frequently ignorant of their real import, and those who had to write them down could hardly catch their correct pronunciation. Thus we find that Camden calls Marazion _Merkiu_; Carew, _Marcaiew_. Leland in his “Itinerary” (about 1538) uses the names _Markesin_, _Markine_ (vol. iii. fol. 4); and in another place (vol. vii. fol. 119) he applies, it would seem, to the same town the name of _Marasdeythyon_. William of Worcester (about 1478) writes promiscuously _Markysyoo_ (p. 103), _Marchew_ and _Margew_ (p. 133), _Marchasyowe_ and _Markysyow_ (p. 98). In a charter of Queen Elizabeth, dated 1595, the name is written _Marghasiewe_; in another of the year 1313, _Markesion_; in another of 1309, _Markasyon_; in another of Richard, Earl of Cornwall (_Rex Romanorum_, 1257), _Marchadyon_, which seems the oldest, and at the same time the most primitive form.(65) Besides these, Dr. Oliver has found in different title-deeds the following varieties of the same name:—_Marghasion_, _Markesiow_, _Marghasiew_, _Maryazion_, and _Marazion_. The only explanation of the name which we meet with in early writers, such as Leland, Camden, and Carew, is that it meant “Thursday Market.” Leland explains _Marasdeythyon_ by _forum Jovis_. Camden explains _Merkiu_ in the same manner, and Carew takes _Marcaiew_ as originally _Marhas diew_, _i.e._ “Thursdaies market, for then it useth this traffike.” This interpretation of _Marhasdiew_ as Thursday Market, appears at first very plausible, and it has at all events far better claims on our acceptance than the modern Hebrew etymology of “Bitterness of Zion.” But, strange to say, although from a charter of Robert, Earl of Cornwall, it appears that the monks of the Mount had the privilege of holding a market on Thursday (_die quintæ feriæ_), there is no evidence, and no probability, that a town so close to the Mount as Marazion ever held a market on the same day.(66) Thursday in Cornish was called _deyow_, not _diew_. The only additional evidence we get is this, that in the taxation of Bishop Walter Bronescombe, made August 12, 1261, and quoted in Bishop Stapledon’s register of 1313, the place is called _Markesion de parvo mercato_,(67) and that in a charter of Richard, King of the Romans and Earl of Cornwall, permission was granted to the prior of St. Michael’s Mount that three markets, which formerly had been held in _Marghasbigan_, on ground not belonging to him, should in future be held on his own ground in _Marchadyon_. _Parvus mercatus_ is evidently the same place as _Marghasbigan_, for _Marghas-bigan_ means in Cornish the same as _Mercatus parvus_, namely, “Little Market.” The charter of Richard, Earl of Cornwall, is more perplexing, and it would seem to yield no sense, unless we again take _Marchadyon_ as a mere variety of _Marghasbigan_, and suppose that the privilege granted to the prior of St. Michael’s Mount consisted really in transferring the fair from land in Marazion not