came the name of an association having common religious rites.

Some illustrious men received additional names or titles from the countries they conquered or the victories they won, as Africanus, Asiaticus, Torquatus. In familiar address the præ nomen was used. Horace says, "gaudent prænomine molles Auriculæ." So with us, lovers, parents, and boon companions use the Christian name or a diminutive of it.

There is probably a difference in meaning between sirname and surname. Sir, or Sire, is an abbreviation of seigneur: hence sirname or sirename is simply the father's name added, as Mac Allan, Fitz Herbert, and Ap-Evan are sirenames meaning the son of Allan, Herbert, and Evan. All nations resort to this usage. The Highland Scotch and Irish use Mac for son, as Mac Neil. The Irish also prefix "" or O', meaning grandson, as O'Hara, O'Neale. O' and Mack now are common Irish prefixes, which is indicated in the following humorous

stanza:

"By Mac and O You'll always know True Irishmen, they say; For if they lack

Both O and Mac, No Irishmen are they."

Titles among the ancients were frequently mistaken for proper names, as Cyrus in Persia, Pharaoh in Egypt, Lucumo in Etruria, Brennus in Gaul, and Cæsar in Rome. Possibly these appellations may have belonged to individuals at first, who, owing to their distinction, transmitted their names, with their honors, to their successors. So the first twelve Roman emperors were called Cæsars from the first, who gave his cognomen

to the office he created. So the emperor of Russia is still styled the "czar," probably from the recollections of the Roman imperial title. Some modern critics, I am aware, find the origin of that word in the Russian tongue. Several of the royal families of England and Europe can trace their names to a more inglorious origin. Such are the royal lines of Plantagenet, Tudor, Steward or Stuart, Valois, Bourbon, Oldenburg, and Hapsburg. The Medici of Florence, the city of flowers, it is said, derive their name from the profession of the founder of that illustrious house. He was a physician, “medicus;" and his descendants becoming bankers and brokers, adopted the three golden balls as their sign to indicate that their founder was a maker and vender of pills, or a Doctor of Medicine.

Surnames are over names, because, as Du Cange says, "They were at first written not in a direct line after the Christian name, but above it between the lines;" and hence they were called in Latin supra nomina; in Italian, supra nome; in French, surnoms, over-names. When the feudal system declined, and the undistinguished and undistinguishable serfs began to emerge into that political body called the nation, subject to enrolment and taxation, every individual must then have a local habitation and a name," however much his social and political rights might hitherto have resembled "airy nothings." bled airy nothings." As late as the fifteenth century the king of Poland persuaded his barbarian subjects to adopt Christianity as their national religion. The nobles and warriors were baptized separately: the multitude were divided into companies, and

a single name and a single baptism sufficed for each company. But such parsimony in holy water and Christian names did not long answer the demands of the times. Whoever was distinguished in body, mind, or estate had a name.—a surname,-given him to apprise the world of his superiority. Surnames existed among the AngloSaxons they came into general use under the Normans. Before the conquest patronymics were often formed by appending to the father's name the word son, as Richardson, Johnson, Jackson, Willson, &c. The oldest surnames in Domesday-Book are taken from places or estates, as Godfredius de Mannevilla, Walterus de Vernon, and Robertus de Oily. Others were derived from their fathers, as Guhelmus, filius Osberni; others were taken from offices, as Eudo, Dapifer, Guhelmus Camerarius or Gislebertus, Cocus. Many common people have no surnames. These were regarded as a luxury, and could be enjoyed only by the rich and nobles. Once a single name was deemed sufficient for the mightiest conqueror. To assign any additional name to Alexander, Cyrus, Cæsar, or Alfred would detract from their fame. Now it requires a fair degree of culture and a good memory for a young princess to recite and spell her own names. Kings are generally known by one name, though they enjoy in private half a dozen. It deserves notice, that men who affect greatness bolster themselves up with names and titles just in proportion as they are deficient in native endowments and moral qualifications. In speaking of the truly great men of our own country we say Washington, Webster, or Clay, without even prefix

ing a mister or an honorable. Sometimes we use the Christian name to indicate a familiar household reverence for our patriots, and say Patrick Henry, James Otis, John Adams, or John Hancock. If we wish to be peculiarly respectful, we prefix an adjective, as old Sam Adams, old John Adams, or old Tom Jefferson; but when we come to our village worthies, whose greatness is nominal and official, we use freely the titles of president, judge, colonel, general, honorable, and esquire.

The Anglo-Saxons are a conquering people, and yet they are the greatest promoters of the arts of peace. They have inherited their personal independence, their hatred of oppression, their aggressive spirit, their love of adventure, and their fondness for military titles from their earliest ancestors.

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The Germans derived their national appellation from their warlike habits. The word German is from "gér," a spear, and mann," a man, signifying spearman." Others derive it from an old root meaning war: hence the whole word would indicate a hero. This name, as Tacitus informs us, was chosen by themselves to inspire terror in their enemies. They called themselves "warmen," or fighters by profession, to alarm their foes. They are also called the Teutonic race. epithet is derived from their founder, who doubtless was a hero-a slayer of men and a destroyer of cities. Tacitus says the Germans worshipped Tuisco, or Tuisto, and his son Mannus, as the origin and founders of their race. The god and his offspring "man" are here associated. Their tradition ascends not above the name

This

and fame of their first hero. He received divine honors. The day on which Tuisco was specially honored was named Tuesday, and the people who paid him divine honors were called "Teutones," whence we obtain the modern words Teutsch and Dutch, Teutonic and Germanic; therefore are the sacred and military names of the same people both derived from heroes.

The same race are sometimes called Goths. This word means brave or good in war, as among all early nations valor is equivalent to goodness. The bravest fighter was the best man: so among our ancestors Goth, Gott, God, and good are but one and the same word differently spelled. When applied to a deity, a tribe or nation, it meant brave or fierce, not kind or beneficent, as in modern use. It was a title of Odin, or Woden, the bloody warrior of the North, who swept over nations from the Indus to the Northern ocean like a hyperborean tempest, and was literally the god of hosts. From him the fourth day of our week is named Wednesday or Woden's day."

It has been said by an eminent critic that "Odin or Woden, the former Scandinavian in its origin, from the Norse odr,' the latter Germanic, from wod,' raging, mad, wODE, denotes one possessed with fury." The Scandinavian Odin and the German Woden were the same god, whose name indicates his character. The Goths, or braves, were divided into Ostro-Goths and Visi-Goths, or Eastern and Western Goths. The Westro- or Visi-Goths, in the early part of the fifth century, under Alaric or Al-ric, all rich," or very rich, enter

ed Italy and pillaged Rome. In their subsequent conquests they formed a union with the Vandals, who are commonly supposed to be a Gothic tribe deriving their name from the Teutonic word "wenden," to turn or wander, denoting a collection of roving tribes or wanderers like the Asiatic Nomads. Dr. Latham thinks the word Vandal is the same as Wend, which is the German name for Slavonian. Carlyle speaks of the northern Baltic countries being vacated by the Goths and occupied by immigrating Sclaves called Vandals or Wends in the fourth century, and adds, the word “slave,” in all our Western languages, means captured Sclavonian.

The Vandals, under Genseric, Gansric, "wholly rich," conquered Mauritania in 429. In their victorious march into Africa they conquered Spain, and named the province assigned to them from themselves Vandalitia, which in process of time was softened into Andalusia.

The etymological history of European names of places and of men points directly to the peculiarities of both. Our ancestors were warlike : their national, local, and individual names show it. The Greeks gave the general appellation of Scythian to all the tribes north of the Black sea. Some suppose this to have been a Teutonic word assumed by themselves, and borrowed by the Greeks from the verb "schütten," to shoot, because they were expert bowmen. The word Saxon is supposed to be affiliated with the primitive "seax," a sword, because the Saxons were good swordsmen. In like manner the Angles are associated with the word "angel" or angl," a hook or barbed weapon

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which they wielded with great dexterity, as the sea-kings, their bold descendants, hurl a harpoon.

The Celts, who immediately preceded the conquering Goths in the west of Europe, show a different taste in their civil and geographical nomenclature. Klipstein observes," The Keltae, Keltici, or Celtæ Celtici, Arais lakaras, Galli, Galatæ, the Kelts or Celts, Gauls, Gaels, and Galatians may all be considered one and the same people under different branches and relations. It may be as well to observe that the Greeks termed the Roman Gallia Galatia, from the Keltic name Galtachd, or Gaëltachd, the land or country of the Gauls or Gaëls, and sometimes to distinguish it from the kingdom of Galatia, founded at a later day by the same people in Phrygia and called Keltikê and Kelto-Galatia. The origin of all these terms is found in the word ceilt' or 'ceiltach,' signifying inhabitant of a forest,' and Galtachd or Gaeltachd itself would therefore denote a forest country, 'ceil,' 'gaël,' 'gall,' meaning a forest."

.

How remote in time and culture were these wild woodsmen from their descendants, the polished Parisians! The earliest inhabitants of Great Britain were Celts. The Highland Scotch, the primitive Irish, and the Welsh are supposed to be their descendants. The whole country bears traces of their Occupancy in the existing names of places. The earliest known name of the island, Albion, is derived from the Celtic alb," white, and "in" or "innis," an island. Pliny says."Albion sic dicta ab albis rupibus quas mare alluit." Britain is sup

posed to be derived from the name of a Celtic king," Prydain, the son of Aedd the Great." Others give "Brit-daoine," painted people, or "Bruit-tan," tin-land. Caledonia, by Klipstein, is derived from the Celtic Cel-y-ddon, Kelts of the mountain, "tun" or ddun" being a mountain; and Irene of the Greeks, Hebernia of the Romans, and Ireland of the English, is from " Erin," the west, and "in," an island, meaning the island of the west, which to the native is "sweet Erin."

The Celts and Romans, who successively inhabited England, have left but few traces of their residence there except monuments and names of places. England was named Angleland from the Angles, who probably were the most numerous of the six different colonies of Germans that settled in Britain between A. D. 449 and 547. The first German invaders, under Hengist and Horsa, who called themselves Jutes, settled and founded the kingdom of Kent. The second invasion, led by Aella, A. D. 477, was made by Saxons, who established the little kingdom of Sussex or South Saxons. The third invasion, under Cerdie, A. D. 495, was made by Saxons.

They founded the kingdom of Wessex, or the West Saxons, on the coast of Hampshire. In the year 530 another horde of Saxons landed in Essex, the home of the East Saxons. The date of the fifth settlement is not known. The invaders were Angles, and occupied Norfolk and Suffolk,— that is, North folk and South folk, or people.

[To be continued.]

The smell of new-mown hay is in the air, and the music of whetting scythe. Who that was born and bred in the country does not remember the exhilarating boy pleasures of haying, with its prized freedom from the detested school-books and tasks, with its delicious draughts of home-brewed beer and the exhaustless supplies of good things from mother's exquisite larder? How cool the damp grass feels to our bare feet as we spread the green swaths! Load-making on the ox-rack, and storing away in the mow of the old barn-who shall tell the joys thereof?

And what have we here? A ground sparrow's nest with two fledgelings. We shall remember this so as to visit it at more leisure, and we shall remember, too, that hornet's nest when we come to rake.

Daniel Webster, who was once a New Hampshire farmer boy and worked at having on one of these hill farms, said a scythe always hung to suit him when it hung in a tree. Pity Daniel never lived to see his way to become practically adopted by the agricultural world at large.

nothing stronger than iced coffee. The unadulterated Yankee is passing away, and with him his crude habits of toil. Once in a great while we meet with an old-fashioned fellow, way back under the hills, who has not heard of the improved means of agriculture, or having heard of them, disbelieves in them, and jogs along at the old pace with hook and loafer, hauling his last load in on the snow. These are few. They have outlived their generation and their usefulness.

But it is thickening up in the west, and to-morrow will be foul weather. All hands can go a-fishing. Early in the morning the angle-worms are secured, the bay mare hitched to the lumbering farm wagon, pipes are loaded and lighted, the luncheon pail, the fishing tackle, which includes a suspicious looking jug done up in a blanket and hidden under the seat (that was the time of the vigorous enforcement of the Maine law), are put aboard, and we are off for Bennett's Bridge and the famous fishing grounds. At the pond we get plenty of mosquito bites, but no fish bites. After waiting in vain for nibbles, and gesticulating frantically at the mosquitoes, during which time we may have used some unnecessary expletives, our patience is finally spent, and we unanimously vote it dull music, except the experienced Nimrod of the party, whose waiting power is composed of sterner stuff. He sticks to the boat: the rest adjourn to the shore, leaving old Piscator at his task, who, truth to tell, had wondrous good luck after we left him,