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ETYMOLOGY OF "ARMAGH."

Some of your correspondents have taken up the not unnatural idea, that the last syllable of the word "Armagh" is identical with the Celtic word magh, a plain. But there are two objections to this. In the first place, the name is never spelt in Irish Armagh, nor even Ardmagh, but always ARDMACHA. Ardmagh or Armagh is only the anglicised spelling, adapted to English tongues and ears. It is therefore clearly absurd to take this corrupt form of the word as our datum, in the attempt to search for its etymology. Secondly, the Irish names of places which are derived from, or compounded of, magh, a plain, are always anglicised, moy, moi, mow, or mo, to represent the pronunciation: as Fermoy, Athmoy, Knockmoy, Moira, Moyagher, Moyaliffe (or Me-aliffe, as it is now commonly spelt), Moville, Moyarta, and thousands of other cases. And those who are acquainted with the Irish language will at once tell, by the ear, that Armagh, as the word is pronounced by the native peasantry, even by those who have lost that language (as most of them in that district now have), could not be a compound of magh, a plain.

The work of M. Bullet, quoted by your correspondent "HERMES," is full of ignorant blunders similar to that which he commits, when he tells us that Armagh in compounded of "Ar, article, and mag, ville." The article, in Irish, is An, not ar; and mag does not signify a town. He adopts, your readers will perceive, the modern English spelling, which could not lead to a correct result, even if M. Bullet had been acquainted with the Celtic languages. The same remark applies to the explanation given by the author of Circles of Gomer. Ard, not Ar, is the word to be explained; and therefore, even though Ar and Ararat meant, as he tells us, "earth, country, or upon and on the earth," this would throw no light on the etymology of ARDmacha.

"HIBERNICUS" (No. 14. p. 217.) is partly right and partly wrong; he adopts the anglicised spelling of the second syllable, although he seems aware that the first syllable ought to be Ard; and he admits also that this word is a substantive, signifying a height, not the adjective high. "A high plain," in Irish, would be, not Ardmagh, or Ardmoy (as it would have been anglicised), but Magh-ard (Anglice Moyard). Great light will be thrown on the whole subject of the etymology of Irish typographical names, when the Index to my friend Mr. O'Donovan's edition of the Annals of the Four Masters makes its appearance.

I may add too, in conclusion, that Camden is wrong in suggesting that Armach (as he spells it, retaining, curiously enough, the correct etymology of the last syllable) is identical with Dearmach (where the last syllable ought to be magh). This latter place is the well-known Durrow, in the county Westmeath; and its name, in Irish, is Duir-magh, which is really a compound from magh, a plain. Bede tells us, that the word signified, in the Scottish language, Campus roborum (see Bede, Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. c. 4.); but Adamson (Vit. Columbæ, c. 39.) more correctly translates it, "monasterium Roboreti Campi." It is not likely that such authorities could confound Durrow, in Westmeath, with the ecclesiastical metropolis of Ireland, and patriarchal see of St. Patrick.

Whoever the Mach or Macha was from whom Ardmacha has its name (whether the queen called Macha-mong-ruadh, whose reign is assigned by O'Flaherty to A.M. 3603, or the older Macha, who is said to be the wife of Nemedius), it should be borne in mind, that the word whose etymology is required is ARDMACHA¹⁶, and not Armagh. What would be thought of the critic who would now attempt to investigate the etymology of the English word bishop, by dividing it into two syllables, and seeking analogies in sound for each syllable.

I have ventured to go at greater length into this matter than its importance may seem to warrant, because it illustrates so clearly a very general error, from which Celtic literature has deeply suffered, of inventing fanciful etymologies adapted to the modern English spellings, instead of the original Celtic forms of names; and this error, as the question before us proves, is as old as Camden's time, and older.

J.H. TODD.

Trin. Coll. Dublin, Feb. 2, 1850.

WILLIAM BASSE AND HIS POEMS

I read with great pleasure MR. COLLIER'S interesting paper on "William Basse and his Poems," inserted in your 13th Number. Very little is known of this once popular poet, but it is very desirable that that little should be collected together, which cannot be better effected than through the friendly system of inter-communication established by your valuable journal.

From my limited researches upon this subject, it appears that there were two poets of the name of William Basse. Anthony Wood (Athen. Oxon., edit. Bliss. iv. 222.) speaks of one William Basse, of Moreton, near Thame, in Oxfordshire, who was some time a retainer of Lord Wenman, of Thame Park, i.e. Richard Viscount Wenman, in the peerage of Ireland. And I find among my MS. biographical collections that a William Basse, of Suffolk, was admitted a sizar of Emanuel College, Cambridge, in 1629. A.B. 1632, and A.M. in 1636. The William Basse who wrote Great Brittaines Sunnes-set in 1613, was also the author of the MS. collection of poems entitled Polyhymnia, mentioned by MR. COLLIER. In proof of this it is merely necessary to notice the dedication of the former "To his Honourable Master, Sir Richard Wenman, Knight," and the verses and acrostics in the MS. "To the Right Hon. the Lady Aungier Wenman, Mrs. Jane Wenman, and the truly noble, vertuous, and learned Lady, the Lady Agnes Wenman." Basse's Poems were evidently intended for the press, but we may conjecture that the confusion of the times prevented them from appearing. Thomas Warton, in his Life and Literary Remains of Ralph Bathurst, M.D., has a copy of verses by the Dr. "To Mr. W. Basse, upon the intended publication of his Poems, January 13, 1651;" to which the learned editor adds, "I find no account of this writer or his poems." The whole consists of forty-four verses, from which I extract the beginning and the end:—

Basse, whose rich mine of wit we here behold
As porcelain earth, more precious, 'cause more old;
Who, like an aged oak, so long hath stood,
And art religion now as well as food:
Though thy grey Muse grew up with elder times,
And our deceased grandsires lisp'd thy rhymes;
Yet we can sing thee too, and make the lays
Which deck thy brow look fresher with thy praise.

Though these, your happy births, have silent past
More years than some abortive wits shall last;
He still writes new, who once so well hath sung:
That Muse can ne'er be old, which ne'er was young."

These verses are valuable as showing that Basse was living in 1651, and that he was then an aged man. The Emanuelian of the same name, who took his M.A. degree in 1636, might possibly be his son. At any rate, the latter was a poet. There are some of his pieces among the MSS. in the Public Library, Cambridge; and I have a small MS. volume of his rhymes, scarcely soaring above mediocrity, which was presented to me by an ancient family residing in Suffolk.

A poem by William Basse is inserted in the Annalia Dubrensia, 1636, in praise of Robert Dover and his revival of the Cotswold Games; but it is not clear to which of these poets we may ascribe it. Malone attributes two rare volumes to one or other of these poets. The first, a translation or paraphrase of Juvenal's tenth satire, entitled That which seems Best is Worst, 12mo., 1617; the second, "A Miscellany of Merriment," entitled A Helpe to Discourse, 2nd edit. 8vo., 1620: but the former is more probably the work of William Barkstead. I may mention that a copy of Basse's Sword and Buckler, or Serving Man's Defence, 1602, is among Malone's books in the Bodleian.

Izaac Walton speaks of William Basse, "one that hath made the choice songs of the Hunter in His Career, and of Tom of Bedlam, and many others of note." The ballad mentioned by MR. COLLIER, "Maister Basse his Career, or the Hunting of the Hare," is undoubtably the one alluded to by Walton. I may add, that it is printed in Wit and Drollery, edit. 1682. p. 64.; and also in Old Ballads, 1725, vol. iii. p. 196. The tune is contained in the Shene MS., a curious collection of old tunes in the Advocate's Library, Edinburgh; and a ballad entitled Hubert's Ghost, to the tune of Basse's Carrier, is preserved among the Bagford Collection of Old Ballads in the British Museum. With regard to the second ballad mentioned by Walton, our knowledge is not so perfect. Sir John Hawkins in a note (Complete Angler, 5th edit. p. 73.) says:—

"This song, beginning—
'Forth from my dark and dismal cell,'

with the music to it, set by Hen. Lawes, is printed in a book, entitled Choice Ayres, Songs and Dialogues, to sing to the Theorbo Lute, and Bass Viol, folio. 1675, and in Playfield's Antidote against Melancholy, 8vo. 1669, and also in Dr. Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, vol. ii. p. 350; but in the latter with a mistake in the last line of the third stanza, of the word Pentarchy for Pentateuch."

A copy of the Choice Ayres, 1675, is now before me, but Henry Lawes's name does not appear to the song in question. Sir John has evidently made a mistake; the air of Mad Tom was composed by John Cooper, alias Giovanni Coperario, for one of the Masques perfomed by the Gentlemen of Gray's Inn. (See The English Dancing Master, 1651, in the British Museum, and Additional MS. 10,440, in the same repository.) With regard to the ballad itself, there is an early copy (of the latter part of the sixteenth century) preserved in the Harleian MSS., No. 7332, fol. 41. It purports to have been

"Written (i.e. transcribed) be Feargod Barebone, who being at many times idle and wanting employment, wrote out certain songs and epigrams, with the idea of mending his hand in writing."

There is another copy among Malone's MSS. in the Bodleian (No. 16. p. 55.), where it is entitled A new Tom of Bedlam. But I contend there is no evidence to show that this is the ballad alluded to by Walton; none of the copies having the name of the author. We have two other songs (probably more) bearing the same title of Tom of Bedlam; one beginning, "From the top of high Caucasus;" the other commencing, "From the hag and hungry goblin;" either of which are quite as likely to have been intended as that mentioned above.

It still remains a question, I think, which of the two Basses was the author of the ballads mentioned by Walton. But I have already trespassed so long upon your valuable space that I will leave the further consideration of the subject until a future period: in the meantime, perhaps some of your correspondents may be enabled to "illuminate our darkness" upon the various knotty points.