196
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. vm. AUG. 31, 1901.
ledge of the history of mediaeval Europe ; and,
secondly, it is free from the prejudices which so
seriously hampered the political economists ot the
various narrow schools of the past.
The paragraphs devoted to what the writer calls the capitalistic organization of agriculture are espe- cially good. In some parts of England this change has taken place almost in our own day, and the results in more than one direction have been both morally and economically disastrous. We would direct special attention to the clauses devoted to pessimism and anarchism. They are excellent, and might, with great profit to those who study the social developments of our time, be expanded into a volume. The pessimistic view of the future rests, as Dr. Cunningham points out, " on the assumption that man is the slave of his grosser impulses." This notion he rejects as strenuously as we do ourselves. An Australian poet has, we know, said,
Men at the bottom are merely brutes ; but he M'as not one himself, and the experience of all who know the modern world and have a competent acquaintance with history, so as to be able to compare one time with another, leads to an opposite conclusion. We do not deny that there are great dangers ahead. Those who regard material progress as an end in itself, and not as a mere means for making possible a higher standard of life, are doing what is in their power, though for the most part quite unconsciously, to produce a terrible catastrophe, which, if it occurred, might well enve- lope the whole civilized world in flaming anarchic violence.
The historical side of Dr. Cunningham's little book is valuable as a work of reference. Attention is drawn to many facts which we are apt to ignore when we meet with them mixed up with other matter in the pages of our larger histories. The author has some good remarks on the great influence of the Church of the Middle Ages on the develop- ment of trade which will give new knowledge to many readers. We are glad to say that there is an excellent index.
The Place-Name* of Cambridgeshire. By the Rev.
W. W. Skeat, Litt.D., c. (Cambridge, Deighton,
Bell <fe Co.)
Ix this paper, originally contributed to the Cam- bridge Antiquarian Society, Prof. Skeat breaks new ground, and essays a fallow corner of the great etymological field which he has cultivated in other parts with such marked success. There is probably no branch of philological research which demands the hand of a master more imperatively than the unravelling of place-names, for there is none which has suffered more from the charla- tanism and plausible conjectures of dilettante etymolr gists. We need not say that in the hands of such a stickler for the historical and scientific method as Prof. Skeat we are safe from misleading guesswork, or if a guess is hazarded, it is frankly put forward as that and nothing else. His accurate knowledge of phonetics, coupled with a unique experience in tracing words to their origin and place-names are only words of a limited and local acceptation gives him an immense advantage over the ordinary writers of glossaries and county his- tories. Prof, Skeat comments on the generally prosaic meaning of English local names. When the baxon has compounded his -town (ton), or -ham or stead, or -worth with some vocable expressive of
its position with regard to the cardinal points, or
its produce or surroundings, he has exhausted the
resources of his matter-of-fact nomenclature, his
efforts in this way standing in striking contrast to
the Celtic place-names found in Ireland and Scot-
land, which are often highly poetical. Quy, for
instance, the name of a village near Horningsea
which has often puzzled us, is merely "Cow-ey"
(Cu-ege) or "Cow-island," a rising ground in the
tens still famous for its pasturage. Girton is
its
probably at bottom " Great town," and Newnham " (at the) New home" ; and Milton (originally Mid- dleton) stands for "Middle town." This last instance reminds us of a further interest attaching to the place-names of towns and villages that they often disclose the origin of surnames many of which have become famous, such as Barrington, Barton, Caxton, Cawston, Cotton, Newton, Went- worth, &c. There is a long and valuable note on the evolution of the mistaken form Cambridge (first found as Cantebrugge in 1142) out of Granta- bridge, which occurs in the 'A.-S. Chronicle ' (sub anno 875). We rather expected to find something on the Cambridge use of " piece " in field-names, as preserving the original meaning of the word (Low Lat. petium), but in this we have been disappointed.
ATTENTION has been drawn to the fact that the European patrons of 'The Jewish Encyclopaedia' occupy a place to themselves. Though less numerous than we could have hoped, they include many whose absence seemed difficult of comprehension.
A POCKET edition of Dickens's works will shortly be issued jointly by Messrs. Chapman & Hall and Mr. Henry Frowde, of the Oxford University Press. It will be printed on the Oxford India paper, and will include all the additional stories and sketches which appear in the Gadshill and other authorized editions.
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