Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/568

 470 s. iv. DEC. 9, iocs NOTES AND QUERIES. Dickens, Envoy Extraordinary to the Court of St. Petersburg in (circa) 1745-6? In Molloy's ' Russian Court of the Eighteenth Century' he is called Guy Dickens: the same error appears in 'The Courtships of Catherine the Great' lately published. He had a son who wag a Gentleman of the Bed- chamber to Charlotte, Princess of Wales ; his daughter married a Costello, and her daughter Mary Ann married George Can- ning, and was the mother of the Right Hon. George Canning, Premier 1826-7. I have a pen-and-ink sketch of Melchior Guy Dickens (which has descended from his grand- daughter to me), attributed by family legend to Sir Joshua Reynolds. I wish to discover any details of his life and career, his parentage, &c.. and should be grateful for any hints on the subject. H. ATHILL-CRUTTWELL. "FAMOUS" CHELSEA. (10th S. iv. 366, 434.) I WILL not presume to offer any opinion in the discussion between MR. LYNN and PHOF. SKEAT ; but when the last-named gentleman says that Cealchythe could not have been the old name for Chelsea, " for cealc is chalk, and the modern name of it could never have got nearer than Chalkea," I venture to ask whether there may not be exceptions even to etymological rules. The modern name Kelso was written Calkou, Calchou, Kelcou, Ac., in the twelfth century. In Roger de Ov's short charter granting the church of Langtoun (c. 1147) to the monastery the name is written Kelkou and also Kelcho ('Liber de Calchou,' No. 138). In King David's confirmation of the lands and rights of the abbey, about the same date, it is referred to as locus qui dicitur Calkou, and also a villa de Kelchu (ibid., No. 2). The sibilant first appears, I think, in Wyntoun's ' Cronykil,' where the name is written Kelsowe (c. 1420). Chalmers is an indifferent authority on place-names, but his interpre- tation of this one has not been challenged, so far as I know. He says that it came from "a calcareous eminence which appears conspicuous in the middle of the town, and which is still called the Chalk Heugh" (' Caledonia,' ii. 156). Of course, there is no true chalk at Kelso, but there is gypsum, which is a calcareous deposit cropping out on the brae aforesaid, and considered to be chalk at a very early period. The Welsh bard Taliessin is supposed to have lived in the sixth century. The first line of the eighteenth poem in his book runs :— Kychwedyl am dodydd o galchuynyd ; that is— A rumour has come to me from Calchvynyd; which rumour refers to fighting in Strath- clyde and Annandale. " Calchvynyd w plain Welsh calch mynydd, the chalk hill. What I would ask, therefore, is this: if Kelso be rightly interpreted as cealc hou, chalk brae, is it impossible that cealc hyilt should have become Chelsea 1 HERBERT MAXWELL. PROF. SKEAT shows, on philological grounds, that it is impossible that Cealchythe could have been an old name of Chelsea, and to that extent my former note on the subject (9th S. i. 264), which was written chiefly with the view of discrediting the popular deriva- tion from Ceosil-ig, must be modified. But the question arises whether the name of the place where the "contentious" synod was held is ever spelt Cealchythe in any authentic charter or manuscript. I should like to feel assured on this point. Chelsea seems to have been famous because it was a regular meeting-place for councils or synods. Thorpe, who was, I believe, an accurate palaeographer, gives (' Diplomatarium,' p. 38) a copy of the " prows verbal" relating to the dispute between Heathured, Bishop of Worcester, and Wulf- heard, son of Cussa, a landowner in that diocese, which was decided in the year 789 at a " pontificale conciliabulum in locofaraoso qui dicitur Celchy th " under the presidency of the two archbishops laenbeorht of Canter- bury and Hygebeorht of Lichfield.* In 801, as we learn from another charter (ti., p. 45), a dispute about land between King Cenwulf of Mercia and Wihthun, Bishop of Selsev, was settled by a synod held " set Celchithe, which we are told in another document (ib., p. 72) was presided over by Archbishop ^Ethelheard of Canterbury. In this last charter the synod is said to have been held "at Crelchythe." But we have not yet discovered why the little riverside hamlet should have held this honourable position, while PROF. SKEAT'S authoritative statement renders the discovery of the meaning^ of tM name more distant than ever. Chalice* could not have been imported into Chelsea in such number* as to have given the place iU name, and we are only left to conclude that the Anglo-Saxon must have possessed sever*! • The Archbishopric of Lichfield was in 803.