This at once reminds us of the origin of our ‘jilt,’ which is nothing more than a relic of the name for inconstancy the sobriquet had obtained. In our ‘Gills,’ ‘Gilsons,’ and many of our ‘Gillots,’ a further remembrance is likely to remain for all time.[62] Such names as these, however, offer no kind of comparison with that of ‘Margaret.’ This is the only rival that ‘Gillian’ had to fear, and had the misfortunes of Margaret of Anjou occurred two, or even one century earlier, it would easily have taken precedence, so far as our surnames are concerned. Apart from its being found in several royal lines, it had the advantage of undoubted prettiness both in sound and sense. Every one, too, knew its meaning, for ‘margarite’ and ‘pearl’ then, and until the seventeenth century even, were interchangeable terms. Every early writer so uses it. ‘Casting pearls before swine’ is with Wickliffe ‘margaritis.’[63] The pet names too were pretty, important in a day when the full name was rarely if ever used.[64] The Norman-French ‘Margot’ seems to have been quite as familiar as ‘Marjorie.’ Thus the homely ‘magpie’ was at first styled the ‘maggoty’ or ‘magot-pie.’ Many will remember that Macbeth so uses it— Blood will have blood: Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak, Augurs and understood relations have By magot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth The secretest man of blood.—ii. 7. ‘Madge-owlet,’ too, from its occasional use by writers of this later period, seems to prove that the still more homely owl of the barn owed an appellation to Dame Marjorie. Her issue, as we should expect, is large. We have ‘Maggs,’ ‘Maggots,’ and ‘Magotson;’ ‘Margots,’ ‘Margetts,’ and ‘Margetson;’ ‘Margison,’ ‘Margerison,’ ‘Meggs,’ and ‘Megson.’[65] It will be surprising to many that we cannot place ‘Mary’ in the first place among female names, as it is now among those of either sex, but such was far from the case. Edward I.’s daughter ‘Marie’ seems to have been the first instance we possess of its use among the higher families of the realm; and doubtless its presence at this time must be referred, as in so many other cases we have mentioned, to the Crusades. Mariolatry, we must remember, was not yet an article of Romish belief. Indeed, the name is still of the rarest for generations after this. Maid Marion, the mistress of Robin Hood, seems to have made that diminutive popular, and either from the acted plays in which she frequently afterwards figured, or the little ornamental image of the Virgin worn by women, is come our _marionette_. The one only form in which it can be said to occur in our English records is that of ‘Mariot,’ such names as ‘Mariot Goscelyn,’ or ‘Mariota Giffard,’ or ‘Mariota Gosebeck,’ being found as a very occasional registry. Thus our ‘Mariotts’ and ‘Maryatts’ are explained. With regard to another batch of