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be reprehensible to charge any party in this country, with revolutionary principles, My design is not to foment divisious, but to promote cautionary measures, and to enforce the solemn truth, that a political, without a personal Reform, would afford no solid basis of tranquillity and peace. Should there be a solitary Briton contaminated by jacobinical doctrines, the fate of France must afford him an awful lesson of morality, at what an expense to his country, a revolution must be purchased, with the certainty of terminating in a ferocious military despotism. It has been affirmed that "We have nothing left worth preserving,"-the bold ungrounded assertion is a mark of high ingratitude to Heaven, for the preservation of our civil and religious privileges. Demand of the miserable inhabitant of the Continent, bleeding under the scourge of war and groaning under the yoke of oppression, if he would not deem it high felicity to be a native of Britain! And, where is the infatuated man to be found in this country, who would exchange situations! Let the discontented individual, who spurns the blessings of his native land with arrogance and maintains that they exist only in idea, make the experiment, and seek some fairer clime, in i

maginary regions, where human nature is supposed to be in a higher state of culture, or in primitive simplicity,-Where a more virtuous Monarch, or, elective Chief, sways a milder sceptre-where the peaceful inhabitants enjoy superior liberty-where there are more salutary laws for the protection of life and property, and where justice is administered with greater purity-where the tender charities of life are more abundant-where there are more magnificent establishments for casualties and disease, a more comfortable asylum for old age and poverty-And, if, in the course of his wanderings upon the face of the habitable globe, the scenes painted in such glowing colours, by a fervid imagination, should not be realized, he may return from his weary and fruitless pilgrimage, with an understanding enlightened by experience, to hail, with rapture, the incomparable blessings which he once viewed with disdain, to salute his native soil with ardour-And, in gratitude to Heaven, to offer up the incense of his praise to Almighty God, that it was his happy lot to have been born a BRITON.

BRITANNICUS.

ON THE DERIVATION OF

Rain-cliff,

which first appeared in The Scarborough Repository' of 1824.

In reply to Scrutator's inquiry respecting the "derivation of the name of Rain-cliff, which is given to a range of hills a few miles to the west of Scarborough," it will be proper to observe, that in deriving appellations, we must never lose sight of the great features of nature. The variety of peculiar names derived from common ones, was produced by prefixes or post-fixes, which infinitely varied the words for streams and hills.--Rain, Raun or Ren; Rian or Rien; Raven, and Ruan, are of Celtic origin, and when used as prefixes denote the peculiar features of the locality, as bordering on the sea, a stream of water, or a river. General Vallancey supposes Rain to mean the sea; and Rian or Rien, the little sea, as in Lough-Rian. We have Rain-cliff or Ren-cliff near Speeton, and Raven-hill at the Peak near Robin Hood's Bay,

on the Sea-coast, the latter of which has been supposed by some antiquarians, to be derived from the Danish Reafan or Standard, on the invasion of the Danes; but from the Celtic etymology, it more probably refers to it's maritime situation. Spurn point at the entrance of the Humber is an abbreviation of the ancient name Ravenspurne, Ravenness is also a name of the same place, and perhaps the best construction which can be put upon it, is that of Sea-ness. The name of Ravensbourne is applied to a river between Lewisham and Bromley in Kent, which runs into the Thames, Ruan is the Celtic name of a little stream which runs into Polruan in Devonshire. Dr. Pryce interprets Ruan Major the "Great River."

Admitting the Celtic word Rain, as a prefix, to signify river, the same as Raven, in Ravensbourne, it will be fair to infer that Rain-cliff, by it's distinguishiug local feature, derives it's appellation from it's proximity to the river Derwent, and may with propriety be construed River-cliff.

Towns, as well as Hills and Streams, frequently derived their appellations from the strik ing features of their locality. Scearburg, the

ancient name of Scarborough, is of Saxon origin, implying, in it's primitive signification, a place of strength and a municipality, in a rocky situation. Scearburg, according to Camden signifies Burgus in prærupta rupe, a Burgh upon a craggy rock. According to Somner, it is Urbs vel Arx in Acuta, vel accuminate rupe sita, a City, a walled Town, or a fort or Castle upon a pointed rock, as among the Brabanters Sharpenberg, a sharp or pointed hill. Scar also signifies Collis petrosus et asper, a rocky and rugged hill.

Scarborough has varied in it's denominations. It has been called Scearburg, Scharpenberg, Skarpasper, Scarrdaborgum, Skardeburg, Scarburg, all referring to it's peculiar locality,

T. H.

FINIS.

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