The student who is interested in this subject may find some help in the following series of Names (to which frequent reference has been made), compiled by an anonymous English scholar whose learning and ability have been recognized in the critical reviews. It was to one of these reviews that the present writer was indebted for suggestions that at once quickened his interest in M. Du Chaillu and his researches, and induced him in the republication of the English writer's list (taken from a London Directory) to add to the selections a few names of obvious Scandinavian derivation—Danish, Swedish, and Old Norse. Any fixed rule of selection, in a discussion like this, it is difficult to apply. Readers who comprehend how easily errors creep into an ordinary record of "family" pedigrees will make due allowance for errors that may be found in this modestly illustrative Anglo-Norman list, in which there is but little attempt to trace lineal family descent. With a body of names so pregnant with significance as this, the credentials of any branch of the Anglo-Norman race in any part of the earth will be recognized as good. The difficulties of the problem are apparent to all. Its interest and importance it is impossible to exaggerate or deny. If more simply stated, probably it were more easily understood, but, failing in simplicity of statement, very frequent repetitions may be excused.

The origin of the general discussion ought to encourage every scholar. According to the pleasing conception of the great Scottish romancer, the originator of this controversy was a Saxon slave who understood the art of deducing philosophic conclusions from unconsidered trifles. While herding his master's swine in the West Riding of Yorkshire, he spoke to a fellow thrall who stalked about in the full enjoyment of Saxon freedom with a brazen collar about his neck:

"And swine is good English," said the jester. "But how call you the sow when she is flayed, drawn and quartered, and hung up by the heels like a traitor?"

"Pork," said Gurth.

"And pork, I think, is good Norman French. When alive and in charge of a Saxon slave, she goes by a Saxon name. She is a Norman when dressed for the table in the castle hall. What dost thou think of that, friend Gurth?"

"It is but too true doctrine, friend Wamba, however it got into thy fool's pate."

This is elementary, but it was an inspiration to one of the greatest writers of France. The nimble wits of the Scottish wizard are not at the service of all the Wambas of the Saxon race.

"The Norman has vanished from the world," says Mr. Freeman, "but he has indeed left a name behind him"; and not only the "name," but wherever found he still exhibits "the indomitable vigor of the Scandinavian with the buoyant vivacity of the Gaul." It must be remembered, in discussing so large and complicated a subject as this, that philosophic scholarship is seldom narrow, absolute, final, or exclusive in its views. It would be folly to affirm, says the anonymous English writer who anticipated in certain aspects the theories of Du Chaillu, that the possession of Norman and Danish blood "always implies energy and intellect; and Saxon descent, the reverse." We have too much evidence to the contrary. It is not individual instances that are now under consideration; it is the comparative qualities of race. We can only safely affirm, in a rational and considerate discussion of the question, that our people are not Saxons nor Scandinavians, nor Normans, but broadly speaking, are a great branch of the English race which happily mingles the highest qualities of the THREE; the stolid conservatism of the first, the daring enterprise of the second, the "buoyant vivacity," the "spontaneity, enthusiasm, and versatility" of the third. When these racial elements were fairly balanced, as in the time of Elizabeth, the evolution of the Englishman was complete. It was then that, surcharged with complex currents of racial vitality, the adventurous "Elizabethan" sought our shore. The Virginian hunter followed or formed a trail in every wilderness, and the Yankee skipper trafficked on every coast. The march begun in Central Asia was resumed upon the American Continent, and "the most dramatic spectacle in history" was gradually unfolded before the eyes of men.

Illi tobur et Æs Triplex. Some of the elements may be crude, but all must be strong. A Roman trireme might safely carry a Vergilian body and an Horatian soul; but only a vessel framed with the toughest constituents at Nature's command could carry for century after century, in every land, upon every sea, in the "teeth of clenched antagonisms," and upon fixed predestinated lines, the fortunes of the English or "Anglo-Norman" race.

In point of fact, Destiny itself seems to have directed the process of evolution when the germ-plasm of those picked races—the Norman, the Saxon, and the Dane—was united to create the English or Anglo-Norman race, the Norman element by virtue of peculiar traits being dominant in the "cross." The Kentuckian is no degenerate product of this magnificent ancestral "blend," and one of the objects of the "Names" and the accompanying "Notes" is to show that in every characteristic respect he has bred true to the ancient blood. If the storm of Norman conquest scarcely touched the solid elements of that old manorial life, so the continuous intermingling, through many centuries, of the blood of three remotely kindred races has served to fix and transmit the characteristic traits which are stamped upon the Kentuckian of to-day.