complexion of the english contradictory to their historical theories.—christian names, and their diminutives.—system of surnames.—names of the months and days.—friday the unlucky day.—st valentine.—relics of catholicism.
the prevalence of dark hair and dark complexions among the english is a remarkable fact in opposition to all established theories respecting the peoplers of the island. we know that the celts were light or red-haired, with blue eyes, by the evidence of history; and their descendants in wales, and ireland, and scotland, still continue so. the saxons, and angles, and danes, were of the same complexion. 275how is it then that the dark eyes and dark hair of the south should predominate? could the roman breed have been so generally extended, or, did the spanish colony spread further than has been supposed? climate will not account for the fact; there is not sun enough to ripen a grape; and if the climate could have darkened the danes and saxons, it would also have affected the welsh; but they retain the marked character of their ancestors.
the proper names afford no clue; they are mostly indigenous, and the greater number of local derivation. of the baptismal names the main proportion are saxon and norman; john, thomas, and james, are the only common apostolical ones; others indeed occur, but it is rather unusual to meet with them. the old testament has furnished a few; hagiology still fewer. among the men, william and john predominate; mary and anne, among the women. in the northern provinces i am told that the catholic names 276agnes and agatha are still frequent; and, what is more extraordinary, our spanish isabel, instead of elizabeth.
even these little things are affected by revolutions of state and the change of manners, as the storm which wrecks an armada turns the village weathercock. thus the partisans of the stuarts preferred the names of james and charles for their sons; and in the democratic families you now find young alfreds and hampdens, algernons and washingtons, growing up. grace and prudence were common in old times among the english ladies; i would not be taken literally when i say that they are no longer to be found among them, and that honour and faith, hope and charity, have disappeared as well. the continental wars introduced eugene, and ferdinand, and frederick, into the parish registers; and since the accession of the present family you meet with georges, carolines, and charlottes, augustuses and augustas. the prevailing appetite for novels has had 277a very general effect. the manufacturers of these precious commodities, as their delicate ears could bear none but vocal terminations, either rejected the plain names of their aunts and grandmothers, or clipped or stretched them till they were shaped into something like sentimental euphony. under their improving hands, lucy was extended to louisa, mary to marianne, harriet to henrietta, and elizabeth cut shorter into eliza. their readers followed their example when they signed their names, and christened their children. bridget and joan, and dorothy and alice, have been discarded; and while the more fantastic went abroad for cecilia, amelia, and wilhelmina, they of a better taste recurred to their own history for such sweet names as emma and emmeline.
the manner in which the english abbreviate their baptismal names is unaccountably irregular. if a boy be christened john, his mother calls him jacky, and his father jack; william in like manner 278becomes billy or bill; and edward, neddy or ned, teddy or ted, according to the gender of the person speaking: a whimsical rule not to be paralleled in any other language. mary is changed into molly and polly; elizabeth into bessy, bess, betty, tetty, betsy, and tetsy; margaret into madge, peggy, and meggy; all which in vulgar language are clipt of their final vowel, and shortened into monosyllables. perhaps these last instances explain the origin of these anomalous mutations. pega and tetta are old english names long since disused, and only to be found in hagiological history; it is evident that these must have been the originals of the diminutives peggy, and tetty or tetsy, which never by any process of capricious alteration can be formed from margaret and elizabeth. the probable solution is, in each case, that some person formerly bore both names, who signed with the first, and was called at home by the second,—thus the diminutive of one 279became associated with the other: in the next generation one may have been dropt, yet the familiar diminutive preserved; and this would go on like other family names, in all the subsequent branchings from the original stock. in like manner, jacques would be the root of jack; theodore or thaddeus, of teddy; apollonia of polly; and beatrice of betty. a copious nomenclature might explain the whole.
during the late war it became a fashion to call infants after the successful admirals,—though it would have been more in character to have named ships after them: the next generation will have hoods and nelsons in abundance, who will never set foot in the navy. sometimes an irreverent species of wit, if wit it may be called, has been indulged upon this subject; a man whose name is ball has christened his three sons, pistol, musket, and cannon. i have heard of another, who, having an illegitimate boy, baptized him nebuchadnezzar, because, according to a mode of 280speaking here, he was to be sent to grass, that is, nursed by a poor woman in the country.
the system of proper names is simple and convenient. there are no patronymics, the surname never changes, and the wife loses hers for that of her husband. this custom has but lately established itself in wales, where the people are still in a state of comparative barbarism. there the son of john thomas used to be thomas johns, and his son again john thomas; but this has given way to the english mode, which renders it easy to trace a descent. the names in general, like the language, though infinitely less barbarous than the german, are sufficiently uncouth to a southern eye, and sufficiently cacophonous to a southern ear.
the months are called after the latin as with us, and differ rather less from the original, as only the terminations are altered. but the days of the week keep the names given them by the saxon pagans: lunes 281is monday or the day of the moon; martes, tuesday or tuisco’s day; miércoles, wednesday or woden’s day; jueves, thursday or thor’s day; viernes, friday or frea’s day; sábado, saturday or surtur’s day; domingo, sunday or the day of the sun. saturday indeed is usually deduced from dies saturni; but it is not likely that this roman deity should have maintained his post singly, when all the rest of his fellows were displaced.
friday, instead of tuesday, is the unlucky day of the english, who are just as superstitious as we are, though in a different way. it is the common day of execution, except in cases of murder; when, as the sentence is by law to be executed the day after it is pronounced, it is always passed on saturday, that the criminal may have the sabbath to make his peace with heaven. i could remark more freely upon the inhumanity of allowing so short a respite, did i not remember the worse inhumanity of withholding the sacrament from 282wretches in this dreadful situation. no person here is ever married on a friday; nor will the sailors, if they can possibly avoid it, put to sea upon that day: these follies are contagious; and the captains, as well as the crew, will rather lose a fair wind than begin the voyage so unluckily. sailors, we know, are every where superstitious, and well may they be so.
if it rains on st swithin’s, they fancy it will rain every day for the next forty days. on st valentine’s it is believed that the birds choose their mates; and the first person you see in the morning is to be your lover, whom they call a valentine, after the saint. among the many odd things which i shall take home, is one of the pieces of cut paper which they send about on this day, with verses in the middle, usually acrostics, to accord with the hearts, and darts, and billing doves represented all round, either in colours or by the scissars. how a saint and a bishop came to be the national cupid, heaven 283knows! even one of their own poets has thought it extraordinary.
bishop valentine
left us examples to do deeds of charity;
to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit
the weak and sick, to entertain the poor,
and give the dead a christian funeral.
these were the works of piety he did practise,
and bade us imitate; not look for lovers
or handsome images to please our senses.
the heretics, you see, need not ridicule us for bleeding our horses on st stephen’s, and grafting our trees on the day of the annunciation.
many other traces of the old religion remain in the calendar, and indeed every where, but all to as little purpose. christmas, candlemas, lady-day, michaelmas; they are become mere words, and the primary signification utterly out of mind. in the map you see st alban’s, st neot’s, st columb’s, &c. the churches all over the country are dedicated to saints whose legends are quite forgotten, even upon the 284spot. you find a statue of king charles in the place of charing-cross, one of the bridges is called black-friars, one of the streets the minories. there is a place called the sanctuary, a pater-noster-row, and an ave-maria-lane. every where i find these vestiges of catholicism, which give to a catholic a feeling of deeper melancholy, than the scholar feels amid the ruins of rome or athens.
