_latino_ evidently means easy, clear, plain. "Forse contrario di barbaro, strano," says Volpi, "noi Lombardi in questo significato diciamo _ladin_." The "discreto latino" of Thomas Aquinas, elsewhere in _Paradiso_ (xii. 144.), must mean "sage discourse." Chaucer, when he invokes the muse, in the proeme to the second book of "Troilus and Creseide," only asks her for rhyme, because, saith he,-- "Of no sentement I this endite, But out of _Latine_ in my tongue it write." Where "Latine," of course, means Boccaccio's _Filostrato_, from which Chaucer's poem is taken. In the "Poema del Cid," _latinado_ seems to mean person conversant with the Spanish or Romance language of the period: "Quando esta falsedad dicien los de Carrion, Un Moro _Latinado_ bien gelo entendio."--v. 2675. Mr. Ticknor remarks, that when the Christian conquests were pushed on towards the south of Spain, the Moors, who remained inclosed in the Christian population, and spoke or assumed its language, were originally called _Moros Latinados_; and refers to the _Cronica General_, where, respecting Alfaraxi, a Moor, afterwards converted, and a counsellor of the Cid, it is said he was "de tan buen entendimento, e era tan _ladino_ que semejava Christiano."--Ticknor, _Hist. Span. Lit._, iii. 347. Cervantes (_Don Q._ Parte I. cap. xli.) uses _ladino_ to mean Spanish: "Servianos de interprete a las mas destas palabras y razones el padre de Zoraida como mas _ladino_." Latin, in fact, was so much _the_ language as to become almost synonymous with _a_ language. So a _Latiner_ was an interpreter, as it is very well expressed in Selden's _Table Talk_, art. "Language": "Latimer is the corruption of _Latiner_: it signifies he that interprets Latin; and though he interpreted French, Spanish, or Italian, he was the king's Latiner, that is, the king's interpreter." This use of the word is well illustrated in the following extracts: "A Knight ther language lerid in youth; Breg hight that Knight, born Bretoun, That lerid the language of Sessoun. This Breg was the _Latimer_, What scho said told Vortager."--Robert de Brunne's _Metrical Chronicle._ "Par soen demein _latinier_ . . . . Icil Morice iert _latinier_ Al rei Dermot, ke mult l'out cher."--_Norman-French Chronicle of Conquest of Ireland_, edited by F. Michel (as quoted in Wright's _Essays_, vol. ii. p. 215.). I here conclude, as I must not seek to monopolise space required for more valuable contributions. J. M. B. Tunbridge Wells. * * * * * INEDITED POEMS.