170 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[Sept. 1. 1855. 



family documents supposed to be so written. 

 From the same cause we find many editors of 

 ancient English poetry giving us such forms as 

 Ffor, Ffrom, &c., all of which, I contend, are 

 erroneous ; for the supposed double letter is only, 

 in reality, a single capital F, formed of two strokes 

 (as was usual), and which identical F is used in 

 engrossing deeds in every solicitor's office. Any 

 person who will take the trouble to examine mi- 

 nutely the use of this pretended double f, as 

 compared with other capital letters, will perceive 

 the fallacy ; and this may be rendered clearer by 

 consulting a manuscript in which English, French, 

 and Latin poems or prose tracts are written by 

 the same pen. Although the English capital F 

 may be (and has often been) erroneously copied 

 as Ff by an editor, he would hardly venture to 

 regard the same F as a double letter in the French 

 and Latin portions of the same manuscript. In 

 conclusion it may be remarked, that in Old English, 

 as in German, there was a great tendency to em- 

 ploy capital letters where we now use small 

 letters, as in the case of nouns, adverbs (com- 

 pounded of a noun and preposition), &c. In 

 many instances, also, an ignorant scribe employed 

 a capital unnecessarily, and which in copying 

 need not be imitated. fj-fi. 



These surnames and some others are now-a-days 

 often written and printed as if the initial letter 

 were originally a double f : whereas the modern 

 character is but a corrupted form of the single 

 Old English capital letter ff, as in the word ffoUow, 

 &c. Perhaps the capital letter is in its origin 

 simply a duplication, for the sake of distinction, 

 of the small letter f. There may be a little af- 

 fectation in writing double f instead of single F. 

 I have seen the name " Foster " written in the 

 following way — " Ffoster." This is a step farther 

 in affectation. I may as well follow the fashion ; 

 so, instead of W., I will on this occasion adopt 



uu. OR vv. 



reform their spelling when their neighbours did.^ 

 One perhaps despised new fashions, another might 

 choose to spell his name as his fforeffathers did.. 

 A third might obtain property bequeathed to him 

 by such a name and might not think it wise to 

 alter it. A fourth might wish to keep himself 

 distinct from another family of like name who had 

 adopted modern spelling. Whatever was the 

 reason, no man can be blamed for spelling his 

 name as his family always have done, though of 

 course when modern spelling has once been 

 adopted by a family, to return to the old would 

 be affectation. One of the Ffraternity. 



In the old law hands, the capital F was always 

 represented by two small f 's ; and this custom 

 prevailed amongst engrossing clerks and writers in 

 attorneys' offices to within the last forty years, 

 and in some instances even later. Hence those 

 unacquainted with law hands, seeing their names 

 spelt in a deed (perhaps not fifty years old) with 

 what they supposed to be a double f, have, under 

 the idea that this double f was something unusual, 

 and that their name was thereby raised above the 

 common herd of other names beginning with F, 

 assumed the two small letters, instead of the 

 capital F, by way of initial, and thus arose this 

 harmless absurdity. 



How ridiculous it would seem to spell " ffrance " 

 with two small f 's ; and yet there is exactly the 

 same authority for this mode of spelling the name 

 of that empire, as there is for "ffarrington" and 

 " ffoUiott." M. D. W. 



The duplicated/ at the commencement of these 



names has its origin in the form of the capital F 



in MSS. of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 



j ff, which is usually retained in the Old English 



! type, and may readily be mistaken for the double 



' /. It bears no analogy to the LI of the Spanish, 



nor to that of the Polish, nor, to come nearer home, 



of the Welsh. Arteeus. 



jj. cc. rr.'s question would have been more in- 

 teresting and more difficult to answer had he 

 inquired why our ancestors habitually used two 

 small f's as a capital, and never two j's, or c's, or 

 r's, or other letters as such. Down even to the 

 Stuart times, not only proper names, but ffishe, 

 filesh, ffowle, ffriends, and ffoes, &c. were treated 

 in the same manner. Some families retain the ff 

 on the same " principle " as leads certain Brownes 

 and Greenes to retain the final e, as induces the 

 Myddletons, and Lytteltons, to rejoice in a y 

 and a transposed el; and leads certain Woodds 

 and Scotts to indulge in a d or a t too many, and 

 certain Mathewsons and Jacsons in a t or a k too 

 few. It would be useless now to inquire why the 

 then representatives of these families did not 

 No. 305.] 



CAPTAIN THOMAS STUKELY. 



(Vol. Xii., p. 127.) 



Thomas Stukely is quite a different person 

 from Sir Lewis Stucley, described as the " Sir 

 Judas" who lured Raleigh to ruin. I should 

 doubt their being brothers, as the Editor of 

 "N.&Q." suggests*; inasmuch as Thomas Stukely, 



[* Our authority for the statement is Wood, who in his 

 AtheMtc, vol. ii. coi 206. (Bliss), says, "Of the same family 

 of this Lewis Stucley was Thos. Stucley, a younger bro- 

 ther living near Ilfercombe in Devonshire, who afterwards 

 went with Sebastian, King of Portugal, and two Morish 

 kings into Africa, where, in the battle of Alcazar, he lost 

 his life about 1578." — Ed.] 



