“That evergreen thy graces show;
Some men say ‘Yes,’ and some say ‘No.’
Alas! that one and all agree
That ever-Green thy name shall be!”
Greener is common, being formed after the fashion of Knowler and Knowlman, and Streeter and Streetman, (vide under “a”). A Mr. Greener being devoted admirer of a Miss Green, wrote as follows:—
“One dearest wish I fondly cherish,
My ever-Green so fair, yet lonely:
To make thee mine, and thus thou’lt flourish
Greener, and Greener only.”
To which she responded,—
“I’m Green indeed; but Greener thou,
To think by love declarative,
To make me change charms positive
For those at best comparative.”
Flood and Fell belong to this same class, except when Flood is Welsh, and then, like Floyd, it is the same as Lloyd. A Mr. Isaac Fell is said to have had painted over his shop, in very legible characters, “I. Fell, from Ludgate Hill”; beneath which, one day, a Shakspearian wag wrote, “O what a fall was there, my countrymen!” We have mentioned “Dean” above. In composition it generally appears as “den,” and implies a sheltered and sunken glade closely surrounded with trees. Hence it was a covert for cattle and wild beasts, and many of the names we now see bear out the fact. Not merely do we talk of a “den of lions,” but we descry dens of “hogs,” “rams,” “oxen,” “kine,” and even “wolves,” in such surnames as Ogden, Ramsden, Oxenden, Cowden, and Wolvenden. Other compounds of “den” are not so easily discernible. What Heberden may mean I do not know. There is still in the Directory one Heberden, a physician. Probably it was his father, or grandfather, one of three great London doctors in George the Third’s reign, of whom the sixain got abroad:—
“You should send, if aught should ail ye,
For Willis, Heberden, or Baillie:
All exceeding skilful men,
Baillie, Willis, Heberden:
Uncertain which most sure to kill is,
Baillie, Heberden, or Willis.”
But Moore or “More,” or “Moor,” represented until late in London by George Moore, whose like we do not expect to see soon again, has been a butt for the shafts of wit for generations. We could fill the remaining pages of this chapter with “torts and retorts” upon this sobriquet. Lorenzo, in the Merchant of Venice, says, “It is much that the Moor should be more than reason; but if she be less than an honest woman, she is indeed more than I took her for;” to which Launcelot replies irately, “How every fool can play upon the word!” But some of these epigrams are not fools’ work, nevertheless. When Sir Thomas More was Chancellor, his untiring devotion to his office brought a conclusion to all the Chancery cases in litigation. The following got abroad:—
“When More some years had Chancellor been,
No more suits did remain;
The same shall never more be seen,
Till More be there again.”
When Dr. Manners-Sutton succeeded Archbishop Moore, this rhyme appeared:—