The meaning is evident, though what connexion it has with the old castle I am not able to say. I send it you, as I have not seen it noted in any book.
C. M. I.
Derivation of Charing.
—Mr. Peter Cunningham, in his most entertaining work, The Handbook of London, tells us that the origin of Charing Cross has never been discovered.
It lies buried in the venerable pages of Somner and Skinner. It was first propounded by the former in his Notes on Lipsius, appended to Meric Causaubon's Commentatio de Quatuor Linguis, in v. SCURGI. The A.-S. cyrrung (from cyrran, avertere) is, as he tells us, aversio:
"Atque hinc, a viarum (scil.) et platearum diverticulis, ut in compitis, pluribus apud nostrates locis hoc nomen olim inditum, quod postea in Cerring mutatum, tandem transiit (ut nunc dierum) in Charing; quomodo quadrivium sive compitum illud nuncupatur in suburbiis Londinensibus, ab occidente, prope Westmonasterium, Charing Crosse, vulgo dictum; Crosse addito, ob crucem ibidem, ut in compitis solitum, olim erectam."
Queries.
POEM BY NICHOLAS BRETON.
I have recently purchased a small manuscript in quarto, containing fifteen leaves, written about the year 1590, which consists of a poem in six cantos, without title or name of the author, but which, I feel convinced, from the style, is one of the numerous works of Nicholas Breton. In the hope that some of your correspondents may be able to identify the poem, which may possibly be printed in some of Breton's very rare works, I subjoin the commencing stanzas: