442 Notes of the Month. 



witnesses, in a court studded with the Corinthian pillars of the land, gave tes- 

 timony against Lord De Roos, though even from his childhood he never had 

 a name but Higgins ; and, for any thing he knew to the contrary, might have 

 actually been christened Higgins ! Higgins yes ; pronounced simply as it 

 is spelt Higgins. But for that name Young D'Israeli would never have 

 thought himself a wit for what else could Young Dukes sneer at but animals 

 called Higgins ? Mr. Colburn has published novels before now in three vo- 

 lumes 8vo., the only incident of which consisted in the fact that some such 

 person as Mrs. Colonel Frederick Wentworth Effingham Fitzwilliam sneezed 

 with laughter, because she saw in the Court Journal that Sir Henry Halford 

 attended a Mrs. Higgins. We have heard of people in Mayfair believing that 

 some people east of Charing Cross never die, simply because they are called 

 Higgins. Higgins and hypochondria are manifestly incompatible. It was 

 said that, when the King appointed Huggins royal marine painter, a general* 

 gloom pervaded the court ; and hence, as the story goes, the cloudy condition 

 of the gentleman's pictures. But what could be expected from Huggins ? 

 There is something murky in the very word itself. Higgins, on the contrary, 

 is so curt, interesting, and, oh la ! so funny. It is the principal stock in trade 

 of Hook and the fashionable satirists of the lower orders ; or rather, we should 

 say it has been, for it certainly won't do for the future to ridicule names that 

 have appeared in juxta-position with the very adroit gentry who belie the fal- 

 lacy of the schoolmen's axiom, ex nihilo nihilfit Captain Alexander to wit, 

 who possesses the pleasing faculty and benevolent propensity of making some 

 thousands per annum in jest. 



English generosity has been famed in all ages, whether manifested by indi- 

 viduals, associations, or the country at large. Look at the York Column, to 

 go no farther (than Pall Mall), emblematic of a nation's admiration for the 

 man who eclipsed the glories of Cressy andAgincourt at Dunkirk; and paid 

 his creditors to the last farthing in promises. There's a whole menagerie of 

 griffins and torn-tits capering in marble all over the kingdom, to the honour 

 of people whose only claims to such distinction are based on their having in- 

 vented new modes of taking pepper with one's soup, or adjusting a cravat. What 

 then should await Messrs. Gumming and Higgins who have ennobled not sim- 

 their namesakes of the present day great though that achievement be 

 u~t the countless Cummings' and Higgins' of all time. Well, we shall look 

 to the Gazette to see how their glorious example has been pursued. Hitherto 

 people could not afford to become insolvent from the circumstance of their 

 names being Gumming or Higgins. Let the tribe of Levi and the living body- 

 snatchers rejoice ; the disclosures in the Court of King's Bench have "re- 

 formed that indifferently." 



Yet after all it may be questioned if we are not in some measure Neroising, 

 while Rome burns. What is the jubilation of Gumming and Higgins, when 

 contrasted with the despondency of Smith immutable, eternal, universal 

 Smith ? Can it be that Graham's is the only body in the world without its 

 Smith, Smyth, or Smythe ? Lord de Roos has obtained the sympathy of 

 many, because it is said that he has been made the victim of a conspiracy. 

 But why did not his opponents deprive him of the pretext, by compelling him 

 to bring his action against Smith ? All England and the Isle of Man 

 would have proclaimed the justice of Smith's cause. De Roos v. Smith ! The 

 realization of all Mr. Owen's Utopian dreams would not have diffused half 

 the rapture through the empire, as those two names figuring for two mortal 

 days in the newspapers. Such a chance never did, it may be doubted if such 

 ever can occur, for the glorification of Smithised Britain. People have called 

 themselves Aristides Smith but no one thought it a just appellation : and 

 Cato Smith but every one turned Censor of the folly. Howard de Howard 

 Smith has been tried without the experimentalist obtaining the credit of phi- 

 lanthropy for his motives ; and any one dubbing himself Percy (Piercie) Smith, 

 would hardly be considered a very Chivalric, or even a very Sharp fellow. 



