"HA

ANS, Hans! come here, my poy-I saysh mynheer, knows you vot for I calls my poy Hans?"

"No, indeed sir, I cannot think of any peculiar fitness in it."

66

Well, mynheer, it ish because that ish his name."

Here ended the question with our simple-minded Dutchman, here it ends with most men, who never ask why names should be suffered to lord it over things. But philosophy, which is always permitted to step in when utility steps out, has a longer inquisition in the case. To Hans it were enough to know that the rough aspirate-nasal-hiss, is his name, and he would hardly be so wise as to let sour-krout wait for him to settle the wherefore of his having any name, or that name in which he was summoned to dinner. But philosophy never dines, and to her it imports much why he was so called; and she might from so short a text preach an endless dissertation on philology, anatomy, the progress of civilization, and the arts, and the great science of nomenclature. But if she has her head, nobody else could ever dine; so nstead of our going into the wilderness of wisdom opened up by his name, Hans may go to his father the D― Dutchman, and we will go to the limited consideration of proper names.

A

To commence methodically, though someways from the beginning: names are of two kinds, proper and common; yet nothing is now more common than proper names are; and, indeed, nothing more proper than common names. man's own name is his proper name, in spite of unfitness and incongruity. To appropriate the name of another, as at the bottom of a note of hand, is, however, not proper, though, alas! too common. He is a forger who does that, whatever his trade may be. Yet a hundred Smiths "black" or "white," might write John to their notes without imputation of guilt, John Smith being a common noun, and synonymous with anonymous, if that is not a bull.

In the "brave days of old," all men were anonymous, not, indeed, John Smiths, but really unchristened Pagans. It was no unmeaning phrase that of "fighting to win themselves a name," for they verily had none; which had this advantage that no envious slanderer could rob them of one, "good" or ill.

This was before academies for writing were opened, or a Cadmus had taken out letters patent for his invention of letters. Billets, it is true, had been sent before, but they were billets of wood, addressed rather to the head than the understanding. Cain is supposed to be the originator of this kind of epistlatory correspondence. Forging was, of course, impossible. By a singular coincidence, this was first heard ofthe days of Tubal Cain, whose impudence in that respect caused a particular mention of his "brass;" and the sad consequence is not omitted, that he was "first who walked in irons"-very suggestive of the fate of forgers to this day thus early, in its history, humanity is seen limping with its two Cains!

You may suppose that Adam, or the first man, bore a proper name, though a little stained-with apple-juice. But this is from a misapprehension of the customs of the time. It has become so well known as to be a proverbial phrase that every human, at his début in this world is a "little red baby;" it is a birth mark from his father Adam, who was made of red clay from the disintegrated red sand-stone with which the earth was underpinned. For this reason he was called Adam, that is Redey, just as naughty boys say darkey, to people of a deeper shade. This was enough to distinguish him in that early age, when the family was small, and Fame's genealogical banian had not grown to a perfect swamp of oblivion, with its myriad branches turned trunks.

We are told that he gave names to the animals, but properly speaking they were not proper names; merely for distinction he called his favorite cows "bughorn," "brindle," and "line-back;" and on that long first day, before Eve came, it is not strange that he called one graceful creature his "deer," and another his "duck." The thing was highly proper, but the names were not; and we repeat you cannot be too cautious about confounding names with things. When people began to multiply-which Daboll says is" a more rapid way of doing addition "-it is obvious they must have a more convenient, not to say more polite, way of distinguishing people in the second person, than to run tugging at their coat-tails, and saying "you! you!" or the not less indelicate fashion of

pointing to those in the third person; or in their absence, of going through the laborious circumlocution of a circuinstantial description. Hence, at a very early period men, men began to lay hoid of any remarkable feature, even if it were the very nose of a man, and with equal facility if it chanced to be enormously large, or astonishingly small, a hatchet, or a turn-up; thereby to hang a name, which should be his biography, portrait, caricature, or genealogy, condensed to the very marrow and gristle.

On a bald pate where a fly would trip up, they would stick a cognomen; and call the hardiest hero names, to his very face. So Nimrod-which you must not suppose to be a corruption of ram-rodcaught his name by being a great hunter; and all the Cæphuses, Stones, Pedros, Pierres, Paythers, and Peters, are de-rived from some hard-headed, hardhearted old Arab, who had "piled up the rocks" in the Stony Desert. Charlemange was a great Carle; Front-deBœuf an obstinate bull-head; and Charlesle-Chaune, who in spite of consecrating hereditary rights, could leave no hairs to his name, was but a bald-headed Charley.

Among men's faces, as among their opinions, were all varieties of shades, and White, Black, Brown, Grey, Dunn, and Green-" to that complexion had it come at last," were all fastened on the posterity of their first possessors, as indelibly as if they had all sat down on so many different paint-pots. Yet hereditary nomenclature is comparatively modern. When men had nothing else to give their children, they were too generous to give them the paternal name; it was enough then, if the parent bequeathed his vices to his son, without the legacy of the bad name they earned. And the sons, to do them justice, generally did ample credit to the implied faith in their ability to earn their own reputation in that direction. When all the natural peculiarities were exhausted to name men by, and "still they came,"--the accidents, the incidents, their exploits, and their blunders, "the lay of the land, and the looks of the people," were all pressed into the service; and Billy Bowlegs bowed and scraped to Mr. Packpenny, and Mr. Stack-pole leant his assistance to his neighbor Cobhouse, and Mr. Craven bequeathed his name to a race of heroes, and his nature to some great uncle of Col. Bragg; while Hill stooped kindly to Le Vallé, and Underhill looked

up respectfully to Montaign; Waters ran into Lakes; and La Fontaine had a draught for Lion, Lamb, Fox, Wolf, and half of Barnum-Noah's Menagerie.

When arts advanced, and the common people became too numerous for particular names, they took names in classes from their several trades-so they were called according to their calling. Parsons and Priests met with Churches and Parishes, and Dyers bound to Coffins, while Graves yawned before both; Brewer sent out Beers, and Fisher brought in Eels; and, in short, everybody had the name of doing something in the way of his trade.

How came there so many John Smiths? The philosopher who undertakes to account for human names, and overlooks that great question, is but poorly qualified to grapple with his subject. So large and diversified a portion of the human family, comprising as it does every degree of excellence in character from sainthood to zero, and from devil-hood up to zero, claims particular notice in the philosophy of proper names, and this is the place to bestow it. Why are there so many John Smiths? We undertake to answer the momentous query.

Beating, as well as beating down, is a process in most trades. He that smote with the hammer, whether a carpenter or metal-worker, was called a smith, one who smiteth,-drop the e and you have the name with entire ease. Hence, the family name of a race that includes more members than kindred, more namesakes of the "Meek Disciple "John-than imitators of his meekness; not to say that the smiters are more pugnacious than other families, but only more of them.

An ancient king of Poland, once victorious over an army of unbelievers, had them all christened; the superior officers first, and singly, then the subordinates, according to rank in classes, then the soldiery, in solid regiments. The priest waving from a cedar bough a shower of holy water along the ranks, shouted as the case may be "Tenth Regiment of the Twelfth Battalion of Light Infantry -I baptize you Peter, in the name, &c.," the next John," the third "Andrew," and so on, through all the Apostles, Holy Fathers, Unholy Father-Confessors, Martyrs and Marvel-mongers; till the whole army of the faithful had lent their names, to grace the army of the aliens, down to the baggage-boys and camp

scullions.* The regiment of artisans, all smiters before they were fighters, chanced to be christened for the Apocalyptic Seer, and were soon dispersed by the general order, "To the Eleventh Regiment, Twelfth Battalion of the Royal Infantry, John Smith, you are hereby disbanded, and ordered to repair to your several homes without delay." This, in addition to all natural and ordinary methods of increase, will account for the multiplicity of Johns in the great family of smiters.

All names were significant in the primitive times, though doubtless many who bore them were insignificant, as indeed the names themselves often signified. But now, alas! what signifies a name? A rose is supposed to be capable of exerting the same titillatory power to produce sensations of pleasure under any other cognomen; as Shakespeare has erroneously, but beautifully observed.

Men of old did not so belie the significance of their names as they now dofor being cut to fit, the garment of fame did fit, sometimes like the shirt of Nessus on the back of Hercules. But handed down to posterity, they sit oddly on the dwarfed or exaggerated figures of the present. Black is perhaps a white-livered milk-sop; and White could play the Moor without cork; Craven fights like a Trojan; Little stalks by, six feet seven in his boots; Strong might creep with his puny body through the sword-hilt of his ancestor; Swift mopes behind the snails; and Good raises "the antiquated Henry" with his rogueries. Such contradictions and anomalies result from the use of old fossils to build new houses. Let us remember, however, that there are more people now than formerly, and when all the gravestones of antiquity will not furnish labels enough for the demand, there is small chance for selection and adaptation:

Among landholders, the stock of the family tree derived its name from the soil, and with its name took nearly every thing else from the soil, till the serfs had little left but the name. Those feudal family trees were 'gallows" trees, to use a modernism; and the numerous dependents from their many branches had the name of being supported by the same. With them was the name, but with the lordly tree the game; which game some tree in fact supported them, as the fly-catchers supports the fly it

feeds on. In addition to a small fraction of their own earnings, and the privilege of fighting the battles of their lords, the retainer was allowed to take the good name of the nobles, to the vast gratification of the pride and vanity of those farsighted gentlemen who had not anticipated the inevitable democracy of nature, whlch soon confounded masters and servant in indistinguishable confusion.

An aristocratic name of any authentic antiquity argues this assuredly to its holder, he is either descended from My Lord Foodle or his man Jack, and lucky he, if the latter, say we. Surrounded by their retainers, those great lords built villages for them, and as a memorial legacy to their country, enriched by their exemplary household, the common language with two invaluable words, 'Knave and Villain, which was, in another sort, giving their names to their retainers.

Heraldic devices became a fruitful source of proper names; so that the crusades if they did little towards Christianizing the Paynim, did much in christening the believers. The man whose father had killed a peculiarly tough hog in the woods, was privileged to deck his epaulets with a memento of the spoilsin short, to wear a hog's head on his shoulders; which honor often descended where there was an astonishing natural fitness. He could also put a pig's face in his bandanna, and set it up for a sign on his spear-pole; and ever after sport his bristling honors in the name of Wildboar, which time has greatly tamed down, and domesticated into Wilbour. boar glorifieth bore, and the bright wine of fame is put up like any vulgar liquor, by the hogshead.

Thus

Gratitude and a certain remorseless admiration have been cruel disseminaters of proper names. To perpetuate their respect or love, men give their children the names of great or good men, so handing them down, too literally, to posterity. Geo. Washington Snubbs, Senaca Miggs, and Solomon Muddle, are humble but genuine witnesses to the immortality of genius. There is some discount in this kind of glory;. it renders a white name liable to dirty handling, and has reduced Caesar and Pompey to their least common denominator, as dogs and donkeys. Then, if the unlucky bearer of a great name proves himself a genius, poor bewildered Fame, with her trumpet cracked on some fortieth "Second