Industrious and talented antiquarian writers have given to the town other names and derivations. For instance, we are told that it was termed by the Saxons _Blanc-Minster_, _White-Minster_, _Album-Monasterium_, from its “fair and white Monastery,” whilst the Cymry, or “Old Britons,” as Williams denominates them, “called the town _Tre’r Fesen_, _Tre’r Cadeiriau_, the Town of the Oak Chairs,” or, as another writer has it, “the Town of Great Oaks.” These terms bear special allusion to Oswald’s unfortunate arrival in this district; for the ancient seal of the town, cut in brass, represents King Oswald sitting in his robes on a chair, holding a sword in his right hand, and an oak branch in his left, with the words around, “_De Oswaldestre sigillum commune_.” In repeating the long and tedious catalogue of names and derivations, it will be proper to mention that one writer renders the designation _Tre’r Cadeiriau_ as follows:—“Oswestry was called by the Britons _Tre’r Cadeiriau_, literally the Town of _Chairs_, or Seats, commanding an extensive view, (as _Cadair Idris_, the chair of Idris, and others,) as there are several eminences commanding such views in the neighbourhood.” Here is a chapter on civic nomenclature and varied derivation, very curious, perhaps, to many readers, but little edifying to those who ask with the poet, “What’s in a name?” And yet, ancient civic names, like many other ancient relics, have valuable and salutary uses. They are as finger-posts to the Past; in some instances inviting us to the honest path of truth and honour; in others deterring us from the rugged ways of ignorance and error. In almost all respects they enable us to institute comparisons and form contrasts between men and manners in ancient and modern days. Whilst looking at such names, we are too frequently reminded of times when Might overcame Right, and are gently led with thankful spirits to the Present, when, in our own happy and highly-privileged age, every Briton can sit “under his vine and under his fig-tree,” none daring to make him afraid. REVIEW OF ANCIENT HISTORY. The British Period. FOR ages the site of the town, with the surrounding district, was the theatre of brutal contention, rapine, and aggrandisement. Here, as in the Border-Lands of Scotland, it was “The good old rule, * * * the simple plan, That they should take who have the power, And they should keep who can.”