20 Mr. Charles L. Barnes on 



For example, the writer says that "September, October, 

 November, and December were called rains, for then there 

 are tempests, that is in Latin imber, from which is derived 

 September, and the three others are derived thus." 

 Modern philologists are content to derive these names from 

 the Latin numerals, septem, octo, &c., and Chambers adds 

 that the final syllable comes from the Persian word bar, 

 meaning a period of time. The book goes on to say that 

 February was the month which Pluto had, because he 

 caused no incumbrance to the soul when he went to hell. 

 One does not see the connection here; in any case the 

 matter is more clearly expressed in our dictionaries, 

 according to which February is the month of expiation, 

 after a Roman custom. With May and June he is again 

 not easily reconcilable with the moderns, as he derives one 

 from the elders or majores, the other from the juniors. We 

 connect them both with words which signify growth. 



In the signs of the zodiac he sometimes touches on 

 delicate ground. "Cancer signifies that it cannot go 

 straight by land nor by sea, and when God came on the 

 earth to conquer our souls he went much from side to side ; 

 he dared not come forwards, he feared much the Pagans 

 and the Jews, because they were to kill him and make him 

 a martyr." "The fifth sign is placed in July, which is 

 called Lion, because he is very great before and his legs 

 are feeble behind; so the sun in the beginning takes all his 

 force, he is all boiling, very hot and burning; when he is 

 come to the middle he has hardly more strength than the 

 lion who has small flanks." 



We must now leave this treatise and proceed with the 

 Bestiary. This particular one was written for the instruc- 

 tion of Adelaide of Louvain, Queen of Henry I., to whom 

 she was married in 1121 ; but works on Natural History, 

 compiled from Greek and Roman writers, were common 

 under the name of Physiologus or Bestiary, from the 



