It is so with many other nicknames; and this explains the fact of their existence. Had Sly or Sleigh or Slee been confined to its present meaning three hundred years ago, we should not have found it in our directories in 1878. Our Seeleys and Selymans, our Sillys and Sillymans would probably have become nominally defunct, if silly had conveyed its modern meaning to the ears of our forefathers. “Silly,” in former days, implied _guilelessness_; we still use it in this sense in the phrase “silly lamb.” An old proverb says:— “Whylst grasse doth growe, Oft starves the seely steede.” The best instance, however, I know of this use of the word is in Foxe’s Martyrology, where, describing the martyrdom of a young child not seven years old, he says: “The captain, perceiving the child invincible, and himself vanquished, committed the silly soul, the blessed babe, the child uncherished, to the stinking prison.” Here, of course, _silly_ is the equivalent of innocent, or inoffensive. Our Sillymans and Sillys and Seeleys may fairly claim that theirs was a complimentary nickname. I mention these as instances only of a large class. When we come to _bonâ-fide_ cases, we shall discover, not with any surprise, that almost all our nicknames are complimentary! Our forefathers must have been a most highly respectable set of fellows, judging by this famous Directory. They never got drunk, for who can find a man who but rarely transgressed the limit of sobriety in our directories? There is not a trace of meanness or cowardice about them. ’Tis true Coward is a common name, but then, as already shown, it is not a nickname at all, but an occupation, being none other than our old friend the cow-herd. On the other hand, see what a large number of Doughtys there are, and Bolds, and Gallants, and Prews, all backed up by Hardy, who worthily sits in the Cabinet. We meet with courtesy in our Curtis’s and Curteis’s; with nobility in our Goodharts and Trumans; with humility in our Humbles and Meeks; with kindliness in our Gentles and Sweets; with firmness in our Steadys and Graves; and with liveliness in our Sharps, Quicks, and Wittys. Nor are more abstract charms wanting. It can be truly said that there are plenty of Graces, for at least twelve appear. Faith and Hope are there,—only Charity is wanting. Honour, Virtue, and Wisdom, however, make up in some degree for the absence of that gentle quality. Some people are “Good,” but to be “Goodenough” and “Thorowgood” or “Thoroughgood,” let alone “Toogood,” seems only possible in our nomenclature. Many people, too, are “Perfect” in it, and “Sin” is not there, though “Want” is. Some cynic may say that Truth is conspicuous by its absence, but how can that be in the presence of five “Veritys”? Not merely are we in the atmosphere of constant Spring, and Blossoms, and Budds, but twenty-five Summers appear in the same year, and Rosinbloom blows the twelve months round! The “Tabernacle,” the