"_Qui facit per alium, facit per se_" (Vol. vii., p. 382.).--This is one of the most ordinary maxims or "brocards" of the common law of Scotland, and implies that the employer is responsible for the acts of his servant or agent, done on his employment. Beyond doubt it is borrowed from the civil law, and though I cannot find it in the title of the digest, _De Diversis Regulis Juris Antiqui_ (lib. 1. tit. 17.), I am sure it will be traced either to the "Corpus Juris," or to one of the commentators thereupon. W. H. M. _Christian Names_ (Vol. vii., p. 406.).--When Lord Coke says "a man cannot have two names of baptism, as he may have divers surnames," he does not mean that a man may not have two or more Christian names given to him at the font, but that, while he may have "divers surnames at divers times," he may not have divers Christian names _at divers times_. When a man changes his Christian name, he alters his legal identity. The surname, however, is assumable at pleasure. The use of surnames came into England, according to Camden, about {489} the time of the Conquest, but they were not in general use till long after that. Many branches of families used to substitute the names of their estate or residence for their patronymic, which often makes the tracing of genealogies a difficult matter. It was not till the middle of the fourteenth century that surnames began to descend from father to son, and a reference to any old document of the time will show how arbitrarily such names were assumed. A surname, in short, may be called a matter of convenience; a Christian name, a matter of necessity. The giving two Christian names at baptism did not come generally into use till, owing to the multiplication of the patronymic, a single Christian name became insufficient to identify the individual. Consequently an instance of a double Christian name, previous to the commencement of the eighteenth century, is a rarity. The fifth and sixth earls of Northumberland bore the names of Henry-Algernon Percy. The latter died in 1537. As to the period at which Christian names were assumed as surnames, your correspondent ERICAS is referred to Lower's _English Surnames_. H. C. K. ---- Rectory, Hereford.