"After gret hete cometh cold,

No man cast his pylch away.' Sanger and Sangster mean singer. An Arkwright was in old times a maker of meal-chests, an article of furniture in every house when families dressed their own flour.*

"Names of this description, however mean their origin, are now to be found in the highest classes of society. The names Collier and Salter are, or have been, in the British peerage, although those occupations were, in the middle ages, considered so vile and menial, that none but bondmen or slaves would follow them."

66

For

Yet, it is worthy of remark that a mere change in accent, often drives us wide of the etymology of a name. instance, we have rarely heard Sanger" pronounced otherwise than with the g hard, as though it were derived from Sanguis, Lat.; but when pronounced with the g soft, it readily gives the etymon, singer. The origin of common names, is, perhaps, after all, the most curious. Thus: "The very common name of Reed, Read or Reid, is an old spelling of RED, (a name given, probably, in reference to complexion), thus Chaucer

And floures both white and rede;'

and Sir John Maundevile, speaking of the Red Sea, says, 'That See is not more reed than another see; but in some places thereof is the gravelle reede: and therefore men clepen

it the Rede Sea."

A chapter of oddities yields these quips:

"Names sometimes form a singular association or contrast. The Duke of Wellington in a visit to some place in the country was conducted by a Mr. Coward. In partnerships we often discover a singular junction of names; for instance, Bowyer and Fletcher;''Carpenter and Wood;' 'Spinage and Lamb;' 'Sage and Gosling;' Rumfit and Cutwell, Tailors,' &c. The occupation sometimes associates very peculiarly with the name; we have known apothecaries and surgeons of the names of Littlefear, Butcher, Death, and Coffin; Pie, a pastry-cook; Rideout, a stable keeper; Tugwell, a dentist, [another a shoemaker]; Lightfoot, a dancing-master; Mixwell, a publican; and two hosiers of the name of Foote and Stocking. We also recollect a sign with Write, late Read and Write,' inscribed upon it.... Hymen, too, plays sad vagaries with names. We have seen Mr. Good married to Miss Evil; Mr. Bean to Miss Pease; Mr. Brass to Miss Mould; and Mr. Gladdish to Miss Cleverly." "In the neighbourhood of one of the squares of London there are now living surgeons whose names are the appropriate ones of Churchyard, Death, Blood and Slaughter."

"An ancestor of my own, by trade a carpenter, used often facetiously to remark, that he should never want timber, as two of his workmen bore the names of Sevenoaks and Tree!"

The following historical origins of surnames are striking: "The Scottish surname of DALZELL originated, according to Nisbet, from the following incident. A favourite of Kenneth II. having been hanged by the Picts, and the king being much concerned that the body should be exposed in so disgraceful a situation, offered a large reward to him who

Hunter's Hallamshire Glossary, p. 5.

+ Collet's Relies of Literature, p. 395.
Daily Paper, Oct. 1838.

This being an enterprise of great

danger, no one was found bold enough to undertake it, till a gentleman came to the king and said 'Dal ziel,' that is, 'I dare,' and accordingly performed the hazardous exploit." In memory of this circumstance his descendants assumed for their arms a man hanging on a gallows, and the motto I dare. The Dalziels at length became Earls of Carnwath. Another eminent Scottish surname, that of BUCCLEUCH, is derived, on the authority of Sir Walter Scott, from a very trifling incident. A king of Scotland being on hontynge' in company with his courtiers, a fine buck of which he was in pursuit being hard pressed by the hounds fell into a clough or ravine, Scotticè, cleuch.' The sport being thus interrupted, the royal hunter requested one of his attendants to extricate the game in order that the sport might be renewed. This, although no slight task for a single arm, he accomplished to the king's liking, and the athletic courtier received from the king's own mouth the name of Buck-cleuch, which is still borne by his descendant, the Duke of Buccleuch.'”

Many of the names given to foundlings might be classed with historical surnames. A poor child picked up at the town of Newark-upon-Trent, received from the inhabitants the whimsical name of Tom Among us. Becoming a man of eminence, he changed his name for the more euphonious one of DR. THOMAS MAGNUS. He was employed in several embassies, and, in gratitude to the good people of Newark, he erected a grammar-school there, which still exists." "The following was related to me by a gentleman, one of whose friends witnessed the occurrence. had been found in the high road and conveyed to the village A poor child, who workhouse, being brought before the parish vestry to receive a name, much sage discussion took place, and many brains were racked for an appropriate cognomen. As the circumstance happened in the month of flowers and song,' a goodnatured farmer suggested that the poor child should be christened John May; an idea in which several of the vestrymen concurred. One of the clique, however, more aristocratic than his neighbours, was of opinion that that was far too good a name for the ill-starred brat, and proposed in lieu of it that of Jack Parish-the designation that was eventually adopted !"

From the rebuses we quote a few; those explaining the ugly wood-cuts in old books may be useful:

"Rebuses are occasionally of great use in determining the dates and founders of buildings. Thus the parsonage-house at Great Snoring, in Norfolk, is only known to have been built by one of the family of SHELTON by the device upon it representing a shell upon a tun.

"Our old printers were as fond of name-devices in the sixteenth century, as the abbots and priors of the fifteenth had been. Thus William NORTON gave, on the title-pages of the bung hole of a tun, labelled with the syllable NOR; William books printed by him, a sweet William growing out of the MIDDLETON gave a capital M in the middle of a tun; Richard GRAFTON, the graft of an apple-tree issuing from a tun; and GARRET DEWS, two fellows in a garret playing at dice and casting deux! John DAY used the figure of a sleeping boy, whom another boy was awakening, and, pointing to the sun, exclaiming, Arise, for it is day' A clumsy invention, scarcely deserving the name of a rebus. Perhaps printer, one Master JUGGE, who took to express his name a the most far-fetched device ever used was that of another nightingale sitting in a bush with a scrole in her mouth, wherein was written Jugge, jugge, jugge.'§

"Some printers in recent times have imitated their typographical ancestors by the introduction of their rebus on title-pages. The late Mr. TALBOYS, of Oxford, ensigned all his publications with an axe struck into the stem of a tree, and the motto TAILLE BOIS."

Under "Latinized surnames" is related this amusing piece of absurdity-the changing of Sir John Hawkwood into Johannes Acutus, as related by Verstegan:

"Some gentlemen of our nation travelling into Italy and passing through Florence, there, in the great church, beholding the monument and epitaph of the renowned English knight, and most famous warrior of his time, there named Johannes Acutus, long wondered what John Sharp this might be, seeing in England they had never heard of any such, his name rightly written being indeed Sir John Hawkwood; but by omitting the H in Latine as frivolous, and the K and W as unusual, he is here from Hawkwood turned into Acutus, and from Acutus returned in English again unto Sharp !”

Here we must take leave of Mr. Lower's very amusing and clever little volume, which we most cordially recommend to every lover of philological inquiry, as well as to all who are fond of literary recreation. We may be excused the remark, that nowhere have we been able to trace the origin of our own name, which thus in rarity makes up for its want of euphony. We believe it to be of German source. A namesake, at Worcester, thinks Tymbs occurs in Shakspeare; if so, we hope some of the editors at work in this rich mine will turn up the gem! The name without the b is mean in the extreme; and ridicule enough has been thrown upon poor "Tims" by Goldsmith, and upon the "County Tims" in Blackwood's Magazine. We have been charged with interpolating the b, to add to the consequence of the name; but this accusation was made by a poverty-stricken creature, named Tims, an entire stranger to our family," of course. We never see this name without thanking our lucky stars, (not the Garter of Heralds' College,) that we are not as other Timses: this may be playing the Pharisee, but we cannot help it. It is a piece of pride-this having a name to one's self-which, up to the present moment, we have maintained. Nevertheless, we are willing to exchange our name, much as we prize it, i. e. if any reader will make it worth our while; and many a birth-right has been trucked with a less worthy motive.

THE OLD ASH TREE.

THE old ash tree, which I loved so well,
How many a tale do its branches tell;
Of the days of yore, that are passed away,
When hope was young and life was gay;
When the future seemed as a glorious thing,
The past to have fled, and have left no sting!
Oh! merrily were those bright hours spent,
Like angels' visits to mortals sent,
To soothe the misery caused by sin,
They seem as a bar ere wrath begin;
Ere vengeance his red right arm hath bared,
As victims of justice by mercy spared.

I love to sit in its wide embrace,
And each beauteous feature of nature trace;
To hear the sound of the rippling stream,
And to watch the sun's last crimson gleam;
Till his chariot sinks to its evening rest,
And his horses their golden couch have pressed.
That old ash tree will be dear to me,
When far from my friends and my home I be;
When no tie is left, but all forgot,
And memory clings to my former lot;
Like the dying miser o'er his gold-

"Twill be as a dream, as a tale twice told.

Nor must I pass by that legend wild,
Of terror the source to every child;
How the "Bog Garth Ladye" dressed in white,
Fearfully haunts the shades of night;
And how, when appears the morning grey,
Her sprite may be seen fast flitting away.

And thou, my friend, who wert ever near,
My grief to soothe, and my joy to share ;
As with book in hand, on study bent,
Or in merry mood our way we went-
Can I forget thy joyous air,
When thou wert seated by me there?

Adieu! adieu! my old ash tree!
Many a time shall I think on thee;
When far away from my native soil,
Subdued by grief, or fatigued by toil:
Oh that my life may be serene,

As when first I loved thy branches green! Kirton.

Varieties.

S. D. E.

With this he

Tricks upon Travellers.-Governor Grey, when in Teneriffe, not speaking a word of Spanish, had some difficulty in paying his bill at an inn. One of the guides saw the Governor's embarrassment, and made signs that he would arrange matters, and a dollar was given him for the purpose. paid the bill, and received some change, which he coolly utmost nonchalance, not to understand the Governor, who pocketed; and when asked for it, he pretended, with the accordingly saw no more of it.

Suicide is unknown in Western Australia. The natives are believed to have no idea that such a thing as a person putting an end to his own life could ever occur. Whenever Governor Grey interrogated them on this point, they invariably laughed at him, and treated his question as a joke! Idiots are rare among these people, and mad persons are unknown.

Stealing a Wife, in Western Australia, is generally punished with death. If the woman is not returned within a certain eventually to be slain. The crime of adultery is punished seperiod, either her seducer, or one of his relatives, is certain verely-often with death. Marriages out of the right time, are held in the greatest abhorrence, closely assimilating, in this last point, with the North American Indians. Neither can a man of Australia marry a woman of his own family.

Tom Cringle's Log.-The author of the Log was a Mr. Mick Scott, born in Edinburgh in 1789, and educated at the High School there. Several years of his life were spent in the West Indies; he ultimately married, returned to his native country, and there embarked in commercial speculations, in the leisure between which he wrote the Log. Notwithstanding its popularity in Europe and America, the author preserved his incognito to the last. He survived his publisher for some years, and it was not till the death of the author that the sons of Mr. Blackwood were aware of his name.

Lady Bankers.-A short time ago, two of the richest bankers in London were Peeresses; the Duchess of St. Alban's, and the Countess of Jersey, who, as the heiress of Josiah Child, is still the principal partner at Child's. Both ladies were at one time said to be in the habit of paying periodical visits to their re spective establishments, and to have been distinguished by the affability and good sense with which they sustained their positions, inspected the books, and entered into general details. But this report was true, and that in part, only of the late Duchess of St. Alban's. Her Grace was certainly fond of showing herself at the Bank in the Strand, and peering questions at the partners and clerks, with whom she was no favourite, being in truth somewhat of a bore. Lady Jersey, as the representative of Sir Josiah Child's interest, only attends the Bank once a year, when the accounts are balanced and the profits struck. On this occasion, the partners dine together at the Bank, and the Countess, as the principal partner, takes the head of the table.-Banks and Bankers.

*The last Mr. Child left an only daughter, who was the heiress of his great wealth, and married to the Earl of Westmoreland. The eldest daughter of that marriage was the present Countess of Jersey, to whom her grandfather's interest in the Bank is understood to have descended.

No. 82. NEW SERIES.]

PUNCH.

PUNCH: OR, THE LONDON CHARIVARI. VOL. II. THE great success of this work, (which has now been continued upwards of twelve months,) is a strong indication of the literary taste of the day. It may be regarded as "a straw thrown up, to see which way the wind blows;" though, in characterising it as a straw, we only do justice to its lightness, which is, by no means, the only merit of Punch, in whose Charivari we trace an under-current of home-philosophy that may work wonders: the wit and jokes float like bubbles upon the surface, beneath which lie earnestness and truth. A vast deal of folly is perpetrated in this wide world, which it would take even all the brooms made in the Borough, to flog out of offending Adam; but, such wholesome and well-tempered chastisement as is administered by Punch, will effect ten times more than can be accomplished by corporal punishment. Depend upon it, the smart of the body soon heals, and is forgotten; but wounded conceit, and pride humbled by harmless satire, draw in their horns, shrink into their shells, and having tacitly confessed their folly, resolve to slide into better repute by amendment. We are no friends to corporal punishment, except where the intellect is brutalized; and accordingly, we approve of that clause in the Bill recently passed for the Protection of her Majesty's person, which intimates flogging. Solomon may have had "his eye upon the corporal," when he decreed a "rod for the fool's back;" the wise man, we opine, spoke in metaphor, though"the cat" may be a refinement of modern times.

In the "Epilogue" to his second volume, Punch plumes himself upon his success beyond public anticipation. Now, we agree with-" What a fine thing is success!"--but we have a baton to break with him as to the cause of it, in this instance. His second volume is immeasurably superior to his first. His work, like its ennobling patronymic nectar, has mellowed by standing: the ingredients are better proportioned-nothing predominates, and the result is the perfection of admixture. Punch has called in choicer "spirits" than attended him at his outset: his sherbet, too, is better made-neither lemon nor sugar "doth countervail;" and the aroma, or atmosphere of the wit, is refined. Punch has, doubtless, been immensely aided by contributors; but one of the elements, the main of his success, has been able editorship. Humourists, we know, are apt to run riot; and the bounds that divide wit from madness are not thinner than those which part it from indecency. The latter error-alike fatal to public and private reputation— Punch has never strayed into. His pride has been "wit with indecency suppressed;" and we do not hesitate to add, that we have read more grossness in a half-crown magazine than in Punch's threepenny folio. Yet there is nothing like the dulness of morality in his pages; he is not deadly lively in his cups; he is neither the big drum of politics, nor the organ of sedition; nor does he blow the blast of treason, nor play upon the pipe of misanthropy; but he puffs away the cloud of care, and with his lively note, bids all men make the best of the bad, by staking little, and playing for much. We repeat that Punch, the editor, must have had some difficulty in keeping his roistering contributors within the bounds of propriety; and as

[PRICE TWOPence.

merit is always in proportion to difficulty, we award him our highest praise; for he has accomplished this portion of his duty in masterly style.

If it be objected by some Sunday-school teacher, that Punch is slang, he may with truth rejoin that slang is the characteristic of the age. Boz has been dubbed in the Quarterly Review, Regius Professor of Slang: our first novelists have not disdained to enlist it into their halfguinea volumes; and somehow, flashy romance-writers have even garnished their trumpery distortions of fact and nature, with the gibbet and the "last dying speech," and thus earned the (dis)repute of the professorship of "Gallus," or Felon, Literature. Punch is far less redolent of the "flash crib" than these pretenders to painting nature, who are never at home unless with the shattered beau and the frail amie, and the spawn of profligacy, tricked out with the tinsel of false sentiment; and who, after cramming themselves with the Newgate Calendar and the Universal Magazine, bad French and worse English, fatten upon the corruption of their readers, until success becomes more disgraceful than failure. Punch has none of these literary (?) atrocities to answer for: he chastens the social vices, so as to amuse, and to a certain extent, instruct; whilst those who probe the filth of humanity, at best, earn but disgust.

To point out the best hits in the 260 well-filled folios of this volume, is more than we can attempt; but we may particularise the pages of Q., as among the most sterling contributions, especially as they may be read and re-read, a duplicate value of somewhat rare occurrence in works of this class: there is just causticity enough in these papers to fix the reader's attention, and pleasantly to keep it there when so fixed: in these essays, indeed, there is infinitely more than meets the eye; the painter is a master in his line: though his style and treatment may, at times, be considered severe, he is rich in fancy, and felicitous illustration. His pages have, unquestionably, done much towards establishing the popularity of Punch. Of an opposite class, i.e. in a light vein, are the " Physiologies," which are almost as literal as life itself: they are trifles, and the whipped cream of a grade of society, whose follies are fair game for the humourist: these sketches are smartly drawn, yet not uncoloured.

The poetry of Punch occasionally soars beyond the praise of the passing hour. The Valentine to "the Literary Gentlemen" we did not hesitate, on first reading, to compare with the verse of CHURCHILL, and we are not disposed to qualify this praise: it is a piece of withering satire, and by many degrees, the best of the Valentines. The burlesque songs are successful ridicule of the maudlin sentiment of the bread-and-butter school of pianoforte players. The city intelligence, commercial intelligence, and the imita tions of the conventional style of the newspapers, are likewise very successful. "Felons as they are, and Felons as they ought to be," is a jest-and-earnest exposé of Jack Sheppardism, and its sequence. "Punch's Theatre" is both clever and amusing, and written by a person who possesses a nice sense of the ridiculous, which is by no means rare in the noddles of contemporary playwrights.

Notwithstanding these literary claims, much of Punch's success is attributable to the genius and number of the Engravings in his come-and-read-me columns. The em