Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/251

 iio T HE HI S T OR tf ' Book L ftrangcly explained in general by. all the interpreters of them*. And the charaCteriftic genius of the Britiih language has been* little confulted in the explanations.. I have previously fliewi* the Britiih Avon to have been- frequeiitly contracted into Aun An or Un And as D-avon and T-avon.are both the fame, with Avon, fc are they contracted in the* fame manner. The former is contracted into Dane the popular name of the Daven at Jdiddlewich,. into Danus Don or Dun the .antient and prefent pame of the current at Doncafter, into Done the name of a^ ft ream in the county of Mar, into Se-teia equaJly with Devan* Ptolemy's name for the Dee of Chefter, and into Deen equally, with the Dee the populaF appellation of the river at Aberdeen* And the latter is contracted intoTayne the name of a frith in Scot- land, intaTaune or Tone the name of a river im Somerfefcfliire,. and into Teyne the name of a current in StafFordfhise. But ths latter is fometimes lengthened by the praepofitive ajrtiple of th« Britiih language, and Y Tavona is formed into 1-tuna the an-> tient name of the SoLway frith, and Tyne Tayne or Ten is formed into E-den the prefent fimilar appellation for it. The qame of Tibia or Tib actually occurs in the eleventh Iter of Richard, the antient denomination of the river at Cardiff : in Wales* And the name of Tibia or Tib,, like the Tavee the DafF and the Diff the prefent varying appellation for the Tibia of Richard* like the antient Tavus and, Tobius, and like thq Teivi the Towey the Dove or thel)ee at prefent, is merely, an appellative, and.fignifies merely the water 3 -. The ftream which burfts in many fprings from, a wild heath at the foot of the greater ridge of the Yorkshire hills, pafles by the town of Afhton, and frets and chafes againft its own ob- flruCting bed of rock or its own encroaching fhoals of gravel, tilt it iffues into the Merfey below Portwood Bridge, was deno^ minated by a name equally indiicriminative* and exaCtly ther* fame. . Various. are the fubftitutions of one letter for another, in* the flexible language of the Britons:, and Tib Tav or Tam ar6 the fanie words with the fubftitution of a different letter*. Thu% .3 did.