A review in the ‘Guardian’ demands a brief notice on account of the mischief it may do. The end kept in view by the reviewer is as transparent as his inability to reach it. Surely the day is past for any further attempt to make out that we have no _metronymic_ surnames. The writer is evidently unaware of the fact that the use of ‘ie’ and ‘y,’ as in ‘Teddy’ or ‘Johnnie,’ in the nineteenth century, does not prevail to as great an extent as that of ‘ot’ and ‘et’ from the twelfth to the fifteenth. As ‘Philip’ became ‘Philipot,’ now ‘Philpott’; as ‘William,’ ‘Williamot,’ now ‘Wilmott’; as ‘Hew’ (or Hugh), ‘Hewet’ and ‘Hewetson’; as ‘Ellis’ (or Elias), ‘Elliot’ and ‘Elliotson’; so ‘Till’ (Matilda) became ‘Tillot’ and ‘Tillotson’; ‘Emme’ (Emma), ‘Emmott,’ ‘Emmett,’ and ‘Emmotson’; ‘Ibbe’ (Isabella), ‘Ibbott,’ ‘Ibbett,’ and ‘Ibbotson’; ‘Mary,’ ‘Mariot’ and ‘Marriott’; and ‘Siss’ (Cecilia), ‘Sissot’ and ‘Sissotson.’ ‘Emmot,’ the writer says, is a form of ‘Amyas,’ I suppose because he saw ‘Amyot’ in Miss Yonge’s glossary. According to him, therefore, Emmot is a masculine name. How comes it to pass, then, that Emmot is _always_ Latinised as Emmota, or that in our old marriage licences ‘Richard de Akerode’ gets a dispensation to marry ‘Emmotte de Greenwood’ (Test. Ebor. iii. 317), or ‘Roger Prestwick’ to marry ‘Emmote Crossley’ (ditto, 338)? How is it we meet with such entries as ‘Cissot_a_ West,’ (Index) or ‘Syssot that was _wife_ of Patrick’ (69)? How is it again that Mariot is registered as ‘Mariot_a_ in le Lane,’ or ‘John fil. Mariot_æ_,’ and Ibbot or Ibbet as ‘Ibbot_a_ fil. Adæ,’ or ‘Robert fil. Ibot_æ_,’ (Index)? The fact is, we have a large class of metronymics many of which doubtless arose from posthumous birth, or from adoption, or the more important character of the mother in the eyes of the neighbours than the father, others too from illegitimacy. Amongst other errors for which I have been called to account, the oddest is that of attributing to Miss Muloch the authorship of Miss Yonge’s most useful and laborious work on Christian names. I do not know to which lady I owe the deepest apology—whether to Miss Yonge for robbing her literary crown of one of its brightest jewels, or to Miss Muloch for appearing to insinuate that hers was incomplete. This and several other mistakes of less moment I have rectified in the present edition.