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1823.] Significations of Christian Names.-Origin of some Surnames. 33

"Justice Shallow," since the immortal Bard has introduced much punning about luces.

Louisa is most probably the feminine of Louis or Lewis.

Lydia is a country of Asia Minor, said to be so called from Lud the son of Shem; its inhabitants were very effeminate, and it might be therefore considered an appropriate name for a female, or very probably the women of Lydia were remarkably beautiful.

The name occurs in Horace.

Margaret, Greek, a pearl. We find in Mr. Archdeacon Nares's "Glossary," that Margarite or Margaret was formerly used to signify a pearl in the English language (as in Latin and French); and in Drummond's "Poems," 1656, p. 186, is the following epitaph on one named Margaret: "In shells and gold pearles are not kept alone,

A Margaret here lies beneath a stone,
A Margaret that did excell in worth
All those rich gems the Indies both send

forth."

Martha, Syriac. The mistress of a family; such was the character of Martha, the sister of Lazarus.

Mary is derived from the Hebrew, but it is of doubtful signification; it may mean either the bitterness of them, as Mary the sister of Moses was so named during the bitter Egyptian captivity, or a drop of the sea, or even be synonymous with Martha."

Phoebe was the Greek name for the moon, the sister of Phoebus the sun, supposed to mean the light of life.

Let no parents name their daughter Priscilla, if it be derived from the Latin, unless they mean to call her a little old woman.

Rebecca, Hebrew, Fat. Belzoni relates in his Travels how great a beauty plumpness is still considered in the East. Rose, the flower of Sharon.

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Sarah, Hebrew, a princess. Sarah, the wife of Abraham, was called Sami, till her name was changed by the express command of the Almighty. And God said unto Abraham, as for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be." Gen. xvII. 15. Sarai means my princess; Sarah, the princess not of one family, but of many nations, as we read in the next verse: "She shall be the mother of nations." Sophia, Greek, Wisdom. GENT. MAG. January, 1823.

Susan, Hebrew, a Lily. Susiana, an antient province of Persia, is by some supposed to have been so called from its being a country abounding in lilies; the Persian name of that flower assimilates to the Hebrew.

The Ladies having extended so far, the Gentlemen must be deferred till my next. NEPOS.

Mr. URBAN,

Jan. 8.

Fok around me, and consider the

FEEL much astonished when I

very different and curious names of individuals.

The mixture of Saxons, Danes, Gauls, Normans, Jews, and other foreigners with us, at various periods of our History, has caused the dif ference; but the good and bad qualities of persons, or their peculiarities, have caused the singularity of them; and many, either by ignorance, caprice, affectation, or some other means, have been corrupted, and often thereby their original signification has been hidden and concealed.

My present object is, as far as lies in my humble power, to show some examples of this:for instance, few are, I am persuaded, acquainted how the name of the Northumberland family has been corrupted; for it was first Pierceye, then Piercey, and now Percy; and by this alteration its original meaning is hidden from inany. So the name Alwine, which is as much as to say beloved by all, has been changed into Allen; Bearnhart into Barnard, Everhart into Everard, Garhart into Garard, Broadbrook into Braybrook, de Newton into Newton, Hartman into Harman, Herebert into Herbert, Heughe into Hugh, which signifies joy in the Saxon tongue, Humfrid into Humfrey, Lambhart into Lambert and Lambard, Leofhold into Leopold, Leonhart into Leonard and Lenard, Manhart into Manard and_Mainard, Osmund, signifying in the Teutonick language, the mouth of the house, into Osmond, Radulphe into Raphe or Ralph, Reinmund, which being interpreted, is pure mouth, into Raymond and Reymund, Reynhart (denoting a pure and clean heart) into Reynard, thereby implying quite a different sense from its original. So Rugard or Rougar is now written Roger, and meaneth keeper of quietness, and may be well the name of a watchman. Many others

34

St. Nicholas ad Macellum.-Mermaid defended.

others might be adduced to show the change that the revolution of ages has caused in the names of persons; but it is deemed these are sufficient; and certainly it reflects honour on any family, whether in a high or low station of life, if it can trace its name, through its various corruptions, so as to prove, that it was originally given for some deed of valour, probity, or magnanimity. Therefore no person can couple the names of Longshanks, Hogsflesh, Smallbones, and such like, with such names as Alwine, Leonhart, and Reinmund, or their corruptions, without first considering the superior originality of those families whose names are such as the latter, over those whose names are such as the former.

Yours, &c.

ВЕТН.

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66

presses, under the head of Christ Church Vicarage," as follows: "This Church then at the Dissolution] was by K. Hen. VIII. in the 38th of his reign, bestowed on the Mayor, Commonalty, and Citizens of the City of London, to make a parish church thereof, in the place of the two churches of St. Ewen in Newgate Market, near the North corner of Eldeness [now Warwick] Lane, and St. Nicholas in the Shambles, situate on the North side of Newgate Street, where there is now a Court; which were thereupon both demolished, and the respective parishes thereto belonging, with so much of Sepulchre's parish as then lay within Newgate, laid to this new erected parish church, which was then ordered to be called by the name of Christ Church, founded by King Henry VIII." I have reason to believe that the said parish of St. Nicholas ad Macellum (or the Shambles) was at one period an appendage to the parish of St. Olave in Hart Street: but this connexion must have been at a remote period; and Newcourt, whose work was published in 1708, does not notice the circumstance. The characters MAC, with or without a flourish over them, will readily be admitted as an abbreviation of "Macellum;" and as the said flourish frequently supplies the place of the letter N, this explanation will perhaps account for the expression "St. Nicholas ad Manc," made use of in your Magazine for November last,

[Jan.

p. 386, by "an old Correspondent," who makes inquiry on this subject.

An intelligent friend of mine, more conversant than perhaps any other person with the affairs of the parish of St. Olave in Hart Street, has directed his attention to the said inquiry; and if successful in discovering any new matter, he will, I doubt not, communicate the result, through the medium of your pages. J. B. G.

ON MERMAIDS.

Mr. URBAN, London, Jan. 15. BEG to trouble you with a few observations on Mr. Murray's paper, p. 548, of your last Number respecting the Mermaid, taken from the Hereford Journal.

Mr. Murray begins by telling us, that " on his arrival in London, he hastened to see the Mermaid," but "his mind had been made up on the subject."

That such an impartial investigator of natural history should dispossess himself, by ocular inspection, of an opinion thus previously riveted in his mind, is not at all probable; for, as Pope observes,

"Convince a man against his will, He'll hold the same opinion still." In proof of the weight of prejudice under which Mr. Murray laboured, he proceeds with his narrative, by styling the animal a "compound organic form," before he has furnished us with the least argumentative deduction of the fact, and unhesitatingly asserts that the upper part is that of the "long armed baboon." Indeed, he says he considers it the "Discordia rerum non bene junctarum," because the fish part should have been quadruple the size it is, for such a superstructure."

What kind of " nondescript" we should then have had to investigate, I submit to the candid consideration of those persons who have inspected it; but I may be permitted to observe that the upper part, down to the termination of the chest, is in exact proportion with the same parts in the 'human subject; and then the fish portion only very gradually tapers smaller in that regular and distinct order, which we have been taught to believe, and which reason and science tell us must necessarily occur when we reflect that there are no abdominal ribs, no. pelvic bones, no lower extremities to

preserve

1823.]

The Mermaid defended.-On Mermaids.

preserve a continuative distention of the body.

Had Mr. Murray contented himself in stating his own objections, without questioning the opinions of such men as Dr. Phillips, Dr. Rees Price, and Sir Everard Home, his observations would have been entitled to as much attention as their pertinacity demanded; but I conceive he has gone a little too far in questioning the judgment of these accurate observers, without opposing to them more satisfactory arguments than his paper contains. Indeed, in the conclusion of his Letter, he acknowledges his doubts, by suggesting the propriety of a reference to other highly respectable professional gentlemen, "to ascertain definitively whether this Mermaid is what it purports to be, a maid of the ocean.'

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For my part, I conceive this "hastened" inspection of Mr. Murray's, taken under circumstances of strong prejudice, and at a time too when the animal was "encased in glass," entitled to little consideration, in comparison with the many deliberate, minute, and impartial examinations which have been taken of it, out of the glass; amongst them were those by the gentlemen whose names he has quoted.

I will, moreover, venture to assert without the fear of contradiction, that if Mr. Murray really did "perceive two or three of the stitches by which it had been sewed together," as he says "he is mistaken if he did not;" he has seen that which no man in the

kingdom besides himself has been able to discover.

I have myself repeatedly and most minutely inspected this animal in my hands, in a chosen light, with no other bias on my mind than a wish to investigate the truth, and I am compelled to avow, that neither with the naked eye, or with the aid of the most powerful glasses that myself and others in my company could procure for the purpose, were we able to discover any of those artificial conjunctions which many have been induced to suppose, and I am most firmly persuaded that the whole objections with which the public journals have teemed, have originated in motives of prejudice.

Does such an animal exist? is the fact sought after by the naturalist and the curious? If it does, there can be no question of that in dispute being one of the tribe.

Dispossessing ourselves of the su

35

perstitious notions and belief of the fabulous stories which we have read of this race, still, before we can discredit their existence, we must not only presume to set a boundary to the works of the great Creator of the universe, but also question the veracity,nay, even insult the ashes of some of those great Navigators who have immortalized their names by the services they rendered to the world; amongst whom I may mention Columbus, Hudson, &c. whose accuracy in detailing the objects they discovered, has never been questioned.

That a regular gradation of animals from the sublime master-piece of the Creator-man, down to the brute creation, exists on land, cannot be disputed. Why, then, should we doubt the preservation of the same order in the ocean? particularly when it is known that duplicates of most other land-animals exist in the sea. E. L.

With respect to the difference of opinion existing betwixt Mr. Murray and our intelligent Correspondent, we can only exclaim,

"Non nostrum, tales componere lites."

As the subject of Mermaids has recently acquired a more than usual deduce a few inquiries respecting their gree of interest, we propose to introearly history; previously referring the reader to the following accounts recorded in our pages-vol. xIx. 428; vol. xxv. 504; vol. xxIx. 560; XXXII. 254; XLV. 216; LXX11. 829, 1016,

1190.

The probable origin of the various stories about Mermaids, has been noticed by our learned Correspondent S. R. M. in our last vol. p. 516. One

of the earliest records we meet with respecting the existence of these marine wonders, is the following passage, cited in French, in Lary's Histoire d'Angleterre, tom. i. p. 403:

"In the sixt yeare of King John's raigne, at Oreford in Suffolke, a fishe was taken by fishers in theyr nettes, as they were at sea, resembling in shape a wild or savage man, whom they presented vnto Sir Bartholomuo de Glanuille, knt. that had then the keeping of the Castell of Oreford in Suffolk. Naked he was, and in all his limmes and members resembling the right proportion of a man. Hee had heares also in the vsval partes of his bodie, albeit that on the crowne of his head hee was balde: his beard was side and rugged, and his breast very hearie. The Knight caused him to be kept certayne

days

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days and nightes from the sea; meat set afore him he greedily devoured; and eate fishe both rawe and sodde. Those that were rawe hee pressed in his hande tyll he had thrust out all the moysture, and so then hee did eate them. Hee woulde not or coulde not utter any speeche, although to trye him they hung him uppe by the heeles, and miserably tormented him. He woulde gette him to his couche at the setting of the sunne, and ryse again when it rose. One day they brought him to the haven, and suffered him to go into the sea; but, to be sure hee shoulde not escape from them, they sette three ranks of mightie strong nettes before him, so as to catch him aguyne at their pleasure (as they imagined), but hee strayte wayes dyuing downe to the bottom of the water, gotte past all the nettes, and coming vppe, showed himself to them agayne, that stood wayting for him, and dowking dyuers times vnder water, and coming vppe agayne, hee beheld them on the shore that stood still looking at him, who seemed as it were to mocke them for that he deceived them, and gotte past their At length, after hee had thus played him a great while in the water, and that there was no more hope of his returne, he came to them agayne of his owne accorde, swimming through the water, and remayned with them two months after. But finallie, when hee was thus negligently looked to, and nowe seemed not to be regarded, he fledde secretlye to the sea, and was never after seene nor hearde of."

nettes.

Parival, in his Délices de la Hollande, relates, that in the year 1430, a tempest having previously occasioned the sea to break down the dikes, and flow into the meadows, some girls of the town of Edam in West Friesland, going to milk their cows, found a Mermaid which was embarrassed in the mud. They took the animal into their boat, and carried it to Edam, where they dressed it in woman's apparel, and taught it to spin. It fed like one of them, but did not speak. After some time, it was taken to Haerlem, where it lived some years, but always betrayed an inclination for the water. It acquired some knowledge of the existence of God, and made devout reverences whenever it passed a crucifix.

A Mermaid is said to have been caught in the Baltic, in the year 1531, and sent as a present to Sigismund, King of Poland, with whom it lived three days, and was seen by all the A very young one is related by Damian Goes to have been taken near Rocca de Cintra.

Court.

[Jan.

In the year 1560, near the island of Manaar, on the Western coast of Ceylon, some fishermen brought up, at one draught of a net, seven Mermen, and seven Mermaids, of which several Jesuits, some of whose names are preserved, were witnesses. Dinas Bo3quey, physician to the Viceroy of Goa, dissected one or more of the bodies, and found all the parts, external and internal, conformable to those of the human species. The foregoing is extracted from the Hist. de la Compagnie de Jesus, p. II. t. iv. no. 276.

There is extant an account of a Mermaid seen near the great rock, called the Diamond, on the coast of Martinico. The persons who said they saw it, gave a precise description before a notary. Among other things, they affirmed they saw it wipe its hands over its face, and even heard it blow its nose.

The following account is extracted from a book of Voyages, by a Captain Richard Whitbourne:

"Now also I will not omit to relate something of a strange creature which I first saw here in the year 1610. In the morning early, as I was standing by the river side in the harbour of St. John's, in Newfoundland, a surprising creature came very swiftly swimming towards me, looking cheerfully in my face; it was like a woman by the face, eyes, nose, mouth, chin, ears, neck, and forehead; it seemed to be as beautiful, and in those parts as well proportioned. Round the head it had many blue streaks resembling hair, but certainly it was not hair. Yet I beheld it long, and another of my company also yet living, that was near me. At its approach I stepped back, for it was come within the length of a long pike of me, supposing it would have sprung on land to me; for I had seen huge whales, and other great fish, spring a great height above water, and so might this strange creature do to me, if I had stood still where I was by its actions I verily believe it had such a purpose; but when it saw that I went from it, it did thereupon dive a little under water, and swam towards the place where a little before I had landed, often looking back towards me, whereby I beheld the shoulders and back down to the middle, to be as square, white, and smooth, as the back of a man, and from the middle to the something like a broad-hooked arrow. How hinder part it was pointing, in proportion it was in the fore part, from the neck and shoulders downwards, I could not well dis

cern.

It came shortly after to a boat in the same harbour (wherein was my servant, Wm. Hawkridge, since Captain of a ship to

the

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the East Indies). This creature put both its hands upor the side of the boat, and did strive much to come into him and divers others then in the same boat, whereat they were afraid, and one of them struck it a full

blow on the head, whereby it fell off from

them; but afterwards it came to two other

boats in the same harbour: as they lay near the shore, the men in them for fear fled to land. This, I suppose, was a Merman, or Mermaid. As there are others that have written of these creatures, I have presumed to relate what I have seen, which is most certainly true."

A Mermaid, shewn at Exeter in 1737, is noticed in our last vol. p. 516. Our Magazine for September 1749, contains a statement, that "at Nykoping, in Jutland, was lately caught a Mermaid, which, from the waist upward, had a human form, but the rest was like a fish, with a tail turning up behind; the fingers were joined together by a membrane; it struggled, and beat itself to death in the net. Pontoppidan, in his Natural History of Norway, has some account of Mermaids.

In our Magazine for Dec. 1759, is an Engraving of a Syren or Mermaid, said to have been shewn at the fair of St. Germain's the year before, where the drawing was made by the Sieur Gautier, who described it as being about two feet long, alive and very active, sporting about in the vessel of water in which it was kept, with great seeming delight and agility. It was fed with bread and small it looked earnestly at the specfishes; tators, but it was evidently the attention of mere instinct. Its position, when it was at rest, was always erect. It was a female, and the features were hideously ugly. The skin was harsh, the ears very large, and the back parts and tail were covered with scales. At the time of this exhibition, two other animals of the same kind were said to have been shown about four years before, but they were dead and dried.

The Mercure de France, for April 1762, relates, that in the month of June 1761, two girls of the island of Noirmontier, seeking shells in the crevices of the rocks, discovered, in a kind of natural grotto, an animal of a human form, leaning on its hands. One of the girls, having a long knife, stuck it into the animal, which, upon being wounded, groaned like a human perThe two girls cut off its hands, which had fingers and nails quite

son.

37

formed, with webs between the fingers. The surgeon of the island, who went to see it, says it was as big as the largest man; that its skin was white, resembling that of a drowned person;

that it had the breasts of a full-chested the chin adorned with a kind of heard, woman; a flat nose; a large mouth formed of fine shells; and over the whole body, tufts of similar white shells. It had the tail of a fish, and at the extremity of it a kind of feet.

"As I am no naturalist (says the anonymous transcriber of the above), I neither pretend to affirm or deny the truth of these things; but this much I can aver for certain, that about fifteen years ago, I myself saw what was called a Sea Monster abroad, the upper parts of which, quite down to the navel, resembled those of a child, except that the fingers of both hands were webbed, and the hair of the head rather coarser and more weedy, than that of an infant. BeDeath the navel it terininated into a fish. The account given of it was, that it was taken on the coast of Manilla, in New Spain, where it was discovered sporting in the water, in company with its dam. The mariners who caught it preserved it alive in sea-water for a few days, but still pining after the dam, it soon expired. When I saw it, it was in a glass vase, filled with spirits, about two feet long, and had all the appearance of being no imposture. I have been further told, as a proof of its reality, that it was examined by the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, who, on opening the body, found part of the entrails still remaining in it, which those who had been employed to embowel it before, had left, it seems, behind."

In 1775, a Mermaid, said to have been taken in Aug. 1774, in the Gulph of Stanchio, in the Archipelago or

gean Sea, by a merchantman trading to Natalia, was exhibited in London. It is described, but badly figured, in our vol. xLv. p. 216. The same Mermaid was also exhibited in London in 1784 and 1796, and the date of its being taken in the Gulf of Stanchio was then brought down to a later period. It is also better represented in vol. IV. of the "General Chronicle" for March 1812; and a model of it, executed in 1796, is said to exist, in the possession of an eminent sculptor. The second representation and the model are minutely described in the "General Chronicle."

We are now arrived in chronological order at those accounts of Mermaids which are of more recent

date.

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