"Britons never, never, never shall be slaves."
"Britons never, never, never shall be slaves."
The nameBritonis now used also to mean Irish, Scotch, and Welsh men—in fact, any British subject. We also speak ofGreat Britain, which means England and Scotland. When the Scottish Parliament was joined to the English in 1702 some name had to be found to describe the new "nation," and this was how the nameGreat Britaincame into use, just as theUnited Kingdomwas the name invented to describe Great Britain and Ireland together when the Irish Parliament too was joined to the English in 1804.
We see how Gaul and Britain, as France and England were called in Roman times, had their names changed after the fall of the Roman Empire; but most of the countries round the Mediterranean Sea kept their old names, just as they kept for the most part their old languages. Italy, Greece, and Spain all kept their old names, although new peoples flocked down into these lands too. But though new peoples came, in all these lands they learned the ways and languages of the older inhabitants, instead of changing everything, as the English did in Britain. And so it was quite natural that they should keep their own names too.
Most of the other countries in Europe took their names from the people who settled there. Germany (the RomanGermania) was the part of Europe where most of the tribes of the German race settled down. The divisions of Germany, like Saxony, Bavaria, Frisia, were the parts of Germany where the German tribes known as Saxons, Bavarians, and Frisians settled. The nameAustriacomes fromOsterreich, the German for "eastern kingdom." Holland, on the other hand, takes its name from the character of the land. It comes fromholt, meaning "wood," andlant, meaning "land." The little country of Albania is so called fromAlba, or "white," because of its snowy mountains.
But perhaps the names of the old towns of the old world tell us the best stories of all. The greatest city the world has ever seen was Rome, and manyscholars have quarrelled about the meaning of that great name. It seems most likely that it came from an old word meaning "river." It would be quite natural for the people of early Rome to give such a name to their city, for it was a most important fact to them that they had built their city just where it was on the river Tiber.
One of the best places on which a town could be built, especially in early days, was the banks of a river, from which the people could get water, and by which the refuse and rubbish of the town could be carried away. Then, again, one of the chief things which helped Rome to greatness was her position on the river Tiber, far enough from the sea to be safe from the enemy raiders who infested the seas in those early days, and yet near enough to send her ships out to trade with other lands. Thus it was, probably, that a simple word meaning "river" came to be used as the name of the world's greatest city.
Others among the great cities of the ancient world were founded in a quite different way. The great conqueror, Alexander the Great, founded cities in every land he conquered, and their names remain even now to keep his memory alive. The city ofAlexandria, on the north coast of Africa, was, of course, called after Alexander himself, and became after his death more civilized and important than any of the Greek cities which Alexander admired so much, and which he tried to imitate everywhere.Now Alexandria is no longer a centre of learning, but a fairly busy port. Only its name recalls the time when it helped in the great work for which Alexander built it—to spread Greek learning and Greek civilization over Europe and Asia.
Another city which Alexander founded, but which afterwards fell into decay, wasBucephalia, which the great conqueror set up in the north of India when he made his wonderful march across the mountains into that continent. It was called after "Bucephalus," the favourite horse of Alexander, which had been wounded, and died after the battle. The town was built over the place where the horse was buried, and though its story is not so interesting as that of Alexandria, as the town so soon fell into decay, still it is worth remembering.
Another of the world's ancient and greatest cities, Constantinople, also took its name from a great ruler. In the days when the Roman Empire was beginning to decay, and new nations from the north began to pour into her lands, the emperor, Constantine the Great, the ruler who made Christianity the religion of the empire, chose a new capital instead of Rome. He loved Eastern magnificence and Eastern ways, and he chose for his new capital the old Greek colony of Byzantium, the beautiful city on the Golden Horn, which Constantine soon made into a new Rome, with churches and theatres and baths, like the old Rome. The new Rome was given a new name. Constantine had turnedByzantium into a new city, and it has ever since been known asConstantinople, or the "city of Constantine."
We can nearly always tell from the names of places something of their history. If we think of the names of some of our English towns, we notice that many of them end in the same way. There are several whose names begin or end indon, likeLondonitself. Many others end incasterorchester,ham,by,boroughorburgh.
We may be sure that most of the places whose names begin or end indonwere already important places in the time before the Britons were conquered by the Romans. The Britons were divided into tribes, and lived in villages scattered over the land; but each tribe had its little fortress or stronghold, the "dun," as it was called, with walls and ditches round it, in which all the people of the tribe could take shelter if attacked by a strong enemy. And so the name of London takes us back to the time when this greatest city of the modern world, spreading into four counties, and as big as a county itself, with its marvellous buildings, old and new, and its immense traffic, was but a British fort into which scantily-clothed people fled from their huts at the approach of an enemy.
But the British showed themselves wise enough in their choice of places to build theirduns, which, as in the case of London, often became centres of new towns, which grew larger and larger throughRoman times, and on into the Middle Ages and modern times.
The great French fortress town of Verdun, which everybody has heard of because of its wonderful resistance to the German attacks in 1916, is also an old Celtic town with this Celtic ending to its name. It was already an important town when the Romans conquered Gaul, and it has played a notable part in history ever since. Its full name means "the fort on the water," just asDundee(fromDun-tatha) probably meant "the fort on the Tay."
By merely looking at a map of England, any one who knows anything of the Latin language can pick out many names which come from that language, and which must have been given in the days when the Romans had conquered Britain. The endingcasterof so many names in the north of England, andchesterin the Midlands,xeterin the west of England, andcaerin Wales, all come from the same Latin word,castrum, which means a military camp or fortified place. So that we might guess, if we did not know, that at Lancaster, Doncaster, Manchester, Winchester, Exeter, and at the old capital of the famous King Arthur, Caerleon, there were some of those Roman camps which were dotted over England in the days when the Romans ruled the land.
Here the Roman officers lived with their wives and families, and the Roman soldiers too, and herethey built churches and theatres and baths, such as they were used to in their cities at home in Italy. Here, too, it was that many of the British nobles learned Roman ways of living and thinking; and from here the Roman priests and monks went out to teach the Britons that the religion of the Druids was false, and instruct them in the Christian religion.
Another common Latin ending or beginning to the names of places wasstrat,stret, orstreet, and wherever we find this we may know that through these places ran some of theviæ stratæ, or great Roman roads which the Romans built in all the provinces of their great empire. There are many remains of these Roman roads still to be seen up and down England; but even where no trace remains, the direction of some, at least, of the great roads could be found from the names of the towns which were dotted along them. Among these towns areStratfordin Warwickshire,Chester-le-Streetin Durham,Streatham, etc.
Then, again, some of the towns withportandlynneas part of their names show us where the Romans had their ports and trading towns.
It is interesting to see the different names which the English gave to the villages in which they dwelt when the Romans had left Britain, and these new tribes had won it for themselves. Nearly all towns ending inhamandford, andburghorborough, date from the first few hundred years after the Englishwon Britain.Hamandfordmerely meant "home," or "village." ThusBuckinghamwas the home of the Bockings, a village in which several families all related to each other, and bearing this name, lived. Of course the name did not change when later the village grew into a town. Buckingham is a very different place now from the little village in which the Bockings settled, each household having its house and yard, but dividing the common meadow and pasture land out between them each year.
Wallingfordwas the home of the Wallings. Places whose names ended infordwere generally situated where a ford, or means of crossing a river or stream, had to be made. Oxford was in Old EnglishOxenford, or "ford of the oxen."
Towns whose names end inboroughare often very old, but not so old as some of those ending inhamandford. There wereburhsin the first days of the English Conquest, but generally they were only single fortified houses and not villages. We first hear of the more importantburghsorboroughsin the last hundred years or so before the Norman Conquest.Edinburgh, which was at first an English town, is a very early example. Its name means "Edwin's borough or town," and it was so called because it was founded by Edwin, who was king of England from 617 to 633.
The special point about boroughs was that they were really free towns. They had courts of justiceof their own, and were free from the Hundred courts, the next court above them being the Shire court, ruled over by the sheriff. So we know that most of the towns whose names end inburghorboroughhad for their early citizens men who loved freedom, and worked hard to win their own courts of justice.
There are other endings to the names of towns which go back to the days before the Norman Conquest, but which are not really English. If a child were told to pick out on the map of England all the places whose names end inbyorthwaite, he or she would find that most of them are in the eastern part of England. The reason for this might be guessed, perhaps, by a very thoughtful child. Bothbyandthwaiteare Danish words, and they are found in the eastern parts of England, because it was in those parts that the Danes settled down when the great King Alfred forced them to make peace in the Treaty of Wallingford. After this, of course, the Danes lived in England for many years, settling down, and becoming part of the English people. Naturally they gave their own names to many villages and towns, and many of these remain to this day to remind us of this fierce race which helped to build up the English nation.
The Normans did not make many changes in the names of places when they won England, and most of our place-names come down to us from Roman and old English times. The places have changed, but the names have not. But though towns andcounties have had their names from those times, it is to be noticed that the names of our rivers and hills come down to us from Celtic times. To the Britons, living a more or less wild life, these things were of the greatest importance. There are several rivers in England with the name ofAvon, and this is an old British name. The riversUsk,Esk, andOusewere all christened by the Britons, and all these names come from a British word meaning "water." Curiously enough, the namewhiskycomes from the same word. From all these different ways in which places have got their names we get glimpses of past history, and history helps us to understand the stories that these old names tell us.
We have seen in how many different ways many of the old places of this world got their names. Some names go so far back that no one knows what is their meaning, or how they first came to be used. But we know that a great part of the world has only been discovered since the fifteenth century, and that a great part of what was already known has only been colonized in modern times.
With the discovery of the New World and the colonization of the Dark Continent and other far-off lands, a great many new names were invented. We could almost write a history of North or South America from an explanation of their place-names.
In learning the geography of South America we notice the beautiful Spanish names of most of the places. The reason for this is that it was the Spaniards who colonized South America in the sixteenth century. Very little of this continent now belongs to Spain, but in those days Spain was the greatest country in Europe. The proud and brave Spanish adventurers were in those days sailing over the seasand founding colonies, just as the English sailors of Queen Elizabeth soon began to do in North America.
Let us look at some of these names—Los Angelos("The Angels"),Santa Cruz("The Holy Cross"),Santiago("St. James"), all names of saints and holy things. Any one who knew no history at all might guess, from the number of places with Spanish names spread over South America, that it was the Spaniards who colonized this land. He would also guess that the Spaniards in those days must have been a very great nation indeed. And he would be right.
He would guess, too, that the Spaniards had clung passionately to the Catholic religion. Here, again, he would be right. Any great enthusiasm will make a nation great, and the Spaniards in the sixteenth century were filled with a great love for the old Church against which the new Protestantism was fighting. The Pope looked upon Spain as the great bulwark of Catholicism. The new religious feeling, which had swept over Europe, and which had made the Protestants ready to suffer and die for their new-found faith, took the form in Spain of this great love for the old religion. The nation seemed inspired. It is when these things happen that a people turns to great enterprises and adventure. The Spaniards of the sixteenth century regarded themselves, and were almost regarded by the other nations, as unconquerable. The great aim of Elizabethan Englishmen was to "break the power of Spain," andthis they did at last when they scattered the "Invincible Armada" in 1588. But before this Spain had done great things.
The Portuguese had been the first great adventurers, but they were soon left far behind by the Spanish sailors, who explored almost every part of South America, settling there, and sending home great shiploads of gold to make Spain rich. And wherever they explored and settled they spread about these beautiful names to honour the saints and holy things which their religion told them to love and honour.
It was the great discoverer Christopher Columbus who first gave one of these beautiful names to a place in South America. He had already discovered North America, and made a second voyage there, when he determined to explore the land south of the West Indies. He sailed south through the tropical seas while the heat melted the tar of the rigging. But Columbus never noticed danger and discomfort. He had made a vow to call the first land he saw after the Holy Trinity, and when at last he caught sight of three peaks jutting up from an island he gave the island the name ofLa Trinidad, and "Trinidad" it remains to this day, though it now belongs to the British. As he sailed south Columbus caught sight of what was really the mainland of South America, but he thought it was another island, and called itIsla Santa, or "Holy Island."
It might seem curious that as Columbus had discovered both North and South America, the continent was given the name of another man. As we have seen, its name was taken from that of another explorer, Amerigo Vespucci. The reason for this was that Columbus never really knew that he had discovered a "New World." He believed that he had come by another way to the eastern coast of Asia or Africa. The islands which he first discovered were for this reason called theIndies, and theWest Indiesthey remain to this day.
It was Amerigo Vespucci who first announced to the world, in a book which he published in 1507 (three years after Christopher Columbus had died in loneliness and poverty), that the new lands were indeed a great new continent, and not Asia or Africa at all. People later on said that Amerigo Vespucci had discovered a new continent, and that it ought to be called by his name. This is how the nameAmericacame into use; but of course the work of Vespucci was not to be compared with that of the great adventurer who first sailed across the "Sea of Darkness," and was the real discoverer of the New World.
Though it was the Spaniards who discovered North America, it was the English who chiefly colonized it.
It is interesting to notice the names which the early English colonists scattered over the northern continent. We might gather from them that, justas the love of their Church was the great passion of the sixteenth-century Spaniards, so the love of their country was the ruling passion of the great English adventurers. (Of course the Spaniards had shown their love for their old country in some of the names they gave, as when Columbus called one placeIsabella, in honour of the noble Spanish queen who had helped and encouraged him when other rulers of European countries had refused to listen to what they thought were the ravings of a madman.)
The English in Reformation days had a very different idea of religion from the Spanish. Naturally they did not sprinkle the names of saints over the new lands. But the English of Elizabeth's day were filled with a great new love for England. The greatest of all the Elizabethan adventurers, Sir Francis Drake, when in his voyage round the world he put into a harbour which is now known as San Francisco, set up "a plate of brass fast nailed to a great and firm post, whereon is engraved Her Grace's name, and the day and the year of our arrival there." The Indian king of these parts had freely owned himself subject to the English, taking the crown from his own head and putting it on Drake's head. Sir Francis called his landNew Albion, using the old poetic name for England.
But the colonization of North America was not successfully begun until after the death of Elizabeth, though one or two attempts at founding colonies, or "plantations," as they were then called, weremade in her time. Sir Walter Raleigh tried to set up one colony in North America, and called itVirginia, after the virgin queen whom all Englishmen delighted to honour. Virginia did not prosper, and Raleigh's colony broke up; but later another and successful attempt at colonizing it was made, and the same name kept. Virginia—"Earth's only Paradise," as the poet Drayton called it—was the first English colony successfully settled in North America. This was in the year 1607, when two hundred and forty-three settlers landed, and made the first settlement at a point which they calledJamestown, in honour of the new English king, James I.
The first settlers in Virginia were men whose chief aim was to become rich, but it was not long before a new kind of settler began to seek refuge in the lands north of Virginia, to which the great colonizer, Captain John Smith, had by this time given the name ofNew England. It was in 1620 that the "Pilgrim Fathers," because they were not free to worship God as they thought right at home, sailed from Southampton in the littleMayflower, and landed far to the north of Virginia, and made a settlement at a place which Smith had already calledPlymouth.
Before long new colonies began to spring up all over New England; and though we find some new names, like the Indian name of the great colonyMassachusetts, we may read the story of the greatlove which the colonists felt for the old towns of the mother-country in the way they gave their names to the new settlements.
A curious thing is that many of these new towns, christened after little old towns at home, became later very important and prosperous places, while the places after which they were called are sometimes almost forgotten. Many people to whom the name of the great American city of Boston is familiar do not know that there still stands on the coast of Lincolnshire the sleepy little town of Boston, from which it took its name.
Boston is the chief town of Massachusetts; but the first capital wasCharlestown, called after King Charles I., who had by this time succeeded his father, James I. The place on which Charlestown was built, on the north bank of the Charles River, was, however, found to be unhealthy. The settlers, therefore, deserted it, and Boston was built on the south bank.
It was not long before the Massachusetts settlers built a college at a place near Boston which had been calledCambridge. This is a case in which the old town at home remained, of course, much more important than its godchild. If a person speaks of Cambridge, one's mind immediately flies to the English university city on the banks of the river Cam. Still the college built at the American Cambridge, and called "Harvard College," after John Harvard, one of the early settlers, whogave a great deal of money towards its building, is famous now throughout the world.
It was natural and suitable that the early settlers should use the old English names to show their love for the mother-country; but it was not such a wise thing to choose the names of the great historic towns of Europe, and give them to the new settlements. To give the almost sacred name ofRometo a modern American town seems almost ridiculous. Certainly one would have always to be very careful to add "Georgia, U.S.A." in addressing letters there. The United States has several of these towns bearing old historic names.Parisas the name of an American town seems almost as unsuitable as Rome.
But this mistake was not made by the early colonists. If we think of the names of the colonies which stretched along the east of North America, we find nearly always that the names are chosen to do honour to the English king or queen, or to keep the memory fresh of some beloved spot in the old country.
In 1632 the Catholic Lord Baltimore founded a new colony, the only one where the Catholic religion was tolerated, and called itMaryland, in honour of Charles I.'s queen, Henrietta Maria. Just after the Restoration of Charles II. in 1660, when the country was full of loyalty, a new colony,Carolina, was founded, taking its name fromCarolus, the Latin for "Charles." Afterwards this colony was divided into two, and became North and South Carolina.
To the north of Maryland lay theNew Netherlands, for Holland had also colonized here. In the seventeenth century this little nation was for a time equal to the greatest nations in Europe. The Dutch had very soon followed the example of that other little nation Portugal, which, directed by the famous Prince Henry of Portugal, had been the first of all the European nations to explore far-off lands. Holland was as important on the seas as Spain or England; but this could not last long. The Dutch and the English fought several campaigns, and in the end the Dutch were beaten.
In 1667 the New Netherlands were yielded up to England. The name of the colony was changed toNew York, and its capital, New Amsterdam, was given the same name. This was in honour of the sailor prince, James, Duke of York, afterwards the unhappy King James II. Another of the Stuarts who gave his name to a district of North America was Prince Rupert, the nephew of Charles I., who fought so hard for the king against Cromwell. In 1670 the land round Hudson Bay was given the name ofRupertsland.
Sometimes, but not often, the new colonies were given the names of their founders. William Penn, who founded the Quaker colony ofPennsylvania, gave it this name in honour of his father, Admiral Penn.Sylvaniameans "land of woods," and comes from the Latinsylvanus, or "woody."
But it is not only in America that the place-namestell us the stories of heroism and romance. All over the world, from the icy lands round the Poles to the tropical districts of Africa, India, and Australia, these stories can be read. The spirit in which the early Portuguese adventurers sailed along the coast of Africa is shown in the name they gave to what we now know as theCape of Good Hope. Bartholomew Diaz called it theCape of Storms, for he had discovered it only after terrible battlings with the waves; but when he sailed home to tell his news the king of Portugal said that this was not a good name, but it should instead be called theCape of Good Hope, for past it lay the sea passage to India which men had been seeking for years. And so theCape of Good Hopeit remains to this day.
After this it was not long before the Portuguese explored the south and east coasts of Africa and the west coast of India to the very south, where they took theSpice Islandsfor their own. From these the Portuguese brought home great quantities of spices, which they sold at high prices in Europe.
It was the great explorer Ferdinand Magellan who first sailed round the world, being sure, as he said, that he could reach the Spice Islands by sailing west. And so he started on this expedition, sailing through the straits which have ever since been known as theMagellan Straitsto the south of South America, into the Pacific, or "Peaceful," Ocean, and then ever west, until he came roundby the east to Spain again, after three years of great hardship and wonderful adventure.
The adventures of the early explorers most often took the form of seeking a new and shorter passage from one ocean to another, and so many straits bear the names of the explorers. The Elizabethan explorer, Martin Frobisher, sought for a "North-west Passage" from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and for a time it was thought that he had found it in the very north of North America. But it was afterwards found that the "passage," which had already been given the name ofFrobisher's Straits, was really only an inlet, and afterwards it became known asLumley's Inlet.
Frobisher never discovered a North-west Passage, for the ships of those days were not fitted out in a way to enable the sailors to bear the icy cold of these northern regions. Many brave explorers tried later to discover it. Three times John Davis made a voyage for this purpose but never succeeded, thoughDavis Straitcommemorates his heroic attempts. Hudson and Baffin explored in these waters, as the namesHudson BayandBaffin Bayremind us.
It was nearly two hundred years later that Sir John Franklin sailed with an expedition in two boats, theErebusandTerror, determined to find the passage. He found it, but died in the attempt; but, strangely enough, his name was not given to any strait, though later it was given to all the islands of the Arctic Archipelago.
The winning of India by the British in the eighteenth century did not give us many new English names. India was not, like the greater part of America, a wild country inhabited by savage peoples. It had an older civilization than the greater part of Europe, and the only reason that it was weak enough to be conquered was that the many races who lived there could not agree among themselves. Most of the place-names of India are native names given by natives, for centuries before France and England began to struggle for its possession in the eighteenth century India had passed through a long and varied history.
When we remember that the natives of India have no name to describe the whole continent, it helps us to understand that India is in no way a single country. The British Government have given the continent the nameIndia, taking it from the great river Indus, which itself takes its name from an old word,sindhu, meaning "river."
In the days of the early explorers, after the islands discovered by Columbus were called theWest Indies, some people began to call the Indian continent theEast Indies, to distinguish it; and some of the papers about India drawn up for the information of Parliament about Indian affairs still use this name, but it is not a familiar use to most people.
The mistake which Columbus and the early explorers made in thinking America was India hascaused a good deal of confusion. The natives of North America were called Indians, and it was only long afterwards, in fact quite lately, that people began to write and speak of the natives of India asIndians. When it was printed in the newspapers that Indians were fighting for the British Empire with the armies in France, the use of the wordIndianseemed wrong to a great many people; but it is now becoming so common that it will probably soon seem quite right. When it is used with the old meaning we shall have to say the "Indians of North America." Some people use the wordHinduto describe the natives of India; but this is not correct, as onlysomeof the natives of India are Hindus, just as the nameHindustan(a Persian name meaning "land of the Hindus," asAfghanistanmeans "land of the Afghans"), which some old writers on geography used for India, is really the name of one part of the land round the river Ganges, where the language known asHindiis spoken.
The place-names of India given by natives of the many different races which have lived in the land could fill a book with their stories alone. We can only mention a few. The name of the great range of mountains which runs across the north of the continent, theHimalayas, means in Sanskrit, the oldest language used in India, the "home of snow."Bombaytakes its name fromMumba, the name of a goddess of an early tribe who occupied the district round Bombay.Calcutta, which stretches over ground where there were formerly several villages, takes its name from one of these. Its old form wasKalikuti, which means the "ghauts," or passes, leading to the temple of the goddess Kali.
In Australia, where a beginning of colonization was made through the discoveries of Captain Cook towards the end of the eighteenth century, the place-names were sometimes given from places at home, sometimes after persons, but they have hardly the same romance as the early American names.
Botany Baywas the name chosen by Captain Cook in a moment of enthusiasm for an inlet of New South Wales. He gave it this name because of the great number of plants and flowers which grow there.
In Africa a good deal of history can be learned from the place-names. Although the north of Africa had for many hundreds of years had its part in the civilization of the countries round the Mediterranean Sea, the greater part of Africa had remained an unexplored region—the "Dark Continent," as it was called. In the fifteenth century the Portuguese sailors crept along the western coast, and afterwards along the south, as we have seen, past the Cape of Good Hope. But the interior of the continent remained for long an unexplored region.
The Dutch had, very soon after the discovery ofthe Cape, made a settlement there, which was known asCape Colony. This was afterwards won by the English; but many Dutchmen still stayed there, and though, since the Boer War, when the Boers, or Dutch, in South Africa tried to win their independence, the whole of South Africa belongs to the British Empire, still there are naturally many Dutch names given by the early Dutch settlers. Some of these became very well known to English people in the Boer War.Bloemfonteinis one of these names, coming from the Dutch word for "spring" (fontein), and that of Jan Bloem, one of the farmers who first settled there. Another well-known place in the Transvaal,Pietermaritzburg, took its name from the two leaders who led the Boers out of Cape Colony when they felt that the English were becoming too strong there. These leaders were Pieter Retief and Georit Maritz. This movement of the Boers into the Transvaal was called the "Great Trek,"trekbeing a Dutch word for a journey or migration of this sort. Since the days of the Boer War this word has been regularly used in English with this same meaning. Like the English settlers in America, the Dutch settlers in South Africa sometimes gave the names of places in Holland to their new settlements.Utrechtis an example of this.
Up to the very end of the nineteenth century no European country besides England had any great possessions in Africa. The Portuguese stillheld the coast lands between Zululand (so called from the fierce black natives who lived there) and Mozambique. Egypt had come practically under British rule soon after the days of Napoleon, and in the middle of the nineteenth century the great explorers Livingstone and Stanley had explored the lands along the Zambesi River and a great part of Central Africa. Stanley went right across the centre of the continent, and discovered the lakeAlbert Edward Nyanza.Nyanzais the African word for "lake," and the name Albert Edward was given in honour of the Prince Consort.Victoria Nyanza, so called after Queen Victoria, had been discovered some years before. It was all these discoveries which led to the colonization of Africa by the nations of Europe.
In 1884 the great German statesman, Prince Bismarck, set up the German flag in Damaraland, the coast district to the north of the Orange River; and soon after a German colony was set up in the lands between the Portuguese settlements and the Equator. This was simply called German East Africa. At the same time the other nations of Europe suddenly realized that if they meant to have part of Africa they must join in the scramble at once. There were soon a British East Africa, a Portuguese East Africa, a Portuguese West Africa, a German South-west Africa, and so on. All these are names which might have been given in a hurry, and in them we seem to read the haste of the European nations to seize on the only lands in the world which were still available. They are very different from the descriptive names which the early Portuguese adventurers had strewn along the coast, likeSierra Leone, or "the lion mountain;"Cape Verde, or "the green cape," so called from its green grass.
Still, romance was not dead even yet. There is one district of South Africa which takes its name in the old way from that of a person.Rhodesia, the name given to Mashonaland and Matabeleland, was so called after Mr. Cecil Rhodes, a young British emigrant, who went out from England in very weak health and became perfectly strong, at the same time winning a fortune for himself in the diamond fields of Kimberley. He devoted himself heart and soul to the strengthening of British power in South Africa, and it is fitting that this province should by its name keep his memory fresh.
The story of the struggle in South Africa between Boer and Briton can be partly read in its place-names; and the story of the struggle between old and new settlers in Canada can be similarly read in the place-names of that land.
The first settlers in Canada were the French, and the descendants of these first settlers form a large proportion of the Canadian population. Many places in Canada still have, of course, the names which the first French settlers gave them.
The Italian, John Cabot, had sailed to Canada afew years after Columbus discovered America, sent by the English king, Henry VII., but no settlements were made. Thirty-seven years later the French sailor, Jacques Cartier, was sent by the French king, Francis I., to explore there. Cartier sailed up the Gulf of St. Lawrence as far as the spot where Montreal now stands. The name was given by Cartier, and means "royal mount." It was Cartier, too, who gave Canada its name; but he thought that this was already the Indian name for the land. A story is told that some Red Indians were trying to talk to him and making signs, and they pointed to some houses, saying, "Cannata." Cartier thought they meant that this was the name of the country, but he was mistaken. They were, perhaps, pointing out their village, forcannatais the Indian name for "village."
Cartier, like Cabot, sailed away again, and the first real founder of a settlement in Canada was the Frenchman, Samuel de Champlain, who made friends with the Indians, and explored the upper parts of the river Lawrence, and gave his name to the beautifulLake Champlain, which he discovered. It was he who foundedQuebec, giving it this Breton name. Sailors from Brittany had ventured as far as the coast of Canada in the time of Columbus, and had given its name toCape Breton. And so French names spread through Canada. Later, in one of the wars of the eighteenth century, England won Canada from France; but these French namesstill remain to tell the tale of French adventure and heroism in that land.
We have seen many names in new lands, some of them given by people from the Old World who settled in these lands. In the great European War we have seen people from these new lands coming back to fight in some of the most ancient countries of the Old World. The splendid Australian troops who fought in Gallipoli sprinkled many new names over the land they won and lost. One, at least, will always remain on the maps.Anzac, where the Colonials made their historic landing, will never be forgotten. It was a new name, made up of the initial letters of the words "Australian and New Zealand Army Corps," and will remain for ever one of the most honoured names invented in the twentieth century.
Children who like history can read whole chapters in the place-names of the old world and the new.
It is not only in the names of continents, countries, and towns that stories of the past can be read. The names of the old streets and buildings (or even of new streets which have kept their old names) in our old towns are full of stories. Especially is this true about London, the centre of the British Empire, and almost the centre of the world's history. It will be interesting not only to little Londoners, but to other children as well, to examine some of the old London names, and see what stories they can tell.
Naturally the most interesting names of all are to be found in what we now call "the City," meaning the centre of London, which was at one time all the London there was.
We have seen that London was in the time of the Britons just a fort, and that it became important in Roman times, and a town grew up around it. But this town in the Middle Ages, and even so late as the eighteenth century, was not at all like the London we know to-day. London now is really acounty, and stretches away far into four counties; but mediæval London was like a small country town, though a very important and gay and busy town, because it was the capital.
Many of the names in the City take us back to the very earliest days of the capital. This part of London stands on slightly rising ground, and near the river Thames, just the sort of ground which early people would choose upon which to build a fortress or a village. The names of two of the chief City streets, the Strand and Fleet Street, help to show us something of what London was like in its earliest days. A few years ago, in a famous case in a court of law, one of the lawyers asked a witness what he was doing in the Strand at a certain time. The witness, a witty Irishman, answered with a solemn face, "Picking seaweed." Everybody laughed, because the idea of picking seaweed in the very centre of London was so funny. But a strandisa shore, and when the name was given to the LondonStrandit was not a paved street at all, but the muddy shore of the river Thames.
ThenFleet Streetmarks the path by which the little river Fleet ran into the Thames. The river had several tributaries, which were covered over in this way, and several of them are used as sewers to carry away the sewage of the city. There is aFleet Street, too, in Hampstead, in the north-west of London, and this marks the beginning of thecourse of the same little river Fleet which got its water from the high ground of Hampstead.
This river has given us still another famous London name. It flowed past what is now called King's Cross, and here its banks were so steep that it was calledHollow, orHole-bourne, and from this we get the nameHolborn.
The City being the centre of London had a certain amount of trading and bargaining from the earliest times. In those times there were no such things as shops. People bought and sold in markets, and the name of the busy City street,Cheapside, reminds us of this. It was called in early times theChepe, and took its name from the Old English wordceap, "a bargain."
At the end of Cheapside runs the street calledPoultry, and this, so an old chronicler tells us, has its name from the fact that a fowl or poultry market was regularly held there up to the sixteenth century. The name of another famous City street,Cornhill, tells us that a corn market used to be held there. Another name,Gracechurch Street, reminds us of an old grass market. It took its name from an old church, St. Benet Grasschurch, which was probably so called because the grass market was held under its walls.
Smithfieldis the great London meat market now; but its name means "smooth field," and in the Middle Ages it was used as a cattle and hay market, and on days which were not market days gamesand tournaments took place there. Later its name became famous in English history for the "fires of Smithfield," when men and women were burned to death there for refusing to accept the state religion.
Many London names come from churches and buildings which no longer exist. The names help us to picture a London very different from the London of to-day. One of the busiest streets in that part of the City round Fleet Street where editors and journalists, and printers and messengers are working day and night to produce the newspapers which carry the news of the day far and wide over England, isBlackfriars. This is a very different place from the spot where the Dominicans, or "Black Friars," built their priory in the thirteenth century.
In those days the friars chose the busiest parts of the little English towns to build their houses in, so that they could preach and help the people. They thought that the earlier monks had chosen places for their monasteries too far from the people. There were grey friars and white friars, Austin friars and crutched friars, all of whose names remain in the London of to-day.
There were many monasteries and convents in the larger London which soon grew up round the City, and in the City itself we have a street whose name keeps the memory of one convent of nuns. The street called theMinoriesmarks the place where a convent of nuns of St. Clare was foundedin the thirteenth century. The Latin name for these nuns isSorores Minores, or "Lesser Sisters," just as the Franciscans, or grey friars, wereFratres Minores, or "Lesser Brethren." And so from the Latinminoreswe get the name Minories as the name of a London street, standing where this convent once stood.
The name of the streetLondon Wallreminds us of the time when London was a walled city with its gates, which were closed at night and opened every morning. Many streets keep the names of the old gates, likeLudgate Hill,Aldersgate,Bishopsgate.
The greatTower of Londonstill stands to show us how London was defended in the old feudal days; butTower Bridge, the bridge which crosses the river at that point, is a modern bridge, built in 1894. The nameCripplegatestill remains, and the story it has to tell us is that in the Middle Ages there stood outside the city walls beyond this gate the hospital of St. Giles-in-the-Fields. It was a hospital for lepers; but St. Giles is the patron saint of cripples, and so this gate of the city got the name of Cripplegate, because it was the nearest to the church of the patron saint of cripples.
This church of St. Giles-in-the-Fields no longer remains; but we haveSt. Martin's-in-the-Fields, to remind us of the difference between Trafalgar Square to-day and its condition not quite two hundred years ago, when this church was built.
It must be remembered that even at the veryend of the eighteenth century London was just a tiny town lying along the river. At that time many of the nobles and rich merchants were building their mansions in what is now the West Central district of London. The north side of Queen Square, Bloomsbury, was left open, so that the people who lived there could enjoy the view of the Highgate and Hampstead hills, to which the open country stretched. Even now this end of Queen Square is closed only by a railing, but a great mass of streets and houses stretches far beyond Hampstead and Highgate now.
Trafalgar Squareitself got its name in honour of Nelson, the hero of the great victory of Trafalgar. The great column with the statue of Nelson stands in the square.
This brings us to one of the most interesting of old London names. On one side of the square standsCharing Cross, the busiest spot in London. At this point there once stood the last of the nine beautiful crosses which King Edward III. set up at the places where the coffin of his wife, Eleanor, was set to rest in the long journey from Lincolnshire, where she died, to her grave in Westminster Abbey; and so it got its name. A fine modern cross has been set up in memory of Edward's cross, which has long since disappeared.
The district of Westminster takes its name, of course, from the abbey; and the nameBroad Sanctuaryremains to remind us of the sanctuary inwhich, as in many churches of the Middle Ages, people could take refuge even from the Law.Covent Gardentook its name from a convent garden belonging to the abbey.
One of the oldest parts of London isCharterhouse Square, where, until a year or two ago, there stood the famous boys' school of this name. The school took its name from the old monastery of the Charterhouse, which King Henry VIII. brought to an end because the monks would not own that he was head of the Church instead of the Pope. They suffered a dreadful death, being hanged, drawn, and quartered as traitors. The monastery was taken, like so many others, by the king, and afterwards became a school. But the school was removed in 1872 to an airier district at Godalming. Part of the old building is still used as a boys' day school.
The wordCharterhousewas the English name for a house of Carthusians, a very strict order of monks, whose first house was the Grande Chartreuse in France.
Not far from the Charterhouse isEly Place, with the beautiful old church of St. Ethelreda. This was, in the Middle Ages, a chapel used by the Bishop of Ely when he came to London, and that is how Ely Place, still one of the quietest and quaintest spots in London, got its name.
People who go along Ludgate Hill to St. Paul's must have noticed many curious names. Perhapsthe quaintest of all isPaternoster Row. This street, which takes its name from the Latin name of the "Our Father," or Lord's Prayer, got its name from the fact that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries many sellers of prayer-books and texts collected at this spot, on account of it being near the great church of St. Paul's. Paternoster Row is still full of booksellers.
Ave Maria LaneandAmen Corner, just near, got their names in imitation of Paternoster Row, theAve Maria, or "Hail, Mary!" being the words used by the angel Gabriel to the Blessed Virgin at the Annunciation, andAmenbeing, of course, the ending to thepaternoster, as to most prayers.
Not far from St. Paul's is the Church ofSt. Mary-le-Bow. It used to be said that the true Londoner had to be born within the sound of Bow-bells, and the old story tells us that it was these bells which Dick Whittington heard telling him to turn back when he had lost hope of making his fortune, and was leaving London for the country again. The present Church of St. Mary-le-Bow was built by Sir Christopher Wren, the great seventeenth-century architect, who built St. Paul's and several other of the most beautiful London churches after they had been destroyed by the Great Fire of 1666. But underneath the present Church of St. Mary-le-Bow is the crypt, which was not destroyed in the fire. This crypt was built, like the former church, in Norman times, and the church took itsname ofbowfrom the arches upon which it was built in the Norman way, it being the first church in London to be built in this way. The church is generally called "Bow Church."
Another famous old London church, theTemple Church, which is now used as the chapel of the lawyers at the Inns of Court, got its name from the fact that it belonged to and was built by the Knights Templars in the twelfth century. These knights were one of those peculiar religious orders which joined the life of a soldier to that of a monk, and played a great part in the Crusades. King Edward III. brought the order to an end, and took their property; but the Temple Church, with its tombs and figures of armoured knights in brass, remains to keep their memory fresh.
We may mention two other names of old London streets which take us back to the Middle Ages. In the City we have the street calledOld Jewry, and this reminds us of the time when in all the more important towns of England in the early Middle Ages a part was put aside for the Jews. This was called theGhetto. The Jews were much disliked in the Middle Ages because of the treatment of Our Lord by their forefathers; but the kings often protected them because, in spite of everything, the Jews grew rich, and the kings were able to borrow money of them. In 1290, however, Edward I. banished all the Jews from England, and they did not return until the days of Cromwell. But thename of the Old Jewry reminds us of the ghetto which was an important part of old London.
Another famous City street,Lombard Street, the street of bankers, got its name from the Italian merchants from Lombardy who set up their business there, and who became the bankers and money-lenders when there were no longer any Jews to lend money to the English king and nobles.
As time went on London began to grow in a way which seemed alarming to the people of the seventeenth century, though even then it was but a tiny town in comparison with the London of to-day. The fashionable people and courtiers began to build houses in the western "suburbs," as they were then called, though now they are looked upon as very central districts. It was chiefly in the seventeenth century that what we now know as theWest Endbecame a residential quarter. Some parts of the West End are, of course, still the most fashionable parts of London; but some, like Covent Garden and Lincoln's Inn Fields, have been given over to business.
Most of the best-known names in the West End date from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The most fashionable street of all,Piccadilly, probably got its name from the very fashionable collar called apickadil(from the Spanish wordpicca, "a spear") which the fine gentlemen wore as they swaggered through the West End in the early seventeenth century.Pall Malland theMallin St.James's Park took their names from a game which was very fashionable after the Restoration, but which was already known in the time of Charles I. The game was calledpall-mall, from the Frenchpaille-maille. After the Restoration Charles II. allowed the people to use St. James's Park, which was a royal park, and Londoners used to watch respectfully and admiringly as Charles and his brother James played this game.
Spring Gardens, also in St. James's Park, reminds us of the lively spirits of Restoration times. It was so called because of a fountain which stood there, and which was so arranged that when a passer-by trod by accident on a certain valve the waters spurted forth and drenched him. We should not think this so funny now as people did then.
At the same time that the West End was growing, poorer districts were spreading to the north and east of the City.Moorfields(which tells us by its name what it was like in the early London days) was built over.Spitalfields(which took its name from one of the many hospitals which religious people built in and near mediæval London) andWhitechapelalso filled up, and became centres of trade and manufacture. The games and sports which amused the people in these poorer quarters were not so refined as the ball-throwing of the princes and courtiers. In the nameBalls Pond Road, Islington, we are reminded of the duck-hunting which was one of the sports of the common people.
As time went on and London became larger and more crowded, the fashionable people began to go away each summer to drink the waters at Bath and Tunbridge Wells. But in London itself there were several springs and wells whose waters were supposed to be good for people's health, and these have given us some of the best-known London names. NearHolywell Streetthere were several of these wells; and alongWell Walk, in the north-west suburb of Hampstead, a procession of gaily-dressed people might regularly be seen in Charles II.'s time going to drink the waters.Clerkenwellalso took its name from a well which was believed to be mediæval and even miraculous.Bridewell, the name of the famous prison, also came from the name of a well dedicated to St. Bride.
Many of the great streets and squares of the West End of London have taken their names from the houses of noblemen who have lived there, or from the names of the rich owners of property in these parts.Northumberland Avenue, opening off Trafalgar Square, takes its name from Northumberland House, built there in the time of James I.Arundel Street, running down to the Embankment from the Strand, is so called in memory of Arundel House, the home of the Earl of Arundel, which used to stand here. It was there that the famous collection of statues known as the "Arundel Marbles" wasfirst collected. They were presented to Oxford University in 1667.
Just near Charing Cross there is a part of old London called theAdelphi. This district takes its name from a fine group of buildings put up there in the middle of the eighteenth century by the two famous brother architects Robert and William Adam.Adelphiis the Greek word for "brothers," but the name seems very peculiar applied in this way.
The name ofMayfair, the very centre of fashion in the West End, reminds us that in this magnificent quarter of London a fair used to be held in May in the time of Charles II. This gives us an idea of how the district must have changed since then.Farm Street, in Mayfair, has its name from a farm which was still there in the middle of the eighteenth century. The ground is now taken up by stables and coach-houses.Half-Moon Street, another fashionable street running out of Piccadilly, takes its name from a public house which was built on this corner in 1730.
These old names give us some idea of what London was like at different times in the past; but another very interesting group of names are those which are being made in the greater London of to-day. One of the commonest words used by Londoners to-day is theUnderground. If an eighteenth-century Londoner could come back and talk to us to-day he would not know what we meant by this word.For the great system of underground railways to which it refers was only made in the later years of the nineteenth century. TheTwopenny Tubewas the name of one of the first lines of these underground railways. It was so called because the trains ran through great circular tunnels, like the underground railways which connect all parts of London to-day. It has now become quite a habit of Londoners to talk of going "by Tube" when they mean by any of the underground railways.
One of these lines has a very peculiar and rather ugly name. It is called theBakerloo Railway, because it runs from Baker Street to Waterloo. It certainly makes us think that the Londoners of long ago showed much better taste in the names they invented.
As we have seen, languages while they are living are always growing and changing. We have seen how new names have been made as time went on. But many new words besides names are constantly being added to a language; for just as grown-up people use more words than children, and educated people use more words than uneducated or less educated people, so, too,nationsuse more words as time goes on. Every word must have been used a first time by some one; but of course it is impossible to know who were the makers of most words. Even new words cannot often be traced to their makers. Some one uses a new word, and others pick it up, and it passes into general use, while everybody has forgotten who made it.
But one very common way in which people learn to use new words is through reading the books of great writers. Sometimes these writers have made new words which their readers have seen to be very good, and have then begun to use themselves. Sometimes these great writers have made use ofwords which, though not new, were very rare, and immediately these words have become popular and ordinary words.
The first great English poet was Chaucer, and the great English philologists feel sure that he must have made many new words and made many rare words common; but it is not easy to say that Chaucer made any particular word, because we do not know enough of the language which was in use at that time to say so. One famous phrase of Chaucer is often quoted now: "after the schole of Stratford-atte-Bowe," which he used in describing the French spoken by one of the Canterbury Pilgrims in his great poem. He meant that this was not pure French, but French spoken in the way and with the peculiar accent used at Stratford (a part of London near Bow Church). We now often use the phrase to describe any accent which is not perfect.
But though we do not know for certain which words Chaucer introduced, we do know that this first great English poet must have introduced many, especially French words; while Wyclif, the first great English prose writer, who translated part of the Bible from Latin into English, must also have given us many new words, especially from the Latin. The English language never changed so much after the time of Chaucer and Wyclif as it had done before.
The next really great English poet, EdmundSpenser, who wrote his wonderful poem, "The Faerie Queene," in the days of Queen Elizabeth, invented a great many new words. Some of these were seldom or never used afterwards, but some became ordinary English words. Sometimes his new words were partly formed out of old words which were no longer used. The wordelfin, which became quite a common word, seems to have been invented by Spenser. He called a boasting knight by the nameBraggadocio, and we still use the wordbraggadociofor vain boasting. A common expression which we often find used in romantic tales, and especially in the novels of Sir Walter Scott,derring-do, meaning "adventurous action," was first used by Spenser. He, however, took it from Chaucer, who had used it as averb, speaking of thedorring-do(or "daring to do") that belonged to a knight. Spenser made a mistake in thinking Chaucer had used it as a noun, and used it so himself, making in this way quite a new and very well-sounding word.
Another word which Spenser made, and which is still sometimes used, wasfool-happy; but other words, likeidlesse,dreariment,drowsihead, are hardly seen outside his poetry. One reason for this is that Spenser was telling stories of quaint and curious things, and he used quaint and curious words which would not naturally pass into ordinary language.
The next great name in English literature, and the greatest name of all, is Shakespeare. Shakespeare influenced the English language more than any writer before or since. First of all he made a great many new words, some very simple and others more elaborate, but all of them so suitable that they have become a part of the language. Such a common word asbump, which it would be difficult to imagine ourselves without, is first found in Shakespeare's writings.Hurry, which seems to be the only word to express what it stands for, seems also to have been made by Shakespeare, and also the common worddwindle. Some other words which Shakespeare made arelonely,orb(meaning "globe"),illumine, andhome-keeping.
Many others might be quoted, but the great influence which Shakespeare had on the English language was not through the new words he made, but in the way his expressions and phrases came to be used as ordinary expressions. Many people are constantly speaking Shakespeare without knowing it, for the phrases he used were so exactly right and expressive that they have been repeated ever since, and often, of course, by people who do not know where they first came from. We can only mention a few of these phrases, such as "a Daniel come to judgment," which Shylock says to Portia in the "Merchant of Venice," and which is often used now sarcastically. From the same play comes the expression "pound of flesh," which is now often used to mean what a person knows to be due to him and is determined to have. "Full of sound andfury, signifying nothing," "to gild refined gold," "to wear one's heart upon one's sleeve,"—these and hundreds of other phrases are known by most people to come from Shakespeare; they are used by many who do not. They describe so splendidly so many things which are constantly happening that they seem to be the only or at least the best way of expressing the meanings they signify.
But not only have hundreds of Shakespeare's own words and phrases passed into everyday English, but the way in which he turned his phrases is often imitated. It was Shakespeare who used the phrase to "out-Herod Herod," and now this is a common form of speech. A statesman could now quite suitably use the phrase to "out-Asquith Asquith."
The next great poet after Shakespeare was Milton. He also gave us a great many new words and phrases, but not nearly so many as Shakespeare. Still there are a few phrases which are now so common that many people use them without even knowing that they come from Milton's writings. Some of these are "the human face divine," "to hide one's diminished head," "a dim religious light," "the light fantastic toe." It was Milton who invented the namepandemoniumfor the home of the devils, and now people regularly speak of a state of horrible noise and disorder as "a pandemonium." Many of those who use the expression have not the slightest idea of where it came from. The few words whichwe know were made by Milton are very expressive words. It was he who inventedanarchfor the spirit of anarchy or disorder, and no one has found a better word to express the idea.Satanic,moon-struck,gloom(to mean "darkness"),echoing, andbanneredare some more well-known words invented by Milton.
It is not always the greatest writers who have given us the greatest number of new words. A great prose writer of the seventeenth century, Sir Thomas Browne, is looked upon as a classical writer, but his works are only read by a few, not like the great works of Shakespeare and Milton. Yet Sir Thomas Browne has given many new words to the English language. This is partly because he deliberately made many new words. One book of his gave us several hundreds of these words. The reason his new words remained in the language was that there was a real need of them.
Many seventeenth-century writers of plays invented hundreds of new words, but they tried to invent curious and queer-sounding words, and very few people liked them. These words never really became part of the English language. They are "one-man" words, to be found only in the writings of their inventors. Yet it was one of these fanciful writers who invented the very useful worddramatistfor "a writer of plays."
But the words made by Sir Thomas Browne were quite different. Such ordinary words asmedical,literary, andelectricitywere first used by him. He made many others too, not quite so common, but words which later writers and speakers could hardly do without.
Another seventeenth-century writer, John Evelyn, the author of the famousDiarywhich has taught us so much about the times in which he lived, was a great maker of words. Most of his new words were made from foreign words, and as he was much interested in art and music, many of his words relate to these things. It was Evelyn who introduced the wordoperainto English, and alsooutline,altitude,monochrome("a painting in one shade"), andpastel, besides many other less common words.
Robert Boyle, a great seventeenth-century writer on science, gave many new scientific words to the English language. The wordspendulumandintensitywere first used by him, and it was he who first usedfluidas a noun.
The poets Dryden and Pope gave us many new words too.
Dr. Johnson, the maker of the first great English dictionary, added some words to the language. As everybody knows who has read that famous book, Boswell'sLife of Johnson, Dr. Johnson was a man who always said just what he thought, and had no patience with anything like stupidity. The expressionfiddlededee, another way of telling a person that he is talking nonsense, was made by him.Irascibility, which means "tendency to be easilymade cross or angry," is also one of his words, and so are the wordsliteratureandcomic.
The great statesman and political writer, Edmund Burke, was the inventor of many of our commonest words relating to politics.Colonial,colonization,electioneering,diplomacy,financial, and many other words which are in everyday use now, were made by him.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century there was a great revival in English literature, since known as the "Romantic Movement." After the rather stiff manners and writing of the eighteenth century, people began to have an enthusiasm for all sorts of old and adventurous things, and a new love for nature and beauty. Sir Walter Scott was the great novelist of the movement, and also wrote some fine, stirring ballads and poems. In these writings, which dealt chiefly with the adventurous deeds of the Middle Ages, Scott used again many old words which had been forgotten and fallen out of use. He made them everyday words again.
The old wordchivalrous, which had formerly been used to describe the institutions connected with knighthood, he used in a new way, and the word has kept this meaning ever since. It has now always the meaning of courtesy and gentleness towards the weak, but before Sir Walter Scott used it it had not this meaning at all. Scott also revived words likeraidandforay, his novels, of course, being full of descriptions of fighting on the borders of Englandand Scotland. It was this same writer who introduced the Scottish wordgruesomeinto the language.
Later in the century another Scotsman, Thomas Carlyle, made many new words which later writers and speakers have used. They are generally rather forcible and not very dignified words, for Carlyle's writings were critical of almost everything and everybody, and he seemed to love rather ugly words, which made the faults he described seem contemptible or ridiculous. It was he who made the wordscroakery,dry-as-dust, andgrumbly, and he introduced also the Scottish wordfeckless, which describes a person who is a terribly bad manager, careless and disorderly in his affairs, the sort of person whom Carlyle so much despised.