"The effects of these efforts of the Governor of Khartoum is that a steamer can now go to Gondokoro in twenty-one days, whereas it took months formerly to perform the same journey."

burst the remaining part, and swept | Rome, a married woman is known by her down on the vessels, dragging them father's name; she cannot take the surdown some four miles, amidst (according name of her husband, because he has no to the Governor's account) hippopotami, surname for her to take. In all this we crocodiles, and large fish, some alive and are carried back to the days when the confounded, others dead or dying, the smallest man in Athens or Rome could fish being crushed by the floating masses. not call Perikles or Cæsar anything but One hippo was carried against the bows Perikles or Cæsar-nay more, when of the steamer and killed, and crocodiles he could not call Agaristê or Julia any35 ft. long were killed: the Governor, thing but Agaristê or Julia. At Rome, who was on the marsh, had to go five to be sure, there were little delicacies miles on a raft to get to the steamer. about the use of prænomen, nomen, and cognomen; while Perikles could be nothing but Perikles in the mouth of anybody, he whom the outer world called Cæsar would be known to an inner circle as Caius. So in the Universities a man is spoken to from the first moment of introduction by his cognomen, allowing for a few exceptional cases in which, owing to some special charm either in the man himself or in his prænomen, the prænomen is used instead. But Greeks, Romans, Icelanders, and undergraduates all agree in calling a man by nothing but one or other of his real names. Even in Iceland there are respectful ways of marking official rank, as when a man speaks to the Governor or the Bishop, but there is nothing like our fashion of putting a handle to the name of every

Colonel Gordon left Khartoum on March 21, and in his last letter from Fashoda, 10° N., he touches on some of the scenes on the banks of the rivers the storks, which he was in the habit of seeing arrive on the Danube in April, laying back their heads between their wings and clapping their backs in joy at their return to their old nests on the houses, now wild and amongst the crocodiles 2,000 miles away from Turkey; the monkeys coming down to drink at the edge of the river, with their long tails, like swords, standing stiff up over their backs; the hippos and the crocodiles.body. We use this last phase of set purSuch scenes to a lover of nature, as Col. Gordon is, doubtless would serve to make up in some measure for the loss of civilized society and comforts.

From The Saturday Review.
TITLES.

pose; people constantly say that such a man has got a title, that he has got a "handle to his name," when he is made anything which gives him a right to be called Sir or Lord. Grave heraldic authorities who write peerages and books of landed gentry, and people who write letters to explain how, though they are not peers, they are still noblemen, draw a distinction between "titled" and "un

66

IN the latter part of Mr. Bryce's ac-titled" nobility, or gentry, or whatever count of Iceland in the Cornhill Maga-word they choose to express that foreign zine* he gives a curious picture of a state thing which the law of England has alof society in which men who are perfect- ways so unkindly refused to acknowledge. ly civilized in their thoughts and manners When people say that the new lord or live in a physical condition not much baronet or knight has got a "title," or a above that of savages. And one feature handle," they forget that he has been of very primitive life they still keep in all called by a "title," or a handle," ever its fulness. They have hardly any sur- since the first time that his nurse spoke names, and they have no titles. A man of him as "Master Tommy," or perhaps is simply Sigurd; if you wish to distin- more familiarly as "Master Poppet." guish him from some other Sigurd, he is We are so much in the habit of giving Simply Sigurd Magnusson. If you go to everybody titles, just as we are so much a house, and wish to see its mistress, you in the habit of talking in prose, that we ask for nobody but plain Ingebiorg; or, have got to be as unconscious of the one if you wish to be formal, you do not call process as of the other. We are so conher Lady or Mrs., but only Ingebiorg stantly in the habit of giving everybody Sigurdsdottir. For in Iceland, as in old the titles of Mr., Mrs., Miss, or Master, that we forget that all these are titles, and we fency that no one bears a title but

* LIVING AGE, No. 5-7

tinguishes all of us from the Greek, the Roman, and the Icelander, the shrinking from calling a man by his name and nothing else. It never came into the head of an Athenian or a Roman to speak of a man as Citizen Perikles, or Citizen Cæsar, though there would really have been more sense in so doing than there was among the French Republicans, for no Athenian or Roman had declared that all men were equal, and the title of citizen might have expressed the very wide distinction between the member of the rul

those who are called Lord, Lady, or Sir. less a title-indeed, according to our In fact, the smaller every-day titles are showing, it was much more of a title more strictly and purely titles than the than if he had been called Duke of Montothers, because they are mere titles, morency. A man was not to be called while the others are in most cases titles Monsieur, but he was to be called Ciand something more. Duke, Earl, toyen; but Citoyen expressed, just as Bishop, are not mere titles; they wear much as Monsieur, the feeling which disbadges of actual rank; they are originally and still to some extent, descriptions of office. But we call people Mr. and Mrs., not to express rank or office, but simply to avoid what passes for the undue familiarity of calling them, in Greek or Icelandic fashion, simple John and Mary. The custom undoubtedly came in through the use of official descriptions. A man was called John the Earl, or Peter the Bishop, or anything else, greater or smaller, to mark him off from those Johns or Peters who held some other office or no office at all. The official descriptioning commonwealth and the member of easily slides into the title used, not merely to describe office, but to express respect. But, as long as the description marks out any definite office, or even any definite rank, it is not a mere title; it really serves to point out what the man is, and not merely to avoid the necessity of calling him by his simple Christian to as Smith becomes Mr. Smith in a or surname. If John Churchill is Duke of Marlborough, we call him Duke of Marlborough, not merely to avoid calling him John Churchill, but to express the fact that he is Duke of Marlborough. But if John Churchill is nothing but John Churchill, and we call him Mr. John Churchill, we do so, not to express any fact at all, but merely to avoid the seeming rudeness of calling him simply John Churchill. Thus the Icelander recognizes the official rank of the Governor and the Bishop, only he differs from us in holding that plain Sigurd and Ingebiorg have no need to be called anything but Sigurd and Ingebiorg.

any of the inferior classes, from the mere slave up to the Latin or the Plataian. And even in those cases where intimate friendship or any other ground causes men to speak of one another simply by their names, it is only done privately and among equals. The man whom we speak

speech or an article, and in the like sort the undergraduate, to whom Smith is Smith from the very beginning, speaks of Mr. Smith either to his tutor or to his scout. Thus, even when we go furthest in dropping titles, we do not dare to drop them altogether; we have not got back to the stage of talking of Perikles and Sigurd at all times and to all persons. There is indeed one exception, though not in our own country. He who finds himself reviewed in a German periodical enjoys the privilege of being praised or blamed by his simple surname and nothing else. And it might be well to set up an icororeia, an interchange of privilege, in this matter. If for no other cause, yet for this, that, as the German and the Englishman, if they try their hand at any kind of title, are sure to miscall one another, a good deal of inaccuracy is saved if they agree to call one another by no title at all.

In this way it is plain that the "untitled classes" are really those who are most truly titled, those to whom titles are most habitually given simply as titles and for no other reason. All Europe, except the happy Icelanders, conforms to the fashion, and there seems no great likelihood that the rest of Europe will go There is something in our received back to the simpler practice of one un-system of titles, great and small, which sophisticated island. How deeply em- seems very puzzling to men of all other bedded the practice is in all modern nations. The Baronet or Knight and the habits of thought is shown by the fact Esquire seem ve that when the first French Republicans is stratre tyear, nor NG AGE itle of " mysterious beings. It Sir," in its determined to abolish titles, all that they origin with another per ench, should have bedid was to abolish the old titles, and to invent a new title of their own. When a man was called Citizeno do andituta cuecks

come one getting up a
by post-office mo purely English that

no Fstered letter. Aln understand it. We
cuspeney-orders should makes our titles so

Besides the substantive title or description, there is the honorary adjective and the honorary periphrasis. These are much older than mere titles; they are as old as Homer. What our modern rules have done is simply to stiffen them, so that everybody knows exactly which to apply to everybody. But it is odd how the substantives and adjectives got confounded, as if they were things of the same kind which excluded one another. It is now thought vulgar to call a privy councillor or a peer's son "Hon." or

66

puzzling to Frenchmen is their variety. | Baronet," as his description, and wait for An Englishman's description may begin other people to give him the title of Sir? in twenty different ways; a Frenchman's description always begins in one way. An Englishman may be Lord, Sir, Colonel, Doctor, plain "Mr."; a Frenchman is always "Monsieur." He may be plain letter " M.," or he may be "M. le Duc;" but he is "M." in every case. Then the Esquire outrages the feelings of the whole human race by sticking his title after his name instead of before it. This no foreigner can allow. A Frenchman must indeed be familiar with English ways to keep himself from putting "M. John Smith, Esq." You may write" Right Hon. A. B., Esquire." It was the down your description in full in your own right thing early in the last century. hand, but the "M." is sure to appear in And the older usage was more rational. the address of the letter which your for- A peer's son is an Esquire; Esquire" eign friend writes to you. His feeling is, is therefore his proper description; he is "Vous êtes trop modeste," as an English- also entitled to the complimentary adjecman is sometimes told when he begs tive "Honourable." The substantive earnestly not to be called "Milord." and the adjective in no way exclude one The truth is that the style of the Esquire another. One might make a long list of is altogether anomalous. It is stuck usages in the way of titles which are abafter the name and not before, because surd and nngrammatical; as, for instance, it is not really a title, but a description. the last new piece of affectation, "The A. B. is described as Esquire, as another Reverend the Honourable A. B.," which man may be described as Knight, Clerk seems to have just displaced "The Hon-anything down to Labourer. The de- ourable and Reverend A. B.," which is scription of "A. B., Esquire," is, in fact, grammatical and intelligible. But it is the remnant of the oldest formula of all, enough to point out the crowning ab"Cnut Cyning," "Harold Eorl," and the surdity of such phrases as "Her Malike, which survives, or did survive a jesty," "Her Majesty the Queen," and few years back, when visitors to Blen- the like. They are vulgar corruptions of heim are called on to look at the portrait the fine old formula "the Queen's Maand exploits of "John Duke." By some jesty." When the King, Prince, Duke, odd freak, this kind of description goes or other exalted person has once been on in any mention of an Esquire which is described it is sense and grammar to go in the least degree formal, though col- on speaking of "his Majesty," "his loquially he is spoken of by the "Mr." Highness," "his Grace ; " but it is clearly which it would be thought disrespectful ungrammatical to talk of "his Majesty" to put on the outside of a letter. The peasant who talks about Squire Tomkins is far more consistent. Then again this description of "Esquire," a mere description and no title, is, oddly enough, just the thing which a man avoids calling himself. It has an odd look when a sheriff, signing an official paper, signs "A. B., Esquire," and it has an odd sound when a magistrate qualifying describes himself as "A. B., Esquire." From these difficulties, and from these Whether a Sheriff who is a Baronet courtly vulgarisms, men were of old free should sign himself, as he commonly at Athens, and they are still free in Icedoes, "Sir A. B., Baronet," we doubt.

when nothing has gone before for "his" to refer to. And "Her Majesty the Queen," can all the heralds in the land parse these words? When Charles the First greeted Laud on his highest promotion with the words "My Lord's Grace of Canterbury, you are welcome," he spoke the King's English; but "His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury" is simple gibberish.

1. MR. BROWNING'S PLACE IN LITERATURE,. Contemporary Review,.

II. ALICE LORRAINE A Tale of the South

Downs. Part V., .

Blackwood's Magazine,

Temple Bar,

PLANTS,

Saturday Journal,

:

POETRY.

66 ON THE CLIFF,

. 66

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