JACK MUSTERS. 



It would, no doubt, have been more decorous to have 

 given the subject of my present sketch his full title of 

 John Chaworth Musters, but it is as Jack Musters that 

 he is best known to fame, and that fact alone is significant 

 of his popularity. 



In a quaint poem, entitled ' The Hierarchie of Angels,' 

 Thomas Heywood, the Elizabethan dramatist, thus notes 

 the significance attaching to abbreviated Christian names. 



' Mellifluous Shakespeare, whose enchanting quill 

 Commanded mirth or passion, was but Will : 

 And famous Jonson, though his learned pen 

 Be dipt in Castaly, is still but Ben. 



Nor speak I thus that any here exprest 



Should think themselves less worthy than the rest, 



Whose names have their full syllable and sound : 



I, for my part, 

 (Think others what they please), accept that heart 

 Which courts my love in most familiar phrase. . . . 

 .... I hold he loves me best who calls me Tom.' 



With such an eminent authority to support me, then, 

 I need make no further apology for the heading I have 

 chosen. 



The De Musters or Monasteriis, from whom my hero 

 was descended, claim to have 'come over with the 

 Conqueror,' and to have been settled in Nottingham- 

 shire for eight centuries. How far that claim can be 



