“But you forget,” said Mr. Wilmot, “they must have formed nice avenues for the smoke to escape, when there were not any chimneys. But I have omitted to mention a curious fashion, which took its rise from some learned divine, previous to the reign of Henry the Fourth, and which continued long after that of the sixth Henry. It was no other than that of taking away the father’s surname, however honourable or ancient, and substituting that of the town in which the individual was born. Thus, Richard Nottingham, a celebrated friar, was named from an island where he was born, near Gloucester. William Barton, a famous doctor, and chancellor of Oxford in Richard the Second’s reign, from Barton in Lincolnshire. Walter Disse, of Disse in Suffolk, a Carmelite friar, and confessor to the duke and duchess of Lancaster, in Henry the Fourth’s reign. Richard Hampoole, from a town in Yorkshire, a zealous doctor, and afterwards a virtuous hermit, in Henry the Sixth’s days. Hundreds of others followed this example, among whom may be enumerated William Wainfleet, bishop of Winchester, lord chancellor of England, and founder of Magdalen College, Oxford. His original name was Paten; but he altered it to the name of the town of which he was a native. To this whimsical notion may be traced many of our present surnames, such as German, or Germin, which was assumed out of affection to Germany, the country from which their forefathers came. Jute, Jud, and Chute, from the tribe of Judes, one of the German nations who came over with Hengist and Horsa; and Calthrop, Caltrap, and Caltrop, were all but for Caldthorp, signifying a cold town. Paten, Patten, or Patent, is likewise derived from the Saxon word Pate, the sole of the foot, and therefrom Patan, signifying flat-footed. “Before the Reformation, there were very few free-schools in England. Latin was generally taught to the youths at the monasteries. In the nunneries were taught needle-work, confectionery, surgery, and physic, (surgeons and apothecaries being then very rare,) writing, drawing, &c. “Before the civil wars, in gentlemen’s houses, at Christmas, the first dish that was brought to table, was a boar’s head with a lemon in its mouth. The first dish that was brought to table on Easter-day, was a red herring, riding away on horseback; that is, a herring served up by the cook in a corn-salad, to look like a man on horseback. A gammon of bacon was eaten at Easter, to show the abhorrence of Judaism, at that solemn commemoration of our Lord’s resurrection. “In 1486, the reign of Henry the Seventh, a certain number of archers, and other strong, active persons, were constituted by this monarch yeomen of the guard, and were in daily attendance upon his person. This was the first English monarch that instituted a bodyguard; and it was generally thought that he took his precedent from France.