DESCENDANTS OF THE FLEMISH AND HUGUENOT REFUGEES,-Although three hundred years have passed since the first religious persecutions in Flanders and France compelled so large a number of Protestants to fly from those countries and take refuge in England, and although one hundred and eighty years have passed since the second great emigration from France took place in the reign of Louis XIV., the descendants of the "gentle and profitable strangers" are still recognisable amongst us. In the course of the generations which have come and gone since the dates of their original settlement, they have laboured diligently and skilfully, greatly to the advantage of British trade, commerce, and manufactures; while there is scarcely a branch of literature, science, and art, in which they have not distinguished themselves. Three hundred years form a long period in the life of a nation. During that time many of the distinctive characteristics of the original refugees must necessarily have become effaced in the persons of their descendants. Indeed, by far the greater number of them before long became completely Anglicized, and ceased to be traceable except by their names; and even these have for the most part become converted into names of English sound.

So long as the foreigners continued to cherish the hope of returning to their native country, on the possible cessation of the persecutions there, they waited and worked on with that end in view. But as the persecutions only waxed hotter, they at length gradually gave up all hope of return. They claimed and obtained letters of naturalisation; and though many of them continued for several generations to worship in their native language, they were content to live and die English subjects. Their children grew up amidst English associations, and they desired to forget that their fathers had been fugitives and foreigners in the land. They cared not to remember the language, or to retain the names, which marked them as distinct from the people amongst whom they lived; and hence many of the descendants of the refugees, in the second or third generation, abandoned their foreign names, while they gradually ceased to frequent the distinctive places of worship which their fathers had founded. Indeed, many of the first Flemings had no sooner settled in England and become naturalized, than they threw off their foreign names, and assumed English ones instead. Thus, as we learn,

Hoek, the Flemish brewer in Southwark, assumed the name of Leeke; while Haestricht, the Flemish manufacturer at Bow, took that of James. Mr. Pryme, formerly Professor of Political Economy in the University of Cambridge, and representative of that town in Parliament, whose ancestors were refugees from Ypres, in Flanders, has informed us that his grandfather dropped the “ de la” originally prefixed to the family name, in consequence of the strong anti-Gallican feeling which prevailed in this country during the Seven Years' War of 1756-63, though his son has since assumed it; and the same circumstance doubtless led many others to change their foreign names to suit English ears.

Nevertheless, a large number of purely Flemish names, though it may be with English modifications, are still to be found in various parts of England and Irelaud where the foreigners originally settled. These have been, on the whole, better preserved in rural districts than in London, where the social friction was greater, and more speedily rubbed off the foreiga peculiarities. In the lace towns of the west of England, such names as Raymond, Spiller, Brock, Stocker, Groot, Rochett, and Kettel, are still common; and the same trade has been carried on in their families for many generations. The Walloon Goupes, who settled in Wiltshire as clothmakers more than three hundred years since, are still known there as the Guppys.

The great French immigration which ensued on the last-named event, being the most recent, has left much more noticeable traces in English family history and no nenclature, notwithstanding the large proportion of the refugees and their descendants who threw aside their French names and adopted them in an English translation. Thus L'Oiseau became Bird; Le Jeune, Young; Le Blanc, White; Le Noir, Black; Le Maur, Brown; Le Roy, King; Lacroix, Cross; Le Monnier, Miller; Dulau, Waters; and so on. Some of the Lefevres changed their name to the English equivalent Smith, as was the case with the ancestor of Sir Culling Eardley Smith, Bart., a French refugee, whose original name was Le Fevre. Many names were strangely altered in their conversion from French into English. Jolifemme was freely translated into Prety man, a name well known in the church; Momerie became Mummery, a common name at Dover; and Planché became Plauk, of which there are instances at Canterbury

and Southampton. At Oxford, the name of Willamise was traced back to Villebois; Taillebois became Talboys; Le Coq, Laycock; Bouchier, Butcher or Boxer; Coquerel, Cockerell; Drouet, Drewitt; D'Aeth, Death; D'Orleans, Dorling; and Sauvage, Savage and Wild. Other pure French names were quite vulgarized. Thus, Conde became Candy; Chapuis, Shoppee; De Preux, Diprose; De Moulins, Mullins; Pelletier, Piter; Huyghens, Huggins or Higgins; and Beaufay, Boffy !

Many French names have, however, been preserved: and one need only turn over the pages of a London Directory to recoguise the large proportion which the descendants of the Huguenots continue to form of the modern population of the metropolis. But a short time since, in reading the report of a meeting of the District Board of Works at Wandsworth, where the refugees settled in such numbers as to form a considerable congregafion, we recognised the names of Lobjoit, Beringer, Fourdrinier, Poupart, and others, unmistakably French. Such names are constantly "cropping out "in modern literature, science, art, and manufactures. Thus we recognise those of Delaine and Foxblanque in the press; Rigaud and Rozet in science; Dargan (originally Dargeat) in railway construction; Pigon in gunpowder; Gillott in steel pens; Courage in beer; and Courtauld in silk. That the descendants of the Huguenots have vindicated and continued to practise that liberty of thought and worship for which their fathers sacrificed so much, is saciently obvious from the fact that

cg them we find men holding sneh widely different views as the brothers Newman, Father Faber and James Martincan, Dr. Pusey and the Rev. Hugh Stowell. The late Rev. Sydney Smith was a man of a different temperament from ali these. He was himself accustomed to attribute much of his constitutional gaiety to the circumstance of his grandfather having married Maria Olier, the daughter of a French Protestant refugee, -woman whom he characterizes as "of a noble countenance, and as noble a mind.”

From the peerage to the working class, the descendants of the refugees are, to this day, found pervading the various ranks of Eglish society. The Queen of England herself is related to them, through her descent from Sophia Dorothea, the granddaughter of the Marquis D'Olbreuse, a Protestant nobleman of Poitou. The marquis was one of the numerous French

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exiles who took refuge in Brandenburg on the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The Duke of Zell married his only daughter, whose issue was Sophia Dorothea, the wife of George Louis, Elector of Hanover, afterwards George I. of England. son of Sophia Dorothea succeeded to the English throne as George II., and her daughter married Frederick William, afterwards King of Prussia; and thus Huguenot blood continues to run in the Royal families of the two great Protestant, States of the North.-" The Huguenots," by Dr. Smiles.

JAPANESE CULTIVATION OF RICE.The Bulletin de la Société d'Acclimatation contains a paper communicated to the society by two Japanese botanists, MM. Tanaka and Yekcossina, on various plants cultivated in their country. One of the most important is rice, a sort of grain which unfortunately does not always find in Japan the quantity of water it needs. To obviate this difficulty, the Japanese have endeavoured to cultivate it in common fields; that is, with no more than the usual supply of water requisite for other grain. It is then called dry rice, and does not differ in any other respect from the sort cultivated in the rice-fields. There are two varieties, one called oorootzi, the same which is cultivated in Europe, and the other named Motseegomay, much esteemed in Japan for the thick paste it makes when boiled. It is by dint of great patience and by gradually diminishing the supply of water, that, after a few crops, rice may be made to germinate in a dry soil. In the district of Jeddo, the field's that are to be sown with rice are well manured towards the end of March or the beginning of April, and then ploughed. Before sowing, the rice is macerated in water for three days and three nights; it is then exposed to the sun in order to hasten its germination. After picking out the bad grain, the rest is mixed with ashes and the remains of fish, dried, and reduced to powder; the mixture is then strewed along the furrows, which are immediately afterwards filled up with earth. This operation takes place in May. If the weather is very dry, the field must receive liquid manure. In the course of June and July the field should be weeded and the roots earthed up; an abundant crop may then be expected in October or November. This system of tillage is practised in Japan also for wheat and other grain.