family shall have lived in the dim twilight of civilisation—that he shall be so far away that all the Herald’s Colleges, with all their spectacles upon their collective noses, shall not be able to perceive whether the disentombed thing be flesh or phantom. Very satisfactory progenitors have been found, with arms to match, of thew and sinew just as questionable. If, however, the swindler _will_ have a mighty ancestor, let him, I repeat, go far enough for him: when a man wants a marquis, or an earl, or a count, for his great-grandfather, he should not grudge a long walk—even though he walk blindfold and backwards—for the commodity. So much for the ambitious swindler. The swindler, however, who trusts to his unassisted genius, and disdains the lustre of any specious trophies from the churchyard, may with a very laudable pride refuse to make to himself a grandfather, being possibly contented with the grandsire selected by his grandmother for him. Some men—and let me do all homage to their simplicity—turn up their noses at the genealogical tree, even though its roots were struck at Tyburn: the swindler of sanguine spirit may be of this proud kidney; and all the better: I augur more of his ultimate triumph. However, though he shall refuse a herald-begotten progenitor, it may be highly necessary for him that he shall choose a name. His own may have become celebrated for family achievements wide away of his purpose; and therefore, whilst with filial affection he sticks to his own father and mother, disdaining the blood of Norman, Guelph, or Ghibelline—it may be imperative upon him to assume a nominal device not hitherto borne by any of his kin. The swindler wants a name. Here, then, we approach a delicate, yes, a difficult point. Let me, however, set out with a solemn injunction to the swindler, that in the choice of a name “he throw away ambition.” Considerable nicety is required in the selection of a good title for swindling; a number of fine young fellows having—if I may lighten the solemnity of this essay with a familiar phrase—“let the cat out of the bag” by the incautious assumption of a high-sounding, flowery, no-meaning patronymic. The truth is, the detestable rage for novels has so familiarised the world with a set of sugar-and-water heroes—of exquisite gentlemen, all of them worthy of a glass case lest the flies should soil them—that their very excess of virtue has put them on the hue and cry of suspicion. Hence “_Delacour_,” “_Erpingham_,” “_Rosenthorp_,” “_Millefleur_,” and a thousand others of the courtly and sweet-smelling class, all in their time excellent names for swindling (that is, for swindling in the higher sense of the term, for in “fine wire wove” they swindle still), are now no other than brands, _stigmata_, by which the calling of the professor is instantly suspected. Hence, my dear pupil, take no sweet, pastry-cook name from a novel; cull no flower from a play-bill; but look, as either a poet or a