nd Beautoy sometimes as de
bella fide, whereas foy is the Old French for beech, from Lat. fagus.
Napier of Merchiston had the motto n'a pier, "has no equal," and
described himself on title-pages as the Nonpareil, but his ancestor
was a servant who looked after the napery. With Holyoak's rendering
of his own name we may compare Parkinson's "latinization" of his name
in his famous book on gardening(1629), which bears the title Paradisi
in Sole Paradisus Terrestris, i.e. the Earthly Paradise of "Park in
Sun."

Many noble names have an anecdotic "explanation." I learnt at school
that Percy came from "pierce-eye," in allusion to a treacherous
exploit at Alnwick. The Lesleys claim descent from a hero who
overthrew a Hungarian champion

"Between the less lee and the Mair
He slew the knight and left him there."

(Quentin Durward, ch. xxxvii.)

Similarly, the great name of Courtenay, Courtney, of French local
origin, is derived in an Old French epic from court nez, short nose,
an epithet conferred on the famous Guillaume d'Orange, who, when the
sword of a Saracen giant removed this important feature, exclaimed
undauntedly--

"Mais que mon nes ai un poi acorcie,
Bien sai mes nons en sera alongie."

(Li Coronemenz Loois, 1. 1159.)

[Footnote: "Though I have my nose a little shortened, I know well that
my name will be thereby lengthened."]

I read lately in some newspaper that the original Lockhart took the
"heart" of the Bruce to the Holy Land in a "locked" casket.
Practically every famous Scottish name has a yarn connected with it,
the gem perhaps being that which accounts for Guthrie. A Scottish
king, it is said, landed weary and hungry as the sole survivor of a
shipwreck. He approached a woman who was gutting fish, and asked her
to prepare one for him. The kindly fishwife at once replied, "I'll
gut three." Whereupon the king, dropping into rime with a readiness
worthy of Mr. Wegg, said--

"Then gut three, Your name shall be," [Footnote added by scanner, who
has not read much of Dickens: Silas Wegg was a ready-witted character
in "Our Mutual Friend."]

and conferred a suitable estate on his benefactress.

After all, truth is stranger than fiction. There is quite enough
legitimate cause for wonderment in the fact that Tyas is letter for
letter the same name as Douch, or that Strangeways, from a district in
Manchester which, lying between the Irwell and the Irk, formerly
subject to floods, is etymological