itself; and we are accordingly informed, that Truro signifies the castle on the Uro. This, however, is to take a course the reverse of that pursued by etymologists in general: for they seek the meaning of a word in its primitive form, but Mr. Whitaker in its corruption. There is also another objection, which may be considered equally conclusive; for, as Mr. Polwhele says, we have no such river in Cornwall as the Uro.
Mr. Polwhele himself has proposed a third explanation, which, however ingenious, I think equally unsatisfactory. He suggests, that Truro may be a town of Roman origin; and that the name is a corruption of Trevorou, the town-on-the-ways. But if it were so, we should not be wholly without any evidence of the fact. Proof would be found in some obscure tradition, some historical record, or some local circumstance; and the name itself, upon which alone this opinion is grounded, would be more completely consistent with it. When the Romans founded a town, it was not their custom to give it a name exhibiting no trace of their own language; but Trúro is unquestionably Cornish; and besides that, as persons skilled in such matters would easily see, it is no very natural corruption of Trevórou. Polwh. Hist. of Cornwall, vol. I, p. 189; vol. II, p. 215.
Yet that it is a corruption, is certain. In the charter granted by Reginald Fitzroy, in the reign of Henry II. the name of the town is written Trivereu. It is of this word, therefore, that Truro is a corruption; and if we can determine its signification, we shall ascertain the etymon of Truro. Now nothing can be better known, than that Rivereu, or Riverô, in the ancient language of this county, had the same meaning as the kindred word rivers, in English: and with regard to the initial T, it can be scarcely necessary to say, that it stands for Tre, or its archaic form Te, a town. The word, therefore, in the primitive and proper mode of writing it, is Trerivero; and consequently, the name as it appears in Reginald’s charter, is itself an example of that liability to change, by which the same word was subsequently converted to Truro. But the alteration in that case was so slight, that the composition of the word was scarcely obscured; and so natural, that its corruption could not have been prevented. For it was hardly possible in common speech to avoid the elision, which turns Trerívero into Trívero; as
this again has been contracted to Trúro. The word Truro, then, signifies the Town-on-the-rivers, or as we should now say, Riverton. And this interpretation is illustrated and confirmed by the local peculiarities: for the town is intersected by two rivers, which originally were its boundaries —the Cenion on the south, and the Allan on the east.
With respect to Marazion or Marketjew, I need not examine what has been said about Sion, Jerusalem, and the Jews; for it is wholly unfounded and absurd. Marghas, or in its softer form Maras, signifies a market, and Iän, of or belonging to an island. Hence Marasían means the Island-market. This name is derived from St. Michael’s Mount, which is in fact an island; and to its monastery the market belonged. Marghasjew, as it is called in Elizabeth’s charter, or as we now speak, Marketjew, signifies Thursday-market: the charter, by which the privilege of a market was granted to the monks by Robert, earl of Cornwall, having appointed it to be kept on the fifth day of the week. In Domesday the town is called Tremarastol, which signifies the Market-town-of-the-monastery. These three names, therefore, mutually explain one another; and their signification is confirmed by the historical facts.
Penzance is said to signify “the Saint’s head, or rather the Head of the bay.” Polwh. Hist. of Cornwall, vol. ii. p. 39. I believe that Mr. Polwhele quotes this from Tonkin. But did Tonkin himself expect that his readers would be satisfied with an etymology so indeterminate and contradictory? Yet this is the usual mode of explaining Cornish words. Camden says, that Penzance, or as he more correctly spells it, Pensans, means the Head of the sands. But Whitaker declares this to be unworthy of Camden; and he therefore gives us an improved interpretation of his own. For this purpose he reads Tonkin backwards; and as that writer renders Pensans the Head of the bay, Whitaker asserts it to be the Bay of the Head! And this is unworthy of Whitaker. He says, the phrase is equivalent to Mount’s bay. But it was never imagined before, that the Cornish word Pen could signify such an object as St. Michael’s Mount; and still less can it be supposed that a town would be denominated a Bay. Yet the real signification of Pensans lay at his feet; for nothing can be more obvious and easy. The name is derived both from the little chapel of St. Anthony, which he himself
describes, and from the point of land, on which that chapel stood. For there the town took its beginning; and there, of course, it found a name —that of the place which it occupied. Now a point of land was in Cornish called Pen; and when it chanced to be distinguished by the erection of a chapel, it would naturally be denominated sacred or holy, which was expressed by the word san, or if it was a terminal syllable, sans. Hence Pensans signifies Holy-head; and in allusion to this, John the Baptist’s head is in the town-arms.
But Mr. Whitaker would not have committed this error, if he had been heedful of a principle, observed in the composition of Cornish words, which can never be safely overlooked, in any attempt to investigate their meaning. The ancient names of places in Cornwall mostly consist of two substantive nouns, one of which has the force of an adjective, and qualifies the other: as Penrose, Penpraze, Polwhele. The component parts of such words have always been treated as if they had been associated by caprice, or accident; and the same elements have been represented as adjectives or substantives indifferently, according to the fancy or convenience of the interpreter.
But in truth, the ingredients of all these compounds are combined and distinguished by a settled rule. It is generally supposed, that in all instances the word used substantively precedes that which is employed adjectively. In many cases, however, it does not: and as, therefore, the qualifying noun cannot with certainty be discovered by its position, they who suppose it to occupy uniformly the second place, can be right only by chance; and we are consequently to look for some other mark, by which it may be easily and invariably known. That mark is the accent. Thus we say Pensáns: and so, if we admit, what Mr. Whitaker supposes, that Pen may signify a hill, and sans a bay, the word in that case would mean the Bay-hill, and not as he says, the Hill-bay.
But as this accent lives only in common speech, and the peculiarities of the English manner have already considerably disturbed it, those who have occasion to write any Cornish words, and especially the cultivators of our history and antiquities, should always mark the accented syllable: for there is no other way of making this rule of interpretation available; and of preventing perplexities for the time to come, still greater than those, which have