SMIJTH: In their desire to get away from the common, plebeian, and non-descriptive Smith, many people have, within the present century, Smyth'd and Smythed themselves. One family (and that a baronet's of 1661) go farther, and smidge themselves into Smijth. We look into a baronetage of to-day, and we are told that one John Smijth, the founder of the house, was high sheriff of Essex and Hertford in the reign of Henry VIII.; but on turning to Kimber, published in 1771, we find no trace whatever of a Smijth, the baronet of the period being written Smyth, while by going three generations farther back we arrive at plain Smith! It is difficult to guess how the IJ came to supplant the Y, a change offensive alike to eye and ear. A facetious friend suggests that the Mr. Smith of the ' transition ' period, having substituted y for i was so much delighted, that he sought still further to decorate his name by adding a tittle to each stroke of the y, thus producing the ij of the existing Smijth.