gain, "at St Ninian's chapel," tells death in a family by the s being silenced by so-called wailing under the window. aspiration. Sometimes the two cases supply alternative forms of the same name: thus in Gaelic Cantyre represents the nominative ceann tír, "land's end," while Kintyre is the locative cinn tír, "at the land's end." 66 Stress has been laid on the principle that place - names are primarily utilitarian even among the Celts, who are much more poetical than the Germanic race, and that imaginative or sentimental explanations ought to be viewed with extreme suspicion. But exception must be made in regard both to superstition and religion, by one of which always, by both often, human intelligence is largely swayed. So it comes that fairies, devils, witches, and ghosts figure pretty frequently in the topography, especially of lands occupied by the Celt. Shakespeare's Puck- merry wanderer of the night -was feared in primitive Ireland as Púca, and is commemorated in many names such as Pollaphuca, Boheraphuca, and Carrigaphuca-Puck's pool, road, and crag. Those who have followed the chase in that paradise of fox - hunters, county Meath, may remember a line of moderate uplands to the south of Trim called the Shee Hills, "shee" being the correct pronunciation of the Gaelic sidh, a fairy, a word which appears in countless place-names, among others the well-known Glenshee in Perthshire. Herein the terminal syllable is the same as in banshee-bean sidhe-the warning female sprite that fore Legitimate religion may be traced by its imprint upon the whole circuit of the globe. The Spaniards used their once tremendous sea-power not only in sweeping up treasure and annexing continents but in driving the heathen, on pain of death and worse than death, into the fold of Holy Church; and they filled their charts with the names of saints and articles of belief. On 31st July 1498 Columbus sighted three mountains, which he afterwards found to be united in one island. in one island. Recognising in this a symbol of the Trinity, he named the new land Ilha de la Trinidad, and Trinidad it has remained after passing into British possession. The year previous, the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama had discovered South Africa Christmas Day, so he called it Costa do Natal-Christmas Coast-and here again British colonists are quite content with the name Natal. In like manner a vast number of places bear the name of Vera Cruz or Santa Cruz - True or Holy Cross; and our own Captain Cook followed suit by calling places discovered on Trinity Sunday by the names of Trinity Bay (Queensland) and Trinity Island (Alaska). Other British captains named new lands after the ships in which they sailed, like "Adventure Bay in Tasmania and "Fury" beach in the Arctic seas. on The last name brings to mind a name on the Scottish coast Cape Wrath is usually associated in our minds with the ferred on a town in Lanarkshire conveys no hint of comparison in size with its rivals, but is plain Norse bygg-garth, barleyfield, as may be easily seen by noticing the better preserved forms Biggarts in Dumfriesshire and Biggart in Ayrshire. To go further into the origin of place-names-to follow the glimpses they afford of bygone races and their habits, of wild animals, now rare or extinct, which once peopled the forests carved by civilisation into farms angry winds and violent seas which rage round our northern shores; but the name Cape Wrath bears no reference to them, however appropriately it might do so. "Wrath' merely represents the Norse hvarf—a turning-point for it was there that Norse mariners used to put their helms a-starboard, to run down to their possessions in the Hebrides, which they, coming from the north, called the Sudreyar or southern islands. Even this name Sudreyar, though it be--would lead far beyond the came thoroughly inappropriate as soon as the seat of rule shifted from north to south, has not passed wholly into disuse. The diocese of Sodor and Man was once wholly under Norse dominion title Sodor is the ancient Sudreyar or Hebrides; but it is perhaps lucky for the prelate that he is not now expected to conduct visitations throughout the whole of his nominal diocese. the Names of Norse origin seem peculiarly liable to receive a totally erroneous interpretation by assimilation with English vocables. Encountering the name Fairfield in the environs of a modern town, one may safely assign their literal English value to the syllables, but it is far different when you come upon it as the title of the hill next to Helvellyn. The Norsemen had long sway over the Lake Country, and Fairfield here is a corruption of their name fær fjall, sheepfell, just as Faroe (without the pleonastic "Islands") represents Fær-eyjar, sheep-islands. Again, the title Biggar con limits of this paper. Let it conclude with three cardinal principles to which he who embarks on a somewhat fascinating study should ever hold fast. First, let the simplicity of origin be assumed before taking up the wild and poetical explanations which have so much attraction for some minds. Such are generally unfounded. When primitive, or at least imperfectly civilised, people settle in a new country, they don't sit down and invent names for the different localities it becomes necessary to indicate. The names suggest themselves from some characteristic of the place, some incident or occupation, or some individual who dwells in or takes possession of a They come without conscious mental effort, such as all men instinctively avoid; they alter in use in compliance with well-known phonetic laws arising out of the unconscious avoidance of physical effort in pronunciation, to which all men yield. Second, in nine cases out of ten place - names are com- beinn mór, and in either position the qualitative mór, great, carries the stress. A misplacement of stress may not seem to involve very serious consequences, but here is a case in which not only is the old meaning destroyed thereby, but a false one imported. Kilmacòlm, a village in Renfrewshire, with the stress emphatically on the last syllable, is clearly cill mo Coluim, the chapel of dear Columba. railway company, having cause to erect a station there, choose stress invariably to print the name Kilmalcolm, and forthwith their servants shift the stress to the penultimate- Kilmàlcolm. Immediately the sense alters; it becomes cill maoil Coluim, the chapel of the servant of Callum. As has been said, according to a general rule, the Celtic qualitative follows the substantive; but there are exceptions, and one of these may be cited to show how faithful an index of the qualitative is afforded by the stress. ven and Benmòre both signify the great hill-mór bheinn and Mòr The Lastly, in pursuit of the origin of place-names let no man be cocksure. In September last, greatly pluming myself on my discernment, I gave to the readers of 'Maga' a rendering of the much-disputed name of Torvalvin in Knoydart. I had been to the place, a conspicuous rocky knoll on the flank of a bare mountain. What could be clearer ? It is not many dumb crofter torr mhaoil bheinn, the knoll of the bare hill. See what a plain word put me down! It seems the name is by no means ancient. years since a lived under this knoll, named, like our old friend Balbus of the walls, in Gaelic speech balbhan, and commemorated in Torvalvin, torr bhalbhain, the dumb man's hill! HERBERT MAXWELL, SCOTLAND AND MR GOLDWIN SMITH. WHILE one school of modern historians avers that History is Science and must not be Literature, another school presents us with what may be Literature, but assuredly is not Science. To this party belongs Mr Goldwin Smith, author of 'The United States,' &c., &c. His new book, 'The United Kingdom a Political History,'' is undeniably Literature. Though achieved, as the distinguished author tells us, "by the hand of extreme old age," the style is rapid, lucid, vigorous, and even vehement-too vehement. Thrice in one page we are told that King John "flew " to three distant places. Were the book not vigorous, were there traces of intellectual decline in these volumes, we should not now be criticising them. Where we are to differ from Mr Goldwin Smith, the points at issue are such as have long been in debate, points essential in any discussion of the Method of History and the temper of the historian. To state things briefly: the reader of 'The United Kingdom' must accept everything on Mr Goldwin Smith's ipse dixit. References to authorities there are practically none. The author will give his account of Becket, of his conduct, of the miracles attributed to him, and will adduce no evidence but that of "his biographers." Which biographers ?-for they are many, and they are in various degrees of credit, as any one can read in Dr Abbott's recent critical work on the Miracles. But Mr Goldwin Smith does not here discriminate. We do not even learn that he has read the biographers in their own original works. Thus, as to Becket, we get from our author only this: the impression made on an eager and accomplished, but not exactly critical mind, by the study of modern "works of special research." Some of these are enumerated. We find Mr Freeman's Norman Conquest,' Dr Stubbs's 'Constitutional History,' Miss Norgate's 'England under the Angevin Kings,' for the early period. But history can only be written from the original authorities. We want to know what impression they make on an author's mind, and what we want we do not seem to get. 6 Again, there are works yet more recent than those to which Mr Goldwin Smith alludes as having "assisted" him. Thus, in the early period, we have Professor Maitland, Mr Vinogradoff, Mr James Horace Round, Mr Charles Elton, to speak only of writers in English. If Mr Goldwin Smith has consulted these scholars, we remark few, if any, traces of the fact. Yet they have advanced, or altered, our knowledge, or have taught us that what we took for know 1 London: Macmillan & Co. ledge was only opinion. Conceivably the want (as it seems to us) of the "up-to-date" in these volumes may be due to that influence which leaves no other mark on a work that offers the results of "recent research and discussion." Thus (p. 41) "the township, if fenced, was a burgh." A "burgh," we ask, in what sense of the word? Then (p. 38)" the towns generally were mere clusters of houses, without municipal government, in bondage to the Crown or the lord on whose manor they were;" this in the time of the Conqueror. As to what a manor was we learn little. Now Mr Maitland, speaking of the next century, says that the Commissioners "found a town in each county, and in general one town only, which required special treatment. They do not locate it on Terra Regis; they do not locate it on any man's land. It stands outside the general system of land tenure. How does Mr Goldwin Smith account for these exceptions - the shiretowns, or burghs, on no man's land? We find no attempt to account for them; but in the reign of Henry III. (p. 147) we are told that "the awakening of municipal life has likewise gone on. From being clusters of dwellings, forming, like the cottage or hamlet, part of the domain of the king, or local lord, and taxable at his will, the cities and towns are growing into little commonwealths. Of this the chief instrument continues to be the mercantile guild." A similar statement occurs on p. 115, where we hear how the guilds purchased charters "for a full commune or municipality." Probably some more explicit treatment of the origin of burghs is desirable and possible. The question of the origin of scutage, or shield-money (p. 79), might also have been elucidated by the discoveries of Mr Round. In the same way it appears hasty to remark that "in the Anglo-Saxon or English polity" "the public land belonged to the nation, not to the king." Public land is, we presume, "folk-land," "land held without book, by unwritten title, by the folk-law," land over which the king exercises 66 " an alienable superiority." Such is the view of Mr Maitland, which seems preferable to that of Mr Goldwin Smith. Other examples of indifference to, or distrust of, "recent research" as concerns origins might be given. Moreover, as the United Kingdom is Mr Goldwin Smith's theme, we cannot but protest against his treatment of the affairs of no inconsiderable part of that kingdom, namely, Scotland. The observations on Scotland are scanty, not always well informed, and it is hardly too much to say that they are prejudiced and arrogant. To this part of Mr Goldwin Smith's book we shall mainly confine our marks, cutting out a province from his vast subject. As to the early portion of the history, a few comments may suffice. Thus, from a statement on p. 5, our author seems to admit no Celts in Scotland south of the Grampians, except in "the western Lowlands," which may perhaps mean Galloway. We must also allow for Strathclyde, pushing so deep re |