In the vicinity of East Cowes is situated Osborne House, the marine residence of her Majesty and the royal family, for whose accommodation great additions and improvements have been made to the house and grounds, and what was formerly the seat of a private gentleman, has now been rendered a palace worthy of the royalty of England. The brief limits to which our notices are confined preclude us from entering upon a description of an edifice to which we could do but very imperfect justice, and which, after all, must derive its chief interest from the illustrious family who occupy its walls, and avail themselves of its peculiarly advantageous situation as the starting point for those marine excursions in which the Queen and her Consort so frequently indulge. The presence of royalty in its neighbourhood has rendered Cowes one of the most fashionable, as nature had previously made it one of the most beautiful, of the watering places on our southern coast, while the facilities afforded by the competing lines of the London and South Western, and London and South Coast Railways, render it at all times easy of access from the metropolis. [Illustration: SOUTHAMPTON. _HANTS._] SOUTHAMPTON. The town of Southampton is situated in the county of the same name, or, as it is more frequently called, Hampshire. It is built on a point of land at the confluence of the river Itchin with the estuary called the Anton, but which is more generally known as Southampton Water. The origin of the name of the town--which has unquestionably given its name to the county--does not appear to have been satisfactorily ascertained; some writers supposing it to be composed of the Saxon words, _ham_ and _tun_ or _ton_--which are nearly synonymous, and each equivalent to the modern English town--with the prefix _South_ to distinguish it more emphatically from Northampton. Others, however, consider that the name has been derived from the river Anton, on the banks of which the town is situated. "The town of _An_dover," says Sir Henry Englefield, "the village of Abbot's-_An_, the farm of North_anton_, and the hamlet of South_anton_, both near Overton, and not far from the eastern source of the river _Anton_ or rather _Ant_, are abundant proofs of the probability of this etymology." Southampton, as a chartered borough, may rank with the oldest in the kingdom. Madox, in his _Firma Burgi_, says that Henry II. "confirmed to his men, or burgesses of Southampton, their guild, and their liberties and customs by sea and land; he having regard to the great charges which the inhabitants thereof have been at in defending the sea-coasts." From a grant by the same king to the priory of St. Dionysius, it appears that there were then four churches in Southampton. While the English were in possession of Guienne, the merchants of Southampton carried on a considerable trade with Bayonne, Bordeaux, and other towns in the south of France.