CROWNS WON AND LOST.

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stubborn rocks of family prejudice, ah! how many young hearts are daily wrecked? What avail fresh winds and full tide setting fair for glad havens where eager barks would be, when stony barriers uprear themselves between, which no daring, no skill can surmount? With the wrecks of gallant ships so shattered the waves of this troublesome world are strewn.

Not dreamy-eyed Romance alone, but her grave sister History, tells us strange facts as to the value of names, actually in themselves, even when unconnected with family associations.

With the Romans auspicious names were ever in the ascendant. Amongst innumerable examples we need only instance here Regalianus, elected emperor by the Roman soldiers solely on account of the royalty suggested by his name. But lightly won, alas! lightly lost—he did not long wear the crown of the Cæsars. On an equally sudden impulse the troops put their newly-elected emperor to death. His name gave him a crown, but could not preserve to him his life.

A still more singular instance of a name, and a Christian name, influencing the destiny of an individual, is told by Herrera, the Spanish historian. Louis VIII. of France, surnamed 'Cœur de Lion,' desiring a Spanish princess for his bride, ambassadors were sent to the court of Madrid. The eldest and the most beautiful of the royal sisters was the one destined by her

own family to share the diadem of France. But where was the wise fairy godmother who in all nursery tales presides at the naming of beautiful princesses? At the cradle of the unfortunate eldest daughter of Spain, it would seem, there was no fairy godmother, nor even an earthly sponsor gifted with musical ear or æsthetic tastes—her name Urraca, harsh in sound, was in its signification yet more objectionable, for in Spanish it signified a magpie.

A magpie queen, and to mate with a lionheart? Impossible! The dismayed ambassadors felt themselves compelled to reject the young beauty. Her name had deprived her of a noble husband and of a crown. The lovely Urraca saw her younger sister (less fair than herself, except in name) preferred before her, and Blanche the Fair of Castile was carried in triumph to France to become the honoured wife of Louis the Lionheart, and the proud mother of St. Louis.

In this singular story of so great a mishap attending an ill-chosen name we may, perhaps, find the key to the custom of an extraordinary number of names being always bestowed on princesses of Spain and the neighbouring kingdom of Portugal.

The Saxe-Gotha Almanack' (1862) tells us of a little Portuguese princess who has been endowed with no less than twenty names, derived from five different languages—chosen with due regard to mellifluous syllables, fortunate associa

TWENTY NAMES PORTUGUESE PRINCESS. 9

tions with angelic and saintly namesakes, and, with the exception of the hallowed first name, all having pleasing significations:

We shall find when we go more fully into their history that it is scarcely possible to overstate the immense importance attached to names by all the nations of antiquity. Names were as prophecies for good or evil.

Not only were these lucky and unlucky names simply accepted as such—in some cases independent of their respective significations and associations—but a strange superstition respecting them was exalted into a science, known by the Greeks as Omantia, from voua, a name. It claimed Enoch as its originator and

Pythagoras as its supporter; by it destinies were foretold from the numerical value of the letters of a name. Thus it was shown that Patrocles, a father's glory, whose name-number amounted only to 861, was, of necessity, conquered by Hector, the value of his name being 1,225, while he in his turn, in spite of the signification of his name (holding fast, as an anchor), was forced to yield to Achilles, the number of whose name reached to 1,501.

Up to the present day astrological calculations are made by the Arabs, founded on the numerical value of the letters which compose the names of individuals. Amongst other discoveries supposed to be so made, the very important question is decided before marriage as to whether the husband and wife will agree, or, in event of disputes, with whom the supreme authority will rest. This singular enquiry, as described in Lane's Notes to the Arabian Nights,' resolves itself into a simple sum of arithmetic :

'Adding together the numerical values of his or her name and that of the mother, and, if I remember right, subtracting from 12 the whole sum, if this is less than 12, or what remains after subtracting or dividing by 12. Thus is obtained the number of the sign. The twelve signs commencing with Aries correspond respectively with the elements of fire, earth, air, water—fire, earth, and so on.'*

⁕ Vol. i. p. 431.

NUMERICAL VALUE, ETC.

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Should the numbers obtained indicate the same sign, a similar agreement in the dispositions of the individuals is inferred. The terrible question of supremacy in conflict depends on whether a ruling element is indicated by the number of the man or the woman. Should the sign of the man be fire, and that of the woman water, this last being the ruling element, it is believed that in the household that dreary state of affairs will ensue where the master's pipe is put out.' Should the signs be reversed, the power will then rest with the husband of making things equally uncomfortable by 'throwing cold water' on any pet plan of his wife's.

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In all countries, whenever man or woman anticipates in marriage not a blessed bond of loving companionship and mutual dependence, but a miserable series of struggles for despotic rule, it might be as well perhaps for such calculations to be made before it be too late. When the result is unsatisfactory, another selection may be made; or if the sentence of fate be received as irrevocable, resignation may be learned, and useless conflicts be avoided.

Anagrams, or transpositions of the letters of a name, also assumed the form of prophecy. We shall find that some curious instances are recorded in the history of days when this somewhat laborious amusement was in vogue.

Amongst other extraordinary calculations connected with names, we read of a singular kind