Had the Puritan clergy confined these vagaries to their own nurseries, it would not have mattered much. But there can be no doubt they used their influence to bias the minds of godparents and witnesses in the same direction. We have only to pitch upon a minister who came under the archbishop’s or Lord Treasurer’s notice as disaffected, seek out the church over which he presided, scan the register of baptisms during the years of his incumbency, and a batch of extravagant names will at once be unearthed. In the villages of Sussex and Kent, where the personal influence of the recalcitrant clergy seems to have been greatest, the parochial records teem with them.
Thus was the final stage of fanaticism reached, the year 1580 being as nearly as possible the exact date of its development. Thus were English people being prepared for the influx of a large batch of names which had never been seen before, nor will be again. The purely Biblical names, those that commemorated Bible worthies, swept over the whole country, and left ineffaceable impressions. The second stage of Puritan excess, names that savour of eccentricity and fanaticism combined, scarcely reached England north of Trent, and, for lack of volume, have left but the faintest traces. They lasted long enough to cover what may be fairly called an epoch, and extended just far enough to embrace a province. The epoch was a hundred years, and the province was from Kent to Hereford, making a small arc northwards, so as to take in Bedfordshire, Leicestershire, Buckinghamshire, and Oxfordshire. The practice, so far as the bolder examples is concerned, was a deliberate scheme on the part of the Presbyterian clergy. On this point the evidence is in all respects conclusive.
III. Curious Names not Puritan
Several names found in the registers at this time, though commonly ascribed to the zealots, must be placed under a different category. For instance, original sin and the Ninth Article would seem to be commemorated in such a name as Original. We may reject Camden’s theory:
“Originall may seem to be deducted from the Greek origines, that is, borne in good time,”
inasmuch as he does not appear to have believed in it himself. The name, as a matter of fact, was given in the early part of the sixteenth century, in certain families of position, to the eldest son and heir, denoting that in him was carried on the original stock. The Bellamys of Lambcote Grange, Stainton, are a case in point. The eldest son for three generations bore the name; viz. Original Bellamy, buried at Stainton, September 12, 1619, aged 80; Original, his son and heir, the record of whose death I cannot find; and Original, his son and heir, who was baptized December 29, 1606. The first of these must have been born in 1539, far too early a date for the name to be fathered upon the Puritans. Original was in use in the family of Babington, of Rampton. Original Babington, son and heir of John Babington, was a contemporary of the first Original Bellamy (Nicholl’s “Gen. et Top.,” viii.).
Another instance occurs later on:
“1635, May 21. These under-written names are to be transported to St. Christopher’s, imbarqued in the Matthew of London, Richard Goodladd, master, per warrant from ye Earle of Carlisle:
“Originall Lowis, 28 yeres,” etc. – Hotten’s “Emigrants,” p. 81.
Sense, a common name in Elizabeth and James’s reigns, looks closely connected with some of the abstract virtues, such as Prudence and Temperance. The learned compiler of the “Calendar of State Papers” (1637-38) seems to have been much bothered with the name:
“1638, April 23. Petition of Seuce Whitley, widow of Thomas Whitley, citizen, and grocer.”
The suggestion from the editorial pen is that this Seuce (as he prints it) is a bewildered spelling of Susey, from Susan! The fact is, Seuce is a bewildered misreading on the compiler’s part of Sense, and Sense is an English dress of the foreign Senchia, or Sancho, still familiar to us in Sancho Panza. Several of the following entries will prove that Sense was too early an inmate of our registers to be a Puritan agnomen:
“1564, Oct. 15. Baptized Saints, d. of Francis Muschamp.
“1565, Nov. 25. Buried Sence, d. of ditto.
“1559, June 13. Married Matthew Draper and Sence Blackwell.
“1570-1, Jan. 15. Baptized Sence, d. of John Bowyer.” – Camberwell Church.
“1651. Zanchy Harvyn, Grocer’s Arms, Abbey Milton.” – “Tokens of Seventeenth Century.”
“1661, June. Petition of Mrs. Zanchy Mark.” – C. S. P.
That it was familiar to Camden in 1614 is clear:
“Sanchia, from Sancta, that is, Holy.” – “Remaines,” p. 88.
The name became obsolete by the close of the seventeenth century, and, being a saintly title, was sufficiently odious to the Presbyterians to be carefully rejected by them in the sixteenth century. Men who refused the Apostles their saintly title were not likely to stamp the same for life on weak flesh.35
Nor can Emanuel, or Angel, be brought as charges against the Puritans. Both flatly contradicted Cartwright’s canon; yet both, and especially the former, have been attributed to the zealots. No names could have been more offensive to them than these. Even Adams, in his “Meditations upon the Creed,” while attacking his friends on their eccentricity in preferring “Safe-deliverance” to “Richard,” takes care to rebuke those on the other side, who would introduce Emanuel, or even Gabriel or Michael, into their nurseries:
“Some call their sons Emanuel: this is too bold. The name is proper to Christ, therefore not to be communicated to any creature.”
Emanuel was imported from the Continent about 1500:
“1545, March 19. Baptized Humphrey, son of Emanuell Roger.” – St. Columb Major.
The same conclusion must be drawn regarding Angel. Adams continues:
“Yea, it seems to me not fit for Christian humility to call a man Gabriel or Michael, giving the names of angels to the sons of mortality.”
If the Puritans objected, as they did to a man, to the use of Gabriel and Michael as angelic names, the generic term itself would be still more objectionable:
“1645, Nov. 13. Buried Miss Angela Boyce.” – Cant. Cath.
“1682, April 11. Baptized Angel, d. of Sir Nicholas Butler, Knt.” – St. Helen, Bishopgate.
“Weymouth, March 20, 1635. Embarked for New England: Angell Holland, aged 21 years.” – Hotten’s “Emigrants,” p. 285.
In this case we may presume the son, and not the father, had turned Puritan.
A curious custom, which terminated soon after Protestantism was established in England, gave rise to several names which read oddly enough to modern eyes. These were titles like Vitalis or Creature – names applicable to either sex. Mr. Maskell, without furnishing instances, says Creature occurs in the registers of All-Hallows, Barking (“Hist. All-Hallows,” p. 62). In the vestry-books of Staplehurst, Kent, are registered:
“1 Edward VI. Apryle xxvii., there were borne ii. childre of Alex’nder Beeryl: the one christened at home, and so deceased, called Creature; the other christened at church, called John.” – Burns, “History of Parish Registers,” p. 81.
“1550, Nov. 5. Buried Creature, daughter of Agnes Mathews, syngle woman, the seconde childe.
“1579, July 19. Married John Haffynden and Creature Cheseman, yong folke.” – Staplehurst, Kent.
One instance of Vitalis may be given:
“Vitalis, son of Richard Engaine, and Sara his wife, released his manor of Dagworth in 1217 to Margery de Cressi.” – Blomefield’s “Norfolk,” vi. 382, 383.
These are not Puritan names. The dates are against the theory. They belong to a pre-Reformation practice, being names given to quick children before birth, in cases when it was feared, from the condition of the mother, they might not be delivered alive. Being christened before the sex could be known, it was necessary to affix a neutral name, and Vitalis or Creature answered the purpose. The old Romish rubric ran thus:
“Nemo in utero matris clausus baptizari debet, sed si infans caput emiserit, et periculum mortis immineat, baptizetur in capite, nec postea si vivus evaserit, erit iterum baptizandus. At si aliud membrum emiserit, quod vitalem indicet motum in illo, si periculum pendeat baptizetur,” etc.
Vitalis Engaine and Creature Cheeseman, in the above instances, both lived, but, by the law just quoted, retained the names given to them, and underwent no second baptism. If the sex of the yet breathing child was discovered, but death certain, the name of baptism ran thus:
“1563, July 17. Baptizata fuit in ædibus Mri Humfrey filia ejus quæ nominata fuit Creatura Christi.” – St. Peter in the East, Oxford.
“1563, July 17. Creatura Christi, filia Laurentii Humfredi sepulta.” – Ditto.
An English form occurs earlier:
“1561, June 30. The Chylde-of-God, filius Ric. Stacey.” – Ditto.
Without entering into controversy, I will only say that if the clergy, up to the time of the alteration in our Article on Baptism, truly believed that “insomuch as infants, and children dying in their infancy, shall undoubtedly be saved thereby (i. e. baptism), and else not,” it was natural that such a delicate ceremonial as I have hinted at should have suggested itself to their minds. After the Reformation, the practice as to unborn children fell into desuetude, and the names with it.
IV. Instances
(a.) Latin Names
The elder Disraeli reminded us, in his “Curiosities of Literature,” that in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it was common for our more learned pundits to re-style themselves in their own studies by Greek and Latin names. Some of these – as, for instance, Erasmus36 and Melancthon – are only known to the world at large by their adopted titles.
The Reformation had not become an accomplished fact before this custom began to prevail in England, only it was transferred from the study to the font, and from scholars to babies. Renovata, Renatus, Donatus, and Beata began to grow common. Camden, writing in 1614, speaks of still stranger names —
“If that any among us have named their children Remedium, Amoris, ‘Imago-sæculi,’ or with such-like names, I know some will think it more than a vanity.” – “Remaines,” p. 44.
While, however, the Presbyterian clergy did not object to some of these Latin sobriquets, as being identical with the names of early believers of the Primitive Church, stamped in not a few instances with the honours of martyrdom, they preferred to translate them into English. Many of my examples of eccentricity will be found to be nothing more than literal translations of names that had been in common vogue among Christians twelve and thirteen hundred years before. To the majority of the Puritan clergy, to change the Latin dress for an English equivalent would be as natural and imperative as the adoption of Tyndale’s or the Genevan Bible in the place of the Latin Vulgate.
A curious, though somewhat later, proof of this statement is met with in a will from the Probate Court of Peterborough. The testator was one Theodore Closland, senior fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. The date is June 24, 1665:
“Item: to What-God-will Crosland, forty shillings, and tenn shillings to his wife. And to his sonne What-God-will, six pound, thirteen shillings, fourpence.”
This is a manifest translation of the early Christian “Quod-vult-deus.” Grainger, in his “History of England” (iii. 360, fifth edition), says —
“In Montfaucon’s ‘Diarium Italicum’ (p. 270), is a sepulchral inscription of the year 396, upon Quod-vult-deus, a Christian, to which is a note: ‘Hoc ævo non pauci erant qui piis sententiolis nomina propria concinnarent, v. g. Quod-vult-deus, Deogratias, Habet-deum, Adeodatus.’”
Closland, or Crosland, the grandfather, was evidently a Puritan, with a horror of the Latin Vulgate, Latin Pope, and Latin everything. Hence the translation.
Nevertheless, the Puritans seem to have favoured Latin names at first. It was a break between the familiar sound of the old and the oddity of the new. Redemptus was less grotesque than Redeemed, and Renata than Renewed. The English equivalents soon ruled supreme, but for a generation or two, and in some cases for a century, the Latin names went side by side with them.
Take Renatus, for instance:
“1616, Sep. 29. Baptized Renatus, son of Renatus Byllett, gent.” – St. Columb Major.
“1637-8, Jan. 12. Order of Council to Renatus Edwards, girdler, to shut up his shop in Lombard Street, because he is not a goldsmith.
“1690, April 10. Petition of Renatus Palmer, who prays to be appointed surveyor in the port of Dartmouth.” – C. S. P.
“1659, Nov. 11. Baptized Renovata, the daughter of John Durance.” – Cant. Cath.
It was Renatus Harris who built the organ in All-Hallows, Barking, in 1675 (“Hist. All-Hallows, Barking,” Maskell). Renatus and Rediviva occur in St. Matthew, Friday Street, circa 1590. Rediviva lingered into the eighteenth century:
“1735, – . Buried Rediviva Mathews.” – Banbury.
Desiderata and Desiderius were being used at the close of Elizabeth’s reign, and survived the restoration of Charles II.:
“1671, May 26. Baptized Desiderius Dionys, a poor child found in Lyme Street.” – St. Dionis Backchurch.
Donatus and Deodatus, also, were Latin names on English soil before the seventeenth century came in:
“1616, Jan. 29. Baptized Donate, vel Deonata, daughter of Martyn Donnacombe.” – St. Columb Major.
Desire and Given,37 the equivalents, both crossed the Atlantic with the Pilgrim Fathers.
Love was popular. Side by side with it went Amor. George Fox, in his “Journal,” writing in 1670, says —
“When I was come to Enfield, I went first to visit Amor Stoddart, who lay very weak and almost speechless. Within a few days Amor died.” – Ed. 1836, ii. 129.
In Ripon Cathedral may be seen:
“Amor Oxley, died Nov. 23, 1773, aged 74.”
The name still exists in Yorkshire, but no other county, I imagine.
Other instances could be mentioned.38 I place a few in order:
“1594, Aug. 3. Baptized Relictus Dunstane, a childe found in this parisshe.” – St. Dunstan.
“1613, Nov. 7. Baptized Beata, d. of Mr. John Briggs, minister.” – Witherley, Leic.
“1653, Sep. 29. Married Richard Moone to Benedicta Rolfe.” – Cant. Cath.
“1661, May 25. Married Edward Clayton and Melior39 Billinge.” – St. Dionis, Backchurch.
“1706. Beata Meetkirke, born Nov. 2, 1705; died Sep. 10, 1706.” – Rushden, Hereford.
(b.) Grace Names
In furnishing instances, we naturally begin with those grace names, in all cases culled from the registers of the period, which belong to what we may style the first stage. They were, one by one, but taken from the lists found in the New Testament, and were probably suggested at the outset by the moralities or interludes. The morality went between the old miracle-play, or mystery, and the regular drama. In “Every Man,” written in the reign of Henry VIII., it is made a vehicle for retaining the love of the people for the old ways, the old worship, and the old superstitions. From the time of Edward VI. to the middle of Elizabeth’s reign, there issued a cluster of interludes of this same moral type and cast; only all breathed of the new religion, and more or less assaulted the dogmas of Rome.
These moralities were popular, and were frequently rendered in public, until the Elizabethan drama was well established. All were allegorical, and required personal representatives of the abstract graces, and doctrines of which they treated. The dramatis personæ in “Hickscorner” are Freewill, Perseverance, Pity, Contemplation, and Imagination, and in “The Interlude of Youth,” Humility, Pride, Charity, and Lechery.
It is just possible, therefore, that several of these grace names were originated under the shadow of the pre-Reformation Church. The following are early, considering they are found in Cornwall, the county most likely to be the last to take up a new custom:
“1549, July 1. Baptized Patience, d. of Willm. Haygar.” —
“1553, May 29. Baptized Honour, d. of Robert Sexton.” – St. Columb Major.
However this may be, we only find the cardinal virtues at the beginning of the movement – those which are popular in some places to this day, and still maintain a firm hold in America, borne thither by the Puritan emigrants.
The three Graces, and Grace itself, took root almost immediately as favourites. Shakespeare seems to have been aware of it, for Hermione says —
“My last good deed was to entreat his stay:
What was my first? It has an elder sister,
Or I mistake you – O would her name were Grace!”
“Winter’s Tale,” Act i. sc. 2.
“1565, March 19. Christening of Grace, daughter of – Hilles.” – St. Peter, Cornhill.
“1574, Jan. 29. Baptized Grace, daughter of John Russell.” – St. Columb Major.
“1588, Aug. 1. Married Thomas Wood and Faythe Wilson.” – St. Dionis Backchurch.
“1565, – . Baptized Faith, daughter of Thomas and Agnes Blomefield.” – Rushall, Norfolk.
“1567, Aprill 17. Christening of Charity, daughter of Randoll Burchenshaw.” – St. Peter, Cornhill.
“1571, – . Baptized Charity, daughter of Thomas Blomefield.” – Rushall, Norfolk.
“1598, Nov. 19. Baptized Hope, d. of John Mainwaringe.” – Cant. Cath.
“1636, Nov. 25. Buried Hope, d. of Thomas Alford, aged 23.” – Drayton, Leicester.
The registers of the sixteenth and seventeenth century teem with these; sometimes boys received them. The Rev. Hope Sherhard was a minister in Providence Isle in 1632 (“Cal. S. P. Colonial,” 1632).
We may note that the still common custom of christening trine-born children by these names dates from the period of their rise:40
“1639, Sep. 7. Baptized Faith, Hope, and Charity, daughters of George Lamb, and Alice his wife.” – Hillingdon.
“1666, Feb. 22. – Finch, wife of – Finch, being delivered of three children, two of them were baptized, one called Faith, and the other Hope; and the third was intended to be called Charity, but died unbaptized.” – Cranford. Vide Lyson’s “Middlesex,” p. 30.
Mr. Lower says (“Essays on English Surnames,” ii. 159) —
“At Charlton, Kent, three female children produced at one birth received the names of Faith, Hope, and Charity.”
Thomas Adams, in his sermon on the “Three Divine Sisters,” says —
“They shall not want prosperity,
That keep faith, hope, and charity.”
Perhaps some of these parents remembered this.
Faith and Charity are both mentioned as distinctly Puritan sobriquets in the “Psalm of Mercie,” a political poem:
“‘A match,’ quoth my sister Joyce,
‘Contented,’ quoth Rachel, too:
Quoth Abigaile, ‘Yea,’ and Faith, ‘Verily,’
And Charity, ‘Let it be so.’”
Love, as the synonym of Charity, was also a favourite. Love Atkinson went out to Virginia with the early refugees (Hotten, “Emigrants,” p. 68).
“1631-2, Jan. 31. Buried Love, daughter of William Ballard.” – Berwick, Sussex.
“1740, April 30. Buried Love Arundell.” – Racton, Sussex.
“1749, May 31. Love Luckett admitted a freeman by birthright.” – “History of Town and Port of Rye,” p. 237.
“1662, May 7. Baptized Love, d. of Mr. Richard Appletree.” – Banbury.
Besides Love and Charity, other variations were Humanity and Clemency:
“1637, March 8. Bond of William Shaw, junior, and Thomas Snelling, citizens and turners, to Humanity Mayo, of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, in £100 0 0.” – C. S. P.
“1625, Aug. 27. Buried Clemency Chawncey.” – St. Dionis Backchurch.
Clemency was pretty, and deserved to live; but Mercy seems to have monopolized the honours, and, by the aid of John Bunyan’s heroine in the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” still has her admirers. Instances are needless, but I furnish one or two for form’s sake. They shall be late ones:
“1702, Sep. 28. Married Matthias Wallraven and Mercy Waymarke.” – St. Dionis Backchurch.
“1716, May 25. Married Thomas Day and Mercy Parsons, of Staplehurst.” – Cant. Cath.
But there were plenty of virtues left. Prudence had such a run, that she became Pru in the sixteenth, and Prudentia in the seventeenth century:
“1574, June 30. Buried Prudence, d. of John Mayhew.
“1612, Aug. 2. Married Robert Browne and Prudence Coxe.” – St. Dionis Backchurch.
Justice is hard to separate from the legal title; but here is an instance:
“1660, July 16. Richard Bickley and Justice Willington reported guilty of embezzling late king’s goods.” – “Cal. St. P. Dom.”
Truth, Constancy, Honour, and Temperance were frequently personified at the font. Temperance had the shortest life; but, if short, it was merry. There is scarcely a register, from Gretna Green to St. Michael’s, without it:
“1615, Feb. 25. Baptized Temperance, d. of – Osberne.” – Hawnes, Bedford.
“1610, Aug. 14. Baptized Temperance, d. of John Goodyer.” – Banbury.
“1611, Nov. – . Baptized Temperance, d. of Robert Carpinter.” – Stepney.
“1619, July 22. Married Gyles Rolles to Temperance Blinco.” – St. Peter, Cornhill.
Constance,41 Constancy, and Constant were common, it will be seen, to both sexes:
“1593, Sep. 29. Buried Constancy, servant with Mr. Coussin.” – St. Dionis Backchurch.
“1629, Dec. Petition of Captain Constance Ferrar, for losses at Cape Breton.” – “C. S. P. Colonial.”
“1665, May 25. Communication from Constance Pley to the Commissioners in relation to the arrival of a convoy.” – C. S. P.
“1665, May 31. Grant to Edward Halshall of £225 0 0, forfeited by Connistant Cant, of Lynn Regis, for embarking wool to Guernsey not entered in the Custom House.” – Ditto.
“1671, Sep. 2. Buried Constant Sylvester, Esquire.” – Brampton, Hunts.
Patience, too, was male as well as female. Sir Patience Warde was Lord Mayor of London in 1681. Thus the weaker vessels were not allowed to monopolize the graces. How familiar some of these abstract names had become, the Cavalier shall tell us in his parody of the sanctimonious Roundheads’ style:
“‘Ay, marry,’ quoth Agatha,
And Temperance, eke, also:
Quoth Hannah, ‘It’s just,’ and Mary, ‘It must,’
‘And shall be,’ quoth Grace, ‘I trow.’”
Several “Truths” occur in the “Chancery Suits” of Elizabeth, and the Greek Alathea arose with it:
“1595, June 27. Faith and Truth, gemini, – John Johnson, bapt.” – Wath, Ripon.
Alathea lasted till the eighteenth century was well-nigh out:
“1701, Dec. 4. Francis Milles to Alathea Wilton.” – West. Abbey.
“1720, Sep. 18. Buried Alydea, wife of Willm. Gough, aged 42 years.” – Harnhill, Glouc.
“1786, Oct. 6. Died Althea, wife of Thomas Heberden, prebendary.” – Exeter Cath.42
Honour, of course, became Honora, in the eighteenth century, and has retained that form:
“1583, Aug. 24. Baptized Honor, daughter of Thomas Teage.” – St. Columb Major.
“1614, July 4. Baptized Honour, d. of John Baylye, of Radcliffe.” – Stepney.
“1667, Oct. 9. Christened Mary, d. of Sir John and Lady Honour Huxley.” – Hammersmith.
“1722, Oct. 4. Christened Martha, d. of John and Honoria Hart.” – St. Dionis Backchurch.
Sir Thomas Carew, Speaker of the Commons in James’s and Charles’s reign, had a wife Temperance, and four daughters, Patience, Temperance, Silence, and Prudence (Lodge’s “Illust.,” iii. 37). Possibly, as Speaker, he had had better opportunity to observe that these were the four cardinal parliamentary virtues, especially Silence. This last was somewhat popular, and seems to have got curtailed to “Sill,” as Prudence to “Pru,” and Constance to “Con.” In the Calendar of “State Papers” (June 21, 1666), a man named Taylor, writing to another named Williamson, wishes “his brother Sill would come and reap the sweets of Harwich.” Writing again, five days later, he asks “after his brother, Silence Taylor.”
This was one of the names that crossed the Atlantic and became a fixture in America (Bowditch). It is not, however, to be confounded with Sill, that is, Sybil, in the old Cavalier chorus:
“‘And God blesse King Charles,’ quoth George,
‘And save him,’ says Simon and Sill.”
Silence is one of the few Puritan names that found its way into the north of England:
“1741, Dec. 9. Married Robert Thyer to Silence Leigh.” – St. Ann, Manchester.
The mother of Silence Leigh, who was a widow when she married, was Silence Beswicke (“Memorials of St. Ann, Manchester,” p. 55).43 The name is found again in the register of Youlgreave Church, Derbyshire (Notes and Queries, Feb. 17, 1877). Curiously enough, we find Camden omitting Silence as a female name of his day, but inserting Tace. In his list of feminine baptismal names, compiled in 1614 (“Remaines,” p. 89), he has
“Tace – Be silent – a fit name to admonish that sex of silence.”
Here, then, is another instance of a Latin name translated into English. I have lighted on a case proving the antiquary’s veracity:
“Here lieth the body of Tacey, the wife of George Can, of Brockwear, who departed this life 22 day of Feb., An. Dom. 1715, aged 32 years.” – Hewelsfield, Glouc.
Tace must have lasted a century, therefore. Silence may be set down to some old Puritan stickler for the admonition of Saint Paul: “Let the woman learn in silence, with all subjection” (1 Tim. ii. 11).
The Epistle to the Romans was a never-failing well-spring to the earnest Puritan, and one passage was much applied to his present condition:
“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith unto this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope: and hope maketh not ashamed.” – v. 1-5.
There is scarcely a word in this passage that is not inscribed on our registers between 1575 and 1595. Faith, Grace, and Hope have already been mentioned;44 Camden testified to the existence of Tribulation in 1614; Rejoice was very familiar; Patience, of course, was common:
“1592, July 7. Buried Patience Birche.” – Cant. Cath.
“1596, Oct. 3. Baptized Pacience, daughter of Martin Tome.” – St. Columb Major.
“1599, April 23. Baptized Patience, d. of John Harmer.” – Warbleton.
Even Experience is found – a strange title for an infant.
“The Rev. Experience Mayhew, A.M., born Feb. 5, 1673; died of an apoplexy, Nov. 9, 1758.”
So ran the epitaph of a missionary (vide Pulpit, Dec. 6, 1827) to the Vineyard Island. It had been handed on to him, no doubt, from some grandfather or grandmother of Elizabeth’s closing days.
A late instance of Diligence occurs in St. Peter, Cornhill:
“1724, Nov. 1. Buried Diligence Constant.”
Obedience had a good run, and began very early:
“1573, Sep. 20. Bapt. Obedience, dather of Thomas Garding.
“1586, Aug. 28. Bapt. Obedyence, dather of Richard Ellis.” – Warbleton.
“1697, April 30. Bapt. Robert, son of James and Obedience Clark.” – St. James, Picadilly.
Obedience Robins is the name of a testator in 1709 (Wills: Archdeaconry of London), while the following epitaph speaks for itself:
“Obedience Newitt, wife of Thomas Newitt, died in 1617, aged 32.
“Her name and nature did accord,
Obedient was she to her Lord.” – Burwash, Sussex.
“Add to your faith, virtue,” says the Apostle. As a name this grace was late in the field:
“1687, May 25. Married Virtue Radford and Susannah Wright.” – West. Abbey.
“1704, Oct. 20. Buried Virtue, wife of John Higgison.” – Marshfield, Glouc.
“1709, May 6. Buried Vertue Page.” – Finchley.
Confidence and Victory were evidently favourites:
“1587, Jan. 8. Baptized Confydence, d. of Roger Elliard.” – Warbleton.
“1770, Nov. 17, died Confidence, wife of John Thomas, aged 61 years.” – Bulley, Glouc.
“1587, Feb. 8. Buryed Vyctorye Buttres.” – Elham, Kent.
“1618, Dec. 9. Buryed Victorye Lussendine.” – Ditto.
“1696, May 17. Bapt. Victory, d. of Joseph Gibbs.” – St. Dionis Backchurch.
Perseverance went out with the emigrants to New England, but I do not find any instance in the home registers. Felicity appeared in one of our law courts last year, so it cannot be said to be extinct; but there is a touch of irony in the first of the following examples: —
“1604-5, March 15. Baptized Felicity, d. of John Barnes, vagarant.” – Stepney.
“1590, July 5. Baptized Felycyte Harris.” – Cranbrook.
Comfort has a pleasant atmosphere about it, and many a parent was tempted to the use of it. It lingered longer than many of its rivals. Comfort Farren’s epitaph may be seen on the floor of Tewkesbury Abbey:
“Comfort, wife of Abraham Farren, gent., of this Corporation, died August 24, 1720.”
Again, in Dymock Church we find:
“Comfort, wife to William Davis, died 14 June, 1775, aged 78 years.
“Comfort, their daughter, died 9 Feb., 1760, aged 24 years.”
Nearly 150 years before this, however, Comfort Starr was a name not unknown to the more heated zealots of the Puritan party. He was a native of Ashford, in Kent, and after various restless shiftings as a minister, Carlisle being his head-quarters for a time, went to New Plymouth in the Mayflower, in 1620. There he became fellow of Harvard College, but returned to England eventually, and died at Lewes in his eighty-seventh year.
Perhaps the most interesting and popular of the grace names was “Repentance.” In a “new interlude” of the Reformation, entitled the “Life and Repentance of Marie Magdalene,” and published in 1567, one of the chief characters was “Repentance.” At the same time Repentance came into font use, and, odd as it may sound, bade fair to become a permanently recognized name in England:
“1583, Dec. 8. Married William Arnolde and Repentance Pownoll.” – Cant. Cath.
“1587, Oct. 22. Baptized Repentance, dather of George Aysherst.” – Warbleton.
“1588, June 30. Baptized Repentance Water.” – Cranbrook.
“1597, Aug. 4. Baptized Repentance, daughter of Robert Benham, of Lymhouse.” – Stepney.
“1612, March 26. Baptized Repentance Wrathe.” – Elham, Kent.
“1688, Dec. 23. Bapt. Repentance, son of Thomas and Mercy Tompson.” – St. James, Piccadilly.
In the “Sussex Archæological Collections” (xvii. 148) is found recorded the case of Repentance Hastings, deputy portreeve of Seaford, who in 1643 was convicted of hiding some wreckage:
“Repentance Hastings, 1 load, 1 cask, 2 pieces of royals.”
Evidently his repentance began too early in life to be lasting; but infant piety could not be expected to resist the hardening influence of such a name as this.45
Humiliation was a big word, and that alone must have been in its favour:
“1629, Jan. 24. Married Humiliation Hinde and Elizabeth Phillips by banes.” – St. Peter, Cornhill.
Humiliation, being proud of his name, determined to retain it in the family – for he had one – but as he had began to worship at St. Dionis Backchurch, the entries of baptism lie there, the spelling of his surname being slightly altered: