With scrippe, and tipped staf, tucked high
In every house he gan to pore and pry;
and but two lines further on he tells us—
His felaw had a staff tipped with horn,
which thus explicitly explains the term. The same humour found vent in ‘John Swyrdebrake,’[[505]] ‘Adrian Breakspear,’ ‘William Longstaffe,’ ‘Antony Halstaff’ (perchance ‘Hale-staff’),[[506]] and ‘Thomas Ploghstaf’ (Plowstaff). With one or two more general terms of this class we may proceed. ‘Robert Hurlebat’[[507]] and ‘Matthew Winspear,’ ‘Richard Spurdaunce’ and ‘Robert Bruselance,’ ‘Simon Lovelaunce’ and ‘Thomas Crakyshield,’[[508]] ‘Roger Benbow,’ ‘Cicely Brownsword,’ and ‘Thomas Shotbolte,’ are evidently nicknames fastened upon certain individuals for special prowess in some of the sports of the Middle Ages, probably at some church-ale or wakes.
II.—Mental and Moral Peculiarities.
(1) Nicknames from Peculiarities of Disposition—Complimentary.
Let us now turn to the varied characteristics of the human heart. If we wish to know how many good and excellent qualities there are in the world, and at the same time deceive ourselves into a belief that the evils are few, we must look into our directories. Scan their contents, and we might almost persuade ourselves that Utopia was a fact, and that we were consulting its muster-roll. At every turn we meet with virtue in the guise of a ‘Goode,’ or an ‘Upright,’ or a ‘Righteous,’[[509]] or a ‘Patient,’ or a ‘Best,’ or a ‘Faithful;’ or infallibility in a ‘Perfect’ or ‘Faultless.’ We are ever coming across philosophy in the shape of a ‘Wise’ or a ‘Sage.’ Conscience must surely trouble but little, where ‘Merry’ and ‘Gay,’ ‘Blythe’ and ‘Joyce,’ that is, joyous, are all but interminable; and companionship must be ever sweet with such people to converse with as ‘Makepeace’[[510]] and ‘Friend,’ ‘Goodhart’ and ‘Truman,’ ‘True’ and ‘Leal,’ ‘Kind’ and ‘Curtis’ or ‘Curteis.’ ‘Fulhardy’ and ‘Giddyhead,’ ‘Cruel’ and ‘Fierce,’ ‘Wilfulle’ and ‘Sullen,’ and ‘Envious’ did indeed find a habitation in its pages, but they have long since disappeared, being quite out of place in the presence of such better folk as ‘Hardy’[[511]] and ‘Grave,’ and ‘Gentle’ and ‘Sweet;’ or if the cloven foot of pride be still visible in ‘Proud’ and ‘Proudfoot,’ it is nevertheless under constant rebuke by our familiarity with such lowly characters as ‘Humble’ and ‘Meek.’[[512]] Nevertheless, this was anything but so in the old time. The evil roots of sin may still abide hale and strong and ineradicable in the heart of man, but he has carefully weeded the more apparent traces of this out of his nomenclature. I do not mean to say we are utterly without names of objectionable import, but we shall see that what I have stated once before is true in the main. We shall see that as a rule it is only when the sobriquet word has changed its meaning, or that meaning become obscure and doubtful, or when the name itself has lost the traces of its origin—easy enough in the lapse of so many days of unsettled orthography—that the surname has lingered on. This will make itself apparent as we advance.
Such names as ‘Walter Snel,’ ‘Richard Quicke’ (A.), including the immortal Quickly, ‘Richard le Smert’ (M.), now ‘Smart,’ ‘Thomas Scharp,’ now ‘Sharp,’[[513]] ‘Gilbert Poygnant’ (A.), ‘Thedric le Witte’ (A.), now ‘Witt’ and ‘Witty,’ ‘Nicholas le Cute’ (A.), and ‘Ralph le Delivre’[[514]] (M.M.), argue well for the keen perceptions and brisk habits of early days.[[515]] The slang sense of several of these, strangely enough, is but the original meaning restored. ‘Witty’ arose when the word implied keenness of intellect rather than of humour. Chaucer thus speaks of ‘witty clerkes,’ using the latter word too in a perfectly unofficial sense. Our numberless ‘Clarkes’ and ‘Clerkes,’ sprung from equally numberless ‘Beatrix le Clercs’ or ‘Milo le Clerks,’ may therefore belong either to the professional class or to the one we are considering. ‘William le Frek’ (M.) or ‘Ralph Frike’ (A.), now found as ‘Freak,’ ‘Frick,’ and ‘Freke,’ was a complimentary sobriquet implicative of bravery and daring even to rashness.[[516]] Minot in his political songs tells us in alliterative verse how the doughty men of Edward the Third’s army were—
Ful frek to fight.