those of Camden, whose
position as Clarencieux King-at-Arms gave him exceptional
opportunities for genealogical research. From the philological point
of view they are of course untrustworthy, though less so than most
modern writers on the same subject.

About the middle of the nineteenth century, the period of Archbishop
Trench and Canon Taylor, began a kind of boom in works of this kind,
and books on surnames are now numerous. But of all these industrious
compilers one only, Bardsley, can be taken seriously. His Dictionary
of English Surnames, published (Oxford Press, 1901) from his notes
some years after his death, is invaluable to students. It represents
the results of twenty years' conscientious research among early rolls
and registers, the explanations given being usually supported by
medieval instances. But it cannot be used uncritically, for the
author does not appear to have been either a linguist or a
philologist, and, although he usually refrains from etymological
conjecture, he occasionally ventures with disastrous results. Thus,
to take a few instances, he identifies Prust with Priest, but the
medieval le prust is quite obviously the Norman form of Old Fr. le
Proust, the provost. He attempts to connect pullen with the archaic
Eng. pullen, poultry; but his early examples, le pulein, polayn, etc.,
are of course Fr. Poulain, i.e. Colt. Under Fallows, explained as
"fallow lands," he quotes three examples of de la faleyse, i.e. Fr.
Falaise, corresponding to our Cliff, Cleeve, etc; Pochin, explained as
the diminutive of some personal name, is the Norman form of the famous
name Poussin, i.e. Chick. Or, coming to native instances, le wenchel,
a medieval prototype of Winkle, is explained as for "periwinkle,"
whereas it is a common Middle-English word, existing now in the
shortened form wench, and means Child. The obsolete Swordslipper, now
only Slipper, which he interprets as a maker of "sword-slips," or
sheaths, was really a sword-sharpener, from Mid. Eng. slipen, cognate
with Old Du. slijpen, to polish, sharpen, and Ger. schleifen.
Sometimes a very simple problem is left unexplained, e.g. in the case
of the name Tyas, where the medieval instances of le tyeis are to a
student of Old French clearly le tieis or tiois, i.e. the German,
cognate with Ger. deutsch and Ital. tedesco.

These examples are quoted, not in depreciation of conscientious
student to whose work my own compilation is greatly indebted, b