It may be asked how the pain endured in a tragedy is so mitigated for the reader that it is possible to find pleasure in such a work. The question is a subtle one; but an answer may be attempted. We are not in the actual presence of real men and women. Something intervenes between us and the characters; and that something is the mind and genius of the author. The reader is asked again to scrutinize his emotions at the close of a very fine tragic work or passage, and to consider whether one of his strongest feelings is not that of admiration. He has never forgotten that a book is only a book, and a play is only a play. Even in the keenest interest caused by the story, he is criticizing; and the sense that he has just read a powerful and beautiful work animates his mind. This is true even of the most realistic novel that ever was written, or that ever can be written. There is all the difference in the world between literature and life, and they cannot be judged by the same standards. Faguet remarks that we need not read a tragic work unless we like; that we deliberately do so, and thus go in quest of suffering, impelled by a primitive pleasure in it, like Romans going to a gladiatorial show. The answer is that we see no real suffering, and are seeking for literary value and literary beauty; that the supreme interest is in the author's power and genius. Our concern is with Shakespeare, not with Hamlet or Macbeth, who have no existence apart from Shakespeare.

If Faguet is right, the study of tragedy can only degrade and brutalize, and should therefore be shunned. But in the universal opinion it elevates and refines. The greatest and most subtle quality of a tragic poet goes beyond the immediate presentation of scenes and persons. It is the power to suggest something illimitable, to place life against a background of eternity, and to make the reader feel the presence of problems which he cannot solve. That this vision of the incomprehensible may lead to a pessimistic philosophy is true; but it has not always done so; and spirits are not finely touched but to fine issues. L'âme s'ennoblit dans le voisinage des mystères insondables; elle puise, dans ce travail d'exploration, avec le sentiment de sa petitesse, celui de sa grandeur.'

JOHN S. SMART.

ON THE MEANINGS OF CERTAIN TERMS

IN THE ANGLO-SAXON CHARTERS

These notes are the result of several years of study devoted to the Anglo-Saxon charters. They are published in the hope that they may prove useful to those who shall hereafter deal with other groups of charters, or to others who may treat of the place-names of England. Some of the conclusions, if they be judged to be well-founded, are of historical importance.

The notes are based on:

(1) the denotation of terms used in the surveys attached to a large number of AS.1 charters;

(2) other evidence from these surveys;

(3) the geographical and geological distribution of names; (4) the attributes applied to terms in the charters and in place-names.

The charters with which I have dealt are those of Berkshire, Hampshire, and Wiltshire. In order that the reader may have some idea of the breadth of the basis on which these notes are founded the following statistic of charters are given, together with figures showing the number of the

B. (with number): No. of charter in Birch's Cartularium Saxonicum.
K. (with number): No. of charter in Kemble's Codex Diplomaticus.
TA. Tithe Award.

=

Lexicons:

S.: Sweet's Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon.
BT.: Bosworth and Toller's Anglo-Saxon Dictionary.
L.: Glossary to Liebermann's Gesetze der Angelsachsen.

charters the surveys of which have been either solved, partly

It must be added that in a very large number of cases both Birch and Kemble have either wrongly identified, or have failed to identify, the locality to which a particular charter applies. No absolute trust can be placed in their identifications.

AECER. S. Cultivated field, acre. acre. L. Acker, Feld.

BT. Field, sown land,

Always used in the charters of a strip of ploughland. The average length would be a furlong. Hence the name 'furlong' applied in field-names to groups of these strips. The breadth of a strip was a chain. But an aecer was not a set area. Still, it seems to have been an approximate measure, because a 'healf aecer' is mentioned in an Abingdon1 and a Bayworth 2 charter.

AERN(E). S. House. BT. Place, secret place, closet, habitation, house. L. Gebäude.

The gloss 'locus secretior' is also given. I cite the gloss because it comes nearest to that which I believe to be the specific meaning of the term.

The evidence of the charters is all against the assumption that synonymous terms were common in AS. Perhaps funta and floda may have been so, and possibly ora and ofer. But even in these cases synonymity is doubtful; and I have not come across any other pair of words in the charters the synonymity of which may be suspected.

Ham means a 'house'; so, we are told, does aern. But it may be regarded as certain that they referred to houses or buildings of different kinds.

1 B. 924. K. 441.

2 B. 932. K. 1202.

The actual evidence of the charters does not give any definite clue to the meaning of aern. But the attributes of aern in compounds, and, too, the attributes of it in the few place-names in which it occurs, suggest a different meaning for it. They suggest a building or place used for the deposit or storing of something', and, possibly, 'for the manufacture of something'. In other words 'store' would be its meaning in perhaps the majority of cases, and, possibly, 'factory' in some others.

Cf. the compounds breaw-aern, 'brewhouse'; eorth-aern, 'grave', i.e. a place where a body is deposited; bere-aern, 'barn', where barley is stored.

Cf. also the place-names Bruern (Oxon), 'brewhouse'; Colerne (Wilts), AS. col-ærn, a place where charcoal is stored or made; Saltern, AS. sealt-ærn, a place where salt is stored or made; Potterne (Wilts), a place where pottery is stored or made; Washerne (Wilts), a place where sheep-washing was carried on.

ÆWIELM. S. Source of river, spring, fountain. BT. Spring, fountain, source. L. Quelle.

Ewielm is a particular kind of spring. It is one of large size, such as are common in the chalk districts; not one of the great intermittent springs also found in chalk regions, but a perennial spring forming a large stream which may be even of the size of a river. The source of the Test at Overton (Hants) is of this nature. Ewelme (Oxon) derives its name from a great spring of this kind.

ANDHEAFOD (ANDHEAFDU). S. Unploughed headland of a field. BT. Headlands, unploughed land where the plough was turned. Not in L.

(See notes on HEAFOD).

ANSTIGA. Not given in S., BT., or L. But is supposed to mean a path for one person.

The few instances in which I have been able to identify its denotation in the charters lead me to believe that it also implied a path going up a hill.

BEC. S. gives the meaning 'brook', which he queries. BT. does not recognize the word. Not in L. One writer on place-names suggests 'stream valley'.

The charters show that Sweet's interpretation is nearest to the truth. The AS. terms for streams were various; but each was applied to a different type of stream.1

Bæc meant an intermittent stream of small or moderate volume. To a stream of this kind of large volume the Saxons applied the term floda; and floda included those mysterious intermittent springs which burst out of the downs at intervals of several years. Bæc, on the other hand, is confined to rainwater streams which may start running in any period of heavy rain in valleys or hollows which are usually dry.2

In the charters of Berks, Hants, and Wilts, the topography of which I know, the statistics of the occurrence of the term bæc are as follows: Berks four times, Hants nine times, Wilts once. It also occurs twice in a Berks charter, and once in a Hants charter, the topography of which I have not been able to solve. In charters of other counties it appears three times in Worcestershire, and once each in Oxfordshire, Essex, Stafford, and Gloucester. For the establishment of the meaning which I have assigned to it it will not, I think, be necessary to go beyond the evidence of the Hampshire charters.

The crucial instance, if I may so call it, where its meaning is most clearly indicated, is in the charter of Hannington.3 In the survey attached to that charter occurs the following landmark: Forth be hrittan wæge to bæcce funtan', i.e. to 'the source of the bac'. In the charter of the neighbouring land-unit of Wootton one landmark is certain wyllas, springs' which are the source of a certain floda, ' intermittent brook'. But the topography of the two charters shows that

1 See notes on BROC, BURNA, FLODA, LACU, RITH, RITHIG.

2 Such streams are quite common in the chalk districts. I have seen such a stream running down a shallow valley in West Stratton (Hants) to a width of six feet and a depth of one foot. It runs at periods of heavy rain; but it has never cut an actual channel through the grass fields through which it flows.