The last registered Ibbot or Issot I have seen is in the Chancery suits at the close of Queen Bess's reign, wherein Ibote Babyngton and Izott Barne figure in some legal squabbles ("Chancery Suits: Elizabeth," vol. ii.). As for Sissot, or Drewet, or Doucet, or Fawcett, or Hewet, or Philcock, or Jeffcock, or Batkin, or Phippin, or Lambin, or Perrin, they have passed away--their place knoweth them no more. What a remarkable revolution is this, and so speedy! Failing our registers, the question may arise whether or not in familiar converse the old pet forms were still used. Our ballads and plays preserve many of the nick forms, but scarcely a pet form is to be seen later than 1590. In 1550 Nicholas Udall wrote "Ralph Roister Doister," in the very commencement of which Matthew Merrygreek "says or sings"-- "Sometime Lewis Loiterer biddeth me come near: Somewhiles _Watkin_ Waster maketh us good cheer." Amongst the _dramatis personae_ are _Dobinet_ Doughty, Sim Suresby, Madge Mumblecrust, _Tibet_ Talkapace, and _Annot_ Aliface. A few years later came "Gammer Gurton's Needle." Both _Diccon_ and Hodge figure in it: two rustics of the most bucolic type. Hodge, after relating how Gib the cat had licked the milk-pan clean, adds-- "Gog's souls, _Diccon_, Gib our cat had eat the bacon too." Immediately after this, again, in 1568 was printed "Like will to Like." The chief characters are Tom Tosspot, _Hankin_ Hangman, Pierce Pickpurse, and Nichol Newfangle. Wat Waghalter is also introduced. But here may be said to end this homely and contemporary class of play-names. 'Tis true, in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Beggar's Bush," Higgen (_Higgin_) is one of the "three knavish beggars," but the scene is laid in Flanders. Judging by our songs and comedies, the diminutive forms went down with terrible rapidity, and were practically obsolete before Elizabeth's death. But this result was more the work of the Reformation at large than Puritanism. (_b._) _The Decrease of Nick Forms._ This was not all. The nick forms saw themselves reduced to straits. The new godly names, I have said, were not to be turned into irreverent cant terms. From the earliest day of the Reformation every man who gave his child a Bible name stuck to it unaltered. Ebenezer at baptism was Ebenezer among the turnips, Ebenezer with the milk-pail, and Ebenezer in courtship; while Deborah, who did not become Deb till Charles I.'s reign, would Ebenezer him till the last day she had done scolding him, and put "Ebenezer" carefully on his grave, to prove how happily they had lived together!