But, after all, Shylock may have been a family name familiar to the great dramatist.  In all my researches on the subject of English surnames, however, I have but once met with it as a generic distinction.  In the Battel Abbey Deeds (penes Sir T. Phillipps, Bart.) occurs a power of attorney from John Pesemershe, Esq., to Richard Shylok, of Hoo, co.  Sussex, and others, to deliver seizin of all his lands in Sussex to certain persons therein named.  The date of this document is July 4, 1435.

MARK ANTONY LOWER.

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TRANSPOSITION OF LETTERS.

I should be obliged if any of your readers would give me the reason for the transposition of certain letters, chiefly, but not exclusively, in proper names, which has been effected in the course of time.

The name of our Queen Bertha was, in the seventh century, written Beorhte.

The Duke Brythnoth’s name was frequently written Byrthnoth, in the tenth century.

In Eardweard, we have dropped the a; in Ealdredesgate, the e.  In Aedwini, we have dropped the first letter (or have sometimes transposed it), although, I think, we are wrong; for the given name Adwin has existed in my own family for several centuries.

John was always written Jhon till about the end of the sixteenth century; and in Chaucer’s time, the word third, as every body knows, was written thridde, or thrydde.  I believe that the h in Jhon was introduced, as it was in other words in German, to give force to the following vowel.  Certain letters were formerly used in old French in like manner, which were dropped upon the introduction of the accents.

B. WILLIAMS.
Hillingdon, Jan. 5.

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PICTURES OF QUEEN ELIZABETH AND CHARLES I. IN CHURCHES.

Your correspondent “R.O.” will find two pictures of Charles I. of the same allegorical character as that described by him in his note (ante, p. 137.), one on the wall of the stairs leading to the north gallery of the church of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate, and the other in the hall of the law courts in Guildhall Yard.  I know nothing of the history of the first-mentioned picture; the latter, until within a few years, hung on the wall, above the {185} gallery, in the church of St. Olave, Jewry, when, upon the church undergoing repair, it was taken down, and, by the parishioners, presented to the corporation of London, who placed it in its present position.  In the church of St. Olave there were two other pictures hung in the gallery, one representing the tomb of Queen Elizabeth, copied from the original at Westminster, the other of Time on the Wing, inscribed with various texts from Scripture.  Both these pictures were presented at the same time with the picture of Charles I. to