CHAPTER CCXXII.

ETYMOLOGY.—UN TOUR DE MAÎTRE GONIN.—ROMAN DE VAUDEMONT AND THE LETTER C.—SHENSTONE.—THE DOCTOR'S USE OF CHRISTIAN NAMES.

_Πρᾶγμα, πρᾶγμα μέγα κεκίνηται, μέγα._

ARISTOPHANES.

_Magnus thesaurus latet in nominibus,_ said Strafford, then Lord Deputy Wentworth, when noticing a most unwise scheme which was supposed to proceed from Sir Abraham Dawes, he observes, it appeared most plainly that he had not his name for nothing! In another letter, he says, “I begin to hope I may in time as well understand these customs as Sir Abraham Dawes. Why should I fear it? for I have a name less ominous than his.”

_Gonin_, Court de Gebelin says, is a French word or rather name which exists only in these proverbial phrases, _Maître Gonin_,—_un tour de Maître Gonin_; it designates _un Maître passé en ruses et artifices; un homme fin et rusé._ The origin of the word, says he, was altogether unknown. Menage rejects with the utmost contempt the opinion of those who derive it from the Hebrew ץובנ, _Gwunen_ a diviner, an enchanter. It is true that this etymology has been advanced too lightly, and without proofs: Menage however ought to have been less contemptuous, because he could substitute nothing in its place.

It is remarkable that neither Menage nor Court de Gebelin should have known that Maistre Gounin was a French conjurer, as well known in his day as Katterfelto and Jonas, or the Sieur Ingleby Emperor of Conjurors in later times. He flourished in the days of Francis the first, before whom he is said to have made a private exhibition of his art in a manner perfectly characteristic of that licentious King and his profligate court. Thus he effected “_par ses inventions, illusions et sorcelleries et enchantements,—car il estoit un homme fort expert et subtil en son art,_ says Brântome; _et son petit-fils, que nous avons veu, n'y entendoit rien au prix de luy._” Grandfather and grandson having been at the head of their worshipful profession, the name past into a proverbial expression, and survived all memory of the men.

Court de Gebelin traced its etymology far and wide. He says, it is incontestable that this word is common to us with the ancient Hebrews though it does not come to us from them. We are indebted for it to the English. Cunning _designe chez eux un homme adroit, fin, rusé._ Master Cunning _a fait Maître Gonin_. This word comes from the primitive _Cen_ pronounced _Ken_, which signifies ability, (_habilité_) art, power. The Irish have made from it _Kanu_, I know; _Kunna_, to know; _Kenning_, knowledge, (_science_); _Kenni_-mann, wise men (_hommes savans_), Doctors, Priests.

It is a word common to all the dialects of the Celtic and Teutonic; to the Greek in which _Konne-ein_[1] signifies to know (_savoir_) to be intelligent and able &c., to the Tartar languages &c.

[Footnote 1: So in the MS.]

_Les Anglois associant_ Cunning _avec_ Man, _homme, en font le mot_ Cunning-Man, _qui signifie Devin, Enchanteur, homme qui fait de grandes choses, et qui est habile: c'est donc le correspondant du mot Hebreu_ Gwunen, _Enchanteur, Devin;_ Gwuna, _Magicienne, Devineresse; d'où le verbe_ Gwunen, _deviner, observer les Augures, faire des prestiges. Ne soyons par étonnés,_ says the author, bringing this example to bear upon his system, _de voir ce mot commun à tant de Peuples, et si ancien: il vint chez tous d'une source commune, de la haute Asie, berceau de tous ces Peuples et de leur Langue._

If Mr. Canning had met with the foregoing passage towards the close of his political life, when he had attained the summit of his wishes, how would it have affected him, in his sober mind? Would it have tickled his vanity, or stung his conscience? Would he have been flattered by seeing his ability prefigured in his name? or would he have been mortified at the truth conveyed in the proverbial French application of it, and have acknowledged in his secret heart that cunning is as incompatible with self-esteem as it is with uprightness, with magnanimity, and with true greatness?

His name was unlucky not only in its signification, but according to Roman de Vaudemont, in its initial.

_Maudit est nom qui par C se commence, Coquin, cornard, caignard, coqu, caphard: Aussi par B, badaud, badin, bavard, Mais pire est C, si j'ay bien remembrance._

Much as the Doctor insisted upon the virtues of what he called the divine initial, he reprehended the uncharitable sentiment of these verses, and thought that the author never could have played at “I love my Love with an A,” or that the said game perhaps was not known among the French; for you must get to x, y, and z before you find it difficult to praise her in any letter in the alphabet, and to dispraise her in the same.

Initials therefore, he thought, (always with one exception) of no other consequence than as they pleased the ear, and combined gracefully in a cypher, upon a seal or ring. But in names themselves a great deal more presents itself to a reflecting mind.

Shenstone used to bless his good fortune that his name was not obnoxious to a pun. He would not have liked to have been complimented in the same strain as a certain Mr. Pegge was by an old epigrammatist.

What wonder if my friendship's force doth last Firm to your goodness? You have pegg'd it fast.

Little could he foresee, as Dr. Southey has observed that it was obnoxious to a rhyme in French English. In the gardens of Ermenonville M. placed this inscription to his honour.

This plain stone To William Shenstone. In his writings he display'd A mind natural; At Leasowes he laid Arcadian greens rural.

Poor Shenstone hardly appears more ridiculous in the frontispiece to his own works, where, in the heroic attitude of a poet who has won the prize and is about to receive the crown, he stands before Apollo in a shirt and boa, as destitute of another less dispensible part of dress as Adam in Eden, but like Adam when innocent, not ashamed: while the shirtless God holding a lyre in one hand prepares with the other to place a wreath of bay upon the brow of his delighted votary.

The father of Sir Joshua Reynolds fancied that if he gave his son an uncommon Christian name, it might be the means of bettering his fortune; and therefore he had him christened Joshua. It does not appear however that the name ever proved as convenient to the great painter as it did to Joshua Barnes. He to whose Barnesian labours Homer and Queen Esther, and King Edward III. bear witness, was a good man and a good scholar, and a rich widow who not imprudently inferred that he would make a good husband, gave him an opportunity by observing to him one day that Joshua made the Sun and Moon stand still, and significantly adding that nothing could resist Joshua. The hint was not thrown away;—and he never had cause to repent that he had taken, nor she that she had given it.

A Spanish gentleman who made it his pastime to write books of chivalry, being to bring into his work a furious Giant, went many days devising a name which might in all points be answerable to his fierceness, neither could he light upon any; till playing one day at cards in his friend's house, he heard the master of the house say to the boy—muchacho—_tra qui tantos_. As soon as he heard Traquitantos he laid down his cards and said that now he had found a name which would fit well for his Giant.[2]

[Footnote 2: HUARTE.]

I know not whether it was the happy-minded author of the Worthies and the Church History of Britain who proposed as an epitaph for himself the words “Fuller's Earth,” or whether some one proposed it for him. But it is in his own style of thought and feeling.

Nor has it any unbeseeming levity, like this which is among Browne's poems.

Here lieth in sooth Honest John Tooth, Whom Death on a day From us drew away.

Or this upon a Mr. Button,

Here lieth one, God rest his soul Whose grave is but a button-hole.

No one was ever punned to death, nor, though Ditton is said to have died in consequence of “the unhappy effect” which Swift's verses produced upon him, can I believe that any one was ever rhymed to death.

A man may with better reason bless his godfathers and godmothers if they chuse for him a name which is neither too common nor too peculiar.[3]

[Footnote 3: It is said of an eccentric individual that he never forgave his Godfathers and Godmother for giving him the name of Moses, for which the short is Mo.]

It is not a good thing to be Tom'd or Bob'd, Jack'd or Jim'd, Sam'd or Ben'd, Natty'd or Batty'd, Neddy'd or Teddy'd, Will'd or Bill'd, Dick'd or Nick'd, Joe'd or Jerry'd as you go through the world. And yet it is worse to have a christian name, that for its oddity shall be in every body's mouth when you are spoken of, as if it were pinned upon your back, or labelled upon your forehead. Quintin Dick for example, which would have been still more unlucky if Mr. Dick had happened to have a cast in his eye. The Report on Parochial Registration contains a singular example of the inconvenience which may arise from giving a child an uncouth christian name. A gentleman called Anketil Gray had occasion for a certificate of his baptism: it was known at what church he had been baptized, but on searching the register there, no such name could be found: some mistake was presumed therefore not in the entry, but in the recollection of the parties, and many other registers were examined without success. At length the first register was again recurred to, and then upon a closer investigation, they found him entered as Miss Ann Kettle Grey.

“_Souvent_,” says Brântome, “ceux qui portent le nom de leurs ayeuls, leur _ressemblent volontiers, comme je l'ay veu observer et en discourir à aucuns philosophes._” He makes this remark after observing that the Emperor Ferdinand was named after his grandfather Ferdinand of Arragon, and Charles V. after his great grandfather Charles the Bold. But such resemblances are as Brântome implies, imitational where they exist. And Mr. Keightley's observation, that “a man's name and his occupation have often a most curious coincidence,” rests perhaps on a similar ground, men being sometimes designated by their names for the way of life which they are to pursue. Many a boy has been called Nelson in our own days, and Rodney in our fathers', because he was intended for the sea service, and many a seventh son has been christened Luke in the hope that he might live to be a physician. In what other business than that of a lottery-office would the name Goodluck so surely have brought business to the house? Captain Death could never have practised medicine or surgery, unless under an alias; but there would be no better name with which to meet an enemy in battle. Dr. Damman was an eminent physician and royal professor of midwifery at Ghent in the latter part of the last century. He ought to have been a Calvinistic divine.

The Ancients paid so great a regard to names, that whenever a number of men were to be examined on suspicion, they began by putting to the torture the one whose name was esteemed the vilest. And this must not be supposed to have had its origin in any reasonable probability, such as might be against a man who being apprehended for a riot, should say his name was Patrick Murphy, or Dennis O'Connor, or Thady O'Callaghan; or against a Moses Levi, or a Daniel Abrahams for uttering bad money; it was for the import of the name itself, and the evidence of a base and servile origin which it implied.

“_J'ai été tousjours fort etonné_,” says Bayle, “_que les familles qui portent un nom odieux ou ridicule, ne le quitent pas._” The Leatherheads and Shufflebottoms, the Higgenses and Huggenses, the Scroggses and the Scraggses, Sheepshanks and Ramsbottoms, Taylors and Barbers, and worse than all, Butchers, would have been to Bayle as abominable as they were to Dr. Dove. I ought, the Doctor would say, to have a more natural dislike to the names of Kite, Hawk, Falcon and Eagle; and yet they are to me (the first excepted) less odious than names like these: and even preferable to Bull, Bear, Pig, Hog, Fox or Wolf.

What a name, he would say, is Lamb for a soldier, Joy for an undertaker, Rich for a pauper, or Noble for a taylor: Big for a lean and little person, and Small for one who is broad in the rear and abdominous in the van. Short for a fellow six feet without his shoes, or Long for him whose high heels hardly elevate him to the height of five. Sweet for one who has either a vinegar face, or a foxey complection. Younghusband for an old batchelor. Merryweather for any one in November and February, a black spring, a cold summer or a wet autumn. Goodenough for a person no better than he should be: Toogood for any human creature, and Best for a subject who is perhaps too bad to be endured.

Custom having given to every Christian name its _alias_, he always used either the baptismal name or its substitute as it happened to suit his fancy, careless of what others might do. Thus he never called any woman Mary, though _Mare_ he said being the sea was in many respects but too emblematic of the sex. It was better to use a synonyme of better omen, and Molly therefore was to be preferred as being soft. If he accosted a vixen of that name in her worst temper he _mollyfied_ her. On the contrary he never could be induced to substitute Sally for Sarah.—Sally he said had a salacious sound, and moreover it reminded him of rovers, which women ought not to be. Martha he called Patty, because it came pat to the tongue. Dorothy remained Dorothy, because it was neither fitting that women should be made Dolls, nor Idols. Susan with him was always Sue, because women were to be sued, and Winifred Winny because they were to be won.