Among the noted club-rooms of the eighteenth century was Almack's. It was a suite of assembly rooms, built in 1765 in King street, St. James', London, by a tavern-keeper named M'Call, who inverted the two syllables of his name, Mac-call, into Allmack, or Almack. The rooms became famous for fashionable balls under the management of a com-mitee of ladies of the highest rank. The rooms are now called Willis' Rooms from a proprietor named Willis.

Saint Veronica was, according to the legend, one of the women who met our Lord on His way to Calvary. She offered Him her veil to wipe the sweat from His brow, when, wondrous to tell, the Divine features were miraculously imprinted upon the cloth and remained as a permanent picture of the face of our Lord. This miraculous picture is reported to have been preserved in Rome from about the year 700, and was exhibited in St. Peter's on December 8, 1854.

Half legendary, half historic is the name of Vortigern, the British prince who is reported by Bede, Nennius, and Geoffrey of Monmouth to have invited the Saxons into Britain to help him against the Picts, and to have married Rowena, daughter of Hengist. His allies soon became, according to the legend, enemies even more dangerous than the Picts, and soon destroyed the British princes. Samuel Ireland fathered his historical play of "Vortigern" on Shakspeare.

Among odd titles for towns is that of Westward Ho, on the coast of North Devon, 21/2 miles west of Biddeford, which owes not merely its name but its existence to Charles Kingsley's Elizabethan romance (1855), which attracted swarms of visitors to North Devon. For their accommodation this pretty cluster of villas and lodging houses, with its church, hotel, club-house, and college, has sprung up since 1867. The bathing facilities are excellent, and it is a great resort of golfers.

Prester John is the name applied by mediaeval credulity for two hundred years to the supposed Christian sovereign of a vast but ill-defined empire in central Asia. The idea of a powerful Christian potentate in the far East, at once priest and king, was universal in Europe from about the middle of the twelfth to the beginning of the fourteenth century, when it was transferred to Ethiopia and finally found a fancied historical justification in identification with the Christian king of Abyssinia.

Windermere, or Winandermere, the largest lake in England, called from its beauty "Queen of the Lakes," is partly in the county of Lancaster, and partly divides that county from Westmoreland. It is nearly eleven miles long and about one mile in extreme breadth. About a mile from Waterhead, at the north extremity of the lake, is the town of Ambleside, a mile and a half north-west of which is Rydal, the residence of the poet Wordsworth; in the vicinity of Waterhead is Dove's Nest, the cottage at one time occupied by Mrs. Hemans; farther down the East shore is Elleray, famous as the residence of "Christopher North;" and half-way down the lake, on the eastern shore, is Bowness.

Before the Reformation the clergy used to walk in procession every year on Corpus Christi day to St. Paul's Cathedral. They mustered at the upper end of Cheapside, and there commenced chanting the Paternoster, which continued through "Pater-noster Row"; at the end of the Row they said Amen, and the spot was called "Amen Corner." They then began the Ave Maria, turning down "Ave Maria Lane." After crossing Ludgate, they chanted the Credo in "Creed Lane" (which no longer exists).

The Tarpeian rock was so called from Tarpeia, daughter of Spurius Tarpeius governor of the citadel on the Saturnian Hill of Rome. The story is that the Sabines bargained with the Roman maid to open the gates to them, for the ' ornaments on their arms." As they passed through the gates, they threw on her their shields, saying, "These are the ornaments we bear on our arms." She was crushed to death, and buried on the Tarpeian Hill. Ever after, traitors were put to death by being hurled headlong from the hill-top.

An ancient and popular English gathering was the Bartholomew fair held 24 August (old style). Henry I., in 1133, granted the charter of this fair to Rayer or Rahere, a monk. Like all other fairs, it was connected with the church, and miracle plays, mysteries and moralities were performed. In 1445 four persons were appointed by the Court of Aldermen as keepers of the fair. In 1661 the fair lasted fourteen days. In 1691 the fair was limited to three days. In 1840 the fair was removed to Islington; and in 1855 it was discontinued.

La Belle Alliance is the name of a farm some thirteen miles from Brussels; ever memorable for being the position occupied by the centre of the French infantry in the battle of Waterloo (June 18, 1815). Napoleon himself was in the vicinity of this farm, but Wellington was at Mont St. Jean, two miles further north. Between these two spots was La Haye Sainte, where were posted the French tirailleurs. The Prussians call the battle of Waterloo the "Battle of la Belle Alliance" and the French call it the "Battle of Mont Saint-Jean.

Will's Coffee House was a noted resort in the reign of Charles II. near Covent Garden at the western corner of Bow street. It was the great emporium of libels and scandals, but was one of the best in London, and had acquired the sobriquet of "the Wit's Coffee-house." Here the frequenters heard the talk of the town about the poets, authors, and other celebrities, and here was the "Observator" and all the Tory and Whig journals of the day; and here would be found Matthew Prior, John Dry-den, Betterton the tragedian and other celebrities.

Thirty miles from the City of Kumamoto, Japan, is the volcano Aso San, which has the largest crater in the world. It is more than thirty miles in circumference, and peopled by twenty thousand inhabitants. Think of walking for miles among fertile farms and prosperous villages, peering into schoolhouse windows and sacred shrines well within the shell of an old-time crater, whose walls rise eight hundred feet all about you. It gives one a queer feeling. Hot springs abound everywhere. In one place brick-red hot water is utilized to turn a rice mill. The inner crater is nearly half a mile in diameter, and a steady column of roaring steam pours out of it. The last serious eruption was in 1884, when immense quantities of black ashes and dust were ejected and carried by the wind as far as Kumamoto, where for three days it was so dark that artificial light had to be used.