As for the zealot who gradually forged his way to the front, he gave his brother and sister in the Lord the full benefit of his or her title, whether it was five syllables or seven. There can be no doubt that these Hebrew names did not readily adapt themselves to ordinary converse with the world. Melchisedek and Ebedmelech were all right elbowing their way into the conventicle, but Melchisedek dispensing half-pounds of butter over the counter, or Ebedmelech carrying milk-pails from door to door, gave people a kind of shock. These grand assumptions suggested knavery. One feels certain that our great-grandmothers had a suspicion of tallow in the butter, and Jupiter Pluvius in the pail. Nor did these excavated names harmonize with the surnames to which they were yoked. Adoniram was quaint enough without Byfield, but both (as Butler, in "Hudibras," knew) suggested something slightly ludicrous. Byron took a mean advantage of this when he attacked poor Cottle, the bookseller and would-be writer: "O Amos Cottle! Phoebus! what a name To fill the speaking trump of future fame! O Amos Cottle! for a moment think What meagre profits spring from pen and ink." Amos is odd, but Amos united to Cottle makes a smile irresistible. Who does not agree with Wilkes, who, when speaking to Johnson of Dryden's would-be rival, the city poet, says-- "Elkanah Settle sounds so queer, who can expect much from that name? We should have no hesitation to give it for John Dryden, in preference to Elkanah Settle, from the names only, without knowing their different merits"? And Sterne, as the elder Disraeli reminds us, in one of his multitudinous digressions from the life of "Tristram Shandy," makes the progenitor of that young gentleman turn absolutely melancholy, as he conjures up a vision of all the men who "might have done exceeding well in the world, had not their characters and spirits been totally depressed, and Nicodemas'd into nothing." Even Oliver Goldsmith cannot resist styling the knavish seller of green spectacles by a conjunction of Hebrew and English titles as Ephraim Jenkinson; and his servant, who acts the part of a Job Trotter (another Old Testament worthy, again) to his master, is, of course, Abraham! But, oddly as such combinations strike upon the modern tympanum, what must not the effect have been in a day when a nickname was popular according as it was curt? How would men rub their eyes in sheer amazement, when such conjunctions as Ebedmelech Gastrell, or Epaphroditus Haughton, or Onesiphorus Dixey, were introduced to their notice, pronounced with all sesquipedalian fulness, following upon the very heels of a long epoch of traditional one-syllabled Ralphs, Hodges, Hicks, Wats, Phips, Bates, and Balls (Baldwin). Conceive the amazement at such registrations as these: "1599, Sep. 23. Christened Aholiab, sonne of Michaell Nicolson, cordwainer."--St. Peter, Cornhill.