_Rotten Row and Stockwell Street._--R.R., of Glasgow, inquires the
etymology of these names (Vol. i., p. 441.). The etymology of the first
word possesses some interest, perhaps, at the present time, owing to the
name of the site of the intended Exhibition from all Nations in Hyde
Park. I sent to the publishers of _Glasgow Delineated_, {236} which was
printed at the University press in 1826, a contradiction of the usual
origin of the name adopted in that city, showing the impossibility of
the expression bearing any reference to the dissoluteness or immorality
of the former residents, and also contradicting its having any thing to
do with "rats," or "rattons," _Scotticè_; although, in 1458, the "Vicus
Rattonum" is the term actually used in the Archbishop of Glasgow's
chartulary. My observations, which were published in a note, concluded
as follows:
"The name, however, may be also traced to a very remote and
classic origin, although we are not aware that it has hitherto
been condescended on. In ancient Rome was what was called the
Ratumena Porta, 'a nomine ejus appellata (says Gessner in his
Latin _Thesaurus_) qui ludiero certamine quadrigis victor
juvenis Veiis consternatis equis excussus Romæ periit, qui equi
feruntur non ante constitisse quam pervenirent in Capitolium.'
The same story is related by Pliny, from whom and other authors,
it appears that the word Ratumena was then as proverbially
applied to jockies as Jehu in our own days. From the
circumstance of the Rotten Row Port (of Glasgow) having stood at
the west end of this street, and the Stable Green Port near the
east end, which also led to the Archbishop's castle, it is
probably not only that it was the street through which
processions would generally proceed, but that the port alluded
to, and after it the street in question, were dignified by the
more learned of our ancestors with the Roman name of which, or
of the Latin Rota, the present appears a very natural
corruption."
I may here refer to Facciolati's _Dictionary, voce_ "Ratumena Porta," as
well as Gessner's.
As to _Stockwell_, also a common name, it is obviously indicative of the
particular kind of well at the street, by which the water was lifted not
by a wheel, nor by a pump, nor a pulley, but by a beam poised on or
formed by a large _stock_, or _block of wood_.
Lambda.
_Hornbooks_ (Vol. ii., p. 167.).--Mr. Timbs will find an account of
hornbooks, with a woodcut of one of the time of Queen Elizabeth, in Mr.
Halliwell's _Notices of Fugitive Tracts_, printed by the Percy Society,
1849. Your readers would confer a favour on Mr. Timbs and myself by the
communication of any additional information.