OF ANGLO-SAXON DERIVATION. 339 
logical student soon perceives that there is no portion of language 
more rich in traces, whereby the habits of life, the turn of thought, 
and turn of expression, that once prevailed, can be learnt and 
appreciated. He accordingly looks with the greatest respect 
upon these relics of an older speech, which so many think they 
may venture to despise. 
It is worthy of remark that, while the mind is young, and 
before it has been obscured by conventional habits in language, 
an extraordinary curiosity is often manifested about the popular 
nomenclature of places in the native district. Schoolboys, over 
their play, are fond of assigning their own interpretation to those 
names that come within their range; for they have an instinc- 
tive feeling that all appellations are significant ; and very shrewd 
are the guesses which they sometimes fall upon. This is because 
boys and children, though ignorant of the ancient popular speech, 
have frequently more of that faculty, which Bishop Lowth has 
well called vernacular instinct, and which the Germans term 
Sprach-gefiihl, (perceptiveness in language) than many of their 
elders are found to exhibit. They cannot always hit upon exactly 
the right interpretation; but their keen perception of popular 
idiom guards them against many a wrong one, such as older 
heads too often entertain. 
Some years ago, it occurred to me that no small benefit would 
be conferred upon English philology, and that useful help would 
be afforded to those, who, like schoolboys in the play-ground, 
seek to cultivate it in their own way, if good maps, at once 
archeological and philological, of individual counties, could be 
laid before the public; and that still more valuable information 
would be brought within reach, if similar charts of single parishes 
should afterwards follow; because, in these, the names of indi- 
vidual fields, and of various minor features of the land, could be 
accurately inserted and handed down. Nor would the advantage 
end here, or remain without practical results. For, though it is 
an invidious and thankless office to attack erroneous spellings in 
any direct manner, and to prescribe how they may be corrected ; 
yet by means of such maps, those who enjoy power and property, 
in the various localities, would be enabled to ascertain the purest 
