applied genealogical science, led to his making inquiry of the custodian of Chester's papers, as to the meaning to be attributed to the statement that Joseph's pedigree could be traced. That is to say, whether it implied that Chester had a clue which warranted him in thus affirming the "traceableness" of said pedigree; or whether he simply committed himself to the proposition that, like anything else of the location of which absolutely nothing was known to him, Joseph's pedigree could be looked for! Addressing upon this point Chester's executor, George E. Cokayne, Esq., London, the following reply was received:

"College of Arms, London, August 24, 1888.-I find a neatly worked up pedigree of the Parsons family of Oxfordshire. In it Benjamin is called the fifth and youngest son of Hugh, and is said to have been baptized at Sandford in 1627-8. The names of the four elder brothers are given. There is, therefore, if Colonel Chester had grounds for proving that Benjamin was the youngest son, no room for a brother Joseph, not does the name of Joseph appear . . in this pedigree, which is probably in print.'

Similarly, Marshall writes:

"Herald's College, London, May 27, 1897.-I do not think Chester purposely left out Joseph. It is evident from his notes that he failed to find him."

From Chester's manuscripts now with the Herald's College, London, it is evident that Chester found no Joseph Parsons of English record to correspond to Cornet Joseph, but, finding two brothers in Oxfordshire whose ages approximated those of the Northampton Hugh and Benjamin Parsons, he asserted their identity, although the records showed sisters where Joseph should have been and in spite of the American evidence that Joseph and Benjamin were brothers.

History speaks of Cornet Joseph Parsons as "a man of action, of extraordinary energy, enterprise, and public spirit"; and of his brother, Deacon Benjamin Parsons, as "eminent in the church, an earnest worker, and of great purity in private and public life "—all "invaluable traits in the founders of a Christian state."

By the present exposé of the worthlessness of Col. Chester's English Parsons' pedigree, the breach which it created between the descendants of Cornet Joseph Parsons and his brother Deacon Benjamin Parsons from the Torringtons in Devonshire, and Jeffrey Parsons from the neighboring Alphington in the same shire, is closed, and the members of the reunited Parsons family of America (where they have not as yet traced their descent directly to some particular branch of the English Parsons, to whom a modification of the original arms of the Parsons family has been subsequently granted), may safely assume the ancient arms of Sir John Parsons of Hereford, among whose descendants, as will appear from our next chapter, are (1) the Norfolk Earls of Rosse; (2) the Oxfordshire Parsons, after whom was named one of the earliest settlements in the Barbadoes; (3) the Radnorshire Parsons from Springfield, Essex, England, whose Jeffrey alliance is commemorated in the name of Jeffrey Parsons of Devonshire, the progenitor of the learned Chief Justice Theophilus Parsons of Massachusetts, and his son Thomas Parsons, the American poet and translator of Dante; and (4) (a) Cornet Joseph Parsons of Springfield, Mass., ancestor of Captain Charles Parsons, who served under Washington at Valley Forge, Trenton, Monmouth, and Yorktown, and of Brigadier-General and Brevet Major-General Lewis Baldwin Parsons, from 1861 to 1865 Chief of Rail and River Transportation for the Armies of the United States; (b) Deacon Benjamin Parsons, progenitor of the intimate and "life-long friend of Washington," and subsequent chief justice of the Northwestern Territory, MajorGeneral Samuel Holden Parsons, of whom Captain David Humphreys, in his poem "On the Happiness of America" ("Yale in the Revolution "), wrote:

Shall I tell you from whom I learned the martial art,
With what high chiefs I played my early part?
With Parsons first, whose eye with piercing ken,
Reads, through their hearts, the characters of men.

GARDEN CITY, LONG ISLAND, N. Y., U. S. A.,

September 16, 1898.

III.

THE NAME OF PARSONS.

1.

By DR. DAVID P. HOLTON.

"The name of Parsons occupies a peculiar position among English surnames.

"On the one hand are the names of landed gentlemen, derived from their estates, as Norton, Wedgewood, Lonsdale, etc. On the other hand are the names derived from trades, as Smith, Carpenter, Mason. Lower than these are Hayward (fence-keeper), Howard (hog-keeper), and Shepherd; while these are above mere Tom, Dick, and Harry and their offspring Thomson, Dickson, and Harrison, as these in turn are still above the nobodies-White, Black, Gray, Brown, and Green.*

"Unlike all of the foregoing classes of surnames, the name Parsons is derived neither from landholding nor from trades, etc. Parsons means son of the parson.† John and Mary Parsons mean the parson's son John and his daughter Mary."

*Thus, an act of Parliament passed in the fourth year of Edward IV. directed that all Irishmen within the English pale should adopt some English surname which should be either the name of a place, trade, color, or office. + Celibacy (from cœlebs-unmarried) was preached by St. Anthony in Egypt, in 305. His only converts lived in caves until monasteries were founded. The doctrine was rejected in the Council of Nice, 325. Celibacy was enjoined on bishops only, in 692. The decree was opposed in England in 958978. The Romish clergy generally were enjoined a vow of celibacy by Pope Gregory VII. in 1073-85, and its observance was established by the Council of Placentia in 1095. Marriage of the clergy was proposed, but negatived, at the Council of Trent in 1563. (Haydn's "Dict. of Dates.")-EDITOR.

82

2.

By F. MAX MULLER.

"The word parson comes from the Latin persona. In Latin, persona meant a mask made of thin wood or clay, such as was worn by the actors at Rome. Gellius informs us that a Latin grammarian, Gavius Bassus by name, who had written a learned work on the origin of words, derived persona from. personare, to sound through. And because that mask makes the voice of the mouth clear and resonant, therefore it has been called persona.' Both the mask and its wearer came to be called persona, and hence a very important double development in the meanings of the word. While in some cases persona was used in the sense of the mask worn, we find it in others expressing the real character represented by the actor on the stage. When we read of dramatis personɑ, we no longer think of masks, but of the real characters appearing in the play. After all, an actor, wearing the mask of a king, was, for the time being, a king, and thus persona came to mean the very opposite of mask, namely, a man's real nature and character. Thus Cicero, for instance, writes to Cæsar that his nature and person, or what would now be called his character, might fit him for a certain work. Nay, what is still more curious, persona slowly assumes the meaning of a great personage, or of a person of rank, and, in the end, of rank itself. This sense of persona prevailed during the Middle Ages, and continues to the present day. A man magnæ persona means, in medieval Latin, a man of great dignity. We read of viri nobiles et personati, also of mercatores personati, always in the sense of eminent and respected. In ecclesiastical language, persona soon took a technical meaning. Personatus meant not only dignitas in general, but it was used of those dignitaries who held a living, or several livings, but committed the actual cure of souls to a vicar. Persons are chiefly those who let their benefices and churches to be served by others.' These so-called persona held very high rank. Persona habent dignitatem cum prerogativa in choro et capitulo." We read in a charter (anno 1227), 'A canon shall not have in our

choir a stall in the row of the persona, but shall have the first stall in the row of the priests.' As early as 1222, in a council held in Oxford, the question had to be discussed whether a vicar should fulfil the duties of the church or a persona. From this persona comes, no doubt, the modern name of parson, and it is strange that so learned a man as Blackstone should not have known this. For, though he knows that parson is derived from persona,* he thinks that he was called so because the church, which is an invisible body, was represented by his person. Blackstone, as a lawyer, was evidently thinking of another meaning which persona had assumed from a very early time. Anybody who had rights was, in legal language, a person, and slaves were said to have no person by law. In this sense, no doubt, the parson may be said to be the persona of his church, but this was not the historical origin of the ecclesiastical persona, as opposed to vicarius." ("Biographies of Words and the Home of the Aryas.")

*Thus, in the roll of possessions of the Abbey of Malmesbury, North Wiltshire (adjoining Oxfordshire), we find, A.D. 1307, the name of William le Person (English, Parsons) recorded as taxpayer to the Abbey. We further note, in Essex, the name of William Personne, gentleman usher of the Star Chamber, whose daughter Susanna was the wife of Sir Henry Maynard and the mother of Lord Maynard, baronet 1620.-EDITOR.