Note 263 — Chapter IV · ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN.

This is the process which George Chalmers has gone through in endeavouring to show that the Cymric language originally pervaded the whole of Scotland. He has, in vol. i. p. 33, an elaborate comparison between the names in north and south Britain, which in reality proves nothing; and in applying his Welsh etymologies to the names of places, he proceeds entirely upon the mere resemblance of sounds in the modern form of the word. This mode, which the author has elsewhere termed phonetic etymology, taints almost all the attempts which have been made to attach the local names in Scotland to one or other of the Celtic dialects.