ind as well as Thame. In the case
of the Thames, the name may very well have come over from the Continent
with the early traders--the Angles, for instance, or the Danes--and have
thus passed into British use. A great authority, Mr. Bradley, is said to
have mentioned that Lynn in London may be a personal name. The ordinary
interpretation is so simple that it seems hardly worth
while--unphilosophical, in fact--to search for another. Lynn, pronounced
Lunn, is a lake. Dun is a down or hill. London, as the first syllable
may be taken adjectively, will mean the Lake Hill. Where, then, is the
hill which stands by a lake?

If we consult a map which includes the lower Thames, and has the levels
clearly marked or contoured, and follow the coast line from, say, Kew
Bridge, we come to no higher ground for more than six miles, the surface
varying from one foot above the ordnance datum of high water to seven.
Hills are visible in the background, but none at the water's edge, until
we reach that on which St. Paul's stands. Mylne gives it as forty-five
feet high, and that on which, close by, the Royal Exchange stands he
marks as forty-eight. If we could denude this region of its myriad
houses, we should see a plain extending back to the higher ground from
the site of the Temple Gardens--that is, to Clerkenwell. Ludgate, rising
nearly fifty feet in a steep slope from the river's edge, would appear
something great in such a landscape, backed, as it would have been, to
the eastward by a still higher down, with the narrow stream of Walbrook
rushing to the Thames, between them. No other height would stand so near
the water's edge, or would be visible within a couple of miles, on this
left bank of the river. So much for our "down." But where is our "lynn"?

[Illustration: ROOF TILE (ROMAN).]

If we could see Southwark and the region immediately to the south of it
similarly denuded, we should find that, across the Thames from the
double down, an archipelago of islets extends from what is now
Bermondsey westward to Lambeth. The dry ground would be seen dotted here
and there, while every tide, every flood, every increase of water from
the upper Thames, would make the whole region into a morass. The main
stream of the great river, coming eastward round a bend from
Westminster, would deepen its channel under the down, leaving the
opposite islets in shallow water, and spreading, according to the first
author by whom the place is mentioned, "at e