Marriage is called in Armenian, "The Imposition of the Crown," from the practice of crowning bride and bridegroom with fresh, white flowers. I remember how, in one of the last marriages celebrated in the little Armenian church in the Rue Monsieur (which was closed a few years ago, when the Mekhitarist property in Paris was sold), this ceremony was omitted by particular request of the bridegroom, a rising French Diplomatist, who did not wish to wear a wreath of roses. The Armenian marriage formulae are extremely explicit. The priest, taking the right hand of the bride, and placing it in that of the bridegroom, says: "According to the Divine order God gave to our ancestors, I give thee now this wife in subjection. Wilt thou be her master?" To which the answer is, "Through the help of God, I will." The priest then asks the woman: "Wilt thou be obedient to him?" She answers: "I am obedient according to the order of God." The interrogations are repeated three times, and three times responded to. An Armenian author, M. Ermine, published at Moscow in 1850 a treatise on the historical and popular songs of ancient Armenia. Of popular songs current in more recent times there was not, till lately, a single specimen within reach of the public, though it was confidently surmised that such must exist. The Mekhitarist monks have taken the lead in this as in every other branch of Armenian research, and my examples are quoted from a small collection issued by their press at Venice. I am not sure that I have chosen those that are intrinsically the best, but think that those which figure in these pages are amongst the most characteristic of their authors and origin. The larger portion of these songs are printed from manuscripts in the library of San Lazzaro; the date of their composition is thought to vary from the end of the thirteenth to the end of the eighteenth century. The language in which they are written is the vulgar tongue of Armenia, but in several instances it attains a very close approximation to the classical Armenian.