further course is kept in our memory by Brook Street, Hanover Square. The name of this little river has exercised many minds, and has been the cause of spoiling much good paper. My own opinion, backed by many antiquaries, is that a _Fleet_ means a brook, or tributary to a larger river, which is so wide, and deep, at its junction with the greater stream as to be navigable for the small craft then in use, for some little distance. Thus, we have the names on the Thames of Purfleet, Northfleet, and Southfleet, and the same obtains in other places. Its derivation seems to be Saxon--at least, for our language. Thus, in Bosworth's "Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language," we find, "Flede-Fledu: part. _Flooded_; _overflowed_: tumidus[2]: Tiber fledu wearð[3]--the Tiber was flooded (Ors. 4. 7)." Again, the same author gives: "Fleot (_Plat_ fleet, m. _a small river_; _Ger._ flethe. f. _a channel_). _A place where vessels float_, _a bay_, _gulf_, _an arm of the sea_, _the mouth of a river_, _a river_; hence the names of places, as _Northfleet_, _Southfleet_, _Kent_; and in London, _Fleet ditch_; _sinus_.[4] Soes Fleot, _a bay of the sea_.[5] _Bd._ 1. 34." Another great Anglo-Saxon scholar--Professor Skeat, in "An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language": "Fleet, a creek, bay. In the names _North-fleet_, _Fleet_ Street, &c. Fleet Street was so named from the Fleet Ditch; and _fleet_ was given to any shallow creek, or stream, or channel of water. See Halliwell. M.E. _fleet_ (Promptorium Parvulorum, &c., p. 166). A.S. _fleót_, a bay of the sea, as in Soes Fleot, bay of the sea. Ælfred's tr. of Beda, i. 34.[5] Afterwards applied to any channel or stream, especially if shallow. The original sense was 'a place where vessels float,' and the derivation is from the old verb _fleet_, to float, &c." The French, too, have a cognate term, especially in Norman towns, as Barfleur, Honfleur, Harfleur, &c., which were originally written Barbe_flot_, Hune_flot_, and Hare_flot_: and these were sometimes written Hareflou, Huneflou, and Barfleu, which latter comes very near to the Latin _flevus_, called by Ptolemy _fleus_, and by Mela _fletio_. Again, in Brittany many names end in _pleu_, or _plou_, which seems to be very much like the Greek [Greek: pleô]: _full_, _swollen_, which corresponds to our Anglo-Saxon Flede; Dutch Vliet. But it has another, and a very pretty name, "THE RIVER OF WELLS," from the number of small tributaries that helped to swell its stream, and from the wells which bordered its course; such as Sadler's Wells, Bagnigge Wells, White Conduit, Coldbath, Lamb's Conduit, Clerkenwell--all of which (although all were not known by those names in Stow's times) were in existence. Stow, in his "SURVEY OF LONDON" (ed. 1603, his last edition, and which consequently has his best corrections), says-- [Sidenote: "_Riuer of Wels._] [Sidenote: _Decay of the Riuer of the Wels._] [Sidenote: _Parliament Record._] [Sidenote: _Riuer of Wels bare ships._] [Sidenote: Patent Record. _Mils by Baynards Castel, made in the first of King John._] [Sidenote: _Turnemill Brooke._] That the riuer of Wels in the west parte of the Citty, was of olde so called of the Wels, it may be proued thus, William the Conqueror in his Charter to the Colledge of S. Marten le Grand in London, hath these wordes: I doe giue and graunt to the same Church all the land and the Moore, without the Posterne, which is called Cripplegate, on eyther part of the Postern, that is to say, from the North corner of the Wall, as the riuer of the Wels, there neare running, departeth the same More from...