hat it appears by various documents of the times which I have
seen, that persons were at a loss how to write their own names, and most
certainly have written them variously. I have sometimes suspected that
estates may have been lost, and descents confounded, by such uncertain
and disagreeing signatures of the same person. In a late suit respecting
the Duchess of Norfolk's estate, one of the ancestors has his name
printed _Higford_, while in the genealogy it appears _Hickford_. I think
I have seen Ben _Jonson's_ name written by himself with an _h_; and
_Dryden_ made use of an _i_. I have seen an injunction to printers with
the sign-manual of Charles II., not to print Samuel _Boteler_ esquire's
book or poem called Hudibras, without his consent; but I do not know
whether Butler thus wrote his name. As late as in 1660, a Dr. _Crovne_
was at such a loss to have his name pronounced rightly, that he tried
six different ways of writing it, as appears by printed books; Cron,
Croon, Crovn, Crone, Croone, and Crovne; all of which appear under his
own hand, as he wrote it differently at different periods of his life.
In the subscription book of the Royal Society he writes _W. Croone_, but
in his will at the Commons he signs _W. Crovne_. _Ray_ the naturalist
informs us that he first wrote his name _Wray_, but afterwards omitted
the _W_. Dr. _Whitby_, in books published by himself, writes his name
sometimes _Whiteby_. And among the Harleian Manuscripts there is a large
collection of letters, to which I have often referred, written between
1620 and 1630, by Joseph _Mead_; and yet in all his printed letters, and
his works, even within that period, it is spelt _Mede_; by which
signature we recognise the name of a learned man better known to us: it
was long before I discovered the letter-writer to have been this
scholar. Oldys, in some curious manuscript memoirs of his family, has
traced the family name through a great variety of changes, and sometimes
it is at such variance that the person indicated will not always appear
to have belonged to the family. We saw recently an advertisement in the
newspapers offering five thousand pounds to prove a marriage in the
family of the Knevetts, which occurred about 1633. What most
disconcerted the inquirers is their discovery that the family name was
written in six or seven different ways: a circumstance which I have no
doubt will be found in most family names in England. Fuller mentions
that the nam