A DEPRECATION

OF THE NAME OF JOHN.

FREELY RENDERED FROM THE ORIGINAL ITALIAN-BY A SUFFERER.

[Giovanni de la Casa, afterwards Archbishop of Benevento, was one of the wits of Italy in the sixteenth century, and author of the famous treatise on good-breeding, entitled Galateo, is the writer of the following witticism. The name of John in Italian (Giovanni) shortens into Gian and Gianni, the sounds of which are nearly identical with those of our own John and Johnny; a circumstance which helps to maintain the integrity of the banter in English.

The extreme popularity of this name in the first instance, (owing, doubtless, to a cause too reverend to be mentioned here,) rendered it at length the most trivial of appellations, and degraded it into connection with every species of familiar or despised object,―Jack-ass, Jack-pudding, Jack boot;—John-a-Nokes, and John-aStiles, &c. It would be easy to vindicate, in a counter set of verses, the dignity of a name associated with some of the greatest of men ;—but it is one of the privileges of a caricature to be allowed to have its own way, and assume that it is literally true, precisely because it is not so.

De la Casa's banter is so pleasant, that we wish we could have given an idea of it throughout; but some of its allusions would fail in English, from difference of customs. We have, therefore, omitted a few lines. The original is in terza rima, or what may be called the chain measure of Dante, of which the middle verse of one triplet rhymes with the first and third of the next; a system which does not suit English versification, indeed, to our ear, any other.]

S'io avessi manco quindici o vent'anni,
Messer Gandolfo, io mi sbattezzerei,
Per non aver mai più nome Giovanni;
Perch' io non posso andar pe' fatti miei,
No partirmi di qui per ir si presso,

Ch'io nol senta chiamar da cinque o sei, &c.

Were I some fifteen years younger, or twenty,
Master Gandolfo, I'd unbaptize myself,
On purpose not to be called John. I never
Can do a single thing in the way of business,
Nor set out fast enough from my own door,
But half a dozen people are calling after me;
Though, when I turn, it isn't me; such crowds
Are issuing forth, named John, at the same moment.

'Tis an express insult; a mere public scandal.
Clergymen, lawyers, pedants,-not a soul,
But his name's John. You shall not see a face,

Looking like what it is, a simpleton's,

Barber's, porkman's, or tooth-drawer's,-but the fellow
Seems by his look to be a John,-and is one!

I verily think, that the first man who cried

Boil'd apples or maccaroni, was a John;
And so was he who found out roasted chestnuts,
And how to eat cucumbers, and new cheese.

By heavens! I'd rather be a German; nay,
I'd almost said a Frenchman; nay, a Jew,
And be called Matthew, or Bartholomew,

Or some such beast,-or Simon. Really, people

Who christen people, ought to pause a little,

And think what they're about.-O, you who love me,
Don't call me John, for God's sake; or at least,

If you must call me so, call it me softly;

For as to mentioning the name out loud,
You might as well call after one like a dog,-

Whistle, and snap your fingers, and cry "Here, boy."

Think of the name of John upon a title-page!

It damns the book at the first sight; and reasonably
People no sooner see it, than they conclude
They've read the work before.-Oh, I must say
My father made a pretty business of it
Calling me John! me, 'faith-his eldest son!
Heir to his-poverty! Why, there's not a writ,
But, nine times out of ten, is served on John,
And what still more annoys me, not a bill:
Your promiser to pay is always John.

In the course of a peripatetic excursion through the south-western provinces of England, I found myself slowly pacing the summit of the rough cliffs that fringe the British coast. I had been walking since daybreak-it was then high noon-and I had partaken of no refreshment, save a draught of milk which I had purchased from an old crone in the precincts of the bleak and romantic Dartmoor, whose gloomy mazes I had since been threading with persevering industry. A small bundle, consisting of a change of linen tied up in a handkerchief, was fastened to the end of a tough oak stick, and slung over my shoulder. I had kept on my solitary march till my onward progress was stopped by the table land terminating in a precipitous cliff, at whose feet the sluggish waves of the channel stream were lazily beating.

I gazed anxiously around. I was alone. The gentle rippling of the sea could not be heard in the altitude of my position; the clouds sailed along the sky, and the wild birds flew past me as I gazed-not a sign of humanity could I perceive, except the distant ships as they glided slowly on their way. After some little wandering to and fro, I observed a scarcely discernible path along the edge of the cliff. Turning to the right, at a venture, I followed the sinuosities of this footway for a considerable distance without seeing either a public or private house, or any thing in the shape of

man.

Fatigued and footsore, I crept down a long and dangerous flight of steps rudely cut in the rocky cliff, and descended to the beech, intending to doff my shoes and stockings, and wash my blistered feet-a luxury that every pedestrian can appreciate, and peculiarly grateful after the long and harassing walk into which I had unconsciously been betrayed. My little allowance of luggage was placed in a snug nook or cleft in the rock, and, sitting down on the shingle stones of the beach, I proceeded to put my intentions into execution; when looking up, I saw my bundle in the hands of a tall, hard featured man, dressed in loose shaggy trowsers, an immense pea jacket, and tarpaulin hat. As he turned round to answer my hail, the butts of more than one pair of pistols were visible in his belt, and I heard his cutlass jingle against the rock. The suddenness of his presence and the ferocity of his appearance

"

rather startled me, but I put on an air of resolution as I hobbled over the loose stones, barefooted, and said, with a big voice

"Hallo, there! What are you doing with my bundle ?"

The man civilly touched his hat, and quietly said, Preventive service, sir." I knew at once what he meant, and wondered at my stupidity in not having perceived it from the first. I ought to have recollected that bands of armed sailors were placed along the coast of England for the prevention of smuggling, and that the rough visaged tar was merely fulfilling his duty in turning over my half-dozen shirts and stockings to see that laces and silks of French manufacture were not concealed in their involutions.

He finished his search, and, tying up my bundle carefully, gave it me back with a sort of apologizing grin.

"From whence did you come upon me so abruptly?" said I.

Turning an enormous quid of tobacco in his still more enormous mouth, he pointed to a gully or ravine, worn by the rains in their course from the upland, and in whose recesses he had doubtless been concealed. "Am I near any town or village?"

He spoke not, but gave his huge head, whiskers, tarpaulin, and quid, a negative shake. "Is there any public house or tavern in the neighborhood where I can procure refreshment ?"

He pointed the course I had been pursuing, and merely said "Two miles." I was about to ask him farther particulars, and why he was so short in his replies, when he touched his hat, and sprung lightly up the steps in the cliff which I had found so difficult to descend.

Before the expiration of the hour, I was seated at the door of a rude hostelry, known by the sign of the White Horse. In every village or hamlet in England, the White Horse is sure to be the most conspicuous, and frequently, the only sign, unless a retired butler or footman from "the great house” in the neighborhood has ventured to establish an opposition tavern by the road side, and exhibit to the gaze of the wondering ploughman, a sign post covered with gaudy hieroglyphs, intending to represent the coat of arms of the landlord's former master. But the White Horse is the predominant device, and doubtless has retained its popularity from the days of the Heptarchy, when the banners of the Saxons, with a white horse conspicuously emblazoned, "flouted all the land."

The establishment in question was a pot-house or hedge ale-house of the poorest description; a sanded parlor, and a small nook that served for bar and kit.

chen, were the only rooms below, with the exception of a pig stye, which seemed, from the noise, to be well tenanted. Two chambers up stairs constituted the remainder of the building; of one of these rooms, really neat and clean in its appointments, I was inducted possessor, when I inquired for a night's accommodation.

The "bubbling cry" of some eggs and bacon, which the hostess was frying for my dinner," came o'er mine ear like the sweet south, stealing and giving odor." The landlord assisted me to discuss a second mug of home-brewed, which he recommended as a capital thing after a long walk over the hills. There was nothing of the usual characteristics of mine host about him; he was meagre-visaged and long-bodied, with a pair of the shortest legs that ever were attached to the human frame. His arms were also ridiculously short, and as he spoke, he gesticulated violently, swinging about his stumpy limbs, and twisting his long body into every possible position. His clothes were ragged and threadbare-his manners were a mixture of excessive civility, (I had almost said servility,) and an occasional assumption of consequencea sort of patronizing air, that scarcely assimilated with the poverty of his appearance and the insignificance of his domicile. The ale had opened the floodgates of his eloquence, and I had merely to direct its course. There was nothing of the twang of the western dialect in his speech; indeed, he seemed to have more of the provincial cockney than the bumpkin in his formation.

"What is the name of your village, landlord?” "Don't call me landlord. I don't own no land, and I'm no lord. Things ought to be called by their right names, don't you see, my dear sir; so don't call this place a willage, 'cause it a'n't one We're just nothing with no name, not even a hamlet. I doubt if we have spirit enough to rank as Hamlet's ghost."

"No name?"

“No, sir; none, sir. Bad thing that, sir, werry. It is known as the Fish Shops all about here, but that's no name at all. We don't sell no fish to nobody, 'cause nobody never catches more nor he wants, and if he did, nobody never comes from nowhere to buy none."

"How then do the inhabitants live?"

"Live? my good fellow, say-exist; and that is just as much as a man can expect when there's such an abundance of popperlation. It's a ruining the country and filling up of foreign parts."

"Plenty of smuggling about here, I suppose ?"

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Why, yes, thank God, we do do a deal in that line. But it's hard work, werry-trotting half a dozen miles up them hills with a couple of tubs over your shoulders, or a bale of dry on your noddle-puffing and running all night, with a chance of being nibbled by the prewentive, and all for such a little-robbing the crown for the sake of two-and-sixpence. In the good old times we used to get four shillings a trip, and no prewentives. All owing to the extra popperlation. Bad thing, that-werry."

“Farming! lor' bless you, nothing but grazing sheep on the downs here. Nothing grows here but mutton and popperlation-and them things is naturally connected. So many more men, so much more mutton. Not that I grumble-some of the sheep tumbles over the cliffs sometimes on a dark night, and them as finds the corpse is found in meat for a month, not to say nothing of the skin, which makes a werry warm blanket when the smell goes off, werry. And if some of the sheeps is shoved over on purpose, it's nobody's business if nobody knows on it."

"Have you no other resources?"

We do but poorly in the summer, certainly; but a man don't want to eat in hot weather. A pint of ale and a pipe of 'backer is as much as a reasonable living being ought to look for in the dog days. In winter it's different, 'cause you want substantials to keep the cold out of your innerds, and 'backer smoke is werry windy work to face a nor'-wester on, werry. In spring and autumn, we do catch just fish enough to serve us fresh, but not enough to salt down-and no great harm neither, 'cause we've no salt, never, and none grows about here. Well, you see, in the winter, we get a werry tidy share of wrecks, werry. If you search the shore from St. Albans Head to Deadman's Point, you can't find a nicer place than this for a wessel to go ashore. Beautiful rocks, indeed-seems made for it a purpose."

"Are there many wrecks upon this coast?" said I.

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'Lor' bless you, you are unaccountable ignorant, werry. There's floating lights moored off our coast a few miles to the westerd, to tell captains where the way lays to get to harbor. So we ties a large lantern about the neck of our pony, and slings up his near fore foot to make him pitch in his walk, and then we gently parades him over the beach on a werry dark night, and the stumbling of the animal and the swinging of the lantern makes it look as if it was fixed to a hull what's tossed by the waves. So if the captains of the wessels a'n't quite right in their reckoning, they comes straight up to the light, and gets too near the rocks to get back again. That little pony drawed us more wrecks than--"

Waluable, indeed! There's a frigate off the pint, yonder, a receiving ship for the prewentive men; and no sooner is a ship ashore, than out comes all the king's sailors and takes our hard earnings out of our werry mouths. One lovely stormy night, we was a walking the pony, when they circumwented us and stole the animal. Great loss, werry. All owing to the quantity of popperlation-if there wasn't so many "Is there much farming done in the neighbor- sailors, there wouldn't be no prewentive men to interhood?"

fere with our lawful rights."

"Were many bodies washed ashore from the wrecks | palace of luxury and wealth. The most povertyof last year?"

Pray, is not murder likely to be an occasional | place?" attendant on such conduct?"

"How do you dispose of the proceeds of your traffic, and condemned by the proper authorities to be felony ?"

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