A lady wrote to me the other day to inform me that I had made a mistake in ascribing the name “Mason” to the craftsman of that name, for she was sure she was sprung from Mnason in the Acts of the Apostles, and that the family had worked its way through Phrygia, and Italy, and Germany, into England. If she can prove her pedigree, she may boast a genealogy which the proudest monarch in Europe might envy. The fact is, it is as true of a hundred reputed foreign names as of the rhyme of the three Devonshire families, which asserts that “‘Croker,’ ‘Crewys,’ and ‘Coplestone,’ When the Conqueror came were at home.” What a pleasant book to look upon would our Directory be if we had all had the selection of our own surnames! There would have been no “Pennyfathers.” This was an old English nickname for a miser. An old couplet says,— “The liberall doth spend his pelfe, The pennyfather wastes himself.” That such a disposition need not be hereditary is proved in the case of one of the most generous, earnest Christian ministers who ever worked for Christ in London. Mr. Pennefather is dead; but who would think of connecting him with the characteristic his name implies? Again, there would have been no “Piggs,” no “Rakestraws” (an old nickname for a dust-heap searcher), no “Milksops,” no “Buggs,” no “Rascals.” But the fact is, the man who had most interest in the matter had least to do with it. All he could do was to accept his sobriquet, if not with thanks, with such grace as he could muster. If his children could shuffle it off, so much the better. Our Directory proves that this was not always possible. ’Tis true, we have got rid of “Alan Swet-in-bedde’s” _nominal_ descendants, not to mention such cognomens as “Cheese-and-bread,” “Scutel-mouth” (what a great eater he must have been!) “Red-herring,” “Drink-dregs,” “Cat’s-nose,” “Pigg’s-flesh,” “Spickfat” (_i.e._ bacon-fat), “Burgulion” (a braggart), and “Rattlebag.” But many of these names made a hard fight for it, and contrived to hold out till the seventeenth, or even eighteenth, century. “Piggs-flesh,” I say, is gone; but “Hog’s-flesh” has been a name familiar to Brighton and its neighbourhood for six hundred years, and still lives. Charles Lamb’s little comedy, called “Mr. H.—” (_i.e._, Hog’s-flesh), had for its hero’s sobriquet no fanciful title. No doubt Mr. Lamb had seen the name in a Sussex Directory. The story is a relation of Mr. H.’s troubles in polite society through the attempt to hide his name under the mere initial. When it is discovered, everybody deserts him. As he quits his hotel, his landlord says:— “Hope your honour does not intend to quit the ‘Blue _Boar_.’ Sorry anything has happened.” _Mr. H._ (to himself): “He has heard it all.” _Land._: “Your honour has had some mortification, to be sure, as a man may say. You have brought your pigs to a fine market.” _Mr. H._: “Pigs!”