“Kiss.” This reminds me that there is one instance in the same tome much more demonstrative than that – namely, “Popkiss”! But there is no difficulty in deciphering this, as it is a manifest corruption of Popkins, and that of Hopkins. The Directory teems with examples of the termination kins being turned into kiss and again into ks. Thus we have not merely Perkins, but Perkiss and Perks – not only Hodgkins, but Hotchkiss – not alone Wilkins, but Wilks; and so oh with many others.
While some surnames are hopelessly corrupted, and therefore incapable of interpretation, others are a stumbling-block because they seem so easily explainable. Such are names like “Coward,” “Craven,” and “Charley.” The “Coward,” or Cowherd, was a tender of kine; “Craven” is local; and “Charley” is the same. “Deadman” and “Dedman” are, like “Debnam,” but corruptions of “Debenham,” and therefore local also. “Tiddyman” looks as if its first bearer had been tidy in his habits; but it was once a Christian name, and therefore is a patronymic. “Massinger” has been not uncommonly explained as Mass-singer. Of course it is the early form of “Messenger.” “Diamond” is a form of “Dumont,” and “Doggrell” of “Duckerell” – that is, little duck, a manifest nickname. “Eatwell” and “Early” are also both of local origin. “Portwine” is first found as “Poitevin,” the old name for an inhabitant of Poictiers; and “Coleman,” though apparently connected with the black diamond, is an early baptismal name. There is a peculiar tendency to skip the natural solution, and go to the Continent, especially Normandy, for the origin. Thus “Twopenny,” a palpable relic of the twopenny piece, and twopenny ale, is represented as hailing from Tupigny in Flanders. “Death” is said to be from D’Aeth in the same; “Bridges” from Bruges; and “Morley” from Morlaix, where lived St. Bernard – regardless of the fact that there are a dozen hamlets styled “Morley” in England; indeed, wherever there is a moorland reach there is a village or farm styled “Morley.”
A lady wrote to me the other day to inform me that I had made a mistake in ascribing the name “Mason” to the craftsman of that name, for she was sure she was sprung from Mnason in the Acts of the Apostles, and that the family had worked its way through Phrygia, and Italy, and Germany, into England. If she can prove her pedigree, she may boast a genealogy which the proudest monarch in Europe might envy. The fact is, it is as true of a hundred reputed foreign names as of the rhyme of the three Devonshire families, which asserts that
“‘Croker,’ ‘Crewys,’ and ‘Coplestone,’
When the Conqueror came were at home.”
What a pleasant book to look upon would our Directory be if we had all had the selection of our own surnames! There would have been no “Pennyfathers.” This was an old English nickname for a miser. An old couplet says, —
“The liberall doth spend his pelfe,
The pennyfather wastes himself.”
That such a disposition need not be hereditary is proved in the case of one of the most generous, earnest Christian ministers who ever worked for Christ in London. Mr. Pennefather is dead; but who would think of connecting him with the characteristic his name implies? Again, there would have been no “Piggs,” no “Rakestraws” (an old nickname for a dust-heap searcher), no “Milksops,” no “Buggs,” no “Rascals.” But the fact is, the man who had most interest in the matter had least to do with it. All he could do was to accept his sobriquet, if not with thanks, with such grace as he could muster. If his children could shuffle it off, so much the better. Our Directory proves that this was not always possible. ’Tis true, we have got rid of “Alan Swet-in-bedde’s” nominal descendants, not to mention such cognomens as “Cheese-and-bread,” “Scutel-mouth” (what a great eater he must have been!) “Red-herring,” “Drink-dregs,” “Cat’s-nose,” “Pigg’s-flesh,” “Spickfat” (i. e. bacon-fat), “Burgulion” (a braggart), and “Rattlebag.” But many of these names made a hard fight for it, and contrived to hold out till the seventeenth, or even eighteenth, century. “Piggs-flesh,” I say, is gone; but “Hog’s-flesh” has been a name familiar to Brighton and its neighbourhood for six hundred years, and still lives. Charles Lamb’s little comedy, called “Mr. H. – ” (i. e., Hog’s-flesh), had for its hero’s sobriquet no fanciful title. No doubt Mr. Lamb had seen the name in a Sussex Directory. The story is a relation of Mr. H.’s troubles in polite society through the attempt to hide his name under the mere initial. When it is discovered, everybody deserts him. As he quits his hotel, his landlord says: —
“Hope your honour does not intend to quit the ‘Blue Boar.’ Sorry anything has happened.”
Mr. H. (to himself): “He has heard it all.”
Land.: “Your honour has had some mortification, to be sure, as a man may say. You have brought your pigs to a fine market.”
Mr. H.: “Pigs!”
Land.: “What then? Take old Pry’s advice, and never mind it. Don’t scorch your crackling for ’em, sir.”
Mr. H.: “Scorch my crackling! A queer phrase; but I suppose he don’t mean to affront me.”
Land.: “What is done can’t be undone; you can’t make a silken purse out of a sow’s ear.”
Mr. H.: “As you say, landlord, thinking of a thing does but augment it.”
Land.: “Does but hogment it, indeed, sir.”
Mr. H.: “Hogment it! I said augment it.”
Land.: “Ah, sir, ’tis not everybody has such gift of fine phrases as your honour, that can lard his discourse.”
Mr. H.: “Lard!”
Land.: “Suppose they do smoke you – ”
Mr. H.: “Smoke me!”
Land.: “Anon, anon.”
Mr. H.: “Oh, I wish I were anonymous!”
It is curious to notice that many objectionable names still exist, simply because the words themselves have become obsolete, and the meaning forgotten. We will leave them in their obscurity.
CHAPTER III.
IMMIGRATION AND EMIGRATION
I said in my last chapter that nearly half of the names in the London Directory are of local origin, and I proved my statement by an appeal to certain figures. We have not all the brand of Cain on our brow, but certainly man has ever been “a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth.” History, sacred and profane, teems with the records of the flights of nations from one land to another. From the days of the Israelites’ escape from Egypt to the flight of the Huguenots from France, there have been emigrations which have been the direct results of persecution. From the year that saw Babel erected and the language confounded, the races of mankind have struck out a path for themselves in one direction or another of the earth’s vast continent. The curious feature is this, – It is to the dictionary we must go to discover whence each several horde set forth. The language of every nation clearly tells where lies the cradle of its birth.
But emigration and immigration lie not alone with nationalities. The world has not always been a vagabond en masse. From the day that Jacob started for the East to find his uncle, from the morn that saw Ruth clinging to Naomi, while she said, “Whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge,” there has ever been going on a wondrous silent efflux or influx
