ITS ORIGIN ACCORDING TO FABULOUS WRITERS.

5

so often meet, without knowing one another. The Oriental writers have an account of a race of pre-Adamite kings, not entirely human. It is supposed by some geologists, that there was a period before the creation of man, when creatures vaster than any now on dry land trampled the earth at will; perhaps had faculties no longer to be found in connection with brute forms, and effaced, together with themselves, for a nobler experiment. We may indulge our fancy with supposing that, in those times, light itself, and the revolution of the seasons, may not have been exactly what they are now; that some unknown monster, mammoth or behemoth, howled in the twilight over the ocean solitude now called London; or (not to fancy him monstrous in nature as in form, for the hugest creatures of the geologist appear to have been mild and graminivorous), that the site of our metropolis was occupied with the gigantic herd of some more gigantic spirit, all good of their kind, but not capable of enough ultimate good to be permitted to last. However, we only glance at these speculative matters, and leave them. Neither shall we say anything of the more modern elephant, who may have recreated himself some thousands of years ago on the site of the Chapter Coffee House; or of the crocodile, who may have snapped at some remote ancestor of a fishmonger in the valley of Dowgate.

By the fabulous writers, London was called Troynovant or New Troy, and was said to have been founded by Brutus, great-grandson of Æneas, from whom the country was called Brutain, or Britain.

For noble Britons sprong from Trojans bold,

And Troynovant was built of old Troye's ashes cold.

(This is one of Spenser's fine old lingering lines, in which he seems to dwell on a fable till he believes it.) Brutus, having the misfortune to kill his father, fled from his native country into Greece, where he set free a multitude of Trojans, captives to King Pandrasus, whose daughter he espoused. He left Greece with a numerous flotilla, and came to an island called Legrecia, where there was a temple of Diana. To Diana he offered sacrifice, and prayed her to direct his course. prayer, and the goddess's reply, as told in Latin by Gildas, have received a lustre from the hand of Milton. He gives us the following translation of them in his historical fragment:

The

6

FIRST HISTORICAL MENTION OF LONDON.

"Diva potens nemorum:
:"

"Goddess of Shades, and Huntress, who at will
Walk'st on the rolling sphere, and through the deep,
On thy third reign, the earth, look now; and tell
What land, what seat of rest, thou bidst me seek;
What certain seat, where I may worship thee,

For aye, with temples vowed, and virgin quires." "To whom, sleeping before the altar," says the poet, "Diana in a vision that night, thus answered :—

66 Brute, sub occasum solis:"

"Brutus, far to the west, in th' ocean wide,
Beyond the realm of Gaul, a land there lies,
Sea-girt it lies, where giants dwelt of old;
Now void, it fits thy people. Thither bend
Thy course: there shalt thou find a lasting seat;
There to thy sons another Troy shall rise,
And kings be born of thee, whose dreaded reign
Shall awe the world, and conquer nations bold.”*

According to Spenser, Brutus did not find England cleared of the giants. He had to conquer them. But we shall speak of those personages when we come before their illustrious representatives in Guildhall.

This fiction of Troynovant, or new Troy, appears to have arisen from the word Trinobantes in Cæsar, a name given by the historian to the inhabitants of a district which included the London banks of the Thames. The oldest mention of the metropolis is supposed to be found in that writer, under the appellation of Civitas Trinobantum, the city of the Trinobantes; though some are of opinion that by civitas he only meant their government or community. Be this as it may, a city of the Britons, in Cæsar's time, was nothing either for truth or fiction to boast of, having been, as he describes it, a mere spot hollowed out of the woods, and defended by a ditch and a rampart.

We have no reason to believe that the first germ of London was anything greater than this. Milton supposes that so many traditions of old British kings could not have been handed down without a foundation in truth; and the classical origin of London, though rejected by himself, was not only firmly believed by people in general as late as the reign of Henry the Sixth (to whom it was quoted in a public document), but was maintained by professed antiquaries,-Leland among them. It is probable enough that, before Cæsar's time, the *History of England, 4to. 1670, p. 11.

We learn this from Selden's notes to the Polyolbion of Drayton.

affairs of the country may have been in a better situation than he found them; and it is possible that something may have once stood on the site of London, which stood there no longer. But this may be said of every other place on the globe; and as there is nothing authentic to show for it, we must be content to take our ancestors as we find them. In truth, nothing is known with certainty of the origin of London, not even of its name. The first time we hear either of the city or its apellation is in Tacitus, who calls it Londinium. The following list, taken principally from Camden, comprises, we believe, all the names by which it has been called. We dwell somewhat on this point, because we conclude the reader will be pleased to see by how many aliases his old acquaintance has been known.

Troja Nova, Troynovant, or New Troy.

Tre-novant, or the New City, (a mixture of Latin and Cornish).

Dian Belin, or the City of Diana.

Caer Ludd, or the City of Ludd.-These are the names
given by the fabulous writers, chiefly Welsh.
Londinium.-Tacitus, Ptolemy, Antoninus.
Lundinium.-Ammianus Marcellinus.
Longidinium.

Lindonium, (Avoóviov).—Stephanus in his Dictionary.
Lundonia.

Bede.

Augusta. The complimentary title granted to it under Valentinian, as was customary with flourishing foreign establishments.

Lundenbyrig.

Lundenberig.

Lundenberk.

Lundenburg.

Lundenwic, or wyc.

Lundenceastre (that is, London-castrum or camp).

Lundunes.

Lundene, or Lundenne.

Lundone.-Saxon names.

Lundenceastre is Alfred the

Great's translation of the Lundonia of Bede.

Luddestun.

Ludstoune.-Saxon translations of the Caer Ludd of the

Welsh.

Londres.-French.

Londra.-Italian. The letter r in these words is curious.

8

DERIVATION OF LONDON.

It seems to represent the berig or burgh of the Saxons; quasi Londrig, from Londonberig; in which case Londres would mean London-borough.

The disputes upon the derivation of the word London have been numerous. In the present day, the question seems to be, whether it originated in Celtic British, that is, in Welsh, and signified "a city on a lake," or in Belgic British (old German), and meant "a city in a grove." The latest author who has handled the subject inclines to the latter opinion. Mr. Pennant being a Celt, was for the "city on a lake,” the Thames in the early periods of British history having formed a considerable expanse of water near the site of the present metropolis. Llyn-Din is Lake-City, and Lun-Den Grove-City. Erasmus, on the strength of those affinities between Greek and Welsh, which can be found between most languages, fetched the word from Lindus, a city of Rhodes; Somner, the antiquary, derived it from Llawn, full, and Dyn, man, implying a great concourse of people; another antiquary, from Lugdus, a Celtic prince; Maitland from Lon, a plain, and Dun or Don, a hill; another, we know not who, referred to by the same author, from a word signifying a ship and a hill†; Camden from Llong-Dinas, a City of Ships; and Selden, seeing conjecture is free," was for deriving it from LlanDien, or the temple of Diana, for reasons which will appear presently. Pennant thinks that London might have been called Lake-City first, and Ship-City afterwards. The opinion of the editor of the Picture of London seems most plausible —that Lun-Den, or Grove-City was the name, because it is compounded of Belgic British, which, according to Cæsar, must have been the language of the district; and he adds, that the name is still common in Scandinavia.§ It may be argued, that London might have existed as a fortress on a lake before the arrival of settlers from Belgium; and that GroveCity could not have been so distinguishing a characteristic of the place as Lake-City, because wood was a great deal more abundant than water. On the other hand, all the rivers at that time were probably more or less given to overflowing. *Picture of London, 1824, p. 3.

66

†These etymologies are to be found in Maitland's History and Survey of London. Fol. 1756. Vol. i. Book i.

In the notes to Drayton's Polyolbion, Song viii.

There is a Lunden in Sweden, mentioned by Maitland, vol. i. ubi sup. It is the capital of the province of Schonen. Another town of the name is in Danish Holstein.

BRITISH LONDON.

Grove-City might have been the final name, though LakeCity was the first; and the propensity to name places from trees, is still evident in our numerous Woot-tons, or Woodtowns, Wood-fords, Woodlands, &c. But of all disputes, those upon etymology appear the most hopeless. Perhaps the word itself was not originally what we take it to be. Who would suspect the word wig to come from peruke; jour from dies; uncle from avus; or that Kensington should have been corrupted by the despairing organs of a foreigner, into Inhimthorp?*

Whether London commenced with a spot cleared out in the woods by settlers from Holland, (Gallic Belgium,) as conjecture might imply from Cæsar, or whether the germ of it arose with the aboriginal inhabitants, we may conclude safely enough with Pennant, that it existed in some shape or other in Cæsar's time.

"It stood," says he, "in such a situation as the Britains would select, according to the rule they established. An immense forest originally extended to the river side, and even as late as the reign of Henry II. covered the northern neighbourhood of the city, and was filled with various species of beasts of chase. It was defended naturally by fosses, one formed by the creek which ran along Fleet Ditch; the other, afterwards known by that of Walbrook. The south side was guarded by the Thames; the north they might think sufficiently protected by the adjacent forest."†

In this place, then, seated on their hill, (probably that on which St. Paul's Cathedral stands, as it is the highest in London,) and gradually exchanging their burrows in the ground for huts of wicker and clay, we are to picture to ourselves our metropolitan ancestors, half-naked, rude in their manners, ignorant, violent, vindictive, subject to all the halfreasoning impulses-their bodies tattooed like South Sea Islanders but brave, hospitable, patriotic, anxious for esteem-in short, like other semi-barbarians, exhibiting energies which they did not yet know how turn to account, but possessing, like all human beings, the germs of the noblest

* "We have one word," says Dr. Pegge," which has not a single letter of its original, for of the French peruke, we got periwig, now abbreviated to wig. Earwig comes from eruca, as Dr. Wallis observes, Anonymiana, p. 56. The French word jour (day) comes from dies, through diurnus, diurno, giorno; so giornale, journal. Uncle is from avus, through avunculus. For Inhimthorpe, and other impossibilities, see Cosmo the Third's Travels through England, in the reign of Charles II."

† Pennant's London, third edition, 4to., p. 3.