2n'i S. No 92., Oct. 3. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



2n 



royalty (?) cited by Dr. Doran (p. 1 66.), though 

 in this latter case, I fear, a lower than kingly 

 origin will be found really to belong to them. 

 (Vide Burke's Commoners, under Chester of 

 Bush Hail, for a pedigree of the Cassars. Harrold 

 is the name of a locality in Bedfordshire, I be- 

 lieve. Stanton-Harrold also occurs to roe, as 

 somewhere in the Midland Counties.) 



The following names occur almost exclusively 

 in the walks of trade and commerce : Umfreville, 

 Osbaldiston, Englefield, Lovell, Egerton, Harley, 

 Harrington, Hussey, Percy, Mortimer, Mont- 

 gomery, Mountford, Fitzgerald, Mainwaring, E.a- 

 venscroft, Bingham, Courteijay, Maynard, Bur- 

 leigh, Docwra, Jermyn, Howard, Hyde Mansell, 

 Mordaunt, Stanley, &c. We have also Thomas 

 Cranmer and Thomas a Beckett, though neither 

 ©f them archbishops ; and the name of Bevis is 

 still to be found in circles now happily free from 

 fear of Danish inroads, and lacking the martial 

 prowess of the great Saxon commander only in 

 the freedom from the necessity that called it 

 forth. (This name, however, and Beavis, which 

 is another form of it, like Bevan, Bowen, and 

 other compounds of Ap, may be of Welsh origin. 

 I have seen in a neighbouring county the name 

 JEaois.) 



This subject is capable of much extension, but 

 having already, I fear, trespassed too much on 

 your space, I will, if permitted, reserve for a fu- 

 ture communication some remarks I had intended 

 to offer on the curiosities of combination, and other 

 peculiarities observable in our modern surnames. 

 Hen ry W. S. Taylor. 

 Southampton. 



ULTIMA THULE, 



(2"'' S. iv. 187.) 



The evidence brought forward from the Latin 

 authors is ample, but the conclusion pointed at, 

 that Newfoundland was their Ultima Thule, ap- 

 pears to be contradicted by such evidence. Names 

 must have weight where the evidence in chief is 

 inconclusive, and those of Camden, D'Anville, and 

 Walter Scott have concluded for Shetland. Their 

 difficulty was the paucity of description in the 

 ancient authors. The fullest description I have 

 met with in antiquity, next to Tacitus, is in the 

 Periegesis of Dionysius (v. 1189-1199.), as I find 

 it in the text of Wells (Oxford, 1704) : 



" . . . . S>v VTTcp a59t Koi aWr)v 

 f}r]<TidSuiv (TTtx' af aSpijcreias, riavSe fxeyiarriv 

 NCr SxeTXTji/ ivenovaiv, ctti nporipiav avOpiainov 

 KAn^o^eVrji' 0oiiAiji', raie viTTara veCpara yat'ijs" 

 (Ov yap oSbc vpOTepiocre ^opetaSos ajn.i|>(.7pcTr)S 

 'EAArjves vi;e<r<7"i SUr/xayov, ovSe AaTtroi)." 



Part of this is Wells's Greek, but the following 

 is genuine : 



" Ecda fji,ev ^eAioio jSe/SrjKOTOS es nokov aipKTUiv 

 'H|u,afl' ofiov /cat rvxras aeti^aves e/tice^vroi irvp. 



AofoTepT? yAp T^fAos em<rrf>e<j>eTai (rrpoi^aAxyyi, 

 'AktCviov l6fiav inl kKCctlv epxOfJievaMi/, 

 1ie(T<f>' eirl Kvaveovi votCtjv oShv a^Tis cKdira^." 



. Now had this author spoken of Icehind from 

 any certain information, he would have noted a 

 fact most remarkable to him, as it would have 

 been to all antiquity, that during part of the year 

 the sun does not set there. This would have very 

 much disturbed their mythological views as to 

 Jupiter, Apollo, IMercuvy, Venus, &c. But from 

 the terms used, the phenomenon of continual light 

 by night as well as day, aeKpavh itvp, is such as 

 would naturally bo remarked as a fact conspi- 

 cuous in Shetland, and new and interesting to 

 people on the Mediterranean shores, for whom 

 Dionysius wrote. Worsaae suggests that Scan- 

 dinavia was, and that the Shetlands might be, 

 the Ultima Thule (Dallas and Norwegians, 99. 

 220.), but Scandinavia did not awake into his- 

 toric existence till after the Christian ssra. Had 

 Newfoundland been thought of, its characteristic 

 mists would probably have been mentioned ; be- 

 sides, the classical ancients had neither motives 

 nor means for such a voyage {Danes and Nor- 

 wegians, 108.). From the word Thule being in 

 the singular number, it is evidently inapplicable 

 to a cluster of islands like the Orkneys, known to 

 antiquity by their proper name Orcades ; and the 

 word ultima manifestly refers to an extreme and 

 well-defined island. 



Ireland was well known to Greeks and Romans 

 by its proper names, but not as Thule. The fact 

 that Shetland was called Thylensel, " The Isle of 

 Thyle," by seamen, as stated in Ainsworth's Dic- 

 tionary on the authority of Gamden, is most im- 

 portant ; but the question arises, from the Polyglot 

 number" of islands called the Shetlands, which is 

 Thyle? The Penny Cyclopcedia says it is "Foula, 

 the only one of them which, from the altitude of 

 its hills and its detached position, can be seen 

 from the seas immediately to the north of Ork- 

 ney." I will only add that the interchange of th 

 for f is common, as Feodore for Theodore, and 

 Feodosius for Theodosius, amongst the Sarma- 

 tians, through the medium of whom probably the 

 Greeks and Romans first heard the name of 

 Foula, which they represented by ®ov\7} and 

 Thule. Tacitus has these words (^Agr. c. 10.) in 

 Gordon's translation. Speaking of the wedge- 

 shape (cuneum) of Britain, he says : 



" Round the coast of this sea, which beyond it has no 

 land, the Roman fleet now first sailed, and thence proved 

 Britain to be an island, as also discovered and subdued 

 the isles of Orkney, till then unknown. Thule was like- 

 wise descried (Dispecta est et Thule quadamtenus), 

 hitherto hid by winter under eternal snow." 



Consult Keralio, in Memoires de V Academic de 

 Belles-Lettres, Jan. 12, 1781. T. J. Buckton. 

 Lichfield. 



