earlier Tranemule, Tranemole. The second element would seem to be ON. múle. Fritzner (s.v.) says that this word is used in the sense of some high rounded mass of hill rising above the surrounding flat surface, and notes that it is used as a farm-name in Norway. Fritzner's definition of múli would suit the site of Tranmere, standing on a well-marked eminence.

Wasker-. This forms the first element in (High and Low) Waskerley, Shotley Bridge (Nthb.), and Waskerley, Muggleswick (Durh.). ME. forms for Waskerley (Nthb.) are— 1262 I. p. m. Waskerley; 1312 Q. W. Waskreley; no forms have been found for the Durham name. Wasker- looks like a compound of ME. ker, a marshy place (ON. kiarr), and this supposition is strengthened by the alternative forms given in D. B. for Carbrooke (Norf.). They are Cherebroc, Weskerebroc; apparently the first element of the name was used sometimes in its simple and sometimes in its compound form. What is the first element in Wasker- or Wesker-? Two suggestions may be made, (1) that it is identical with a place-name given by Rygh, N. G. (Jarlsbergs og Larviks Amt), whose mediaevalf orms are Vatskiær, Wazkere, going back, according to Rygh, to ON. vatns + kjarr, 'marsh of water'. Several other Norse place-names are given by Rygh (N. G. xvii, pp. 54, 93, 177) in which he traces back the first element vas- to earlier vatns-, e.g. Vasbotn, Vashaug, Vashoved; (2) that it is the ON. vás, 'wetness, toil, fatigue, from storm, sea, frost, or bad weather', frequently used in compounds (Fritzner s.v.), e.g. vásferð, vásför, vásklæði, vásviðri. There may well have been a compound váskjarr, meaning ‘a piece of marshy ground difficult to cross'. It should, perhaps, be added that Jakobsen (Shetlandsøernes Stedsnavne, Aarb. f. Nord. Oldk. 1901, p. 99) mentions a word vatsger and a place-name 'de Vatsgers', meaning 'a muddy piece of land', which he says is a compound of ON. gor, mud', the first element being

presumably ON. vatns (as above). This might explain the first element Wasker- in Waskerley, but it could not explain the twin names Cherebroc and Weskerebroc.

Wham-. This element is found in an uncompounded form in Wham (Durham) and also in the compound names Whitwham (Nthb.) and Whamlands (Nthb.). Early forms are Wham-1315 R. P. D. Northquwam, Qwham; Whitwham,— 1344 Cl. Wytquam; 1375 I. p.m. Whitwam; 1406 Pat. Wytwam. For Whamlands no early form has been found. 'Wham' is the ON. hvammr, used, according to Rygh (Indl., p. 57), of 'a short valley or depression surrounded by high ground, but in such a way that there is an opening on one of the sides'. Jakobsen (op. cit., p. 114) gives more than one example of its use in the Shetlands in the form Hvam, both by itself and in compounds. Hvammr was also a common farm-name in Iceland (v. Landnamabók). The first element in Whitwham is doubtless the adjective 'white', descriptive of the soil. The word is still in dialectal use in Scotland, Nthb., Cumb., and Yorks. (E. D. D.) in the sense of (1) a marshy hollow, (2) a hollow in a hill or mountain.

Whorl-. This element is found in the place-name Whorlton, used in Northumberland, Cumberland, Durham, and Yorkshire. Early forms are as follows: Nthb.-1323 Pat. Wherleton; 1324 Cl. Wherlton, Wherwelton;1 Cumb.— Whervelton; 2 Yorks.-D. B. Wherveltun, later Wheruelton, Wherlueton, Querleton, Werrelton. No early form of the Durham place-name has been found. The first element in all these names alike would seem to be ON. hvirfill, a ring', which, both in Danish and Swedish, develops the meaning 'whirlpool'. It is also used in Old Norse to

1 I cannot find this spelling in the text, but the editor gives it in the index, probably from the royal letters dated thence, in which only the modern form is now given.

2 I cannot identify Whorlton in Cumberland, but it is given in the index to one of the volumes.

mean the top of a hill, probably from its circular shape (Fritzner s.v.), and is still found in Danish and Swedish, where it is also used of the crown of the head. From one or other of these meanings developed the Old Norse nickname hvirfill, referring possibly to the shape of the man's head (Jónsson, Aarb. f. Nord. Oldk. 1907, p. 196). This name is also found in Saxo as the name of a sea-king under the forms Huiruillus, Huyrvillus (Nielsen, Olddanske Personnavne, p. 48). How far the word is used in one of its concrete meanings and how far it may be a personal name in English place-names it is impossible to tell. It may be said, however, that the meaning 'whirlpool' could only suit the site of Whorlton, co. Durham, where it might refer to a pool in the River Tees, on whose banks it stands. Whorl and whurl are common northern dialectal forms of whirl (E. D.D.), and the change of vowel is due to rounding under the influence of initial wh. There is a place Wherwell in Hampshire going back to OE. Hwerwyll, but its associations would seem to be different (v. Middendorf, Altenglisches Flurnamenbuch, p. 79). ALLEN MAWER.

PLATONISM IN SHELLEY

SHELLEY was by nature one of the most studious of all English poets; from his Oxford days onwards Greek was his favourite reading and for Plato he had a natural affinity of mind. Hogg says of him:

'It is no exaggeration to affirm that, out of the twentyfour hours, he frequently read sixteen. . . . Few were aware of the extent and still fewer of the profundity of his reading; in his short life and without ostentation he had in truth read more Greek than many an aged pedant. . . A pocket edition of Plato, of Plutarch, of Euripides, without interpretation or notes . . . was his ordinary companion, and he read the text straightforward for hours.'

Shelley's intellectual attitude and development can be best understood if we remember that he found his sustenance mainly in two types of authors; in the Materialist writers who prepared the way for the French RevolutionD'Alembert, Helvétius, Voltaire, Cabanis, &c.,—and in the Greek tragedians and Plato.

There is, of course, an enormous difference between the scientific agnosticism of the eighteenth century and the idealism of Plato; in his youth Shelley does not seem to have been able to choose between the two systems; in Queen Mab, for instance, Voltairean scepticism and Platonic idealism lie side by side in curious incongruity, and Shelley seems unaware of the extreme self-contradictions involved in his thought. As he advances in life, however, he becomes more and more a Platonist; in the revised version of Queen Mab entitled 'The Daemon of the World', the thought is purely Platonic, and scientific materialism, always alien to

his true temper, became by degrees impossible to him; in the year of his death he wrote: "The doctrines of the French and material philosophy are as false as they are pernicious.'

None the less, in certain respects, Shelley's revolutionary theories and his Platonism were not at all antagonistic: it should not be forgotten that the thinkers who brought about the French Revolution, indeed the very members of the Tiers État themselves, found their inspiration very largely in the institutions of Greece and Rome, were always quoting classical authors, even those but little known to-day, and followed or tried to follow Greek and Roman ideals of society, while the French Revolution itself was the most striking attempt ever recorded in history to re-model a great and important state on a philosophic basis; the French Revolution might almost have been defined as an attempt to turn from a feudal constitution of society to a classical one. The very thoroughness with which the process of reconstruction was attempted suggests to us such schemes as that of Plato's Republic, which hardly differed from existing Hellenic states (i. e. Sparta) more than the new France, desired and partly achieved by the revolutionaries, differed from the France of the preceding centuries.

Modern critics are often alienated from Shelley by what appears to them the wildness of his social and ethical speculations, but they should remember that, in the poet's era, speculations no less remarkable had been made the yery foundation of vast social experiments. Again, many readers are exasperated by Shelley's daring departures from accepted conventions on the subject of sex, and are inclined in consequence to accuse him of being, in all such matters, mentally morbid and unsound. They do not remember that Shelley is the disciple of the thinker who was, above all others, most daring in such speculations; Shelley's innovations, excepting only in The Revolt of Islam, are