1873-1874.] 37 



have been in the British peerage, although those occupations were 

 in the middle ages considered so vile and menial that none but 

 bondsmen or slaves would follow them. 



What I have said about English surnames applies in the main 

 to those of the Lowlands of Scotland. It is well to take note of 

 this, for the Scottish Lowlands have furnished a very large pro- 

 portion of the inhabitants of this county. The names of places 

 here predominate as surnames. As these names are often signi- 

 ficant — indicating at least the race of those who first imposed 

 them — it might be well to give a short account of their origin. 

 We find in the Lowlands, for instance, local names which must have 

 been imposed by men speaking the language of ancient Ireland ; 

 others which must have originated from the mouths of people akin 

 to the modern Welsh; others which have been imposed by the 

 Norsemen, and by the Angles and Saxons of the south. 



Thus these local names, or the surnames formed from them, 

 embrace within them indications of the vicissitudes of conquest to 

 which the Lowlands of Scotland have been subjected. Authentic 

 history tells us, and existing local names confirm it, that the Low- 

 lands, from the Firth of Clyde and the Perthshire hills to Northum- 

 bria, were in early times the seat of a people akin to the modern 

 Welsh. This constituted, as it has been argued, the ancient Pictish 

 kingdom of Scotland. Beyond them lo the north were the Scots, 

 descendants of the Dalriadic and other invaders from Ireland in the 

 5th and 6th centuries. About the year 842, the Scots and Picts were 

 united under one king, Kenneth MacAlpin, and thenceforward the 

 name of Picts as a nation disappears, still leaving, however, a testi- 

 mony of their presence and language, it is contended, in the 

 names of places they inhabited. The words Pen — e.g., Pentland 

 hills, Penwally; Aber (as in Abernethy, Aberbrothick) ; Uchel 

 (high), as in Ochiltree ; Pol, Trefe, Frostre, Llan, &c, all bear 

 testimony to a former Cymric or Welsh population. To the 

 north, the Cymric Pen becomes the Gaelic Ben or Cen ; the 

 Cymric Aber, the Gaelic Inver; the Cymric Llan, the Gaelic Kil, 

 &c. The Norsemen, who have left their mark on every country in 



