_English Surnames: Bolingbroke_ (Vol. v., p. 326.).--During a visit to
Bolingbroke, a village in Lincolnshire, the birth-place of Henry IV.,
the rapidity of the little stream, so unusual in a county remarkable for
the sluggishness of its waters, suggested to me the probable origin of
the name, _bowling brook_; "bowling along," and "running at a bowling
pace," being not uncommon expressions. Here then, if we cannot meet with
"sermons in stones" amongst the few vestiges of the castle, and in the
church with its beautiful decorated windows, the heads of which are so
disgracefully blocked up with plaster, we may "find books in the running
brooks," and learn that "proud Bolingbroke" owed his appellation to this
insignificant babbling rivulet.