As St. Clair becomes Sinclair, and St. Maur Seymour, and Maurice itself Morris, so St. John, in pronunciation though not in orthography, has "suffered a sea-change into something new and strange;" becoming dissociated from religious ideas in Bolingbroke, and allied to a contemptible jeu de mots in Dr. St. John Long, whose caustic and scarifying remedies, some thirty years ago, must have caused his afflicted patients to note the singular congruity of the physician's name with his mode of treatment. St. Simon, again, as we meet it in France, as little suggests the devotional origin of the surname as that of Bolingbroke in England. To take one or two other French examples: St. Priest, or Prix, is derived from S. Prætextatus, Archbishop of Rouen, whose feast is celebrated on the 24th of February. In our own day we have had Marshal Saint-Arnaud in the Crimea, and Count Saint-Aulaire as a diplomatist and historical writer. But if we went into the past, we should soon exceed our limits. A French biographical dictionary-that of Chaudon and Delandine-gives us more than seventy distinct family names of this kind. Of these we will only mark one, as having lost its original meaning, like so many among ourselves. Seneterre is a well-known name in French history; but it is, in fact, Saint Nectaire, corrupted first into Senectaire, then into its present form.

Coming back to England, we may remark on St. Liz, as an ancient Northamptonshire family, one of whom, Simon de St. Liz, built the castles of Northampton and Fotheringay. Who shall forbid us to suppose that Merriman, which has come to suggest far different associations, was originally a name of devotion, as a corruption of Mary-man, and indicating a devout client of our Lady? Certain it is, that " marry, the common adjuration or exclamation of our forefathers, as in marry, come up! was a corruption of our Lady's name; as the marygold was a flower so called in her honour.

دو

But it is in the land of the Celt that we meet with surnames of devotion at every turn. And this is a subject so interesting, especially from the antiquity of the materials which might be brought to exemplify it, as to make us regret that no eminent Celtic scholar has undertaken the task. It might well have employed the research of the lamented Eugene O'Curry, and would, we think, receive valuable illustrations from among the kindred races of Wales and Cornwall. We will here only draw attention to two classes of Celtic surnames, the one commencing with Mul (anciently Mael or Moel), the other with Gil.

Both are surnames of devotion. The first implies, if we are not mistaken, one who is tonsured, or wears a cowl, from

veneration to a particular Saint. Thus, among the ancient Bishops of Armagh, we find (though, in their case, as Christian names) Moelcoba Mac-Crunnvail, Mael-brigid, Moelathgen, and Moelkieran. Two of these names, at least, are intelligible even to the casual reader, implying devotion to SS. Brigid and Kieran. Not less plain is Maelmurry, as a client of our Lady; and he, by the way, was no ecclesiastic, but a stalwart warrior, who, with aid of the Danes of Dublin, compelled Donogh, King of Leinster, to resign his crown to him, at the end of the tenth century. Another contemporary hero of like designation was Maelseachlain, second of the name, who was compelled to yield the monarchy of Ireland to Brian Boroimhe. His name implies one who was tonsured, or cowled, in honour of S. James. Other instances might be quoted, the ancestors of the Mulhollands, Mulvanys, Mulcahys, Mulrennans of today. But one we will not pass over; because it would seem to open another field of inquiry. Dr. Lanigan, in his "Ecclesiastical History of Ireland" (i. 470), gives us Maelgwn or Maglocun, as prince of North Wales, and afterwards "King of all the Britons," in the sixth century. It would be interesting to know whether other Celtic names uow commencing with Mac or M', and therefore seemingly mere patronymics, may not be corruptions from words of a similar devotional meaning.

Coming to the other prefix, Gil, we recognize it more easily as meaning a servant; and, in this devotional sense, a servant of God and of the Saints. Most of our readers are probably familiar with the term gilly, applied to a shooting attendant on the Scotch moors; and no visitor to Killarney is unacquainted with MacGillicuddy's Reeks. Gille MacLiag, successor of S. Malachy in the see of Armagh, though Latinized into Gelasius (a bathos indeed), certainly derives the first part of his name from devotion. The curious thing is, that the latter part has no reference to religion at all; and means only (by different interpretations) the son of the scholar, or poet, or physician. But this only makes the example more interesting, and not less germane to our purpose. For either the "Gilla" belonged to this bishop before his consecration, or was assumed after. In the first case, it may have meant that he was a servant of God, though the sacred name was, perhaps out of reverence, unexpressed; which was not the case in another devotional name, Gilchreest, or Gilchrist, nor in that of the Culdees, or Coli-dei, a Deo colendo. In the second case, it might imply that the bishop was then more strictly bound than ever to the Divine service; or it may have been

used in the sense in which our Holy Father calls himself Servus servorum Dei.

Mac-giolla-Padraig was Prince of Ossory in the tenth century. There can be no doubt of the latter part of his name being devotional, but we hardly know why Lanigan (iii. 391) simply Englishes him into Fitzpatrick. We should have thought him "the son of S. Patrick's servant;" implying not so much his own devotion as that of his father or ancestor. If Lanigan is right, as so great an authority is likely to be, he seems to answer a question we raised a few moments ago; and we are, so far, at liberty to interpret what might appear patronymics, as names of devotion. Macbride is a surname with which we should at all events have used that freedom, considering the wide-spread devotion to the great S. Brigid of Kildare, which extends from "the steeple of S. Bride's in Fleet Street," and the neighbouring Bride-well, to the most distant parts of Scotland; as witness Kirkcudbright and the Hebrides, Hy-brides, or Brigid's Islands.

We have not had an opportunity of seeing the works consulted by Mr. Ferguson, the titles of which he gives as prefacing his own. We cannot, therefore, say how far they may bear out his one-sided theory. But for ourselves, and in the interests of literature and archæology, we desiderate a work that shall give fair allowance to other sources for our surnames than the Teuton, the whole Teuton, and nothing but the Teuton. We would fain listen to an author who will forbear to metamorphose the lingering remains which seem to witness for the original Celtic population in England; and not ignore, to the extent to which Mr. Ferguson ignores, either the Rome of religion in such names as sprang from her system, or the Rome of letters in such dialects as were refracted and pieced together from her ancient tongue.

372

ART. V.-UNIVERSITY EDUCATION FOR ENGLISH

CATHOLICS.

University Education for English Catholics.

A Letter to the Very Rev. J. H. Newman, D.D. By a Catholic Layman. London: Burns & Lambert.

E are earnestly at issue with this "Catholic layman," both on his main practical conclusion, and also on various opinions which he has incidentally expressed; but we are on that account the more desirous of bearing express testimony to the temperate and Christian tone in which he has written. There are no traces in his pamphlet of bitterness or sarcasm, nor any ad captandum protests against narrowness and "bigotry": he rests his whole case on argument alone. Further, he implies throughout (and this is the most important point of all in a Catholic controversialist) that the question which he treats is one for the ecclesiastical authorities to decide peremptorily and without appeal. On our side we fully confess that these authorities have not yet spoken; and we infer that, before doing so, they are not unwilling to hear the whole question fairly and patiently argued out. We propose, under such circumstances, to take our own humble share in this momentous argument. A full discussion, indeed, of the matter would occupy a volume; if it is to be discussed in a review at all, it must be discussed piecemeal : and our obvious way, therefore, on the present occasion, will be to attempt little more than a reply to the writer before us. Our argument shall be mainly ad hominem :-"If your premisses be admitted, your conclusion should be the very opposite to that which you advocate." And to make clear at starting the precise point at issue, we will here mention that our author's proposal is the establishment of a Catholic College at Oxford University.

It is a pleasure to state that on the most fundamental principles which affect the subject, we are in entire agreement with this "Catholic layman." He follows Father Newman

in holding that—

Religious Truth is not only a portion, but a condition, of general knowledge. It is of unutterable importance and supreme influence in its bearing on other branches of knowledge (p. 31). I have not the least intention (he tells us) of saying a word or indulging a thought in favour of an education deprived

of the light of faith and the guidance of the Church. The education in a Catholic College at Oxford would not be confined to religious instruction. . . but would embrace the entire secular as well as religious training (p. 41). What we require is . . . that whilst every branch of secular education is accurately and fully investigated, the science of Christian truth should be cultivated with not less accuracy and fulness. . . Of the bearings of theology upon other branches of knowledge and of those other branches of knowledge upon theology, it is absolutely necessary that the rising generation should be taught far more fully than has hitherto been thought necessary for laymen, or even for ecclesiastics (p. 47).

We cannot regard a writer as our opponent with whom we so cordially sympathize on the ends to be pursued, widely as we may differ from him on the proper means of pursuing them.

For ourselves, we incline to fear that any satisfactory solution of the great problem before us, is just at the present moment hampered by practical difficulties. But if we could take so sanguine a view as this writer takes of the personnel which is now at the disposal of our Episcopate, we should humbly submit that the full time has come in which, not his scheme, but a scheme directly inconsistent with his, might at once be started with the greatest possible advantage to English Catholics. He takes for granted that there would be no difficulty whatever in obtaining at once a superior and a staff of teachers, who, on the one hand, should possess the full confidence of our ecclesiastical superiors, and, on the other hand, should be capable of adequately fulfilling those most solemn and responsible duties which he assigns to them. He admits fully that "hardly is there to be found any atmosphere more powerful than that of the two [English Protestant] Universities to transform and to assimilate those who may live in it to its own properties" (p. 19); but the Catholic teachers of his College will be fully competent, he expects, to protect their pupils from all taint of the surrounding pestilence.* They will have sufficiently powerful and creative minds to introduce a totally new idea into that inveterately Protestant institution, Oxford University, and "make the Catholic religion the basis of" its "collegiate system" (p. 33). "The whole training of the students" is to be "in their hands" (ibid.). They will be fully competent "for the formation of character, intellectual and moral, for the cultivation of the mind, for the improvement of the individual, for the study of literature, for the classics, and those rudimental sciences which strengthen and sharpen the intellect" (p. 34). They will be

* "Cadent a latere tuo mille, et decem millia a dexteris tuis, ad te autem non appropinquabit."