Charles Wareing Endell Bardsley

PURITAN ECCENTRICITIES.

“And we have known Williams and Richards, names not found in sacred story, but familiar to our country, prove as gracious saints as any Safe-deliverance, Fight-the-good-fight-of-faith, or such like, which have been rather descriptions than names.”—Thomas Adams, Meditations upon the Creed, 1629.

“In giving names to children, it was their opinion that heathenish names should be avoided, as not so fit for Christians; and also the names of God, and Christ, and angels, and the peculiar offices of the Mediator,”—Neal, History of the Puritans, vol. 1, ch. v. 1565.

I. Introductory.

There are still many people who are sceptical about the stories told against the Puritans in the matter of name-giving. Of these some are Nonconformists, who do not like the slights thus cast upon their spiritual ancestry; unaware that while this curious phase was at its climax, Puritanism was yet within the pale of the Church of England. Others, having searched through the lists of the Protector’s Parliaments, Commissioners, and army officers, and having found but a handful of odd baptismal names, declare, without hesitation, that these stories are wicked calumnies. Mr. Peacock, whose book on the “Army Lists of Roundheads and Cavaliers” is well worth study, says, in one of the numbers of Notes and Queries—

“I know modern writers have repeated the same thing over and over again; but I do not remember any trustworthy evidence of the Commonwealth time, or that of Charles II., that would lead us to believe that strange christian names were more common in those days than now. What passages have we on this subject in the works of the Restoration playwrights?”

This is an old mistake. If Mr. Peacock had looked at our registers from 1580 to 1640, instead of from 1640 to 1680, he would never have written the above. There is the most distinct evidence that during the latter portion of Elizabeth’s reign, the whole of James’s reign, and great part of Charles’s reign, in a district roughly comprising England south of the Trent, and having, say, Banbury for its centre, there prevailed, amongst a certain class of English religionists, a practice of baptizing children by scriptural phrases, pious ejaculations, or godly admonitions. It was a practice instituted of deliberate purpose, as conducive to vital religion, and as intending to separate the truly godly and renewed portion of the community from the world at large. The Reformation epoch had seen the English middle and lower classes generally adopting the proper names of Scripture. Thus, the sterner Puritan had found a list of Bible names that he would gladly have monopolized, shared in by half the English population. That a father should style his child Nehemiah, or Abacuck, or Tabitha, or Dorcas, he discovered with dismay, did not prove that that particular parent was under any deep conviction of sin. This began to trouble the minds and consciences of the elect. Fresh limits must be created. As Richard and Roger had given way to Nathaniel and Zerrubabel, so Nathaniel and Zerrubabel must now give way to Learn-wisdom and Hate-evil. Who inaugurated the movement, with what success, and how it slowly waned, this chapter will show.

There can be no doubt that it is entirely owing to Praise-God Barebone, and the Parliament that went by his name,[30] the impression got abroad in after days that the Commonwealth period was the heyday of these eccentricities, and that these remarkable names were merely adopted after conversion, and were not entered in the vestry-books as baptismal names at all.

The existence of these names could not escape the attention of Lord Macaulay and Sir Walter Scott. The Whig historian has referred to Tribulation Wholesome and Zeal-of-the-land Busy almost as frequently as to that fourth-form boy for whose average (!) abilities to the very end of his literary life he entertained such a profound respect. Two quotations will suffice. In his “Comic Dramatists of the Restoration” he says, speaking of the Commonwealth—

“To know whether a man was really godly was impossible. But it was easy to know whether he had a plain dress, lank hair, no starch in his linen, no gay furniture in his house; whether he talked through his nose, and showed the whites of his eyes; whether he named his children Assurance, Tribulation, and Maher-shalal-hash-baz.”

Again, in his Essay on Croker’s “Boswell’s Life of Johnson,” he declares—

“Johnson could easily see that a Roundhead who named all his children after Solomon’s singers, and talked in the House of Commons about seeking the Lord, might be an unprincipled villain, whose religious mummeries only aggravated his fault.”

In “Woodstock,” Scott has such characters as Zerrubabel Robins and Merciful Strickalthrow, both soldiers of Oliver Cromwell; while the zealot ranter is one Nehemiah Holdenough. Mr. Peacock most certainly has grounds for complaint here, but not as to facts, only dates.

II. Originated by the Presbyterian Clergy.

In Strype’s “Life of Whitgift” (i. 255) we find the following statement:—

“I find yet again another company of these fault-finders with the Book of Common Prayer, in another diocese, namely, that of Chichester, whose names and livings were these: William Hopkinson, vicar of Salehurst; Samuel Norden, parson of Hamsey; Antony Hobson, vicar of Leominster; Thomas Underdown, parson of St. Mary’s in Lewes; John Bingham, preacher of Hodeleigh; Thomas Heley, preacher of Warbleton; John German, vicar of Burienam; and Richard Whiteaker, vicar of Ambreley.”

I follow up the history of but two of these ministers, Hopkinson of Salehurst, and Heley of Warbleton. Suspended by the commissary, they were summoned to Canterbury, December 6, 1583, and subscribed. Both being married men, with young families, we may note their action in regard to name-giving. The following are to be found in the register at Salehurst:

“Maye 3, 1579, was baptized Persis (Rom. xvi. 12), the daughter of William Hopkinson, minister heare.

“June 18, 1587, was baptized Stedfast, the sonne of Mr. William Bell, minister.

“Nov. 3, 1588, was baptized Renewed, the doughter of William Hopkinson, minister.

“Feb. 28, 1591, was baptized Safe-on-Highe, the sonne of Will^m. Hopkinson, minister of the Lord’s Worde there.[31]

“Oct. 29, 1596. Constant, filia ThomÆ Lorde, baptisata fuit.“March, 1621. Rejoyce, filia ThomÆ Lorde, baptisata fuit die 10, et sepulta die 23.

“November, 1646. Bethshua, doughter of Mr. John Lorde, minister of Salehurst, bapt. 22 die.”

These entries are of the utmost importance; they begin at the very date when the new custom arose, and are patronized by three ministers in succession—possibly four, if Thomas Lorde was also a clergyman.

Heley’s case is yet more curious. He had been prescribing grace-names for his flock shortly before the birth of his first child. He thus practises upon his own offspring:

“Nov. 7, 1585. Muche-merceye, the sonne of Thomas Hellye, minyster.

“March 26, 1587. Increased, the dather of Thomas Helly, minister.

“Maye 5, 1588. Sin-denie, the dather of Thomas Helly, minister.

“Maye 25, 1589. Fear-not, the sonne of Thomas Helly, minister.”

Under rectorial pressure the villagers followed suit; and for half a century Warbleton was, in the names of its parishioners, a complete exegesis of justification by faith without the deeds of the law. Sorry-for-sin Coupard was a peripatetic exhortation to repentance, and No-merit Vynall was a standing denunciation of works. No register in England is better worth a pilgrimage to-day than Warbleton.[32]Still confining our attention to Sussex and Kent, we come to Berwick:

“1594, Dec. 22. Baptized Continent, daughter of Hugh Walker, vicar.

“1602, Dec. 12. Baptized Christophilus, son of Hugh Walker.”—Berwick, Sussex.

I think the father ought to be whipped most incontinently in the open market who would inflict such a name on an infant daughter. They did not think so then. The point, however, is that the father was incumbent of the parish.

A more historic instance may be given. John Frewen, Puritan rector of Northiam, Sussex, from 1583 to 1628, and author of “Grounds and Principles of the Christian Religion,” had two sons, at least, baptized in his church. The dates tally exactly with the new custom:

“1588, May 26. Baptized Accepted, sonne of John Frewen.

“1591, Sep. 5. Baptized Thankful, sonne of John Frewen.”—Northiam, Sussex.

Accepted[33] died Archbishop of York, being prebend designate of Canterbury so early as 1620:

“1620, Sep. 8. Grant in reversion to Accepted Frewen of a prebend in Canterbury Cathedral.”—“C. S. P. Dom.”

One more instance before we pass on. In two separate wills, dated 1602 and 1604 (folio 25, Montagu, “Prerog. Ct. of Cant.,” and folio 25, Harte, ditto), will be found references to “More-fruite and Faint-not, children of Dudley Fenner, minister of the Word of God” at Marden, in Kent.

Now, this Dudley Fenner was a thoroughly worthy man, but a fanatic of most intolerant type. In 1583 we find him at Cranbrook, in Kent. An account of his sayings and doings was forwarded, says Strype, to Lord Burghley, who himself marked the following passage:—

“Ye shall pray also that God would strike through the sides of all such as go about to take away from the ministers of the Gospel the liberty which is granted them by the Word of God.”

But a curious note occurs alongside this passage in Lord Burghley’s hand:

“Names given in baptism by Dudley Fenner: Joy-againe, From-above, More-fruit, Dust.”—Whitgift, i. p. 247.

Two of these names were given to his own children, as Cranbrook register shows to this day:

“1583, Dec. 22. Baptized More-fruit, son of Mr. Dudley Fenner.”

“1585, June 6. Baptized Faint-not, fil. Mr. Dudley Fenner, concional digniss.”

Soon after this Dudley Fenner again got into trouble through his sturdy spirit of nonconformity. After an imprisonment of twelve months, he fled to Middleborough, in Holland, and died there about 1589.The above incident from Strype is interesting, for here manifestly is the source whence Camden derived his information upon the subject. In his quaint “Remaines,” published thirty years later (1614), after alluding to the Latin names then in vogue, he adds:

“As little will be thought of the new names, Free-Gift, Reformation, Earth, Dust, Ashes, Delivery, More-fruit, Tribulation, The-Lord-is-near, More-triale, Discipline, Joy-againe, From-above, which have lately been given by some to their children, with no evill meaning, but upon some singular and precise conceite.”

Very likely Lord Burghley gave Fenner’s selection to the great antiquary.

Coming into London, the following case occurs. John Press was incumbent of St. Matthew, Friday Street, from 1573 to 1612:

“1584. Baptized Purifie, son of Mr. John Presse, parson.”

John Bunyan’s great character name of Hopeful is to be seen in Banbury Church register. But such an eccentricity is to be expected in the parish over which Wheatley presided, the head-quarters, too, of extravagant Puritanism. We all remember drunken Barnaby:

“To Banbury came I, O prophane one!
Where I saw a Puritane one,
Hanging of his cat on Monday
For killing of a mouse on Sunday.”

But the point I want to emphasize is that this Hopeful was Wheatley’s own daughter:

“1604, Dec. 21. Baptized Hope-full, daughter of William Wheatlye.”

Take a run from Banbury into Leicestershire. A stern Puritan was Antony Grey, “parson and patron” of Burbach; and he continued “a constant and faithfull preacher of the Gospell of Jesus Christ, even to his extreame old age, and for some yeares after he was Earle of Kent,” as his tombstone tells us. He had twelve children, and their baptismal entries are worth recording:

“1593, April 29. Grace, daughter of Mr. Anthonie Grey.

“1594, Nov. 28. Henry, son of ditto.

“1596, Nov. 16. Magdalen, daughter of ditto.

“1598, May 8. Christian, daughter of ditto.

“1600, Feb. 2. Faith-my-joy, daughter of ditto.[34]

“1603, April 3. John, son of ditto.

“1604, Feb. 23. Patience, daughter of Myster Anthonie Grey, preacher.

“1606, Oct. 5. Jobe, son of ditto.

“1608, May 1. Theophilus, son of ditto.

“1609, March 14. Priscilla, daughter of ditto (died).

“1613, Sept. 19. Nathaniel, son of ditto.

“1615, May 7. Presela, daughter of ditto.”

Why old Antony was persuaded of the devil to christen his second child by the ungodly agnomen of Henry, we are not informed. It must have given him many a twinge of conscience afterwards.

Had the Puritan clergy confined these vagaries to their own nurseries, it would not have mattered much. But there can be no doubt they used their influence to bias the minds of godparents and witnesses in the same direction. We have only to pitch upon a minister who came under the archbishop’s or Lord Treasurer’s notice as disaffected, seek out the church over which he presided, scan the register of baptisms during the years of his incumbency, and a batch of extravagant names will at once be unearthed. In the villages of Sussex and Kent, where the personal influence of the recalcitrant clergy seems to have been greatest, the parochial records teem with them.

Thus was the final stage of fanaticism reached, the year 1580 being as nearly as possible the exact date of its development. Thus were English people being prepared for the influx of a large batch of names which had never been seen before, nor will be again. The purely Biblical names, those that commemorated Bible worthies, swept over the whole country, and left ineffaceable impressions. The second stage of Puritan excess, names that savour of eccentricity and fanaticism combined, scarcely reached England north of Trent, and, for lack of volume, have left but the faintest traces. They lasted long enough to cover what may be fairly called an epoch, and extended just far enough to embrace a province. The epoch was a hundred years, and the province was from Kent to Hereford, making a small arc northwards, so as to take in Bedfordshire, Leicestershire, Buckinghamshire, and Oxfordshire. The practice, so far as the bolder examples is concerned, was a deliberate scheme on the part of the Presbyterian clergy. On this point the evidence is in all respects conclusive.

III. Curious Names not Puritan.

Several names found in the registers at this time, though commonly ascribed to the zealots, must be placed under a different category. For instance, original sin and the Ninth Article would seem to be commemorated in such a name as Original. We may reject Camden’s theory:

“Originall may seem to be deducted from the Greek origines, that is, borne in good time,”

inasmuch as he does not appear to have believed in it himself. The name, as a matter of fact, was given in the early part of the sixteenth century, in certain families of position, to the eldest son and heir, denoting that in him was carried on the original stock. The Bellamys of Lambcote Grange, Stainton, are a case in point. The eldest son for three generations bore the name; viz. Original Bellamy, buried at Stainton, September 12, 1619, aged 80; Original, his son and heir, the record of whose death I cannot find; and Original, his son and heir, who was baptized December 29, 1606. The first of these must have been born in 1539, far too early a date for the name to be fathered upon the Puritans. Original was in use in the family of Babington, of Rampton. Original Babington, son and heir of John Babington, was a contemporary of the first Original Bellamy (Nicholl’s “Gen. et Top.,” viii.).

Another instance occurs later on:

“1635, May 21. These under-written names are to be transported to St. Christopher’s, imbarqued in the Matthew of London, Richard Goodladd, master, per warrant from ye Earle of Carlisle:

“Originall Lowis, 28 yeres,” etc.—Hotten’s “Emigrants,” p. 81.

Sense, a common name in Elizabeth and James’s reigns, looks closely connected with some of the abstract virtues, such as Prudence and Temperance. The learned compiler of the “Calendar of State Papers” (1637-38) seems to have been much bothered with the name:

“1638, April 23. Petition of Seuce Whitley, widow of Thomas Whitley, citizen, and grocer.”

The suggestion from the editorial pen is that this Seuce (as he prints it) is a bewildered spelling of Susey, from Susan! The fact is, Seuce is a bewildered misreading on the compiler’s part of Sense, and Sense is an English dress of the foreign Senchia, or Sancho, still familiar to us in Sancho Panza. Several of the following entries will prove that Sense was too early an inmate of our registers to be a Puritan agnomen:

“1564, Oct. 15. Baptized Saints, d. of Francis Muschamp.

“1565, Nov. 25. Buried Sence, d. of ditto.

“1559, June 13. Married Matthew Draper and Sence Blackwell.

“1570-1, Jan. 15. Baptized Sence, d. of John Bowyer.”—Camberwell Church.

“1651. Zanchy Harvyn, Grocer’s Arms, Abbey Milton.”—“Tokens of Seventeenth Century.”

“1661, June. Petition of Mrs. Zanchy Mark.”—C. S. P.

That it was familiar to Camden in 1614 is clear:

“Sanchia, from Sancta, that is, Holy.”—“Remaines,” p. 88.

The name became obsolete by the close of the seventeenth century, and, being a saintly title, was sufficiently odious to the Presbyterians to be carefully rejected by them in the sixteenth century. Men who refused the Apostles their saintly title were not likely to stamp the same for life on weak flesh.[35]

Nor can Emanuel, or Angel, be brought as charges against the Puritans. Both flatly contradicted Cartwright’s canon; yet both, and especially the former, have been attributed to the zealots. No names could have been more offensive to them than these. Even Adams, in his “Meditations upon the Creed,” while attacking his friends on their eccentricity in preferring “Safe-deliverance” to “Richard,” takes care to rebuke those on the other side, who would introduce Emanuel, or even Gabriel or Michael, into their nurseries:

“Some call their sons Emanuel: this is too bold. The name is proper to Christ, therefore not to be communicated to any creature.”

Emanuel was imported from the Continent about 1500:

“1545, March 19. Baptized Humphrey, son of Emanuell Roger.”—St. Columb Major.

The same conclusion must be drawn regarding Angel. Adams continues:

“Yea, it seems to me not fit for Christian humility to call a man Gabriel or Michael, giving the names of angels to the sons of mortality.”

If the Puritans objected, as they did to a man, to the use of Gabriel and Michael as angelic names, the generic term itself would be still more objectionable:

“1645, Nov. 13. Buried Miss Angela Boyce.”—Cant. Cath.

“1682, April 11. Baptized Angel, d. of Sir Nicholas Butler, K^nt.”—St. Helen, Bishopgate.

“Weymouth, March 20, 1635. Embarked for New England: Angell Holland, aged 21 years.”—Hotten’s “Emigrants,” p. 285.

In this case we may presume the son, and not the father, had turned Puritan.A curious custom, which terminated soon after Protestantism was established in England, gave rise to several names which read oddly enough to modern eyes. These were titles like Vitalis or Creature—names applicable to either sex. Mr. Maskell, without furnishing instances, says Creature occurs in the registers of All-Hallows, Barking (“Hist. All-Hallows,” p. 62). In the vestry-books of Staplehurst, Kent, are registered:

“1 Edward VI. Apryle xxvii., there were borne ii. childre of Alex’nder Beeryl: the one christened at home, and so deceased, called Creature; the other christened at church, called John.”—Burns, “History of Parish Registers,” p. 81.

“1550, Nov. 5. Buried Creature, daughter of Agnes Mathews, syngle woman, the seconde childe.

“1579, July 19. Married John Haffynden and Creature Cheseman, yong folke.”—Staplehurst, Kent.

One instance of Vitalis may be given:

“Vitalis, son of Richard Engaine, and Sara his wife, released his manor of Dagworth in 1217 to Margery de Cressi.”—Blomefield’s “Norfolk,” vi. 382, 383.

These are not Puritan names. The dates are against the theory. They belong to a pre-Reformation practice, being names given to quick children before birth, in cases when it was feared, from the condition of the mother, they might not be delivered alive. Being christened before the sex could be known, it was necessary to affix a neutral name, and Vitalis or Creature answered the purpose. The old Romish rubric ran thus:

“Nemo in utero matris clausus baptizari debet, sed si infans caput emiserit, et periculum mortis immineat, baptizetur in capite, nec postea si vivus evaserit, erit iterum baptizandus. At si aliud membrum emiserit, quod vitalem indicet motum in illo, si periculum pendeat baptizetur,” etc.

Vitalis Engaine and Creature Cheeseman, in the above instances, both lived, but, by the law just quoted, retained the names given to them, and underwent no second baptism. If the sex of the yet breathing child was discovered, but death certain, the name of baptism ran thus:

“1563, July 17. Baptizata fuit in Ædibus Mri Humfrey filia ejus quÆ nominata fuit Creatura Christi.”—St. Peter in the East, Oxford.

“1563, July 17. Creatura Christi, filia Laurentii Humfredi sepulta.”—Ditto.

An English form occurs earlier:

“1561, June 30. The Chylde-of-God, filius Ric. Stacey.”—Ditto.

Without entering into controversy, I will only say that if the clergy, up to the time of the alteration in our Article on Baptism, truly believed that “insomuch as infants, and children dying in their infancy, shall undoubtedly be saved thereby (i.e. baptism), and else not,” it was natural that such a delicate ceremonial as I have hinted at should have suggested itself to their minds. After the Reformation, the practice as to unborn children fell into desuetude, and the names with it.

IV. Instances.

(a.) Latin Names.

The elder Disraeli reminded us, in his “Curiosities of Literature,” that in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it was common for our more learned pundits to re-style themselves in their own studies by Greek and Latin names. Some of these—as, for instance, Erasmus[36] and Melancthon—are only known to the world at large by their adopted titles.

The Reformation had not become an accomplished fact before this custom began to prevail in England, only it was transferred from the study to the font, and from scholars to babies. Renovata, Renatus, Donatus, and Beata began to grow common. Camden, writing in 1614, speaks of still stranger names—

“If that any among us have named their children Remedium, Amoris, ‘Imago-sÆculi,’ or with such-like names, I know some will think it more than a vanity.”—“Remaines,” p. 44.

While, however, the Presbyterian clergy did not object to some of these Latin sobriquets, as being identical with the names of early believers of the Primitive Church, stamped in not a few instances with the honours of martyrdom, they preferred to translate them into English. Many of my examples of eccentricity will be found to be nothing more than literal translations of names that had been in common vogue among Christians twelve and thirteen hundred years before. To the majority of the Puritan clergy, to change the Latin dress for an English equivalent would be as natural and imperative as the adoption of Tyndale’s or the Genevan Bible in the place of the Latin Vulgate.

A curious, though somewhat later, proof of this statement is met with in a will from the Probate Court of Peterborough. The testator was one Theodore Closland, senior fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. The date is June 24, 1665:

“Item: to What-God-will Crosland, forty shillings, and tenn shillings to his wife. And to his sonne What-God-will, six pound, thirteen shillings, fourpence.”

This is a manifest translation of the early Christian “Quod-vult-deus.” Grainger, in his “History of England” (iii. 360, fifth edition), says—

“In Montfaucon’s ‘Diarium Italicum’ (p. 270), is a sepulchral inscription of the year 396, upon Quod-vult-deus, a Christian, to which is a note: ‘Hoc Ævo non pauci erant qui piis sententiolis nomina propria concinnarent, v.g. Quod-vult-deus, Deogratias, Habet-deum, Adeodatus.’”

Closland, or Crosland, the grandfather, was evidently a Puritan, with a horror of the Latin Vulgate, Latin Pope, and Latin everything. Hence the translation.

Nevertheless, the Puritans seem to have favoured Latin names at first. It was a break between the familiar sound of the old and the oddity of the new. Redemptus was less grotesque than Redeemed, and Renata than Renewed. The English equivalents soon ruled supreme, but for a generation or two, and in some cases for a century, the Latin names went side by side with them.

Take Renatus, for instance:

“1616, Sep. 29. Baptized Renatus, son of Renatus Byllett, gent.”—St. Columb Major.

“1637-8, Jan. 12. Order of Council to Renatus Edwards, girdler, to shut up his shop in Lombard Street, because he is not a goldsmith.

“1690, April 10. Petition of Renatus Palmer, who prays to be appointed surveyor in the port of Dartmouth.”—C. S. P.

“1659, Nov. 11. Baptized Renovata, the daughter of John Durance.”—Cant. Cath.

It was Renatus Harris who built the organ in All-Hallows, Barking, in 1675 (“Hist. All-Hallows, Barking,” Maskell). Renatus and Rediviva occur in St. Matthew, Friday Street, circa 1590. Rediviva lingered into the eighteenth century:

“1735, ——. Buried Rediviva Mathews.”—Banbury.

Desiderata and Desiderius were being used at the close of Elizabeth’s reign, and survived the restoration of Charles II.:

“1671, May 26. Baptized Desiderius Dionys, a poor child found in Lyme Street.”—St. Dionis Backchurch.

Donatus and Deodatus, also, were Latin names on English soil before the seventeenth century came in:

“1616, Jan. 29. Baptized Donate, vel Deonata, daughter of Martyn Donnacombe.”—St. Columb Major.

Desire and Given,[37] the equivalents, both crossed the Atlantic with the Pilgrim Fathers.

Love was popular. Side by side with it went Amor. George Fox, in his “Journal,” writing in 1670, says—

“When I was come to Enfield, I went first to visit Amor Stoddart, who lay very weak and almost speechless. Within a few days Amor died.”—Ed. 1836, ii. 129.

In Ripon Cathedral may be seen:

“Amor Oxley, died Nov. 23, 1773, aged 74.”

The name still exists in Yorkshire, but no other county, I imagine.

Other instances could be mentioned.[38] I place a few in order:

“1594, Aug. 3. Baptized Relictus Dunstane, a childe found in this parisshe.”—St. Dunstan.“1613, Nov. 7. Baptized Beata, d. of Mr. John Briggs, minister.”—Witherley, Leic.

“1653, Sep. 29. Married Richard Moone to Benedicta Rolfe.”—Cant. Cath.

“1661, May 25. Married Edward Clayton and Melior[39] Billinge.”—St. Dionis, Backchurch.

“1706. Beata Meetkirke, born Nov. 2, 1705; died Sep. 10, 1706.”—Rushden, Hereford.

(b.) Grace Names.

In furnishing instances, we naturally begin with those grace names, in all cases culled from the registers of the period, which belong to what we may style the first stage. They were, one by one, but taken from the lists found in the New Testament, and were probably suggested at the outset by the moralities or interludes. The morality went between the old miracle-play, or mystery, and the regular drama. In “Every Man,” written in the reign of Henry VIII., it is made a vehicle for retaining the love of the people for the old ways, the old worship, and the old superstitions. From the time of Edward VI. to the middle of Elizabeth’s reign, there issued a cluster of interludes of this same moral type and cast; only all breathed of the new religion, and more or less assaulted the dogmas of Rome.

These moralities were popular, and were frequently rendered in public, until the Elizabethan drama was well established. All were allegorical, and required personal representatives of the abstract graces, and doctrines of which they treated. The dramatis personÆ in “Hickscorner” are Freewill, Perseverance, Pity, Contemplation, and Imagination, and in “The Interlude of Youth,” Humility, Pride, Charity, and Lechery.

It is just possible, therefore, that several of these grace names were originated under the shadow of the pre-Reformation Church. The following are early, considering they are found in Cornwall, the county most likely to be the last to take up a new custom:

“1549, July 1. Baptized Patience, d. of Will^m. Haygar.”—

“1553, May 29. Baptized Honour, d. of Robert Sexton.”—St. Columb Major.

However this may be, we only find the cardinal virtues at the beginning of the movement—those which are popular in some places to this day, and still maintain a firm hold in America, borne thither by the Puritan emigrants.

The three Graces, and Grace itself, took root almost immediately as favourites. Shakespeare seems to have been aware of it, for Hermione says—

“My last good deed was to entreat his stay:
What was my first? It has an elder sister,
Or I mistake you—O would her name were Grace!”
“Winter’s Tale,” Act i. sc. 2.

“1565, March 19. Christening of Grace, daughter of — Hilles.”—St. Peter, Cornhill.

“1574, Jan. 29. Baptized Grace, daughter of John Russell.”—St. Columb Major.

“1588, Aug. 1. Married Thomas Wood and Faythe Wilson.”—St. Dionis Backchurch.

“1565, ——. Baptized Faith, daughter of Thomas and Agnes Blomefield.”—Rushall, Norfolk.

“1567, Aprill 17. Christening of Charity, daughter of Randoll Burchenshaw.”—St. Peter, Cornhill.

“1571, ——. Baptized Charity, daughter of Thomas Blomefield.”—Rushall, Norfolk.

“1598, Nov. 19. Baptized Hope, d. of John Mainwaringe.”—Cant. Cath.

“1636, Nov. 25. Buried Hope, d. of Thomas Alford, aged 23.”—Drayton, Leicester.

The registers of the sixteenth and seventeenth century teem with these; sometimes boys received them. The Rev. Hope Sherhard was a minister in Providence Isle in 1632 (“Cal. S. P. Colonial,” 1632).

We may note that the still common custom of christening trine-born children by these names dates from the period of their rise:[40]

“1639, Sep. 7. Baptized Faith, Hope, and Charity, daughters of George Lamb, and Alice his wife.”—Hillingdon.“1666, Feb. 22. — Finch, wife of — Finch, being delivered of three children, two of them were baptized, one called Faith, and the other Hope; and the third was intended to be called Charity, but died unbaptized.”—Cranford. Vide Lyson’s “Middlesex,” p. 30.

Mr. Lower says (“Essays on English Surnames,” ii. 159)—

“At Charlton, Kent, three female children produced at one birth received the names of Faith, Hope, and Charity.”

Thomas Adams, in his sermon on the “Three Divine Sisters,” says—

“They shall not want prosperity,
That keep faith, hope, and charity.”

Perhaps some of these parents remembered this.

Faith and Charity are both mentioned as distinctly Puritan sobriquets in the “Psalm of Mercie,” a political poem:

“‘A match,’ quoth my sister Joyce,
‘Contented,’ quoth Rachel, too:
Quoth Abigaile, ‘Yea,’ and Faith, ‘Verily,’
And Charity, ‘Let it be so.’”

Love, as the synonym of Charity, was also a favourite. Love Atkinson went out to Virginia with the early refugees (Hotten, “Emigrants,” p. 68).

“1631-2, Jan. 31. Buried Love, daughter of William Ballard.”—Berwick, Sussex.

“1740, April 30. Buried Love Arundell.”—Racton, Sussex.

“1749, May 31. Love Luckett admitted a freeman by birthright.”—“History of Town and Port of Rye,” p. 237.

“1662, May 7. Baptized Love, d. of Mr. Richard Appletree.”—Banbury.

Besides Love and Charity, other variations were Humanity and Clemency:

“1637, March 8. Bond of William Shaw, junior, and Thomas Snelling, citizens and turners, to Humanity Mayo, of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, in £100 0 0.”—C. S. P.

“1625, Aug. 27. Buried Clemency Chawncey.”—St. Dionis Backchurch.

Clemency was pretty, and deserved to live; but Mercy seems to have monopolized the honours, and, by the aid of John Bunyan’s heroine in the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” still has her admirers. Instances are needless, but I furnish one or two for form’s sake. They shall be late ones:

“1702, Sep. 28. Married Matthias Wallraven and Mercy Waymarke.”—St. Dionis Backchurch.

“1716, May 25. Married Thomas Day and Mercy Parsons, of Staplehurst.”—Cant. Cath.

But there were plenty of virtues left. Prudence had such a run, that she became Pru in the sixteenth, and Prudentia in the seventeenth century:

“1574, June 30. Buried Prudence, d. of John Mayhew.

“1612, Aug. 2. Married Robert Browne and Prudence Coxe.”—St. Dionis Backchurch.

Justice is hard to separate from the legal title; but here is an instance:

“1660, July 16. Richard Bickley and Justice Willington reported guilty of embezzling late king’s goods.”—“Cal. St. P. Dom.”

Truth, Constancy, Honour, and Temperance were frequently personified at the font. Temperance had the shortest life; but, if short, it was merry. There is scarcely a register, from Gretna Green to St. Michael’s, without it:

“1615, Feb. 25. Baptized Temperance, d. of — Osberne.”—Hawnes, Bedford.

“1610, Aug. 14. Baptized Temperance, d. of John Goodyer.”—Banbury.

“1611, Nov. —. Baptized Temperance, d. of Robert Carpinter.”—Stepney.

“1619, July 22. Married Gyles Rolles to Temperance Blinco.”—St. Peter, Cornhill.

Constance,[41] Constancy, and Constant were common, it will be seen, to both sexes:

“1593, Sep. 29. Buried Constancy, servant with Mr. Coussin.”—St. Dionis Backchurch.

“1629, Dec. Petition of Captain Constance Ferrar, for losses at Cape Breton.”—“C. S. P. Colonial.”

“1665, May 25. Communication from Constance Pley to the Commissioners in relation to the arrival of a convoy.”—C. S. P.

“1665, May 31. Grant to Edward Halshall of £225 0 0, forfeited by Connistant Cant, of Lynn Regis, for embarking wool to Guernsey not entered in the Custom House.”—Ditto.

“1671, Sep. 2. Buried Constant Sylvester, Esquire.”—Brampton, Hunts.

Patience, too, was male as well as female. Sir Patience Warde was Lord Mayor of London in 1681. Thus the weaker vessels were not allowed to monopolize the graces. How familiar some of these abstract names had become, the Cavalier shall tell us in his parody of the sanctimonious Roundheads’ style:

“‘Ay, marry,’ quoth Agatha,
And Temperance, eke, also:
Quoth Hannah, ‘It’s just,’ and Mary, ‘It must,’
‘And shall be,’ quoth Grace, ‘I trow.’”

Several “Truths” occur in the “Chancery Suits” of Elizabeth, and the Greek Alathea arose with it:

“1595, June 27. Faith and Truth, gemini, — John Johnson, bapt.”—Wath, Ripon.

Alathea lasted till the eighteenth century was well-nigh out:

“1701, Dec. 4. Francis Milles to Alathea Wilton.”—West. Abbey.

“1720, Sep. 18. Buried Alydea, wife of Will^m. Gough, aged 42 years.”—Harnhill, Glouc.

“1786, Oct. 6. Died Althea, wife of Thomas Heberden, prebendary.”—Exeter Cath.[42]

Honour, of course, became Honora, in the eighteenth century, and has retained that form:

“1583, Aug. 24. Baptized Honor, daughter of Thomas Teage.”—St. Columb Major.

“1614, July 4. Baptized Honour, d. of John Baylye, of Radcliffe.”—Stepney.

“1667, Oct. 9. Christened Mary, d. of Sir John and Lady Honour Huxley.”—Hammersmith.

“1722, Oct. 4. Christened Martha, d. of John and Honoria Hart.”—St. Dionis Backchurch.

Sir Thomas Carew, Speaker of the Commons in James’s and Charles’s reign, had a wife Temperance, and four daughters, Patience, Temperance, Silence, and Prudence (Lodge’s “Illust.,” iii. 37). Possibly, as Speaker, he had had better opportunity to observe that these were the four cardinal parliamentary virtues, especially Silence. This last was somewhat popular, and seems to have got curtailed to “Sill,” as Prudence to “Pru,” and Constance to “Con.” In the Calendar of “State Papers” (June 21, 1666), a man named Taylor, writing to another named Williamson, wishes “his brother Sill would come and reap the sweets of Harwich.” Writing again, five days later, he asks “after his brother, Silence Taylor.”

This was one of the names that crossed the Atlantic and became a fixture in America (Bowditch). It is not, however, to be confounded with Sill, that is, Sybil, in the old Cavalier chorus:

“‘And God blesse King Charles,’ quoth George,
‘And save him,’ says Simon and Sill.”

Silence is one of the few Puritan names that found its way into the north of England:

“1741, Dec. 9. Married Robert Thyer to Silence Leigh.”—St. Ann, Manchester.

The mother of Silence Leigh, who was a widow when she married, was Silence Beswicke (“Memorials of St. Ann, Manchester,” p. 55).[43] The name is found again in the register of Youlgreave Church, Derbyshire (Notes and Queries, Feb. 17, 1877). Curiously enough, we find Camden omitting Silence as a female name of his day, but inserting Tace. In his list of feminine baptismal names, compiled in 1614 (“Remaines,” p. 89), he has

“Tace—Be silent—a fit name to admonish that sex of silence.”

Here, then, is another instance of a Latin name translated into English. I have lighted on a case proving the antiquary’s veracity:

“Here lieth the body of Tacey, the wife of George Can, of Brockwear, who departed this life 22 day of Feb., An. Dom. 1715, aged 32 years.”—Hewelsfield, Glouc.

Tace must have lasted a century, therefore. Silence may be set down to some old Puritan stickler for the admonition of Saint Paul: “Let the woman learn in silence, with all subjection” (1 Tim. ii. 11).

The Epistle to the Romans was a never-failing well-spring to the earnest Puritan, and one passage was much applied to his present condition:

“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith unto this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope: and hope maketh not ashamed.”—v. 1-5.

There is scarcely a word in this passage that is not inscribed on our registers between 1575 and 1595. Faith, Grace, and Hope have already been mentioned;[44] Camden testified to the existence of Tribulation in 1614; Rejoice was very familiar; Patience, of course, was common:

“1592, July 7. Buried Patience Birche.”—Cant. Cath.

“1596, Oct. 3. Baptized Pacience, daughter of Martin Tome.”—St. Columb Major.

“1599, April 23. Baptized Patience, d. of John Harmer.”—Warbleton.

Even Experience is found—a strange title for an infant.

“The Rev. Experience Mayhew, A.M., born Feb. 5, 1673; died of an apoplexy, Nov. 9, 1758.”

So ran the epitaph of a missionary (vide Pulpit, Dec. 6, 1827) to the Vineyard Island. It had been handed on to him, no doubt, from some grandfather or grandmother of Elizabeth’s closing days.

A late instance of Diligence occurs in St. Peter, Cornhill:

“1724, Nov. 1. Buried Diligence Constant.”

Obedience had a good run, and began very early:

“1573, Sep. 20. Bapt. Obedience, dather of Thomas Garding.

“1586, Aug. 28. Bapt. Obedyence, dather of Richard Ellis.”—Warbleton.

“1697, April 30. Bapt. Robert, son of James and Obedience Clark.”—St. James, Picadilly.

Obedience Robins is the name of a testator in 1709 (Wills: Archdeaconry of London), while the following epitaph speaks for itself:

“Obedience Newitt, wife of Thomas Newitt, died in 1617, aged 32.

“Her name and nature did accord,
Obedient was she to her Lord.”—Burwash, Sussex.

“Add to your faith, virtue,” says the Apostle. As a name this grace was late in the field:

“1687, May 25. Married Virtue Radford and Susannah Wright.”—West. Abbey.

“1704, Oct. 20. Buried Virtue, wife of John Higgison.”—Marshfield, Glouc.

“1709, May 6. Buried Vertue Page.”—Finchley.

Confidence and Victory were evidently favourites:

“1587, Jan. 8. Baptized Confydence, d. of Roger Elliard.”—Warbleton.

“1770, Nov. 17, died Confidence, wife of John Thomas, aged 61 years.”—Bulley, Glouc.

“1587, Feb. 8. Buryed Vyctorye Buttres.”—Elham, Kent.

“1618, Dec. 9. Buryed Victorye Lussendine.”—Ditto.

“1696, May 17. Bapt. Victory, d. of Joseph Gibbs.”—St. Dionis Backchurch.

Perseverance went out with the emigrants to New England, but I do not find any instance in the home registers. Felicity appeared in one of our law courts last year, so it cannot be said to be extinct; but there is a touch of irony in the first of the following examples:—

“1604-5, March 15. Baptized Felicity, d. of John Barnes, vagarant.”—Stepney.

“1590, July 5. Baptized Felycyte Harris.”—Cranbrook.

Comfort has a pleasant atmosphere about it, and many a parent was tempted to the use of it. It lingered longer than many of its rivals. Comfort Farren’s epitaph may be seen on the floor of Tewkesbury Abbey:

“Comfort, wife of Abraham Farren, gent., of this Corporation, died August 24, 1720.”

Again, in Dymock Church we find:

“Comfort, wife to William Davis, died 14 June, 1775, aged 78 years.

“Comfort, their daughter, died 9 Feb., 1760, aged 24 years.”

Nearly 150 years before this, however, Comfort Starr was a name not unknown to the more heated zealots of the Puritan party. He was a native of Ashford, in Kent, and after various restless shiftings as a minister, Carlisle being his head-quarters for a time, went to New Plymouth in the Mayflower, in 1620. There he became fellow of Harvard College, but returned to England eventually, and died at Lewes in his eighty-seventh year.

Perhaps the most interesting and popular of the grace names was “Repentance.” In a “new interlude” of the Reformation, entitled the “Life and Repentance of Marie Magdalene,” and published in 1567, one of the chief characters was “Repentance.” At the same time Repentance came into font use, and, odd as it may sound, bade fair to become a permanently recognized name in England:

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

“1587, Oct. 22. Baptized Repentance, dather of George Aysherst.”—Warbleton.

“1588, June 30. Baptized Repentance Water.”—Cranbrook.

“1597, Aug. 4. Baptized Repentance, daughter of Robert Benham, of Lymhouse.”—Stepney.

“1612, March 26. Baptized Repentance Wrathe.”—Elham, Kent.

“1688, Dec. 23. Bapt. Repentance, son of Thomas and Mercy Tompson.”—St. James, Piccadilly.

In the “Sussex ArchÆological Collections” (xvii. 148) is found recorded the case of Repentance Hastings, deputy portreeve of Seaford, who in 1643 was convicted of hiding some wreckage:

“Repentance Hastings, 1 load, 1 cask, 2 pieces of royals.”

Evidently his repentance began too early in life to be lasting; but infant piety could not be expected to resist the hardening influence of such a name as this.[45]

Humiliation was a big word, and that alone must have been in its favour:

“1629, Jan. 24. Married Humiliation Hinde and Elizabeth Phillips by banes.”—St. Peter, Cornhill.

Humiliation, being proud of his name, determined to retain it in the family—for he had one—but as he had began to worship at St. Dionis Backchurch, the entries of baptism lie there, the spelling of his surname being slightly altered:

“1630, Nov. 18. Baptized Humiliation, son of Humiliation Hyne.”

This son died March 11, 1631-2. Humiliation pÈre, however, did not sorrow without hope, for in a few years he again brings a son to the parson:

“1637-8, Jan. 21. Baptized Humiliation, son of Humiliation Hinde.”

Humility is preferable to Humiliation. Humility Cooper was one of a freight of passengers in the Mayflower, who, in 1620, sought a home in the West. A few years afterwards Humility Hobbs followed him (Hotten, “Emigrants,” p. 426):

“1596, March 13. Baptized Humilitye, sonne of Wylliam Jones.”—Warbleton.

“1688, May 5. Buried Humility, wife of Humphey Paget.”—Peckleton, Leic.

Had it not been for Charles Dickens, Humble would not have appeared objectionable:

“1666-1667, Jan. 29. Petition of Dame Frances, wife of Humble Ward, Lord Ward, Baron, of Birmingham.”[46]—C. S. P.

All Saints, Leicester, records another saintly grace:

“Here lieth the body of Abstinence Pougher, Esq., who died Sept. 5, 1741, aged 62 years.”

In some cases we find the infant represented, not by a grace-name, but as in a state of grace. Every register contains one or two Godlies:

“1579, July 24. Baptized Godlye, d. of Richard Fauterell.”—Warbleton.

“1611, May 1. Baptized Godly, d. of Henry Gray, and Joane his wife. Joane Standmer and Godly Gotherd, sureties.”—South Bersted, Sussex.

“1619, Nov. Baptized Godly, d. of Thomas Edwardes, of Poplar.”—Stepney.“1632, Oct. 30. Married John Wafforde to Godly Spicer.”—Cant. Cath.

Gracious is as objectionable as Godly. Gracious Owen was President of St. John’s College, Oxford, during the decade 1650-1660.

“Oct. 24, 1661. Examination of Gracious Franklin: Joshua Jones, minister at the Red Lion, Fleet Street, told him that he heard there were 3000 men about the city maintained by Presbyterian ministers.”—C. S. P.

Lively, we may presume, referred to spiritual manifestations. A curious combination of font name and patronymic is obtained in Lively Moody, D.D., of St. John’s College, Cambridge, 1682 (Wood’s “Fasti Oxonienses”). Exactly one hundred years later the name is met with again:

“1782, July 3. Lively Clarke of this town, sadler, aged 60.”—Berkeley, Gloucester.

At Warbleton, where the Puritan Heley ministered, it seems to have been found wearisome to be continually christening children by the names of Repent and Repentance, so a variation was made in the form of “Sorry-for-sin:”

“1589, Jan 25. Baptized Sory-for-sine, the dather of John Coupard.”

The following is curious:

“Thomas Luxford, of Windmill Hill, died Feb. 24, 1739, aged 72 years. He was grandson of Thomas Luxford, of Windmill Hill, by Changed Collins, his wife, daughter of Thomas Collins, of Socknash in this county, Esq., and eldest son of Richard Luxford, of Billinghurst.”—Wartling Church.

Faithful[47] may close this list:

“1640, Oct. 18. Baptized Benjamin, son of Faithful Bishop.”—St. Columb Major.

Faithful Rouse settled in New England in 1644 (Bowditch). The following despatch mentions another:

“1666, July 18. Major Beversham and Lieut. Faithful Fortescue are sent from Ireland to raise men.”—C. S. P.

Bunyan evidently liked it, and gave the name to the martyr of Vanity Fair:

“Sing, Faithful, sing, and let thy name survive;
For though they killed thee, thou art yet alive.”

Speaking from a nomenclatural point of view, the name did not survive, for the last instance I have met with is that of Faithful Meakin, curate of Mobberley, Cheshire, in 1729 (Earwaker, “East Cheshire,” p. 99, n.). It had had a run of more than a century, however.

The reader will have observed that the majority of these names have become obsolete. The religious apathy of the early eighteenth century was against them. They seem to have made their way slowly westward. Certainly their latest representatives are to be found in the more retired villages of Gloucestershire and Devonshire. A few like Mercy, Faith, Hope, Charity, Grace, and Prudence, still survive, and will probably for ever command a certain amount of patronage; but they are much more popular in our religious story-books than the church registers. The absence of the rest is no great loss, I imagine.

(c.) Exhortatory Names.

The zealots of Elizabeth’s later days began to weary of names that merely made household words of the apostolic virtues. Many of these sobriquets had become popular among the unthinking and careless. They began to stamp their offspring with exhortatory sentences, pious ejaculations, brief professions of godly sorrow for sin, or exclamations of praise for mercies received. I am bound to confess, however, that the prevailing tone of these names is rather contradictory of the picture of gloomy sourness drawn by the facile pens of Macaulay and Walter Scott. ’Tis true, Anger and Wrath existed:

“1654. Wroth Rogers to be placed on the Commission of Scandalous Ministers.”—Scobell’s “Acts and Ord. Parl.,” 1658.

“1680, Dec. 22. Buried Anger Bull, packer.”—St. Dionis Backchurch.

I dare say he was familiarly termed Angry Bull, like “Savage Bear,” a gentleman of Kent who was living at the same time, mentioned elsewhere in these pages. Nevertheless, in the exhortatory names there is a general air of cheerful assurance.The most celebrated name of this class is Praise-God Barebone. I cannot find his baptismal entry. A collection of verses was compiled by one Fear-God Barbon, of Daventry (Harleian M.S. 7332). This cannot have been his father, as we have evidence that the leatherseller was born about 1596, and, allowing his parent to be anything over twenty, the date would be too early for exhortatory names like Fear-God. We may presume, therefore, he was a brother. Two other brothers are said to have been entitled respectively, “Jesus-Christ-came-into-the-world-to-save Barebone,” and “If-Christ-had-not-died-for-thee-thou-hadst-been-damned Barebone.” I say “entitled,” for I doubt whether either received such a long string of words in baptism. Brook, in his “History of the Puritans,” implies they were; Hume says that both were adopted names, and adds, in regard to the latter, that his acquaintance were so wearied with its length, that they styled him by the last word as “Damned Barebone.” The editor of Notes and Queries (March 15, 1862) says that, “as his morals were not of the best,” this abbreviated form “appeared to suit him better than his entire baptismal prefix.” Whether the title was given at the font or adopted, there is no doubt that he was familiarly known as Dr. Damned Barebone. This was more curt than courteous.Of Praise-God’s history little items have leaked out. He began life as a leatherseller in Fleet Street, and owned a house under the sign of the “Lock and Key,” in the parish of St. Dunstan-in-the-West. He was admitted a freeman of the Leathersellers’ Company, January 20, 1623. He was a Fifth Monarchy man, if a tract printed in 1654, entitled “A Declaration of several of the Churches of Christ, and Godly People, in and about the City of London,” etc., which mentions “the Church which walks with Mr. Barebone,” refers to him. This, however, may be Fear-God Barebone. Praise-God was imprisoned after the Restoration, but after a while released, and died, at the age of eighty or above, in obscurity. His life, which was not without its excitements, was spent in London, and possibly his baptismal entry will be found there.

A word or two about his surname. The elder Disraeli says (“Curiosities of Literature”)—

“There are unfortunate names, which are very injurious to the cause in which they are engaged; for instance, the long Parliament in Cromwell’s time, called by derision the Rump, was headed by one Barebones, a leatherseller.”

Isaac Disraeli has here perpetuated a mistake. Barebone’s Parliament was the Parliament of Barebone, not Barebones. Peck, in his “Desiderata Curiosa,” speaking of a member of the family who died in 1646, styles him Mr. Barborne; while Echard writes the name Barbon, when referring to Dr. Barbon, one of the chief rebuilders of the city of London after the Fire. Between Barebones and Barbon is a wide gap, and Barbon’s Parliament suggests nothing ludicrous whatsoever. Yet (if we set aside the baptismal name) what an amount of ridicule has been cast over this same Parliament on account of a surname which in reality has been made to meet the occasion. No historian has heaped more sarcasm on the “Rump” than Hume, but he never styles the leatherseller as anything but “Barebone.”

But while Praise-God has obtained exceptional notoriety, not so Faint-not, and yet there was a day when Faint-not bade fair to take its place as a regular and recognized name. I should weary the reader did I furnish a full list of instances. Here are a few:

“1585, March 6. Baptized Faynt-not, d. of James Browne.”—Warbleton.

“1590, Jan. 17. Baptized Faynt-not Wood.”—Cranbrook.

“1631, ——. Thomas Perse married Faint-not Kennarde.”—Chiddingly.

“1642, Aug. 2. Married John Pierce and Faint-not Polhill, widow.”—Burwash, Sussex.

This Faint-not Polhill was mother of Edward Polhill, a somewhat celebrated writer of his day. She married her first husband December 11, 1616.

“1678, Feb. 12. Buried Faint-not Blatcher, a poor old widdow.”—Warbleton.

The rents of certain houses which provided an exhibition for the boys of Lewes Grammar School were paid in 1692 as usual. One item is set down as follows:

“Faint-not Batchelor’s house, per annum, £6 0 0.”—“Hist. and Ant. Lewes,” i. 311.

Faint-not occurs in Maresfield Church (“Suss. Arch. Coll.,” xiv. 151). We have already referred to Faint-not, the daughter of “Dudley Fenner, minister of the Word of God” at Marden, Kent.

Fear-not was also in use. The Rector of Warbleton baptized one of his own children by the name; some of his parishioners copied him:

“1594, Nov. 10. Baptized Fear-not, sonne of Richard Maye.

“1589, Oct. 19. Baptized Fear-not, sonne of Will^m. Browne.”

Decidedly cheerful were such names as Hope-still or Hopeful. Both occur in Banbury Church. Hopeful Wheatley has already been mentioned.

“1611, June 16. Baptized Hope-still, d. to Edward Peedle.

“1697, Dec. 30. Buried Hope-still Faxon, a olde mayde.”

Whether or no her matrimonial expectations were still high to the end, we are not told.

One of the earliest Pilgrim Fathers was Hope-still Foster (Hotten, p. 68). He went out to New England about 1620. His name became a common one out there. Two bearers of the name at home lived so long that it reached the Georges:

“Near this place is interred the body of John Warden, of Butler’s Green in this parish, Esq., who died April 30, 1730, aged 79 years; and also of Hope-still, his wife, who died July 22, 1749, aged 92.”—Cuckfield Church, Sussex.

“Dec. 1, 1714. Administration of goods of Michael Watkins, granted to Hope-still Watkins, his widow.”—C. S. P.

In the list of incumbents of Lydney, Gloucestershire, will be found the name of Help-on-high Foxe, who was presented to the living by the Dean and Chapter of Hereford in 1660. For some reason or other, possibly to curtail the length, he styled himself in general as Hope-well, and this was retained on his tomb:

“Hic in Cristo quiescit Hope-wel Foxe, in artibus magister, hujus ecclesiÆ vicarius vigilantissimus qui obiit 2 die Aprilis, 1662.”—Bigland’s “Monuments of Gloucester.”

How quickly such names were caught up by parishioners from their clergy may again be seen in the case of Hope-well Voicings, of Tetbury, who left a rentcharge of £1 for the charity schools at Cirencester in 1720. Probably he was christened by the vicar himself at Lydney.

We have already mentioned Rejoice Lord, of Salehurst. The name had a tremendous run:

“1647, June 22. Buried Rejoice, daughter of John Harvey.

“1679, Oct. 18. Baptized Rejoice, daughter of Nicholas Wratten.”—Warbleton.

Rejoice reached the eighteenth century:

“1713, Sep. 29. Married John Pimm, of St. Dunstan’s, Cant., to Rejoice Epps, of the precincts of this church.”—Cant. Cath.

Magnify and Give-thanks frequently occur in Warbleton register:

“1595, Dec. 7. Buried Gyve-thanks Bentham, a child.

“1593, M^ch. 11. Baptized Give-thanks, the dather of Thomas Elliard.

“1591, Feb. 6. Baptized Magnyfy, sonne of William Freeland.

“1587, Sep. 17. Baptized Magnyfye, sonne of Thomas Beard.

“1587, April 2. Baptized Give-thankes, sonne of Thomas Cunsted.”

It is from the same register we obtain examples of an exhortatory name known to have existed at this time, viz. “Be-thankful.” A dozen cases might be cited:

“1586, Feb. 6. Baptized Be-thankfull, the dather of Abell Tyerston.

“1601, Nov. 8. Baptized Be-thankfull, d. of James Gyles.

“1617, Nov. 27. Married Thomas Flatt and Be-thankefull Baker.

“1662, May 9. Buried Be-thankeful Giles.”

Thus Miss Giles bore her full name for over sixty years: and, I dare say, was very proud of it.[48]

Besides Be-thankful, there was “Be-strong:”

“1592, Nov. 26. Baptized Be-strong Philpott.”—Cranbrook.

Many of the exhortatory names related to the fallen nature of man. One great favourite at Warbleton was “Sin-deny.” It was coined first by Heley, the Puritan rector, in 1588, for one of his own daughters. Afterwards the entries are numerous. Two occur in one week:

“1592, April 23. Baptized Sin-denye, d. of Richard Tebb.
“"29. Baptized Sin-denye, d. of William Durant.
“1594, March 9. Baptized Sin-denye, d. of Edward Outtered.”

This name seems to have been monopolized by the girls. One instance only to the contrary can I find:

“1588, Feb. 9. Baptized Sin-dynye, sonne of Andrew Champneye.”

Still keeping to the same register, we find of this class:

“1669, Jan. 21. Buried Refrayne Benny, a widdow.

“1586, May 15. Baptized Refrayne, dather of John Celeb.

“1586, April 24. Baptized Repent, sonne of William Durant.

“1587, July 16. Baptized Returne, sonne of Rychard Farret.

“1587, Aug. 6. Baptized Obey, sonne of Rychard Larkford.

“1587, Dec. 24. Baptized Depend, sonne of Edward Outtered.

“1588, Ap. 7. Baptized Feare-God, sonne of John Couper.

“1608, Aug. 14. Baptized Repent Champney, a basterd.

“1595. Maye 18. Baptized Refrayne, d. of John Wykes.”

Many registers contain “Repent.” Cranbrook has an early one:

“1586, Jan. 1. Baptized Repent Boorman.”

Abuse-not is quaint:

“1592, Sep. 17. Baptized Abuse-not, d. of Rychard Ellis.

“1592, Dec. 3. Baptized Abus-not, d. of John Collier.”—Warbleton.

The last retained her name:

“1603, Maye 20. Buried Abuse-not Collyer.”

Here, again, are two curious entries:

“1636, March 19. Baptized Be-steadfast, sonne of Thomas Elliard.

“1589, Nov. 9. Baptized Learn-wysdome, d. of Rychard Ellis.”

These also are extracts from the Warbleton registers. None of them, however, can be more strongly exhortatory than this:

“1660, April 15. Baptized Hate-evill, d. of Antony Greenhill.”—Banbury.

Doubtless she was related to William Greenhill, born 1581, the great Puritan commentator on Ezekiel. This cannot be the earliest instance of the name, for one Hate-evill Nutter was a settler in New England twenty years before her baptism (Bowditch). I suspect its origin can be traced to the following:—

“1580, June 25. Baptized Hatill (Hate-ill), sonne of Will^m. Wood.

“1608, Nov. 17. Baptized Hatill, sonne to Antony Robinson.”—Middleton-Cheney.

As Middleton-Cheney is a mere outlying parish from Banbury, I think we may see whence Hate-evil Greenhill’s name was derived.

Returning once more to Warbleton, Lament is so common there, as in other places, that it would be absurd to suppose the mother had died in childbirth in every instance. A glance at the register of deaths disproves the idea. The fact is Lament was used, like Repent, as a serious call to godly sorrow for sin:

“1594, July 22. Baptized Lament, d. of Antony Foxe.

“1598, May 14. Baptized Lament, d. of John Fauterell.

“1600, M^ch 29. Baptized Lament, d. of Anne Willard.”

But we must not linger too much at Warbleton.

Live-well commanded much attention. Neither sex could claim the monopoly of it, as my examples prove. At the beginning of Charles II.’s reign, a warrant was abroad for the capture of one Live-well Chapman, a seditious printer. In such a charge it is possible he fulfilled the pious injunction of his god-parent:

“1662-3, March 9. Warrant to apprehend Live-well Chapman,[49] with all his printing instruments and materials.”—C. S. P.

He is mentioned again:

“1663, Nov. 24. Warrant to Sir Edward Broughton to receive Live-well Chapman, and keep him close prisoner for seditious practices.”—C. S. P.

This is no unique case. Live-well Sherwood, an alderman of Norwich, was put on a commission for sequestering papists in 1643 (Scobell’s “Orders of Parl.,” p. 38).

Again the name occurs:

“1702, Oct. 15. Thomas Halsey, of Shadwell, widower, to Live-well Prisienden, of Stepney.”—St. Dionis Backchurch.

Love-God is found twice, at least, for letters of administration in the case of one Love-God Gregory were granted in 1654. Also is found:

“1596, March 6. Baptized Love-God, daughter of Hugh Walker, vicar.”—Berwick, Sussex.

Do-good is exhortatory enough, but it rather smacks of works; hence, possibly, the reason why I have only seen it once. A list of the trained bands under Lord Zouch, Lord Warden of Hastings, 1619, includes—

“Musketts, James Knight, Doo-good Fuller, Thomas Pilcher.”—“Arch. Soc. Coll.” (Sussex), xiv. 102.

Fare-well seems a shade more worldly than Live-well, but was common enough:

“1589, July 16, Baptized Fare-well, son of Thomas Hamlen, gent.”—St. Dunstan-in-the-West, London.

“1723, Sep. 5. Buried Mr. Fare-well Perry, rector of St. Peter’s.”—Marlborough.

A writer in Notes and Queries, September 9, 1865 (Mr. Lloyd of Thurstonville), says—

“A man named Sykes, resident in this locality, had four sons whom he named respectively Love-well, Do-well, Die-well, and Fare-well. Sad to say, Fare-well Sykes met an untimely end by drowning, and was buried this week (eleventh Sunday after Trinity) in Lockwood churchyard. The brothers Live-well, Do-well, and Die-well were the chief mourners on the occasion.”

It seems almost impossible that the father should have restored three of the Puritan names accidentally. Probably he had seen or heard of these names in some Yorkshire church register. One of these names, Farewell, is still used in the county, as the directories show. I see Fare-well Wardley, in Sheffield, in the West Riding Directory for 1867.

This closes the exhortatory class. It is both numerous and interesting, and some of its instances grew very familiar, and looked as if they might find a permanent place in our registers. The eighteenth century saw them all succumb, however.

(d.) Accidents of Birth.

Evidently it was a Puritan notion that a quiverful of children was a matter for thanksgiving. There is a pleasant ring in some of the names selected by religious gossips at this time, or witnesses, as I should rather term them. Free-gift was one such, and was on the point of becoming an accepted English name, when the Restoration stepped in, and it had to follow the way of the others. It began with the Presbyterian clergy, judging by the date of its rise:[50]

“1616, ——. Buried Mary, wiffe of Free-gift Mabbe.”—Chiddingly, Sussex.

“1621, ——. Baptized John, son of Free-gift Bishopp.”—Ditto.

“1591, Jan. 14. Baptized Fre-gift, sonne of Abraham Bayley.”—Warbleton.

The will of Free-gift Stacey was proved in 1656 in London; while a subsidy obtained by an unpopular tax on fires, hearths, and stoves in 1670, rates a resident in Chichester thus:

“Free-gift Collins, two hearths.”—“Suss. Arch. Coll.,” xxiv. 81.

The last instance I have seen is:

“Dec. 4, 1700. The petition of Free-gift Pilkington, wife of Richard Pilkington, late port-master of Ipswich, county Suffolk.”—C. S. P.

Good-gift was rarer:

“1618, March 28. Bapt. John, sonne of Goodgift Gynninges.”—Warbleton.

One of the earliest Puritan eccentricities was From-above, mentioned by Camden as existing in 1614:

“1582, March 10. Baptized From-above Hendley.”—Cranbrook.

A subsidy collected within the rape of Lewes in 1621 records:

“From-above Hendle, gent, in landes, 30 4 0.”—“Suss. Arch. Coll.,” lx. 71.

Many of these names suggest thanksgiving for an “addition to the family.” More-fruit is one such:

“1587, June 6. Baptized More-fruite Stone, of Steven.”—Berwick, Sussex.

“1592, Oct. 1. Baptized More-fruite Starre.”[51]—Cranbrook.

“1599, Nov. 4. Baptized More-fruite, d. of Richard Barnet.”—Warbleton.

“1608, Aug. 28. Baptized More-frute, d. of Rychard Curtes.”—Ditto.

We have already referred to More-fruit Fenner, christened about the same time.

The great command to Adam and Eve was, “Multiply, and replenish the earth.” Some successor of Thomas Heley thought it no harm to emphasize this at the font:

“1677, May 14. Buried Replenish, ye wife of Robert French.”

But “Increase” or “Increased” was the representative of this class of thanksgiving names, in palpable allusion to Psa. cxv. 14:

“The Lord shall increase you more and more, you and your children.”

I could easily furnish the reader with half a hundred instances. It is probable Thomas Heley was the inventor of it. The earliest example I can find is that of his own child:

“1587, March 26. Baptized Increased, dather of Thomas Helley, minister.

“1637, Sep. 15. Buried Increase, wife of Robard Barden.

“1589, Apr. 13. Baptized Increased, d. of John Gynninges.”—Warbleton.

One or two instances from other quarters may be noted:

“1660, June. Petition of Increased Collins, for restoration to the keepership of Mote’s Bulwark, Dover.”—C. S. P.

Dr. Increase Mather, of the Liverpool family of that name, will be a familiar figure to every student of Puritan history. In 1685 he returned from America to thank King James for the Toleration Act. Through him it became a popular name in New England, although Increase Nowell, who obtained a charter of appropriation of Massachusetts Bay, March 4, 1628, and emigrated from London, may have helped in the matter (Neal’s “New England,” p. 124).

The perils of childbirth are marked in the thanksgiving name of Deliverance. So early as 1627 the will of Deliverance Wilton was proved in London. Camden, too, writing in 1614, says “Delivery” was known to him; while Adams, whose Puritan proclivities I have previously hinted at, preaching in London in 1626, asserts that Safe-deliverance existed to his knowledge (“Meditations upon the Creed”). Deliverance crossed the Atlantic with the Pilgrim Fathers (Bowditch), and I see one instance, at least, in Hotten’s “Emigrants:”

“1670, Feb. 18. Buried Deliverance Addison.”—Christ Church, Barbados.

“Deliverance Hobbs and Deliverance Dane were both examined in the great trial for witchcraft at Salem, June 2, 1692.”—Neal, “New England,” pp. 533, 506.

The last instance, probably, at home is—

“1757, Jan. 7. Buried Deliverance Branan.”—Donnybrook, Dublin (Notes and Queries).

This “Deliverance” must have been especially common. One more instance: in the will of Anne Allport, sen., of Cannock, Stafford, dated March 25, 1637, mention is made of “my son-in-law Deliverance Fennyhouse” (vide Notes and Queries, Dec. 8, 1860, W. A. Leighton).

Much-mercy is characteristic:

“1598, May 22. Baptized Much-mercie Harmer, a child.”—Warbleton.

This is but one more proof of Heley’s influence, for he had baptized one of his own sons “Much-mercy”” in 1585.

Perhaps a sense of undeserved mercies caused the following:

“1589, Sep. 28. Baptized No-merit, dather of Stephen Vynall.”—Warbleton.

That babes are cherubs, if not seraphs, every mother knows; but it is not often the fact is recorded in our church registers. Peculiar thankfulness must have been felt here:

“On Dec. 11, 1865, aged seventy-eight years, died Cherubin Diball.”—Notes and Queries, 4th Series, ii. 130.

And two hundred years previously, i.e. 1678, Seraphim Marketman is referred to in the last testament of John Kirk. But was it gratitude, after all? We have all heard of the wretched father who would persist in having the twins his wife presented to him christened by the names of Cherubin and Seraphim, on the ground that “they continually do cry.” Perhaps Cherubin Diball and Seraphim Marketman made noise enough for two!But if the father of the twins was not as thankful for his privilege as he ought to have been, others were. Thanks and Thankful were not unknown to our forefathers. One of the earliest instances I can find is the marriage lines of Thankful Hepden:

“1646, July 16. Thankfull Hepden and Fraunces Bruer.”—St. Dionis Backchurch.

In Peck’s “Desiderata Curiosa” (p. 537) we read:

“Dec. M.D.CLVI. Mr. Thankful Frewen’s corps carried through London, to be interred in Sussex.”

Thankful’s father was John Frewen, Rector of Northiam, the eminent Puritan already referred to. Accepted, the elder son’s name, belongs to this same class. Thankful seems to have become a favourite in that part of the country, and to have lingered for a considerable time. In the “History of the Town and Port of Rye” we find (p. 466):

“Christmas, 1723. Assessment for repairs of highways: Mr. Thankful Bishop paid 7^s 6^d.”

Again, so late as 1749 we find the death of another Thankful Frewen recorded, who had been Rector of Northiam for sixteen years, christened, no doubt, in memory of his predecessor of a century gone by.[52] Thankful Owen was brother to Gracious Owen, president of St. John’s, Oxford, 1650-1660.

One more instance will suffice. The will of Thanks Tilden was proved in 1698. No wonder the name was sufficiently familiar to be embodied in one of the political skits of the Commonwealth period:

“‘O, very well said,’ quoth Con;
‘And so will I do,’ says Frank;
And Mercy cries ‘Aye,’ and Mat, ‘Really,’
‘And I’m o’ that mind,’ quoth Thank.”

Possibly the sentence “unfeignedly thankful” suggested the other word also; any way, it existed:

“1586, April 1. Baptized Unfeigned, sonne of Roger Elliard.”—Warbleton.

The estate of Unfeigned Panckhurst was administered upon in 1656.

From every side we see traces of the popularity of Thankful. During the restoration of Hawkhurst Church, a small tombstone was discovered below the floor, with an inscription to the “memory of Elizabeth, daughter of Thankful Bishop, of Hawkhurst, gent., who died January 2, 1680” (“Arch. Cant.,” iv. 108). In the churchwarden’s book of the same place occurs this curious item:

“1675. Received by Thankfull Thorpe, churchwarden in the year 1675, of Richard Sharpe of Bennenden, the summe of one pound for shouting of a hare.”—“Arch. Cant.,” v. 75.

Several names seem to breathe assurance and trust in imminent peril. Perhaps both mother and child were in danger. Preserved is distinctly of this class:

“Here lieth the body of Preserved, the daughter of Thomas Preserved Emms, who departed this life in the 18th year of her age, on the 17th of November, MDCCXII.”—St. Nicholas, Yarmouth.

“1588, Aug. 1. Baptized Preserved, sonne of Thomas Holman.

“1594, Nov. 17. Baptized Preserved, sonne of Roger Caffe.”—Warbleton.

Preserved Fish, whose name appeared for many years in the New York Directory, did not get his name this way. A friend of his informs me that, about eighty-five years ago, a vessel was wrecked on the New Jersey coast, and when washed ashore, a little child was discovered secured in one of the berths, the only living thing left. The finder named the boy “Preserved Fish,” and he bore it through a long and honoured life to the grave, having made for himself a good position in society.

Beloved would naturally suggest itself to grateful parents:

“1672, July 10. Buried Anne, wife of Beeloved King.”—Warbleton.

This name is also found in St. Matthew, Friday Street, London.

Joy-in-Sorrow is the story of Rachel and Benoni over again:

“1595. On the last daye of August the daughter of Edward Godman was baptized and named Joye-in-Sorrow.”—Isfield, Sussex.

Lamentation tells its own tale, unless taken from the title of one of the Old Testament books:

“Plaintiff, Lamentation Chapman: Bill to stay proceedings on a bond relating to a tenement and lands in the parish of Borden, Kent.”—“Proc. in Chancery, Eliz.,” i. 149.

We have already mentioned Safe-on-high Hopkinson, christened at Salehurst in 1591, and Help-on-high Foxe, incumbent of Lydney, Gloucester, in 1661. The former died a few days after baptism, and the event seems to have been anticipated in the name selected.

The termination on-high was popular. Stand-fast-on-high Stringer dwelt at Crowhurst, in Sussex, about the year 1635, as will be proved shortly, and Aid-on-high is twice met with:

“1646, June 6. Letters of administration taken out in the estate of Margery Maddock, of Ross, Hereford, by Aid-on-high Maddock, her husband.”

“1596, July 19. Stephen Vynall had a sonne baptized, and was named Aid-on-hye.”—Isfield, Sussex.[53]

The three following are precatory, and we may infer that the life of either mother or child was endangered:

“1618, ——. Married Restore Weekes to Constant Semar.”—Chiddingly.

“1613, ——. Baptized Have-mercie, d. of Thomas Stone.”—Berwick, Sussex.

A monument at Cobham, Surrey, commemorates the third:

Still less hopeful of augury was the following:

What about him? His friends brought him forward as a case for the Commissioners of Lunacy to take in hand, on the ground that he was weak of intellect, and unfit to manage his business. It might be asked whether such a name was not likely to drive him to the state specified in the petition.

While on the subject of birth, we may notice that the Presbyterian clergy were determined to visit the sins of the parents on the children in cases of illegitimacy. A few instances must suffice:

This is more kindly, but an exceptional case:

(e.) General.

There is a batch of names which was especially common, and which hardly appears to be of Puritan origin; I mean names presaging good fortune. Doubtless, however, they were at first used, in a purely spiritual sense, of the soul’s prosperity; and afterwards, by more worldly minds, were referred to the good things of this life.

Fortune became a great favourite:

If Fortune meant fulness of years, it was attained in this last example.Wealthy is equally curious:

The father of this Riches was also Riches, and was married to the daughter of John Nabs! (vide Blomefield, vi. 5).

Several names may be set in higgledy-piggledy fashion, for they belong to no class, and are sui generis.

Pleasant[55] is found several times:

The following, no doubt, had a political as well as spiritual allusion. It occurs several times in the New York Directory of the present year:

What a freak of fancy is commemorated in the following:

The Trinity in Unity were not held in proper reverence; for Trinity Langley fought in the army of Cromwell, while Unity Thornton (St. James, Piccadilly, 1680) and Unity Awdley (“Top. et. Gen.,” viii. 201) appear a little later:

Providence Hillershand died August 14, 1749, aged 72 (Bicknor, Gloucester). Providence was a he.

Biblical localities were much resorted to:

Nazareth Godden’s will was administrated upon in 1662. Battalion Shotbolt was defendant in a suit in the eleventh year of Queen Anne (Decree Rolls, Record Office). The following is odd:

V. A Scoffing World.

While these strange pranks were being played, the world was not asleep. Calamy seems to have discovered a source of melancholy satisfaction in the fact that the quaint names of his brethren were subjected to the raillery of a wicked world. One of the ejected ministers was Sabbath Clark, minister of Tarvin, Cheshire. Of him he writes:

Probably Calamy was referring to the “profane wit” Dr. Cosin, Bishop of Chester, who, in a visitation held at Warrington about the year 1643, is said to have acted as follows:—

That this was a deliberate insult, and not a pleasantry, Calamy, of course, would stoutly maintain. Hence the above sample of holy ire.

Many of the names in the list I have recorded must have met with the good-humoured raillery of the every-day folk the strangely stigmatized bearer might meet. I suppose in good time, however, the owner, and the people he was accustomed to mix with, got used to it. It is true they must have resorted, not unfrequently, to curter forms, much after the fashion of the now almost forgotten nick forms of the Plantagenet days. Fight-the-good-fight-of-faith is a very large mouthful, if you come to try it, and I dare say Mr. White or Brown, whoever he might be, did not so strongly urge as he ought to have done the gross impropriety of his friends recognizing him by the simple style of “Faith” or “Fight.” Fancy at a dinner, in a day that had not invented the convenient practice of calling a man by his surname, having to address a friend across the table, “Please, Fight-the-good-fight-of-faith, pass the pepper!” The thing was impossible. Even Help-on-high was found cumbersome, and, as we have seen, the Rector of Lydney curtailed it.

A curious instance of waggery anent this matter of length will be found in the register of St. Helen, Bishopgate. The entry is dated 1611, just the time when the dramatists were making fun of this Puritanic innovation, and when the custom was most popular:

This is confirmed by the burial records:

The reference, of course, is to Job ii. 8:

This was somewhat grim fun, though. Probably Job-rakt-out-of-the-asshes, during his brief life, would be styled by the curter title of “Ashes.” It is somewhat curious to notice that Camden, writing three years later, says Ashes existed. Perhaps this was the instance.

A similar instance of waggery is found in the parish church of Old Swinford, where the following entry occurs:—

Allowing the father to be thirty years of age, the paternal christening would take place in 1646, which would be a likely time in the political history of England for a mimical hit at Puritan eccentricity.

(a.) The Playwrights.

There is a capital scene in “The Ordinary” (1634), where Andrew Credulous, after trolling out a verse of nonsensical rhyme against the Puritan names, says to his friends Hearsay and Slicer, in allusion to these new long and uncouth names:

“Andrew the Great Turk?
I would I were a peppercorn, if that
It sounds not well. Doe’st not?
Slicer. Yes, very well.
Credulous. I’ll make it else great Andrew Mahomet,
Imperious Andrew Mahomet Credulous.
Tell me which name sounds best.
Hearsay. That’s as you speak ’em.
Credulous. Oatmealman Andrew! Andrew Oatmealman!
Hearsay. Ottoman, sir, you mean.
Credulous. Yes, Ottoman.”

“Oatmealman Andrew! Andrew Oatmealman!” seems to have suggested to Thomson that unfortunate line:

“O Sophonisba, Sophonisba O,”

so unkindly parodied into—

“O Jemmy Thomson, Jemmy Thomson O.”

From this quotation it will be seen that it is not to the church register alone we must turn, to discover the manner in which these new names were being received by the public. Calamy might wax wroth over the “profane wits” of the day, but one of the severest blows administered to the men he has undertaken to defend, came from his own side; for Thomas Adams, Rector of St. Benet, Paul’s Wharf, must unquestionably be placed, even by Calamy’s own testimony, among the Puritan clergy of his day. His name does not appear in the list of silenced clergy, and his works are dedicated to pronounced friends of the Noncomformist cause. In his “Meditations upon the Creed” (vol. iii. p. 213, edit. 1872), first published in 1629, he says—

I have quoted portions of this before. I have now given it in full, for it is trenchant, and full of common sense. Coming from the quarter it did, we cannot doubt it had its effect in throwing the practice into disfavour among the better orders. But there had been a continued battery going on from a foe by whose side Adams would have rather faced death than fight. Years before he wrote his own sentiments, the Puritan nomenclature had been roughly handled on the stage, and by such ruthless pens as Ben Jonson, Cowley, and Beaumont and Fletcher. A year before little Job-rakt-out-of-the-asshes was laid to rest, the sharp and unsparing sarcasm of “The Alchemist” and “Bartholomew Fair” had been levelled at these doings. The first of these two dramas Ben Jonson saw acted in 1610. By that time the custom was a generation old, and men who bore the godly but uncouth sobriquets were walking the streets, keeping shops, driving bargains, known, if not avoided, of all men. In 1610 Increase Brown, your apprentice, might be demanding an advance upon his wages, Help-on-high Jones might be imploring your patronage, while Search-the-Scriptures Robinson might be diligently studying his ledger to see how he could swell his total against you for tobacco and groceries. In 1610 society would be really awake to the fact that such things existed, and proceed to discuss this serio-comic matter in a comico-serious manner. The time was exactly ripe for the playwright, and it was the fate of the Presbyterians that the playwright was “rare Ben.”

In “The Alchemist” appears Ananias, a deacon, who is thus questioned by Subtle:

“What are you, sir?
Ananias. Please you, a servant of the exiled brethren,
That deal with widows’ and with orphans’ goods,
And make a just account unto the saints:
A deacon.
Subtle. O, you are sent from Master Wholesome,
Your teacher?
Ananias. From Tribulation Wholesome,
Our very zealous pastor.”

After accusing Ananias of being related to the “varlet that cozened the Apostles,” Subtle meets Tribulation himself, the Amsterdam pastor, whom he treats with scant courtesy:

“Nor shall you need to libel ’gainst the prelates,
And shorten so your ears against the hearing
Of the next wire-drawn grace. Nor of necessity
Rail against plays, to please the alderman
Whose daily custard you devour; nor lie
With zealous rage till you are hoarse. Not one
Of these so singular arts. Nor call yourselves
By name of Tribulation, Persecution,
Restraint, Long-patience, and such like, affected
By the whole family or wood of you,
Only for glory, and to catch the ear
Of your disciple.”

To which hard thrust Tribulation meekly makes response:

“Truly, sir, they are
Ways that the godly brethren have invented
For propagation of the glorious cause.”

Every word of this harangue of Subtle’s would tell upon a sympathetic audience. So popular was the play itself, that a common street song was made out of it, the first verse of which we find Credulous singing in “The Ordinary:”

“My name’s not Tribulation,
Nor holy Ananias;
I was baptized in fashion,
Our vicar did hold bias.”[57]
Act iv. sc. 1.

This comedy appeared twenty years after “The Alchemist,” and yet the song was still popular. Many a lad with a Puritan name must have had these rhymes flung into his teeth. Tribulation, by the way, is one of the names given in Camden’s list, written four years later than Ben Jonson’s play. This name, which has been the object of an antiquary’s, a playwright’s, a ballad-monger’s and an historian’s ridicule (for Macaulay had his fling at it), curiously enough I have not found in the registers. But its equivalent, Lamentation, occurs, as we have seen, in the “Chancery Suits” (1590-1600), in the case of Lamentation Chapman. Restraint is met by Abstinence Pougher, and Persecution by Trial Travis (C. S. P. 1619, June 7).

Still more severe, again, is this same dramatist in “Bartholomew Fair,” which was performed in London, October, 1614, by the retinue of Lady Elizabeth, James’s daughter. Pouring ridicule upon the butt of the day, whose name of “Puritan” was by-and-by to be anagrammatized into “a turnip,” from the cropped roundness of his head, this drama became the play-goers’ favourite. It was suppressed during the Commonwealth, and one of the first to be revived at the Restoration.[58] The king is said to have given special orders for its performance. Whether his grandfather liked it as much may be doubted, for it once or twice touches on doctrinal points, and James thought he had a special gift for theology.

Zeal-of-the-land Busy is a Banbury man, which town was then even more celebrated for Puritans than cakes. Caster, in “The Ordinary,” says—

“I’ll send some forty thousand unto Paul’s:
Build a cathedral next in Banbury:
Give organs to each parish in the kingdom.”

Zeal-of-the-land is thus inquired of by Winwife:

All this would be caviare to the Cavalier, and it is doubtful whether he did not enjoy it more than his grandparents, who could but laugh at it as a hit religious, rather than political. The allusion to witnesses reminds us of Corporal Oath, who in “The Puritan,” published in 1607 (Act ii. sc. 3), rails at the zealots for the mild character of their ejaculations. The expression “Oh!” was the most terrible expletive they permitted themselves to indulge in, and some even shook their heads at a brother who had thus far committed himself:

“Why! has the devil possessed you, that you swear no better,
You half-christened c——s, you un-godmothered varlets?”

The terms godfather and godmother were rejected by the disaffected clergy, and they would have the answer made in the name of the sponsors, not the child. Hence they styled them witnesses.

In “Women Pleased,” a tragi-comedy, written, as is generally concluded, by Fletcher alone about the year 1616, we find the customary foe of maypoles addressing the hobby:

“I renounce it,
And put the beast off thus, the beast polluted.
And now no more shall Hope-on-high Bomby
Follow the painted pipes of worldly pleasures,
And with the wicked dance the Devil’s measures:
Away, thou pampered jade of vanity!”

Here, again, is no exaggeration of name, for we have Help-on-high Foxe to face Hope-on-high Bomby. The Rector of Lydney would be about twenty-five when this play was written, and may have suggested himself the sobriquet. The names are all but identical.

From “Women Pleased” and Fletcher to “Cutter of Coleman Street” and Cowley is a wide jump, but we must make it to complete our quotations from the playwrights. Although brought out after the Restoration, the fun about names was not yet played out. The scene is laid in London in 1658. This comedy was sorely resented by the zealots, and led the author to defend himself in his preface. He says that he has been accused of “prophaneness:”

This must have been more trying to bear even than Cutter himself. Under a thin disguise, Colonel Fear-the-Lord Barebottle is none other than Praise-God Barebone, of then most recent notoriety. Cowley’s allusion to him through the medium of Jolly is not pleasant:

Cutter turns zealot, and wears a most puritanical habit. To the colonel’s widow, Mistress Tabitha Barebottle, he says—

But Cutter—we beg his pardon, Abednego—was but a sorry convert. Having lapsed into a worldly mind again, he thus addresses Tabitha:

I fancy the reader will agree with me that Cowley needed all the arguments he could urge in his preface to meet the charge of irreverence.

(b.) The Sussex Jury.

One of the strongest indictments to be found against this phase of Puritanic eccentricity is to be found in Hume’s well-known quotation from Brome’s “Travels into England”—a quotation which has caused much angry contention. The book quoted by the historian is entitled “Travels over England, Scotland, and Wales, by James Brome, M.A., Rector of Cheriton, in Kent.” Writing soon after the Restoration, Mr. Brome says (p. 279)—

A second list in the British Museum Mr. Lower considers to be of a somewhat earlier date. We will set them side by side:

I dare say ninety-five per cent. of readers of Hume’s “History of England” have thought this list of Sussex jurors a silly and extravagant hoax. They are “either a forgery or a joke,” says an indignant writer in Notes and Queries. Hume himself speaks of them as names adopted by converts, evidently unaware that these sobriquets were all but invariably affixed at the font. The truth of the matter is this. The names are real enough; the panel is not necessarily so. They are a collection of names existing in several Sussex villages at one and the same time. Everything vouches for their authenticity. The list was printed by Brome while the majority must be supposed still to be living; the villages in which they resided are given, the very villages whose registers we now turn to for Puritanic examples, with the certainty of unearthing them; above all, some of the names can be “run down” even now. Accepted or Approved Frewen, of Northiam, we have already referred to. Free-gift Mabbs, of Chiddingly, is met by the following entry from Chiddingly Church:

The will of Redeemed Compton, of Battle, was proved in London in 1641. Restore Weeks, of Cuckfield, is, no doubt, the individual who got married not far away, in Chiddingly Church:

“Increase Weeks, of Cuckfield,” may therefore be accepted as proven, especially as I have shown Increase to be a favourite Puritan name. These two would be brothers, or perchance father and son. As for the other names, the majority have already figured in this chapter. Fly-fornication is still found in Waldron register, though the surname is a different one. Return, Faint-not, Much-mercy, Be-thankful, Repentance, Safe-on-high, Renewed, and More-fruit, all have had their duplicates in the pages preceding. “Fight-the-good-fight-of-faith White, of Emer,” is the only unlikely sobriquet left to be dealt with. Thomas Adams, in his “Meditations upon the Creed,” in a passage already quoted, testified to its existence in 1629. The conclusion is irresistible: the names are authentic, and the panel may have been.

(c.) Royalists with Puritan Names.

It may be asked whether or not the world went beyond scoffing. Was the stigma of a Puritan name a hindrance to the worldly advancement of the bearer? It is pleasant, in contradiction of any such theory, to quote the following:—

In a second appeal made March, 1664 (C. S. P.), Arise reminds Charles of many “noble acts” done for him as a personal attendant during his exile.

Thus it will be seen that, in the general rush for places of preferment at the Restoration, there were men and women bearing names of the most marked Puritanism, who did not hesitate to forward their appeals with the Williams and Richards of the world at large. They manifestly did not suppose their sobriquets would be any bar to preferment. One of them, too, had been body-man to Charles in his exile, and another had suffered in person and estate as a devoted adherent of royalty. We may hope and trust, therefore, that all this scoffing was of a good-humoured character.

It was, doubtless, the prejudice against Puritan eccentricity that introduced civil titles as font names into England—a class specially condemned by Cartwright and his friends. At any rate, they are contemporary with the excesses of fanatic nomenclature, and are found just in the districts where the latter predominated. Squire must have arisen before Elizabeth died:

Duke was the christian name of Captain Wyvill, a fervent loyalist, and grandson of Sir Marmaduke Wyvill, Bart., of Constable Burton, Yorkshire:

Squire passed over the Atlantic, and is frequently to be seen in the States; so that if men may not squire themselves at the end of their names in the great republic, they may at the beginning.

Yorkshire and Lancashire are the great centres for this class of names on English soil. Squire is found on every page of the West Riding Directory, such entries as Squire Jagger, Squire Whitley, Squire Hind, Squire Hardy, or Squire Chapman being of the commonest occurrence. Duke is also a favourite, Duke Redmayne and Duke Oldroyd meeting my eye after turning but half a dozen pages. But the great rival of Squire is Major. There is a kind of martial, if not braggadocio, air about the very sound, which has taken the ear of the Yorkshire folk. Close together I light upon Major Pullen, farmer; Major Wold, farmer; Major Smith, sexton; Major Marshall, ironmonger. Other illustrations are Prince Jewitt, Earl Moore, Marshall Stewart, and Admiral Fletcher. This custom has led to awkwardnesses. There was living at Burley, near Leeds, a short time ago, a “Sir Robert Peel.” In the same way “Earl Grey” is found. Sir Isaac Newton was living not long ago in the parish of Soho, London. Robinson Cruso still survives, hale and hearty, at King’s Lynn, and Dean Swift is far from dead, as the West Riding Directory proves.

It was an odd idea that suggested “Shorter.” I have five instances of it, two from the Westminster Abbey registers:

Junior is found so early as 1657:

Little is similarly used. Little Midgley in the West Riding Directory is scarcely a happy conjunction. In the same town are to be seen John Berry, side by side with “Young John Berry,” and Allen Mawson, with Young Allen Mawson.

VI. Bunyan’s Debt to the Puritans.

But if the Sussex jury was not visionary, except for the panel, neither was that at Mansoul! What a text is this for the next biographer of Bunyan, if he have the courage to enter upon it! To suggest that the great dreamer was not a reprobate in his youth, and thus spoil the contrast between his converted and unconverted life, was a perilous act on Lord Macaulay’s part. To insinuate that he had a not altogether unpleasant time of it in the Bedford gaol, that he could have his friends to visit him, and, on the face of it, ink, paper, and quills to set down his meditations, even this is enough to set a section of political and religious society about our ears. But to hint that his character names were not wholly the offspring of his imagination, not thought out in the isolation of his dreary captivity, and not pictured in his brain, while his brain-pan was lying upon a hard and comfortless pallet—this, I know, not very long ago would have brought a mob about me! In the present day, I shall only be smiled upon with contempt, and condemned to a righteous ignominy by the superior judgment of the worshippers of John Bunyan!

Nevertheless I ask, were the great mass of Bunyan’s character names the creation of his own brain, or were they suggested by the nomenclature of his friends or neighbours in the days of his youth? It is the peculiarity of the names in the “Pilgrim’s Progress” and “Siege of Mansoul,” that they suggest the incidents of which the bearers are the heroes. But, in a large proportion of cases, these names already existed. Born in 1628, Bunyan saw Puritan character names at their climax. Living at Elstow, he was within the limits of the district most addicted to the practice. He had seen Christian and Hopeful, Christiana and Mercy, of necessity long before he was “haled to prison” at Bedford. The four fair damsels, Discretion, Piety, Charity, and Prudence, may and must have in part been his companions in his boyish rambles years before he met them in the Valley of Humiliation; and if afterwards, in the Siege of Mansoul, he turned Charity into a man, he was only doing what godfathers and godmothers had been doing for thirty years previously. The name and sweet character of Faithful might be a personal reminiscence, good Father Honest a quondam host on one of his preaching expeditions, and Standfast, “that right good pilgrim,” an old PÆdo-Baptist of his acquaintance. The shepherds Watchful, Sincere, and Experience, if not Knowledge, were known of all men, in less pastoral avocations. And as for the men that were panelled in the trial of the Diabolonians, we might set them side by side with the Sussex jury, and certainly the contrast for oddity would be in favour of the cricketing county. Messrs. Belief, True-heart, Upright, Hate-bad, Love-God, See-truth, Heavenly-mind, Thankful, Good-work, Zeal-for-God, and Humble have all, or well-nigh all, been quoted in this chapter, as registered by the church clerk a generation before Do-right, the town-clerk of Mansoul, called them over in court. “Do-right” himself is met by “Do-good,” and the witness “Search-truth” by “Search-the-Scriptures.” Even “Giant Despair” may have suffered convulsions in teething in the world of fact, before his fits took him in the world of dreams; and his wife “Diffidence” will be found, I doubt not, to have been at large before Bunyan “laid him down in a den.” Where names of evil repute come—and they are many—we do not expect to see their duplicates in the flesh. Graceless, Love-lust, Live-loose, Hold-the-world, and Talkative were not names for the Puritan, but their contraries were. Grace meets the case of Grace-less, Love-lust may be set by “Fly-fornication,” and Live-loose by “Live-well” or “Continent.” Hold-the-world is directly suggested by the favourite “Safe-on-high;” Talkative, by “Silence.”That John Bunyan is under debt to the Puritans for many of his characters must be unquestionable; and were he living now, or could we interview him where he is, I do not doubt we could extract from him, good honest man, the ready admission that in the names of the personages that flit before us in his unapproachable allegory, and which have charmed the fancy of old and young for so many generations, he was merely stereotyping the recollections of childhood, and commemorating, so far as sobriquets were concerned, the companionships of earlier years.

VII. The Influence of Puritanism on American Nomenclature.

Baptismal nomenclature to-day in the United States, especially in the old settlements, bears stronger impressions of the Puritan epoch than the English. Their ancestors were Puritans, who had fled England for conscience’ sake. Their life, too, in the West was for generations primitive, almost patriarchal, in its simplicity. There was no bantering scorn of a wicked world to face; there was no deliberate effort made by any part of the community to restore the old names. To this day the impress remains. Take up a story of backwood life, such as American female writers affect so much, and it will be inscribed “Faith Gartney’s Girlhood,” or “Prudence Palfrey.” All the children that figure in these tales are “Truth,” or “Patience,” or “Charity,” or “Hope.” The true descendants of the early settlers are, to a man, woman, and child, even now bearers of names either from the abstract Christian graces or the narratives of Holy Scripture. Of course, the constant tide of immigration that has set in has been gradually telling against Puritan traditions. The grotesque in name selection, too, has gone further in some of the more retired and inaccessible districts of the States than the eastern border, or in England generally, where social restraints and the demands of custom are still respected. If we are to believe American authorities, there are localities where humour has certainly become grim, and the solemn rite of baptism somewhat burlesqued by a selection of names which throw into the shade even Puritan eccentricity.

Look at the names of some of the earliest settlers of whom we have any authentic knowledge. We may mention the Mayflower first. In 1620 the emigrants by this vessel founded New Plymouth. This led to the planting of other colonies. Among the passengers were a girl named Desire Minter, a direct translation of Desiderata, which had just become popular in England; William Brewster, the ruling elder; his son Love Brewster, who married, settled, and died there in 1650, leaving four children; and a younger son, Wrestling Brewster. The daughters had evidently been left in England till a comfortable home could be found for them, for next year there arrived at New Plymouth, in the Ann and Little James, Fear Brewster and Patience Brewster. Patience very soon married Thomas Prince, one of the first governors. On this same memorable journey of the Mayflower came also Remember, daughter of Isaac Allerton, first assistant to the new governor; Resolved White, who married and left five children in the colony; and Humility Cooper, who by-and-by returned to England.

A little later on, in the Ann and Little James, again came Manasseh Faunce and Experience Mitchell. In a “List of Living” in Virginia, made February 16, 1623, is Peaceable Sherwood. In a “muster” taken January 30, 1624, occur Revolt Morcock and Amity Waine.

There is a conversation in “The Ordinary”—a drama written in 1634 or 1635, by Cartwright, the man whose “body was as handsome as his soul,” as Langbaine has it—which may be quoted here. Hearsay says—

“London air,
Methinks, begins to be too hot for us.
Slicer. There is no longer tarrying here: let’s swear
Fidelity to one another, and
So resolve for New England.
Hearsay. ’Tis but getting
A little pigeon-hole reformed ruff——
Slicer. Forcing our beards into th’ orthodox bent——
Shape. Nosing a little treason ’gainst the king,
Bark something at the bishops, and we shall
Be easily received.”
Act iv. sc. 5.

It is interesting to remember that 1635, when this was written, saw the high tide of Puritan emigration. The list of passengers that have come down to us prove it. After that date the names cease to represent the sterner spirit of revolt against episcopacy and the Star Chamber.

In the ship Francis, from Ipswich, April 30, 1634, came Just Houlding. In the Elizabeth, landed April 17, 1635, Hope-still Foster and Patience Foster. From the good barque James, July 13, 1635, set foot on shore Remembrance Tybbott. In the Hercules sailed hither, in 1634, Comfort Starre, “chirurgeon.” In 1635 settled Patient White. In a book of entry, dated April 12, 1632, is registered Perseverance Greene, as one who is to be passed on to New England.

Such names as Constant Wood, Temperance Hall, Charity Hickman, Fayth Clearke, or Grace Newell, I simply record and pass on. That these names were perpetuated is clear. The older States teem with them now; American story-books for girls are full of them. Humility Cooper, of 1620, is met by an entry of burial in St. Michael’s, Barbados:

“1678, May 16. Humility Hobbs, from ye almshous.”

The churchwardens of St. James’ Barbados, have entered an account of lands, December 20, 1679, wherein is set down

Increase Mather is a familiar name to students of American history. His father, Richard Mather, was born at Liverpool in 1596. Richard left for New England in 1635, with his four sons, Samuel, Nathaniel, Eleazar, and Increase. Cotton Mather was a grandson. About the same time, Charles Chauncey (of a Hertfordshire family), late Vicar of Ware, who had been imprisoned for refusing to rail in his communion table, settled in New England. Dying there in 1671, as president of Harvard College, he bequeathed, through his children, the following names to the land of his adoption:—Isaac, Ichabod, Sarah, Barnabas, Elnathan, and Nathaniel. Both the Mathers and the Chaunceys, therefore, sent out a Nathaniel. Adding these to the large number of Nathaniels found in the lists of emigrants published by Mr. Hotten, no wonder Nathaniel became for a time the first name on American soil, and that “Nat” should have got instituted into a pet name. Jonathan was not to be compared to it for a moment.

But we have not done with the Chaunceys. One of the most singular accidents that ever befell nomenclature has befallen them. What has happened to Sidney in England, has happened to Chauncey in America, only “more so.” The younger Chaunceys married and begot children. A grandson of Isaac Chauncey died at Boston, in 1787, aged eighty-three. He was a great patriot, preacher, and philanthropist at a critical time in his country’s history. The name had spread, too, and no wonder that it suggested itself to the authoress of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” as a character name. She, however, placed it in its proper position as a surname. It may be that Mrs. Stowe has given the use of this patronymic as a baptismal name an impulse, but it had been so used long before she herself was born. It was a memorial of Charles Chauncey, of Boston. It has now an average place throughout all the eastern border and the older settlements. I take up the New York Directory for 1878, and at once light upon Chauncey Clark, Chauncey Peck, and Chauncey Quintard; while, to distinguish the great Smith family, there are Chauncey Smith, lawyer, Chauncey Smith, milk-dealer, Chauncey Smith, meat-seller, and Chauncey Smith, junior, likewise engaged in the meat market. Thus, it is popular with all classes. In my London Directory for 1870, there are six Sidney Smiths and one Sydney Smith. Chauncey and Sidney seem likely to run a race in the two countries, but Chauncey has much the best of it at present.

Another circumstance contributed to the formation of Americanisms in nomenclature. The further the Puritan emigrants drew away from the old familiar shores, the more predominant the spirit of liberty grew. It was displayed, amongst other ways, in the names given to children born on board vessel.[60] It was an outlet for their pent-up enthusiasm. Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Pericles—

“We cannot but obey
The powers above us. Could I rage and roar
As doth the sea she lies on, yet the end
Must be as ’tis. My gentle babe, Marina (whom,
For she was born at sea, I’ve named so) here
I charge your charity withal, leaving her
The infant of your care.”
Act iii. sc. 3.The Puritan did the same. Oceanus Hopkins was born on the high seas in the Mayflower, 1620; Peregrine White came into the world as the same vessel touched at Cape Cod; Sea-born Egginton, whose birth “happened in his berth,” as Hood would say, is set down as owner of some land and a batch of negroes later on (Hotten, p. 453); while the marriage of Sea-mercy Adams with Mary Brett is recorded, in 1686, in Philadelphia (Watson’s “Annals of Philadelphia,” 1. 503). Again, we find the following:—

No doubt his parents went over the Atlantic on board the Bonaventure, which was plying then betwixt England and the colonies (vide list of ships in Hotten’s “Emigrants,” pp. vii. and 35).

We have another instance in the “baptismes” of St. George’s, Barbados:

Allowing the father to be forty years old, his parents would be crossing the water about the time the good ship Bonaventure was plying.

Again, we find the following (Hotten, p. 245):—

All this, as will be readily conceived, has tended to give a marked character to New England nomenclature. The very names of the children born to these religious refugees are one of the most significant tokens to us in the nineteenth century of the sense of liberty they felt in the present, and of the oppression they had undergone in the past.

If we turn from these lists of passengers, found in the archives of English ports, not to mention “musters” already quoted, to records preserved by our Transatlantic cousins, we readily trace the effect of Puritanism on the first generation of native-born Americans.

From Mr. Bowditch’s interesting book on “Suffolk Surnames,” published in the United States, we find the following baptismal names to have been in circulation there: Standfast, Life, Increase, Supply, Donation, Deodat, Given, Free-grace, Experience, Temperance, Prudence, Mercy, Dependance, Deliverance, Hope, Reliance, Hopestill, Fearing, Welcome, Desire, Amity, Comfort, Rejoice, Pardon, Remember, Wealthy, and Consider. Nothing can be more interesting than the analysis of this list. With two exceptions, every name can be proved, from my own collection alone, to have been introduced from the mother country. In many instances, no doubt, Mr. Bowditch was referring to the same individual; in others to their children. The mention of Wealthy reminds us of Wealthy, Riches, and Fortune, already demonstrated to be popular English names. Fortune went out to New England in the person of Fortune Taylor, who appears in a roll of Virginian immigrants, 1623. Settling down there as a name of happy augury for the colonists’ future, both spiritual and material, she reappears, in the person of Fortune the spinster, in the popular New England story entitled “The Wide, Wide World.” Even “Preserved,” known in England in 1640, was to be seen in the New York Directory in 1860; and Consider, which crossed the Atlantic two hundred and fifty years ago, so grew and multiplied as to be represented at this moment in the directory just mentioned, in the form of

Mr. Bowditch adds “Search-the-Scriptures” to his list of names that crossed the Atlantic. This tallies with Search-the-Scriptures Moreton, of Salehurst, one of the supposed sham jury already treated of. He quotes also Hate-evil Nutter from a colonial record of 1649.[61] Here again we are reminded of Bunyan’s Diabolonian jury, one of whom was Hate-bad. It is all but certain from the date that Hate-evil went out from the old country. The name might be perfectly familiar to the great dreamer, therefore. Faint-not Wines, Mr. Bowditch says, became a freeman in 1644, so that the popularity of that great Puritan name was not allowed to be limited by the English coast. In this same year settled Faithful Rouse—one more memorial of English nonconformity.

English Puritanism must stand the guilty cause of much modern humour, not to say extravagance, in American name-giving. Puns compounded of baptismal name and surname are more popular there than with us. Robert New has his sons christened Nothing and Something. Price becomes Sterling Price; Carrol, Christmas Carrol; Mixer, Pepper Mixer; Hopper, Opportunity Hopper; Ware, China Ware; Peel, Lemon Peel; Codd, Salt Codd; and Gentle, Always Gentle. It used to be said of the English House of Commons that there were in it two Lemons, with only one Peel, and the Register-General not long since called attention in one of his reports to the existence of Christmas Day. We have, too, Cannon Ball, Dunn Brown, Friend Bottle (London Directory), and River Jordan, not to mention two brothers named Jolly Death and Sudden Death, the former of whom figured in a trial lately as witness. The Times of December 7, 1878, announced the death of Mr. Emperor Adrian, a Local Government Board member. Nevertheless, the practice prevails much more extensively across the water, and the reason is not far to seek.

Mr. Bowditch seems to imagine, we notice, America to be a modern girl’s name. He says administration upon the estate of America Sparrow was granted in 1855, while in 1857 America C. Tabb was sued at law. America and Americus were in use in England four hundred years ago (vide “English Surnames,” 2nd edit., p. 29), and two centuries ago we meet with

on a token. Amery was the ordinary English dress.