NOTE 7-(p. 13.)

"Leland." This learned, and interesting, antiquary justly demands my passing remembrance in a note. The year is unknown, but he was born in London; and educated at St. Paul's. He was, first, a member of Christchurch, Cambridge, but afterwards, of All Souls' College in Oxford. On leaving the University he spent some time at Paris, where he became acquainted with the most learned men of that time. Subsequently he entered into Holy Orders, and was presented to the Rectory of Poppeling in the Marches of Calais, (at that time belonging to England.) "Henry, the Eighth, who had made him one of his Chaplains, admiring his learning, constituted him his Librarykeeper, and dignified him with the title of his Antiquary;' a title, which no one enjoyed before nor since.”

In the year 1533 a commission was granted him under the Great Seal to investigate the antiquities of all England, and empowering him to examine the books and MSS. of all public libraries. He spent six years in this research, and amassed most extensive materials for future works. In 1542 he was presented to the Rectory of Haseley in Oxfordshire, and in the following year he was, by the King, made Canon of King's College (now Christchurch) in Oxford; but, on the Reformation, he vacated that canonry on "the surrender of that college to the King, and, instead of it, had no pension allowed him, as other Canons had, but preferment elsewhere," as is stated by Anthony à Wood. About the same time, 1543, he attained the prebend of East and West Knoyle in the Cathedral Church of Sarum. He, at length, retired to his house in St. Michael le Querne, London, for the purpose of arranging, and forming, his extensive materials into a regular work, but his faculties failed him, and— he became deranged. He died in the year 1552. Anthony à Wood gives this high character of him: "He was esteemed by the generality of scholars of his time an excellent Orator and Poet, learned in the Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, British, Saxon, Welch, and Scotish Tongues, a most diligent searcher into Antiquity, and a favourer and lover of all those, that bent their minds that way."†

Biographia Britannica.

+ "Athenæ Oxonienses," 1721, Vol. 1, p. 83,

Had he lived to have fulfilled his plans, and with his reason in vigour, this country would, doubtlessly, have possessed topographical works, highly curious, and worthy of his illustrious name, of whom Dibdin thus energetically speaks in his "Bibliomania (p. 321):""No delays," (says he,)" no difficulties, no perils, ever daunted his personal courage, or depressed his mental energies. Enamoured of study to the last rational moment of his existence, Leland seems to have been born for the laborious journey, which he undertook in search of truth, as she was to be discovered among mouldering records, and worm-eaten volumes. Uniting the active talents of a statist with the painful research of an antiquary, he thought nothing too insignificant for observation. The confined streamlet, or the capacious river -the obscure village, or the populous town-were with parchment rolls, and oaken-covered books, alike objects of curiosity to his philosophical eye."

Leland left behind him an immense mass of papers, "rudis indigestaque moles." These fell into different hands, and were most serviceable in supplying matter for subsequent authors, amongst whom (with many other antiquaries) were Bale, Camden, Burton, and Dugdale.

His "Itinerary" was published by the industrious Thomas Hearne, the Oxford Antiquary, in nine vols. 8vo., 1710, who also edited a selection of his curious, and learned, collections under the title of "Collectanea," in six vols. 8vo., 1715.

The "Itinerary," as published by Hearne, is little more than indigested notes, but they must ever charm the man of literature by the union of learning-of accuracy of observation -and of modesty, and simplicity, of narrative.

In the Refectory of All Souls' College is a fine bust of this interesting, and to be lamented, man, of which Dibdin, in the work before alluded to, gives a wood-cut.

NOTE 8-(p. 15.)

"What's in a name?" Although I have professed to have dismissed this subject, yet I feel, that it will not dismiss me without some inquiry into this, not uninteresting, questionwhether the English Nomenclature is, or is not, on the increase? of which I hold decidedly the affirmative opinion. The surname

arose (as we have seen in p. 3) in the eleventh century, and we are now in the nineteenth. In the early period of this long interval surnames were few in number-they are now almost beyond the power of enumeration. Few, however, as they then were, most of those are now no more. I shall illustrate this note by reference to family names of the County of Wilts. Many parishes and hamlets, from local causes, having originally the same names as other parishes and hamlets in that county, the name of the principal family has been superadded to the one for the purpose of contradistinction from that of the other. Thus have we the vills of Littleton Pagnal, (or Paganal,) Stanton Fitz Warine, Stanton St. Quintin, Draycot Cerne, Lediard Tregooze, Newtown Tony, Fisherton Aucher, (corruptedly Anger), Fisherton Delamere, Manningford Brewse, Manningford Bohun, Norton Bavant, Winterborne Gunner, Teffont Ewias, Somerford Manduit, Chilton Foliot, Sutton Mandeville, Sutton Benger, and Yatton Keynall; but where are now the families, and the names, of Pagnal, Fitzwarine, St. Quintin, Cerne, Tregooze, Tony, Aucher, De la Mere, Brewse, Bohun, Bavant, Gunner, Ewias, Foliot, Mandeville, Benger, and Keynall?— they are gone!-and "the places thereof know them no more!"-and, I not add, 66 non stat nominis umbra?"

may

To these I may well join others, some of them coeval with the above, and some of later date. Let me mention the family names of Tocotes, Walrand, Mompesson, Servington, Bonham, Stradling, Tropenell, Sturmy, Gawen, Collingbourne, Knyvett, Mervyn, Danvers, Pavely, Bokland, Rawleigh, Tooker, Woodhull, Mawarden, Hargill, Turberville, Zouch, Puddesey, Wadham, Stumpe, Bodenham, Evelyn, Stanter, Fitz-John, and Dunch. I could greatly add to this list of, probably, extinct names, but these will suffice for my purpose. I must observe, that, in modern days, the names of Erneley, Freke, and Hungerford, have vanished from this world's stage. The latter named family (that of Hungerford) was widely spread in numerous branches through the land, insomuch that, as Aubrey, the Wiltshire Antiquary saith, "Hungerford's coate in this county* is a kind of parietaria,† that flourishes on every wall; so great possessions have they here, (alias, anciently had,)

• Wilts.

+ "Parietaria." The plant named " Pellitory of the Wall."-E. D.

sett up

whose tenants their coates honoris ergo, and a great deal yet enjoy." Aubrey is here speaking of the Church of Crudwell, in the windows of which are (or were in his time) the arms of Hungerford, and he thus alludes to the frequency of their appearance on the walls, or in the windows, of that, and other Churches in Wilts. Yet where is now the posterity (at least in the male line) of this ancient, and numerous-affluent, and powerful family to be found? Alas! the scythe of time has passed over them- they are mown-they are witheredthey are gone!

On the origin of the surname its use was nearly limited to the Lord of the parochial town, or vill, as Edwardus de Sarisberie, Giraldus de Wiltune, Ricardus de Darneford. How widely different is this from the almost indefinite list of names, which now pervade the land! and yet (with a constant, and simultaneous, extinction of appellatives) we have arrived at this countless multitude. It is now eight centuries, since the origin of the surname in this country; and, were it possible, that we could have the nomenclature of the land laid before us exactly as it stood at the close of each century, we should, at once, clearly perceive (notwithstanding the great, and constant, decay of names) the truth of my position-that they are in the invariable progression of a great increase.

The question will here be fairly asked of me-how do you account for this increase? This is a question far easier to be asked than to be answered; and, I fear, we must be content with the obvious knowledge of the fact. Some names spring up from the corruption of orthography, or of pronunciation. Some originate from the influx of foreigners caused by royal marriages -by refuge from prosecutions, or persecutions-by expatriations arising from revolutions-by the settlement of alien manufacturers-and the names of many of these have often been altered, and anglicised, and their posterity have, in the bearers thereof, become as genuine Englishmen. At other times fictitious names have started up, and been perpetuated, doubtlessly, within our own country from their adoption in the removal from one part of the kingdom to another by the criminal, and by the insolvent. Another increment of names arises, perhaps, from the occasional settlement here of Americans, and West Indians; for it is a

* "Tenants," i. e. (in this place) landholders, or owners of land.-E. D.

certain, and curious, fact, that, although America was, originally, peopled from this country, yet it varies very essentially in its nomenclature from that of England. In fact many other causes, impossible even to guess, unknown, and invisible, yet certain in effect, are, I well believe, in constant operation for the production, and obvious increase, of names; which, in the fluctuating state of this nether world, is one of the very few things, which, I should pronounce, has not-a ne plus ultra !

NOTES TO ESSAY II.

NOTE 1-(p. 19.)

By this short genealogy it will be seen, that the name of that family" (Halle)" became extinct by the marriage of Joan, the heiress of William, the only son of John Halle with Sir Thomas Wriothesley, Garter principal King of Arms."

This family, in its more early times, bore the name of Wroth, or Wryth, which was, subsequently, enlarged to Wriothesley. They were, first, eminent heralds, and, afterwards, eminent statesmen. Sir John Wroth, Wryth, or Wriothesley, Kt., was Garter principal King of Arms. As the chief heraldic officer at the time of the establishment of the Heralds' College, in him was vested, by Richard, the Third, the building appropriated for that purpose, which had been the mansion of Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter, and which was denominated by Stow, in his "Survey of London," "a right faire and stately house." He was regarded as the founder of the Heralds' College, and his arms were adopted as those of the Society. A very curious illuminated portrait is given of him in Dallaway's "Origin and Progress of Heraldry," p. 134. He is there represented in his heraldic costume, and mounted on a horse gaily caparisoned. This plate was copied from a tournament roll in the Heralds' College.

Sir John Wriothesley had two sons-Sir Thomas, who married Joan, the representative of the family of Halle, and who, also, was raised to the heraldic dignity of Garter principal King of Arms-and William, who was made York Herald. Sir Thomas