Charles Wareing Endell Bardsley

THE HEBREW INVASION.

“With what face can they object to the king the bringing in of forraigners, when themselves entertaine such an army of Hebrewes?” The Character of a London Diurnall (Dec. 1644).

“Albeit in our late Reformation some of good consideration have brought in Zachary, Malachy, Josias, etc., as better agreeing with our faith, but without contempt of Country names (as I hope) which have both good and gracious significations, as shall appeare hereafter.”—Camden, Remaines. 1614.

I. The March of the Army.

The strongest impress of the English Reformation to-day is to be seen in our font-names. The majority date from 1560, the year when the Genevan Bible was published. This version ran through unnumbered editions, and for sixty, if not seventy, years was the household Bible of the nation. The Genevan Bible was not only written in the vulgar tongue, but was printed for vulgar hands. A moderate quarto was its size; all preceding versions, such as Coverdale’s, Matthew’s, and of course the Great Bible, being the ponderous folio, specimens of which the reader will at some time or other have seen. The Genevan Bible, too, was the Puritan’s Bible, and was none the less admired by him on account of its Calvinistic annotations.

But although the rage for Bible names dates from the decade 1560-1570, which decade marks the rise of Puritanism, there had been symptoms of the coming revolution as early as 1543. Richard Hilles, one of the Reformers, despatching a letter from Strasburg, November 15, 1543, writes:

“My wife says she has no doubt but that God helped her the sooner in her confinement by reason of your good prayers. On the second of this month she brought forth to the Church of Christ a son, who, as the women say, is quite large enough for a mother of tall stature, and whom I immediately named Gershom.”—“Original Letters,” 1537-1558, No. cxii. Parker Society.

We take up our Bibles, and find that of Zipporah it is said—

“And she bare him (Moses) a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land.”—Exod. ii. 22.

The margin says, “a desolate stranger.” At this time Moses was fled from Pharaoh, who would kill him. The parallel to Richard Hilles’s mind was complete. This was in 1643.[12]In Mr. Tennyson’s drama “Mary,” we have the following scene between Gardiner and a yokel:

“Gardiner.I distrust thee,
There is a half voice, and a lean assent:
What is thy name?
Man.Sanders!
Gardiner.What else?
Man.Zerrubabel.”

The Laureate was right to select for this rebellious Protestant a name that was to be popular throughout Elizabeth’s reign; but poetic license runs rather far in giving this title to a full-grown man in any year of Mary’s rule. Sanders might have had a young child at home so styled, but for himself it was practically impossible. So clearly defined is the epoch that saw, if not one batch of names go out, at least a new batch come in. Equally marked are the names from the Bible which at this date were in use, and those which were not. Of this latter category Zerrubabel was one.

In the single quotation from Hilles’s letter of 1543 we see the origin of the great Hebrew invasion explained. The English Bible had become a fact, and the knowledge of its personages and narratives was becoming directly acquired. In every community up and down the country it was as if a fresh spring of clear water had been found, and every neighbour could come with jug or pail, and fill it when and how they would. One of the first impressions made seems to have been this: children in the olden time received as a name a term that was immediately significant of the circumstances of their birth. Often God personally, through His prophets or angelic messenger, acted as godparent indeed, and gave the name, as in Isaiah viii. 1, 3, 4:

“Moreover the Lord said unto me, Take thee a great roll, and write in it with a man’s pen concerning Maher-shalal-hash-baz.

“And I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son. Then said the Lord to me, Call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz.

“For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and my mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Assyria.”

Here was a name palpably significant. Even before they knew its exact meaning the name was enrolled in English church registers, and by-and-by zealot Puritans employed it as applicable to English Church politics.

All the patriarchs, down to the twelve sons of Jacob, had names of direct significance given them. Above all, a peculiar emphasis was laid upon all the titles of Jesus Christ, as in Isaiah vii. 14:

“Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”

At the same time that this new revelation came, a crisis was going on of religion. The old Romish Church was being uprooted, or, rather, a new system was being grafted upon its stock, for the links have never been broken. The saints were shortly to be tabooed by the large mass of English folk; the festivals were already at a discount. Simultaneously with the prejudice against the very names of their saints and saintly festivals, arose the discovery of a mine of new names as novel as it was unexhaustible. They not merely met the new religious instinct, but supplied what would have been a very serious vacuum.

But we must at once draw a line between the Reformation and Puritanism. Previous to the Reformation, so far as the Church was concerned, there had been to a certain extent a system of nomenclature. The Reformation abrogated that system, but did not intentionally adopt a new one. Puritanism deliberately supplied a well-weighed and revised scheme, beyond which no adopted child of God must dare to trespass. Previous to the Reformation, the priest, with the assent of the gossip, gave the babe the name of the saint who was to be its patron, or on whose day the birth or baptism occurred. If the saint was a male, and the infant a female, the difficulty was overcome by giving the name a feminine form. Thus Theobald become Theobalda; and hence Tib and Tibot became so common among girls, that finally they ceased to represent boys at all. If it were one of the great holy days, the day or season itself furnished the name. Thus it was Simon, or Nicholas, or Cecilia, or Austen, or Pentecost, or Ursula, or Dorothy, became so familiar. From the reign of Elizabeth the clergy, and Englishmen generally, gave up this practice. Saints who could not boast apostolic honours were rejected, and holy men of lesser prestige, together with a large batch of virgins and martyrs of the Agnes, Catharine, and Ursula type, who belonged to Church history, received but scant attention. As a matter of course their names lapsed. But the nation stood by the old English names not thus popishly tainted. Against Geoffrey, Richard, Robert, and William, they had no prejudice: nay, they clung to them. The Puritan rejected both classes. He was ever trotting out his two big “P’s,”—Pagan and Popish. Under the first he placed every name that could not be found in the Scriptures, and under the latter every title in the same Scriptures, and the Church system founded on them, that had been employed previous, say, to the coronation day of Edward VI. Of this there is the clearest proof. In a “Directory of Church Government,” found among the papers of Cartwright, and written as early as 1565, there is the following order regarding and regulating baptism:—

“They which present unto baptism, ought to be persuaded not to give those that are baptized the names of God, or of Christ, or of angels, or of holy offices, as of baptist, evangelist, etc., nor such as savour of paganism or popery: but chiefly such whereof there are examples, in the Holy Scriptures, in the names of those who are reported in them to have been godly and virtuous.”—Neale, vol. v. Appendix, p. 15.

Nothing can be more precise than this. To the strict Puritan to reject the Richards, Mileses, and Henrys of the Teutonic, and the Bartholomews, Simons, Peters, and Nicholases of the ecclesiastic class, was to remove the Canaanite out of the land.

How early this “article of religion” was obeyed, one or two quotations will show. Take the first four baptismal entries in the Canterbury Cathedral register:

“1564, Dec. 3. Abdias, the sonne of Robert Pownoll.

“1567, April 26. Barnabas, the sonne of Robert Pownoll.

“1569, June 1. Ezeckiell, the sonne of Robert Pownoll.

“1572, Feb. 10. Posthumus, the sonne of Robert Pownoll.”

Another son seems to have been Philemon:

“1623, April 27. John, the sonne of Philemon Pownoll.”

A daughter “Repentance” must be added:

“1583, Dec. 8. Married William Arnolde and Repentance Pownoll.”

Take another instance, a little later, from the baptisms of St. Peter’s, Cornhill:

“1589, Nov. 2. Bezaleell, sonne of Michaell Nichollson, cordwayner.

“1599, Sep. 23. Aholiab, sonne of Michaell Nicholson, cordwainer.

“1595, May 18. Sara, daughter of Michaell Nichollson, cobler.

“1599, Nov. 1. Buried Rebecca, daughter of Michaell Nicholson, cordwainer, 13 yeares.”

Rebecca, therefore, would be baptized in 1586. Sara and Aholiab died of the plague in 1603. Both old Robert Pownoll and the cobler must have been Puritans of a pronounced type.The Presbyterian clergy were careful to set an example of right name-giving:

“1613, July 28. Baptized Jaell, daughter of Roger Mainwaring, preacher.”—St. Helen, Bishopsgate.

“1617, Jan. 25. Baptized Ezekyell, sonne of Mr. Richard Culverwell, minister.”—St. Peter, Cornhill.

“1582, ——. Buried Zachary, sonne of Thomas Newton, minister.”—Barking, Essex.

A still more interesting proof comes from Northampton. As an example of bigotry it is truly marvellous. On July 16, 1590, Archbishop Whitgift furnished the Lord Treasurer with the following, amongst many articles against Edmond Snape, curate of St. Peter’s, in that town:

“Item: Christopher Hodgekinson obteyned a promise of the said Snape that he would baptize his child; but Snape added, saying, ‘You must then give it a christian name allowed in the Scriptures.’ Then Hodgekinson told him that his wife’s father, whose name was Richard, desired to have the giving of that name.”

At the time of service Snape proceeded till they came to the place of naming: they said “Richard;”

“But hearing them calling it Richard, and that they would not give it any other name, he stayed there, and would not in any case baptize the child. And so it was carried away thence, and was baptized the week following at Allhallows Churche, and called Richard.”—Strype’s “Whitgift,” ii. 9.

This may be an extreme case, but I doubt not the majority of the Presbyterian clergy did their best to uproot the old English names, so far as their power of persuasion could go.Even the pulpit was used in behalf of the new doctrine. William Jenkin, the afterwards ejected minister, in his “Expositions of Jude,” delivered in Christ Church, London, said, while commenting on the first verse, “Our baptismal names ought to be such as may prove remembrances of duty.” He then instances Leah, Alpheus, and Hannah as aware of parental obligations in this respect, and adds—

“’Tis good to impose such names as expresse our baptismal promise. A good name is as a thread tyed about the finger, to make us mindful of the errand we came into the world to do for our Master.”—Edition 1652, p. 7.

As a general rule, the New Testament names spread the most rapidly, especially girl-names of the Priscilla, Dorcas, Tabitha, and Martha type. They were the property of the Reformation. Damaris bothered the clerks much, and is found indifferently as Tamaris, Damris, Dammeris, Dampris, and Dameris. By James I.’s day it had become a fashionable name:

“1617, April 13. Christened Damaris, d. of Doctor Masters.

“——, May 29. Christened Damaris, d. of Doctor Kingsley.”—Canterbury Cathedral.

Martha, which sprang into instant popularity, is registered at the outset:

“1563, July 25. Christened Martha Wattam.”—St. Peter, Cornhill.

Phebe had a great run. The first I have seen is—

“1568, Oct. 24. Christened Phebe, d. of Harry Cut.”—St. Peter, Cornhill.

Dorcas was, perhaps, the prime favourite, often styled and entered Darcas. Every register has it, and every page. A political ballad says—

“Come, Dorcas and Cloe,
With Lois and Zoe,
Young Lettice, and Beterice, and Jane;
Phill, Dorothy, Maud,
Come troop it abroad,
For now is our time to reign.”

Persis, Tryphena, and Tryphosa were also largely used. The earliest Persis I know is—

“1579, Maye 3. Christened Persis, d. of William Hopkinson, minister heare.”—Salehurst.

Some of these names—as, for instance, Priscilla, Damaris, Dorcas, and Phebe—stood in James’s reign almost at the head of girls’ names in England. Indeed, alike in London and the provinces, the list of girl-names at Elizabeth’s death was a perfect contrast to that when she ascended the throne. Then the great national names of Isabella, Matilda, Emma, and Cecilia ruled supreme. Then the four heroines Anna, Judith, Susan, and Hester, one or two of whom were in the Apocryphal narrative, had stamped themselves on our registers in what appeared indelible lines, although they were of much more recent popularity than the others. They lost prestige, but did not die out. Many Puritans had a sneaking fondness for them, finding in their histories a parallel to their own troubles, and perchance they had a private and more godly rendering of the popular ballad of their day:

“In Ninivie old Toby dwelt,
An aged man, and blind was he:
And much affliction he had felt,
Which brought him unto poverty:
He had by Anna, his true wife,
One only sonne, and eke no more.”

Esther[13] is still popular in our villages, so is Susan. Hannah has her admirers, and only Judith may be said to be forgotten. But their glory was from 1450 to 1550. After that they became secondary personages. Throughout the south of England, especially in the counties that surrounded London, the Bible had been ransacked from nook to corner. The zealots early dived into the innermost recesses of Scripture. They made themselves as familiar with chapters devoted solely to genealogical tables, as to those which they quoted to defend their doctrinal creed. The eighth chapter of Romans was not more studied by them than the thirty-sixth of Genesis, and the dukes of Edom classified in the one were laid under frequent contribution to witness to the adoption treated of in the other. Thus names unheard of in 1558 were “household words” in 1603.

The slowest to take up the new custom were the northern counties. They were out of the current; and Lancashire, besides being inaccessible, had stuck to the old faith. Names lingered on in the Palatinate that had been dead nearly a hundred years in the south. Gawin figures in all northern registers till a century ago, and Thurston[14] was yet popular in the Fylde district, when it had become forgotten in the Fens. Scotland was never touched at all. The General Assembly of 1645 makes no hint on the subject, although it dwelt on nearly every other topic. Nothing demonstrates the clannish feeling of North Britain as this does. At this moment Scotland has scarcely any Bible names.

In Yorkshire, however, Puritanism made early stand, though its effects on nomenclature were not immediately visible. It was like the fire that smoulders among the underwood before it catches flame; it spreads the more rapidly afterwards. The Genevan Bible crept into the dales and farmsteads, and their own primitive life seemed to be but reflected in its pages. The patriarchs lived as graziers, and so did they. There was a good deal about sheep and kine in its chapters, and their own lives were spent among the milk-pails and wool shears. The women of the Old Testament baked cakes, and knew what good butter was. So did the dales’ folk. By slow degrees Cecilia, Isabella, and Emma lapsed from their pedestal, and the little babes were turned into Sarahs, Rebeccas, and Deborahs. As the seventeenth century progressed the state of things became still more changed. There had been villages in Sussex and Kent previous to Elizabeth’s death, where the Presbyterian rector, by his personal influence at the time of baptism, had turned the new generation into a Hebrew colony. The same thing occurred in Yorkshire only half a century later. As nonconformity gained ground, Guy, and Miles, and Peter, and Philip became forgotten. The lads were no sooner ushered into existence than they were transformed into duplicates of Joel, and Amos, and Obediah. The measles still ran through the family, but it was Phineas and Caleb, not Robert and Roger, that underwent the infliction. Chosen leaders of Israel passed through the critical stages of teething. As for the twelve sons of Jacob, they could all have answered to their names in the dames’ schools, through their little apple-cheeked representatives, who lined the rude benches. On the village green, every prophet from Isaiah to Malachi might be seen of an evening playing leap-frog: unless, indeed, Zephaniah was stealing apples in the garth.

From Yorkshire, about the close of the seventeenth century, the rage for Scripture names passed into Lancashire. Nonconformity was making progress; the new industries were already turning villages into small centres of population, and the Church of England not providing for the increase, chapels were built. If we look over the pages of the directories of West Yorkshire and East Lancashire, and strike out the surnames, we could imagine we were consulting anciently inscribed registers of Joppa or Jericho. It would seem as if Canaan and the West Riding had got inextricably mixed.

What a spectacle meets our eye! Within the limits of ten leaves we have three Pharoahs, while as many Hephzibahs are to be found on one single page. Adah and Zillah Pickles, sisters, are milliners. Jehoiada Rhodes makes saws—not Solomon’s sort—and Hariph Crawshaw keeps a farm. Vashni, from somewhere in the Chronicles, is rescued from oblivion by Vashni Wilkinson, coal merchant, who very likely goes to Barzillai Williamson, on the same page, for his joints, Barzillai being a butcher. Jachin, known to but a few as situated in the Book of Kings, is in the person of Jachin Firth, a beer retailer, familiar to all his neighbours. Heber Holdsworth on one page is faced by Er Illingworth on the other. Asa and Joab are extremely popular, while Abner, Adna, Ashael, Erastus, Eunice, Benaiah, Aquila, Elihu, and Philemon enjoy a fair amount of patronage. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, having been rescued from ChaldÆan fire, have been deluged with baptismal water. How curious it is to contemplate such entries as Lemuel Wilson, Kelita Wilkinson, Shelah Haggas, Shadrach Newbold, Neriah Pearce, Jeduthan Jempson, Azariah Griffiths, Naphtali Matson, Philemon Jakes, Hameth Fell, Eleph Bisat, Malachi Ford, or Shallum Richardson. As to other parts of the Scriptures, I have lighted upon name after name that I did not know existed in the Bible at all till I looked into the Lancashire and Yorkshire directories.

The Bible has decided the nomenclature of the north of England. In towns like Oldham, Bolton, Ashton, and Blackburn, the clergyman’s baptismal register is but a record of Bible names. A clerical friend of mine christened twins Cain and Abel, only the other day, much against his own wishes. Another parson on the Derbyshire border was gravely informed, at the proper moment, that the name of baptism was Ramoth-Gilead. “Boy or girl, eh?” he asked in a somewhat agitated voice. The parents had opened the Bible hap-hazard, according to the village tradition, and selected the first name the eye fell on. It was but a year ago a little child was christened Tellno in a town within six miles of Manchester, at the suggestion of a cotton-spinner, the father, a workman of the name of Lees, having asked his advice. “I suppose it must be a Scripture name,” said his master. “Oh yes! that’s of course.” “Suppose you choose Tellno,” said his employer. “That’ll do,” replied the other, who had never heard it before, and liked it the better on that account. The child is now Tell-no Lees, the father, too late, finding that he had been hoaxed.[15] “Sirs,” was the answer given to a bewildered curate, after the usual demand to name the child. He objected, but was informed that it was a Scripture name, and the verse “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” was triumphantly appealed to. This reminds one of the Puritan who styled his dog “Moreover” after the dog in the Gospel: “Moreover the dog came and licked his sores.”

There is, again, a story of a clergyman making the customary demand as to name from a knot of women round the font. “Ax her,” said one. Turning to the woman who appeared to be indicated, he again asked, “What name?” “Ax her,” she replied. The third woman, being questioned, gave the same reply. At last he discovered the name to be the Scriptural Achsah, Caleb’s daughter—a name, by the way, which was somewhat popular with our forefathers. No wonder this mistake arose, when Achsah used to be entered in some such manner as this:

“1743-4, Jan. 3. Baptized Axar Starrs (a woman of ripe years), of Stockport.

“1743-4, Jan. 3. Married Warren Davenport, of Stockport, Esq., and Axar Starrs, aforesaid, spinster.”—Marple, Cheshire.

Axar’s father was Caleb Starrs. The scriptural relationship was thus preserved. Achsah crossed the Atlantic with the Pilgrim Fathers, and has prospered there ever since. It is still popular in Devonshire and the south-west of England. All these stories serve to show the quarry whence modern names are hewn.

I have mentioned the north because I have studied its Post-Office Directories carefully. But if any one will visit the shires of Dorset, and Devon, and Hampshire, he will find the same result. The Hebrew has won the day. Just as in England, north of Trent, we can still measure off the ravages of the Dane by striking a line through all local names lying westward ending in “by,” so we have but to count up the baptismal names of the peasantry of these southern counties to see that they have become the bondsmen of an Eastern despot. In fact, go where and when we will from the reign of Elizabeth, we find the same influence at work. Take a few places and people at random.

Looking at our testamentary records, we find the will of Kerenhappuch Benett proved in 1762, while Kerenhappuch Horrocks figures in the Manchester Directory for 1877. Onesiphorus Luffe appears on a halfpenny token of 1666; Habakkuk Leyman, 1650; Euodias Inman, 1650; Melchisedek Fritter, 1650; Elnathan Brock, 1654; and Abdiah Martin, 1664 (“Tokens of Seventeenth Century”). Shallum Stent was married in 1681 (Racton, Sussex); Gershom Baylie was constable of Lewes in 1619, Araunah Verrall fulfilling the same office in 1784. Captain Epenetus Crosse presented a petition to Privy Council in 1660 (C. S. P. Colonial); Erastus Johnson was defendant in 1724, and Cressens Boote twenty years earlier. Barjonah Dove was Vicar of Croxton in 1694. Tryphena Monger was buried in Putney Churchyard in 1702, and Tryphosa Saunders at St. Peter’s, Worcester, in 1770. Mahaliel Payne, Azarias Phesant, and Pelatiah Barnard are recorded in State Papers, 1650-1663 (C. S. P.), and Aminadab Henley was dwelling in Kent in 1640 (“Proceedings in Kent.” Camden Society). Shadrack Pride is a collector of hearth-money in 1699, and Gamaliel Chase is communicated with in 1635 (C. S. P.). Onesiphorus Albin proposes a better plan of collecting the alien duty in 1692 (C. S. P.), while Mordecai Abbott is appointed deputy-paymaster of the forces in 1697 (C. S. P.). Eliakim Palmer is married at Somerset House Chapel in 1740; Dalilah White is buried at Cowley in 1791, and Keziah Simmons is christened there in 1850. Selah Collins is baptized at Dyrham, Gloucestershire, in 1752, and Keturah Jones is interred at Clifton in 1778. Eli-lama-Sabachthani Pressnail was existing in 1862 (Notes and Queries), and the Times recorded a Talitha-Cumi People about the same time. The will of Mahershalalhashbaz Christmas was proved not very long ago. Mrs. Mahershalalhashbaz Bradford was dwelling in Ringwood, Hampshire, in 1863; and on January 31, 1802, the register of Beccles Church received the entry, “Mahershalalhashbaz, son of Henry and Sarah Clarke, baptized,” the same being followed, October 14, 1804, by the baptismal entry of “Zaphnaphpaaneah,” another son of the same couple. A grant of administration in the estate of Acts-Apostles Pegden was made in 1865. His four brothers, older than himself, were of course the four Evangelists, and had there been a sixth I dare say his name would have been “Romans.” An older member of this family, many years one of the kennel-keepers of Tickham fox-hounds, was Pontius Pilate Pegden. At a confirmation at Faversham in 1847, the incumbent of Dunkirk presented to the amazed archbishop a boy named “Acts-Apostles.” These are, of course, mere eccentricities, but eccentricities follow a beaten path, and have their use in calculations of the nature we are considering. Eccentricities in dress are proverbially but exaggerations of the prevailing fashion.

II. POPULARITY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

The affection felt by the Puritans for the Old Testament has been observed by all writers upon the period, and of the period. Cleveland’s remark, quoted by Hume, is, of course, an exaggeration.

Lord Macaulay puts it much more faithfully in his first chapter, speaking, too, of an earlier period than the Commonwealth:

The Presbyterian clergy had another objection to the New Testament names. The possessors were all saints, and in the saints’ calendar. The apostolic title was as a red rag to his blood-shot eye.

“Upon Saint Peter, Paul, John, Jude, and James,
They will not put the ‘saint’ unto their names,”

says the Water-poet in execrable verse. Its local use was still more trying, as no man could pass through a single quarter of London without seeing half a dozen churches, or lanes, or taverns dedicated to Saint somebody or other.

“Others to make all things recant
The christian and surname of saint,
Would force all churches, streets, and towns
The holy title to renounce.”

To avoid any saintly taint, the Puritan avoided the saints themselves.

But the discontented party in the Church had, as Macaulay says, a decided hankering after the Old Testament on other grounds than this. They paid the Hebrew language an almost superstitious reverence.[16] Ananias, the deacon, in the “Alchemist,” published in 1610, says—

“Heathen Greek, I take it.
Subtle.How! heathen Greek?
Ananias. All’s heathen but the Hebrew.”[17]Bishop Corbet, in his “Distracted Puritan,” has a lance to point at the same weakness:

“In the holy tongue of Canaan
I placed my chiefest pleasure,
Till I pricked my foot
With an Hebrew root,
That I bled beyond all measure.”

In the “City Match,” written by Mayne in 1639, Bannsright says—

“Mistress Dorcas,
If you’ll be usher to that holy, learned woman,
That can heal broken shins, scald heads, and th’ itch,
Your schoolmistress: that can expound, and teaches
To knit in Chaldee, and work Hebrew samplers,
I’ll help you back again.”

The Puritan was ever nicknamed after some Old Testament worthy. I could quote many instances, but let two from the author of the “London Diurnall” suffice. Addressing Prince Rupert, he says—

“Let the zeal-twanging nose, that wants a ridge,
Snuffling devoutly, drop his silver bridge:
Yes, and the gossip’s spoon augment the summe,
Altho’ poor Caleb lose his christendome.”

More racy is his attack on Pembroke, as a member of the Mixed Assembly:

“Forbeare, good Pembroke, be not over-daring:
Such company may chance to spoil thy swearing;
And these drum-major oaths of bulk unruly
May dwindle to a feeble ‘by my truly.’
He that the noble Percy’s blood inherits,
Will he strike up a Hotspur of the spirits?
He’ll fright the Obediahs out of tune,
With his uncircumcis-ed Algernoon:
A name so stubborne, ’tis not to be scanned
By him in Gath with the six fingered hand.”

If a Bible quotation was put into the zealot’s mouth, his cynical foe took care that it should come from the older Scriptures. In George Chapman’s “An Humorous Day’s Work,” after Lemot has suggested a “full test of experiment” to prove her virtue, Florilla the Puritan cries—

To which the gruff Labervele replies—

In the same facetious strain, Taylor, the Water-poet, addresses a child thus:

“To learne thy duty reade no more than this:
Paul’s nineteenth chapter unto Genesis.”

This certainly tallies with the charge in “Hudibras,” that they

“Corrupted the Old Testament
To serve the New as precedent.”

This affection for the older Scriptures had its effect upon our nomenclature. No book, no story, especially if gloomy in its outline and melancholy in its issues, escaped the more morbid Puritan’s notice. Every minister of the Lord’s vengeance, every stern witness against natural abomination, the prophet that prophesied ill—these were the names that were in favour. And he that was least bitter in his maledictions was most at a discount. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were in every-day request, Shadrach and Abednego being the favourites. Mordecai, too, was daily commemorated; while Jeremiah attained a popularity, as Jeremy, he can never altogether lose. “Lamentations” was so melancholy, that it must needs be personified, don a Puritanical habit, and stand at the font as godfather—I mean witness—to some wretched infant who had done nothing to merit such a fate. “Lamentations Chapman” appeared as defendant in a suit in Chancery about 1590. The exact date is not to be found, but the case was tried towards the close of Elizabeth’s reign (“Chancery Suits, Elizabeth”).

It is really hard to say why names of melancholy import became so common. Perhaps it was a spirit morbidly brooding on the religious oppressions of the times; perhaps it was bile. Any way, Camden says “Dust” and “Ashes” were names in use in the days of Elizabeth and James. These, no doubt, were translations of the Hebrew “Aphrah” into the “vulgar tongue,” the name having become exceedingly common. Micah, in one of the most mournful prophecies of the Old Testament, says—

Literally: “in the house of dust roll thyself in the dust.” The name was quickly seized upon:

This last entry proves how early the name had arisen. In Kent it had become very common. The registers of Canterbury Cathedral teem with it:

In these instances we see at a glance the origin of the licentious Aphra Behn’s name, which looks so like a nom-de-plume, and has puzzled many. She was born at Canterbury, with the surname of Johnson, baptized Aphra, and married a Dutch merchant named Behn. When acting as a Government spy at Antwerp in 1666, she signs a letter “Aphara Behn” (C. S. P.), which is nearer the Biblical form than many others. It is just possible her father might have rolled himself several times in the dust had he lived to read some of his daughter’s writings. Their tone is not Puritanic. The name has become obsolete; indeed, it scarcely survived the seventeenth century, dying out within a hundred years of its rise. But it was very popular in its day.

Rachel, in her dying pains, had styled, under deep depression, her babe Benoni (“son of my sorrow”); but his father turned it into the more cheerful Benjamin (“son of the right hand”). Of course, Puritanism sided with the mother, and the Benonis flourished at a ratio of six to one over the Benjamins:

I don’t think, however, all these mothers died in childbed. It would speak badly for the chirurgic skill of the seventeenth century if they did. It was the Church of Christ that was in travail.

Ichabod was equally common. There was something hard and unrelenting in Jael (already mentioned) that naturally suited the temper of every fanatic:

Mehetabell had something in it, probably its length, that made it popular among the Puritan faction. It lasted well, too:

But while Deborah, an especial pet of the fanatics, Sara, Rebecca, Rachel, Zipporah, and Leah were in high favour as Old Testament heroines, none had such a run as Abigail:

Few Scripture names made themselves so popular as this. At the conclusion of the sixteenth century it was beginning its career, and by Queen Anne’s day had reached its zenith. When the Cavalier was drinking at the alehouse, he would waggishly chant through his nose, with eye upturned—

“Come, sisters, and sing
An hymne to our king,
Who sitteth on high degree.
The men at Whitehall,
And the wicked, shall fall,
And hey, then, up go we!
‘A match,’ quoth my sister Joice,
‘Contented,’ quoth Rachel, too;
Quoth Abigaile, ‘Yea,’ and Faith, ‘Verily,’
And Charity, ‘Let it be so.’”

A curious error has been propagated by writers who ought to have known better. It is customarily asserted that abigail, as a cant term for a waiting-maid, only arose after Abigail Hill, the Duchess of Marlborough’s cousin, became waiting-woman to the queen, and supplanted her kinswoman. Certainly we find both Swift and Fielding using the term after this event. But there is good reason for believing that the sobriquet is as old as Charles I.’s reign. Indeed, there can be no reasonable doubt but that we owe the term to the enormous popularity of Beaumont’s comedy, “The Scornful Ladie,” written about 1613, and played in 1616. The chief part falls to the lot of “Abigal, a waiting-gentlewoman,” as the dramatis personÆ styles her, the playwright associating the name and employment after the scriptural narrative. But Beaumont knew his Bible well.

That Abigail at once became a cant term is proved by “The Parson’s Wedding,” written by Killigrew some time between 1645 and 1650. Wanton addresses the Parson:

“Was she deaf to your report?
Parson. Yes, yes.
Wanton. And Ugly, her abigail, she had her say, too?
Parson. Yes, yes.”That this sentence would never have been written but for Beaumont’s play, there can be no reasonable doubt. It was performed so late as 1783. In 1673, after yearly performances, it was published as a droll, and entitled “The False Heir.” In 1742 it appears again under the title of “The Feigned Shipwreck.” Samuel Pepys, in his Diary, records his visits to the playhouse to see “The Scornful Lady” at least four times, viz. 1661, 1662, 1665, and 1667. Writing December 27, 1665, he says—

Abigail passed out of favour about the middle of the last century, but Mrs. Masham’s artifices had little to do with it. The comedy had done its work, and Abigail coming into use, like Malkin two centuries before, as the cant term for a kitchen drab, or common serving wench, as is sufficiently proved by the literature of the day, the name lost caste with all classes, and was compelled to bid adieu to public favour.

This affection for the Old Testament has never died out among the Nonconformists. The large batch of names I have already quoted from modern directories is almost wholly from the earlier Testament. Wherever Dissent is strong, there will be found a large proportion of these names. Amongst the passengers who went out to New England in James and Charles’s reigns will be found such names as Ebed-meleck Gastrell, Oziell Lane, Ephraim Howe, Ezechell Clement, Jeremy Clement, Zachary Cripps, Noah Fletcher, Enoch Gould, Zebulon Cunninghame, Seth Smith, Peleg Bucke, Gercyon Bucke (Gershom), Rachell Saunders, Lea Saunders, Calebb Carr, Jonathan Franklin, Boaz Sharpe, Esau del a Ware, Pharaoh Flinton, Othniell Haggat, Mordecay Knight, Obediah Hawes, Gamaliell Ellis, Esaias Raughton, Azarias Pinney, Elisha Mallowes, Malachi Mallock, Jonadab Illett, Joshua Long, Enecha Fitch (seemingly a feminine of Enoch), and Job Perridge. Occasionally an Epenetus Olney, or Nathaniell Patient, or Epaphroditus Haughton, or Cornelius Conway, or Feleaman Dickerson (Philemon), or Theophilus Lucas, or Annanias Mann is met with; but these are few, and were evidently selected for their size, the temptation to poach on apostolic preserves being too great when such big game was to be obtained. Besides, they were not in the calendar! These names went to Virginia, and they are not forgotten.

III. Objectionable Scripture Names.

Camden says—

The most cursory survey of our registers proves this. Captain Hercules Huncks and Ensign Neptune Howard fought under the Earl of Northumberland in 1640 (Peacock’s “Army List of Roundheads and Cavaliers”). Both were Royalists.

Cartwright, the great Puritan, attacked these names in 1575, as “savouring of paganism” (Neal, v. p. xv. Appendix). It was a pity he did not include some names in the list of his co-religionists, for surely Tamar and Dinah were just as objectionable as Venus or Lais. The doctrine of a fallen nature could be upheld, and the blessed state of self-abasement maintained, without a daily reminder in the shape of a Bible name of evil repute. Bishop Corbett brought it as a distinct charge against the Puritans, that they loved to select the most unsavoury stories of Old Testament history for their converse. In the “Maypole” he makes a zealot minister say—

“To challenge liberty and recreation,
Let it be done in holy contemplation.
Brothers and sisters in the fields may walk,
Beginning of the Holy Word to talk:
Of David and Uria’s lovely wife,
Of Tamar and her lustful brother’s strife.”

One thing is certain, these names became popular:

The alternate form of Bath-shua (1 Chron. iii. 5) was used, although the clerks did not always know how to spell it:

As for Dinah, she became a great favourite from her first introduction; every register contains her name before Elizabeth’s death:

Crossing the Atlantic with the Pilgrim Fathers, she settled down at length as the typical negress; yet Puritan writers admitted that when she “went out to see the daughters of the land,” she meant to be seen of the sons also!

Taylor, the Water-poet, seems to imply that Goliath was registered at baptism by the Puritan:

“Quoth he, ‘what might the child baptized be?
Was it a male She, or a female He?’—
‘I know not what, but ’tis a Son,’ she said.—
‘Nay then,’ quoth he, ‘a wager may be laid
It had some Scripture name.’—‘Yes, so it had,’
Said she: ‘but my weak memory’s so bad,
I have forgot it: ’twas a godly name,
Tho’ out of my remembrance be the same:
’Twas one of the small prophets verily:
’Twas not Esaias, nor yet Jeremy,
Ezekiel, Daniel, nor good Obadiah,
Ah, now I do remember, ’twas Goliah!’”

Pharaoh occurs, and went out to Virginia, where it has ever since remained. It is, as already shown, familiar enough in Yorkshire.

Of New Testament names, whose associations are of evil repute, we may mention Ananias, Sapphira, and Antipas. Ananias had become so closely connected with Puritanism, that not only did Dryden poke fun at the relationship in the “Alchemist,” but Ananias Dulman became the cant term for a long-winded zealot preacher. So says Neal.

Sapphira occurs in Bunhill Fields:

She was therefore born in 1633. Her brother (they were brought up Presbyterians) was Robert Leighton, who died Archbishop of Glasgow.

Drusilla, again, was objectionable, but perchance her character was less historically known then:

Antipas, curiously enough, was almost popular, although a murderer and an adulterer:

Dr. Increase Mather, the eminent Puritan, in his work entitled “Remarkable Providences,” published at Boston, U.S.A., in 1684, has a story of an interposition in behalf of his friend Antipas Newman.

Of other instances, somewhat later, Sehon Stace, who lived in Warding in 1707 (“Suss. Arch. Coll.,” xii. 254), commemorates the King of the Amorites, Milcom Groat (“Cal. St. P.,” 1660) representing on English soil “the abomination of the children of Ammon.” Dr. Pusey and Mr. Spurgeon might be excused a little astonishment at such a conversion by baptism.

Barrabas cannot be considered a happy choice:

Mr. Maskell draws attention to the name in his history of that church. There is something so emphatic about “now Barrabas was a robber,” that thoughts of theft seem proper to the very name. We should have locked up the spoons, we feel sure, had father or son called upon us. The father who called his son “Judas-not-Iscariot” scarcely cleared the name of its evil associations, nor would it quite meet the difficulty suggested by the remark in “Tristram Shandy:”

We have all heard the story of Beelzebub. If the child had been inadvertently so baptized, a remedy might have been found in former days by changing the name at confirmation. Until 1552, the bishop confirmed by name. Archbishop Peccham laid down a rule:

That this law had been carelessly followed after the Reformation is clear, else Venus Levat, already quoted, would not have been married in 1631 under that name. Certainly Dinah and Tamar come under the ban of this injunction.

Curiously enough, the change of name was sanctioned in the case of orthodox names, for Lord Coke says—

He then quotes the case of Sir Francis Gawdie, Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, whose name by baptism was Thomas, Thomas being changed to Francis at confirmation. He holds that Francis shall stand (“Institutes,” 1. iii.). This practice manifestly arose out of Peccham’s rule, but it is strange that wanton instances should be left unchanged, and the orthodox allowed to be altered.

Arising out of the Puritan error of permitting names like Tamar and Dinah to stand, modern eccentricity has gone very far, and it would be satisfactory to see many names in use at present forbidden. I need not quote the Venuses of our directories. Emanuel is of an opposite character, and should be considered blasphemy. We have not adopted Christ yet, as Dr. Doran reminded us they have done in Germany, but my copy of the London Directory shows at least one German, bearing the baptismal name of Christ, at present dwelling in the metropolis. Puritan eccentricity is a trifle to this.

IV. Losses.

(a.) The Destruction of Pet Forms.

But let us now notice some of the more disastrous effects of the great Hebrew invasion. The most important were the partial destruction of the nick forms, and the suppression of diminutives. The English pet names disappeared, never more to return. Desinences in “cock,” “kin,” “elot,” “ot,” “et,” “in,” and “on,” are no more found in current literature, nor in the clerk’s register. Why should this be so? An important reason strikes us at once. The ecclesiastic names on which the enclytics had grown had become unpopular well-nigh throughout England. It was an English, not a Puritan prejudice. With the suppression of the names proper went the desinences attached to them. The tree being felled, the parasite decayed. Another reason was this: the names introduced from the Scriptures did not seem to compound comfortably with these terminatives. The Hebrew name would first have to be turned into a nick form before the diminutive was appended. The English peasantry had added “in,” “ot,” “kin,” and “cock” only to the nickname, never to the baptismal form. It was Wat-kin, not Walterkin; Bat-kin, not Bartholomewkin; Wilcock, not Williamcock; Colin, not Nicholas-in; Philpot, not Philipot. But the popular feeling for a century was against turning the new Scripture names into curt nick forms. As it would have been an absurdity to have appended diminutives to sesquipedalian names, national wit, rather than deliberate plan, prevented it. If it was irreverent, too, to curtail Scripture names, it was equally irreverent to give them the diminutive dress. To prove the absolute truth of my statement, I have only to remind the reader that, saving “Nat-kin,” not one single Bible name introduced by the Reformation and the English Bible has become conjoined with a diminutive.[19]

The immediate consequence was this; the diminutive forms became obsolete. Emmott lingered on till the end of the seventeenth century; nay, got into the eighteenth:

But it was only where it was not known as a form of Emma, and possibly both might exist in the same household. I have already furnished instances of Hamlet. Here is another:

It lasted till the eighteenth century. But nobody knew by that time that it was a pet name of Hamon, or Hamond; nay, few knew that the surname of Hammond had ever been a baptismal name at all:

It is curious to notice that Mr. Hovenden, in his “Canterbury Register,” published 1878, for the Harleian Society, has the following entries:—

Turning to the index, the editor has styled them Hamilton Struggle and Hamilton Leucknor. Ham’on, of course, is Hammon, or Hammond. I may add that some ecclesiastic, a critic of my book on “English Surnames,” in the Guardian, rebuked me for supposing that Emmot could be from Emma, and calmly put it down as a form of Aymot! What can prove the effect of the Reformation on old English names as do such incidents as these?

An English monarch styled his favourite Peter Gaveston as “Piers,” a form that was sufficiently familiar to readers of history; but when an antiquary, some few years ago, found this same Gaveston described as “Perot,” it became a difficulty to not a few. The Perrots or Parratts of our London Directory might have told them of the old-fashioned diminutive that had been knocked on the head with a Hebrew Bible.

Collet, from Nicholas, used as a feminine name, died out also. The last instance I know of is—

Colin, the other pet form, having got into our pastoral poetry, lingered longer, and may be said to be still alive:

The last Wilmot I have discovered is a certain Wilmote Adams, a defendant in a Chancery suit at the end of Elizabeth’s reign (“Chancery Suits: Elizabeth”), and the last Philpot is dated 1575:

All the others perished by the time James I. was king. Guy, or Wyatt, succumbed entirely, and the same may be said of the rest. Did we require further confirmation of this, I need only inquire: Would any Yorkshireman now, as he reads over shop-fronts in towns like Leeds or Bradford, or in the secluded villages of Wensleydale or Swaledale, the surnames of Tillot and Tillotson, Emmett and Emmotson, Ibbott, Ibbet, Ibbs, and Ibbotson, know that, twenty years before the introduction of our English Bible, these were not merely the familiar pet names of Matilda, Emma, and Isabella, but that as a trio they stood absolutely first in the scale of frequency? Nay, they comprised more than forty-five per cent. of the female population.

The last registered Ibbot or Issot I have seen is in the Chancery suits at the close of Queen Bess’s reign, wherein Ibote Babyngton and Izott Barne figure in some legal squabbles (“Chancery Suits: Elizabeth,” vol. ii.). As for Sissot, or Drewet, or Doucet, or Fawcett, or Hewet, or Philcock, or Jeffcock, or Batkin, or Phippin, or Lambin, or Perrin, they have passed away—their place knoweth them no more. What a remarkable revolution is this, and so speedy!

Failing our registers, the question may arise whether or not in familiar converse the old pet forms were still used. Our ballads and plays preserve many of the nick forms, but scarcely a pet form is to be seen later than 1590. In 1550 Nicholas Udall wrote “Ralph Roister Doister,” in the very commencement of which Matthew Merrygreek “says or sings”—

“Sometime Lewis Loiterer biddeth me come near:
Somewhiles Watkin Waster maketh us good cheer.”Amongst the dramatis personÆ are Dobinet Doughty, Sim Suresby, Madge Mumblecrust, Tibet Talkapace, and Annot Aliface. A few years later came “Gammer Gurton’s Needle.” Both Diccon and Hodge figure in it: two rustics of the most bucolic type. Hodge, after relating how Gib the cat had licked the milk-pan clean, adds—

Immediately after this, again, in 1568 was printed “Like will to Like.” The chief characters are Tom Tosspot, Hankin Hangman, Pierce Pickpurse, and Nichol Newfangle. Wat Waghalter is also introduced. But here may be said to end this homely and contemporary class of play-names. ’Tis true, in Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Beggar’s Bush,” Higgen (Higgin) is one of the “three knavish beggars,” but the scene is laid in Flanders.

Judging by our songs and comedies, the diminutive forms went down with terrible rapidity, and were practically obsolete before Elizabeth’s death. But this result was more the work of the Reformation at large than Puritanism.

(b.) The Decrease of Nick Forms.

This was not all. The nick forms saw themselves reduced to straits. The new godly names, I have said, were not to be turned into irreverent cant terms. From the earliest day of the Reformation every man who gave his child a Bible name stuck to it unaltered. Ebenezer at baptism was Ebenezer among the turnips, Ebenezer with the milk-pail, and Ebenezer in courtship; while Deborah, who did not become Deb till Charles I.’s reign, would Ebenezer him till the last day she had done scolding him, and put “Ebenezer” carefully on his grave, to prove how happily they had lived together!

As for the zealot who gradually forged his way to the front, he gave his brother and sister in the Lord the full benefit of his or her title, whether it was five syllables or seven. There can be no doubt that these Hebrew names did not readily adapt themselves to ordinary converse with the world. Melchisedek and Ebedmelech were all right elbowing their way into the conventicle, but Melchisedek dispensing half-pounds of butter over the counter, or Ebedmelech carrying milk-pails from door to door, gave people a kind of shock. These grand assumptions suggested knavery. One feels certain that our great-grandmothers had a suspicion of tallow in the butter, and Jupiter Pluvius in the pail.

Nor did these excavated names harmonize with the surnames to which they were yoked. Adoniram was quaint enough without Byfield, but both (as Butler, in “Hudibras,” knew) suggested something slightly ludicrous. Byron took a mean advantage of this when he attacked poor Cottle, the bookseller and would-be writer:

“O Amos Cottle! Phoebus! what a name
To fill the speaking trump of future fame!
O Amos Cottle! for a moment think
What meagre profits spring from pen and ink.”

Amos is odd, but Amos united to Cottle makes a smile irresistible.

Who does not agree with Wilkes, who, when speaking to Johnson of Dryden’s would-be rival, the city poet, says—

And Sterne, as the elder Disraeli reminds us, in one of his multitudinous digressions from the life of “Tristram Shandy,” makes the progenitor of that young gentleman turn absolutely melancholy, as he conjures up a vision of all the men who

Even Oliver Goldsmith cannot resist styling the knavish seller of green spectacles by a conjunction of Hebrew and English titles as Ephraim Jenkinson; and his servant, who acts the part of a Job Trotter (another Old Testament worthy, again) to his master, is, of course, Abraham!

But, oddly as such combinations strike upon the modern tympanum, what must not the effect have been in a day when a nickname was popular according as it was curt? How would men rub their eyes in sheer amazement, when such conjunctions as Ebedmelech Gastrell, or Epaphroditus Haughton, or Onesiphorus Dixey, were introduced to their notice, pronounced with all sesquipedalian fulness, following upon the very heels of a long epoch of traditional one-syllabled Ralphs, Hodges, Hicks, Wats, Phips, Bates, and Balls (Baldwin). Conceive the amazement at such registrations as these:

The “Chancery Suits” of Elizabeth contain a large batch of such names; and I have already enumerated a list of “Pilgrim Fathers” of James’s reign, whose baptisms would be recorded in the previous century.

But compare this with the fact that the leading men in England at this very time were recognized only by the curtest of abbreviated names. In that very quaint poem of Heywood’s, “The Hierarchie of Blessed Angels,” the author actually makes it the ground of an affected remonstrance:

“Marlowe, renowned for his rare art and wit,
Could ne’er attain beyond the name of Kit,
Although his Hero and Leander did
Merit addition rather. Famous Kid
Was called but Tom. Tom Watson, though he wrote
Able to make Apollo’s self to dote
Upon his muse, for all that he could strive,
Yet never could to his full name arrive.
Tom Nash, in his time of no small esteem,
Could not a second syllable redeem.
········
Mellifluous Shakespeare, whose enchanting quill
Commanded mirth or passion, was but Will:
And famous Jonson, though his learned pen
Be dipped in Castaly, is still but Ben.”

However, in the end, he attributes the familiarity to the right cause:

“I, for my part,
Think others what they please, accept that heart
That courts my love in most familiar phrase;
And that it takes not from my pains or praise,
If any one to me so bluntly come:
I hold he loves me best that calls me Tom.”

It is Sir Christopher, the curate, who, in “The Ordinary,” rebels against “Kit:”

“Andrew. What may I call your name, most reverend sir?
Bagshot. His name’s Sir Kit.
Christopher. My name is not so short:
’Tis a trisyllable, an’t please your worship;
But vulgar tongues have made bold to profane it
With the short sound of that unhallowed idol
They call a kit. Boy, learn more reverence!
Bagshot. Yes, to my betters.”

We need not wonder, therefore, that the comedists took their fun out of the new custom, especially in relation to their length and pronunciation in full. In Cowley’s “Cutter of Colman Street,” Cutter turns Puritan, and thus addresses the colonel’s widow, Tabitha:

“Sister Barebottle, I must not be called Cutter any more: that is a name of Cavalier’s darkness; the Devil was a Cutter from the beginning: my name is now Abednego: I had a vision which whispered to me through a key-hole, ‘Go, call thyself Abednego.’”