensable accessories of medieval warfare soon became almost equaUy indispensable as a guarantee of social status. The armiger or " arms- bearer," however remotely descended from the head of his race, counted himself as a gentleman : all other men were reckoned plebeians, churls, servi, viUani, bondmen ; in one word — in the phrase of the ' Boke ' M. A. L. in Betrospeetive Review, Feb. 1853. 10 218 A DISCOURSE OF GENEALOGY. of St. Alban's ' — " ungentylmen." So originated the distinction between the upper and the lower classes of European society; for what is called the middle class was throughout the middle ages very unimpor tant, and it has only been fuUy developed vrithin the last two centuries. But as society advanced, and the cramping in fluence of feudalism was removed, many persons of humbler birth emerged by the force of thefr wealth or talents, or both, from the undistinguished mass of the people, and took up a position among the famUies of ancient blood. A novus homo was looked upon then as in old Roman times, or in our own, naso adunco; but the fault of a plebeian origin is one that cures itself in time, since each successive generation conduces to the antiquity of a race, and helps to throw into obscurer distance the cfrcumstances of its be ginning. And thus, in course of time, war, merchan dise, learning, law, physic, divinity, phUosophy, and other less honourable means, each added its quota of famUies to the patrician side; and aU these new additions came in a short time to be regarded (by the majority at least) as upon a par vrith the oldest Nor man and Plantagenet blood. Now, these famiUes, both old and new, embraced nearly all the persons of moderate education in Eng land. (I speak of this country only, but the observa tion applies equaUy to others.) Few besides persons of gentle bfrth knew how to read. The common people had few incentives to intellectual pleasures. The romance attaching to a long descent was dis regarded or unappreciated by them. The gentry, on the other hand, were all more or less pleased vrith pedigree, and no gentleman's education was supposed to be finished until he had become expert in the TYRANNICAL CONDUCT OF THE HERALDS. 219 technicaUties of heraldry. The practice of heraldic Visitations also tended much to encourage such tastes. About three or four times in a century, the heralds, upon the authority of their CoUege and \rith the sanction of the Earl-Marshal, risited every county, and, taking up their quarters (after the manner of " rerising barristers " in our times) in the principal towns of the county, summoned all the resident gentry of each' district, on a certain day and hour, to appear before them to prove, by sufficient documentary eridence, their right to bear arms ; as also to ftimish data for the establishment of their pedigree, which was duly registered in the risitation-books,and attested by the signature of the representative of the family. This custom originated in the reign of Henry the Eighth, and was continued till that of James the Second. It seems to have faUen into disuse in con sequence of the great dislUie of the nation generally to the unconstitutional powers exercised by the officials. These men, under the sanction of a royal commission, promoted by the Earl-Marshal, went so far as to "reprove, controul, and make infamous by proclamation at courts of assize," all persons who unwarrantably assumed the title of Esquire or Gentleman. This was in the reign of Charles I ; and although things were not driven to such extremities under his sons Charles II and James II, the heraldic prerogative, with its invidious distinctions and heavy fees, was considered inconsistent with the rights of the subject, and these inquisitorial Visitations fell into disrepute. The truth is, that since the days of the Tudors the old Norman blood had wellnigh become extinct in male lines, and the existing aristocracy had become a melange of ancient houses and families of comparatively recent growth, so that the old exclusive idea, of which so 220 A DISCOURSE OF GENEALOGY. much has been said, had almost died out. It could no longer be said with one of our oldest poets — " Of the Normans be these high men that dweU in this land. And the low men ef Saxons." The spirit of "John BuU-ism" had been mueh fostered by two great political events — the revolutions of 1642 and 1688. Class distinctions were to a very large extent merged in the vital question of ciril and religious freedom. On both occasions men of very opposite birth and position had fought the battle of great principles under a common banner, and had felt how necessary each was to each — a feeling never fuUy admitted before. Thenceforward the slang expressions " Tory " and " Whig " may be said to have occupied the antagonistic positions erewhUe assumed by the so-called gentle and ungentle. In the abolition of great injustices and abuses, mankind are very apt to do away with some harmless or even useful things, simply because they have been associated vrith those erils. Thus, in the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, the cross, the very symbol of our common Christian hope, because it had been prostituted to idolatrous uses by the Romanists, came to be regarded by many sincere- minded, but [me judice) mistaken, men, as a thing to be avoided and spurned at. So, because feudal tyranny had wrought great and manifest wrongs, heraldry and genealogy — which were, as I have afready said, not merely harmless concomitants, but reaUy and in themselves (as I shaU fm-ther attempt to prove) useful things — came to be considered as shreds of a rotten and injurious system. That a taste for family history may exist without any degree of what is called aristocratic pride is ARMS ASSUMED BY UPSTARTS. 221 erident to every one at all acquainted with general society. I could mention some of the yeomanry class and others of simUar rank, men of moderate educa tional attainments, who are skilful genealogists, and know a great deal more of their ancestry for a few centuries upwards than do the generality of the titled classes themselves. But whUe this taste for the science of genealogy is cultivated by many, a much larger number unscrupulously assume that ex ternal mark of a good descent, a coat of arms, vrithout the least regard to ancestry whatever. That vulgarly "genteel" class of people, who, not content vrith the honest names of Smith and Taylor, metamorphose themselves into Smythes and Tayleures, boldly assume the armorial ensigns of well-known ancient famiUes, and hope by this transparent piece of trickery to im pose upon the incurious part of society. As soon as people reach the sunny side of the " middle class," they usually assume, along with other consequential airs, a coat of arms, which they parade upon every carriage-panel and teapot in thefr possession. Instead of acquiring this distinction in a fair, honest way, at the Heralds' College, at a cost of some fourscore pounds, they either call to thefr aid some seal-en graver, by whom arms are "found," or consult a dictionary of heraldry, and without any compunction of conscience adopt the family ensigns of others vrith whom in all probability they are in no way connected. HappUy for these people the heraldic Visitations have ceased to be ; for I believe that not a fourth of the armigerous class of the present day can prove their right to the arms they bear. Others, who wish to adopt " ensigns of honour," go about their acquisition in a more honourable way, and pay the £78. 15s. to the King of Arms and his 222 A DISCOURSE OP GENEALOGY. official subjects, for a new coat. But this straight forward conduct, instead of being regarded in its proper light (as an honest avowal that the purchasers are novi homines), exposes them to the contempt of the class which they aspire to join, no less than to the envy of that which they are quitting, and thus, like the bat in .^Esop, they get flouted on every hand. Now I should like to see the practice of bearing arms largely extended. Every family choosing to bear arms should have liberty to do so upon payment of a small annual tax for the pririlege, as at present, to Government. This should be done as no matter of vanity, but purely, as in the earliest days of heraldry, as one of distinction — of genealogical, not of aristo cratic, discrimination. Stubbs, and Boaks, and Timpkins, and Joblings, should have their own proper coats as well as Nerille, and Beauchamp, and Chol- mondeley. This may seem a somewhat startling proposal, but it is far more feasible than at first sight it may appear. To some it may seem that heraldry is unable to admit of so large an expansion — that the multiplication of coats armorial to such a degree would exhaust the stock of heraldric materials. But this is by no means to be feared. With one half of the charges now borne in arms, variously combined, according to the existing rules of heraldry, every respectable family in Christendom might be suppUed with its peculiar ensign. By a principle somewhat analogous to that of arithmetical permutation, a com paratively limited number of simple elements might be so disposed as to produce an infinite variety of armorial designs. And in order that this plan should be successfully carried out, I would have it regulated by a central body of scientific heralds like that now composing the College of Arms, who, for a small fee. EXTENSION OF ARMS-BEARING DESIRABLE. 223 should devise and register every coat. To all the various branches of a family bearing a common sur name, and within a traceable degree of kindred, I would of course assign a common coat of arms. This would greatly reduce the number of new bearings requisite. By the adoption of this plan the dishonest assump tion of other people's property above adverted to would be aboUshed ; but other and more practical advantages would accrue from it. Without any profound ac quaintance vrith heraldry we should be enabled to distinguish from each other, persons bearing a com monly-occurring name. Thus instead of discriminating several Wilsons belonging to a particular circle by "Tall John," "Lawyer John," "Spectacled John," and such-like uncomplimentary phrases, well-informed people would distinguish neighbours by some promi nent feature in their family bearings, such as "William Smith (fleur-de-lis)," "Thomas Jones (cinquefoil)," "James Browne (portcuUis)," and " Henry Robinson (red cross) ." This may be deemed picturesque trifling, but, even conceding this, there remains a real and tan gible advantage which cannot be gainsaid — I mean the impulse which my plan would give to the study of genealogy, and the comparative facUity with which after the lapse of a few generations family relation ships might be traced. How many tedious and harassing chancery suits, more or less injurious to all concerned in them, might have been avoided, had some such simple practice been long ago adopted. We have known instances where a pedigree was satisfactorUy established up to a certain point, when all hope of carrying it further was suddenly cut oft' by the occurrence, in parish registers or other public documents, of two persons of the same Christian name 224 A DISCOURSE OF GENEALOGY. and surname Uring contemporaneously in the same place, but who were perhaps not in the slightest degree connected by the ties of consanguinity. Everybody acquainted vrith genealogical investigations is aware that a coat of arms is a much safer guarantee of kin dred than the orthography of a name. But long before this, some of my readers vrill have asked " Would it not be absurd for the middle class to assume distinctions which were formerly accorded only to gentlemen ? " Let me endeavour to answer this question. The expression gentleman is perhaps one of the vaguest in the language ; as all men who wear decent apparel, from duke to draper's assistant, from ambassador to journeyman, from archbishop to parish-clerk, are, in the courtesies of the age, " gentle men." Every man, in short, who in vfrtue of any supposed qualification considers himself entitled to the respect of his neighbours, accepts the application of the phrase to himself vrithout scruple, and appUes it vrithout hesitation to his acknowledged equals. But vrithout admitting so great a latitude to the term, it is a matter of no smaU difficulty to ascertain what really constitutes a gentleman. The lawyer will tell you, after Sir Thomas Smith and Blackstone, that he " who can live idly, and vrithout manual labour, and will bear the port, charge, and countenance of a gen tleman, shall be caUed master, and shall be taken for a gentleman." Hence in official lists and legal docu ments, persons who, from inability or disinclination, adopt no trade or profession, although their yearly income should not exceed a hundred pounds, are styled gentlemen, while their opulent neighbours possessed of twenty times as much, if engaged in mercantile affairs, are designated by the name of their trades ; and hence it sometimes happens that a spend- WHAT IS A GENTLEMAN? 225 thrift or imbecile son who cannot be trusted in his father's counting-house or behind his counter is styled " gentleman," while his respectable and worthy parent is described as "merchant," " draper," "printer," or as the case may be. If we turn to the authority of the herald, although we find the use of the word a little more restricted, there is still much vagueness in its application. " Gentlemen," says my author, " have their beginning, either of blood, as that they ai'e bom of worshipful parents — or, that they have done some thing worthy in peace or war whereby they deserve to be accounted gentlemen." ^ So then, the sailor who took a fort in Hindostan by his individual prowess, or any "common hind" who has saved a feUow-creature from drowning, ought to be considered a gentleman. According to the same authority " a gentleman of what estate soever he be, although he go to plough and common labour for his maintenance, yet he is a gen tleman." 3 Such is the deliberate opinion of a "judi cious herald" as promulged in a goodly folio under the "cavalier" period ofthe Stuarts ! " Done something worthy ! " Why, then, whoso ever hath introduced some useful invention — written some good book — established some benevolent insti tution — painted some beautiftU picture — erected some noble buUding — constructed some convenient high way — ^built some commodious bridge — fulfiUed some onerous office for the common good — reformed some ricious character — annihilated some ancient abuse — promoted the well-being of his native town — or " done something (that is anything) worthy," is a gentleman ! So be it. Master Herald ; may such gen tlemen increase and multiply. Amen ! 2 ' GuUlim's Heraldry,' edit. 1679, part n, p. 154. " Ibid. p. 155. 10 § 22G A DISCOURSE OF GENEALOGY. Now this is high heraldic authority; and it is therefore clear that the number of families entitled to coats of arms is much greater than the number actually bearing them. For that must be a base and brutish stock indeed that has never owned as its head a man who has " done something worthy ; " and since it is argued that gentry is inextinguishable — that the offspring of a gentleman, " even although they go to plough," must be gentlemen too, it should follow that we are all, or nearly so, " gentlemen of blood," and therefore entitled, if we choose, to use armorial distinctions. Again, if we look at the "stuff" gentry was made of in old times, we may assert for the many a claim to be in all material respects upon a ground of equality with the gentlemen of the middle ages. According to the vulgar estimate, three things are essential to the being of a gentleman — " money, wit (that is knowledge), and manners." Now if we compare the nineteenth century with the fourteenth, or even vrith the seventeenth, we shall find that large section of our commonwealth known as the middle class far richer, better educated, and of raore polished carriage and demeanour than the gentlemen of those older periods. If the claim to gentility be made to rest upon a compai'ative h&sis,, then the "gentle" must always bear about the same numerical proportion to the " ungentle," as it did in the days of the Planta genets and Tudors ; but if, on the contrary, gentility be a positive and inherent thing, and the "law of developement " appUes to this as well as to other subjects, the proportion of the truly "gentle" must become much greater as society advances in wealth, knowledge, and refinement. I hope my reader will not consider these remarks GENEALOGY CULTIVATED IN AMERICA. 227 inconsistent with those with which I set out. I wish to be understood that I esteem every person of " good conduct, guidance, and conversation" — possessed of a fafr income, whether from realized property or from actual exertions — and enjoying the advantages of fair education and general intelligence — a gentleman. But while I claim this distinction for a numerous dass to whom it is not usually conceded, far be it from me to hold in disesteem the additional advantage of descent from an ancient family. While those qualities constitute what is essential to the true gen tleman, this is an additional ornament. In the one case we have (to employ an architectural figure) the simple characteristics of the Tuscan pillar — in the other those of the elegant Corinthian or elaborate Composite. But be the capital plain and simple, or be it gorgeous and ornate, the piUar is still a pUlar, and equally calculated in either case usefully to uphold the fabric of society, and to be an essential part of every noble state and polished common wealth. That a love for genealogical knowledge may exist to a large extent where rank and title are out of the question — that it may be cherished hke any other branch of science for its own sake — is eridenced by the Americans. It is weU known that a taste for it prevails in the United States to a degree httle dreamed of by the rerilers of pedigree in England, and that not only among what is termed the " Upper Ten Thousand" or republican aristocracy, but among the leamed and intelligent of every class. Such a book as Farmer's ' Genealogical Register of the First Settlers in New England' (Boston, 1829) is a goodly and tangible proof, not only of the existence of the taste, but of the zeal and ability with which genea.- 228 A DISCOURSE OF GENEALOGY. logical researches are pursued beyond the Atlantic. Ill his preface the editor remarks : " We are aU curious to know something respecting those who have preceded us on the stage of action ; and ti ere has been a curiosity among many of the present generation to trace back their progenitors in an uninterrupted series to those who first landed on the bleak and inhospitable shores of New England. And it is not improbable that the arrival of our puritan fathers will form a more memorable epoch in history than the Conquest of England does in that eountry, and that posterity, a few centuries hence, wUl experience as much plea sure in tracing back thefr ancestry to those colonists, as some of the English feel in being able to deduce their descent from the Normans." The Americans too have succeeded in an attempt which has until quite recently faUed on our side the water, namely, the establishment of Genealogical Societies. I have before me, 'An Address to the New England Historic- Genealogical Society,' delivered last year by a vene rable correspondent. Dr. WiUiam Jenks, some extracts from which will better exemplify than any observations of my own, tlie feeling entertained on this subject by many of our Transatlantic cousins. " The feeling [the love of pedigree] is natural. I belongs to our very self-hood. It is a modification, doubtless, of self-love. But how much more Uberal than the boast of riches, or the oppression of power ! How far more purifying and ennobling ! — since he who values his descent from an ancestry distinguished for any of the virtues, inherits also vvith this affec tion, most generally, a disposition adverse to practices of a contrary character. 'Dedecorant bene natos ciUpse,' said the Roman poet, as if he had cautioned thus : ' would you maintain the respect your pre- DR. JENKS ON GENEALOGY. 229 decessors have acquired, abhor every mean and dishonourable tlung.' It becomes an axiom. " Then, again, as population advances, the relations of kindred seem graduaUy to become more and more faint. A brother is but what a cousin was in former times, when the population was sparse and its num bers few. Now whatever tends to bring men happUy together, and unite them in bonds of mutual regard, has an effect to purify and advance cirilization, and render to society an antidote to the ruder and merely selfish propensities. This does the much-abused science of Genealogy." Again — " We requfre pedigrees of horses — we inspect with great care those of cattle — to ascertain the genuine ness of their descent; and the keen-sighted, expe rienced breeders of them acquire with the farmer, the sportsman, the independent gentleman, an almost enriable fame— but, is it not to be feared [in regard to human pedigree] that in multitudes of instances, as in the old countries of Europe, the pecuniary con sideration outweighs immeasurably that which is merely physiological ? "I will pursue this subject further. The very hardships which are encountered by settlers, in such scenes as our country first exhibited to Europeans, call for energy, inforce self-denial, demand frugality and good economy, strengthen the constitution, give health and rigour to the mind, and tend to prolong life. It has been said that a voyage across the Atlantic adds ten years to a man's life. How this may be, I wiU not undertake to determine. But it is a fact that descendants of younger branches of noble families, obliged to look out for tliemselves, and therefore claiming often the footless ' martlet' as their 230 A discourse of genealogy. peculiar heraldric designation, have been found in America, among the sons of industry if not of want. Yes, when riot and debauchery, or high, luxurious living and indolence, have caused a ' noble ' family to become extinct — the offshoot, neglected and exposed, has grown to be a sightly tree. The hefr of the illus trious and ancient house of De Courcy was discovered in a hardy seaman, sailing, nearly a century ago, out of the harbour of our own Newport ; and in my ovvn time, the legitimate owner of the immense estates of the Grosvenors in a poor farmer of New York. The latter never inherited. The descendant of the former now possesses the famUy title and estates." And further : — " Many of our immigrants have, a long time since, and onward, brought badges of distinction with them, and stiU indulge the harmless vanity — am I to caU it ? — of keeping them. The badges to which I aUude are coats of arms ; which have indeed their use, and an important use when authentic, in identifying famUies and proving descents. In these, our friends of New York are advanced far before us already, and have a system, brief however, published and in circulation. And, if its representations are admitted, our Wash ington was not only of noble but royal lineage ; and an admirable representative, it must be acknowledged, of regal dignity — ' one of Nature's nobles.' " As to George Washington's descent from nobUity or royalty, I have not at hand the means of verifying the statement, though it is highly probable; as he was descended from a good famUy in the county of Northampton. Like OUver CromweU, the American patriot was fond of genealogy, and corresponded with our heralds on the subject of his own pedigree. Yes, this George Washington, the man who gave sane- ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN STANDARD. 231 tion, if not birth, to that most democratical of senti ments — that "all men are free and equal," was, as the phrase goes, a gentleman of blood, of ancient line, and of coat armour ; nor was he slow to acknowledge the fact. When the Americans, in their most righteous revolt against the tyranny of the mother country, cast about for an ensign by which to distinguish themselves from their English oppressors, what did they ultimately adopt ? Why, nothing more nor less than a gentle man's badge — a modification of the old English coat of arms borne by their leader and deliverer. A few stars and stripes had in the old chivafrous times dis tinguished his ancestors from their compeers in tourna ment and upon battle-field : more stars and additional stripes (denoting the number of States that joined in the struggle) now became the standard around which the patriots of the West so successfully rallied. It is not a little curious that this poor out-worn rag of feudalism — as many would count it — should have thus expanded into the bright and ample banner which now waves upon every sea ! It is to me a pleasing reflection that our American cousins, in spite of their great tendency to "go ahead," should now and then exhibit a strong retrospective taste also. Their novelists and poets, in common with our own, go back to olden days for subjects whereon to feast the imagination and refine the taste. The author of ' Bracebridge Hall ' is as much at home in the depicting of ancient scenes and the delineation of obsolete manners, as our own Sir Walter Scott ; and there are touches in the best of recent American poets that equal, in allusions to by-gone things, the happiest strains in Marmion. To adduce an instance from LongfeUow's ' Flowers :' 232 A DISCOURSE OF GENEALOGY. " Not alone iu Spring's armorial bearing. And in Summer's green-emblazoned field, But in arms of brave old Autumn's wearing, In the centre of his brazen shield ; " Wot alone in meadows and green alleys. On the mountain top, and by the brink Of sequestered pools in woodland vaUeys, Where the slaves of Nature stoop to drink ; " Not alone in her vast dome of glory. Not on graves of bird and beast alone, But in old cathedrals, high and hoary, On the tombs of heroes, carved in stone. " In the cottage of the rudest peasant, In ancestral homes, wbose crumbling towers, Speaking ef the Past unto the Present, TeU us of the ancient games of Flowers." One also notes with pleasure that a taste for the retrospective in the direction of genealogical research is manifesting itself in a people among whom even less than among the bustling denizens of the West it would be looked for — I mean the Society of Friends. The disparity between the emblazoned surcoat and crested helmet of old times, and the sober drab and broad brim of our own, which this allusion wUl caU up, may suggest a smile, but to the thoughtful mind it suggests something besides. It is an additional illustration of the doctrine that "extremes sometimes meet," or rather of that higher one, that human nature will assert herself under all cfrcumstances. "Naturam expelles furc&, tamen usque recurret, Et mala permmpet fortim fastidia victrix." A love of ancestry is a passion of the human breast, whether that breast be encased in uncomfort able gUded armour, or in supple broad-cloth of the soberest hue. For my own part I do not see why the sister Rachels and Rebekahs of the nineteenth cen- PLEASURES OF THE PURSUIT. 233 tury should not embroider a cushion with thefr famUy badge, vrith as good a grace as did the lady Isabels and Alionoras an armorial scarf for thefr champion knights in the fourteenth. The " coat of arms " has lost its association vrith deeds of blood, and is become a mere mark of family distinction, to which the Quaker has as good a right as the Commander- in-Chief Let me now say a few words upon the pleasures derivable from genealogical investigations. To those whose sordid temper leads them to disregard every thing not immediately conducive to the accumulation of wealth or the gratification of appetite, the search after one's ancestors among damp tombstones, musty registers, and antiquated wills, may appear the ultimatum of human folly. But he who engages in the pursuit with intelligent zeal has an intellectual pabulum of which such men little dream — a pleasure far surpassing the excitements of the chase, the gra tification of the palate, or the aggrandizement of riches. Apart from the accumulation of mere names, dates, and alhances, and the barren chronicle of births, deaths, and marriages, there is a poetry in the study of genealogy such as is to be found in no other pursuit, except, perhaps, in the investigation of external nature. Some little hint occurs in an old vrill or in a time-worn epitaph, upon which the pedi gree-hunter dwells with delight, and out of which he frames a theory which may indeed be erroneous, but which is still harmless, and productive of a pleasurable feeling hard to describe — a joy with which the un initiated stranger cannot intermeddle.* * There is perhaps scarcely a more amusing narrative in the EngUsh langijage than one which seldom falls into the hands of general readers— BeU's Huntingdon Peerage. It detaUs the parti- 234 A DISCOURSE OF GENEALOGY. It is not intended in this rambling dissertation to lay down any regular system of rules upon which genealogical investigations should be based. StUl it may interest those of my readers who have not yet paid attention to the subject, if I submit a few hints for their guidance. In the first place, I would say — ^in this, as in aU other inquiries, let Truth be your great object. Few things are easier than to " vamp up " a pedigree, and to deduce yourself from " high blood." There is little difficulty in setting forth a genealogical tree which shall conrince your ordinary associates and friends that you have all manner of noble blood in your veins — ^that all the Percys and the Howards are your kins men. This may be done — nay, is very often done without the remotest intention of trickery or fraud, by the simple and easy process of putting mere pro babUities in the place of proven truths. How often do our genealogical writers of a certain class iUustrate this remark ! A family of respectabUity happens to bear a name distinguished in the annals of our nation — a name which figures in that apocryphal document tbe RoU of Battel Abbey, in the Chronicles of the Barons' wars, in the muster-roUs of Crescy, or of the conflicts of the Roses, — and by a series of ingenious and impalpable dove-taUings they are made descen dants of all that is noble and chivalrous from the " coming in of the Conqueror " to the present day. Mere coincidences in Christian names are made to assume all the force of proved identities ; and, worse than this, surnames are twisted out of aU etymolo gical propriety, and by the omission or insertion of a oulars of a series of adventures engaged in, in making good a title to an anoient peerage on behalf of the author's client, wliich was brought to a successful issue about thirty-three years since. SUGGESTIONS FOR THE STUDY. 235 letter or two, the veriest plebeianism is engrafted upon ancient nobUity. I will not undertake the in ridious task of proring this by examples, which are scattered thickly enough over the pages of works produced for the twofold purpose of gratifying the vanity oi parvenus, and filling the purses of the flat terers. I shall say no more upon this disagreeable topic, but merely remark, that " the strength of a chain is the strength of its weakest link," and that consequently no pedigree is a sound one unless every link of descent is proved by eridence such as would satisfy any intelligent jury of impartial men. I will ingly admit that there are cases genealogical, as well as legal, where, in the very nature of things, cir cumstantial evidence must be accepted in the absence of dfrect proof. For example, if I find, in title-deed or other record, eridence that two persons of the same famUy name were possessed, in succession, of the same estate, I conclude with little hesitation that they were of the same stock, although there may be no means of ascertaining whether son succeeded to father, brother to brother, or nephew to uncle. Nor does this much matter (provided only that some mark of the dubiety be acknowledged), since the proof of a common stock is sufficient. Our baron ages will furnish abundant illustrations of my meaning. Secondly, my suggestion is — " Begin at the right end." Let no considerations of vanity lead you to jump to a conclusion that you are descended from the high-born and mighty. If you can establish this by a succession of proofs, like the steps in a geometrical proposition, well and good ; but pray remember, what has before been hinted at, the true intent of genealogy is to show who and what your real ancestors, were — not 236 A DISCOURSE OF GENEALOGY. to gratify personal vanity. Should they prove to have been men of humble position, do not therefore relinquish your investigations, or cast aside your labour as fruitless. The hunting of the hare some times proves better sport than the chase of the wUd- boar or the stag. By beginning " at the right end," I mean, let your inquiries be retrogressive — trace upwards from yourself — not downwards from some body else. The latter course wiU almost certainly do for some other person, in whom you have not the slightest interest, what you designed to do for your self, and so in the end be really a loss of labour; whereas the opposite procedure will certainly result in some gratifying fruits, and — to pursue an analogy just now mentioned — if you do not succeed in forging a long chain of precious metal, you wiU at all events have a strong and satisfactory one, though it may be of hmited length and of less gUttering material. Assuming that one knows comparatively nothing of his descent — not even perhaps the parentage of his grandfather — the best method of procedure is, first to examine with dUigence any paper, book, or other like relic that may have come down from that ancestor. A title-deed of real property, however small, frequently assists in carrying back a pedigree from some generations ; while an old Family Bible often furnishes not only the direct line of descent but collateral branches also. Next to such sources of information, inquiries of one's oldest surriving rela tive should be resorted to. By this means the inves tigator may, in ordinary cases, vrith comparatively little trouble (or rather vrith no trouble at all, for the maxim. Labor ipse voluptas, applies here), ascer tain his ancestry for at least five descents, or to the grandfather's grandfather. All such oral information MEANS OF ACQUIRING INFORMATION. 237 should, if practicable, be verified by searches in the baptismal registers of the parishes where the respec tive progenitors have resided, and in this research much collateral information respecting marriages and ancestors in female Unes is almost certain to turn up. In making inquiries of aged people, care should be taken to note down remarkable incidents and anecdotes which occur in the course of conversation. By this means the duU recital of names, dates, and residences, wUl be enlivened, and suggestions of a usefiU character for subsequent investigations wUl sometimes result. What will most strike the ob servant inqufrer is the fact that he not unfrequently finds himself connected by comparatively few links vrith remote cfrcumstances and events in a way of which he little dreamed. For example, the writer of the present pages (forty years old in this year of Grace, 1853) can show traditionary eridence of the existence of the Great Plague in London in 1665, with the inter vention of only two generations, through whom it has been handed down. His grandfather, who was born in 1735, was personaUy acquainted with an aged woman who had that dreadful disease in her early youth, and who survived it to reach an extraordinary ao^e. The writer's father is therefore able to make the somewhat startling assertion — " My father knew a person who had the plague one hundred and eighty- eight years ago ! " Several equally remarkable in stances are upon record.^ To return : it sometimes happens that your antiquated informant, through decay of memory, has lost the Christian names of some still older members of the family, and can only recoUect the place of thefr residence. A search in ' See the early volumes of ' Notes and Queries ' fer a variety of them, furnished by different contributors. 238 A DISCOURSE OF GENEALOGY. the parish registers of the place indicated wUl gene rally supply the desired information, and perhaps afford the means of adding several links to the upper end of your chain. An old tombstone or two in some neglected corner of the churchyard may also serve you with valuable subsidiary testimony. Having exhausted these sources of evidence, one should next have recourse to the registries cf wiHs preserved in every diocese, or, on failure there, to those of the archiepiscopal prerogative courts. Sir Harris Nicolas, in the Preface of his ' Testamenta Vetusta,' observes : — "Of all species of evidence, whether of the kindred or of the possessions of individuals, perhaps the most satisfactory is afforded by their wills ; and in many cases also these interesting documents ex hibit traits of character which are more valuable, because more certain, than can possibly be deduced from the actions of their lives. Suggestions of in terest, prejudice, and not unfrequently motives of revenge, may induce a vritness either to misstate facts, or to give a colouring to them, which, although it may not violate truth, is, nevertheless, far from being strictly in accordance with it. But the corporeal suffering under which a man often labours when he makes his last testament — the solemn invocation with which it commences — the associations which it can not fail to excite — and, above all, the recollection that the important document wiU not see the light until he is removed from that sphere where alone falsehood can be successful, or rice be triumphant — tend to render the statements in wiUs of unquestion able veracity." But a wUl, especiaUy one of old date, is valuable on other grounds than the sincerity of the sentiments which the testator puts upon record. Better than WILLS, PARISH REGISTERS, &C. 239 any other source of eridence, it Ulustrates habits of thought, modes of living, and the articles of furniture and of costume in use at different epochs. It also fur nishes valuable hints as to obsolete customs, venerated shrines, and the like. To the genealogist it supplies the most correct information as to the property and social status of the testator, and above all as to his collateral relations and descendants. A single will sometimes proves by its references three, four, or even five descents of a pedigree. From these two principal sources, parish registers and wUls, then, one may, with a moderate degree of genealogical zeal, succeed in ascertaining his pedigree for a considerable number of descents. Many parish registers commence with the year 1538, and in most parishes where they have been carefully preserved they wUl be found to extend back to the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, 1558. The will-registries generally are of earUer date — several going back to the fourteenth century ; but they are rarely indexed for more than a century or two, and a search in some of the courts is an almost hopeless task, by reason of the want of arrangement which prevaUs. Much additional information connected with pedi grees is contained in various public records — parti cularly the 'Inquisitiones post Mortem,' and the 'Escheat RoUs.' As these documents furnish the names of the deceased's relatives, and mention his real pro perty, they are of the utmost value and interest. An eminent legal authority. Lord Mansfield, very justly remarks, that since the disuse of this species of in quiry in the seventeenth century, it has become more difficult to establish a pedigree for a hundred years, since that time, than for five hundred years before it. Then there are the Heralds' Visitations of the various 240 A DISCOURSE OF GENEALOGY. counties preserved in the College of Arms and in tbe British Museum,^ some of which contain elaborate pedigrees, deducing the families from the earliest periods of genealogical record. There are likewise the curious rolls of arms of the reign of Ed ward I, and later, which are of great value, as showing the true original heraldric bearings of the few whose pririlege it was in those early times to make use of such distinctions. Numerous other sources of genealogical materials might be mentioned ; but should my reader desire to pursue the subject, I cannot recommend a more pleasant, or a more skil ful, guide than Mr. Grimaldi, whose Origines Genea- logica will afford all the information that can rea sonably be desired. Here these desultory observations must close. Some of them have been expressed with more warmth than I intended, and I may appear to be somewhat of a zealot in the advocacy of a study which many of the oracles of the day decry and condemn. I trust, however, that I have not invaUdated any argument by proving more than I intended, and that I have not attached to the science of Genealogy any greater amount of importance than in the mind of the dis passionate reader it may appear to deserve. ^ Sims's Index te the Pedigrees and Arms contained in the Heralds' Visitations in the British Museum, Svo, London, 1861, is a work of great value to the genealogical inquirer, and prevents the loss of much useless labour. I hear also with satisfaction, that Mr. Sims is preparing for publication a work similar to the Origines — but on a more extended scale. 241 AN ANTIQUARIAN PILGRIMAGE IN NORMANDY. Normandy ! To what numberless historical asso ciations does the mere mention of this word give rise. By what a variety of ties is that province connected with our own Fatherland ! Separated by a mere strip of Ocean's domain from the land of our natirity, it is the very first foreign shore that a great proportion of English travellers set foot upon; and upon historical grounds, particularly, it is the very first that they ought to risit ! It is a fair and pleasant land ; and, though vridely differing in many important respects from England, is one where the well-disposed tourist can always succeed in making himself at home. The interest which I had long felt in the history of the distinguished family of De Warenne, whose alliances with royalty, great territorial possessions, and remarkable deeds in Anglo-Norman history, give them a prominent place in our annals, was consider ably increased by the discovery, under rather un wonted circumstances, of the remains — enshrined in little leaden coffers, inscribed vrith their names — of WUUam, Earl of Warenne, the first settler of his race in this country, and his countess, Gundrada, a younger daughter of WUliam the Conqueror. This occurred in 1845 on the site of Lewes Prioiy, a once magnificent establishment, which had been founded at the foot of thefr baronial castle by the noble pafr themselves for thefr souls' health, and which became, 11 242 AN ANTIQUARIAN PILGRIMAGE in the course of the two or three succeeding centuries, during which they flourished in pristine splendour, the "long home" of thefr descendants. The dis covery having been to some extent associated vrith my own humble name, the feeling aUuded to, grow ing by what it fed upon, induced me during one of my brief summer risits to Normandy, to seek out the original habitat of so venerable a race. I had seen thefr grave, and was now anxious to risit thefr cradle. Accordingly, on a delightful morning towards the close of June, 1849, I found myself seated in the capacious voiture of my friend Monsieur P., who had kindly consented to become my guide and companion from la ville fidele, the town of Dieppe (so interesting for many an ancient reminiscence both EngUsh and French) to BeUencombre — a small bourg, situated about six leagues to the s.s.e. of that place — which in times anterior to the Norman Conquest had been the cunabula of the mighty race in whose fortunes I felt so great an interest. An hour's drive along the broad roads and over the unenclosed flelds of the district brought us to La ChapeUe, the residence of Monsieur de Breaute, member of the Institute, and a perfect type of the gentilhomme Franqais, by whom we were courteously received, and treated vrith a riew of his noble and comprehensive library. Here we met my friend M. I'Abbe Cochet, the leamed antiquary, who was to accompany us for the rest of the journey, and who had been on a risit of some days at the chMeau. La ChapeUe is situated in a pleasing country. The mansion is principaUy of brick, appa rently of the date of the early part of the eighteenth century, and, as usual in this part of France, is approached by a straight avenue of lofty beech-trees. IN NORMANDY. 243 Taking leave of this abode of learned leisure and polished hospitahty, we soon made our way to the town of LongueviUe, a spot intimately associated with Anglo-Norman annals, and calculated to awaken many emotions of regret in the retrospective mind of the antiquary. On entering the town one is struck by the appearance on every hand of fragments of columns, capitals, and other architectural remains, built into the houses. Should you enter a cafe you are likely enough to find it partly paved with medi eval tombstones, the spoUs of the once famous abbey of LongueviUe. At the entrance of a druggist's shop your eye will rest upon a stone incised, in characters of the fourteenth century, vrith the legend, " Here lies the Lady Isabel .... pray God for her soul." — [Cy gist demoiselle Isabelle Priez Dieu pour I'dme.] This desecration of a sepulchral monument would excite a feeling stronger than mere regret under any circumstances, but it becomes especiaUy reprehensible when one is told with apparent proba bUity that this is no other than the tombstone of Isabelle d'Eu, Countess of LonguevUle, wife of Geoffry Marcel, govemor of Pontoise, and casteUan of LongueviUe, the great benefactress of the neigh bouring abbey, within whose cloisters she was buried in the year 1339 ! " Pauvre chatelaine," observes M. Cochet, " elle croyait peut-etre qu'une vie toute de bienfaits suffisait pour lui assurer du moins la jouissance de son tombeau. Helas 1 elle ne savait pas que le temps devore jusqu'S, la pierre de la tombe : la vertu scule survit k la mort." ^ The truth is, that most of the houses of this little ' Les Bglises de I'Arrondissement de Dieppe (181.6), p. 251. To this exceUent work I am indebted for several of the historical facts noticed in this little sketch. 244 AN ANTIQUARIAN PILGRIMAGE town have been constructed out of the materials of the old Cluniac Abbey, the site, and some of the walls, of which are now occupied as a cotton-miU. Founded about the year 1084, by the famous Walter Giffard, Count of LongueviUe and Earl of Bucking ham, one of the companions in arms of the Con queror, this establishment subsisted more than seven centuries, but at length feU to destruction during the furor ofthe Revolution. The Castleof LonguevUle, to which we paid a risit, is now a picturesque ruin, and bears few traces of the period of its original found ation. It must have been partially or wholly rebuUt at a much later date. The notion so prevalent in this country, that when a castle and a religious house stand in moderate proximity to each other, a subterraneous passage once connected the two edi fices, also prevaUs vrith respect to this castle and the neighbouring abbey. The parish church contains several features of considerable interest to the eccle- siologist, among which may be reckoned a number of encaustic tUes of the sixteenth century, similar in form and design to many I have seen in England, but of a blue and sea-green colour. LongueviUe stands on the little river Scie, along whose beautiful vaUey winds the Dieppe and Rouen railway. Here accordingly we took our seats in the train for St. Victor, the nearest avaUable station for Bellencombre. The most striking object between the two points is the Church of Auffay, which, as riewed from the railway, presents a very striking and majestic aspect. St. Victor I'Abbaye has several points of interest for the English archaeologist. It belonged in what we call "Norman" times to the De Mortimers, famous alike on both sides of the English Channel, IN NORMANDY. 245 and descended from a common stock with the De Warennes. They had a castle here, built upon an artificial mound, after the fashion prevalent in Eng land for Norman keeps. On the decay of the fortress, this mound became inclosed within the circuit of the walls of the Abbey of St. Victor. The abbey itself had its origin in the relic-loving days of the eleventh century — shortly anterior to the Norman Conquest. Tormord, a priest of the country, having obtained from MarseiUes some relics of Saint Victor, enshrined them in a precious casket, and made them the grand attraction of a monastic foundation which speedily sprang into existence on the spot. The abbey expe rienced many vicissitudes during its lengthened ex istence, which was nominaUy sustained untU the Revolution. During the eighteenth century its functions were discharged by one solitary monk. Among the forty-one abbots who ruled it through a period of seven centuries and a hal^ were several who distinguished themselves in letters and monastic discipUne, particularly I'Abbe Frangois de Cfrcassis and I'Abbe Terrisse. Cfrcassis was a native of Cy prus, and a member of one of the principal famUies of that island. At the capture of Nicosia he was taken prisoner by the Turks, and conveyed on board the vessel of AU Pacha, the admfral of thefr fleet. At the battle of Lepanto he was recaptured by the Venetians, and of course immediately restored to liberty. Shel tered afterwards by Cardinal Bourbon, he completed his academical studies, and became tutor to one of the princes of the blood. In 1599 he was rewarded vrith the abbacy of Samt Victor, which he held twenty years, a period entfrely devoted to the interests of his monastery and the cultivation of sacred Uteratnre. The Abbe Terrisse, weU known to antiquaries as a 246 AN ANTIQUARIAN PILGRIMAGE commentator on the ' Antonine Itinerary ' and the ' Peutinger Tables,' on his promotion to the oversight of Saint Victor in 1739, found the establishment in a greatly neglected condition, and its buildings fast hastening to decay. These abuses he reformed ; and in order to excite the inhabitants of the district to a greater zeal for religion he established an annual procession, which was sustained by the neighbouring priests and gentry, and by sixty stout labourers. On a certain day in July the procession wended its way from the church in great pomp. First marched the serring brethren, wearing red hoods embroidered with the figure of the holy sacrament, and bearing the banners, flags, and standards of the society. Next followed the acolytes, the bearers of flowers strewing the path as they went, and the incense-bearers ba lancing their censers. Then followed two gUt lan terns preceding the soleil, or pyx, containing the host, which was suspended to a scarf wom round the neck by a priest. The canopy over the head of this per sonage was supported by gentlemen wearing scarfs of precious stuffs. In this order the procession ad vanced for the distance of about two leagues, and then returned in the same order to the abbey. This religious show seems to have been enacted for many years — vrith what results as to the advancement of religion in the neighbourhood we are not informed. We Protestants smile at such a mode of stfrring-up the lukewarm to the fervour of piety, and moralists may perhaps puzzle themselves a little to account for such a procedure on the part of a man of the intellec tual calibre of Terrisse, who enjoys the reputation of being the founder of the Academy of Rouen, and whose erudition seems to have been almost unlimited in its copiousness and variety. He died in 1785. IN NORMANDY. 247 There are at present few remains of the Abbey of St. Victor. On the outside of the church is a statue of WUliam the Conqueror, vrith his crown, sword, and sceptre. It appears to be a work of the four teenth or fifteenth century, and is accompanied by this inscription : — " ViUelmus cenquestor, Anglorum rex, Normannorum dux, Abbatiee Sancti Victoris fiindationem confirmavit Anno Salutis 1074," to which a poet of the place has added these pithy distichs : — " AngUa victorem, dominum quem Neustria sensit, Limina Victoris servat amica sui. Sit procul hinc inimica manus : vigU excubat heros ; Est Deus ipse intus : Crede, pavesce, cole! " ^ It is a tradition among the inhabitants of Saint Victor that the Conqueror caused to be erected upon their church-tower a beacon, which being lighted every night served as a guide to his army in their marches across the country. WiUiam is said to have entertained great veneration for St. Victor, who was accounted the patron of Christian warriors. The shrine which contains the relics of the Mar- sellaise saint is stUl preserved here, though I did not obtain a sight of it. It is a little wooden chest, adorned with figures of the saint and of the twelve apostles. It is stUl resorted to as an object of popular devotion, and stUl, according to the belief of the peasantry, performs great mfracles. One seems a httle unprepared for such a statement as that which follows : — " On the 21st of July, 1841," writes my friend, the Abbe Cochet, " I saw the church of St. Victor fiUed 2 Cochet's Churches, i, 238. 248 AN ANTIQUARIAN PILGRIMAGE with pilgrims. There were the sick, the infirm, the wounded — people who rather dragged themselves along than walked. Fathers brought thefr chUdren, and brothers their brothers upon their shoulders ! For here charity commences the solace of misery, and the parable of St. Christopher renews itself every day in the popular devotion. The afflicted first cast them selves at the altar beneath the stole of the priest to recite portions of the gospels ; then rising, they went to prostrate themselves before the shrine of the holy Confessor, kissed the earth beneath his feet, and passed on their knees under the altar which supported his relics, as if perchance from that sacred dust some healing rirtue might descend upon them." ^ But our pilgrimage was of a different order, and I must proceed. Accompanied by my friend P., I went into an hdtilerie in the viUage for a sUght refection. It was about mid-day, and we found the common room of the inn fuU of people, seated at several tables, discussing some (to me) unintelUgible riands. They were mostly en blouse, and appeared to be haymakers and other field-labourers who had come to take thefr noontide meal. Here we inqufred for a voiture, and after some delay procured such a one as I never had the honour of being seated in before. It may be described as an oblong platform on two wheels, and surrounded with a kind of fence or balustrade of unpainted sticks. A board thrown across this served as a seat for the three tourists, our coachman, a lad of fourteen (dressed much like an English butcher-boy), haring a special seat for himself in front. The harness was of cordage and sheepskin, and our horse had once been grey: his name, as the garqon informed us, was Jean Baptiste ! the queerest appellation in the 3 Les Eglises, i, 238. IN NORMANDY. 249 whole circle of horse-nomenclature. With Doctor Syntax for an outrider, we should have formed as pretty a sketch for a humorous pencil as could reasonably be desfred. Thus equipped, we departed from a spot once favoured with the patronage of the Conquerer, fri search of another which had been the bfrth-place of his puissant son-in-law, WUliam de Warenne ! The country between St. Victor and BeUencombre is very agreeable, and a ride of a few miles (probably four or five) brought us, in the rear of St John the Baptist, to the desiderated spot. BeUencombre is a picturesque town-village or bourg of one broad street, consisting of irregular antique houses chiefly constructed of wood in the style known in England as " post and panel" building, and flanking the humble mairie of the district — for the bourg is the chef-lieu of a canton and therefore possesses some official consequence. It is seated on the western side of the little river Varenne. This river, which rises in, and gives name to, the neighbouring com mune of OmonriUe-sur- Varenne, is now more gene raUy known as the ririere d'Arques, because it passes the castle and town of Arques on its way to join the Bethune, which debouches a few mUes north ward at the haven of Dieppe. The town itself originally bore the same name as the river, and from it the De Warennes assumed their surname. It was not untU the graceful mound upon which the castle stands had been cast up, that the spot assumed another appellation and was called BeUencombre, which may be literally translated " Bellus Cumulus" — " the fair mound or pile."* This then was the object of our * Archaeological Joumal, vol. Ui, p. 6. 11 § 250 AN ANTIQUARIAN PILGRIMAGE pilgrimage, and we lost no time in directing our steps upwards towards its summit. But alas I my anticipations of a castle were doomed to disappointment. A few massive walls of stone and brick, once a portion of the donjon or keep, constituted the whole of the existing remains of one of the chief fortresses of ancient Normandy. A few unintelligible fragments of rough masonry stood as the representative of that once redoubtable edifice, which, founded in the earliest days of feudalism, was one of the last strongholds which defended the rights of the last of the dukes of Normandy — our own John sans Terre — against the aggressions of PhUip Augustus, the French monarch. Besides the fact of its having belonged to the powerful Anglo-Norman Earls of Warenne and Surrey, it had had other claims upon the notice of the English historical antiquary. In the fifteenth century the sounds of war again reechoed amongst its majestic towers. In 1418 it was taken by our army, and a memorial of its conquest by English swords is stiU retained in the name le camp Arundel, borne by a spot near at hand. In 1449, however, the leopard Anglais yielded again to the fleur-de-lis, and the standard of the French monarchy once more waved upon its time-honoured summit. After the disruption of Normandy from England, it of course passed away from the De Warennes, and its subsequent history is associated with the names of its distinguished castellans, de la Heuze, de Moy, and Fontaine-Martel. When it ceased to exist as a gar rison is unknown, but from certain relics which I noticed on the spot it appears pretty certain that it was occupied as a private residence during the seven teenth century. Long subsequently it bore ample traces of its former strength and importance, in the IN NORMANDY. 251 existence of two large and lofty towers flanking the grand entrance of the keep. From sketches taken in 1832, it would seem that these towers must have been about fifty feet in height, with machicolations. Above the principal archway there then remained the grooves by which the drawbridge had anciently been lifted. A picturesque growth of ivy which entwined these remains added considerably to their beauty, while the beech woods on the opposite side of the Varenne — a part of the great continuous forest of Arques — formed a lovely back-ground to the picture. See what re mained of these stately towers at the time of our visit ! It wUl naturally be asked, what caused the dis appearance of such considerable architectural remains in the short interval between the year 1832 and the period referred to. — Listen ! In 1835 the ruins of this castle and the "fair mound" upon which they stood were sold by the family Godard de Belbeuf to a small proprietor — one Dillard. 252 AN ANTIQUARIAN PILGRIMAGE Now this Dillard was ( or is — for I have not heard of his death) one of those execrable pieces of existence — humanity I wUl not say — who have no feeling beyond personal aggrandisement — no reverence for anything venerable or ancient. Such a man I found the Uring territorial representative in Normandy of the mighty and high-souled De Warennes — the owner of the cradle of that chivafrous race ! He had not long paid down his purchase-money of ten thousand francs ere the 'deep silence which had settled upon these baronial walls was broken — not indeed, as of old, by the clashing of swords and the clangour of the trumpet, but by the echoes of the hammer and pickaxe of the destroyer. This car case of the old Norman chivalry offered a tempting bait for the mercenary grub who had got it into his power. Old DiUard demolished what Old Time had left, bit by bit, stone by stone, and sold it by retail ! Tiles eight hundred years old he turned into cement, whUe the mortar of waUs which might have survived as long as the neighbouring hills he counted as so much common sand. Donjon-keep and en trance-towers fell beneath his cruel strokes, and the arches of the bridge crumbled into the ditch under his withering touch. With a chuckle of heart-felt satis faction he told us that he had sold eighteen thousand feet of freestone procured from the demolition of the entrance- towers only ! The chapel within the donjon had shared the common fate. Walls built for the defence of man and for the sendee of God had been alike overturned; for every stone brought its sou to the old man's coffer, and that was sufficient to outweigh with him every consideration of respect for antiquity and every sentiment of reverence for religion. IN NORMANDY. 253 While I was mentally ejaculating three times three groans against Le Pere Dillard for his sordid spoliation, my friend the Abbe was employed in phi losophizing upon the loss which Normandy had sus tained at his hands. His thoughts, as subsequently given to the world in his elegant work on the Churches of the Arrondissement of Dieppe, ran in this vrise : " Few ruins once interested us more than those of Bellencombre. Those ramparts breached by time — those curtain walls covered with ivy — those fosses over grown with brambles — ^those trenches continued down beyond the church — that old enceinte, which stretches itself into the town which it formerly enclosed — all these carried us backward to the middle ages, and made us for a moment believe ourselves transported to the reign of WiUiam or St. Louis, and to the bosom of feudal France. What a misfortune that this phy siognomy of an old bourg ferme, hke those on the banks of the Rhine, should have disappeared from our midst 1 As it would be a curious spectacle amid the elegance and comfort of our modern cirilization to encounter a rude warrior, with his weapons, his warlike gait, his coat of maU, and his iron helmet — so one would be able to frame a philosophical specu lation upon those gloomy vaults, narrow loop-holes, deep dungeons, and long and silent subterraneous passages [which once existed here], as contrasted vrith our factories so bright and elegant, our workshops so brilliant and animated, our palaces of industry so lively, so spacious, so aerial, so transparent !"* The church of BeUencombre stands within the enfossed enclosure of the ancient fortification. Its tower was, as M. Cochet remarks, at once an auxUiary and a rival to those of the castle donjon. * Eglises, U, 396. 254 AN ANTIQUARIAN PILGRIMAGE "The banks of the Rhine constantly afford us an analogous spectacle. There, as at Bellencombre, the church-tower is a pyramid, pierced with semicircular openings, rising above the transepts, and commanding the neighbouring town in a fashion at once mysterious and austere. The church of BeUencombre has suf fered much from its vicinity to the castle. The two transepts have been destroyed. The choir and the nave, which have escaped, are of sandstone, with piercings of the eleventh century. The construction is rough and rude, as though produced by the hands of armed men " during some short interval of peace. As it must have been erected during the period of De Warenne proprietorship, I made a sketch of it from the castle mound as a slight souvenir of my visit. The interior contains nothing beyond what is seen in the generality of Norman country churches, except an incised slab, covering, as the inscription IN NORMANDY. 255 informs us, the "viscera and intestines of the noble and puissant Lord James de Moy, hereditary castellan of Bellencombre," who died in 1519. As pilgrims never leave the shrines they visit without some tangible token of thefr haring duly performed their " mission," 1 was careful to inquire of old DiUard for something of the sort, and was most unexpectedly gratified by his producing a bronze object, which proved to be nothing more nor less than an heraldric wyvern of about the thirteenth century. Now, recognizing in this misshapen work of medieval art the badge of the De Warennes, I was of course anxious to secure it, which I am happy to say I succeeded in doing, at the price of two francs. If possible, Le Pere Dillard was more gratified than myself vrith this little business transaction. He had never heard of the De Warennes. Before we left, the old man took us into his cottage, which is situated upon the apex of the " beUus cumulus," and showed us some medieval tiles, which he had taken from one of the corridors of the castle and laid down as a pavement for his kitchen. He also exhibited a slab of black marble, which he had found no great whUe before in his garden. It bore these lines : — " Mon . honneur . et . ma . vie . Sont . deux . lots . de . mon . bien . Quand . I'une . m'est . ravie . L' autre . ne . m'est . plus . rien . " The old man little dreamed of my estimate of his honour as we bade him a no very hearty bon soir ! I learn from M. Cochet, that since this modern baron of Bellencombre's cupidity has been exposed in " Les Eglises," he refuses my friend access to the few 256 AN ANTIQUARIAN PILGRIMAGE. walls which surrive to mark the ancient abode of the De Warennes. This is of little consequence, since any visit to them only awakens emotions that are far from pleasurable. It is at least some consolation that his infamy as a destroyer is put upon record in two languages ! MISCELLANEA. 3Brwf €ssaps anti ^tibersarta. 1 259 MISCELLANEA. A HE foUovring story was told me by a clerical friend some years since. The narrator was chosen by his parishioners to represent them at the board of guardians in the " union " to which the parish was attached, — the other guardians, twelve in number, being farmers, whose educational attainments may be inferred from what foUows. A document of some importance was to emanate from the board, and the chafrman — a person Uttle better qualified than his colleagues — was desired to draw it up, which he did accordingly. It was ad rem as it regarded the sense intended to be conveyed, but the grammar was of a sort that would have caused Lindley Murray a spasm. My friend, in a kind and delicate way, pointed out the errors, and suggested thefr correc tion; but one of the other guardians immediately rose, declared the paper to be perfectly grammatical, and begged the chairman to "put it to a show of hands" whether it was good English or not. This the latter immediately did, when it was decided by twelve farmers against one parson that the grammar was sound. Thus was the offence of maiming the Queen's English brought for the first time to trial by jury, the culprit himself presiding as judge I This anecdote is no unapt Ulustratlon of the falsity of the proverb Vox populi vox Dei. No doubt the honest farmers imagined they had achieved a great rictory over my friend. Twelve men against one, must, they thought, of course be right, though 260 MISCELLANEA. that one was in fact the only person who understood the merits of the case. Thus it is in matters of much greater moment : the voice of multitudes is deemed the utterance of Truth. I take it, however, that the many are usually as much in the wrong now as they were in the days of old, when the cry of " Crucify him I Crucify him I " reverberated through the HaU of Judgment, and drowned the feeble voice of the Roman govemor helplessly demanding "What is Truth?" I never heard whether the incidents embodied in the old-fashioned drama of the ' Maid and the Mag pie' had a foundation in any real occurrence; but the foUowing anecdote, for the particulars of which many liring persons can vouch, offers a curious analogous instance of a domestic haring suffered disgrace in consequence of an undeserved imputation of dis honesty. About the commencement of the present century, a maid-servant, in the employ of a tradesman's family at Lewes, who had preriously bome an un blemished character, was suspected of having stolen a favourite old sUver spoon, the property of her mis tress. It had been last seen in her hands, and there were strong circumstantial proofs of her having appro priated it to her own use. She lost her situation in consequence ; and, in spite of her protestations of innocence, was tumed abroad, characterless, upon the world. What effect the unjust suspicion had upon her subsequent conduct is not known, but she died some time afterwards without an opportunity of vin- THE RAT AND THE SPOON". 261 dicating herself from the charge. Many years later the house in which she had served was partiaUy pulled down, when the missing spoon was brought to light. Among the broken stones which had formed the foundation of the kitchen, a rat's hole was disco vered. In this cranny were found the skinny remains of a rat stUl holding in its jaws an old-fashioned silver spoon, which was at once identified as the ob ject so long ago lost and now almost forgotten. It is conjectured that some sweet or unctuous matter that it might have contained, had served as a bait for the four-legged felon, and that the rat in dragging the prize into his narrow lair had so completely cut off the means of egress that he paid the penalty of a lingering death by starvation for his dishonest deed. The shrivelled body of the thief now lies side by side vrith the stolen property beneath a glass case in the possession of one of my neighbours. One of the best epistles I ever saw was that of PoUtian to his Friend. There is not one redundant word, nor one that could be spared : " I was very sorry, and am very glad, that thou hast been sick, and that thou art whole. FareweU." One is sometimes astonished at the profound igno rance of common things which is manifested by people whose social position and means of acqufring know ledge would lead us to give them credit for a fair stock 262 MISCELLANEA. of information. It is not uncommon to meet in ordinary intercourse men who would accept in good faith a story of a war between William the Conqueror and Charlemagne, or the statement that King John signed Magna Charta in order to enable Henry the Eighth to marry Mary Queen of Scots. Poor Mr. , of W — shire, was a gentleman in at least some of the qualities which are essential to that title. He was of ancient famUy, very rich, hospitable, and of polished address, and had a fine taste in gardens, architecture, and pictures, — but of his reading and information the following anecdote will convey the best idea. He was once acting the part of cicerone in his picture gallery to a numerous party of guests. On arriring in front of a large painting representing a man in old costume conversing with a lady, " That," said he, " is a picture of the Pope and his Wife. You vrill observe that he is addressing her with great earnestness, and she is listening to him with affec tionate interest." His friends might have passed the matter by vrith a well-concealed " titter " among the ladies, and an adroit turning of the conversation on the part of the gentlemen, had not the old squire been bent upon displaying the fuU extent of his ignorance. Addressing one of the ladies, he said — " By-the-bye, Mrs. G , you have lately returned from Rome. Pray are you acquainted vrith the present pope ? " — "I have seen him at St. Peter's," was her reply, " but I cannot boast of a personal acquaintance with his holiness." " Is he," inquired the old gentleman, " a family man ? " Mrs. G. evading the spirit of the interrogatory replied, " that she reaUy could not tell — some popes had been members of good families, but she had never heard whether the reigning pontiff MR. ELDERSHAW ON MATHEMATICS. 263 was of distinguished origin or not." " Madam," pursued the questioner, " you misunderstand me. Is he a famUy man — that is to say, has he any offspring?" " Oh, no ! " responded Mrs. G. with as grave a face as she could command, "are you not aware that the Roman Catholic clergy are not allowed to marry ? " " No, indeed, madam," was the rejoinder, " I was not aware of the fact I " My friend, Mr. Simon Eldershaw, among some other strong dishkes, hated the science of mathematics. He did not go so far as to say, vrith a late distinguished head of an Oxford CoUege, that it was " a very good science for carpenters." He even admitted its ines timable value to a particular class of minds ; nor did he shut his eyes to its sublime results to mankind. But whUe he acknowledged the serrices it had rendered to astronomy, to navigation, and the various depart ments of mechanics and engineering, he denied its aUeged utiUty as dfrected merely to the expansion of the intellect, without any view to its practical appli cation to those sciences. " What can be more absurd (he would say) than the making of it so prominent a feature in the education of a large portion of our clergy? The young student who has embraced Cambridge as his Alma Mater is made to imbibe so much of what may be to him an unpalatable draught as wUl enable him to take his first degree, and he rarely perhaps cares to taste it again. This is worse than foUy, for the time has been devoted to a useless pursuit when many other studies of the highest im portance have had to be neglected. At length the 264 MISCELLANEA. young clergyman enters upon parochial duties ; but what are his qualifications^for the highest of all trusts, the gravest of all responsibilities? He should be critically acquainted with that volume which is to be his text-book in the instruction of the humble folk among whom he has come to dweU; but he can only read one fourth part of it in the original tongue ; for alas ! while he should have been studying Hebrew grammar, he has been poring over differential calculus. He is not a good theologian, for his opportunities of cultivating what is to be his main object in practical life have been few. He cannot say much upon the doc trine ofthe Trinity, for his energies have been too much devoted to trigonometry. He makes but a poor hand at a sermon on eternity, though he could teU you some thing considerable of the " infinite series." He knows his way through Euchd, but he knows little of the path by which he is to lead his flock to heaven. His angles help him but little in rubbing off the angu larities of prejudice, and his tangents have no point of junction with the unsophisticated circle of which he should be the centre. He is acquainted with the sines of geometry, but dull at discerning the signs of the times. At length some humble inhabitant of the parish, a man of plain good sense and sohd piety, who has made theology his leading study, and who can enter into the moral necessities of his neighbours — who, in short, is qualified in the very things that the young priest is deficient of — opens a meeting-house in the vUlage street, and thus empties the parish church ; whUe he who deems himself the only autho rized teacher looks helplessly on, and deplores, too late, the misspending of his time upon inappropriate objects." And, me judice, my friend was to a great extent SELF-IMPORTANCE OF MATHEMATICIANS. 265 right, although it is not so much to a mathematical education as to a grand- and general defect of the existing university system that such a failure as that indicated by Mr. Eldershaw is attributable. There are, it is confessed, many branches of education that are never designed to be applied to practical life, which are yet conceived to be very useful in the formation and culture of the mind ; as the scaffolding of a house is essential to its construction, though it is to be removed on the completion of the building. So also many leam the sword exercise without any intention of becoming soldiers. To such reasoning Mr. Eldershaw would reply, " WeU, weU ; there may be something in that ; but I am bold to say that the result is very inadequate to the labour bestowed. It is, as the sailors say, making ' three voyages for a biscuit,' — an Olympic struggle for a crown of parsley. Much is said of mathematics as to the effects produced upon the reasoning powers. Too much ! It is said by those who, having spent years in the pursuit, compensate themselves for their lost time by asserting a lofty superiority over other men — thefr betters in everything else. I have known Cambridge men (my friend would continue) ' very middling scholars,' impudent enough to question the abUity of men of real genius, sound classical scholar ship, and great Uterary taste, because forsooth they had never studied mathematics. ' Nothing like leather ' should be their motto ! There are of course many exceptions ; and a man may be truly great in mathematics as weU as in philosophy, language, music, or any other science, and at the same time exercise due liberality towards other pursuits. In fact I never knew a great mathematician who was uot also great in something else, — but, mark you ! 12 266 MISCELLANEA. (Mr. Eldershaw would add with great emphasis) not as a consequence, but merely as a concomitant." "If I do not altogether object to mathematical science as a sharpener of the wits, I should still say that its moral tendency is rather bad. Did you ever know an exclusively mathematical man who had much heart? A cool, prudent, worldly-wise, calculating man, he is sure to be ; but as to poetry, taste, gene rosity, soul, — a cipher would represent the exact quantity of each that he possesses. There's not a jolly feature about him. He wants you to estabhsh everything you say by line and rule. He is like the Scotchman, who objected to ' Paradise Lost ' because it " proved naething.' He makes everything so clear to his own apprehension that he loses the power of making others understand it. He is a bore — dry, stale, and unprofitable (said my impetuous friend), and I don't like him at aU ! " I recoUect haring met vrith two rather curious in stances of the tulit alter honores. In the thirteenth century Peter le Marshal held lands by the sendee of keeping a palfrey in the king's stable at the king's expense, — "per seqantiam custodiendi unum pale- fridum in stabulo domini regis, sumptibus ipsius domini regis," — a very pleasant way of keeping a horse ! In a church vrindow in France there were formerly figures of an ecclesiastic and a young noble, with an inscription, stating that the window was tbe gift of the tutor of a certain lord, for which however the said pupil found the money! "Hanc fenestram fieri fecit M. V. tutor Domini N. N. expensis nihilo- minus dicti PupiUi." UNEXPLAINED CAUSES. 2G7 There are many things in existence of which our philosophy does not dream, and many effects which seem to have a very obscure relation to thefr causes. Many notions once held to be superstitious are found to be real truths when that relation is by some chance discovered. Why does the natural philo sopher deny the influence of the moon upon changes of weather, while he is compeUed to acknowledge that the tides are govemed by the phases of that luminary ? The unsophisticated shepherd or waggoner is as cer tain of his weather creed as the astronomer is of the truth of his tidal doctrines, but he wants the mathe matical proof which the other possesses. He relies alone upon his own observation and experience, and is satisfied with the fact without striving after any theory. There are many other instances of relations between one thing and another which cannot be ac counted for upon the principles of a due and intel ligible sequence of cause and effect ; and your philo sopher would deem such apparent relations as mere whims of the imagination, deserring no more credit than the ancient beUef that the Goodwin Sands were caused by Tenterden steeple ; but the relation would seem to exist nevertheless. Why is it that we are often forewarned by some indescribable impression of the approach of a friend to our door, when we had no reason whatever for anticipating his anuval ? Why do our dreams so often exactly foreshadow coming occurrences ? Why again should the want of an ear for music be so frequently associated, as it is known to be, with an incapacity to spell correctly? It cannot result from a mere want of delicacy in the organs of hearing, since the orthography of all lan guages differs more or less widely from phonetic forms. Once more, why should the child who receives 268 MISCELLANEA. the baptismal appeUation of one of its parents more strongly resemble that parent, in personal and moral characteristics, than his or her brothers and sisters do ? I have never heard this phenomenon mentioned by others ; but I have established the fact to my ovra satisfaction by long observation, and the exceptions to the rule are marveUously few. It has been much the fashion for some years past — more especially since the appearance of Sharon Turner's work — -to ascribe aU the exceUences of the English character to an Anglo-Saxon source, but I have presumption enough to question the justice of this ascription. The Anglo-Saxons, it is true, be queathed to us a noble language and an exceUent code of laws, both of which however were originally shared by other nations of Teutonic blood, who have not greatly distinguished themselves in the annals of the world. It would be much more just to attribute the peculiar energy, enterprise, and power which seem to distinguish us from other nations, to the great mixture of races that has taken place in our island. The sturdiness of the Celt — the civUizing influence of the Roman — the sound ciril polity of the Saxon — the maritime enterprise of the Dane — the miUtary ardour and strength of character of the Norman, have all doubtless contributed thefr quota to the formation of the modern Englishman. Let us therefore thank the good Providence which thus successively, in the lapse of ages, recruited our strength by the infusion of foreign blood; and let us strive to ascertain, and imitate, and uphold, whatever was good and exceUent CORRUPTIONS OF LOCAL NAMES. 269 in every people whose blood cfrculates in our veins, and avoid the pecuUar rices of each. It is a popular faUacy of the age to attribute every thing old-fashioned and weU-established to the Saxons. Thus, we sometimes hear such things as parliament and trial by jury described by public speakers as "good old Saxon institutions," though neither the one nor the other existed at aU in its present form until after the incoming of the Normans. Some people also seem to think every plain old word in our language, Saxon. A certain M.P., not long since, told an audi ence that he preferred the word " schoolmaster " to "preceptor," on account of its being "good Saxon - English." Poor man ! He Uttle knew the etymology of the word he was advocating — that it was a com pound of the two old French nouns, escole and mestre, whUe these are again derivatives of the Latin " schola" and "magister." It may seem a somewhat startUng assertion, but it is nevertheless tme, of at least the south-eastern parts of England, that a majority of the names of places are so mispronounced by the peasantry as to render it a matter of difficulty for a stranger to identify the place vrith the rustic appeUation. For instance, in Surrey, Bletchingly is caUed Bfrchen-lie — Dorking, Darkin — Reigate, Raggot — Newdigate, Nudgit — Home, Hoordun — and Carshalton, Case-horton. People are now beginning to forget that the great fashionable " Brighton " is only an alias for " Brighthelmstone," the ancient name of the town. By the bye, there is an erroneous notion entertained by some guide- vmters and others, that this crasis was adopted at the instance 270 MISCELLANEA. of the Prince Regent (George the Fourth) — Bright helmstone being a word too long for his utterance ! The prince's aversion to "hard words" may have given rise to the misapprehension. When a youth he is said to have incurred the ire of one of his tutors by saying he should be obleeged to him for the explanation of some difficulty. " Can't you," sharply demanded the frascible old pedant, "open your royal jaws wide enough to say oblige ? " The truth is that the curt pronunciation "Brighton" was in use long before George the Fourth was bom : I have seen it so writ ten in a document of the time of James the Second. Sussex abounds with these corruptions in names. Selmeston is caUed Simpson — Folkington, Fowington — Alciston, Ahson — and Alfriston, Ahson-town. Ro therfield is Redderful — Mayfield, Mayavul — Lindfield, Linvul — Cuckfield, Cookful — Heathfield, Hefful — Henfield, Envul — Hartfield, Hartful, — and Wivels field, WUsful. Again, Wanningore is Warnmoore — Falmer, Farmer— Herstmonceux, Horsemowncez — Burwash, Burrish — Ticehurst, Tysus — Wadhurst, Waddus — Crowborough, Crowbor — Chalrington, Chanton — Frant, Fant — Hayward's Heath, Hewards Hawth — Werpesbum, Wapses-Boom — Pevensey, Pemsey— St. Olave's WeU, TuUey's WeUs. The numerous terminations in -ing in West Sussex are all changed by the peasantry into un. Thus, instead of Worthing, Goring, Tarring, Didhng, they say Wor- thun, Gorun, Tarrun, and Didlun. Further, Fram field is Frantful— Uckfield, Uckful— HeUfrigly, Her- rin-lie — HaUsham, Helsome — DaUiagton, DoUinton — Ashburnham, Ashbrum — Stanmer, Stammer — Roeheath, Rowho-ad — Midhurst, Meddus — Pet worth, Pettuth — Arisford, Hare's-Foot — and Chi chester, Chiddister. RUSTIC WIT. 271 I have often been struck vrith the true wit that one meets vrith among the uneducated classes. People who cannot read seem to possess as keen an apprehension of unexpected analogies or contrasts as those who have had the best means of brightening their perceptive faculties by education. I once heard a remark made by a railway excavator upon the personal appearance of a gentleman who possessed an unfortunately light red or sandy complexion, and who was on this occasion attfred in a light summer costume, consisting of a salmon-coloured cap and sUppers, with a paletot and trowsers of kindred hues. " BiU," said he, " do you see that chap over yonder ? You could reckon him up all at once .'" Riding one day through one of the wretchedly crooked roads of the weald of Surrey, I remarked to the driver of my vehicle, that the man who originally made it could not have had a very good eye for straight lines. " Why, no. Sir," replied the man, " it seems to me that he thought as how one good turn desarved another." Finding him a wag, I alluded to the old proverb that the mUes of that part of the country were very " long and narrow." " Very true, Sfr," was his prompt reply, at the very instant that our vehicle sank up to the axletrees in the mud, — " and not only that, but they goes a good ways under ground .'" The natural enmity subsisting between the wolf and the sheep, so often aUuded to by scriptural, classical, and oriental writers, has given rise to a curious vulgar error, which seems to prevaU in aU quarters of the world. Sfr John Feme teUs us, after Comelius Agrippa, that "Nature hath im- 272 MISCELLANEA. planted so inveterate an hatred atweene the wolfe and the sheepe, that being dead, yet, in the secret opera tion of Nature, appeareth there a sufficient trial of their discording natures, so that the enmity betweene them seemeth not to dye with thefr bodies : for if there be put upon a harpe, or any such like instru ment, strings made of the intralles of a wolfe, be the musitian never so cunning in his skil, yet can he not reconcile them to an unity and concord of sounds : so discording alwayes is that string of the wolfe." A rather curious parallel to this strange fancy is found in the East at the present day. A friend recently returned from India informs me that a year or two ago, his brother, a young gentleman in the Ninth Lancers, haring shot a wolf, took off its skin and stretched it upon the door of an outhouse to dry. One night, shortly afterwards, the skin disappeared, and, on inqufry, it was discovered that a Hindoo had stolen it for the purpose of converting it into the head of a tom-tom, or native drum. The generality of those instruments are covered, as is usual with us, with sheepskin parchment, and the rascal was firmly persuaded, that the sound of his drum thus prepared would have the effect of breaking the heads of all the tom-toms in the neighbourhood ! ^ Among social bores (to use a slang phrase) there are two that I especiaUy dislike. The one lifts his hands and turns up his eyes at the narration of every commonplace matter ; the other is never surprised at even the most extraordinary event. During a remark- ' This anecdote was communicated by me to a periodical pubUca tion about twelve months since. LIFE PRESERVED BY A DREAM. 273 able annular eclipse that happened some years ago, while everybody else was ftdly occupied in gazing at the unusual phaenomenon, a pert young lady's- maid, just arrived from London, expressed her dis gust for such vulgar curiosity by remarking in the genteelest accents — " Deab me ; how singulah that country people should take so much notice of an ecUpse — why vie frequently have them in town ! " Some people do not believe in dreams : many do. A septuagenarian friend of mine was once the means of saving the hfe of a feUow-creature under very extraordinary cfrcumstances. She dreamed more than once in one night that a gfrl was lying in a state of great illness and exhaustion in a certain remote wood. She told her husband her dream, and he, not being skUled like Joseph or Daniel in the gift of interpretation, adrised her, after the manner of Eli to Samuel, to go to sleep again. In the morning, the impression of the night's uneasiness was so strong that she could not be dissuaded from her purpose of sending a servant to the indicated spot. There the person seen in the unquiet invasion of her slumbers was found, in a wretched state of squalor and destitu tion. The gfrl was brought home and deposited in an outhouse in the last stage of exhaustion. By kind and careful treatment, however, she was eventually re stored to convalescence, when she told her benefac tress, that she had for more than a fortnight preriously to her discovery in the wood subsisted entfrely upon blackberries. As the poor creature gradually im proved in physical health, it was discovered that her reason was disordered, and she at last relapsed into insanity. A clue to her place of abode was however 12 § 274 MISCELLANEA. obtained, and she was sent back to the workhouse, some five-and-twenty mUes distant, from which she had so hazardously wandered. A rather singular incident, showing the remark able attachment which sometimes exists between the inferior animals and man, as weU as the mysterious sympathy which may occasionally be noticed between beings gifted vrith reason and those whose highest endowment is instinct, occurred in the last days of the husband of the person mentioned in the last anecdote. He suffered from that " slow living death," consumption, — and, when he became too unweU to leave his chamber, his favourite mare, which was depastured in a meadow near his house, neglectful of her own well-being, would stand for hours, with her head over the garden-gate, as if in expectation of the coming of her master, to resume his old accustomed rides over the farm. The sight being painful to the patient, the poor animal was removed to a distant field. Not long after this he grew worse, and became subject to delfrium. During one of his fits he ap peared to be much distressed, repeatedly pointing to some piece of wearing apparel which accidentally hung near his bed, and ejaculating, " See, my poor mare is hung up ! " No importance was attached to such a remark, made under so unhappy a deprivation of reason ; but in order to soothe the sufferer the article was removed, when he observed, " It is all right now," and became more calm. Strangely enough, at the very moment of this occurrence, a labourer on the farm, passing through the field where the mare had been placed, found her fixed between the rails of a CORRUPTION OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 275 little foot-bridge — which she had been attempting to cross in order to make her way towards the house — in such a manner that she must have died had she not been speedUy extricated 1 The master died a day or two subsequently, while the poor steed graduaUy pined away, and in a very brief space of time she also bade adieu to the light. The rationale of aU this I leave to the psychologists : I merely record the facts as I have received them from living and unimpeachable witnesses. The desfrableness of a Dictionary of the English language which should serve as a standard of what really are, and what are not, legitimate words haa long been acknowledged. What a pity that some means had not long ago been used for the determina tion of this point ! Is it not a matter of importance, almost involving our patriotism, that we should come to a speedy determination as to what is English, and what is only mere "slang?" In writing, it is so much easier to adopt current expressions, right or wrong, than to study orthodox and authorized standards, that there appears to be Uttle hope that our popular authors wiU ever reform the evU com plained of. That an " Academy" for such a purpose would be inefficient is proved by the case of France, where new words are almost daily introduced. But surely it is the imperative duty of every one who hopes that his writings may descend to posterity to attempt some limit. As optimists in Latin style reject every word that is not Ciceronian, surely Eng lish writers might easUy make a " magnus Apollo" of some standard author, whose works are sufficiently copious to embrace aU necessary expressions. Should 276 MISCELLANEA. it be repUed to this suggestion, that it involves a serrility incompatible with a bold and rigorous dic tion, and that the very task of mastering the copia verborum of a prolific writer would be the labour of a life, I would say — Then let some patriotic admfrer of " English undefiled " undertake the labour of ex purgating our existing dictionaries of all words not occurring in the best writers with sufficient frequency to establish their title as genuine constituents of our ancient and copious tongue. The mere use of a word once or twice by Shakspeare, Milton, Johnson, or any other eminent writer, ought not to entitle it to retention, uiUess it can be shown to exist in contem porary and subsequent authors also. The man who should judiciously perform this task would deserve a noble monument — and his Dictionary would be that monument. It wUl probably be further urged, that as EngUsh is a living language, it must and vriU grow. But is it not worth whUe to remember that languages, like trees, arrive sooner or later at maturity, then remain for awhile unimpafred, afterwards manifest symptoms of gradual decay, untU lastly their stock dies in the ground ? My fear is, that we have got past the first stages — those of healthy growth and maturity, and that without careful trimming and pruning, our tree wiU soon hasten onwards to utter decay. The multi tudinous new sprigs and leaves daUy budding forth among its sturdy branches wUl, on examination, prove to be not so much the true products of its own rital energy, as parasites which are drawing thefr nourish ment from it and hastening its destruction. One thing is certain : if some of the men who of old delighted in and advanced its growth, could look up from their bed of dust, they would be both astonished IMPORTATION OF UNNECESSARY WORDS. 277 and indignant at the large increase of ivy, moss, and lichen, in the shape of classical and continental words and idioms which now cluster around it, to say nothing ofthe filthy /wra^i known as "slang," which corrupt and defile its every branch. There appear to me to be three distinct causes of corruption now in active operation upon our language. The first and least objectionable of these, is the con stant formation of new and unnecessary derivatives, adverbs from adjectives, verbs from nouns, and such hke, which tends greatly to the weakening of the rigour of the old mother tongue. Secondly, the pedantic introduction of foreign words by scholars, men of science, and others. This is an old fault — at least as old as the first half of the seventeenth cen tury, as a sUght glance at many of the writers of that period wUl sufficiently prove. What we call Johnsonianism is much older than Johnson's days. It was both practised and decried (and no wonder) in the time of James the First. Old Verstegan loudly complains of it in his ' Restitution of Decayed In teUigence.' Thus he teUs us of some one who expressed himself in terms Uke these : — " As I itine rated, I obriated a rural person, and interrogating him concerning the transitation of the time and the demonstration of the passage, found him a mere simplician I " — whereas, adds our honest antiquary, had he only asked what's o'clock, and which is the way, he might of the said " simplician " have been in both matters well informed. But without any intentional pedantry,- we very often find the technical terms of science and art brought first into ordinary language, by brilliant writers in Reriews, &c., and apologized for by Italics, but afterwards retained in all good faith and Roman simpUcity by thefr imitators. 278 MISCELLANEA. What a mass of terms from astronomy, geology, che mistry, painting, and the like, have thus become what old ladies call "Dictionary words," within the last twenty years, to the great inconvenience of ordinary readers. The thfrd source of corruption is the fright ful increase of "slang" or "cant" expressions of various kinds which are constantly being added to our coUoquial language, and which slip one after another, to its great disfigurement, into the written tongue. The universities, to which we ought to look for a better example, are inexcusable for the use of many such words as "freshmen," "gyps," "to pluck," " little goes," " spoons," " rustication," and a host of other vulgar conventionahsms. Law, phy sic, art, and even divinity too, as weU as the illiterate mob, have each thefr by-words, that are becoming candidates for admission into our dictionaries, and that wiU, doubtless, at last achieve that undeserved position. These loose observations are the result of a train of thought suggested by a word, which, having sprung up (I think) within the last ten years, is now found in nearly every Reriew and Newspaper — I mean the word " reliable." ReUable eridence, reUable informa tion, and simUar phrases, abound everywhere ; but the absurdity of the expression, by whomsoever invented — to say nothing of our haring afready the nervous old word " trustworthy," and its synonym " credible " — is a sufficient reason for its immediate rejection. To rely is a verb neuter, and cannot precede an accusative without the intervention of the -preposition " on," or "upon" to make it equivalent to "trust" this preposi tion is indispensable, and therefore if the new word be anything at aU, it is not " rehable," but relionable ! DERIVATION OF " KEEP." 279 Why is the strongest part of a castle called a Keep? This question has often suggested itself to my mind when rievring old baronial fortresses. The common notion seems to be that the name originated in the fact that prisoners were kept there. The French equivalent is Donjon, whence may come our word " dungeon," and this may have suggested the etymology. I do not doubt that the baron who had a prisoner of mark would place him within the strongest walls which his feudal abode could supply. But for obrious reasons he would locate himself and his family there also. Now in our eastern, and several other prorincial, dia lects, the more usual sitting-room of a famUy is stUl caUed the " keeping-room." I think, therefore, the keep or principal part of a castle was so caUed because its lord and his domestic circle kq}t, abode, or Uved there. Shakspeare uses the word "keep" in the sense of to dweU or reside : — " And sometime where earth-delving conies keep." Venus and Adonis. And again : — " And held in idle price to haunt assembUes Where youth, and cost, and witless bravery keeps," Measure for Measure, i, 4. Among the eccentric characters of the Weald of Sussex, in the latter half of the last century, was a worthy but very ignorant man, who, influenced by the rehgious zeal consequent upon the exertions of Whitefield and Wesley, undertook the office of a teacher, and became quite popular amongst his rustic neighbours in that capacity. Several of Master S 's quaint remarks have become current tra- 280 MISCELLANEA. ditions. One of these is, that — "The apostle Paul, though a very good man, was a shocking bad gram marian. Why he calls himself ' less than the least ;' and how could that be, my friends ? It 's very bad grammar indeed I" One day Master S. explained the passage of scrip ture, "Darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people," in the foUowing way: "The airth, you know, my friends, is natteraUy black and dark, but our hearts be a vast deal darker stiU — a gross darkness kivvers them. A gross — why that's twelve dozen you'll say. Very true, my friends, so it is ; and the heart o' man is twelve dozen times darker than the afrth itself I " Our language appears to me to suffer almost as much from the introduction of new and " refined " pronunciations as from the importation of new words. Great changes in this respect have taken place vrithin the last half century. Our grandfathers did not pro nounce p-u-t as poot, but as p4t, which would now be accounted as shocking vulgarity ; neither did they call beans and peas, beens and pees, but something much more approaching the Irish — banes and jaays. I have frequently noticed that the late Mr. Daries GUbert, who was remarkable for an adherence to old modes, pronounced the word k-e-y, not as kee, but as ke. The tme orthoepy of the English language must be sought rather among ploughmen and grooms than in drawing-rooms and fashionable pulpits. Sometimes, even in words derived from the classical languages, the vulgar put the accent upon the right syUable, while the usage of educated society sanctions a mispronunciation. Now this must result from MODERN ARCHEOLOGY. 281 modern corruption. An example wUl best Ulustrate my meaning. The Londoner talks of going to the theatre, or to St. Sepulchrt^ s Church, and in both cases he is right ; for in the Latin from which they are derived the accent is placed upon the penultimate syllable — theatrum and sepulchrum. The rapidly-increasing popularity of the study of antiquities suggests considerations not undeserving of the attention of the thoughtful. "Aspice" and " Prospice " have always more or less engrossed the minds of men busied with what concerns present and prospective self-interests. They have been their watch words, and have become the topics of innumerable prudent wise saws and proverbs. But " Respice " is almost a new word in the world's vocabulary. His tory has indeed always engaged the interest of some, but the riews of the past have generaUy been much distorted by the prejudices of party, or obscured for want of such light as the careful and accurate study of antiquities is alone calculated to throw upon it. We read Assyrian history vrith new eyes since the spade and pickaxe of Layard have been at work ; and we know more of the primeval races of Europe from the explorations of modem barrow-diggers than from all written records whatsoever. A few years ago — less than twenty, certainly — the word antiquary was deemed by general society as the synonym of something very eccentric, crabbed, and " queer." The greatest genius of his time, Sfr Walter Scott, though full of love for old times and manners, could only depict one of his favourite characters who indulged this taste in such a way as to throw indfrect 282 MISCELLANEA. censure and ridicule upon it. But what a change has since come over us ! Ovring chiefly to the zeal and practical inteUigence of three or four living men, whose efforts have never been sufficiently acknow ledged, archaeology has been raised to the true dig nity of a science. A few kindred minds in various parts of the kingdom emulated the example set in the metropolis, and now counties, which formerly owned but two or three men versed in the pursuit, boast of Archseological Societies which reckon thefr numbers by hundreds, are sanctioned by mitred and coroneted brows, and occupy a place amongst the most popular institutions of the day. There is doubtless much of the caprice of fashion in this — a zeal that wiU wax cold ; but nevertheless, the results to our literature, and to the feelings of society, wiU remain, and prove eminently beneficial. In the middle ages, and even down to a much later period, every considerable eminence near our coasts was surmounted by a large pile of brushwood, which was attended by a light-armed horseman, called a Hobiler, who, in case of any sudden incursion of the enemy, set it on fire for the purpose of alarming the surrounding country. Sometimes a mischievous per son would contrive to ignite one of these beacons, and thus arouse the inhabitants of a whole district to the apprehension of an imminent danger. Several royal proclamations were issued for the suppression of this reprehensible species of practical joking. The foUow ing is a metrical version of a story told to the dis advantage of a certain southern town, whose chief officers had formerly the character of being rather illiterate and foolish : FRYING BACON A CRIME ! 283 Our Mayor once received a proclamation From the Queen's majesty, '^ which threatened those. Throughout the length of this her English nation. Who should her subjects' feeUngs discompose. By firing beacons, and exciting fear (In vain) that some invading foe was drawing near. His worship haring spelt the document, Stalk'd most majesticaUy down the street. When lo, a hissing, and a grateful scent At once his tympanum and nostrU meet From out a cottage door : he straightway cross'd The threshold. " Nay," says he, " I'm not mistaken : 'Tis so indeed ! This wretched sinner. In order to proride her worthless husband's dinner, Doth boldly break the law — hj frying bacon!" A court forthwith was caU'd, the case unfolded. And the rile criminal at length assoUed, On the condition — she being first weU scolded — That henceforth aU her pig-meat should be boiled ! The gigantic effigy on Wilmington HiU, referred to at page 178, is locally known as the " Long Man." It is a rude outline of the human figure, 240 feet long, holding in each hand a staff of the same length. It appears that the outline was originaUy incised through the turf, learing the chalk bare, but as it has not been kept scoured, Uke the famous White Horse in Berkshfre, the depression has become so slight as to be inrisible upon the spot ; and it is only when the light falls upon it, at a particular angle, that it can be seen from a distance. At Ceme Abbas, in Dorsetshire, 2 Queen Elizabeth. 284 MISCELLANEA. there is a simUar figure, 180 feet long. This, Mr. Sydenham, in his ' Baal Durotriges,' considers to be an early British monument. Both these figures occupy a slope on a chalky down, and both lie imme diately opposite to a religious house. I am incUned to consider them rather the works of medieval monks than of our Celtic ancestors, though it is difficult to guess at the motive which could have prompted them to the execution of such quaint portraitures. See a notice of this relic of other times, by the Rev. G. M. Cooper, in the ' Sussex Archaeological Collections,' vol. iv, p. 63. THE WILMINGTON GrIANT. LOKDOK : E. TUCKER. FEINTEK, PEEHT'S PLACE, OXrOKD STEEET.