One word about the doubtful class, and I have done. A hundred years ago even, as our registers show, there was no established orthography for surnames in the highest ranks of society. How much less so, then, among the illiterate orders! I find a clergyman’s name, Bann, spelled Bann, Ban, Banne, and Band between 1712 and 1736. He was Rector of St. Ann’s, Manchester, during that period. The spelling of Shakespear’s name at this moment is the subject of almost bitter conflict. Being clearly of the nickname class, my view is that it must be written “Shakespear.” Illiterate clerks have done much to obscure the meaning and origin of names. I know a register where the clerk has written “Pickering” as “Pikrin,” and on the next page informs the reader that several names have been “rong placeed.” “Pamela” he inscribes as “Permelea.” Butcher is found in the London Directory in the following forms:—“Boucher,” “Bowcher,” “Bowker,” “Bosher,” “Bowsher,” “Bowser,” “Boutcher,” and “Botcher.” The Norman “Chesney” (equivalent to English “Oakes”) is found as “Cheney,” “Chaney,” “Cheyney,” “Chesney;” and “Chesnil” as “Chisnall,” “Chisnell,” and “Channell.” Thus, too, “Solomon” becomes “Slowman” and “Sloman.” Sir William Dugdale found the Cheshire “Mainwarings” in no less than 131 forms; but this will not seem so strange when we consider that they include “Mainwayringe,” “Meinilwarin,” and “Mensilwaren”! I could furnish endless instances of names that have undergone corruptions of this kind through defective spelling, and the lack of a standard orthography. Few people would recognise Oursley as Ursula, but that is a common form in the seventeenth century, when that was one of our commonest girl names. In Hokington Church, under date 1611, occurs the following entry:— “George, sonne of Fenson Benet, and Jane, baptised.” A previous Rector had been one Vincent Goodwin, and being popular, many of his parishioners had had children christened after him. The form entered is invariably Fenson, and I dare say after a generation or two none of the less educated would know what the original name had been. In the Calendar of Pleadings we find that one Quintin Snaneton, of Gringley Manor, made three several suits within ten years—all in the reign of Good Queen Bess. He is thus entered on each occasion:— 1. (15th Eliz.) Quyntine Sneydon of Gringley Manor. 2. (20th Eliz.) Quintin Snaneton of Grinley Manor. 3. (25th Eliz.) Quyntin Sneyton of Grynley Manor.