United States or Costa Rica ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In the reign of Henry II., by the king's orders, the monks of Glastonbury made search for the grave of King Arthur, and, in due time, they announced that they had found it, nine feet below the soil, the coffin covered with a stone in which was inlaid a leaden cross bearing this inscription: "Hic iacet sepultus inclitus rex Arthurius in insula Avalonia."
Batavia, or Batavorum Insula, Holland, a part of which still retains the name of Betuwe; formed by the Meuse and the Wal, G. iv. 10 Belgae, the inhabitants of Gallia Belgica. The original Belgae were supposed to be of German extraction; but passing the Rhine, settled themselves in Gaul.
That is because the corresponding modern blocks often include, with the original 'insula', the space between it and the wall, and also the wall itself which has been disused and built over. See on this point some remarks by W. Barthel, Bonner Jahrbücher, cxx. 101-108.
In Roman days three straight streets ran parallel from east to west and a large number of smaller streets, twenty or so, ran at right angles to them from north to south. Some of the public buildings naturally trespassed on to more than one 'insula'; a theatre appears indeed to have stretched over parts of three.
Moreover, he had in his own "insula" private baths which Celer, the famous contemporary of Severus, had extended for him, reconstructed and arranged with such uncommon taste that Nero himself acknowledged their excellence over those of the Emperor, though the imperial baths were more extensive and finished with incomparably greater luxury.
The present spelling is a mere etymological blunder, exactly similar to that which has turned the old English word igland into island, through the false analogy of isle, which of course comes from the old French isle, derived through some form akin to the Italian isola, from the original Latin insula. The surnames Carlyle and Carlile still preserve the better orthography.
It has been suggested by Schulten that the blocks were at first divided into plots of 35 ft. frontage, and that the boundaries had become changed in the ordinary course of things before the survey was made. But this seems to carry conjecture rather far. Here, in short, is the record of an oblong 'insula' in the Roman town of Orange.
It was somewhat droll to hear this laird called by his title. Muck would have founded ill; so he was called Isle of Muck, which went off with great readiness. The name, as now written, is unseemly, but is not so bad in the original Erse, which is MOUACH, signifying the Sows' Island. Buchanan calls it Insula Porcorum. It is so called from its form.
I then read Ogden's second and ninth sermons on prayer, which, with their other distinguished excellence, have the merit of being short. Dr Johnson said, that it was the most agreeable Sunday he had ever passed; and it made such an impression on his mind, that he afterwards wrote the following Latin verses upon Inchkenneth: INSULA SANCTI KENNETHI Parva quidem regio, sed relligione priorum
Once indeed we hear of an aedicula, in an insula, which was perhaps the equivalent of a modern "flat"; it was inhabited by a young bachelor of good birth, M. Caelius Rufus, the friend of Cicero, and in this case the insula was probably one of a superior kind.
Word Of The Day