Chapter XIX
) is perhaps usually a nickname
"For that old weather-headed fool, I know how to laugh at him."
(Congreve, Love for Love, ii. 7.)
Coxhead is another obvious nickname. A careful analysis of some of the most important medieval name-lists would furnish hundreds of further examples, some too outspoken to have survived into our degenerate age, and others which are now so corrupted that their original vigour is quite lost.
Puns and jokes upon proper names are, pace Gregory the Great and Shakespeare, usually very inept and stupid; but the following lines by James Smith, which may be new to some of my readers, are really clever--
Men once were surnamed from their shape or estate (You all may from History worm it); There was Lewis the Bulky, and Henry the Great, John Lackland, and Peter the Hermit. But now, when the door-plates of Misters and Dames Are read, each so constantly varies From the owner's trade, figure, and calling, Surnames Seem given by the rule of contraries.
Mr. Box, though provoked, never doubles his fist, Mr. Burns, in his grate, has no fuel; Mr. Playfair won't catch me at hazard or whist, Mr. Coward was wing'd in a duel. Mr. Wise is a dunce, Mr. King is a whig, Mr. Coffin's uncommonly sprightly, And huge Mr. Little broke down in a gig, While driving fat Mrs. Golightly.
Mrs. Drinkwater's apt to indulge in a dram, Mrs. Angel's an absolute fury, And meek Mr. Lyon let fierce Mr. Lamb Tweak his nose in the lobby of Drury. At Bath, where the feeble go more than the stout, (A conduct well worthy of Nero), Over poor Mr. Lightfoot, confined with the gout, Mr. Heaviside danced a Bolero.
Miss Joy, wretched maid, when she chose Mr. Love, Found nothing but sorrow await her; She now holds in wedlock, as true as a dove, That fondest of mates, Mr. Hayter. Mr. Oldcastle dwells in a modern-built hut, Miss Sage is of madcaps the archest; Of all the queer bachelors Cupid e'er cut, Old Mr. Younghusband's the starchest.
Mr. Child, in a passion, knock'd down Mr. Rock, Mr. Stone like an aspen-leaf shivers; Miss Poole used to dance, but she stands like a stock Ever since she became Mrs. Rivers; Mr. Swift hobbles onward, no mortal knows how, He moves as though cords had entwin'd him; Mr. Metcalfe ran off, upon meeting a cow, With pale Mr. Turnbull behind him.
Mr. Barker's as mute as a fish in the sea, Mr. Miles never moves on a journey; Mr. Gotobed sits up till half-after three, Mr. Makepeace was bred an attorney. Mr. Gardiner can't tell a flower from a root, Mr. Wilde with timidity draws back, Mr. Ryder performs all his journeys on foot, Mr. Foote all his journeys on horseback.
Mr. Penny, whose father was rolling in wealth, Kick'd down all his fortune his dad won; Large Mr. Le Fever's the picture of health, Mr. Goodenough is but a bad one. Mr. Cruickshank stept into three thousand a year, By showing his leg to an heiress:-- Now I hope you'll acknowledge I've made it quite clear That surnames ever go by contraries.
Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury, England.
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Transcriber's notes:
* Although I worked from material in good condition, scanning and preparing subject matter of this type is much harder work than preparing a novel or the like, so obviously I should never have bothered with preparing this book if I had not though it to be worthwhile. In fact I consider it to be very rewarding, informative, and entertaining. I hope you also find it rewarding, and I present it in much the same mood that I assume it was written in: not that it is fully correct or definitive, but that both the material and the lines of thought that the book comprises, are useful, thoughtful, and enjoyable, taken for what they are worth. The book certainly is based on a formidable level of erudition, however cheerful the author's style may be.
* For the most part I have tried to remain true to the source, but this is not an attempt to reproduce the volume I scanned; my objective was to render its content available. Accordingly, I did not hesitate to correct minor, obvious errors, or to adopt my preferences for spacing and the like. Also, the means that I employed in preparing this material did not lend themselves satisfactorily to preservation of the original pagination or of numbering and cross reference of pages. However, as the product is machine readable, search is easier than working from an index, and I tried to support the use of such facilities. Anyone who feels strongly that an index remains necessary, is welcome to add an index to the version that I have presented here, without crediting me for the body of the work.
* I have however, substituted cross-reference between sections or chapters for the (now meaningless) cross-references between pages. Also, like many books of that day, the original had many page headings such as "MYTHICAL ETYMOLOGIES" or "HILL AND DALE", without incorporating them in the table of contents or the text, or even making it clear just where those page headings fitted into the text. I have changed such page headings to sub-headings within the text, where they are more useful, given that they no longer are necessary for the original purpose of aiding the process of flipping through the pages of a paper book.
* I have relocated footnotes from the feet of the pages to just after the text that they qualified. Apart from thereby rendering the text less dependent of changes of format, this arguably renders the footnotes more useful and less disruptive to the reader. Footnotes are marked as such, so as to avoid confusion.
* I have of course tried to produce as clean a product as possible, but I apologetically assure you that some errors remain in the text. You accordingly must treat the content with appropriate caution.