barons of the realm, for a period of more than two hundred years. By sea and land they fought under the standard of the Edwards and Henrys. Their names are conspicuous in battles, in tournaments, and in the original list of the Order of the Garter ; three brothers shared the Spanish victory of the Black Prince. One, the favorite of Henry the Eighth, in the Camp of the Cloth of Gold broke a lance against the French monarch. Another lived a prisoner in the Tower, and the secret love of Queen Mary, whom he slighted per-haps for the princess Elizabeth, and his exile at Padua, has shed a romantic interest on the annals of the race.—Gibbon's Rome. . NOTE AAAAA.—PAGE 407. "Merlin."—Merlin Ambrose, a British writer who flourished about the latter end of the fifth century. The accounts we have of him are so mixed up with fiction, that to disentangle his real life from the mass would be impos-sible. He was the greatest sage and mathematician of his time, the counsellor and friend of five English kings, Yol-tigern, Ambrosius, Uther, Pendragon, and Arthur. He uttered many prophecies respecting the future state of Eng-land.—Encyclopedia. NOTE BBBBB.—PAGE 408. " Unjust Aspersion?'—When Leicester broughthis newly-wedded wife, the king's sister, to pay his devoir to Eleanor of Provence, he was received with a burst of fury by Hen-ry, who called him the seducer of his sister, and an excom-municated man, and ordered his attendants to turn hiin out of the palace. Leicester endeavored to remonstrate, but Henry would not hear him, and he was expelled, weeping with rage, and vowing vengeance against the young queen, to whose influence he attributed this reverse.—Queens of England. NOTE CCCCO—PAGE 416. "Daughter of Elin de Montfort."—The first mischance NOTES. ' 493