It a man takes up any list of ordinary English names and then compares them with a list of French names he passes from bare and uncouth prose to delicate rhythmic cal poetry. Suppose, for example, he reads down the division list the Parliamentary papers and then reads through the names of the men who took the famous oath of the tennis court, he sees at once with what an advantage a Frenehman starts in life, The map of England is full of beautiful and haunting names, but they are not borne by Englishmen, whereas Frenchmen call themselves by names graceful and tender as those by which they call their villages and rs. How many a man whose name is Smith must have felt that had been called Mirabeau or Lamartine or Boissy d'Anglas oF Puvis de Ohavannes nothing on earth could have kept his native distinction under the cloud that has unfortunately enveloped it. To all the victims of this sense of wrong Sir William Bragg has sent a message that will make new men of them, He has explained why there are so many Smiths, and the explanation is entirely to the credit of the name, There arq very few Spinners and Weavers because in early society most people did their own spinning and weaving. There:]was no distinction about it, The smith was a different fellow. He was the great craftsman who made your tools and, not less important, Your weapons. "He had all the qua-Iitfes that give a man power—know. ledge, skill, strength, and an atmos phere of mystery which made him not a bit less romantic than the most chivalrous cavalier. If you had s0 exalted a position you turally took your name from your craft. Some ungracious and unintelligent critics have tried to make it a reproach to the Duke of Northumberjand that his family name is really Smithson and not Perey, but Sir William Bragg would tell them that the Percies stepped up and not down when they became Smith-sons. The Percies shad the good rollicking Border virtues, the sort of virtues common among the Al-danians. The Smiths, on the other liliand, had the highly civilized arts. 'A Smith would correspond to a Fellow of the Royal Society. "More-lover, if there had bien no Smiths to make their swords there would have been no Percies to break them on each other's heads. If the Duke of Northumberland reads Sir William Brage's lecture te will turn the tables on his critics and ask from a Percy to a Smithson.—"Manchester Guar-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.