a26 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 127. 



" En Ynde si naist uns grans mons 

 Qui est une grans regions 

 Con apiele Mont Capien. 

 ' llluec a unes gens sans bien, 

 Qu' Alixandres dedens enclost, 

 Et sont la gent Got et Magot." ' 

 Extrait de Vintage du Monde, par Le Roux 

 de Lincy, Livre des Legendes, p. 208. 



It does not appear to me that to be at Dalcarnon 

 is equivalent to being sent to Coventry, or to 

 Jericho, as your correspondent A. N. supposes ; 

 or that the word Jlemyng, in this passage, means 

 banishing, but rather defeating, daunting, dismay- 

 ing, in which sense it occurs more than once in 

 Layamon ; thus, vol. ii. p. 410. : — 



" Thine feondflcBmen 

 & driven hem of londen." 



The general sense of the word is, however, to 

 expel, to drive out, and not to enclose, as Alexander 

 is said to have done the Gog and Magog people, 

 by his iron, or rather bituminous, wall. Now 

 those who were at Dulcarnon, or in a Dilemma, 

 might well be said to be defeated or dismayed. 



Let us hope that some oriental scholar among 

 your correspondents may be able to indicate where 

 the word is to be found in some Arabian expositor 

 of logic or dialectic, &c., and thus set the question 

 entirely at rest. 



Are we never to have an edition of Chaucer 

 worthy of him, and creditable to us? Had our 

 northern neighbours possessed such a treasure, 

 every MS. in existence would have been examined 

 and collated, and the text settled. His language 

 would have been thoroughly investigated and ex- 

 plained*, and every possible source of elucidation 

 made available. May we not hope that the able 

 editor of Layamon and Wickliffe will yet add to 

 the obligation every lover of our early literature 

 owes to him, an edition of our first great poet, 

 such as his previous labours have shown that he is 

 so well qualified to give ? S. W. Singek. 



BNGIilSH SURNAMES. 

 (Vol. v., p. 290.) 



^' I have, as most of the readers of " N. & Q." are 

 aware, for a considerable time past turned my 

 attention to the subject of English Surnames, and 

 the sale of three editions of my work under that 

 title shows that such a book was a desideratum. 

 Chapters on the origin of surnames exist in Cam- 

 den's Remaines, Verstegan's RestitutioTU and else- 

 where, and there are detached notices in the 



* This is evident from the interest the Germans 

 havej manifested, e. g. the younger Gescnius, in his 

 able essay, De Lingua Chauceri Commentationem Gram- 

 maticam ; and Edward Fiedler's Translation of the 

 Canterbury Tales. 



Gentleman's Magazine and other periodicals ; but 

 my work is the first, and as yet the only indepen- 

 dent treatise on the subject. Any one who will be 

 at the trouble to compare my first and third edi- 

 tions will at once see how this inquiry has grown 

 under my hands ; but although I have collected 

 and classified 6000 names, much still remains to 

 be accomplished. Under this conviction, I am 

 now engaged in the compilation of a Dictionary of 

 English Family Names, which I hope to complete 

 within the present year. My plan will include : 



I. The name. 



II. The class to which it belongs. The classes 

 will be about twenty in number. 



III. The etymology of each name when neces- 

 sary. 



IV. Definitions and remarks. 



V. Illustrative quotations from old English 

 authors. 



VI. The century in which the name first occurs. 

 VH. The corruptions and most remarkable 



variations which the name has undergone. 



VIII. Proverbs associated with family names, 

 e.g.: — 



" All the Tracijs 



Have the wind in their faces," 



in allusion to the judgment of heaven which is 

 said to have befallen the posterity of \Vm. de Traci, 

 one of the assassins of Thos. a Becket. 



IX. Anecdotes and traditions. 



My object in making this statement, is to solicit 

 from the numerous and learned correspondents of 

 " N. & Q." contributions of surnames and sug- 

 gestions in furtherance of my undertaking ; and 

 from the Editor, permission to querjr from time to 

 time upon the origin, date, and history of such 

 surnames as I am unable satisfactorily to elucidate 

 without assistance. A field so large requires the 

 co-operation of many labourers. I have already 

 secured the friendly aid of some of the most com- 

 petent antiquaries in England ; and I confidently 

 anticipate for the forthcoming collection a degree 

 of success proportioned to the amount of labour 

 and research bestowed upon It. 



Of local surnames few will be Introduced ; for, 

 as nearly every landed property has given a name 

 to the family of its early proprietor, it would be 

 impossible to include all the names so derived. 

 Only the more remarkable ones of this class, which 

 would appear at first sight to come from a totally 

 different source, will be admitted. Blennerhasset, 

 Polkinghom, Woodhead, Wisdom, Bodycoat, and 

 Crawl, for example, are names of places, and sur- 

 names have been derived from them, although few 

 except the persons resident in the particular 

 localities are aware that any such places exist. 

 Most of the names that baffle all historical and 

 etymological acumen are probably of this class. 



I wish it to be understood that my dictionary 



