The Alleghanian. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1859-1865, 1863-07-30


1t is a vulgar notion that some names
are necessarily noble and romantic, while
others are necessarily mean and base
Names are beautiful only in associations.
Worth, valor, genius, learning, have con-
verted syllables into poems, and words
into histories.
Look the British Peeragc through, and
in that bright list there is, perhaps, not
one which does not seem to the eye and
imagination picturesque. Yet, in their
beginning most Of them had nothing in
sound or spelling that could be considered
glorious. Howard is a Hogward; Sey-
mour is tailor; Leicester is a weaver
Percy is a gross fellow; Butler is cellar
man; Stewart is domestic servant. Vaen,
We're, HYDE and Pole sound the reverse Of
heroic. Hay is not intrinsically nob.ef
than straw. How is it, then, that Hay
has come to represent the pink Of aristoc,
racy, Straw the lowest OF vulgar cheats T
Simply by association. Would the com.
plainants like to have been originally
called Blunt, Craven, or Gore? There is
nothing in Grey more attracting than
Brown, as to either sound or letters; In.
deed, Grey is shade or SO less vigorous
than its rival Brown. Would any one
like to have been known as Roper or Tou-
chet, if these familiar names had never
been immortalized by worthy deeds? We
do not know that Gimlet has more fa-
miliar look than Bacon, Petty, Peel, and
Pitt. Yet these have become by associa-
tion some of the most reyerentiai and
gracious of English names. Milton, Sack
vile and Shelley are not necessarily
aristocratic and poetical. Had they not
been glorifed by genius and by rank. they
would perhaps have been included in Mr..
Buggv's list. Churchhill, Fuller, Kidd,
Quarles, Dome, Bawles, Savage, Quincy,
and Dickens, now household words, borne
by some of the choicest of our national
poets and humorists, would certainly have
been so. Not much better as to sound are
Cowper, Lamb, and Bulwer. People used
to laugh and joke with Cecil. Talbot and
Talmash would be considered vulgar. Ev-
cry one considers Raleigh a romantic
name, but in Sir Walters time it was open
to very bad puns. The same with Drake.
Coke, too, would be thought low, had It
never been illuminated by the author of
the 'Institutes," and the owner of Holk.
ham. In the absence of Sir Christopher
would Mr.. Tigg like to have been called
WrenI Had there been no eruGite giant
of that name, would not Cheeke have been
voted intolerable? In truth, scarcely any
thing depends on the letter, everything on
the connexion of ideas. Solomon was the
wisest Of men, and his name is one Of the
noblest in literature yet no prudent faith
er, unless he were Jew, would give it 70
his child, because in the present genera
ton it happens to be ludicrously associated
with old clothes. In its Saracenic form
of Solymah, it would still be considered
magnificent. a current jest will destroy
the picturesque beauty OF the most famous
names; living Pompey would be set
down as nigger, living Caesar treated
as a dog. Cymon is name which would
attract the female eye, and, perhaps, even
reconcile it to the adjunct Smyth. Mrs.
Cymon Smyth would have an air upon .
card. But the feminine instinct would
recoil from Simon. AnG why the differ
ence? Is it not because Cymon is sssoc:.
ated with Iphigcuia, and Simon with tha'
Simpleton who met pieman coming from
a fair! One of the Objectionable names,
to remove which from the face of the
earth all gods and men are called to aid;
is Villain. Yet the heHogwards and Stywards'
were all villains and one Of the proudest'
houses of Europe, that of Count Villain;
the Fourteenth, rejoiees in tho obdoxious
name.