neutral together, belong to this day to this class, form still well-nigh the largest proportion of our national nomenclature. There is something indescribably odd, when we reflect about it, that the turn of a toe, the twist of a leg, the length of a limb, the colour of a lock of hair, a conceited look, a spiteful glance, a miserly habit of some in other respects unknown and long-forgotten ancestor, should still five or six centuries afterwards be unblushingly proclaimed to the world by the immediate descendants therefrom. And yet so it is with our ‘Cruickshanks’ or ‘Whiteheads’ or ‘Meeks’ or ‘Proudmans;’ thus it is with our ‘Longmans’ and ‘Shortmans,’ our ‘Biggs’ and ‘Littles,’ and the endless others we shall speedily mention. Still these represent a better class of surnames. As time wore on, and the nation became more refined, there was an attempt made, successful in many instances, to throw off the more objectionable of these names. Some were so utterly gross and ribald as even in that day to sink into almost instant oblivion. Some, I doubt not, never became hereditary at all. In glancing briefly over a portion of these names we must endeavour to affect some order. We might divide them into two classes merely, physical and moral or mental peculiarities; but this would scarcely suffice for distinction, as each would still be so large as to make us feel ourselves to be in a labyrinth that had no outlet. Nor would these two classes be sufficiently comprehensive? There would still be left a large mass of sobriquets which could scarcely be placed with fitness in either category: nicknames from Nature, nicknames from oaths, or street-cries, or mottoes, or nicknames again in the shape of descriptive compounds. Names from the animal kingdom, of course, could be set under either a moral or physical head, as, in all cases, saving when they have arisen from inn-signs or ensigns, they would be affixed on the owner for some supposed affinity he bore in mind or body to the creature in question. Still it will be easier to place them, as well as some others, under a third and more miscellaneous category. These three divisions I would again subdivide in the following fashion:— I.—_Physical and External Peculiarities._ (1) Nicknames from peculiarities of relationship, condition, age, size, shape, and capacity. (2) Nicknames from peculiarities of complexion. (3) Nicknames from peculiarities of dress and its accoutrements. II.—_Mental and Moral Peculiarities._ (1) Nicknames from peculiarities of disposition—_complimentary_. (2) Nicknames from peculiarities of disposition—_objectionable_. III.—_Miscellaneous._ (1) Nicknames from the animal and vegetable kingdom. (2) Descriptive compounds affixed as nicknames.[438] (3) Nicknames from oaths, street-cries, and mottoes. I.—PHYSICAL AND EXTERNAL PECULIARITIES.