Dec. 27. 1851.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



505 



prisoners : which gave occasion to the following satiri- 

 cal play upon words: ' That Flemings had taken French 

 Nobles without first weiyhing t/tem!' The play on the 

 words, of course, alluding to the Englisli gold coin 

 commonly known by the name of ' the noble.'" 



The last instance shows the common opinion 

 entertained of the Flemings, as being traders far 

 too keen to take any coin except it were of full 

 tale and weight. And although the expression 

 " Flemish account " may have originated from 

 their practice as merchants, yet, frcjin the second 

 instance quoted fiom Ford and Decker, it may 

 not unreasonably be inferred that it received 

 greater currency from their method of paying the 

 soldiers who served as mercenaries in the wais of 

 the Low Countries. E. A. D. 



POPE AND FLATMAS. 



(Vol. iv., p. 132.) 



Mr. Barton, in his "Note" on Pope and 

 Flatman, inquires whether the coincidence men- 

 tioned by hiin has been noticed before. I believe 

 it has, by more than one commentator, and among 

 others by Croly in his edition of Pope, London, 

 E. J. Valpy, 18;3.5. Dr. Croly introduces the ode 

 of " The Dying Ciiristian to his Soul," with these 

 remarks, from wliich it will be seen that Flatman 

 was not the only source of Pope's inspiration : 



" Pope, in a letter to Steele, at whose suggestion lie 

 had adopted the subject, gives this brief history of his 

 composition: — 'You have It,' he says, 'as Cowley 

 calls it, warm from the brain ; it came to me the first 

 moment I waked this morning ; yet you'll see it was 

 not so absolutely inspiration liut that I had in my head 

 not only the verses of Hadrian, but the fine fragment 

 of Sappho.' Pope omitted to observe the close slmi- 

 larity of his lines to those of Flatman, an obscure 

 writer of the century before. Between his rough versi- 

 fication and the polished elegance of Pope there can be 

 no comparison; but tlie thoughts are the same. Prior 

 translated Hadrian's ode with more fidelity, but less 

 good fortune." 



Henrt H. Breen. 

 St. Lucia. 



DERIVATION OF " LONDON. 



(Vol. iv., p. 437.) 



I beg to suggest that the word London is de- 

 rived from the Celtic Luan, "the moon," and dun, 

 "a city on a hill;" thus Luandnv. would mean 

 " the city of the moon," i. c. of " the temple of 

 the moon." I have seen it stated somewhere, that 

 the site of St. Paul's wtis formerly tiiat of a temple 

 of Diana: if this be true, it gives weight to my 

 <lefinitioii of the word. I would :dso suggest that 

 the name fif Gmcnicich is iiidic;itive oi' the reli- 

 gious worship of the ancient jjcople of Britain; as 



Grian is " the sun" in Celtic, and no doubt Green- 

 wich could boast of its " Grynean grove." 

 " His tibi Grynsl nemoris dicatur origo : 

 Ne quis sit lucus, quo se plus jactet Apollo." 



Francis Crossi.ey. 



M. C. E. is referred to the two following pas- 

 sages fi-oiu Fuller, if he has not already met with 

 the in : — 



" That it was so termed from Lnn Dian, a temple 

 of Diana (standing wliere now St. Paul's doth) is most 

 likely, in my opinion." — Worthies, art. " lyondoii." 



'• This renders their conceit not unlikely who will 

 have London so called from Lhm Dian, which signi- 

 fieth in British, 'the temple of Diana.'" — Church 

 History, i. § 2. 



J. Eastwood. 



The name of London is certainly older than the 

 Romans, and is probably, therefore, as your cor- 

 respondent says, British. Its significance, if any, 

 therefore, is to be sought in ^Velsh. Now, your 

 correspondent is certainly quite wrong as to the 

 meaning of Llan \n ^\'elsh. It always means, here 

 at any rate, church, wot plain. Possibly your cor- 

 res])ondent was thinking of Llano. The woril is 

 written in AVelsh Lhjndon, or Llyndain, which 

 also speaks against its being comjiounded with 

 Llan. The word certainly might mean anvthing: 

 but I know of no satisi'actory explantition having 

 been given for it as yet. The only words for town 

 in Welsh are, I believe, tre "city," or caer "castle," 

 — as parts of compound words, I mean. Sc. 



Carmarthen. 



I cannot thi.nk that M. C. E.'s etymoloiry of 

 London is a correct one ; nor did I know that the 

 British Llan means a " level place generally." I 

 take it that originally Llan meant no more than 

 " an inelosure," as we see in loinllan, "a vineyard," 

 "an inelosure for vines ;" jierllun, "an orchard" 

 (literally a pear-yard). As churchyards were pro- 

 bably for some time almost the only inclosures in 

 their districts, this will explain why the names of 

 churches in ^Vales so commonly beijin with Llan. 

 Llanvair, Llanilltid, Llandilo, &c. were the in- 

 closures, or yards, in which churches dedicated to 

 St. jMary, St. Iltyd, St. Teilo, &c. were built, 

 though in the C(ntrse of time these names became 

 applied to the churches themselves. The word 

 don is nothing more than din, or dinas, " a fortress," 

 as we see in Liigdumnii, Virodunuiii, Londinium, 

 Dumbarton, Dunmoi'e, &c. 



Old chroniclers say that the city of London was 

 nearly, if not entirely, surrounded by water, which 

 on the north, north-east, and south sides spread 

 out into considerable lakes. Present names of | 

 localities in and about th(> Citv show traces of this. 

 Finsbury and IMoorlields take their names from 

 the fens and moors, or meres, which were partially 

 reclaimed from the lake which sjiread to the north 



