NOTHING would be easier than to occupy a half-dozen chapters with a relation of the mode in which our forefathers led their lives. It is one peculiarity of nomenclature, that it reaches into every nook and crevice of English customs. What our ancestors specially favoured in the way of meat and drink, is set down with the utmost particularity in the London Directory of to-day, while, on the other hand, it is by the absence of certain names therein that we can form a safe judgment of what delicacies they lacked. No one would expect to see the potato commemorated in the Directory, for the simple reason that it was introduced into England after surnames had become established on a solid basis. There are no “Tatermans” or “Taterers.” But such names as Appletree, Appleyard, Plumtree, Pearman, and Peascod, exist. Why? Because apples, pears, plums, and peas, have been familiar to Englishmen for a dozen centuries. “Photographer” is not in the Directory for the same reason, but “Limner” is, the old “illuminator.” “Cabman” is also conspicuous by its absence, but “Carman” and “Wagner” (_i.e._ Wagoner) exist. Had tea, or umbrellas, or broughams, or balloons, or carpets, or potatoes, or croquet balls, or telegraph wires, or tinned meats, or steam engines, or churchwarden pipes, or Indian pickles, been introduced about five hundred years ago, every one of these would have left its mark on our personal nomenclature. Each would have found itself commemorated in our directories as well as our dictionaries. It is true the railway engine might seem to have been referred to in such fourteenth-century registrations as Richard le Engineur or William le Genour, but these men only wielded the great battering-rams, or catapults, or engines for hurling stones. Very destructive they were, of course, and so important a profession that no wonder there are thirteen “Jenners” in the London Directory alone. Sir William Jenner can satisfy himself with the reflection that if his progenitor was distinguished for the number of England’s adversaries he placed _hors de combat_, he and his father have been equally remarkable for the number of lives they have saved.