" SCOTTISH PLACE-NAMES " [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—Perhaps you will be gocd enough to allow me sufficient space to state briefly what I feel to be a grievance.
I appreciate your reviewer's opinion of my Scottish Place- Names, that it is of " great value" as a work of reference. But I cannot help being astonished by his subsequent criti- cisms. And for this reason : all his objections (with -one exception) arc completely met in the book itself, either in the text or the notes. Considerations of space limit me to a bare citation of the pages in which the names arc discussed ; they are pp. 116-7 ; 180-1 ; 204 and 217 ; and 294-5.
I am quite sure that your reviewer had no wish to offer criticisms which a closer scrutiny of the book would have shown to be superfluous.
As to his main criticisms--namely, the plan of the book— here, again, an adequate explanation is given in the preface. Opinions may differ about the wisdom of a plan which de- liberately provides, as this book does, both for the general reader, who does not want to be bothered with technical matter in the text, and the student of place-names who (rightly, of course) demands it, either in the text or the notes. But, for well or ill, the plan of Scottish Place-Names is based upon that conception.—I am, Sir, &c., [Our reviewer writes : "Mr. Mackenzie and I must agree to differ. As to his remarks in the above letter re pp. 116-7,180-1, 204 and 217, he simply reaffirms the views to which I took exception ; he does not attempt to show that my criticisms arc either ' superfluous ' or baseless. As to pp. 294-5, if • Teuto-Scottish ' was the language of the Picts, how comes it that, apart from Anglic and Scandinavian elements, the Teutonic elements of place-names in Pictish Scotland seem to have disappeared ? For the main plan of the book, I ask again—How could any ordinary reader understand or remember that Barnbogle means ' Herdsman's Hill ' without referring to the note ? And reference to the note, despite the apologia in the preface, is an intolerable interruption."—ED. Spectator.]
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