Note 179 — DISSERTATION III.

Marian, or as it is more frequently written Marion, is not formed, as some French writers have supposed, from Mary and Ann, but more probably from Mariamne the wife of Herod, whose name seems borrowed from that of Miriam מרים the prophetess, the sister of Aaron. Miriam is said to come from a Syrian word signifying mistress, or from מרר marar, bitterness. The name of Mary, evidently contracted from Miriam or Mariamne, does not occur till the time of the daughter of Joachim and Anne, the mother of Christ, at which period we find other Maries in the New Testament. It is remarkable that Maria, from Marius, should not occur among the Roman names of women, in like manner as we have Julia, Cornelia, Fulvia, Proba, Valeria, &c., from Julius, Cornelius, Fulvius, Probus, and Valerius. The facetious and eccentric Edmund Gayton, in the dedication to his Festivous notes on Don Quixote, speaks of Mayd Myriam. He perhaps imagined that the morris dance had been suggested by the prophetess and her dancing women with their timbrels.