188 
requiring now the addition of cave or hole to explain it ; these may be 
called tautological words or words that express the same meaning in British 
Welsh and Saxon language. 
The British names have often suffered mutilation through attempts of the 
fanciful to give a sort of meaning in English to sounds, the real import of 
which was lost, and Roman names have suffered by the same process. The 
fundamental particles chester, street, way and others have not so suffered, 
but where there was anything exceptional, the process is almost constant, 
The Roman name of Bath was Aque ; and in Gaul Aque, under the forms 
of Aix and Dax, still remains, ‘but here the effort to give an English mean- - 
ing changed Aquez into Akemannesceaster. Mr. Earle, however, thought 
that the syllable ‘man’ was the British ‘maen’ a place, and rejected the 
translation, Sickman’s city. The city of Bath was one of the rare 
instances of a place changing its name. She emerges from oblivion in the 
seventh century with the name Bath. One other town in England which 
has changed its name is Chester, formerly Deva; we know that this town 
was for a long time after the Roman period desolate and deserted by its 
inhabitants. May we not seek for the reason of our city changing its name 
in a similar cause. From the sixth to the end of the ninth century was the 
period when the whole local nomenclature was settling down into our present 
forms. We have the usual Wicks, Tons, Burys and Fords. Of the two 
fords Saltford and Freshford, Mr. Earle did not consider the names 
antithetical, or as having any relation the one to the other so as to support 
the opinion that the salt water formerly came as far as Saltford, but rather 
that the particle salé was a remnant of salicetum, and was the ford among 
the willows ; and he found in Freshford an allusion to the rapid course of the 
stream in that neighbourhood, as fresh, in the sense of sweet water, was not 
an ancient use of that word. Claverton was a good instance-of both the 
common particles Ford and Ton, together with the more specific word Clot. 
Claverton may be found in Kemble’s ‘ Codex Diplomaticus’ as Clatfordton ; 
and Clat or Clot is the name not yet extinct for a water lily, thus we have 
the pretty name Town at the ford of the water lily; in illustration of 
this Mr, Earle quoted the following’ lines from Barnes, the Dorset poet :— 
‘ Where wide and slow 
The stream did flow, 
And flags did grow, 
And lightly flee 
Below the grey-leaved willow tree ; 
Whilst clack, clack, clack, from hour to hour, 
Did go the mill by Cloty Stour.’ 
