But some reader, perchance, will say, “What do you mean? Is there anything more in a surname than the individuality it gives to the present bearer? In itself is it not purely accidental?” Of course it is accidental. A fossil shell is accidental; but place it in the hand of a geologist, and he will talk for five days upon it, barring the time he will want for eating and sleeping. And a surname is a fossil—not millions of years old, may be, like the shell; only six hundred—still a fossil, and therefore stereotyping the state and condition of human life at the period when it came into being. A surname not only gives individuality to the present bearer, but is a distinct statement of some condition or capacity enjoyed or endured by the first possessor. An instance will prove this. Take the name of “Cruikshank.” There must have been some particular ancestor so designated because he had a “crooked leg.” That is a fact to start with. Do you want to know where he lived, and when? Well, there is no great difficulty in the matter. The very spelling “cruik,” and not “crook,” proves that he was a north countryman. Is that all? No. The word “shank” shows that he received this nickname before “leg” had come into ordinary use. _Leg_ is always used for _shank_ now, yet it is first found in England about the year 1250. It is comparatively modern. Hence there is no surname that I know of with “leg” as an ingredient. {12} In later days he would have been called “Bow-leg.” Once more, nickname-surnames are scarcely ever found to be _hereditary_ before the year 1200. Here then I glean four facts about “Cruikshank”:— (1) The first Mr. Cruikshank was bow-legged. (2) He came from the borders of Scotland, or still more north. (3) He lived previous to the year 1400. (4) And not earlier than the year 1200. I have taken this instance hap-hazard. I might have selected an exacter illustration, but this will answer my purpose. It is possible my reader will now say, “But there must be a good substructure of primary knowledge laid before I can take up the London Directory, and pretend to be immensely interested in it, and tell my friends what capital reading it is.” Of course, every true pleasure must be bought, and study will purchase infinitely higher delights than money can ever do. It is partly that you may learn how to acquire that necessary elementary knowledge that I am about to write these short chapters upon the London Directory. Before I begin, let me say a few words about _personality_ and _locality_. We should always begin at the beginning. The preacher never starts at fourthly; soup by some mysterious law ever precedes fish. Remember, the necessity for individuality has given us our Names. The need of an address has originated our Directories.