But there is another class of surnames we may fitly introduce here, which, I doubt not, forms no small proportion in the aggregate mass of our nomenclature—that of sign-names. We in a cultivated age like that of the present fail, as we must, to realize the effect of these latter upon the current life of our forefathers. We now pass up and down a street, and, apart from the aid of the numbered doors and larger windows, and a more peculiar frontage, above the door we may see the name of the proprietor and the character of his occupation in letters so large that it is literally a fact that he who runs may read them. But all this is of gradual and slowly developed growth. The day we are considering knew nothing of these. It was a time when the clergy themselves in many cases were unable to read, when such education as a child of twelve years is now a dunce not to know would have given then for the possession of like attainments the sobriquet of ‘le Clerke’ or ‘le Beauclerk.’ And if this was the case with the learned, what would it be with the lower grades and classes of society? We may, therefore, well inquire what would be the use of gilded characters such as we now-a-days may see, detailing the name of the shopkeeper and the fashion of his stores? None at all. They could not read them. Thus we find in their stead the practice prevailing of putting up signs and symbols to denote the character of the shop, or to mark the individuality of the owner. In an age of escutcheons and all the insignia of heraldry, this was but natural. All manner of instruments, all styles of dress, all kinds of ensigns rudely carved or painted, that a rough or quaint fancy could suggest, were placed in a conspicuous position by the hatch or over the doorway, to catch, if it were possible, the eye of the wayfarer. Even the name itself, when it was capable of being so played upon, was turned into a symbol readable to the popular mind. Nor was it deemed necessary that the device should speak directly of the trade. Apart from implements and utensils, Nature herself was exhausted to supply sufficiently attractive signs; and what with mermaids and griffins, unicorns and centaurs, and other winged monsters, we see that they did not stop here—the supernatural also had to be pressed into this service. The animal kingdom was, however, specially popular—the hostelries peculiarly engrossing this class from the fact that they so often had emblazoned the recognizances of the family with which they stood immediately connected. Thus we still have ‘Red Lions’ and ‘White Lions,’ ‘Blue Boars’ and ‘Boars’ Heads,’ ‘White Bears’ and ‘Roebucks,’ and ‘Bulls’ Heads.’ Relics of the more special emblems remain in the barber’s pole, to the end of which a bowl was once generally attached, to show he was a surgeon also—the pawnbroker’s three balls, the goldbeater’s mallet, or the shoemaker’s last. Of the more fanciful we have a capital idea given