I 



37 



names of this class continued in the family for several generations. 

 Thus the trade of weaving has been carried on by a family named 

 Webb as far back as the traditions of the family extend, probably ever 

 since the assumption of the name as a surname. Webb, derived from 

 weben to weave, it may be remarked, is connected with a numerous 

 family of words, such as " web," " woof," and according to Trench (Study 

 of Words, p. 43), "wife." The name Colman also has been borne for 

 centuries by charcoal burners. This often gives rise to a singular 

 appropriateness of name, which however as often arises from mere 

 chance, as in the case of Demosthenes (=people's strength), and as 

 Herapath happens to be a good name for a railway journalist, inasmuch 

 as it means the " king's highway." 



Many of the parties possessing names of the class derived from 

 trades and professions are ashamed of their origin, and attempt to dis- 

 guise it by some novel mode of spelUng, or by tacking a French ending 

 to them. Thus, some Smiths will write their names Smythe, Gardener 

 becomes Gardiner, Fielding Feilden, and Taylor Tayleure. One of 

 these Tayleures, as the story goes, once upon a time demanded of a 

 farmer the name of his dog, to which the honest son of the soil replied, 

 " Why sir, his real name is Jowler, but as he is a consequential kind of 

 a puppy, we calls him Jovleure." More generally known is the reply 

 of Fielding the novelist, to Feilden, Earl of Denbigh, with whose 

 family his own was closely connected. On the latter enquiring how it 

 happened that they spelt their names differently : "I cannot tell my 

 lord," the wit is reported to have said, " unless it were that my branch 

 of the family was the first to become acquainted with the difficult art 

 of spelling." 



Swift tells us of a citizen who added or altered a letter in his name 

 for every plum that he acquired, his surname undergoing the following 

 transformations : — Furnace, Furnice, Furnise, Furnisse, Furnese ; so 

 that, as the wit remarks, a change of letter by the graver would make 

 him akin, in name at least, to an Italian princely family, the Farnese. 



We now come to the third great class of surnames — local names. All 

 quarters of the world are laid under contribution for their names. We 

 have North, South, East and West. A large number of these names, 

 such as Warren, Percy, Devereux, Baskerville, &c. come from Nor- 

 mandy. So numerous are these Norman names, that Camden justly 

 remarks, thei'c is hardly a village in Normandy but what has given 

 denomination to some family in England : some again come from 

 other parts of l^'rancc ; some from the Netherlands. Of these again. 

 some ai-e crusading names, as Mortimer (dc Mortuo Mari), Dacre 



