Such names as ‘Walter Snel,’ ‘Richard Quicke’ (A.), including the immortal Quickly, ‘Richard le Smert’ (M.), now ‘Smart,’ ‘Thomas Scharp,’ now ‘Sharp,’[513] ‘Gilbert Poygnant’ (A.), ‘Thedric le Witte’ (A.), now ‘Witt’ and ‘Witty,’ ‘Nicholas le Cute’ (A.), and ‘Ralph le Delivre’[514] (M.M.), argue well for the keen perceptions and brisk habits of early days.[515] The slang sense of several of these, strangely enough, is but the original meaning restored. ‘Witty’ arose when the word implied keenness of intellect rather than of humour. Chaucer thus speaks of ‘witty clerkes,’ using the latter word too in a perfectly unofficial sense. Our numberless ‘Clarkes’ and ‘Clerkes,’ sprung from equally numberless ‘Beatrix le Clercs’ or ‘Milo le Clerks,’ may therefore belong either to the professional class or to the one we are considering. ‘William le Frek’ (M.) or ‘Ralph Frike’ (A.), now found as ‘Freak,’ ‘Frick,’ and ‘Freke,’ was a complimentary sobriquet implicative of bravery and daring even to rashness.[516] Minot in his political songs tells us in alliterative verse how the doughty men of Edward the Third’s army were— Ful frek to fight. The old ‘William le Orpede,’ or ‘Stephen le Horpede,’ or ‘Peter Orpedeman’ denotes a disposition equally stout-hearted.[517] It is a term found in well-nigh all our mediæval writers, and was evidently in common and familiar use. Trevisa, in his account of the Norman invasion, represents ‘Gurth’ as saying to Harold, ‘Why wilt thou unwary fight with so many orped men?’ The monk of Glastonbury also, speaking of Edward the Third’s expedition to Calais in 1350, relates that he ‘towke with him the nobleis, and the gentelles, and other worthi and orpedde menne of armes.’ Our ‘Keats’ and ‘Ketts’ are the old ‘Walter le Ket’ (G.) or ‘Osbert le Ket’ (J.), that is, the fierce, the bold. Thus the cowherd in ‘William of Pelerne’ directs the child how to conduct himself— When thou komest to kourt Among the kete lordes.