upon British Ethnology. 215
have arrived at some form but slightly susceptible of modifi-
cation. For example, I have seen the well-known Graham
spelt in documents of various ages as Graine, Graeme, Greyme,
and Grahme. Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian surnames
have, on the whole, been little altered in course of time, but
Celtic names on the one hand, and those introduced by the
Normans and Huguenots on the other, must often have been
so Anglicised as to leave no traces of their origin at the pre-
sent day. No doubt shortly after the Norman Conquest the
tendency among landowners may have been towards the
Normanization of surnames, but the surnames of the swarm
of Norman artisans, and others of the lower social grades,
must, in the majority of cases, have speedily become more
English in form. But we know more of what actually oc-
curred in the case of the Huguenots. Mr. Smiles tells us of
many instances in which Huguenot churches established in
various localities were closed in the next generation from
want of members, one of these being at Thorpe-le-Soken in
Essex. Old members died, and the young did not fill their
places, being desirous to identify themselves with the nation
in whose land they had settled. From a sermon by Mr.
Bourdillon, minister of the Artillery Church in Spitalfields,
preached in 1782, we learn that at the time of his appoint-
ment, fifty years before, there were twenty flourishing French
churches in London. In. 1782 nine of them had been closed,
and the remaining eleven were hastening to their end. Of
the original French surnames of the members of these once
numerous congregations but few now exist, the great majority
having been Anglicised in a variety of ways. Thus while
D'Aeth has become Death; Bouchier, Butcher; and Bour-
geois, Burgess; L'Oiseau has been translated into Bird, Le
Jeune into Young, Le Noir into Black, Le Boy into King,
and Le Fevre into Smith. Again, Dieudonne has been altered
into Dudney, Brasseur into Brassey, and De Moulins into
Mullins. Many other examples might be given, but the above
are enough to illustrate the processes of conversion.
After a careful consideration of the evidence bearing upon
the question, Dr. Beddoe is inclined to consider that the