ENFORCED CHANGE OF NAME.

107

commonly used in the north of England for small streams.

An enforced change of name has been amongst the engines of cruelty employed by tyrants to make their subjects miserable. In 1465 Edward IV. of England commanded his Irish subjects to take for themselves and their children English surnames, on pain of annual forfeiture of their goods until the law was obeyed.

In 1568, the bigot Philip II. of Spain, hoping to denationalise the remnant of the Moors still lingering in the land they had so enriched and beautified, ordered them to abandon both their individual and family names, compelled them to be baptised, and to adopt Spanish designations.* His law was perforce obeyed, but all the more closely would an outraged people cling in secret to their ancient faith. Amongst Mohammedan Moors now dwelling in Africa are therefore to be found such names as Perez, from Peter, and Santiago, or St. James! †

An Act of 1603 forbade on pain of death the Highland clan of MacGregor to call themselves by their name. To this terrible decree a thrilling ballad of Sir Walter Scott alludes, The MacGregors' Gathering: '

เ

The moon's on the lake, and the mist's on the brae,
And the clan has a name which is nameless by day,

Then gather, gather, gather, Grigalach!

* Watson's History of Philip II.

+ Salverte.

!

The hatred and terror which were at that time inspired by the outlawed clan are said to have originated in the ferocity displayed by Ciar Mohr, the great mouse-coloured man (an ancestor of Rob Roy's), during a contest with the Colquhouns, in Glen Fruin, the vale of sorrow.

But by their loyalty the MacGregors nobly regained their name. Enrolled as Murrays and Buchanans under the banners of the Earl of Athole and the Laird of Buchanan, they gallantly fought for Charles even while his edict against them was in force. Their name was proscribed, but their armorial bearings remained, and to them these brave men responded.

The MacGregors bear a pine-tree crossed saltier-wise with a naked sword, the point of which supports a royal crown. The sword of the MacGregors has been tried in a fire from the heat of which none but a well-tempered blade could have come forth unscathed. It was a cruel edict, confounding the innocent with the guilty.

At the Restoration Charles II. annulled the various edicts against them, and restored to them their name, in gratitude for the loyalty they had shown.

The deprivation of name is a punishment fitted only for the prison and the hulks. In those gloomy precincts to which their crimes have conducted them, it is a felon's well-merited disgrace to have his name taken from him. So long as he is undergoing his sentence it is well for him to

A NUMBER INSTEAD OF A NAME.

109

feel, as he answers to his number only, that he has for a time lost all right to honour and respect from his fellow-men. But to take altogether away from man or woman their proper names is to take from them, so long as one sparkle of right feeling remains, one of the strongest incentives to well-doing.

CHAPTER VI.

For one's name's sake Heroes, inventors, discoverers honoured through their names—Sovereigns' names stamped upon coins-Names clinging to mossy wells and beetling cliffs Stories of lives in the names of individualsChristopher Columbus Pollio Vedius Contrasts between names and lives, and misnomers -St. Felicitas and Julius Cæsar Legends derived from significations of names — Semiramis Monkish legends growing out of old pictures — Pictures suggested by significant names — St. Lucia St. Sophia St. Katharine: her legend and meaning of her name— — St. Margaret — Mary Magdalene Mary and Miriam.

'FOR Thy Name's sake' is a solemn adjura

tion which we find in the Holy Scriptures addressed to the Most High God as one of the most urgent and powerful of appeals.

How many a path of glory has been trod by human beings with these trumpet-like words going before—for their names' sake!—for their forefathers' names' sake!

'A peerage or Westminster Abbey!' is one of the many well-remembered sayings of the greatest of England's naval heroes: either way it was his yearning desire to do honour to his name. Nelson should take its place in England's roll of peerless peers, or Nelson should be engraven on an honoured tomb! Some conquerors have

FOR ONE'S NAME'S SAKE.

111

taken names from their conquests; but Nelson, with a truer pride, placed a coronet on his

own.

It is almost instinctively felt that the highest homage inventors and discoverers can receive is that the precious things bestowed by them on their fellow-men should be known by their

names.

Inspired by this hope, the chemist, with calm courage, silent and alone in his laboratory, surrounds himself with an atmosphere of death—his life too often the forfeit of his daring experiments.

So, too, the adventurous sailor! He fearlessly thrusts his ship's prow through heaped-up barriers of ice: his grave may be yawning beyond— but what matter? He deems himself overpaid for hourly hand-to-hand struggles with death if but some day his name be suffered to rest upon one icy peak, one barren rock, in those far-off untrodden desolate realms.

So, too, in the region of art. We read of two wealthy men, accomplished sculptors and architects, who, caring nought for money in comparison with fame, erected at their own cost a magnificent temple at Rome, hoping that the law which there forbade men to inscribe their names on their works might be relaxed in their favour. But it was not so; and, as their only resource, Batrachus and Saurus carved on the fluting of the column of their temple frogs and