inda, was given to dogs alone. It would be curious if his was the reason that Flora has become one of the established names for Spaniels, which are without doubt, chiens Espagnols-Spanish dogs. From the decorations of churches, Palm Sunday is known in Spain as Pascua Florida, and thus supplied the name of the American eninsula, seen for the first time on this day.

Formosus, beautiful, is the derivation of a Spanish name of better reputation. This language always has the tenlency to drop the F, and begin with H, and thus arose he graceful name, Hermesinda or Ermesinda, the appelation of the daughter of Pelayo, who married Alfonso I., and was the ancestress of the Castillian line.

Gratia, Grace, has supplied us with an English name, of no earlier date than the Reformation, but too pleasant in sound and meaning to be discarded.

Adria, the Adriatic Sea, gave its name to Hadrianus, the Roman Emperor, who left it to various French, as Adrien, Adrienne; and Italians, as Adriano, Adriana, as well as to the city of Adrianople.

Honor, comes from the Latin Honoratus, the name of a saint, from whom is called the French town of St. Honoré, and the old Italian Christian name Onorato. Ireland took up the feminine, Honor or Honora, with the graceful diminutive Nora, and there is a barbarous English name, Honoria.

The derivation of Horatius mounts into the darkness of the Latin ages, and it was in the very early days of Rome that the combat of the Horatii took place. Horatius Flaccus, the poet, had his name from his father, a freedman of one of the Horatian Gens. Orazio, was the modern Italian form, and when Corneille's tragedy of 'Les Horaces,' as he Frenchified the Horatii, had made it famous in modern times, Horatio was the form in which it came to England, and by belonging to the great Lord Nelson, gained itself much popularity, and was made feminine as Horatia.

Hilarius, cheerful, was the name of the great Bishop Poitiers, whom we know as St. Hilary, and from wha Hilaire has been often used as a French name.

Janus, the two-faced guardian of the gates of Rout whose temple was closed in peace, and opened in time a war, was the parent of numerous names, such as the Janiculum, one of the gates of Rome, and Janitor, a porter. The charge to St. Peter led to the belief that be held the office of porter at the Gates of Heaven, with the golden key to admit, and the leader to exclude; and b was thence called in Italian, il janitore, the porter. Again the fish which was thought to bear the mark of the thum with which he opened its mouth in search of the trib money, was called after him janitore, whence its English appellation of John Dory!

Others, however, say that the surname of the fish i merely taken from the French word Doré, gilded. The first month of the year derived its name from the guardian of the gates, and stood as Januarius, Janvier, Gennaro or January; and thence, too, was named Januarius, a Italian saint and martyr, whose blood is said to be preserved at Naples, and is the yearly subject of a fraudulent miracle. As the patron of Naples, he has many namesakes under the form of Gennaro ; but the appellation has spread nowhere else, unless we may reckon among the remote connections of the Roman deity, Judge Haliburton's old American negro, January snow!

(To be continued.)

NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Three shillings' worth of postage stamps have been thankfully received towards the Auckland Bells.

C. A. is also gratefully thanked for the thirteen stamps. The porn we fear, does not come up to our mark.

John and Charles Mozley, Printers, Derby.

CAMEO XLIII.-THE BARONS' WARS.

Ir was the misfortune of Edward of Caernarvon that he could not attach himself in moderation. Among the fierce earls, and jealous, distrustful barons, he gladly distinguished a man of gentler mould, who could return his affection, but he could not bestow his favour discreetly, and always ended by turning the head of his favourite, and offending his subjects.

There was at his court a noble old knight, Sir Hugh Le Despenser, whose ancestors had come over with William the Conqueror, and whose father had been created a baron in 1264, as a reward for his services against Simon de Montfort. To this gentleman, and to his son Hugh, Edward became warmly attached, and apparently not undeservedly, for they were both gallant and knightly, and the son was highly accomplished, and of fine person. Edward made him his chamberlain, and gave him in marriage Eleanor de Clare, the sister of the Earl of Gloucester, who was killed at Bannockburn, and one of the heiresses of the great Earldom, with all its rights on the Welsh marches.

Still the love and sympathy of the nation were with the king's cousin, Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, who probably obtained favour by liberality, or by the arts for which VOL. 14.

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PART 82.

poor Gaveston had named him the stage-player, since his life seems to have been dissolute, under much appear ance of devotion. The last great Earl of Lincoln had chosen him as his son-in-law, while the intended bride, Alice, was yet a young child. In 1310, just after Gaves ton's fall, Lincoln died, and the little Countess Alice, then only twelve years old, became the wife of Lancaster: but in 1317, mutual accusations were made on the part of the Earl and Countess, and Alice claimed to be set free, on account of a previous promise of marriage; while Lancaster complained of Earl Warrenne for having allowed s humpbacked knight, named Richard St. Martin, to carry Alice off to one of his castles, called Caneford, and there to obtain from her the troth now pleaded against him. Edward II. told Lancaster that he might proceed against Warrenne in the ordinary course of law; but this be would not do, as he did not wish to prove his wife's former contract, lest he should lose her great estates with herself, and instead of going honourably to work, he added this reply to his list of discontents against the king.

His friends even set it about that Edward II. was not the true son of Edward I., and a foolish man, named John Deydras, even came forward professing to be the real Edward of Caernarvon, who had been changed at nurse; but no one believed him, and he was hanged for treason. A like story was invented, and even a ballad was current, making Queen Eleanor of Provence confess that Edmund Crouchback, not Edward I., was the rightful heir, but that he was set aside on account of his deformity, and Lancaster, as Edmund's son, was on the watch to profit by the king's unpopularity. Discontents were on the increase, and were augmented by a severe famine, and by the constant incursions of the Scots. Such was the want of corn, that to prevent the consumption of grain, an edict was enacted that no beer should be brewed, and meat of any kind was so scarce, that though the king

ecreed that, on pain of forfeiture, an ox should be sold or sixteen shillings, a sheep for three and six-pence, and a fowl for a penny, none of these creatures were forthcoming on any terms. Loathsome animals were eaten, and it was even said that parents were forced to keep a strict watch over their children, lest they should be stolen and devoured.

While the king and queen were banquetting at Westminster, at Whitsuntide, 1317, a masked lady rode into the hall on horseback, and delivered a letter to the king. Imagining it to be some sportive challenge, or gay compliment, he ordered that it should be read aloud, but it proved to be a direful lamentation over the state of England, and an appeal to him to rouse himself from his pleasures, and attend to the good of his people. The bearer was at once pursued and seized, when she confessed that she had been sent by a knight, and he, on being summoned, asked pardon, saying he had not expected that the letter would be read in public, but that he deemed it the only means of drawing the king's attention to the miseries of his people. It may be feared that the letter met with the fate of Jeremiah's roll.

A cloud was already rising in the west, which seemed small and trifling, but which was fraught with bitter hatred and envy, ere long to burst in a storm upon the heads of the king and his friends. The first seeds of strife were sown by the dishonesty of a knight on the borders of Wales, one William de Breos. He began his career by trying to cheat his step-mother of her dower of eight hundred merks, and when the law decided against him, he broke out into such unseemly language against the judge, that he was sentenced to walk bareheaded from the King's bench to the exchequer to ask pardon, and then committed to the Tower. In after years he returned to his Lordship of Gower, and there committed an act of fraud which led to the most fatal consequences. Having