30 PAPERS, ETC. 
—the TonE-TOown—surrounded by a country beautiful and 
rich, herself not unworthy of the beautiful scenery with 
which she is surrounded. The connection of the name 
of this river with the Celtie “Avon,” is very probable ; 
and T’avon may be the contraction of Taw-Aavon, which 
literally deseribes the peculiarly “silent” course of the 
river. Taunton DEAN (well known not to have had its 
origin in any ecclesiastical division) may be either from the 
Anglo-Saxon DEN, “a valley ;” which, in the form of 
DEAN, is still used in the distriet of Craven : or, more 
probably, is identical with the Celtic root DEN, which 
enters into the names of many localities associated with 
forests or woodland. Thus, we have the FOREST OF DEAN 
in Gloucestershire, known to the present day by the 
Welsh as vr DvEnA ; the FOREST OF ARDEN, in War- 
wickshire, formerly extending from the Severn to the 
Trent, but now confined to that part of the county of 
Warwick west of the Avon about Henley, called the 
WoopLAND; and the parish of ARDEN-vVIL in Lanark- 
shire. Then, there is the great Forest of ARDENNE,—the 
’ 
“ Arduenna Sylva” of Julius C»sar*—which gives a 
name to a department of France, and formerly extended 
as far as the country of Liege, in the neighbourhood of 
which—another indication of Celtic oceupation—there is 
a distriet very like our own Devon, known in the present 
day as Dinant, identical evidently in sound and significa- 
tion with the Dyvnaint of Ancient Britain. The aspect of 
Taunton Dean, even now, from any of the neighbouring 
heishts, fully justifies the appellation of DEN or DEAN in 
the sense of “ woodland.” 
Leaving Taunton, and passing through HarcH (a 
Somerset provincialism, even in the present day, for GATE) 
* Cesar de Bello Gall. 1. vi., c. 29, 31. 
