Specimen of an etimological vocabulary, or, essay, by means of the analitic method, to retrieve the antient Celtic / By the author of a pamphlet entitled, The way to things by words, and to words by things [i.e. J. Cleland].

John Cleland

Date:: 1768

Credit: Specimen of an etimological vocabulary, or, essay, by means of the analitic method, to retrieve the antient Celtic / By the author of a pamphlet entitled, The way to things by words, and to words by things [i.e. J. Cleland]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$For, independentlY of the preceding reafons for the name of England^ there exih in hifcory other caules for attributing a greater antiquity to the name of EngliJIo^ and to the diftindtion of the Eng- liJJo language, than the prevalence of the Saxons in this iilandl My grounds for this opinion I fub- mit to the reader. It is an uncontrovertible truth, that Conflantlne^ Maximus, and other Roman generals,'draughted from this nation, and fpecifically from this part of it, the flower of their troops. At the court of Conflantinople, Britons and Britijh poflerity had for ages ferved as life-guards to the emperors, much in the fame way as the Scotch, till lately, at the court of France. They were eminently trufted, and were called Varangs or battle-ax- inen They retained at that court the Englijh language. At the emperor s table, ot Bocoi^yfoi Kocloi 77iy Tirdlficiv r,T0i lyfKXvivi'Si raq (zvlcjy avyrgE'^sgdtVTTGv Cod. p.po. They cry long life, in their oixm country language ; or, in the Englijh manner, brandijiomg their battle- axes, make a clajh of arms. Now as thefe Greek writers belong to the lower empire, the chronology is not quite inconfiftent with fuch mention of the Englifh being ailufive to the fuppofed Anglo-Saxons. There would be no * The ufe of this battle-ax was common to all the Northern people. It was their capital weapon. Thence it became with the Turks a general defignation of European warriors, and in- clulively nations. The French took their name from it, in dif- tindion from the Romany who were otherwife armed, and whom they drove out of the poiTeffion of Gaul. ■f S' Eft r8TS JBPETTANIKON Bsici/.cvo'i 'Bceuociuv ANEKA0EN, [Cinnamus, h i. p. 4.] Fheje men <were Bottom fro7n time vnmemorial in the fer^ice of the Reman emperors. Other Greek authors, Bryennius Caefar, Nicetas Chroniata, &c. attell the lame. Pachymeres efpecially mentionsT^^j 4 Eyfximt', Harry {forHenry) one of the Englijh. B b 2 great$