One name I have never yet seen in the London Directory, which occurs in the old parliamentary writs—that of “Hugh Holy-water-clerk.” He dwelt at Lincoln, and was doubtless connected with the cathedral body. But the old “Paternoster” still exists hale and hearty, as anybody may see who will take the trouble to inspect the big book of reference which gives title to my pages. How many thousands there are who daily pass Paternoster Row, and never reflect that it derived its name from the fact that several tradesmen who strung beads dwelt there. They were called “Paternosters,” and found ample occupation and profit, no doubt, in selling their religious ware to the people as they entered the old cathedral to patter aves. That they bore this name Mr. Riley has shown in his “Memorials of London,” wherein not merely is “William le Paternoster” mentioned as dwelling there, but a Robert Ornel is described as following the trade of “paternoster.” What a history there is conveyed in such a registered name as “Sarah Paternoster, fishmonger, 336, Hackney Road”! For centuries, as the name has passed on from one generation to another, there has been handed down with it a memorial of a time which can never return,—at least, I believe it can never return,—a time when our more superstitious forefathers and foremothers thought they could win the favour of Heaven and the grace of God by a glib and unmeaning reiteration of a prayer carefully and solemnly framed by Christ Himself to express and comprehend all the needs of the human heart. It is neither the length of our prayers nor the number of our invocations that will save us. It is the peculiarity of the Gospel narrative, that those who received benefit at Christ’s hands were they who uttered very short prayers; but then they knew what were asking for, and from whom they were making request. Why, if grace depended on the quantity of prayer, then we could reduce the holiness of believers to a mere arithmetical ratio, and by the amount of their petitions demonstrate to so many fractions how much more saintly one Christian was than another.
But I had better stop, or my reader will think I am preaching a sermon. Wouldn’t my stern critic come down heavily on me then? And I should not know what to say in self-defence!
CHAPTER VIII.
THE EMPLOYMENTS OF OUR FOREFATHERS.
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.
Let us spend a few moments in a consideration of this great matter of eating and drinking. And we will begin with drinking first. It is curious how easily misled we might be by the corruptions that have taken place in our nomenclature. The following surnames are in the London Directory (1870): Brandy, Sherry, Gin, Port, Beer, Porter, Stout, Claret, Portwine, Tee, and Coffee. Not one of these is what it seems to be. Not one of these has anything to do with the beverage each severally represents. “Portwine” is a mere modernisation of “Potewyne,” which in the fourteenth century denoted the Poict tevine settler in England. “Claret” was the pet name of “Clare.” “Stout” is of the nickname class, “Porter” occupative, and “Port” is found originally as “Charles le Port,” or “Oliver le Port,” showing that it was a sobriquet having reference to the portly bearing of the progenitor. Tennyson speaks of
“A modern gentleman
Of stateliest port.”
It is the same with “Aleman.” This has no connection with the public-house, but like “Almaine” and “D’Almaine” represents the old German trader. The word was once in most familiar use. Coverdale’s exposition of the twenty-fifth Psalm has on the title page, “Translated out of hye Almayne (High Dutch) in to Englyshe, by Myles Coverdale, 1537.” No one will require me to prove that James Tee and Peter Coffee do not represent our modern and favoured national breakfast beverages. At least the first, if he did, must have sprung from some “heathen Chinee,” who has immigrated to our shores. Such an elucidation, however, would neither satisfy myself, my reader, nor James Tee himself, I imagine.
But we have quite sufficient relics of the drinking propensities of the English people in bygone days without seeking for them in their corrupted forms. “Inman” and “Taverner” both represent the old keeper of houses of entertainment. Tavern is going out of fashion: Public-house is a modern term. Porson, the great Greek scholar, was unhappily given to drink; but drunk or sober he had ever a Greek or Latin quotation at the tip of his tongue. Reeling in the streets of Cambridge, he one day tumbled down a flight of steps into a cellar-tavern. As they picked him up, he was heard to mutter,
“Facilis est descensus t-averni.”
Our Church of England temperance lecturers could not take a better text than this clever pun; for, unlike most puns, it contains a most admonitory truth. An old tavern-sign in Cheshire, in the last century, bore the following inscription: