Bentley's Miscellany, Volume II

Two Tory Woods, a Forester,
With Hastie, Vigor, Hughes![48 - Hews.]

A Cave, a Loch, a Hill, a Fort,
A Divett, and a Trench;
A Fleming and a Bruges, Guest,
With Holland, Folkes and Ffrench.

A Hob-house, Wode-house, Powers-court,
Two Est-courts and a Hall;
The Hutt, alas! they've undermined,
And left a Black-stone, Wall!

A Marshall-Law, with Power, C. Vere,[49 - Severe.]
And Foley and Strange-ways;
Three Palmers on a pilgrimage,
A Gally in a Hayes![50 - Haze.]

Tho' North and West are both displaced,
An East-hope has been gained;
While East-nor, East and West-enra,
Their stations have maintain'd!

Camp-bells we have, and Durham Bowes,[51 - Beaux.]
With one Northumbrian Bell;
From Stirlingshire they've sent For-bes,[52 - For Bess.]
To Lisburn for Mey-nell![53 - My Nell.]

Tho' Beau-clerk and Beau-mont are gone,
We've Fellowes, Hale and Young,
In Style to carry on the Ball,
And dash and Strutt a Long.

A Horsman with Fre-mantle trots
Two Miles to Wynn a Pryse;
Two Walkers, Pryme, the distance run,
More confident than Wyse.

A Chapman with his Packe and Price,
A Potter with his Clay;
A Fresh-field, Baring, Pease, and Rice,
A thriving Field-en Hay.

A Carter, Coopers, Turners, Smiths,
A Collier with his Coles;
A Master-Cartwright with his Maule,
A Bolling-Green and Bowles.

A Black-burn, Blew-itt, and Brown-rigge,
And Black-ett, White, and Grey;
With double Scarlett, Orange-Peel,
And Brown and Green-away.

There's Crawford, Wood, and Pattison,
And Barings passing Rich;
With Money-penny and a Grote,
And Grimston and Grimsditch.

There's Rum-bold, Tancred, and Phill-potts,
A Butler from Kilkenny;
A Heath-coat, Thorn-hill, and Broad-wood,
With Mild-may and Ma-hony.

A Bodkin, Sharpe, Kent Hodges, Blunt,
A Miller and a Baker;
With sinners, saints, and Methodists,
Socinians, and a Quaker!

Staunch Papists, Presbyterians,
And Churchmen great and small;
With Mathew, Mark, and Luke, and John,
Old Adam and St. Paul!

    G.W.

NOBILITY IN DISGUISE

BY DUDLEY COSTELLO

"They name ye before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me. – "

    Byron.
One of the evils of an increasing population is the difficulty of finding names for all the new-comers. As long as the census remained proportionate to the superficies of the country, and every man could entrench himself within the walls of his own domicile, or isolate himself between his own hedges, the principle of individuality continued unassailed; but when, from a thousand causes, the population became doubled, almost within our recollection, and men were forced to herd together, gregarious by compulsion, we felt that a blow had been struck at personal identity which it would require the utmost ingenuity to parry.

Amongst the many responsibilities entailed upon parents, not the least, in these prolific times, is that of providing their offspring with names which shall carry them safely through the wear and tear of after-life without encroaching upon the privileges, or sharing in the disgraces, of others. The man, for instance, who happens to bear the not-impossible name of Smith, and who chooses to christen his son by the not-uncommon one of John, commits an error as fatal as can well be imagined. At school that son is buffeted by mistake, and birched by accident, for the broken windows and invaded orchards: the acts of another John Smith. As he advances towards man's estate, his good reputation is stolen, and a bad one substituted, by the graceless conduct of a namesake. He is dunned for debts he never contracted, rendered liable for hearts he never broke, and imprisoned for assaults he never committed. He is superseded in the affections of his mistress by another John Smith, disinherited on his account, and when he dies – for even Smiths must die – no tear is shed to his memory, no record commemorates his decease; like the pebble which is cast into the ocean, a little circle just marks the spot for a moment, and the waves of oblivion roll over it for ever!

The same melancholy fate haply attends the possessors of the names of Green, Brown, Jones, Robinson, Thompson, and others no less familiar. The destiny of one becomes involved in the general lot of all; the multitude can no more distinguish between them than they can separate one sheep from a flock, or one bee from a swarm. The hand of fate is on the unhappy crowd, – "they are the victims of its iron rule;" and victimised to a certainty they would have remained, had not a boldly-conceiving individual invented a mode of particularising that which was general, severing the with which bound them in one universal faggot. It was effected in this wise. He considered the name he bore – one of those already alluded to – as being only the type of man; and, spurning at the imbecility or indifference of a godfather, who had thus neutralised his existence at the very outset, he resolved to intercalate certain high-sounding appellations, which of themselves would attract sufficient attention, but, when combined with his own futile denomination, would be sure to strike, from the absurdity of the contrast, or singularity of the juxta-position. Thomas Brown was a name as insignificant as parents or sponsors could make it; but when, in the course of time, it swelled itself into Thomas Claudius Fitzwilliam Carnaby Browne, it was impossible to pass it unregarded. The feat once accomplished, like the broken egg of Columbus, it became of easy performance; and few were the Thompsons, few the Simpsons, and fewer still the Johnsons, who did not claim "the benefit of the act."

A prospective advantage was included also in their calculations. As time wore away, the obnoxious Thomas or John was silently dropped; and then, by a daring coup-de-maître, the plebeian sur-name, which had been gradually contracting its powers, was altogether sunk, and the grub became a butterfly of most aristocratic pretensions. This is no vain theory founded on chance occurrences, but a truth which every one will recognise who runs over the list of his acquaintance, or examines the visiting-cards on his mantel-piece. It is as impossible now-a-days to meet with a man content to bear the opprobrium of a single monosyllabic name, as to raise money without security, or induce any one to avoid politics in conversation. The ancient prejudice against the "homo trium literarum" is now wholly removed; and we verily believe that Cavendish Mortimer Pierrepoint, an acknowledged scion of the swell-mob, would find more favour in the eyes of society than plain Benjamin Bunks, a well-known respectable hosier or linendraper, if a question of right were at issue between them.

There are two classes of persons who build up to themselves an altar of vain-glory founded on names of self-assumption. The first are those who, being cast originally in the basest metal, add the pinchbeck of quality to enhance the value of the original plebeian pewter; the second, of "dull and meagre lead," who thereunto conjoin the glare of brass or gloom of iron by the adoption of double names of equal dissonance. Examples are rife everywhere. Mr. and Mrs. Vokins, while their fortune was yet to make, were happy and content "as such;" but, the carriage once set up, the arms found, and the visiting-cards printed, her friends are awake to the pleasing consciousness that "Mrs. Ferdinand Vokins" is "at home" every alternate Wednesday during the season.

Mr. Mudge was a plain, simple Glo'stershire squire, shooting partridges on the paternal acres, and called "Young Mr. Mudge," as manhood and whiskers expanded on his native soil. He comes to town, sees the world, and discovers, for the first time, despite the importance which inflates him, that he is nameless. He accordingly borrows from the French, and is straightway transformed into "the interesting Mr. Montmorency Mudge, who plays so divinely on the flute," though his very existence had been a question but a few brief hours before.

The Badgers, though proud of course of their name as a family name, have daughters to marry, and sons to provide for: it is of no use to be good unless one appears so; and therefore Mrs. Howard Badger's suppers are the best in town, while Mr. Howard Badger is received with smiles at the Treasury.

Plain Boss would have succeeded nowhere, except, perhaps, on a street-door; but Felix Orlando Boss may enter the gayest drawing-room in Christendom, announced by files of intonating footmen.