It can be no matter of astonishment to us, when we reflect upon it, that our nomenclature should owe so much to this one single specialty of the human physique. The face is the mark of all recognition among men, and how much of its character belongs to the simple appanage we have been speaking of we may easily gather from the difference the slightest change in the style of dressing or cutting it makes among those with whom we are most familiar. Looking back at what has been recorded, what a living proof they afford us of the truth of Horace Smith’s assertion that surnames ‘ever go by contraries.’ The art of colouring may be hereditary, but certainly not the dyes themselves. Who ever saw a ‘Whytehead’ who was not dark, or a ‘Blacklock’ who was not a blonde? Who ever saw reddish hair on a ‘Russell,’ or a swarthy complexion on a ‘Morell’? How invariably does it happen that our ‘Lightfoots’ are gouty, and our ‘Hales’ dyspeptic, our ‘Bigges’ are manikins, and our ‘Littles’ giants. Such are the tricks that Time plays with us. Recorded history gives us the slow development of change in the habits and customs of domestic life, but here we can compare the physical shifts of the family itself. As history and everything else, however, are said to repeat themselves, we may comfort or condole with, as the case may require, those who, if this dictum, like the Pope’s, be infallible, shall some time or other return to their primitive hues and original proportions. (3) _Nicknames from Peculiarities of Dress and Accoutrements._ An interesting peep into the minuter details of mediæval life is given us in the case of names derived from costume and ensigncy, whether peaceful or warlike. The colour of the cloth of which the dress was composed seems to have furnished us with several surnames. For instance, our ‘Burnets’ would seem to be associated with the fabric of a brown mixture common at one period. Our great early poet, in describing Avarice, says— A mantle hung her faste by Upon a benche weak and small, A burnette cote hung there withall, Furred with no minevere, But with a furre rough of hair.