Britain, and especially the "Midsummer Fires," and other pagan relics, prompts me Mr. Payne read a paper before the Royal Society of Literature, in 1829, in which he identifies the Celtic Teutates with that benefactor of mankind who, from the invention of various useful arts, was worshipped in Egypt and Phoenicia, under the name of Thoth, in Greece as Hermes, and by the Latins as Mercury. Mr. Payne accounts for the introduction of this personage into Gaul, from the mythological history of the son of Jupiter and Maia, which states that, upon the death of his father, he inherited Spain and Gaul as well as Italy; and, among various proofs of the identity which he attempts to establish, he adduces the fact of the similarity between the temples and monuments erected in honour of Mercury by the classical pagan nations, and the cairns and cromlechs of Gaul and Britain. To show the connection between the British Tot or Teut, and the Egyptian Thoth, it may be also remarked that Bruce says the word Tot is Ethiopic, and means the dogstar; now the Egyptians represented Thoth with the head of a dog, and Mr. Bowles remarks, that "the Druids cut the sacred vervain at the rising of the Dog star." Mr. Bowles considers the great Druidical Temple at Abury, Wiltshire, to have been dedicated to the worship of Teutates, and Stonehenge to the sun, while a neighbouring hill is still called Tun-hill, as he thinks from Tanaris, the Celtic God of Thunder. "Thus," says Mr. Mr. Bowles," there is a visible connection between the scene and the temples, while the sacred fires of the Bel-tine or Tan, communicated with the Bel-tan, on the heights above Stonehenge, dedicated to the Lord of light and day."

There can be little doubt, at any rate, that the Thoth of Egypt, deified in the Dog-star, was transferred to the Phonicians, who derived their astronomical knowledge from Egypt, and who "held their way to our distant shores on account of commerce," thus perhaps leaving some relic of their knowledge behind them; and indeed the Egyptian Thoth, the Pho

A singular corroboration of this is that in Cornwall, the "Midsummer Fires" are called Tan-Tat! (see Polwhele) from which 1 infer that these fires in other places called Bel-Tan, flamed from height to height on every mound consecrated to Celtic deities.

nician Taautus or Taute, the Grecian Hermes, the Roman Mercury, and the Teutates of the Celts (so called from the Celtic Du Taith, Deus Taautus) are among the learned universally admitted to be the same. Mercury was also, according to Tacitus, the god chiefly adored in Germany, to whom on stated days human victims were offered; and the god Tuisto (apparently the same styled Mercury by the historian), who was born of the Earth, and Mannus his son, are celebrated in their ancient songs and ballads, as the founders of the German race.

A stone was the first rude representation of Tuisto, or Teut, and these dedicated stones being placed on eminences natural or artificial, most commonly by road sides, were hence called Tot-hills or Teut-hills, and in various parts of the kingdom are so called at present. These hills would of course still remain after the Druidica. rites were abrogated by the Romans; and, as that people paid especial attention to the genii loci of the countries they conquered, and, besides, considered these Teut hills as dedicated to their own Mercury, they would probably venerate them equally with the conquered Britons. We have just observed from Tacitus,that Tuisto was worshipped by the Germans; and thus it is evident that these Teut-hills would be regarded with veneratien by the barbarous Saxon conquerors who invaded Britain, and who have given us the name Tuesday to the third day of the week, in commemoration of the worship they paid to Tuisto. Thus we need not be surprised at the number of places in England named from the worship of this deity. "According to my idea," observes Mr. Bowles, "Thoth, Taute, Toute, Tot, Tut, Tad, Ted, Tet, are all derived from the same Celtic root, and are, in names of places in England, indicative of some tumulus or conical hill, dedicated to the great Celtic god, Taute, or Mercury." The reviewer of Mr. Bowles's work, in the Gentleman's Magazine for February, 1829, observes-"It is plain, from Livy, that Mercury Exodios or Vialis, was called, among the Celts, Mercury Teutates, and both these tumuli were on the sides of roads. Cæsar proves the application; for he says of the Britons that they made Mercury a guide over the hills and trackways. Hence the case concerning Toothills is very satisfactorily made out."

Mr. Bowles observes, of his own knowledge, that many hills on the coast of Dor.

setshire are still called Teuts; and also menticas a lofty conical mound with a vast stone on its summit near Wells, now called Cleeve Tout. In Shaw's Staffordshire, it is said, that "Tutbury probably derives its name from some statue or altar, erected on the castle-hill in the time of the Saxons, to the Gaulish god Tot, or Thoth, Mercury." Tothill Fields, London, is derived from the same source, though the hill has been destroyed, but it is mentioned thus by Norden, the topographer of Westminster in the reign of Elizabeth-"Tootehill-street, lying on the west part of this cytie, taketh name of a hill near it, which is called Toote-hill, in the great feyld near the street." So the hill was existing in Norden's time; and in Rocque's map, 1746, a hill is shown in Tothill-fields, just at a bend in that ancient causeway, the Horseferry-road. On the east side of Worcester is a Toot-hill of considerable elevation, which commands a grand view over the country; close adjacent to it is another hill called Helbury-hill (deriving its name probably from Belenus); and, till within the list fifteen years both these hills were covered with a thick wood, which bore the general appellation of Helbury Wood. Both hills still remain uncultivated, with nothing but gorse upon them. To direct the superstition of the common people another way, this Tot-hill seems afterwards to have been dedicated to the Virgin Mary; for at its southern base is a small public-house, known now, and as far as memory can go back, as the " Virgin's Tavern." An adjacent hamlet takes its name, Trots-hill, from this eminence, but old maps have it Toot-hill There is another remarkable Toot-hill, which bears the name of the Mithe Toot, near Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire, on the summit of a red marly bank, impending sixty feet above the swelling Severn. The red bank here is natural, but a tumulus-like crest has been heaped upon it, and " the Toot" is still its familiar appellation. What is singular respecting it is, that it is still green sward, and has ever remained so ;*

This agrees with Sir Walter Scott, who in his "Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft," observes" In many parishes of Scotland, there was suffered to exist a certain portion of land called the Gudeman's Croft,' which was never ploughed or cultivated, but suffered to remain waste, like the TEMENOS of a pagan

and though surrounded, except towards the Severn, by enclosed fields and an orchard, a. public footpath now exists from the town of Tewkesbury up to this Toot-hill, and for no other purpose than as a path of access to the "Toot." Two or three years ago the turupike-road, near this Toot hill, was widened, and the foot-path that led along the road (and thence through a field up to the hill) was taken into the road, thus leaving no access to the public, for the future, to this ancient monument of superstition; but the inhabitants of Tewkesbury raised such an outcry against this violation of the rights of Teutates, that, to appease them, a new foot-path with stiles,&c, was made through an orchard from the turnpike-road, leading directly to the Toot-hill, where now and for ever any person has a right to go, and enjoy the beauties of the rich landscape that presents itself from this emi

nence.

I have collected the following names of places in England, where either Toot-hills have been, or now exist, or else the name appears to have been derived from some connection with the worship of the Celtic deity, Toot, Tot, Thoth, or Teut, the Teutates of Lucan; and it may be curious for persons who reside in the vicinity of any of the places mentioned, to enquire into any existing relic that may yet remain of this ancient British superstition.

Hamborough-Teute, Dorset.

Tote-bill, near Hartington, Northumberland.
Tatenhill, near Tutbury, Staffordshire.
Tettenhall, near Wolverhampton, do.
Tottenhall, north of Worcester.
Todenham, west of do.

Tewks-hill, near Clebury, Shropshire.
Towbury-hill, near Twining, Gloucestershire.
Tottenham, Middlesex.
Great Totham, near Witham, Essex.
Totness, Devon.

Toddle-hill, Northumberland.

temple. Though it was not expressly avowed, no one doubted that the Goodman's croft was set apart for some evil being." Further he observes, "Within our memory, many such places, sanctified to barrenness by some favorite popular superstition, existed both in Wales and Ireland, as well as in Scotland; but the high price of agricultural produce, during the late war, renders it doubtful if a veneration for grey-bearded superstition has suffered any one of them to remain undesecrated. For the same reason the mounts called Sith Bhruaith were respected."