Few rivers have names referring to the colour
of their water, yet there are a few, as the Glass
in Inverness, from the Welsh word glas, blue or
transparent, the Dowles of Shropshire, and the
Douglas of Lanarkshire, from the Welsh dulas,
dark blue. Some few streams, too, derive their
appellations from the sound of their waters, as the
Westmoreland Greta, from the old Norse grâta,
to mourn, in allusion to the wailing sound of its
waters. The names of several small English
rivers, the Blythe, from the Anglo-Saxon blithe,
merry, needs no comment; the Avoca of Wicklow
is so called from the Gaelic abhach, sportive; the
Somersetshire Frome, from the old Norse brim,
roaring of the sea; the Cornish Fowey, from
the Gaelic fuair, noise; the Welsh Dourdwy
from a Welsh word signifying murmur.

There are several river names which Grimson
tells me contain the idea either of the junction
of two streams, or the separation of a river into
two branches, as the Lanark Galawhistle, from
the old Norse quisl, to split; the Renfrew Cart
takes its name from the Gaelic caraid, duplex.

And here, to conclude, I throw in a handful
of derivations of "mixed sorts," as confectioners
say, as the Warwickshire Cole, from the Gaelic
caol, straight; the Kentish Swale and the
Ulster Swilly from the old Norse word svelgr,
swell; the Irish Shannon, from the old Gaelic
siona, delay; the Lake Bratha, from the Irish
breath, pure; the Devonshire and Wicklow
Brays from the Irish brag, running water.

The morning after this lecture Grimson
drove me back to his farm at Tremarton. It
was a clear sunshiny morning, but the sky was
piled with snowy clouds, while to windward
the blue was pure and spotless. The road
was dry and hard, and our horses' hoofs beat
out pleasant music. Grimson was great in
derivations, and plucked rich harvests of fruit
from the thorniest boughs of knowledge. He
chased the old Goth all over Germany, he ran
the Saxon to earth on the Scottish frontier, he
drove the Norman up into a corner in Sicily, he
collected all tribes and nations, and labelled them
as a shepherd marks his sheep.

A CLASSIC TOILETTE.

ACCORDING to testimony, which is scarcely to
be disputed, the sun could never have shone
upon a less lovely object than a Roman lady in
the days of the Cæsars, when she opened her
eyes in the morning—or, rather, let us say, as
she appeared in the morning, for before she
opened her eyes a great deal had to be done.
When she retired to rest her face had been
covered with a plaster composed of bread and
ass's milk, which had dried during the night,
and, consequently, presented in the morning an
appearance of cracked chalk. The purpose of
the ass's milk was not only to preserve the
delicacy of the skin, but to renovate the lungs, and
so strong was the belief in the efficacy of the
specific, that some energetic ladies bathed
themselves in it seventy times in the course of a
single day. As for Poppœa, the favourite wife of
Nero, she never set out on a journey without
taking in her train whole herds of she-asses,
that she might bathe whenever she pleased so
to do.

The plaster of Paris bust having wakened in
the morning in a cracked condition, it was the
office of a host of female slaves to mature it
into perfect beauty. To clear the field for
further operations, the first of these gently washed
away with lukewarm ass's milk the already
crumbling mask, and left a smooth face, to be
coloured by more recondite artists. The slave,
whose vocation it was to paint the cheeks,
delicately laid on the red and white, having
moistened the pigment with her own saliva.
The apparent nastiness of this operation was
diminished by the consumption of a certain
number of scented lozenges, which, if the slave
neglected to take, she suffered corporeal punishment.

A precious article is the paint with which the
Roman domina was beautified; it was well worthy
of the case of ivory and rock-crystal in which
it was preserved. The principal ingredient in
the red paint was a moss, known by the name
of fucus, which is still to be found on the
Mediterranean coast. The cheeks having been
perfected, the eyelashes and eyebrows came in for
their share of attention, and a third slave dyed
them with a black mixture, which, though called
fuligo, was no common soot, but composed of
choice materials. These blackened eyebrows
and eyelashes are absolutely indispensable if the
domina aspires in the slightest degree to the
character of a beauty.

The curatress of the eyebrows was followed by
the tooth-brusher, who not only performed the
office which this title implies, but handed to her
mistress some mastich from the Isle of Chios, a
specific chewed every morning to preserve the
teeth from decay. Even if the teeth were not
already in the head of the lady, but had to be
inserted by the dexterous slave, the mastich
was still chewed to keep up appearances.

All this work done, was not the domina
beautiful? Yet the most important operations had
still to be performed: the hair had been still
unconsidered. And be it observed, that although
blackness was essential to the eyebrow of the
Roman belle, it was otherwise with her hair,
which was to be decidedly golden. A whole
division of female slaves was devoted to its
decoration. The chief of them rubbed it over
and over again with a golden ointment, till the
head competed with the brightness of the rising
sun. The polish thus laid on, two handy
craftswomen moved to simultaneous activity. One,
armed with curling-irons, produced an infinity
of rings and ringlets; another squirted through
her teeth a variety of essences upon the lovely
head. Lastly came a skilful negress, who
achieved the more important curls, and, twisting
the back-hair into a large round knot,
secured it with a pin eight inches long, carved
with the most exquisite art. To these several
servants, Herr Asmus, the German antiquary,