“The Spaniards,” says that late worthy Jo. Sandford, some time fellow of Magdalane college, in Oxford, (in his Spanish Grammar, 1632) “do with a kind of wantonness so confound the sound of _b_ with _v_, that it is hard to determine when and in what words it should retain its own power of a labial letter, which gave just cause of laughter at that Spaniard who, being in conversation with a French lady, and minding to commend her children for fair, said unto her, using the Spanish liberty in pronouncing the French,—_Madame, vous avez des veaux enfans_, telling her that she had calves to her children, instead of saying, _beaux enfans_, fair children. Neither can I well justify him who wrote _veneficio_ for _beneficio_.” * * * * * _Conimbrica, whose ruined towers Bore record of the fierce Alani’s wrath._—III. p. 24. The Roman Conimbrica stood about two leagues from the present Coimbra, on the site of Condeyxa Velha. Ataces, king of the Alanes, won it from the Sueves, and, in revenge for its obstinate resistance, dispeopled it, making all its inhabitants, without distinction of persons, work at the foundation of Coimbra where it now stands. Hermenerico, the king of the Sueves, attacked him while thus employed, but was defeated and pursued to the Douro; peace was then made, and Sindasunda, daughter of the conquered, given in marriage to the conqueror. In memory of the pacification thus effected, Ataces bore upon his banners a damsel in a tower, with a dragon vert on one side, and a lion rouge on the other, the bearings of himself and his marriage-father; and this device being sculptured upon the towers of Coimbra, still remains as the city arms. Two letters of Arisbert, bishop of Porto, to Samerius, archdeacon of Braga, which are preserved at Alcobaça, relate these events as the news of the day,—that is, if the authority of Alcobaçan records, and of Bernardo de Brito can be admitted.—_Mon. Lus._ 26. 3. Ataces was an Arian, and therefore made the Catholic bishops and priests work at his new city, but his queen converted him. * * * * * _Mumadona._—III. p. 25. Gasper Estaço has shown that this is the name of the foundress of Guimaraens, and that it is not, as some writers had supposed, erroneously thus written, because the words Muma and Dona followed each other in the deeds of gift wherein it is preserved; the name being frequently found with its title affixed thus, Dma Mumadna. * * * * * ——_the banks Of Lima, through whose groves in after years, Mournful yet sweet, Diogo’s amorous lute Prolong’d its tuneful echoes_.—III. p. 27.