in repli/ to Mr. R. C. Taylor. 273 



circumstance required to substantiate my theory ; for whether 

 the adjunct be Herlyng or Herrjng, it cannot alter the fact that 

 Herring-fleet, in the Anglo-Saxon times, was situated upon an 

 « {EStuary or arm of the sea." This point being settled, the 

 import of the prefixed term must be gathered from probability 

 and consistency, while authority and fact are either silent or 

 discordant. Which then is the most probable and consistent 

 opinion — that a village, denominated in part from its situation 

 on an arm of the sea, should have taken the rest of its name 

 from a fish in which that sea abounds, or that it should have 

 combined with such an appellation the name of another place, 

 in a remote and inland part of the country, with which it does 

 not appear ever to liave had the slightest connection ? To 

 prefer the latter conclusion would indeed be to strain etymo- 

 logy, for the purpose of '■'-favouring a given theory" With 

 equal, if not with greater reason I might have alleged, that 

 the principal canal 'in the town of Rotterdam is actually called 

 the Haringvlict ; for it is surely more rational to suppose, that 

 the fishermen, who inhabited Lothingland, kept up an inter- 

 course with the shores of the opposite continent, than to be- 

 lieve, out of mere respect for the orthography of Domesday 

 Book, that they travelled forty miles up the country, to bor- 

 row from Harling (a market town of Guiltcross, not Shrop- 

 ham, hundred) a name for one of their early settlements. Nor 

 is Mr. Taylor more fortunate in his objection, that the names 

 of Herringby and Hernngfleet can have "no reference to fish, 

 whose habits lead them to avoid shallow muddy rivers" This 

 argument sets out with a most flagrant petitio principii — ac- 

 tually first assuming as a fact, the very point which is to be 

 demonstrated. Let it be proved that, in the Anglo-Saxon 

 times, there were no waters but " shallow muddy riveis" in 

 these valleys, and I will then admit the force of the objection. 

 Let it be proved, that Fleoc denotes— not " an eestuary or 

 arme of the sea,"— but " a shallow muddy river /'—that the 

 brine, which five centuries afterwards supplied the salt-pans 

 at Herringby and Fritton, was conveyed to them by " shallorv 

 muddy rivers :" — 1 will then allow, that the etymology, which 

 I have suggested, affords no collateral evidence in support of 

 my argument. But until the proofs which I have required 

 can 1)0 adduced, I must still believe, that Herringby and Her- 

 ringfleet were fishing establishments of the early Saxon colo- 



iii the Isle of Thanct ; Bemflccl, in Essex, nciir the Isle of Canvcy ; Fleet, 

 Surfleet, Wainjicd, and Salljtccl, on tlie coast of Lincolnslure ;— all these 

 phiccs were evidently so denominated from the course of the tidal waters, 

 on the banks of which they were fixed. 



New Series. Vol. 2. No. 10. Oct. 1827. 2 N nist 



