“Courteous he was, lowly and servisable,
And carf before his fader at the table.”
The Sewer brought in the viands; we still use the root in such compounds as en-sue and pur-sue. A sewe was any cooked dish or course of meat. Hence Chaucer, describing the rich feasts of Cambuscan, says, time would fail him to tell—
“Of their strange sewes.”
The Queen’s household still boasts, I believe, its six Gentlemen Sewers. The “Page,” of course, was a familiar spectacle, for he was here, there, and everywhere, at the beck and call of his lord. No wonder, therefore, he has so many representatives in our Directory. It is said that an elderly bachelor, bearing this name, became deeply attached to a young lady. Being bashful by nature, and unacquainted with the arts of courtship, he hung about the damsel for a long time, seeking vainly for courage and opportunity to declare the state of his mind. The golden chance came at last. At a party one night the fair lady dropped her glove. He rushed to pick it up, and presenting it to her, said,—
“If from that glove you take the letter ‘G,’
Then glove is love, and that I give to thee.”
She at once responded,—
“If you from Page should take the letter ‘P,’
Then Page is age,—and that won’t do for me.”
I believe he was taken ill and went home.
Knight, like Squire and Bachelor,—all relics of feudal days,—is largely represented in London. A would-be reader of the poets, it is said, went into a shop and asked to see a copy of “Young Knight’s Thoughts.” He was somewhat astonished to find that “Young” was not an adjective, but a surname. This reminds one of Southey’s story of the lady who, seeing a book advertised bearing the title “An Essay on Burns,” ordered a copy, thinking it treated of scalds, and might contain some remedies. Say, Sayer, Guster, and Taster—the last alone being now obsolete—all refer to the office mentioned above; the duty of the first bearers of these several names being to hazard their own lives for the preservation of their masters’. In a word, they stood behind their lord’s chair, and as every dish of meat or cup of wine was brought in, they assayed it (i.e., they took the first bite or sup); so that if either had been “drugged” by some conspirator in the kitchen, the baron might escape. It is right to add, to prevent misconception, that in some cases our Sayers owe their origin, like “Tester,” to another officership—that of examining money, to see whether it was full weight and of genuine metal. There are four or five “Testers” in the London Directory.
We may close this list with the mention of such surnames as Spencer or “Spenser”; Marshall, Chamberlain or Chamberlin, Warder, and Butler. All these represented important officerships.