nected with the extensive sea and land views which they afford to the admirer of nature, give to them a power of pleasing, beyond what is possessed by hills in general1.

For the natural history of the district, I must beg to refer the reader to the close of the volume, where a chapter on the subject is given from the pen of Mr. Mantell. I proceed to a few remarks on the ancient state of the Regnian Kingdom, and the probable etymology of Lewes.

SECTION II.-Ancient state of the Regnian territory, and the probable Etymology of Lewes.

Little is known concerning Lewes previous to the Norman conquest. That it was a large and populous town some centuries previous to this event is certain, but so scanty are the materials afforded by which to fix its origin, or minutely to trace its progress, that any attempt to effect either of these, would prove futile and unsatisfactory. Without affecting knowledge, when we can have no certain information, and unwilling to mislead the reader by fanciful conjectures when facts are not to be had, we shall, in as brief a manner as possible, notice some of the changes which this district underwent till the arrival of the Romans in Britain.

Our old historians, ever anxious to give importance to their country, and imagining that importance might be given to it by propogating exalted ideas of its antiquity, have amused themselves and puzzled their readers with a vain attempt to give a detailed narrative of its first colonization. Those who are desirous of losing themselves in the mists of antiquity, may effectually do this by accompanying our old Chroniclers into the regions of fable, and may find ample employment in solving the knotty question whether Samothes, the imaginary son of Japhet, or Albion, the gigantic son of Neptune, or Brutus, the great-grandson of Æneas, had the honour of first settling in our isle: but those who are contented to abide

"For my own part, I think there is something peculiarly sweet and amusing in the shapely figured aspect of chalk hills, in preference to those of stone, which are rugged, broken, abrupt, and shapeless. Perhaps I may be singular in my opinion, but I never contemplate these mountains, without thinking I perceive somewhat analogous to growth in their gentle swellings and smooth fungus-like protuberances, their fluted sides and regular hol

low slopes, that carry at once the air of vegetative dilation and expansion. Or was there a time when these immense masses of calcarious matter were thrown into fermentation by adventitious moisture; were raised and leavened into such shapes by some plastic power, and so made to swell and heave their broad backs into the sky above the less animated clay of the wild?-White's Nat. Hist. of Selbourne, letter 17. p. 163. 4to.

by the established facts of history, and who feel no delight in the fabulous stories of Nennius, or Geoffrey of Monmouth, will pass over these unimportant and improbable traditions, as well as the exploits of the long race of kings who are said to have succeeded Brutus, during an interval of more than a thousand years, and will be satisfied with commencing their investigations, a few years before Cæsar's ambition led him to the British coast.

It is now pretty generally agreed, that the first inhabitants of Britain were a colony of the Celta, by whom Gaul had been peopled some centuries before the Christian era. At what precise period this people made their way into our island is uncertain, but as it is well known that the Phoenicians were in the habit of trading with the inhabitants of Cornwall long anterior to the birth of Christ, the first peopling of Britain must have been many centuries prior to that epoch.

Some time before Rome claimed the title of Imperial, the Celtic colonists of Britain, inhabiting the maritime parts of the island to the southward, had been dispossessed by a martial tribe of the Belga', who had left their own possessions bordering on the Rhine, in quest of more enviable habitations. These adventurers were afterwards joined by their neighbours the Regni ; and as the southern coasts of the island promised to them advantages which they could not expect in the northern regions, their first settlements were here established, at the expense of the ill-treated Aborigines.

It is difficult to fix with certainty any boundaries to the different tribes that migrated from Gaul and settled in the south of Britain. Influenced by caprice, or inflamed by hatred, or urged on by ambition, or stimulated by that roving propensity for which the Belgic adventurers, in these early ages at least, were remarkable, the boundaries of their respective empires were every day changing, and their dominion became contracted or enlarged as a battle was lost or won. The Regni appear to have made their primary settlement in Sussex, which country they soon reduced, and extending their conquests to the north and to the west, they finally embraced Sussex, Surrey, and the sea coast of the county of Hants. The Attrebati were their neighbours to the west; on the north they were bounded by the Trinobantes, and on the east by the powerful Cantii.

Cæsar supposed the inland inhabitants of Britain to have been the Aborigines, and those dwelling on the maritime coast to have been of recent German extraction. Hence he informs us that of all the nations the most civilized were the

Maritima pars ab iis [incolitur] qui prædæ ac belli inferendi causa, ex Belgis transierant, qui omnes fere iis nominibus civitatum adpellantur,

quibus orti ex civitatibus eo pervenerunt, et bello inlato ibi remanserunt, atque agros colere cœperunt.—Bell. Gall. v. 12.

inhabitants of Cantium1. But as Cæsar never entered the boundaries of the modern Sussex, and as this district like that of Kent was inhabited by the tribes of depredators who flocked from the Belgic coast, we may be allowed to extend the courtesy of the conquering general beyond the confines of Kent, and to include amongst his longè humanissimi, the inhabitants of the whole of the Regnian territory.

It can scarcely be doubted that the district round the scite of the present town, was occupied in these early ages by some of the German or Gallic tribes. The low grounds of the modern County of Sussex, were either covered with water, fenny, or so completely wooded, as to be uninhabitable. The latter was the state, as we have already seen, of the whole of the country lying between the Downs and the Surrey hills. The ancient inhabitants therefore sought the high grouuds, and dwelt upon those spots where they could be most sheltered from the piercing winds of winter, and at the same time enjoy the advantages of pasturage for their flocks, and security for their little property. The gradual slopes of the Downs in this neighbourhood would afford them these advantages, especially that on which the town stands, as well as the rising grounds on the margin of the plain, now the Lewes levels, extending southward to Newhaven. The Gauls and the Britons generally fixed their capital stations at the extremity of the districts in which they settled, and on a river's bank, if such were the boundary of their district; and if not, on or near the summit of some hill. It was also their custom to give names to the places in which they dwelt, derived from the appearance of prominent objects in their immediate neighbourhood, or from the outlines of the hills, according to the resemblance which they bore to different parts of the human body. The colour of these objects also frequently furnished them with a name. Perhaps the etymology of the word Lewes, may be somewhat connected with these historical facts. I shall, therefore, in as brief a manner as I am able, lay before the reader, some of the different etymological conjectures which have been raised to account for the name. In doing this, I am happy in being enabled, in a considerable degree, to avail myself of the investigations of the late Mr. Elliot, of this town.

The first derivation that I shall mention, is from the British custom above alluded to, viz., that of denominating their places of residence, and the various shapes and forms of hills and mountains, according to their resemblance to parts of the human body. Baxter, who was himself a Cornish Briton, and well

"Ex his omnibus longè sunt humanissimi qui neque multùm a Gallicâ differunt consuetudine.”— Cantium incolunt; quæ regio est maritima omnis; | Bell. Gal. v. 14.

D

versed in that language, derives the word from Laü, an hand, and Isca, water; for under the head Lagentium, he says, that Lewes was probably called by the ancients Laüisca, as much as to say, "the hand upon the water'." Again, under the word Clauanis, he remarks, that the largest of the Hebrides which shoots forward its arms or promontories into the sea, is called Lewes. Its former name was Clauanis, from Clai or Laü, an arm, and Inis or Ynys, an island, that is, insula brachialis, an island like an arm2. What Baxter says of Clauanis or Lewes, one of the western isles, is applicable to the name in question, so far as concerns the prepositive of the word. Clai, Laü, Leaw, and Klauwe, which are but different modes of spelling the original Celtic word is then the prepositive of the name; the additional Es, Ys, or Is, will not long detain us. Dr. Gibson, in the 46th page of his learned edition of the Saxon Annals, has given an explanation of the names of places which occur therein; under the word Usa, and Wusa, he says Use, Ise, Ose, Ouse, (and he might have added Ese, and Esse) are promiscuously so called among historians; that it is the name of many rivers of England, and that the Use of which he is speaking, was according to Sir H. Spelman's Icenia, derived from Ise or Isee', a Goddess of many nations. Camden, in his “Britannia,” speaking of the same river, says, “ Usa, or Ouse, in times past, Isa." There are many instances in Camden, of the same derivation, as in Salt-esse, now Saltash, in Cornwall, an old market town not far from the sea, seated on the descent of a hill, like Lewes, at the foot of which runs the river Tamar. The same addition is found in Totness, in Devon, formerly Totonese, a small town standing on the declivity of a hill, at the base of which the river now called the Dart flows towards the sea. We may observe several remains of this word in the immediate neighbourhood of Lewes River, as in Isfield, in Lew-ese, in South-ese, in North-ese, all of which take their names from their relative situation near the river, called of old Ise, Ease, Esse, Eyse, Use, Ose, and at the present day the Ouse3. These are all one and the

"Forsan et pervetusta urbs Lewes apud Australes Saxones, etiam Danicis temporibus celebris, appellata est veteribus Lauisca, tanquam ad Manum Isca sive amnis."-Baxter's Gloss.

called Isis. Hence perhaps many of their infernal rites and nocturnal sacrifices. Hence the night takes place of the day, and the series of days is numbered by nights, of months by moons, of years by winters. Vestiges of this are discovered in our modern tongue, since even now we say se'nnight, or sevennight, a week, and in the Saxon annals 20, 30, 40 winters signify so many years. See Gibson's Saron Annals.

"CLAUANIS: Ita enim certè in Anonymo legendum pro vitioso Elaviani, Ille scripserat geminato N, Clauinnis. Maxima hæc est Ebudarum in manus sive brachii formam protensa, hodieque Lewes appellata. Quid autem Britannis Clavanis nisi Clau Inis, sive Brachialis Insula? Idem enim Britannis Lhau, quod et Francobelgis" Klance."-Baxter's Gloss.

* The ancient Britons, besides other Deities, worshiped Ceres and Proserpine, who was also

This name is written Ise-field in 40 Hen. III. Fin. Com. Ignot. de tenementis in Isefield.” Vide Tanner's Not. p. 553.

Mr. Elliot remarks, that "Easeborne, in Sussex, near Cowdry Park, is of the same origin,