Let me also bring under his notice the singularly unattractive name of _Suckbitch_. It is used by more than one branch of a respectable and ancient family in the West of England, and I have traced its existence for at least five centuries. Instead of availing themselves of the recent opinions of some great lawyers, that a surname may be changed at will, this family rather pride themselves on a name that can boast an antiquity probably not surpassed by that of any family in England. The shape of it has, however, deviated from the ancient form, so as to become more significant, but certainly less graceful than it was; and the change is probably an illustration of a familiar fact: viz. that we are not generally the authors of our own surnames, but receive them from our neighbours, and that, to a certain extent, they continue to have the same character of instability which they originally possessed. The earliest form of it known to me is _Sokespic_,--a word which seems to indicate a Saxon origin. The _spic_, or bacon end of it has now generally become _spitch_ in the names of places; as in Spitchwick, a well-known seat in Devonshire. Whether the _soke_ or _suck_ end of it be from _sucan_, and the whole name equivalent to the modern _Chawbacon_, is a matter which I leave for the investigation of MR. LOWER. At all events, the old form will be a warning to the etymologist not to search for the origin of the name in any legend like that which ascribes the nutrition of the infant founders of Rome to a she-wolf. I have met with many modern instances of the mutability of surnames among labouring people, and even in a class above them. In 1841 a person named _Duke_ was on the list of voters for Penryn, in Cornwall. His original name was _Rapson_; but the name being very common in his neighbourhood, people long distinguished him by the name of _Duke_, because he kept the "Duke of York's Arms:" and this last name has since become the permanent recognised family name. This is a fact which I have had satisfactory means of verifying. E. S. Replies to Minor Queries. _Dyson's Collection of Proclamations_ (Vol. v., p. 371.).--DR. RIMBAULT will find, in the Grenville Collection in the British Museum, an extraordinary volume of proclamations published during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, "collected together by the industry of Humfrey Dyson, of the City of London, Publique Notary. London, 1618." The volume is fully described in _Bibliotheca Grenvilliana_, Part the Second, 1848, pp. 368-373. H. F.