and sprightly Rosalind, Sir Walter's charming sisters Minna and Brenda, Longfellow's faithful Evangeline, Mrs. Stowe's quaint Topsy, and Mr. Blackmore's gentle Lorna. Some of the more familiar shapes of the kind of name under consideration can here be but passingly referred to. Among these is the Abstract-virtue-name, which from Puritan days downwards has often been used in England, and which is still constantly appearing in the national registers, not only in well-worn guise, but in less accustomed forms from Affability to Zeal. at first so called, though it has since been known as the Great Eastern. A little girl, daughter of a hoop-maker, born early in the last-named year at Rye, in Sussex, received the name Jumbo, presumably in commemoration of the regretted departure of the zoological favourite from Regent's Park to America. of the noun-names, of which many are used from time to time, apparently refer but less directly-to occurrences affecting the families concerned. Among such, perhaps, are Admonition, Advice, Agony, Comfort, Deliverance, Repentance, Trial, Wrong, &c. Family circumstances evidently sometimes create names in the same way. Orphan Humphrey is the name of the mother of a child registered at Colchester in 1882. Forsaken appears as one of the names of an infant who died at or near Depwade in 1876; and PostDoes anything in the nature of an aspira-humous also is a registered appellation. Some tion, it may be asked, underlie such an appellation as Sir Roger, recently noticed in a death-register at Woking While the Tichborne trial was going on, the name Roger was certainly additionally used among the lower orders. But it may be that the fact did not point or at any rate did not always Days and seasons of birth, again, somepoint to sympathy with the person who times pass on their titles to the children laid claim to the designation and all that was born upon or within them. Newyear, Janu attached to it, or to any approval of his pro-ary, Midlent, Easter, Trinity, Midsummer, Lamcedure; but rather merely to the strong mas, Autumn, Christmas, Merry Christmas, interest generally felt in a singular investiga- Sabbath, Monday, and Birthday are all English tion at the time it was going on. personal names. II. So far as this may have been the case, Roger is to be regarded as having been a Public-event-name, of which variety of titles something shall now be said under the more general head of Names caused by circumstances of birth. Appellations created by contemporary public occurrences are constantly appearing in the registers. In the quarter following the battle of the Alma, five hundred and nineteen children, males as well as females, received Alma as a Christian name. Balaklava, Inkerman, and Sebastopol also speedily gave their names to English infants, and one Siege Sebastopol was registered. The acquisition of the island in the Mediterranean during the year 1878 was the means of introducing Cyprus into English personal nomenclature; and to pass to a later date still, a labourer's boy, born at Sawston, Cambridgeshire, in September, 1882, was named Tel-el-Kebir. Political events, as well as military, find their reflection in names. Charter is a recorded appellation recalling the popular movement of 1848, and Reform is also an existing denomination. In a birth-register of 1882, appears as the personal designation of a certain Mrs. Thorpe, who became a mother at that time, the startling name Leviathan. The good lady, it is stated, was born or named at the time of the launching of Brunel's monster steam-ship, which was Some appellations suggest large families and small means, as Enough, Last, and Omega, each of which seems to be a protest against further family additions. Constant Increase has once appeared in the registers; it reads like a desponding complaint of domestic growth. A few names as Welcome, which has often been used-tell the opposite tale of acceptable and perhaps long-deferred arrivals in homes of plenty. The prosaic Roman custom of naming children according to their number in the family has been, as every one knows, copied in England to the limited extent that occasionally one child in a household-rarely more than this-has been named thus, the Latin word being generally used. There are a few cases on record where the same thing has been done in English, the names Unit, Three, and Number Seven, having occurred in the registers at different times. III. Something should be said next of those names which are suggested by the budding characteristics of the children receiving them. A good many English adjectives have been employed in personal denomination, and among these probably are several that have been applied for the reason referred to. The following would seem to be of the number :Affable, Amiable, Bloomy, Bold, Cautious, Charming, Civil, Constant, Easy, Energetic, Fearful, Giddy, Golden, Grateful, Happy, Irresistible, Large, Patient, Perfect, Placid, Poli Sober, Sunny, Stubborn, Troublesome, and Won derful. Other of these adjective names, as Blessed, Chaste, Free, Gracious, Holy, Righteous, Victorious, Worthy, belong, it must be supposed, to the category of aspiration-titles already spoken of, as they could not point to observed characteristics on the part of the infants so named. On the other hand, it may easily be that of the flower-, jewel-, and other names which have been set down as representing aspirations, some might more rightly take their place under the present head, for the boundary-line between these two nameclasses is indistinct at several points. The adjective-names quoted include, as will be observed, some that seem to refer to physical traits. Such are Bloomy, Golden, and Large. And there are other forms in which bodily characteristics are denominationally noted. Goliath, for instance, would seem to denote gigantic proportions; Forehead must be supposed to celebrate a remarkable frontal development; Brighteye probably signalises the brilliant "eyelight" of the little girl to whom it was once applied; Presence and Majesty seem to point to a noble infantile mien; and Fidgett (sic) appears to unfold a tedious tale of restless baby ways. It is to be remembered-and a parallel remark has already been made with respect to names expressing parental aspirationsthat in the primal days of name-invention personal characteristics were far oftener directly responsible for names than they now are. Good health denominated the early Valentines; fairness of skin the Blanches; red hair the Griffiths; blindness the Cecils: and these are only a few specimens from a multitude. Now so many prænominal varieties exist ready for adoption, that but few persons reject them all for the sake of creating original titles out of infantile peculiarities. IV. It would be easy and convenient to arrange under several other different heads what remains to be told about the reasons which determine people in choosing names, but for brevity's sake a single category headed Miscellaneous causes shall be made to embrace all further motives to be referred to. It may be well here to give a caution to the reader with respect to examples of names already quoted and yet about to be quoted. From various causes which need not be specified, an exceedingly large number of nouns and other words associated with almost every department of human interest have become English surnames. And again, since the days of Puritanism, surnames have been constantly liable to usage as Christian names. It follows that of the prænomina mentioned in these articles, some may in some cases have been given to children as the surnames of relatives and friends, and therefore of course without reference to their meanings. This should be borne in mind with respect to all the classes of appellations referred to, as probably there is not one of them whose terms have missed being largely appropriated to the uses of family nomenclature. Sometimes tenderness so prevails in nameselection, that nothing but a pet name will do as the permanent appellation of the child. Then registration formally applies those soft and affectionate forms of denomination which are usually left for mere family employment. The loving termination in ie or y thus comes into the register-books. It would seem that there are no recognised principles for the construction of pet names, provided their last syllables take an acknowledged shape of tenderness. Any part of the original appellation, apparently, may become the basis of the fond adaptation; and indeed sometimes, it must be surmised, pet names are daringly invented. Birdie, Conney, Essie, Flossy, Harty, Meddey, Nappy, Sizze (sic), Tizzie, Virtie, &c., which are taken from registers of late date, cannot all of them be traced to recognised names at all. Occasionally the surname creates the Christian name, suggesting some familiar or facetious combination which the personal appellation can be made to complete. A Mr. Lattimer (sic) who was married at Alston in 1876, bore the Christian names Ridley and Cranmer. Olive Green and Olive Tree, both registered couplets, may perhaps be accidental, but Green Leaf, another recorded combination, can scarcely be so. Grace Darling has been the name of others besides, the veritable heroine, and a Lord John Russell exists or did exist, without tangible relations to the house of Bedford or the question of Reform. The registers afford many other examples of name-selection determined by the suggestive character of the surname. Such are the following: John Guy Earl Warwick, Pleasant Sky, Butter Sugar, Martin Swallow, Sea Gull, Saint Paul, Royal King, River Jordan, and Silver Shilling, in all which cases it will be understood that the cognomen is the word ending the combination. A patriotic spirit seems now and then to break out in child-naming. To some extent probably it is this that incites parents to the choice of the national hero-names to which some reference has already been made, but it discloses itself more distinctly from time to time in such appellations as Albion, Britannia, and Old England. Can it be family pride, or is it mere eccentricity that inspires such repetitions as FitzBarron Barron Barron, James Ashburner James Ashburner, Eve Eve, Pickup Pickup, George Ellis Ellis Ellis, and William Prior Johnson William Prior Johnson? (In these examples, as in those cited a little way back, the reader will perceive that the surname, as well as the Christian name or names, appears in its place.) lowing as personal names: Alphabet, Ask, Avalanche, Dupper Dupper, Etna, Fancy, Half, Hebrews, Hyaena, Lavender Waters, Married, Merino, Modern, Musty, Nought, Purify, Sir Dusty, Tea and Tempest. It is not unlikely that some, if not all of these appellations may express a definite though dark meaning of some sort, but it will be allowed that no one in whom a wish to be singular was not a master motive, would be likely to use either of them. To finish with a specimen in strong contrast as regards length with Mr. Pepper's alphabetical choice, but certainly its match, and that of any other appellation mentioned, in eccentricity :-There is, or lately was, in existence a child who, should he reach that point in education when he will have addressed to him the familiar question of the catechism, "What is your name?" will be compelled to return to his catechist the curt and irreverent answer—“ Guess !”* Whether mere love for eccentricity had or had not any hand in shaping the foregoing combinations, it often seems to direct the choice of names; and a few final words shall be added about those appellations which appear to have been selected out of sheer desire for singularity. Probably the lengthy concatenation of titles quoted at the opening of the former paper may be placed among the number, and a few other instances shall be given. The registers contain all the fol- Basingstoke, was registered during the quarter ended 30th IN EDWARD WHITAKER. The birth of Guess Scutter, son of a pork-butcher at September, 1883. SOME REMINISCENCES OF MY LIFE. CHAPTER I. N the company of my husband and my younger daughter I first saw Meran, on May 23rd, 1874. Although we had come from Rome to an Alpine land, we were agreeably astonished by the prolific growth of vegetation, testifying to the fertility of the soil and the geniality of the climate. The public gardens of the picturesque little town, and those of the private villas of its extensive suburbs of Unter- and Obermais, were adorned by splendid specimens of the Wellingtonia gigantea, the Cedrus Deodora, the Catalpa, the Paulownia imperialis, and other choice evergreens and deciduous trees. But what especially awoke our admiration was the magnificent profusion of the roses blooming on trellises, house-walls, balconies, and in garden-beds. They presented a marvellous show of flowers, brilliant in hue, crimson, white, and pink, but more generally flaming out coppery gold, canary yellow, and salmon colour. On May 26th, 1880, then a widow, I laid the first stone of the house represented in the woodcut on next page. The succeeding Mays have been signalised by a series of happy and important events, which have already furnished the home, given me by a kind Providence, with hallowed memories. Marienruhe, or Mary's Rest, is situated on the slopes of Obermais. It commands on its four sides rich and varied landscapes. Facing the south, there stretches out below it the broad valley of the Etsch or Adige, bordered by lofty, wooded mountains, having old castles and little churches crowning verdant crags and summits, and terminating in the bold precipitous profile of the Mendolaa mountain that marks the division of German and Italian-speaking Tyrol. To the north runs the valley of the Passer river, containing the birthplace of Andreas Hofer. It, too, is edged by mountains. It has a broken picturesque foreground of vineyards and grassy slopes, shaded by luxuriant Spanish chestnuts, medieval castles, and capacious châlets, and a background of the Jaufen range-the Mons Jovis of the Romans. To the east the view is more limited. It is bounded at a distance of two or three miles by high porphyry walls that hem in the Naifthal-a wooded gorge dominated by the granite crest of the Ifinger, and characterised by its hermitage and chapel, and the savage nature of its treacherous mountain torrent. To the west we look into the Vinschgauer- proud war-steeds, they rode through thick thal-the upper Venosta valley of the Romans. fir-woods by the rushing waters of the Adige On its northern side a range of stupendous until they reached luxuriant meadows at the mountains lift their jagged peaks into the foot of these lofty mountains, and saw spread intense blue sky. The Muthspitze, the out before them the fairy garden, made nearest of this giant band, has an elongated famous and beautiful by the splendour and spur, called the Küchelberg, whereon fragrance of its roses. But Sir Wittich ruth Marienruhe. nestles the village of Tirol, which is separated by a landslip from its ancient castle, belonging to the ruler of the realm, and the very heart's core of the country, for, as the old proverb runs: "The Lord of Schloss Tirol is Lord of all the Land." On the nearest and lowest slopes of the Küchelberg stands a solitary square tower with battlements. It is called the Pulver Thurm, and, rising up amongst vineyards above Meran, immediately catches the eye. In the sweep of the Vinschgauerthal, where now stretch orchards and vineyards, and where the most northern stone-pine grows on the sunny banks of the Küchelberg, lay, according to the ancient legend, the fragrant rose-garden of the dwarf King Laurin. Sir Dietrich of Bern (Verona), his knights, Wolfhart and Wittich, with their old master of arms, Hildebrand, learning that Laurin kept the beautiful Princess Simild of Styria, a captive in his great crystal palace in the Küchelberg, resolved to set her free. Clad in glittering armour and mounted on their the lessly tore down the little gates of delicate gold workmanship, studded with gems, destroying the delicate silken thread, which had surrounded garden from gate to gate; and the ruby-coloured roses instantly faded, their perfume died away, and the vision of beauty vanished. Then appeared little King Laurin, in gold bejewelled armour, on his richly caparisoned steed of the size and agility of a chamois. In great indignation he bewailed his rose garden. Sir Dietrich said: "When God next sends the sweet time of May, the roses will again bloom in all their glory." But, unappeased, the little King valiantly fought the aggressors; he was only conquered by Sir Dietrich, at Hildebrand's advice, snapping his magic girdle. The knights entered the crystal palace; they killed Laurin's vast retinue of giants and dwarfs, and, laden with booty, returned to Bern, taking with them the liberated Simild and the captive dwarf-king. Laurin lived in honour at the court of Sir Dietrich, where he died a Christian. Thus the month of May and roses have an especial connection with this favoured neighbourhood; nor does the association belong merely to bygone romance or to modern cultivation. It is rooted in history. The Romans, in the year 15 B.C., subduing the Rhætians, the original inhabitants, selected, according to their military tactics, the present site of Meran as the most important point in the Venosta land; for it was at the juncture of three valleys, screened partially from view and quite from the north wind. Here they formed after the manner of similar stations placed along the south side of the Roman wall in Britain-a stationary camp, to which they gave the name of Maia, a goddess identified with the blooming month of May. This suggests the probability that they discovered the beauty and fertility of the secluded mountain district in that month. A region, indeed, to which they might fitly apply the words describing their native country, sung by the Mantuan bard, who had died but four years earlier: "Here the spring is longest, summer borrows months beyond her own.' As Maia was a stationary camp, it received a fixed population of veterans and their families, to whom grants of land were made by the Roman authorities, and tradespeople flocked thither to supply the wants of the soldiers and the well-to-do settlers. All natives capable of bearing arms were dispatched as legionary soldiers into foreign parts, and were supplanted by Roman colonists. The religion of the conquerors was introduced; whilst later on Christianity must have spread amongst the inhabitants of the citadel, its surrounding houses and villas; as in the fifth century, on the arrival of St. Valentine, Bishop of Rhætia (who is reported to have originally come from beyond the northern sea, therefore probably Great Britain), he suffered no opposition from the citizens of Maia. There he built the little church dedicated on Roman substructures, or retaining incorporated in their walls Roman towers that were the outposts placed at regular distances from the stationary camp. The foundations of the medieval Pulver Thurm, to which I have already referred, are built on a rocky height, and mark the site of the Roman Pretorium. But whilst Maia was celebrated for the fruitfulness of its soil and its gracious climate, it had nevertheless its morasses and moraines. Houses were built in the Middle Ages near the earlier demolished rose garden of King Laurin. They gained the designation "on the Moraine," or Meran, a name which gradually signified the town proper; whereas Maia or Mais became exclusively used for the beautiful suburbs. This town and the fact of Obermais being situated on an elevation belonging to the glacial period, but from the features of the country appearing to be formed by the fall of a mountain (the cavity thus made being the present Naif gorge) led to the general supposition that the locality View from Marienruhe, looking east. to the first martyr, Stephen, which still testifies to his beneficent labours; there he died, but his name lives on in the hearts of the people. The neighbourhood of Meran is encircled by numerous picturesque castles, often built where I am dwelling covered the buried Roman city of Maia. This theory has of late years been clearly disproved by the careful investigations of the archæologist, J. Vetter of Carlsruhe, and by Professor C. Stampfer, an erudite Benedictine, the historian of Meran. |