It is a pity to disturb so poetical a theory, coming too as it does from the highest authority, but I much fear that on a comparison of this name with all its related forms, it can hardly be substantiated. For the word does not stand alone--the prefix _med_ is found in several names in which the second part can hardly be taken to mean poculum, and the ending _way_ is found in several names of which the former part cannot mean mulsum. In any case, it seems to me that a Saxon derivation can hardly be sustained. For Medoăcus, (=Medwacus), occurs as the ancient name of a river in Venetia--this appears to be precisely the same name as that of the Medwag or Medway--and in Venetia we can account for a Celtic element, but not for a German. In Nennius the name stands as Meguaid or Megwed; and comparing this with a river called the Medvied(itza) or Medviet(za) in Russia, it would seem rather probable that the form is not altogether false, but that only it should be Medwed instead of Megwed. In that case it would probably be only another form of Medweg, for _d_ and _g_ sometimes interchange in the Celtic dialects, as in the Gaelic _uidh_ and _uigh_, via, a word which indeed I take to be related to the one in question. Again, in the Meduāna of France and the English Medwin, we have a third form of ending, _wân_ or _win_. And this may probably only be one of those extended forms in _n_ so common in the Celtic languages.[53] So that the endings _way_, _wân_, _wied_, in Medway, Meduāna, Medvied(itza), may be slightly differing forms of a common appellative (p.p. 62, 63), qualified by the prefix _med_, which we have next to consider. In Gibson's "Etymological Geography" _med_ is explained as _medius_--Medway = medium flumen--the river flowing through the middle of the county of Kent--and this I think is the general acceptation. In the case of the Medina, (ant. Mede), which divides the Isle of Wight into two equal parts, I should readily accept such a derivation, but in the case of the Medway it seems to me a feature scarcely sufficiently obvious to give the name. And I should on the whole prefer a derivation from the same root as mead, mulsum, viz., Sansc. _mid_, to soften, Lat. _mitis_, Gael. _meath_, soft, mild--finding in Old Norse _mida_, to move slowly or softly, the word most nearly approximating to the sense, and thus deriving the name of the Medway from its gentle flow. Nevertheless it must be observed that as well as the supposed river Medofulli referred to as above by Grimm, we find in a charter of the 10th cent., a river called Medemelacha, which seems evidently to contain the Gael. _mealach_, sweet, and to mean "sweet as mead." This river is near Medemblik on the Zuyder-zee, and I suppose that the name of the place is corrupted from it. The following names I place here, though with uncertainty in the case of some of them. 1. _France._ The MIDOU. Dep. Landes. _Persia._ MEDUS ant., now the Pulwan.