pronounced or not; but that they should be perpetrated now, in the nineteenth century, when the schoolmaster professes to be everywhere abroad, is a sad disgrace to that personage. I know a family of farmers who are descended from a younger branch of the antient gentry family of Alchorne of Alchorne, and who always spelt their name properly until about twenty years since, ago when a new schoolmaster settling in the village, informed them that their proper designation was All-corn, which name they are now contented to bear! Another family who antiently bore the name of De Hoghstepe, a local appellative, signifying of the high steep,' have laid aside that fine old Teutonic designation, and adopted in its stead the thrice-barbarous cognomen of Huckstepp! A third family, who in the days of their antient gentry wrote themselves "in any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation," Birchensty of Birchensty, afterwards abbreviated their name to Birsty, and their descendants, now in plebeian condition, rejoice in the swelling appellation of Burster. A fourth family, called in the middle ages Guttershole, from the name of their landed estate, are now content to bear that of Guts-all! A fifth, wrote themselves, in the fourteenth century, De Boxhulle, and were gentry: in the nineteenth they are plebeians, and rejoice, one branch in the pugnacious designation of Box-all, the other in the more peaceable one of Box-sell. These are all in Sussex.

What can be more barbarous than Dealchamber for De la Chambre; Brewhouse for Braose; Cowbrain for Colbran; Tednambury for St. Edmunds Bury:* Allwork for Aldwark; Wilbraham for Wilburgham; Wilberforce for Wilburghfoss; Sapsford for Sabridge

* Chauncey's Hertfordshire, p. 353.

Alas,

worth; Hoad for Howard; or Gurr for Gower? for such "contracting, syncopating, curtelling, and mollifying" as this!

Corruptions every whit as vile as the foregoing, as far as pronunciation goes, are tolerated by several of our patrician families, though the original and correct orthography is retained: thus, Cholmondeley is called Chulmley; Majoribanks, Marchbanks; St. John, Singen* (whence probably Sinden); and Fitz-John, Fidgen.

Carew is given in its true pronunciation by some families who bear it: others sound it like Carey. To account for this discrepancy, Mr. John Yorke, whose daughter married Mr. Pole Carew, used jocularly to say, that there were at one time two Messrs. Walter Carew in the House of Commons, and that to prevent the frequent embarrassments arising from this identity of names, it was agreed to call one Carew and the other Carey, and thus to put an end to the confusion between What care-I and What care-you!

Who would think of looking for the origin of Lewknor in Levechenora, the denomination of one of the hundreds of Lincolnshire ?+ Who but a patient antiquary could find Duppa in D'Uphaugh? The Italian name Hugezun has been corrupted to Hughson! This reminds me of an anecdote in Lieber's Stranger in America,' which forms so good an illustration of the manner in which names are often corrupted, that I give it as it stands :

"The plain English Christian name and surname of Benjamin Eaton, borne by a Spanish boy, was

* Pope opens his Essay on Man with—

"Awake my St. John, leave all meaner things

To low ambition and the pride of kings."

† Pegge's Curial. Miscel. p. 208.

Ibid. p. 209.

derived from his single Spanish Christian name of Benito or Benedict; and this by a very natural process, though one which would have defied the acuteness of Tooke and the wit of Swift. When the boy was

taken on board ship, the sailors, who are not apt to be fastidious in their attention to the niceties of language, hearing him called Benito (pronounced Beneeto), made the nearest approximation to the Spanish sound which the case required, and which would give an intelligible sailor's name, by saluting their new shipmate as 'Ben Eaton,' which the boy probably supposed was the corresponding English name, and accordingly conformed to it himself when asked for his name. The next process in the etymological transformation was, that when he was sent to one of our schools, the master of course inquired his name, and being answered that it was Ben Eaton, and presuming that to be his true name, abbreviated as usual in the familiar style, directed him, as grammatical propriety required, to write it at full length, Benjamin Eaton!"

In some instances an antique spelling is retained by families of distinction, while plebeian branches have modified theirs according to the fluctuations of orthography which have taken place in more recent times. Brydges, Chrippes, Streatfeild, and Whitfeld, may be mentioned in proof. Henry Fielding, being in company with the Earl of Denbigh, with whose family his own was closely connected, his lordship asked why they spelt their names differently, the earl's family doing it with the e first (Feilding), and Mr. Henry with the i first (Fielding). "I cannot tell, my lord," answered the great novelist, "except it be that my branch of the family were the first that knew how to spell."

Sometimes the spelling of names is so changed that the various branches of one family lose sight of their consanguinity. I think there is little doubt that the Gorings, Gorrings, and Gorringes, of Sussex, proceed from a common ancestor, and that he borrowed his designation from the village of Goring. Similar instances might be adduced from many other districts in the kingdom.

From these corruptions and variations arises one of the greatest difficulties which the genealogist has to encounter. Mr. Markland mentions having seen a document of the sixteenth century, in which four brothers, named Rugely, spell their names in as many different ways. Dr. Chandler notices the name of Waynflete in seventeen modes of orthography, and Dugdale, in his MS. Collections respecting the family of Mainwaring, of Peover, co. Chester, has the extraordinary number of one hundred and thirty-one variations of that single name, all drawn from authorized documents, "It might be conjectured," adds Mr. Markland, "that these variations were intentional, could any probable motive be assigned for such a practice."*

I imagine that our ancestors deemed this diversity a species of elegant license, for the purpose of avoiding the monotony of a more regular and consistent mode; a species of taste "somewhat akin to the fastidiousness in modern composition, which as studiously rejects the repetition of words and phrases."

The process of corruption is often strikingly exemplified in parish registers. In the course of a century or two a name occasionally almost loses its identity. In the register of Cheam, co. Surrey, the noble name of Dudley has thus become Deadly! The Rev. George

* Archæologia, vol. xviii, p. 108.

Oliver mentions the following singular mutations which have come under his observation: Hauforth has been corrupted to Alford; Keymish to Cammiss; Vaustell to Fussey!

A village in western Sussex bears the name of Itchenor. In the same district resides a family surnamed Titchenor, which is probably a corruption of De Itchenor-D'Itchenor. In like manner the family of Tichbourne, in Hampshire, seem to have corrupted their name from D'Itchin-bourne, i. e. the river Itchin.

In the will of Philip Isaacson, made so lately as the seventeenth century, the testator signs Ph. Izatson, while his son, who witnesses the document, writes himself Stephen Isaacson. In the preceding century, a nun of Denny Abbey, co. Cambridge, writing to her father, addresses the letter to Thomas Stuteville, Esq., of Dalham, and signs it Margaret Stutfield.*

There are many surnames which have the appearance of nicknames or sobriquets, but are really derived from names of places more or less corrupted, as Wormewood, Ink-pen, Allchin, Tiptow, Moone, Maners, Maypowder, Cuckold, Go-dolphin, Hurl-stone, Small-back, Bellows, Filpot, Waddle, &c.; from Ormond, Ingepen, Alchorne, Tiptoft, Mohun, Manors, Mappowder, Cokswold, Godolchan, Hudlestone, Smalbach, Phillipot, Wahul, &c. Also Tash, Toke, Tabbey, from At Ash, At Oke, At Abbey; and Toly, Tabby, Tows, from St. Olye, St. Ebbe, St. Osyth. The following are taken from places without change: Spittle-house, Whitegift, Alshop, Antrobus, Hartshorn, Wood-head, All-wood, Gardening, and Killingback!

*Ex inf. Rev. S. Isaacson, M.A., a descendant both of the Izatson and the Stuteville mentioned in the text.