garment or coat; secondly, an inner garment or waistcoat, made of silk; and thirdly, a short cloak to be thrown over the shoulders, and that reached only to the waist, made of the rich furs of some foreign animals, which the author calls mice (murium), and were probably either ermines or martins. It is also conjectured that the present thus sent to the earl was a set of robes, suited to the rank and office of Earl of Hereford, which he had lately held, and to which it might have been King William’s intention to restore him, “if his inconceivable pride had not prevented it.” In his interesting notice of the lives and fortunes of this great family, the learned monk of Utica concludes with these striking moral reflections on the transitory nature of all human grandeur:--“Verè gloria mundi, ut flos fœni decidit et arescit; ac, velut fumus deficit et transit. Ubi est <g>Gulielmus Osberni filius</g>, Herefordensis Comes, et Regis Vicarius, Normanniæ dapifer, et magister militum bellicosus? Hic nimirùm primus et maximus oppressor Anglorum fuit, et enormem causam per temeritatem suam enutrivit, per quam millibus ruina miseræ mortis incubuit. Verùm justus Judex omnia videt, et unicuique, prout meretur, redhibet. Proh dolor! ecce <g>Gulielmus</g> corruit, audax athleta recipit quod promeruit. Ut multos ense trucidavit, ipse quoque ferro repentè interiit. Denique post ejus occasum antequam lustrum compleretur annorum, spiritus discordiæ filium ejus et generum contra dominum suum et cognatum hostiliter excivit, qui Sichimitas contrà Abimelech (quem occicis LXX. filiis Jerobaal sibi præfecerant) commovit! En veracitur à me descripta est offensa, pro qua <g>Guillelmi</g> progenies eradicata sic est de Anglia, ut nec passum pedis, nisi fallor, jam nanciscatur in illa.” Duchesne--Excerp. Order. Vital. De Gul. primo rege Anglorum 322. Selecta Monumenta. That the Conqueror’s philosophy was not proof against any little disappointment of the palate is evident from the following anecdote:--“When his prime favourite, William Fitz-Osborne, steward of his household, served him with the flesh of a crane scarcely half roasted, he was so highly exasperated that he lifted up his fist, and would have struck him had not Eudo, appointed ‘dapifer,’ immediately after warded off the blow.”--Warner, i. 307. <g>It</g> was to the Isle of Wight that the Earl of Warwick--when brought to trial along with the Earl of Arundel--was banished in these terms: “Earl of Warwick! this sentence is very favourable, for you have deserved to die as much as the Earl of Arundel; but the handsome services you have done in time past to King Edward, of happy memory, and the Prince of Wales, his son, as well on this as on the other side of the sea, have secured your life; but it is ordered, that you banish yourself to the Isle of <g>Wight</g>, taking with you a sufficiency of wealth to support your state so long as you shall live, and that you never quit the island.”--Froissart.