February 14.

VALENTINE'S DAY.

St. Valentine. St. Maro, A.D. 433. St. Abraames, A.D. 422. St. Augentius, 5th Cent. St. Conran, Bishop of Orkney.

St. Valentine.

Of this saint, so celebrated among young persons, little is known, except that he was a priest of Rome, and martyred there about 270.

It was a custom with the ancient Roman youth to draw the names of girls in honour of their goddess Februata-Juno on the 15th of February, in exchange for which certain Roman catholic pastors substituted the names of saints in billets given the day before, namely, on the 14th of February.

[valentine image]Where can the postman be, I say?
He ought to fly—on such a day!
Of all days in the year, you know,
It's monstrous rude to be so slow:
The fellow's so exceeding stupid— Hark!—there he is!—oh! The dear CUPID!

Two hundred thousand letters beyond the usual daily average, annually pass through the twopenny post-office in London on St. Valentine's Day. "Two hundred thousand twopences," said an old gentleman as he read this in a March newspaper, "are four hundred thousand pence,"—and he was going to cast up the amount—"Why, papa," said his daughter, "that's just the number of young folks there must be in love with each other— that's the way to reckon." "Ah, my child, that's not the way to reckon; you have taken something into the account that has no business there: all Valentine-writers are not in love, nor are all lovers Valentine-writers; and remember, my dear girl, that as smiles on the face sometimes conceal cruel despositions, so there are some who write Valentines, and trifle with hearts for the mere pleasure of inflicting pain." "I will show you what I mean," said the old gentleman, and taking a paper from a drawer, he held up this exemplification:

Just then an unmarried gentleman, "of a certain age," entered the room. On becoming acquainted with the topic, he drew from his pocket a small packet, and said, with a merry smile, "Here was my Valentine." It contained a rib of some small animal completely enveloped with white satin ribbon, ornamented by a true lover's know at each end, and another in the middle. Father and daughter both had a laugh at the "old bachelor," and he, laughing with them, put into the young lady's hand the poetical address that accompanied his rib:

Go contemplate this lovely sign!
Haste thee away to reason's shrine,
And listen to her voice;
No more illusive shades pursue,
To happiness this gives the clue,
Make but a prudent choice.

'Till Adam had a partner given,
Much as fair Eden bloom'd like heaven,
His bliss was incomplete;
No social friend those joys to share,
Gave the gay scene a vacant air!
She came—'twas all replete.

And could not genuine Paradise,
The most extensive wish suffice,
Its guiltless lord possest?
No—not without a kindred mate;
How then in this degen'rate state,
Can man, alone be blest?

But now the Muse withdraws her aid;
Enough, thy folly to upbraid;
Enough to make thee wise:
No more of pensive hours complain,
No more, that all life's joys are vain,
If thou this hint despise.

Feb. 13, 182—. A Friend.

"Well now, this is capital!" exclaimed the laughing lass. "After such a Valentine, you must take the hing, my dear sir: it's really a shame that so good-natured a man should remain a bachelor. I recollect, that when I could nonly just run about, you used to be so kind to me; besides, how you dandled and played with me! and since then, how you have read to me and instructed me till I grew up! Such a man is the very man to be married: you are every way domestic, and it's settled; you must get married."—"Well, then, will you have me?" he inquired, with a cheerful laugh. "I have you? No! Why, you are too old; but not too old to find a wife: there are many ladies whom we know, of your age, wholly disengaged; but you don't pay them any particular attention." Her father interposed; and the gentleman she addressed playfully said, "It is a little hard, indeed, that I should have these fine compliments and sever reproaches at the same time: however," taking her by the hand, "you will understand, that it is possible I may have paid particular attention to a lady at an age when the affections are warmer; I did; and I reconciled my self to rejection by courting my books and the pleasures of solitude—

Hast thou been ever waking
From slumbers soft and light,
And heard sweet music breaking
The stillness of the night;

When all thy soul was blending
With that delightful strain,
And night her silence lending
To rivet fancy's chain;

Then on a sudden pausing,
Those strainds have ceas'd to play
A painful absence causing
Of bliss that died away!

So from my soul has vanish'd
The dream of youthful days;
So Hope and Love are banish'd,
And Truth her pow'r displays.

The origin of so pleasant a day, the first pleasant day in the year, whether its season be regarded, or the mode of its celebration, requires some little investigation; nor must some of its past and present usages be unrecorded here.

St. Valentine's Morning.

Hark! Through the sacred silence of the night
Loud chanticleer doth sound his clarion shrill,
Hailing with song the first pale gleam of light
Which floats the dark brow of yon eastern hill.

Bright star of morn, oh! Leave not yet the wave
To deck the dewy frontlet of the day;
Nor thou, Aurora, quit Tithonus' cave,
Nor drive retiring darkness yet away.

Ere these my rustic hands a garland twine,
Ere yet my tongue endite a single song,
For her I mean to hail my Valentine,
Sweet maiden, fairest of the virgin throng.

Dodsley's Miscell.

Attend we upon ELIA. Hark, how triumphantly that noble herald of the college of kindness proclaims the day!

"Hail to thy returning festival, old Bishop Valentine! Great is thy name in the rubric, thou venerable arch-flamen of Hymen! Immortal Go-between! who and what manner of person art thou? Art thou but a name, typifying the restless principle which impels poor humans to seek perfection in union? or wert thou indeed a mortal prelate, with thy tippet and thy rochet, thy apron on, and decent lawn sleeves? Mysterious personage! like unto thee, assuredly, there is no other mitred father in the calendar.—Thou comest attended with thousands and ten thousands of little Loves, and the air is

Brush'd with the hiss of rustling wings;

singing Cupids are thy choristers, and thy precentors; and instead of the crosier, the mystical arrow is borne before thee.

"In other words, this is the day on which those charming little missives, ycleped Valentines, cross and intercross each other at every street and turning. The weary and all for-spent twopenny postman sinks beneath a load of delicate embarrassments, not his own. It is scarcely credible to what an extent this ephemeral courtship is carried on in this loving town, to the great enrichment of porters, and detriment of knockers and bell-wires. In these little visual interpretations, no emblem is so common as the heart,—that little three-cornered exponent of all our hopes and fears,—the bestuck and bleeding heart; it is twisted and tortured into more allegories and affectations than an opera-hat. What authority we have in history or mythology for placing the head-quarters and metropolis of god Cupid in this anatomical seat rather than in any other, is not very clear; but we have got it, and it will serve as well as any other thing. Else we might easily imagine, upon some other system which might have prevailed for any thing which our pathology knows to the contrary, a lover addressing his mistress, in perfect simplicity of feeling, 'Madam my liver and fortune are entirely at your disposal;' or putting a delicate question, 'Amanda, have you a midriff to bestow?' But custom has settled these things, and awarded the seat of sentiment to the aforesaid triangle, while its less fortunate neighbors wait at animal and anatomical distance.

"Not many sounds in life, and I include all urban and all rural sounds, exceed in interest a knock at the door. It 'gives a very echo to the throne where Hope is seated.' But its issues seldom answer to this oracle within. It is so seldom that just the person we want to see comes. But of all the clamorous visitations, the selcomest in expectation is the sound that ushers in, or seems to usher in, a Valentine. As the raven himself was hoarse that announced the fatal entrance of Duncan, so the knock of the postman on this day is light, airy, confident, and befitting one that 'bringeth good tidings.' It is less mechanical than on other days; you will say, 'That is not the post, I am sure.' Visions of Love, of Cupids, of Hymens, and all those delightful, eternal common-places, which 'having been, will always be;' which no schoolboy or schoolman can write away; having their erreversible throne in the fancy and affectations; what are your transports, when the happy maiden, opening with careful finger, careful not to break the emblematic seal, bursts upon the sight of some well-designed allegory, some type, some youthful fancy, not without verses—

Lovers all,
A madrigal,

or some such device, not over abundant in sense—young Love disclaims it,—and not quite silly—something between wind and water, a chorus where the sheep might almost join the shepherd, as they did or as I apprehend they did, in Arcadia.

"All Valentines are not foolish, and I shall not easily forget thine, my kind friend (if I may have leave to call you so) E. B.—E. B. lived opposite a young maiden, whom he had often seen, unseen, from his parlour window in C—e-street. She was all joyousness and innocence, and just of an age to enjoy receiving a Valentine, and just of a temper to bear the disappointment of missing one with good humour. E. B. is an artist of no common powers; in the fancy parts of designing, perhaps inferior to none; his name is known at the bottom of many a well-executed vignette in the way of his profession, but no further; for E. B. is modest, and the world meets nobody half-way. E. B. meditated how he could repay this young maiden for many a favour which she had done him unkown; for, when a kindly face greets us, though but passing by, and never knows us again, nor we it, we should feel it as an obligation; and E. B. did. This good artist set himself at work to please the damsel. It was just before Valentine's day three years since. He wrought unseen, and unsuspected, and wondrous work. We need not say it was on the finest gilt paper with borders—full, not of common hearts and heartless allegory, but all the prettiest stories of love from Ovid, and older poets than Ovid (for E. B. is a scholar.) There was Pyramus and Thisbe, and be sure Dido was not forgot, nor Hero and Leander, and swans more than sang in Cayster, with mottoes and fanciful devices, such as beseemed,—a work in short of magic. Iris dipt the woof. This on Valentine's eve he commended to the all-swallowing indiscriminate orifice—(O, ignoble trust!)—of the common post; but the humble medium did its duty, and from his watchful stand, the next morning, he saw the cheerful messenger knock, and bya dn by the precious charge delivered. He saw, unseen, the happy girl unfold the Valentine, dance about, clap her hands, as one after one the pretty emblems unfolded themselves. She danced about, not with light love, or foolish expectations, for she had no lover; or, if she had, none she knew that could have created those bright images which delighted her. It was more like some fairy present; a God-send, as our familiarly pious ancestors termed a benefit received, where the benefactor was unknown. It would do her no harm. It would do her good for ever after. It is good to love the unknown. I only give this as a specimen of E[.] B., and his modest way of doing a concealed kindness.

"Good morrow to my Valentine, sings poor Ophelia; and no better wish, but with better auspices, we wish to all faithful lovers, who are not too wise to despise old legends, but are content to rank themselves humble diocesans with old Bishop Valentine, and his true church."

Mr. Douce, whose attainments include more erudition concerning the origin and progress of English customs than any other antiquarian possesses, must be referred to upon this occasion. He observes, in his "Illustrations of Shakespeare," concerning St. Valentine's day, that "it was the practice in ancient Rome, during a great part of the month of February, to celebrate the Lupercalia, which were feasts in honour of Pan and Juno, whence the latter deity was named Februata, Februalis, and Februlla. On this occasion, amidst a variety of ceremonies, the names of young women were put into a box, from which they were drawn by the men as chance directed. The pastors of the early christian church, who by every possible means endeavoured to eradicate the vestiges of pagan superstitions, and chiefly by some communtations of their forms, substituted, in the present instance, the names of particular saints instead of those of the women, and as the festival of the Lupercalia had commenced about the middle of February, they appear to have chosen St. Valentine's day for celbrating the new feast, because it occurred nearly at the same time. This is, in part, the opinion of a learned and rational compiler of the 'Lives of the Saints,' the Rev. Alban Butler. It should seem, however, that it was utterly impossible to extirpate altogether any ceremony to which the common people had been much accustomed: a fact which it were easy to prove in tracing the origin of various other popular superstitions. And accordingly the outline of the ancient ceremonies was preserved, but modified by some adaptation to the christian system. It is reasonable to suppose that the above practice of choosing mates would gradually become reciprocal in the sexes; and that all persons so chosen would be called Valentines, from the day on which the ceremony took place."

Leaving intermediary facts to the curious inquirer, we come immediately to a few circumstances and sayings from grave authors and gay poets respecting this festival, as it is observed in our own country. It is recorded as a rural tradition, that on St. Valentine's day each bird of the air chooses its mate; and hence it is presumed, that our homely ancestors, in their lusty youth, adopted a practice which we still find peculiar to a season when nature bursts its imprisonments for the coming pleasures of the cheerful spring. Lydgate, the monk of Bury, who died in 1440, and is described by Warton to have been "not only the poet of his monastery, but of the world in general," has a poem in praise of queene Catherine, consort to Henry V., wherein he says:

Seynte Valentine. Of custome yeere by yeere
Men have an usaunce, in this regioun,
To loke and serche Cupides kalendere,
And chose theyr choyse, by grete affeccioun;
Such as ben move with Cupides mocioun,
Takyng theyre choyse as theyr sort doth falle:
But I love oon whiche excellith alle.

Chaucer imagines "Nature the vicare of the Almightie Lord," to address the happiest of living things at this season, the birds, thus:

Foules, take hede of my sentence I pray,
And for your own ease in fordring of your need,
As fast as I may speak I will me speed:
Ye know well, how on St. Valentine's day
By my statute and through my governaunce,
Ye doe chese your Makes, and after flie away
With hem as I move you with pleasaunce
* * * *
Saint Valentine, thou art full high on loft,
Which drivest away the long nightès black,
Thus singen smallè foules for thy sake,
Will have they causè for to gladden oft,
Since each of them recovered hath his Make:
Full blissful may they sing, when they awake.

Our young readers are informed, that the word "make" in Chaucer, now obsolete, signified mate.

Jago, a poet, who, if he has not soared to greatness, has at least attained to the easy versification of agreeable, and sometimes higher feelings, has left us a few stanzas, which harmonize with the suppositions of Chaucer:

St. Valentine's Day.

The tundeful choir in amorous strains
Accost their feathered loves;
While each fond mate, with equal pains,
The tender suit approves.

With cheerful hop from spray to spray
They sport along the meads;
In social bliss together stray,
Where love or fancy leads.p>

Through Spring's gay scenes each happy pair
Their fluttering joys pursue;
Its various charms and produce share,
For ever kind and true.

Their sprightly notes from every shade
Their mutual loves proclaim;
Till Winter's chilling blasts invade,
And damp th' enlivening flame.

Then all the jocund scene declines,
Nor woods nor meads delight;
The drooping tribe in secret pines,
And mourns th' unwelcome sight.

Go, blissful warblers! timely wise,
Th' instructive moral tell;
Nor thou their meaning lays despise,
My charming Annabelle!

Old John Dunton's "British Apollo" sings a question and answer:

Why, Valentine's a day to choose
A mistress, and our freedom lost?
May I my reason interpose,
The question with an answer close?
To imitate we have a mind,
And couple like the winged kind.

Further on, in the same miscellany, is another question and answer:

"Question. In chusing valentines (according to custom) is not the party chusing (be it man or woman) to make a present to the party chosen?

Answer. We think it more proper to say, drawing of valentines, since the most customary way is for each to take his or her lot. And chance cannot be termed choice. According to the method, the obligations are equal, and therefore it was formerly the custom mutually to present, but now it is customary only for the gentlemen."

This drawing of valentines is remarked in Poor Robin's Almanac for 1676, under St. Valentine's day:

"Now Andrew, Antho-
ny, and William,
For Valentines draw
Prue, Kate, Jilian."

Misson, a learned traveller, who died in England about 1721, describes the amusing practices of his time:--"On the eve of the 14th of February, St. Valentine's day, the young folks in England and Scotland, by a very ancient custom, celebrate a little festival. An equal number of maids and bachelors get together, each writes their true or some feigned name upon separate billets, which they roll up, and draw by way of lots, the maids taking the men's billets, and the men the maids'; so that each of the young men lights upon a girl that he calls his valentine, and each of the girls upon a young man which she calls hers. By this means each has two valentines: but the man sticks faster to the valentine that is fallen to him, than to the valentine to whom he is fallen. Fortune having thus divided the company into so many couples, the valentines give balls and treats to their mistresses, wear their billets several days upon their bosoms or sleeves, and this little sport often ends in love. This ceremony is practised differently in different counties, and according to the freedom or severity of madam Valentine. There is another kind of valentine, which is the first young man or woman that chance throws in your way in the street, or elsewhere, on that day."

In some places, at this time, and more particularly in London, the lad's valentine is the first lass he sees in the morning who is not an inmate of the house; the lass's valentine is the first youth she sees. Gay mentions this usage on St. Valentine's day: he makes a rustic housewife remind her good man,--

I early rose just at the break of day,
Before the sun had chas'd the stars away;
A field I went, amid the morning dew
To milk my kine, (for so should house-wives do,)
Thee first I spied, and the first swain we see
In spite of Fortune shall our true-love be.

So also in the "Connoisseur" there is mention of the same usage preceded by certain mysterious ceremonies the night before; one of these being almost certain to ensure an indigestion is therefore likely to occasion a dream favourable to the dreamer's waking wishes,--"Last Friday was Valentine's day, and, the night before, I got five bay-leaves, and pinned four of them to the four corners of my pillow, and the fifth to the middle; and then, if I dreamt of my sweetheart, Betty said we should be married before the year was out. But to make it more sure, I boiled an egg hard, and took out the yolk, and filled it with salt; and when I went to bed, ate it, shell and all, without speaking or drinking after it. We also wrote our lovers' names upon bits of paper, and rolled them up in clay, and put them into water: and the first that rose up was to be our valentine. Would you think it, Mr. Blossom was my man. I lay a-bed and shut my eyes all the morning, till he came to our house; for I would not have seen another man before him for all the world."

Shakspeare bears witness to the custom of looking for your valentine, or desiring to be one, through poor Ophelia's singing

Good morrow! 'tis St. Valentine's day
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your valentine!

Sylvanus Urban, in 1779, was informed by Kitty Curious, that on St. Valentine's day in that year, at a little obscure village in Kent, she found an odd kind of sport. The girls from five or six to eighteen year old were assembled in a crowd, burning an uncouth [e]ffigy which they called a "holly boy,["] and which they had stolen from the boys; while in another part of the village the boys were burning what they called an "ivy girl," which they had stolen from the girls. The ceremony of each burning was accompanied by acclamations, huzzas, and other noise. Kitty inquired the meaning of this from the oldest people in th eplace, but she could learn no more than that it had always been a sport at that season.

A correspondent communicates to the Every-Day Book a singular custom, which prevailed many years since in the west of England. Three single young men went out together before daylight on St. Valentine's day, with a clapnet to catch an old owl and two sparrows in a neighbouring barn. If they were successful, and could bring the birds to the inn without injury before the females of the house had risen, they were rewarded by the hostess with three pots of purl in honour of St. Valentine, and enjoyed the privilege of demanding at any other hous in the neighbourhood a similar boon. This was done, says our correspondent, as an emblem, that the owl being the bird of wisdom, could infuence the feathered race to enter the net of love as mates on that day, whereon both single lads and maidens should be reminded that happiness could alone be secured by an early union.

On this ancient festival, it was formerly the custom for men to make presents ot the women. In Scotland these valentine gifts were reciprocal, as indeed they are still in some parts.

Hurdis calls this

The day Saint Valentine,
When maids are brisk, and at the break of day
Start up and turn their pillows, curious all
To know what happy swain the fates provide
A mate for life. Then follows think discharge
Of true-love knots and sonnets nicely penned.

St. Valentine is the lover's saint. Not that lovers have more superstition than other people, but their imaginings are more. As it is fabled that Orpheus "played so well, he moved old Nick;" so it is true that Love, "cruel tyrant," moves the veriest brute. Its influence renders the coarsest nature somewhat interesting. A being of this kind, so possessed, is almost as agreeable as a parish cage with an owl inside; you hear its melancholy tee-whit tee-who, and wonder how it got there. Its place of settlement becomes a place of sentiment; nobody can liberate the starveling, and it will stay there. Its mural notes seem so many calls for pity, which are much abated on the recollection, that there are openings enough for its escape. The "tender passion" in the two mile an hour Jehu of an eight-hourse waggon, puzzles him mightily. Hi "sighs and drives, sighs and drives, and drives and sighs again," till the approach of this festival enables him to buy "a valentine," with a "halter" and a "couple o' hearts" transfixed by an arrow in the form of a weathercock, inscribed

"I'll be yours, if you'll be mind,
I am your pleasing Valentine."

This he gets his name written under by the shopkeeper, and will be quite sure that it is his name, before he walks after his waggon, which he has left to go on, because neither that nor his passion can brook delay. After he is out of the town, he looks behind him, lest any body should see, and for a mile or two on the road, ponders on the "two hearts made one," as a most singular device, and with admired devotion. He then puts it in the trusty pocket under his frock, which holds the waggon bill, and flogs his horses to quicken their pace towards the inn, where "she," who is "his heart's delight," has been lately promoted to the rank of under kitchen-maid, vice her who resigned, on being called "to the happy estate of matrimony" by a neighbouring carter. He gives her the mysterious paper in the yard, she receives it with a "what be this?" and with a smack on the lips, and a smack from the whip on the gown. The gods have made him poetical, and, from his recollection of a play he saw at the statute-fair, he tells her that "love, like a worm in the mud, has played upon his Lammas cheek" ever since last Lammas-tide, and she knows it has, and that she's his valentine. With such persons and with nature, this is the season of breaking the ice.

St. Valentine, be it repeated, is the saint of all true lovers of every degree, and hence the letters missive to the fair, from wooers on his festival, bear his name. Brand thinks "one of the most elegant jeu-d'esprits on this occasion," is one wherein an admirer reminds his mistress of the choice attributed by the legend to the choristers of the air on this day, and inquires of her--

Shall only you and I forbear
To meet and make a happy pair?
Shall we alone delay to live?
This day an age of bliss may give.

But, ah! when I the proffer make,
Still coyly you refuse to take;
My heart I dedicate in vain,
The too mean present you disdain.

Yet since the solemn time allows
To choose the object or our vows;
Boldly I dare profess my flame,
Proud to be yours by any name.

A better might have been selected from the "Magazine of Magazines," the "Gentleman's," wherein Mr. Urban has sometimes introduced the admirers of ladies to the admirers of antiquities--under which class ladies never come. Thence, ever and anon, as from some high barbican or watchtower old, "songs of loves and maids forsaken," have aroused the contemplation from "facts, fancies and recollections" regarding other times, to lovers "sighing like furnace" in our own. Through Sylvanus, nearly a century ago, there was poured this

Invocation of St. Valentine.

Hast, friendly Saint! to my relief,
My heart is stol'n, help! stop the thief!
My rifled breast I search'd with care,
And found Eliza lurking there.

Away she started from my view,
Yet may be caught, if thou pursue;
Nor need I to describe her strive--
The fairest, dearest maid alive!

Seize her--yet treat the nymph divine
With gentle usage, Valentine!
Then, tell her, she, for what was done,
Must bring my heart, and give her own.

So pleasant, so descriptive an illustration of the present custom, requires a companion equally amiable:

MY VALENTINE.

Mark'd you her eye's resistless glance,
That does the enraptur'd soul entrance?
Mark'd you that dark blue orb unfold
Volumes of bliss as yet untold?
And felt you not, as I now feel,
Delight no tongue could e'er reveal?

Mark'd you her cheek that blooms and glows
A living emblem of the rose?
Mark'd you her vernal lip that breathes
The balmy fragrance of its leaves?
And felt you not, as I now feel,
Delight no tongue can e'er reveal?

Mark'd you her artless smiles that speak
The language written on her cheek,
Where, bright as morn, and pure as dew,
The bosom's thoughts arise to view?
And felt you not, as I now feel,
Delight no tongue could e'er reveal?

Mark'd you her face, and did not there,
Sense, softness, sweetness, all appear?
Mark'd you her form, and saw not you
A heart and mind as lovely too?
And felt you not, as I now feel,
Delight no tongue could e'er reveal?

Mark'd you all this, and you have known
The treasured raptures that I own;
Mark'd you all this, and you like me,
Have wandered oft her shade to see,
For you have felt, as I now feel,
Delight no tongue could e'er reveal!

High Wycombe.

Every lady will bear witness that the roll of valentine poesy is interminable; and it being presumed that few would object to a peep in the editor's budget, he offers a little piece, written, at the desire of a lady, under an engraving, which represented a girl fastening a letter to the neck of a pigeon:--

THE COURIER DOVE.

"Va, porter cet écrit à l'objet de mon cœur!"

Outstrip the winds my courier dove!
On pinions fleet and free,
And bear this letter to my love
Who's far away from me.

It bids him mark thy plume whereon
The changing colours range;
But warns him that my peace is gone
If he should also change.

It tells him thou return'st again
To her who sets thee free;
And O! it asks the truant, when
He'll thus resemble thee?

Lastly, from "Sixty-five Poems and Sonnets," &c. recently published, he ventures to extract one hot less deserving the honour of perusal, than either that he has presented:--

A VALENTINE.

No tales of love to you I send,
No hidden flame discover,
I glory in the name of friend,
Disclaiming that of lover.
And now, while each fond sighing youth
Repeats his vows of love and truth,
Attend to this advice of mine--
With caution choose a VALENTINE.

Heed not the fop, who loves himself,
Nor let the rake your love obtain;
Choose not the miser for his pelf,
The drunkard heed with cold disdain;
The profligate with caution shun,
His race of ruin soon is run:
To none of these your heart incline,
Nor choose from them a VALENTINE.

But should some generous youth appear,
Whose honest mind is void of art,
Who shall his Maker's laws revere,
And serve him with a willing heart;
Who owns fair Virtue for his guide,
Nor from her precepts turns aside;
To him at once your heart resign,
And bless yur faithful VALENTINE.

Though in this wilderness below
You still imperfect bliss shall find,
Yet such a friend will share each woe,
And bid you be to Heaven resign'd:
While Faith unfolds the radiant prize,
And Hope still points beyond the skies,
At life's dark storms you'll not repine,
But bless the day of Valentine.

Wit at a pinch.

a gentleman who left his sniffbox at a friend's on St. Valentine's Eve, 1825, received it soon after his return home in an envelope, sealed, and superscribed--

To J—— E——, Esq.

Dear Sir,
I've just found proof enough,
You are not worth a pinch of snuff;
Receive the proof, seall'd up with care,
And extract from it, that you are.

Valentine, 1825.

CHRONOLOGY.

SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE died on the 14th of February, 1780. He was born at the house of his father, a silkman, in Cheapside, London, on the 10th of July, 1723; sent to the Charter-house in 1730; entered Pembroke-college, Cambridge, in 1738; of the Middle Temple, 1741; called to the bar in 1746; elected recorder of Wallingford in 1749; made doctor of civil law in 1750; elected Vinerian professor of common law in 1758; returned a representative to Parliament in 1761; married in 1761; became a justice of the court of Common Pleas in 1770. In the course of his life he filled other offices. He was just and benevolent in all his relations, and, on the judicial seat, able and impartial. In English literature and jurisprudence he holds a distinguished rank for his "Commentaries on the Laws of England." This work originated in the legal lectures he commenced in 1753: the first volume was published in 1759, and the remaining three in the four succeeding years. Through these his name is popular, and so will remain while law exists. The work is not for the lawyer alone, it is for every body. It is not so praiseworthy to be learned, as it is disgraceful to be ignorant of the laws which regulate liberty and property. The absence of all information in some men when serving upon juries and coroners' inquests, or as constables, and in parochial offices , is candalous to themselves and injurious to their fellow men. The "Commentaries" of Blackstone requrie only common capacity to understand, Wynne's "Eunomus" is an excellent introduction to Blackstone, if any be wanting. With these two works no man can be ignorant of his rights or obligations; and, indeed, the "Commentaries" are so essential, that he who has not read them has no claim to be considered qualified for the exercise of his public duties as an Englishman. He is at liberty, it is true, for the law leaves him at liberty, to assume the character he may be called on to bear in common with his fellow-citizens; but, with this liberty, he is only more or less than a savage, as he is more than a savage by his birth in a civilized country, and less than a savage in the animal instinct, which teaches that self-preservation is the fist law of nature; and still further is he less, because, beside the safety of others, it may fall to him, in this state of ignorance, to watch and ward the safety of the common wealth itself.

Blackstone, on making choice of his profession, wrote an elegant little poem, entitled "The Lawyer's Farewell to his Nurse." It is not more to be admired for ease and grace, than for the strong feeling it evinces in relinquishing the pleasrues of poesy and art, and parting for ever from scenes wherein he had happily spent his youthful days. Its conclusion describes his anticipations—

Lost to the field and torn from you—
Farewell! a long—a last adieu!
Me wrangling courts and stubborn law
To smoke and crowds, and cities draw
There selfish faction rules the day,
And pride and av'rice throng the way;
Diseases taint the murky air,
And midnight conflagrations glare:
Loose revelry and riot bold
In frighted streets their orgies hold;
Or when in silence all is drowned,
Fell murder walks her lonely round:
No room for peace—no room for you
Adieu, celestial nymph, adieu!

A SUIT AT LAW.

Its origin and progress may be traced in the Tree engraved on the opposite page.

[insert tree of law engraving

1. The root of the engraved Tree exhibits a diversity of suits and actions for the remedy of different wrongs.

2. The trunk shows the growth of a suit, stage by stage, until its conclusion.

3. The branches from each stage show the proceedings of the plaintiff on one side, and the proceedings of the defendant on the other.

4. The leaves of each branch show certain collateral proceedings whereby the suit is either advanced or suspended.

5. Supposing the form of action suitable to the case, and no stay of proceedings, the suit grows, on the "sure and firm set earth" of the law, into a "goodly tree," and, attaining to execution against either the plaintiff or the defendant, terminates in consuming fire.

A few whimsical miscellanies are subjoined, not derogatory from the importance or necessity of legislation, but amusingly illustrative of legal practice in the sinuosities it has acquired during successive stages of desuetude and change. Those only who know the law are acquainted with the modes by which numerous defomities in its application have originated, or the means by which they may be remedied; while all who experience that application are astonished at its expensiveness, and complain of it with reason.

A legal practitioner is said to have delivered a bill containing several charges of unmerciful appearance, to a client, who was a tailor; and the tailor, who had made a suit of clothes for his professional adviser, is said to have sent him the following bill by way of set-off.

GEORGE GRIP, ESQ.
Dr. to SAMUEL SMART.

[insert table with bill of sale here]

Item in a Bill of Costs

Attending A in conference concerning the best mode to indemnify B against C's demand for damages, in consequence of his driving D's cart against E's house, and thereby breaking the window of a room occupied by F's family, and cutting the head of G, one of his children, which H, the surgeon, had pronounced dangerous, and advising on the steps necessary for such indemnity. Attending I accordingly thereon, who said he could do nothing without the concurrence of his brother J, who was on a visit to his friend K, but who afterwards consented thereto, upon having a counter-indemnity from L. Taking instructions for, and writing the letter accordingly, but he refused to accede thereto, in consequence of misconduct in some of the parties towards his distant relation M, because he had arrested N, who being in custody of O, the officer, at P's house, was unable to prevail upon Q and R to become bail. Attending in consequence upon S, the sheriff, when he said, if he received an undertaking to give a bail-bond at the return of the writ, the defendant should be discharged. Attending T for undertaking accordingly, conferring thereon; but he declined interfering without the concurrence of V, to whom he was largely indebted, in whose hands he had lodge several title-deeds as a collateral security, and who, it appeared, had sent the deeds to his attorney U, for the purpose of preparing a mortgage to W, in trust, for securing his demand, and also of a debt due to X. Attending afterwards on A's clerk Y, communicating the result of our numerous applications, and conferring with him thereon, when he at length informed me that Z had settled the business.

Legal Recreations.

"To him that goes to law, nine things are requisite: 1. A good deal of money— 2. A good deal of patience— 3. A good cause— 4. A good attorney— 5. Good counsel— 6. Good evidence— 7. A good jury— 8. A good judge—and lastly, good luck."

"Reason is the life of the law, nay, the common law itself is nothing else but reason."

If a man says of a counsellor of law, Thou are a daffa-down-dilly, an action lies. So adjudged in Scaccario, and agree per totam curiam.— 1 Vin. Abb. 445.

He hath no more law than Mr. C.'s bull. These words being spoken of an attorney, the court inclined that they were actionable, and that the plaintiff should have judgment, though it was objected that the plaintiff had not declared that C. had a bull.—Siderfin, 327, pl. 8. Pasch. 19 Car. II. Baker v. Morfue. The chief justice was of opinion, that if C. had no bull, the scandal was the greater. And it was pronounced per curiam in the same case, that to say of a lawyer, that he has no more law than a goose, has been adjudged actionable.—Sid. 127, pl. 8.— There is quære added as to the saying, He hath no more law than the man in the moon (Ib. 2 Kib. 209); the law, doubtless, contemplating the possibility of there being a man in the moon, and of his being a good lawyer.

My lord chief baron cannot hear of one ear, adjudged actionable, there being a colloquium of his administration of justice. But not so if there had been no discourse of his justice. — Vin. Ab. 446.

Adjudged, that the death of a parson is a non-residency, within 13 Eliz. c. 20, so as to avoid his leases. Mott v. Hales, Crok. Eliz. 123.

Eden and Whalley's case:—"One Eden confessed himself guilty of multiplication, and that he had practised the making of quintessence, and the philosopher's stone, by which all metals might be turned into gold and silver; and also accused Whalley, now a prisoner in the Tower, of urging and procuring him to practise this art; and that Whalley had laid out money in red wine and other things necessary for the said art. And, because this offence is only felony, Eden, the principal, was pardoned by the general pardon; but Whalley, who was but accessary in this case, was excepted as one of those who were in the Tower. The question was moved, whether Whalley should be discharged;—Quære, the statute of 5 Hen. IV. 4, which enacts, 'that none should use to multiply gold or silver, nor use the craft of multiplication; and if any the same do, that he incur the pain of felony in this case.'—Quære—Whether there can be any accessary in this new felony?— 1 Dyer, 87, 6, Easter Term, 7 Ed. VI. This statute was repealed by the stat. of 1 Will. & Mary."

In the case of monopolized cards, there was cited a commission in the time of Henry V. directed to three friars and two aldermen of London, to inquire whether the philosopher's stone was feasible, who returned it was, and upon this a patent was made out for them to make it.— Moore, 675; Dancey's case[.]

According to the Asiatic Researches, a very curious mode of trying the title of land is practised in Hindostan:— Two holes are dug in the disputed spot, in each of which the plaintiff and defendant's lawyers put one of their legs, and remain there until one of them is tired, or complains of being stung by the insects, in which case his client is defeated. In this country it is the client, and not the lawyer, who puts his foot into it.

Professional practice is frequently the subject of theatrical exhibition. "Giovanni in London" has a scene before going to trial, with the following

TRIO.

First Lawyer, Second Lawyer, Giovanni.

Air— "Soldier, gave me one Pound."

First Lawyer.

Giovanni, give me one pound.

Second Lawyer

Giovanni, give me two.

Trial it comes on to-day;

Second Lawyer.

And nothing we can do.

First Lawyer.

You must give a fee,
Both to me—

Second Lawyer.

And me.

Both Lawyers.

For, oh! the law's a mill
that without grist will never go.

Giovanni.

Lawyer, there is one pound;
(to second Lawyer)
Lawyer, there are two;
(to first Lawyer)
And now I am without a pound,
Thanks to the law and you.
For, oh! I feel the law
Has clapp'ed on me its paw;
And, oh! the law's a mill
that without grist will never go.

St. Flavian, Archbishop of Constantinople, A.D. 449. Sts. Theodulus and Julian. St. Silvin of Auchy, A.D. 718. St. Loman, or Luman, Bishop. St. Fintan, Abbot.

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Scotch Crocus. Crocus Susianus.
Dedicated to St. Flavian.

CHRONOLOGY.

On the 17th of February, 1563, died Michael Angelo Buonarroti, as an artist and a man one of the most eminent ornaments of the times wherein he lived. A bare record of his decease is not sufficient. Thousands of readers have heard his name; some know his works; few know his character.

Michael Angelo was born in Tuscany, on the 6th of March, 1474. Fascinated by art at an early age, he executed a facsimile of a picture in his thirteenth year, which he presented to the owner instead of the original, who did not discover the deception till a confidant of Michael's began to laugh. He afterwards studied under Ghirlandail, and at fifteen drew an outline round a drawing by his master which showed its defects and his own superiority. Studying in a garden supplied by the celebrated Lorenze de Medici with antique statues and other forms, he saw a student modelling figures in clay, and emulous of excelling in the same branch, begged a piece of marble, and the use of implements, from one of the workmen employed in making ornaments for Lorenzo's library. With these he imitated an old head, or mask, of a laughing faun, supplying the deficiencies effected by time, by his own invention, and making other additions. Lorenzo saw it, and good humouredly remarked, "You have restored to the old faun all his teeth, but don't you know that a man of such an age has generally lost some?" As soon as Lorenzo departed, Michael broke a tooth from the upper jaw, and drilled a hole in the gum to denote that it had decayed. Lorenzo at his next visit was delighted by this docility, and to encourage Michael assigned him an apartment in his palace for a workroom, seated him at his table, and introduced him to the men of rank and talent who daily resorted to Lorenzo, as the munificent patron of learning and the arts. He justified this distinction by labouring with intense ardour. At seventeen years of age he sculptured in brass the battle of Hercules with the Centaurs; a work of which he said at seventy, "When I see it now, I repent that I did not entirely devote myself to sculpture." His reputation increased with his application, for application brought him nearer to excellence. By the merit of a sleeping cupid from his chisel, which was stained and buried by a dealer to be dug up as an antique, and purchased by cardinal Giorgio under the persuasion that it was one, he was invited to Rome.

On the elevation of Julius II. to the pontificate he desired a mausoleum for his remains, and commissioned Michael Angelo to execute it. The design was magnificent and gratified Julius. He inquired the cost of completing it, "A hundred thousand crowns," answered Michael; the pope replied, "It may be twice that sum," and gave orders accordingly. the pontiff further determined on rebuilding the cathedral of St. Peter on a plan of corresponding gradeur wherein the mausoleum should be erected. It was for the prosecution of this vast structure for Romish worship, that Leo X. sold the indulgencies against which Luther inveighed, and by establishing the right of private judgment shook the papacy to its foundations. While Michael was engaged on the mausoleum, Julius caused a covered bridge to be erected by which he might pass from the Vatican to Michael's study unobserved. Envy was excited in the papal dependents by this distinction, and insinuated so much to Michael's disadvantage that his unrestrained visits to the Vatican were suddenly interrupted. "I have an order not to let you enter," said the groom of the chamber: a prelate inquired if he know to whom he spoke; "Well enough," answered the officer, "and it is my duty to obey my orders." "Tell the pope," said Michael indignantly, "if he wants me, he shall have to seek me in another place." He returned home, ordered his servants to sell his furniture immediately, and follow him to Florence, and the same evening left Rome.

The pope sent couriers to force his return, but before he was overtaken he had reached a territory wherein the papl mandate wis without authority. "Immediately return to Rome on pain of our disgrace," was the pope's letter. Michael's answer was, that having been expelled [from] his holiness's antichamber without having merited disgrace, he had left Rome to preserve his character, and that he would not return; for if he had been deemed worthless one day, he could be little valued the next, unless by a caprice that would neither be creditable to the pope nor to himself. Having despatched the pope's couriers with this letter, he proceeded to Florence. To the government of this city Julius wrote: "We know the humour of men of his stamp; if he will return, we promise he shall be neither meddled with nor offended, and he shall be reinstated in the apostolic grace." Michael was unmoved. A second and a third arrived, each more impressive, and Michael remained unchanged; but the Gonfaloniere of Florence, to whom these epistles were addressed, became alarmed and expostulated: "You have done by the pope what the king of France would not have presumed to do; he must be no longer trifled with; we cannot make war against his holiness to risk the safety of the state; and therefor you must obey his will." Thus remonstrated with, Michael a proposal for entering into the service of the sultan Bajazet II., and building abridge from Constantinople to Pera. The sultan had even sent him letters of credit on Florence and all the cities on his way; and appointed escorts of Janizaries to await his arrival on the Turkish frontiers, and conduct him, by whatever road he pleased, to the Mahometan capital. To divert Michael Angelo from this course, the Gonfaloniere urged that it was better to die under the pope's displearue than to live in the Turkish service; and that if he were apprehensive for his security at Rome, the government of Florence would send him thither as its ambassador, in which character his person would be inviolable. Michael, urged by these and other reasons, relented, and met the pope at Bologna, a city which had been betrayed to the papal arms, and taken possession of by Julius in great pomp just before Michael's arrival. The cardinal Soderini, brother to the Gonfaloniere, was to have introduced Michael to the pope, but indisposition constrained him to depute that office to a prelate of his household. The pope askanced his eye at Michael with displeasure, and after a short pause saluted him, "Instead of your coming to us, you seem to have expected that we should attend upon you." Michael answered, that his error proceeded from too hastily feeling a disgrace he was unconscious of having merited, and hoped his holiness would pardon what had passed. The officious prelate who had introduced him, not thinking this apology sufficient, observed to the pope, that great allowance was to be made for such men, who were ignorant of every thing but their art. "Thous," answered the pontiff, "hast vilified him; I have not: thou art no man of genius but an ignorant fellow; get out of my sight." The prelate was pushed from the room. The pope gave Michael his benediction, restored him to full favour, and desired him not to quit Bologna till he had given him a commission for some work. In a few days, Michael received an order from Julius for a colossal statue of himself in bronze. While it was modelling, the pope's visits to Michael were as frequent as formerly. This statue was grand, austere, and majestic: the pope familiarly asked if the extended arm was bestowing a blessing or a curse upon the people. Michael answered that the action only implied hostility to disobedience, and inquired whether he would not have a book put into the other hand. "No," said the pope, "a sword would be more adapted to my character, I am no book-man." Julius quitted Bologna, and left Michael Angelo there to complete the statue; he effected it in sixteen months, and having placed it in the faccccade of the church of St. Petronio, returned to Rome. This product of Michael's genius was of short existence. The prosperity of Venice under united councils, and a prudent administration of its affairs, excited the hatred of the European powers. An infamous league was enetered into at Cambray for the ruin of the Venetian government, and the partition of its territory; Julius became a party to this alliance, with the hope of adding Romagna to the dominions of the church, and retaining possession of Bologna. Effecting his object, he withdrew from the league; and by a change of policy, and a miscalculation of his strength, quarrelled with Louis XII. who had assisted him in subjecting Bologna. That monarch retook the city, resotred the Bentivoglio family, which had been displaced by the papal arms, and the populace throwing down Michael's statue of the pope, dragged it through the streets, and broke it to pieces. With the mutilated fragments the duke of Ferrara cast a cannon, which he named Julio, but preserved the head entire, as an invaluable specimen of art, although it bore the countenance of his implacable enemy.

Micahel Angelo resumed Julius's mausoleum, but the pontiff had changed his mind, and sorely against Michael's inclination, engaged him to decorate the ceilings and walls of the Sixtine chapel, with paintings in fresco, to the memory of Sixtus VI., the pope's uncle. For the purpose of commencing these paintings, ropes were let through the ceiling to suspend the scaffolding. Michael asked Bramante the architect, who had arranged this machinery, how the ceiling ws to be completed if the ropes were suffered to remain? The answer did not obviate the objection. Michael represented to the pope that the defect would have been avoided if Bramante had better understood the application of mechanical principles, and obtained the pope's permission to take down the inefficient contrivance and erect another. This he effected; and his machinery was so ample and complete, that Bramante himself adopted it in the building of St. Peter's. Michale gave this invention to the poor man who was his carpenter in constructing it, and who realized a fortune from the commissions he received for others on the same plan. To indulge his curiosity, and watch the progress of the work, the pope ascended the ladder to the top of Michael's platform almost daily. He was of an impetuous temper, and impatient to see the general effect from below before the ceiling was half completed: Michael, yielding to his impatience, struck the scaffold; and so eager were men of taste to obtain a view, that before the dust from displacing the machinery had settled, they rushed into the chapel to gratify their curiosity. Julius was satisfied: but Michael's rivals, and Bramante among the rest, secretly solicited the pope to intrust the completion of the cartoons to Raphael. Michael had intimation of these wiles, and in the presence of Bramante himself, claimed an obtained of the pope the entire execution of his own designs. He persevered with incessant assiduity. In twenty months from the commencement of "this stupendous monument of human genius" it was completed, and on All Saints' day, 1512, the pontiff himself opened the chapel in person with a splendid high mass, to crowds of devotees and artists. Whatever Julius conceived he hastened with the ardour of youth; he was old, and knowing that he had no time to spare, he had so harassed the progress of these cartoons by his eagerness, that the scaffolding was struck before they were thoroughly completed; yet, as there was not any thing of importance to be added, Michael determined not to undergo the labour of re-erecting the machinery. The pope loved splendour, and wished them ornamented with gold. Michael answered, "In those days gold was not worn, and the characters I have painted were niehter rich, nor desirous of riches; they were holy men with whom gold was an object of contempt."

Julius soon afterwards died; and the execution of his mausoleum was frustrated by Leo X., to whose patronage Michael was little indebted. He finished his celebrated cartoon of the Last Judgment, for the esat end of the Sistine chapel, in 1541. On Christmas-day in that year the chapel was opened, and residents in the most distant parts of Italy thronged to see it. In the following year, he painted the Conversion of St. Paul, and the Crucifixion of St. Peter, on the walls of the chapel Paolina. In 1546, when he was 72 years old, the reigning pope nominated him architect of St. Peter's. Michael would only accept the appointment on the condition that he received no salary; that he should have uncontrolled power of the subordinate officers; and be allowed to alter the original design conformably to his own judgment. It was necessary to adapt and contract that design to the impoverished state of the papal exchequer. Though numerous impediments were purposely opposed to his progress with this splendid edifice, he advanced it rapidly; and before he was 74, he had completed the Farnese palace, built a palace on the hill of the Capitol for the senator of Rome, erected two galleries for sculpture and painting on the same site, and threw up a flight of steps to the church of the convent of Araceli—an edifice remarkable for its occupying the highest part of the hill whereon the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus formerly stood, and, more especially, for Gibbon having mused there, while listening to the vespers of the barefooted friars, and conceived the first thought of writing his "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."

In 1550, Julius III. succeeded to the pontificate, and Michael to new vexations. His rivals endeavoured to displace him [. . .] for unfitness in the conduct of St. Peter's. A committee of architects was appointed to investigate the charge, in the presence of the pope. The committee alleged that the church wanted light; and they furnished the cardinals Salviati and Marcello Cervino with plans, to show that Michael had walled up a recess for three chapels, and made only three insufficient windows. "Over those windows are to be placed three others," answered Michael. "You never said that beofre," answered one of the cardinals. To this Michael indignantly replied, "I am not, neither will I ever be, obliged to tell yur eminence, or any one else, what I ought or am disposed to do; it is yur office to see that money be provided, to keep off the thieves, and to leave the building of St. Peter's to me." The pope decided in Michael's favour. From that time Julius prosecuted no work in painting or sculpture without Michael's advice; and his estimation of him was so high, that he told him at a public audience, that if he died before himself, he should be embalmed, and kept in his own palace, that his body might be as permanent as his works. Soon after the death of Julius III. in 1555, Paul IV., the new pontiff, expressed his displeasure of the academical figures in the Last Judgment, and intimated an intention to "reform" the picture. Michael sent this message to him: "What the pope wishes, is ery little, and may be easily effected: for if his holiness will only 'reform' the opinions of mankind, the picture will be reformed of itself." This holy father plunged Italy in blood by his vindictive passions; and while war ravaged its plains, Michael, at the age of 82, retreated for a while to a monastery. On coming from his seclusion, he wrote to Vasari, "I have had a great deal of pleasure in visitn ghe monks in the mountains of Spoleto: indeed, though I am now returned to Rome, I have left the better half of myself with them; for in these troublesome times, to say the truth, there is no happiness but in such retirement." The death of this pope filled Rome with "tumultuous joy." and the papal chair was ascended by Pius IV., in whose pontificate, wearied and reduced by the incessant attackis and artifices of his enemies, Michael, at the age of 87, resigned his office of architect to St. Peter's; but the pope, informed of the frauds which had occasioned it, reinstated him, and to induce him to retain the appointment, ensured strict adherence to his designs until the building should be completed.

At the age of eighty-nine a slow fever indicated Michael Angelo's approaching decease. His nephew, Leonardo Buonarrotti, was sent for; but not arriving, and the fever increasing, he ordered the persons who were in the house into his chamber, and in the presence of them and his physicians uttered this verbal will:— "My soul I resign to God, my body to the earth, and my worldly possessions to my nearest of kin:" then admonishing his attendants, he said, "In your passage through this life, remember the sufferings of Jesus Christ."

Thus died one of the greatest artists, and one of the noblest men of modern times. The ceremony of his funeral was conducted at Rome with great pomp, but his remains were removed within a month to Florence, and finally deposited in the church of Sata Croce at Florence. In 1720, the vault was opened; the body retained its original form, habited in the costume of the ancient citizens of Florence, in a gown of green velvet, and slippers of the same.

According to his English biography, Mr. Duppa, Michael Angelo was of the middle stature, bony in make, rather spare, and broad shouldered; his complexion good, his forehead square and "somewhat" projecting; his eyes hazel and rather small; his brows with little hair; his nose flat from a blow given him in his youth by Torrigiano; his lips thin; his cranium large in proportion ot his face. Within these pages a detail of his works will not be sought. The few particulars mentioned are from Mr. Duppa's quarto life, whee many of them are enumerated, and outline sketches of some of them are engraved.

The portrait of Michael Angelo selected by Mr. Duppa, to precede his life, is engraved by Bartolozzi, from a profile in Gori's edition of "Condivi's Memoir." He says its original was a drawing supposed to have been made by Julio Bonasoni, from which Mr. Duppa presumes that artist to have etched a print bearing his name, and dated in the year 1546. There is an engraved portrait dated 1545, without any artist's name attached. Mr. Duppa says, "of these two prints Bonasoni's is much the best; and although the second has a prior date, it appears to have been engraved from the same original." That "original," whatever it was, is no longer in existence. Certainly Bonasoni's print is better as a print, for it has the grace of that master's point, yet as a likeness the print of 1545 seems to the editor of the Every-day Book to have a stronger claim to regard; not beause it is of prior date, but because it has more decisive marks of character. He conjectures, that the anonymous print of 1545 may have been executed from a bust or statue of Michael. There is a laboured precision in the contour, and a close mannered marking of the features, that denote the "original" to have been marble. The conjecture is strengthened by the fact, that the eye in the anonymous print is without an iris; a deficiency which exists in no engraved portraits unless they are executed from a marble "original." While correctness seems to have been the aim of the engraver in this anonymous print, elegance appears to have been the object of the painter Bonasoni in his etching. Bonasoni's portrait is comparatively common; the anonymous one is rare; a copy of it from the print in the editor's possession, is executed on wood, by Mr. T. Williams, and placed under the reader's eye.

insert michaelangelo

Michael Angelo was remarkable for nothing but his genius. He slept little, and was abstemious; he was accustomed to say, "However rich I may have been, I have always lived as a poor man." He obtained the reputation of being proud and odd; for he found little pleasure in the society of men from whom he could not learn, or whom he could not teach. He was pleased by originality of character in whatever rank he met with it; and cultivated in mature life the society of persons respected for their talents and learning. When young he endeavoured to acquaint himself with every branck of knowledge that could contribute to his improvement. In common with all who have obtained a deserved eminence, he was never satisfied with his performances; if he perceived an imperfection that might have been avoided, he either threw aside the work in disgust, or commenced it anew.

He continued to study to the end of his life. In his old age the cardinal Farnese found him walking in solitude amidst the ruins of the Coliseum and expressed his surprise. Michael answered, "I go yet to school that I may continue to learn." He lived much alone. His great excess seems to have been indulgence in reflection, and the labours of his profession. The power of generalizing facts, and realizing what he conceived, he drew from this habit: without it some men have become popular for a time, but no man ever became great.

Grandeur was Michael Angelo's prevailing sentiment. In his architecture of St. Peter's, he seems to have been limited by the impossibility of arriving to excellence without adopting the ancient styles, and the necessity of attempting something great without them; and to speak with the severity of uncompromising truth he failed. Of what else he did in that science, and he did much, for which he obtained deserved renown, there is neither room nor occasion to speak. In painting and sculpture, if he did not always succeed in embodying his feelings, yet he succeeded more frequently than any other artist since the revival of arts; and, as his power was greater than theirs, so he accomplished greater works. His aim was elevated as that of the giants who warred against the fabled gods; in one respect he was unlike them—'he conquered. Majestic and wild as nature in her undescribable sublimity, he achieved with corresponding greatness and beauty. His forms and their intellectual expression are of the highest order. He never did any thing little. All was in harmony with a mind which he created of himself by adding fact to fact, by severe reading, by close observation, by study, by seclusion. He was the quarrier, and architect, and builder-up of his own greatness.

Sir Joshua Reynolds speaks with becoming deference of Michael Angelo's powers.—"It will not be thought presumptuous in me to appear in the train, I cannot say of his imitators, but of his admirers. I have taken another course, one more suited to my abilities, and to the taste of the times in which I live. Yet however unequal I feel myself to that attempt, were I now to begin the world again, I would tread in the steps of that great master: to kiss the hem of his garment, to catch the slightest of his perfections, would be glory and distinction enough for an ambitious man. He was the bright luminary from whom painting has borrowed a new lustre, under whose hands it assumed a new appearance, and became another and superior art, and from whom all his contemporaries and successors have derived whatever they have possessed of the dignified and majestic."

There are excellent casts from three of Michael Angelo's statues exhibited by Mr. West at Mr. Bullock's museum, in Piccadilly; they are, Christ, from the church of Sta. Maria at Florence, Lorenzo de Medici from his monument, and the celebrated Moses, from the church of St. Pietro, in Vincoli, at Rome. The editor of the Every-day Book has conversed with person swho think themselves pupils and students in sculpture and painting without having seen these!

Michael Angelo had studied anatomy profoundly. Condivi, who was his pupil and one of his biographers, says that his knowledge of human anatomy and or [sic] other animals was so correct, that those who had studied it as a profession all their lives, scarcely understood it so well. When he began to dissect he conceived disgust from the offensiveness of the operation and desisted; but reflecting that it was disgraceful to abandon what others could achieve, he resumed and pursued it to the fullest extent. Perceiving the utility of Albert Durer's "Treatise on the Proportions of the Human Body," he deemed it capable of improvement. Its rules were in his opinion insufficient and too mechanical, and he contemplated a treatise to exhibit the muscles in their various action. A friend, whom he consulted on the subject, sent him the body of a fine young Moor, which he dissected and made remarks on, but they were never published. The result of his anatomical knowledge may be seen in the powerful muscular developement [sic] of his figures: he left no part undefined.

Several remarks occur in the course of Michael Angelo's letters concerning his art. Speaking of the rivalry between sculpture and painting, he says, "The sculptor arrives at his end by taking away what is superfluous; the painter produces his, by adding the materials which emody the rperesentation to the mind: however, after all, they are both prduced by the same intelligence, and the superiority is not worth disputing about, since more time may be lost in the discussion, than would produce the works themselves." At one time, however, Michael Angelo regarded painting with less favour than he expresses in this letter. It is addressed to Varchi, who wrote a dissertation on the subject, and sent it to him with an inquiry, which had divided the amateurs of Florence, as to whether painting or sculpture required the most talent. Varchi's treatise has the merit of having convinced Michael Angelo that he was in error, and with the truth and caondour inseparable from such a character he confessed his mistake. "Of the relative importance of painting and sculpture," says Michael Angelo, "I think painting excellent in proportion as it approaches relievo, and relievo bad in proportion as it partakes of the character of a picture, and therefore I was used to be of opinion, that painting might be considered as borrowing light from sculpture, and the difference between them as the sun and moon. Now, however, since I have read your dissertation, which treats the subject philosophically, and shows, that those things which have the same end, are one, and the same, I have changed my opinion, and say, that, if greater judgment, labour, difficulty, and impediment, confer no dignity on the work on which it is bestowed, painting and sculpture may be considered without giving the preeminence to either: and since it has been so considered, no painter ought to undervalue sculpture, and in like manner, no sculptor ought to make light of painting."

Great as Michael Angelo was in art, his intellectual character was greater. "No one," says Mr. Duppa, "ever felt the dignity of human nature with its noblest attributes more forcibly than Michael Angelo, and his disgust at any violation of principle was acute in proportion to his sensibility and love of truth." He despised and shrunk from the shadow of a meanness: hating the heartlessness of unmeaning profession, he regarded the dazzling simulation which constitutes the polish of society as a soul-cloud. With these commanding views of self dignity he poured out his feelings to his friend Luigi del Ricco, in

A MADRIGAL.

Translated by Robert Southey Esq.
(From Mr. Duppa's Life of Michael Angelo.)

Ill hath he chosen his part who seeks to please
The worthless world,—ill hath he chosen his part,
For often must he wear the look of ease
When grief is at his heart;
And often in his hours of happier feeling
With sorrow must his countenance be hung,
And ever his own better thoughts concealing
Must in stupid grandeur's praise be loud,
And to the errors of the ignorant crowd
Assent with lying tongue.
Thus much would I condeal—that none should know
What secret cause I have for silent woe;
And taught by many a melancholy proof
That those whom fortune favours it pollutes
I from the blind and faithless world aloof,
Nor fear its envy nor desire its praise,
But choose my path through solitary ways.

It was one of Michael Angelo's high qualities to bear about him an atmosphere which the parasite dared not approach: no heart-eater could live in it.

He justly estimated whatever was influential in society; and hence though he seemed to look down upon rank as an accident of life, he was not regardless of its use. To those whom distinctions had raised, he paid the deference accorded to their dignities. Yet towards him who touched his integrity, he bore a lofty carriage, and when he condescended to resent the attack, hurled an impetuouts defiance that kindled as it flew, and consumed the insulting defamer, though he were ensconced behind countless quarterings, or ermined and enthroned. To the constant calumny of jealous rivalry, and the daily lie of envy and enmity, he was utterly indifferent. When asked why he did not resent the aspersions incessantly poured upon him by one of his assailants, he answered—"He who contends with the worthless can gain nothing worth possessing."

Michael Angelo's temper was "sudden and quick;" but his nature was kind and benevolent. Inferior artists frequently experienced his friendly disposition. He sometimes made drawings and modelled for them. To Minigella, a very indifferent hand, he gave the model of a crucifix beautifully executed, from which the poor fellow formed a mould and made casts of papier mache to sell to the country people. Friendship and esteem for particular individuals oftener induced him to undertake works than proffers of large sums. Yet he was not indifferent of insensible to a just estimation of his talents when they were undervalued. For Angelo Doni, a Florentine of taste, he painted a holy family, and sent it home with a note requiring seventy ducats for it. Doni told the messenger he thought forty were enough; Michael replied by demanding the picture or a hundred; Doni said he was willing to pay the seventy; Michael demanded a hundred and forty, and Doni paid the sum.

He honoured worthy men in every station. His purse was open to their necessities; he condoled with them in their afflictions, and lightened their oppressions by his sympathies and influence. To artists and men of talent his liberality was munificent. He neigher loved money nor accumulated it. His gifts were the free-will offerings of his heart, and hence its dispensations were unaccompanied by a notoriety which sullies the purity of primary obligation, by exposing the nakedness of its object.

Conversing one day with his old and faithrul servant, he said, "What will become of you, Urbine, if I should die?" "I must then seek another master" was the reply. "Poor fellow," said Michael, "thou shalt not need another master," and he gave him two thousand crowns. This was a large sum in those days: Vasari says such a donation would only have been expected from popes and great emperors. Michael afterwards procured him an appointment in the Vatican to take care of the pictures, with a monthly salary of six ducats; and preserving his regard for the old man, Michael, though at that time eighty-two years of age, sat up with him by night in his last illness. "His death has been a heavy loss to me," he wrote to Vasari, "and the cause of excessive grief, but it has also been a most impressive lesson of the grace of God: for it has shown me, that he, who in his lifetime comforted me in the enjoyment of life, dying has taught me how to die; not with reluctance, but even with a desire of death. He lived with me twenty-six years, grew rich in my service, and I found him a most rare and faithful servant; and now that I calculated upon his being the staff and repose of my old age he is taken away, and has left me only the hope of seeing him again in paradise."

Michael Angelo was never married. To one who lamented that he had no children to inherit his property, Michael answered, "My works must supply their place; and if they are good for any thing they will live hereafter. It would have been unfortunate for Lorenzo Ghiberti, hid he not left the doors of S. Giovanni, for his sons and his nephews have long since sold and dissipated his accumulated wealth; but his sculpture remains, and will continue to record his name to future ages." These "doors" were of bronze. When Michael was asked his opinion of them, he said they were fit to be the doors of paradise.

Throughout the poetry of Michael Angelo, of which there is much in existence, love is a pervading sentiment, though, without reference to any particular object. Condivi had often heard him discourse upon it as a passion platonically; and Mr. Duppa gives the following sonnet, translated from the Italian of Michael Angelo by Mr. Wordsworth, as exemplifying Michael's turn of thought:

SONNET,

BY MICHAEL ANGELO.

Yes! hope may with my strong desire keep pace,
And I be undeluded, unbetray'd;
For, if of our affections none find grace
In sight of Heaven, then wherefore hath God made
The world which we inhabit? Better plea
Love cannot have, than that in loving thee,
Glory to that eternal Peace is paid,
Who such divinity to thee imparts
As hallows and makes pure all gentle hearts.
His hope is treacherous only, whose love dies
With beauty, which is varying every hour:
But in chaste hearts, uninfluenced by the power
Of outward change, there blooms a deathless flower
That breathes on earth the air of Paradise.

The personal beauty and intellectual endowments of Vittoria Colonna, marchioness of Pescara, impressed Michael Angelo with sentiments of affectionate esteem. She admired his genius, and frequently left her residence at Viterbo for the sole purpose of enjoying his society at Rome. He addressed three sonnets and a madrigal to her. In her last moments he paid her a visit, and told Condivi he grieved he had not kissed her cheek, as he had her hand, for there was little hope of his ever seeing her again. He penned an epitaph on her decease: the recollection of her death constantly dejected him.

to the purity of his thoughts, there is a high testimony by Condivi. "In a long intimacy, I have never heard from his mouth a single word that was not perfectly decorous, and had not for its object to extinguish in youth every improper and lawless desire: his nature is a stranger to depravity." He was religious, not by the show, but from feeling and conviction.

"To the Supreme Being.

"My prayers will be sweet if thou sendest me virtue to make them worthy to be heard; my unfruitful soil cannot produce virtue of itself. Thou knowest the see, and how to sow it, that it may spring up in the mind to produce just and pious works: if thou showest not the hallowed path, no one by his own knowledge can follow thee. Pour thou into my mind the thoughts that may conduct me in thy holy stops; and endue me with a fervent tongue, that I may alway praise, exalt, and sing thy glory."

Finally, it may be added, that in an age of splendid vice, Michael Angelo was an illustrious example of virtue.

TO MICHAEL ANGELO—IMMORTAL

Michael! to what thou wert, if I could raise
An aspiration, or a holy light,
Within one reader, I'd essay to praise
Thy virtue; and would supplicate the muse
For flowers to deck thy greatness: so I might
But urge one youthful artist on to choose
A life like thine, I would attempt the hill
Where well inspiring floods, and thence would drink
Till—as the Pythoness of old, the will
No longer then controll'd by sense—I'd think
Alone of good and thee, and with loud cries,
Break the dead slumber of undeeming man,
Refresh him with a gush of truth, surprise
Him with thy deeds, and show him thine was Wisdom's plan.

*

insert pisces image here

Pisces.

This zodiacal sign is said to symbolize the fishery of the Nile, which usually commenced at this season of the year. According to an ancient fable, it represents Venus and Cupid, who, to avoid Typhon, a dreadful giant with a hundred heads, transformed themselves into fish. this fabulous monster, it seems, threw the whole host of heathen deities into confusion. His story shortly is, that as soon as he was born, he began to avenge the death of his brethren, the giants who had warred against Olympus, by resuming conflict alone. Flames of fire darted from his eyes and mouths; he uttered horrid yells, and so frightened the pagan celestials, that Jupiter himself became a ram, Juno a cow, Mercury an ibis, Apollo a crow, Bacchus a goat, Diana a cat, Venus a vish, &c. till Jupiter hurled a rock and buried him under Ætna. The idol Dagon, with a human head and arms, and a fish's tail, is affirmed to be the symbol of the sun in Pisces, and to allegorize that the earth teems with corn and fruits.

The sun generally enters Pisces about the period of February; for instance, in 1824 on the 16th, in 1825 on the 18th of the month. The Romans imagined that the entrance of the sun into Pisces was attended by bad weather, and gales of uncertainty to the mariner.* [Hone's note: "Dr. Forster's Perenn. Cal."] Thomson sings, that in this month—

Muttering, the winds at eve, with blunted point,
Blow hollow-blustering from the south. Subdued,
The frost resolves into a trickling thaw.
Spotted, the mountains shine; loose sleet descends,
And floods the country round. The rivers swell,
Of bonds impatient. Sudden from the hills,
O'er rocks and woods, in broad, brown cataracts,
A thousand snow-fed torrents shoot at once;
And where they rush, the wide resounding plain
Is left one slimy waste.

February 18.

St. Simeon, Bp. of Jerusalem, A.D. 116. Sts. Leo and Paregorius, 3d Cent.

CHRONOLOGY.

On the 18th of February 1734, the house of commons received a petition from Mr. Samuel Buckley, a learned printer; setting forth that he had, at his sole expense, by several years' labour, and with the assistance of some learned persons abroad and at home, made collections of original papers and letters relating to "Thuanus's History," written in Latin, in order to [produce?] a new and accurate edition, in 7 vols. folio, which was finished; that the act of the 8th of Q. Anne, for the encouragement of learning, extended only to the authors, purchasers, or proprietors of the copy-right of any book in English, published after the 10th of April, 1710, and allowed the importation of vending of any books in foreign language printed beyond the seas; so that any books, first compiled and printed in this kingdom in any of those language, might be reprinted abroad and sold in this kingdom, to the great damage of the first printer or proprietor: he therefore prayed, that he might be allowed the same benefit in his copy of the "History of Thuanus," in Latin, for fourteen years. Leave was given to bring in the bill, and it afterwards passed into an act.

The protection of this excellent work was a justice due to the spirit and liberality of Mr. Buckley. He had been originally a bookseller. John Dunton says of him, "He is an excellent linguist, understands the Latin, French, Dutch, and Italian languages, and is master of a great deal of wit: he prints the 'Daily Courant,' and 'Monthly Register,' which, I hear, he translates out of the foreign papers himself:"—a great merit, it should seem, in the eyes of old Dunton.

Mr. Buckley was a really learned printer. The collections for his editionof Thuanus were made by Carte, who had fled to France from an accusation of high treason, during the rebellion of 1715 and while in that country possessed himself of so many materials for the purpose, that he consulted Dr. Mead, the celebrated physician, and patron of literary men, concerning the undertaking. By the doctor's recommendation, it was intrusted to Mr. Buckley, who imported the paper for it, which, with the materials, cost him 2,350l. He edited the work with fidelity, and executed it with elegance.

Mr. Buckley was the publisher of the "Spectator," which appeared in folio from his shop at the Dolphin in Little Britain, a place then filled with booksellers. At the close of the seventh volume this popular work was suspended, but resumed by Buckley in Amen-corner. He attained to opulence and respectability, was in the commission of the peace for Middlesex, and died, greatly esteemed, on the 8th of September, 1741, in the sixty-eighth year of his age.* [Hone's note: "Mr. Nichols's Lit. Anecdotes."]

It is related of the great lord chancellor Hardwicke, that he so highly regarded "Thuanus's History," as to have resigned the seals for the express purpose of being enabled to read it in the original language.* [Hone's note: "Bibliog. Dict."] It has been computed that a person who gave his attention to this work for four hours every day, would not finish the perusal in twelve months. It comprehends the events of sixty-four years, during the times wherein Thuanus lived and flourished as an eminent French author and statesman. His English biographer quotes, as a character of his writings, that, "in a word, they are calculated to render those who attend to them better and wiser men."† [Hone's note: "Mr. Collinson's Life of Thuanus."]

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Wall Speedwell. Veronica vivensis.
Dedicated to St. Simeon of Jerusalem.

February 19.

St. Barbatus, or Barbas, Bp. A.D. 682.

This saint is patron of Benevento, of which city he was bishop. Butler relates no miracle of him nor does it appear from him that any other name in the calendar of the Romish church is affixed to this day.

THE SEASON.

A pretty trifle from the Greek is descriptive of appearances about this period:—

To a Lady on her Birthday.

See amidst the winter's cold,
Tender infant of the spring;
See the rose her bud unfold,
Every sweet is on the wing.

Hark! the purple flow'ret cries,
'Tis for thee we haste away,
'Tis for thee we brave the skies,
Smiling on thy natal day.
Soon shalt thou the pleasure prove,
Which awaits on virtuous love.

Place us 'midst thy flowing hair,
Where each lovely grace prevails,
Happier we to deck the fair,
Than to wait the vernal gales.

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Field Speedwell. Veronica agrestis.
Dedicated to St. Barbatus.

February 20.

St. Tyrannio, Bp. &c. A.D. 310. Sts. Sadoth, Bp. &c. A.D. 342. St. Eleutherius, Bp. A.D. 532. St. Mildred, Abbess. St. Eucherius, Bp. A.D. 743. St. Ulruck.

St. Mildred

this saint was the first abbess of Minster, in the isle of Thanet, founded by king Egbert about 670, in satisfaction for having murdered his two nephews, Etheldred and Ethelbright; to which satisfaction he was "miraculously terrified, by seeing a ray of bright light dart from the heavens upon their grave." In 1033, her remains were removed to St. Augusttin's monastery at Canterbury, and venerated above all the relics there, and worked miracles, as all saints' relics did in those favoured times. The churches of St. Mildred, Bread-street, and St. Mildred in the Poultry, London, are dedicated to her.* [Hone's note: "Butler's Lives of the Saints."]

In St. Mildred's church in the Poultry, Thomas Tusser, whose "Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandrie" have been cited in former pages of this work, was buried, and on his tomb this

EPITAPH.

Here THOMAS TUSSER,
clad in earth, doth lie,
That sometime made
The pointes of Husbandrie:
By him then learne thou maist;
here learne we must,
When all is done, we sleepe,
and turne to dust:
And yet, through Christ,
to Heaven we hope to goe;
Who reades his bookes,
shall find his faith was so.† [Hone's note: "Stow."]

St. Ulrick.

Of this saint, who died the 28th of February, 1154, Butler says little.

"THE FLOWERS of the LIVES of the most renowned SAINCTS of the three kingdoms, England, Scotland, and Ireland, written and collected out of the best authours and manuscripts of our nation, and distributed according to their feasts in the calendar, BY THE R. FATHER, HIEROME PORTER, Priest and Monke of the holy order of Sainct Benedict, of the Congregation of England, Printed at DOWAY with licence, and approbation of the Oridnary, M.DC.XXXII," realtes of this saint, that he was born in a village called Lonton, or Litton, near Bristol, with many marvels concerning him, and among them this:—He became a priest, but kept hawks and dogs for sport, till he met a beggar who asked alms. Ulrick said, he did not know whether he had aught to bestow: "Look in thy purse," quoth the beggar, "and there thou shalt find twopence halfpenny." Ulrick finding as he was told, received thanks, and a prophecy that he should become a saint, whereupon he starved and hermitized at Hessleborough, in Dorsetshire, about thirty miles from Exeter. "The skin only sticking to his bones," his daintiest food was oaten-bread and water-gruel. He passed many nights without sleep, never slept but when he could not keep awake, and never went to bed, "but, leaning his head to a wall, he tooke a short allowance;" and when he awoke, "he would much blame and chastise his body, as yielding vnto ouermuch micenesse." His pillow was ropes of hay, his clothing poor, and lined next the skin with a rough shirt of hair-cloth, till his flesh having overcome its uneasiness, he wore next his skin an iron coat of mail. In the sharpest cold of winter, having first put off his iron shirt, he was wont to get into a vessel of cold water and recite psalms. His coat of mail hanging below his knees, he went to the knight who gave it to him, to take counsel therein. His military adviser persuaded him to send it to London to be cut; but he gave the knight "a payre of sheares." The knight hesitated, the other entreated. "The one falls to his prayers, the other endeavours with iron and steale to cut iron and steale, when both their labours tooke prosperous effect; for the knight, in his cutting worke, seemed rather to divide a piece of cloath than a peece of iron." then the saint, "without any sheeres, pulled asunder the little rings of that part of his coate cutt off, and distributed them charitably to all that desired, by virtue whereof manie diseases were cured." Envying such rare goodness, and infernal spirit, inmost horrible shape, dragged him into the church, and ran him round the pavement, till the apparition of a virgin stopped this rude behaviour; however, the infernal took advantage of the saint when he was sick, and with a staff he had in his hand gave hin three knocks on the head, and departed. The devil tormented him other ways; he cast him into an intolerable heat, then he gave him an intolerable cold, and then he made him dream a dream, whereby the saint shamed the devil by openly confessing it at church on Easter-day before all the people. At length, after other wonders, "the joints of his iron coate miraculously dissolved, and it fell down to his knees." Upon this, he foretold his death on the next Saturday, and thereon he died. such, and much more is put forth concerning St. Ulrick, by the aforesaid "Flowers of the Saincts," which contains a prayer to be used preparatory to the perusal, with these words, "that this holy reading of their lives may soe inflame our hearts, that we may follow and imitate the traces of their glorious example, that, after this mortall life, we may be made worthie to enjoy their most desired companie."

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Navelwort. Cynoglossum onphalodes.
Dedicated to St. Mildred.

CHRONOLOGY.

On the 20th of February 1749, Usher Gahagan, by birth a gentleman, and by education a scholar, perished at Tyburn. His attainments were elegant and superior; he was the editor of Brindley's beautiful edition of the classics, and translated Pope's "Essay on Criticism" into Latin verse. Better grounded in learning than in principle, he concentrated liberal talents to the degrading selfishness of robbing the community of its coin by clipping. During his confinement, and hoping for pardon, he translated Pope's "Temple of Fame," and his "Messiah," into the same language, with a dedication to the duke of Newcastle. To the same end, he addressed prince George and the recorder in poetic numbers. These efforts were to no avail. Two of his miserable confederates in crime were his companions in death. He suffered with a deeper guilt, because he had a higher knowledge than ignorant and unthinking criminals, to whom the polity of society, in its grounds and reasons, is unknown.

Accomplishments upon vice are as beautiful colours on a venomous reptile. Learning is a vain show, and knowledge mischievous, without the love of goodness, or the fear of evil. Children have fallen from careless parents into the hands of the executioner, in whom the means of distinguishing between right and wrong might have gecome a stock for knowledge to ripen on, and learning have preserved the fruits to posterity. Let not him despair who desires to know, or has power to teach—

There is in every human heart,
Some not completely barren part,
Where seeds of truth and love might grow,
And flowers of generous virtue blow:
To plant, to watch, to water there,
This be our duty, be our care.

Bowring.

February 21.

St. Severianus, Bp. A.D. 452. Sts. German, Abbot, and Randaut, or Verda, A.D. 344. B. Pepin, of Landen, A.D. 640.

BREAKFAST IN COLD WEATHER.

"Here it is," says the "Indicator," "ready laid. Imprimis, tea and coffee; secondly, dry toast; thirdly, butter; fourthly, eggs; fifthly, ham; sixthly, something potted; seventhly, bread, salt, mustard, knives and forks &c. One of the first things that belong to a breakfast is a good fire. There is a delightful mixture of the lively and the snug in coming down into one's breakfast-room of a cold morning, and seeing every thing prepared for us; a blazing grate, a clean table-cloth and tea-things, the newly-washed faces and combed heads of a set of good-humoured urchins, and the sole empty chair at its accustomed corner, ready for occupation. When we lived alone, we could not help reading at meals: and it is certainly a delicious thing to resume an entertaining book at a particularly interesting passage, with a hot cup of tea at one's elbow, and apiece of buttered toast in one's hand. The first look at the page, accompanied by a coexistent bite of the toast, comes under the head of intensities."

THE SEASON.

the weather is now cold and mild alternately. In our variable climate we one day experience the severity of winter, and a genial warmth prevails the next; and, indeed, such changes are not unfrequently felt in the same day. Winter, however, at this time breaks apace, and we have presages of the genial season.

Oxen, o'er the furrow'd soil,
Urging firm their annual toil;
Trim cottages that here and there,
Speckling the social tilth, appear:
And spires, that as from groves they rise,
Tell where the lurking hamlet lies:
Hills white with many a bleating throng,
And lakes, whose willowy banks along,
Heards or ruminate, or lave,
Immersing in the silent wave.
The sombre wood—the cheerful plain,
Green with the hope of future grain:
A tender blade, ere Autumn smile
Benignant on the farmer's toil,
Gild the ripe fields with mellowing hand,
And scatter plenty through the land.

Baron Smith.

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

White crocus. Crocus versicolor.
Dedicated to St. Servianus.

February 22.

The Chair of St. Peter at Antioch. St. Margaret, of Cortona, A.D. 1297. Sts. Thalasius and Limneus. St. Baradat.

St. Margaret.

She was a penitent, asked public pardon for her sins with a rope about her neck, punished her flesh,m and worked miracles accordingly.* [Hone's note: "Butler's Saints."]

Sts. Thalasius and Limneus.

St. Thalasius dwelt in a cavern, "and was endowed with extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost; but was a treasure unknown to the world." St. Limneus was his disciple, and "famours for miraculous cures of the sick," while his master "bore patiently the sharpest cholics, and other distempers, without any human succour."* [Hone's note: as above]

St. Baradat.

This saint lived in a trellis-hut, exposed to the severities of the weather, and clothed in the skins of beasts. [Hone note as above]

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Herb Margaret. Bellis perennis.
Dedicated to St. Margaret, of Cortona.

SPORTING CALENDAR.

A valued correspondent obliges the Every-Day Book with an original sketch, hasty and spirited as its hero, when the sports of the field allured him from the pursuits of literature at college, and the domestic comforts of wife and home.

To the Editor.

To disemburthen oneself of ennui, and to find rational amusement for every season of the year, is a grand desideratum in life. Luckily I have hit on't, and beg leave, as being the properest place, to give my recipe in the Everlasting Calendar you are compiling. I contrive then to give myself employment for every time of year. Neither lively Spring, glowing Summer, sober Autumn, nor dreary Winter, come amiss to me; for I have contrived to make myself an Universal Sportsman, and am become so devoted a page of Diana, that I am dangling at her heels all the year round without being tired of it. In bleak and frozen January, besides sliding, skating in figures, and making men of snow to frighten children with, by means of a lantern placed in a skull at the top of them, I now and then get a day's cock shooting when the frost breaks, or kill a few small birds in the snow. In lack of other game, a neighbour's duck, or goose, or a chicken, shot and pocketed as I sally out to the club dinner, are killed more easily than my dairymaid does it, poor things!

In February, the weather being rainy or mild, renders it worth my while to send my stud into Leicestershire for hunting again; and so my white horse Skyscraper, my old everlasting chestnut Silvertail, the only good black in the hunt Sultan, and the brown mare Rosinante, together with Alfana the king of the Cocktails, a hack or two, and a poney for errands, are "pyked off" pack and baggage for Melton; and then from the first purple dawn of daylight, when I set off to cover, to the termination of the day with cards, I have plenty of rational amusement. Next month, forbearing March hares, I shoot a few snipes before they are all gone, and at night prepare my fishing tackle for April, when the verdant meadows again draw me to the riverside to angle.

My wife has now rational employment for the rest of the Summer in catching and impaling the various flies of the season against my trout mania comes, which is usual early in May, when all her maids assist in this flyfowling sport. I have generally been successful in sport, but I shall never forget my disappointment when on throwing in a flyline which was not baited by myself, I found that Sally, mistaking her new employment, had baited my hook with an earwig. In June I neglected my Grass for the same sport, and often let it stand till the Hay is spoiled by Swithin, who wipes his satery eyes with what ought to be my Winter's fodder. This gives me rational, though troublesome, employment in buying Hay or passing off the old at market. July, however, affords plenty of bobfishing, as I call it, for roach, dace, perch, and bleak. I also gudgeon some of my neighbours, and cast a line of an evening into their carp and tench ponds. I have not, thank my stars, either stupidity of patience enough for barbel. But in August, that is before the 12th, I get my trolling tackle in order, and am reminded of my old vermin college days, when shutting my room door, as if I was "sported in" and cramming Euclid, I used to creep down to the banks of the Cam, and clapping my hands on my old rod, with his long line to him, exclaimed, in true Horatian measure, the only Latin line I ever cited in my life,

Progenic longa gaudes captare Johannes.

But, oh! the 12th day of August, that mountain holiday, ushered in by the ringing of the sheep bell—'tis then that, jacketed in fustian, with a gun on my shoulder, and a powder horn belted to my side, I ramble the rough highland hills in quest of blackcocks and red game, get now and then a chance shot at a ptarmagan, and once winged a Capercaille on a pine tree at Invercauld. In hurryng home for the First of September, I usually pass through the fens of Lincolnshire, and there generally kill a wild duck or two. You must know I have, besides my pointers, setters, and spaniels, water dogs of every sort. Indeed my dog establishment would astonish Acteon. There are my harriers, Rockwood, Ringwood, Lasher, Jowler, Rallywood, and twenty more; my pointers, Ponto and Carlo; my spaniels, Dash and Old Grizzle; Hedgehog and Pompey, my water dogs. No one, I bet a crown, has better greyhounds than Fly and Dart are, nor a surer lurcher than Groveller. I say nothing of those inferior "Lares," my terriers—ratcatching Busy, Snap, and Nimbletoes, with whom, in the absence of other game, I go sometimes for a frolic to a farmhouse, disguised as a ratcatcher, and take a shilling for ferret work.

But now I come to thy shrine, O lovely Septembria, thou fairest nymyh [sic] in Diana's train, with rolling blue eyes as sharp and as true as those of a signal lieutenant; I come to court thee again, and may thy path be even paved with the skulls of partridges. Again I come to dine with thee on the leveret's back or pheasant's wings. We've wildboars' bladders for wine bottles, ramshorns for corkscrews, bugles for funnels, gunpowder for snuff, smoke for tobacco, woodcock's bills for toothpicksk, and shot for sugar plums! I dare not proceed to tell you how many brace of birds Ponto and I bag the first day of shooting, as the long bow, instead of the fowling piece, might be called my weapon. But enough rodomontading.

I now come to October. Pheasants by all that's volatile! And then, after them, I go to my tailor and order two suits—scarlet for master Reynard, and a bottlegreen jacket for the harriers, top-boots, white corderoy inexpressibles, and a velvet cap. Then when the covers ring again with the hallowed music of harriers, I begin skylarking the gates and setting into wind to follow the foxhounds in November. When

The dusky night rides down the sky,
And ushers in the morn,
The Hounds all make a jovial cry,
And the Huntsman winds his horn.

With three days in the week chace, and pretty little interludes of hunting with beagles, or of snipe shooting, I manage to get through to the year's end. My snug Winter evenings are spent in getting ready my guns, smacking new hunting whips, or trying on new boots, while my old hall furnishes ample store of trophies, stags' horns hunted by my great grandfather, cross bows, guns, brushes won on rivals of Pegasus, and all sorts of odd oldfashioned whips, horns, and accoutrements, hanging up all round, which remind me of those days of yore when I remember the old squire and his sporting chaplain casting home on spent horses all bespattered from the chase, before I had ridden any thing but my rocking horse. There then have I rational amusement all the year round. And much and sincerely do I praise thee, O Diana! greatest Diana of the Ephesians! at thy feet will I repose my old and weatherbeaten carcass at last, and invoke thy tutelary protection for my old age, thou who art Hunting, Shooting, and Fishing personified, the true DIVA TRIFORMIS of Antiquity.

Imminens Villæ tua Pinus esto,
Quam per exactos ego lætus annos,
Verris obliquum meditantis ictum,
Sanguine donem.

I have the honour to remain,
Yours ever,

JACK LARKWING.

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AN ADDRESS TO THE MOON,

To a "proper new" tune.

ORIGINAL.

No!—I have nothing new to say,
Why must ye wait to hear my story?
Go, get thee on thy trackless way,
There's many a weary mile before ye—
Get thee to bed, lest some poor poet,
Enraptur'd with thy phiz, should dip
A pen in ink to let thee know it,
And (mindful not to let thee slip
His fingers) bid thy moonship stay
And list, what he might have to say

Yet I do love thee!—and if aught
The muse can serve thee, will petition
Her grace t' attend thine airy court,
And play the part of first musician—
But "ode," and "lines," "address," and "sonnet,"
"To Luna dedicate," are now
So plentiful, that (fie upon it!)
She'll add no glory to thy brow,
But tell thee, in such strains as follow,
That thy mild sheen beats Phosphor hollow!

That thou are "fairest of the fair,"
Tho' Phœbus more that's grand possesses,
That tree and tower reflect thy glare,
And the glad stream thy ray confesses,
That, when thy silvery beams illumine
The landscape, nature seems bedight
With loveliness so rare, that few men
Have e'er been blessed with such a sight!
And all such moonshine:—but enough
Of this tame "milk and water" stuff. [Delta sign]

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February 23.

St. Serenus, A.D. 307. St. Milburge. B. Dositheus. St. Peter Damian, Card. Bp. A.D. 1072. St. Boisil, Prior of Melross.

St. Milburge, 7th Cent.

She was sister to St. Mildred, wore a hair cloth, and built the monastery of Wenlock, in Shropshire. One day being at Stokes, a neighbouring village, brother Hierome Porter says, that "a young gallant, sonne to a prince of that countrey, was soe taken with her beautie, that he had a vehement desire to carrie her away by force and marrie her." St. Milburge fled from him and his companions till she had passed a little brook, called Corfe, which then suddenly swelled up and threatened her pursuers with destruction, wherefore they desisted. She ordered the wild geese who at the corn of her monastic fields to be gone elsewhere, and they obeyed her as the waters did. After her death, her remains were discovered, in 1100, by two children sinking up to their knees in her grave, the dust whereof cured leprosies, restored the sight, and spoiled medical practice. A diseased woman at Patton, drinking of the water wherein St. Milburge's bones were washed, there came from her stomach "a vilthie worme, ugly and horrible to behold, having six feete, two hornes on his head, and two on his tayle." Brother Poerter tells this, and that the "worme was shutt up in a hollow piece of wood, and reserved afterwards in the monasterie, as a trophie, and monument of S. Milburg, untill by the lascivious furie of him that destroyed all goodnes in England, that, wi8th other religious houses, and monasteries, went to ruine." ["Porter's Flowers of the Saints."] Hence the "filthie worme" was lost, and we have nothing instead but the Reformation.

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FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Apricot. Prunus Armeniaca.
Dedicated to St. Milburge.

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THE SEASON.

If ice still remain let those who tempt it beware:—

The frost-bound rivers bear the weight
Of many a vent'ruous elf;
Let each who crowds to see them skate
Be careful for himself:

For, like the world, deceitful ice
Who trusts it makes them rue:
'Tis slippery as the paths of vice,
And quite as faithless too.

Stoning Jews in Lent.—A Custom.

From the sabbath before Palm-Sunday, to the last hour of the Tuesday after Easter, "The Christians were accustomed to stone and beat the Jews,"* ["Mr. Fosbroke's Brit. Mon."] and all Jews who desired to exempt themselves from the infliction of this cruelty, commuted for a payment in money. It was likewise ordained in one of the Catholic services, during Lent, that all orders of men should be prayed for except the Jews.† ["Ibid."] These usages were instituted and justified by a dreadful perversion of scripture, when rite and ceremony triumphed over truth and mercy. Humanity was dead, for superstition Molochized the heart.

From the dispersion of the Jews they have lived peaceably in all nations towards all, and in all nations been persecuted, imprisoned, tortured, and put to death, or massacred by mobs. In England, kings conspired with their subjects to oppress them. To say nothing of the well-known persecutions they endured under king John, the walls of London were repaired with the stones of their dwellings, which his barons had pillaged and destroyed. Until the reign of Henry II., a spot of ground near Red-cross-street, in London, was the only place in all England wherein they were allowed to bury their dead.

In 1262, after the citizens of London broke into their houses, plundered their property, and murdered seven hundred of them in cold blood, King Henry III. gave their ruined synagogue in Lothbury to the friars called the fathers of the sackcloth. The church of St. Olave in the Old Jewry was another of their synagogues till they were dispossessed of it: were the sufferings they endured to be recounted we should shudder. Our old English ancestors would have laughed any one to derision who urged in a Jew's behalf, that he had "eyes," or "hands," "organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions;" or that he was "fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is." They would have deemed a man mad had one been found with a desire to prove that

———the poor Jew,
In corporal sufferance feels a pang as great
As when a Christian dies.

To say nothing of their more obvious sufferings for many centuries, the tide of public opinion raged against the Jews vehemently and incessantly. They were addressed with sneers and contumely; the finger of vulgar scorn was pointed at them; they were hunted through the streets in open day, and when protected from the extremity of violence, it was with tones and looks denoting that only a little lower hate sanctuaried their persons. In conversation and in books they were a by-word, and a jest.

---

A work printed in 1628, for popular entertainment, entitled "A Miscellany of Seriousness with Merriment, consisting of Witty Questions, Riddles, Jests," &c. tells this story as a good joke. A sea capatin on a voyage, with thirty passengers, being overtaken by a violent tempest, found it necessary to throw half of them overboard, in order to lighten the vessel. Fifteen of the passangers were Christians, and the other fifteen were Jews, but in this exigency they unanimously agreed in the captain's opinion, and that he should place the whole thirty in a circle, and throw every ninth man over till only fifteen were left. To save the Christians, the captain placed his thirty passangers in this order, viz.: four Christians, five Jews; two Christians, one Jew; three Christians, one Jew; one Christian, two Jews; two Christians, three jews; one Christian, two Jews; two Christians, one Jew. He began to number from the first of the four Christians thus:

CCCC. JJJJJ. CC. J. CCC. J. C. JJ. CC. JJJ. C. JJ. CC. J.

By this device, the captain preserved all the Christians, and deeped all the Jews.

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Selden says, "Talk what yu will of the Jews, that they are cursed, they thrive wherever they come: they are able to oblige the prince of their country by lending him money; none of them beg; they keep together; and for their being hated, my life for yours, Christians hate one another as much." This was true, but it is also true that three quarter of a century have not elasped [sic] since hatred to the Jews was a national feeling. In 1753, a bill was brought into the House of Lords for naturalizing the Jews, and relieving them from persecuting disabilities. It passed there on the ground that it would operate to the public advantage, by encouraging wealthy persons professing the Jewish religion to remove hither from foreign parts to the increase of the capital, commerce, and credit of the kingdom. The corporation of London in common council assembled, petitioned against it on the ground that it would dishonour the christian religion, endanger the constitution, and prejudice the interest and trade of the kingdom in general, and London in particular. A body of London merchants and traders also petitioned against it. Certain popular orators predicted that if the bill passed, the Jews would multiply so fast, become so rich, and get so much power, that their persons would be revered, their customs be imitated, and Judaism become the fashionable religion; they further alleged that the bill flew in the face of prophecy, which declared that the Jews should be scattered without a country or fixed habitation till their conversion, and that in short it was the duty of Christians to be unchristian. But the bill passed the commons after violent debates, and received the royal sanction. The nation was instantly in a ferment of horror and execration; and on the first day of the next session of parliament, ministers were constrained to bring in a bill to repeal the act of naturalization, and to the foul dishonour of the people of England at that period, the bill was repealed. From that hour to the present, the Jews have been subjected to their old pains, penalties, disqualifications, and privations. The enlightenment of this age has sidpelled much of the darkness of the last. Yet the errors of public opinion then respecting the Jews, remain to be rectified now by the solemn expression of a better public opinion. Formerly, if one of the "ancient people" had said in the imploring language of the slave, "Am I not a man, and a brother?" he might have been answered, "No you are not a man, but a Jew." It is not the business of the Jews to petition for justice, but it is the duty of Christians to be just.

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In the "General Evening Post" of June 21, 1777, a paragraph states, that "the following circumstance is not more ridiculous than true;" and it proceeds to relate, that some years before, at Stamford, i the province of Connecticut, America, it was determined to build a church; but "though the church was much wanted, as many people in that neighbourhood were at a loss for a place of public worship, yet the work stood still a considerable time for want of nails (for it was a wooden building;) at last, a Jew merchant made them a present of a cask, amounting to four hundred weight, and thus enabled the church to proceed.," Such an act might make some Christians exclaim, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Jew rather remain a Jew-oppressor under the name of a Christian." It is not, however, on private, but on open grounds and high principle, that justice should spontaneously be rendered to the Jews. The Jew and the Christian, the Catholic and the Protestant, the Episcopalian and the Dissenter, the Calvinist and the Arminian, the Baptist and the Unitarian, all persons, of all denominations, are willed and empowered by their common document to acts of justice and mercy, and they now meet as brethren in social life to perform them; but the unsued claim of their elder brother, the Jew, is acknowledged no where, save in the conscience of every "just man made perfect."

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To extend the benefits of Education to the children of the humbler classes of Jews, is one of the first objects with their opulent and enlightned brethren. The "Examiner" Sunday newspaper of the 4th of February, 1825, cooperates in their benevolent views by an article of information particularly interesting:—

"On Friday last, the Jews held their anniversary, at the London Tavern, Bishopsgate-street, to celebrate their plan for the education of 600 boys and 300 girls, instituted April 20, 1818, in Bell-lane, Spitalfields. It was gratifying to contrast the consideration in which the Jews are now held in this country with their illiberal and cruel treatment in former times; and it was no less gratifying to observe, that the Jews themselves are becoming partakers of the spirit of the present times, by providing for the education of the poor, which, till within a very few years past, had been too much neglected; another pleasing feature in the meeting was, that it was not an assemblage of Jews only, but attended by people of other denominations, both as visitors and subscribers. Samuel Joseph, Esq. the president, was in the chair. Some loyal and patriotic toasts were given, appropriate addresses were delivered by different gentlemen, and the more serious business, of receiving and announcing new subscriptions, was much enlivened by a good band of vocal and instrumental music. Among the subscriptions referred to, one was of a peculiarly generous nature. An unknown hand had forwarded to the treasurer on the two last meetins a sum of 200l. This year he received instructions to clothe all the children at the expense of the same generous donor. The procession of the children round the hall, was an agreeable scene at this important meeting. A poetical address in the Hebrew language was delivered by one of the boys, and an English translation of it by one of the girls, each with propriety of accent, and much feeling."

A record testifying the liberal disposition and humane attention of the Jews to the welfare of their offspring, is not out of place in a work which notices the progress of manners; and it is especially grateful to him who places it on this page, that he has an opportunity of evincing his respect for generous and noble virtues, in a people whose residence in all parts of the world has advantaged every state, and to whose enterprise and wealth, as merchants and bankers, every government in Europe has been indebted. Their sacred writings and their literature have been adopted by all civilized communities, while they themselves have been fugitives every where, without security any where. They are

————a people scatter'd wide indeed,
Yet from the mingling world distinctly kept:
Ages ago, the Roman standard stood
Upon their ruins, yet have ages swept
O'er Rome herself, like an o'erwhelming flood,
Since down Jerus'lem's streets she pour'd her children's blood,
And still the nation lives!

Mr. Bull's Museum.

February 24.

St. Matthias, the Apostle. Sts. Montanus, Lucius, Flavian, Julian, Victoricus, Primolus, Rhenus, and Donatian, A.D. 259. St. Lethard, or Luidhard, Bp. A.D. 566. B. Pretextatus, or Prix, Abp. A.D. 549. St. Ethelbert, King.

St. Ethelbert.

He was king of Kent, and, according to Butler, the first christian king. It was under him that St. Augustine found favour when he landed in England with his monks, and is said to have introduced Christianity ot the English people; an assertion wholly unfounded, inasmuch as it had been diffused hither centuries before. Augustine established nothing but monasteries and monkery, and papal domination.

Bertha, the queen of Ethelbert, was a convert, and her spiritual director officiated, before Augustine's arrival, in the little church of St. Martin, situated just without Canterbury on the road to Margate; the present edifice is venerable for its site and its rude simplicity.

Ethelbert's power is said to have extended to the Humber, and hence he is often styled kind of the English. He was subdued to the views of the papacy by Augustine. Ethelbert founded Canterbury cathedral, and built without the walls of the city, the abbey and church of St. Peter and St. Paul, the ruins of which are denomonated at this day St. Augustine's monastery and Ethelbert's tower. The foundation of the cathedral of Rochester, St. Paul's at London, and other ecclesiastical structures, is ascribed to him. He died in 616. Sometimes he is called St. Albert, and churches are dedicated to him under that name.

CHRONOLOGY.

On the 24th of February, 1809, died Mr. Jennings, of Galley-lane, near Barnet, Herts. A few days previous to his decease he called on Mr. Wm. Salmon, his carpenter, at Shenley-hill, to go with him and fix upon a spot for his vault. On the Sunday before his death he went on horseback to Shenley-hill, and stopped at the White Horse to have a glass of warm wine, with the same intention of going to Ridge; and afterwards, seeing the rev. Mr. Jefferson, endeavoured to buy the ground, but differed with him for two guineas. On the Monday, he applied to Mr. Mars, of Barnet, for a vault there, but Mr. Jefferson sending him a note acceding to his terms, he opened it before Mr. Salmon and Dr. Booth, and after he had read it, showed it them, with this exclamation—"There see what the fellows will do!" The day before he died he played at whist with Dr. Rumball, Dr. Booth, and his son, in bed: in the course of the evening he said, "The game is almost up." He afterwards informed his son, he had lent a person some money that morning, and desired him to see it repaid. To some friends he observed, that he should not be long with them, and desiring them to leave the room he called back his son, for the purpose of saying to him, "I gave William money for coals this morning; deducting the turnpike, mind he gives you eleven and eightpence in change when he comes home. Your mother always dines at three o'clock, get your dinner with her, I shall be gone before that time—and don't make any stir about me." He died at half-past two. This account is from the manuscript papers of the late Mr. John Almon, in possession of the editor.

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Regarding the season, there is an old proverb worthy noticing:

February fill dike, be it black or be it white:
But if it be white, it's the better to like.

Old Proverb.

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FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Great Fern. Osmunda regalis.
Dedicated to St. Ethelbert.

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February 25.

St. Tarasius, A.D. 806. St. Victorinus, A.D. 284. St. Walburg, Abbess. St. C&ailig;sarius, A.D. 369.

St. Walburg

This saint, daughter of Richard, king of the West Saxons, also a saint, became a nun at Winburn in Dorsetshire, from whence, twenty-seven years after she had taken the veil, she went to Germany, and became abbess of a nunnery at Heidenheim in Suabia, where her brother governed an abbey of monks, which at his death, in 760, she also governed, and died in 779. His relics were distributed in the principal cities of the Low Countries, and the cathedral of Canterbury. The catalogue of relics in the electoral palace of Hanover, published there in 1713, mentions some of them there in a rich shrine. Butler calls them "rich particles." Part of her jawbone, at Antwerp, was visited and kissed by the archduke Albert and Isabella in 1615. An oily liquor flowed from her tomb, and was a sovereign remedy, till the chemists and apothecaries somehow or other got their simples and substances into superior reputation. Strange to say, these victors over relics have never been canonized, yet their names would not sound badly in the calendar: for instance, St. William Allen, of Plough-court; St. Anderson, of Fleet-street; St. Cribb, of High Holborn; St. Hardy, of Walworth; St. Fidler, of Peckham; St. Perfect, of Hammersmithp &c.

THE SEASON.

It is observed by Dr. Forster in the "Perennial Calendar," that about this season the purple spring crocus, crocus vernus, now blows, and is the latest of our crocuses. "It continues through March like the rest of the genus, and it varies with purple, with whitish, and with light blue flowers. The flowers appear before the leaves are grown to their full length. The vernal and autumnal crocus have such an affinity, that the best botanists only make them varieties of the same genus. Yet the vernal crocus expands its flowers by the beginning of March at farthest, often in very rigorous weather, and cannot be retarded but by some violence offered; while the autumnal crocus, or saffron, alike defines the influence of the spring and summer, and will not blow till most plants begin to fade and run to seed.

On the Seasons of Flowering, by White.

Say, what impels, amid surrounding snow,
Congealed, the Crocus' flamy bud to glow?
Say, what retards, amid the Summer's blaze,
The autumnal bulb, till pale, declining days?
The God of Seasons, whose pervading power
Controls the sun, or sheds the fleecy shower:
He bids each flower hsi quickening word obey;
Or to each lingering bloom enjoins delay.

We may now begin to expect a succession of spring flowers; something new will be opening every day through the rest of the season."

FLOWERS

A writer under the signature CRITO in the "Truth Teller" dilates most pleasantly in his fourth letter concerning flowers and their names. He says "the pilgrimages and the travelling of the mendicant friars, which began to be common towards the close of the twelfth century, spread this knowledge of plants and of medical nostrums far and wide. Though many of these vegetable specifics have been of late years erased from our Pharmacopœias, yet their utility has been assertd by some very able writers on physic, and the author of these observations has himself often witnessed their efficacy in cases where regular practice had been unavailing. Mr. Abernethy has alluded to the surprising efficacy of these popular vegetable diet drinks, in his book on the 'Digestic Organs.' And it is a fact, curiously corroborating their utility, that similar medicines are used by the North American Indians, whose sagacity has found out, and known from time immemorial, the use of such various herbs as medicines, which the kind, hospitable woods provide; and by means of which Mr. Shitlaw is now making many excellent cures of diseases." He then proceeds to mention certain plants noted by the monks, as flowering about the time of certain religious festivals: "The SNOWDROP, Galanthus nivalis, whose pure white and pendant flowers are the first harbingers of spring, is noted down in some calendars as being an emblem of the purification of the spotless virgin, as it blows about Candlemas, and was not known by the name of snowdrop till lately, being formerly called FAIR MAID OF FEBRUARY, in honour of our lady. Sir James Edward Smith, and other modern botanists, make this plant a native of England, but I can trace most of the wild specimens to some neighbouring gardin, or old dilapidated monastery; and I am persuaded it was introduced into England by the monks subsequent to the conquest, and probably since the time of Chaucer, who does not notice it, though he mentions the daisy, and various less striking flowers. The LADYSMOCK, Cardamine pratensis, is a word corrupted of 'our lady's smock,' a name by which this plant (as well as that of Chemise de nótre Dame) is still known in parts of Europe: it first flowers about Lady Tide, or the festival of the Annunciation, and hence its name. CROSS FLOWER, Polygala Vulgaris, which begins to flower about the Invention of the Cross, May 3, was also called Rogation flower, and was carried by maidens in the processions in Rogation week, in early times. The monks discovered its quality of producing milk in nursing women, and hence it was called milkwort. Indeed so extensive was the knowledge of botany, and of the medical power of herbs among the monks of old, that a few examples only can be adduced in a general essay, and indeed it appears that many rare species of exotics were known by them, and were inhabitants of their monastery gardens, which Beckmann in his 'Geshiete der Erfindungen,' and Dryander in the 'Horus Kewensis,' have ascribed to more modern introducers. What is very remarkable is, that above three hundred species of medical plants were known to the monks and friars, and used by the religious orders in general for medicines, which are now to be found in some of our numerous books of pharmacy and medical botany, by new and less appropriate names; just as if the Protestants of subsequent times had changed the old names with a view to obliterate any traces of catholic science. Linnæus, however, occasionally restored the ancient names. The following are some familiar examples which occur to me, of all medicinal plants, whose names have been changed in later times. The virgin's bower, of monastic physicians, was changed into flammula Jovis, by the new pharmaciens; the hedge hyssop, into gratiola; the St. John's wort (so called from blowing about St. John the Baptist's day) was chaged into hypericum; fleur de St. Louis, into iris; palma Christi, into imperatoria; sweet bay, into laurus; our lady's smock, into convallaria; our lady's hair, into ranunculus; herb Trinity, into viola tricolor; avensinto caryophyllata;coltsfoot, into tussilago; knee holy, into rascus; wormwood, into absinthium; rosemary, into rosmarinus; marygold, into calendula, and so on. Thus the ancient names were not only changed, but in this change all the references to religious subjects, which would have led people to a knowledge of their culture among the monastic orders, were carefully left out. The THORN APPLE, datura stramonium, is not a native of England; it was introduced by the friars in early times of pilgrimage; and hence we see it on old waste lands near abbeys, and on dung-hills, &c. Modern botanists, however, have ascribed its introduction to gipsies, although it has never been seen among that wandering people, nor used by them as a drug. I could adduce many other instances of the same sort. But vain indeed would be the endeavour to overshadow the fame of the religious orders in medical botany and the knowledge of plants; go into any garden and the common name of marygold, our lady's seal, our lady's bedstraw, holy oak, (corrupted into holyhock,) the virgin's thistle, St. Barnaby's thistle, herb Trinity, herb St. Christopher, herb St. Robert, herb St. Timothy, Jacob's ladder, star of Bethlehem, now called ornithogalum; star of Jerusalem, now made goatsbeard; passion flower, now passiflora; Lent lilly, now daffodil; Canterbury bells, (so called in honour of St. Augustine,) is now made into Campanula; cursed thistle, now carduus; besides archangel, apple of Jerusalem, St. Paul's betony, Basil, St. Berbe, herb St. Barbara, bishopsweed, herba Christi, herba Benedict, herb St. Margaret, (erroneously converted into la belle Marguerite,) god's flower, flos, Jovis, Job's tears, our lady's laces, our lady's mantle, our lady's slipper, monk's hood, friar's cowl, St. Peter's herb, and a hundred more such.—Go into any garden, I say, and these names will remind every one at once of the knowledge of plants possessed by the monks. Most of them have been named after the festivals and saints' days on which their natural time of blowing happened to occur; and others were so called from the tendency of the minds of the religious orders of those days to convert every thing into a memento of sacred history, and the holy religion which they embraced."

It will be perceived that CRITO is a Catholic. His floral enumeration is amusing and instructive; and as his bias is natural, so it ought to be inoffensive. Lieberality makes a large allowance for educational feelings and habitual mistake; but deceptive views, false reasonings, and perverted facts, cannot be used by either Protestant or Catholic, with inpunity to himself, or avail to the cuase he espouses.

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Leo the XII. the present pope, on the 24th of May, 1824, put forth a bull from St. Peter's at Rome. "We have resolved," he says, "by virtue of the authority given to us by heaven fully to unlock the sacred treasure composed of the merits, sufferings, and virtues of Christ our Lord, and of his Virgin Mother, and of all the saints, which the author of human salvation has intrusted to our dispensation. Let the earth therefore hear the words of his mouth. We proclaim that tye year of Atonement and Pardon, of Redemption and Grace, of Remission and Indulgence is arrived. We ordan and publish the most solemn Jubilee, to commence in this holy city from the first vespers of the nativity of our most holy saviour, Jesus Christ, next ensuing, and to continure during the whole year 1825, during which time we mercifully give and grant in the Lord a Plenary Indulgence, Remission, and Pardon of all their Sins to all the Faithful of Christ of both sexes, truly penitent and confessing their sins, and receiving the holy communion, who shall devoutly visit the churches of blessed Peter and Paul, as also of St. John Lateran and St. Mary Major of this city for thirty successive days, provided they be Romans of inhabitants of this city; but, if pilgrims or strangers, if they shall do the same for fifteen days, and shall poiur forth their pious prayers to God for the exaltation of the holy church, the extirpation of heresies, concord of catholic princes, and the safety and tranquillity of christian people." The pope requires "all the earth" to "therefore ascend, with loins girt up, to holy Jerusalem, this priestly and royal city."—He requires the clergy to explain "the power of Indulgences, what is their efficacy, not only in the remission of the canonical penance, but also fo the temporal punishment," and to point out the succour afforded to those "now purifying in the fire of Purgatory." However, in February, 1825, one of the public journals contains an extract from the French Journal des Debats, which states that there was "a great falling off in the devotion of saints and pilgrims," and it proves this by an article from Rome, dated January 25, 1825, of which the following is a copy:

"The number of pilgrims drawn to Jerusalem (Rome) by the Jubilee is remarkably small, compared with former Jubilees. Without adverting to those of 1300 and 1350, when they had at least a million of pilgrims; in 1750, they had 1,300 pilgrims presented on the 24th of December, at the opening of the holy gate. That number was increased to 8,400 before the ensuing New Year's day. This time (Christmas, 1824) they had no more than thirty-six pilgrims at the opening of the holy gate, and in the course of Christmas week, that number increased only to 440. This is explained by the strict measures adopted in the Italian states with respect to the passports of pilgrims. The police have taken into their heads, that a vast number of individuals from all parts of Europe wish to bring about some revolutionary plot. They believe that the Carbonari, or some other Italian patriots, assemble here in crowds to accomplish a dangerous object. The passports of simple labourers, and other inferior classes, are rejected at Milan, and the surrounding cities of Austiran Italy, when they have not a number of signatures, which these poor men consider quite unnecessary. They cannot enter the Sardinian states without great difficulty. These circumstances are deplorable in the eyes of religious men. We are all grieved at this place."

On this, the Journal des Debats remarks, "Notwithstanding the excuse for so great a reduction of late years in the number of these devotees, it has evidently been produced by the diffusion of knowledge. Men, in 1825, are not so simple as to suppose they cannot be save, without a long and painful journey to Jerusalem (Rome.)"

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FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Peach. Amygdalus Persica.
Dedicated to St. Walburg.

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February 26.

St. Alexander. St. Porphyrius, Bishop of Gaza, A.D. 420. St. Victor, or Vittre, 7th Cent.

St. Alexander.

This is the patriarch of Alexandria so famous in ecclesiastical history for his opposition to Arius whom, with St. Athanasius and Marcellus of Ancyra, as his especial colleagues, he resisted at the council of Nice, till Arius was banished, his books ordered to be burnt, and an edict issued denouncing death to any who secreted them. On the death of St. Alexander in 420, St. Athanasius succeeded to his patriarchal chair.

FOGS.

The fogs of England have been at all times the complaint of foreigners. Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, when some one who was going to Spain waited on him to ask whether he had any commands, replied, "Only my compliments to the sun, whom I have not seen since I came to England."—Carraccioli, the Neapolitan minister here, a man of a good deal of conversation and wit, used to say, that the only ripe fruit he had seen in England were roasted apples! and in a conversation with George II. he took the liberty of preferring the moon of Naples to the sun of England.

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On seeing aLADY walking in the SNOW.

I saw fair JULIA walk alone,
When feather'd rain came softly down,
'Twas JOVE descending from his tower,
To court her in a silver shower,
A wanton flake flew on her breast,
As happy dove into its nest,
But rivall'd by the whiteness there,
For grief dissolv'd into a tear,
And falling to her garment's hem,
To deck her waist, froze to a gem.

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FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Lesser Periwinkle. Vinca minor.
Dedicated to St. Victor.

February 27.

St. Leander, Bishop, A.D. 596. St. Julian, Chronion, and Besas. St. Thalilœus. St. Galmier, or Baldomerus, A.D. 650. St. Nestor, A.D. 250. St. Alnoth.

St. Thalil&oeligus;us.

This saint was a weeper in Syria. He hermitized on a mountain during sixty years, wept almost without intermission for his sins, and lived for ten years in a wooden cage.

St. Galmier

Was a locksmith at Lyons, and lived in great poverty, for he bestowed all he got on the poor, and sometimes his tools. An abbot gave him a cell to live in, he died a subdeacon about 650, and his relics worked miracles to his fame, till the Hugonots destroyed them in the sixteenth century.

St. Alnoth

Was bailiff to St. Wereburge, became an anchoret, was killed by robbers, and had his relics kept at Stow, near Wedon, in Northamptonshire.

TIME.

"Time is the stuff that life is made of," says Young.

"BEGONE about your business," says the dial in the Temple: a good admonition to a loiterer on the pavement below.

The great French chancellor, d'Aguesseau, employed all his time. Observing that madame d'Aguesseau always delayed ten or twelve minutes before she came down to dinner, he composed a work entirely in this time, in order not to lose an instant; the result was, at the end of fifteen years, a book in three large volumes quarto, which went through several editions.

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FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Lungwort. Pulmonaria Officinalis.
Dedicated to Leander.

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February 28.

Martyrs to the Pestilence in Alexandria, 261, &c. St. Proterius, Patriarch of Alexandria, 557. Sts. Romanus and Lupicinus.

Sts. Romanus and Lupicinus.

These saints were brothers, who founded the monastery of Condate with a nunnery, in the forest of Jura. St. Lupicinus prescribed a hard regimen. He lived himself on bread moistened with cold water, used a chair or a hard board for a bed, wore no stockings in his monastery, walked in sooden shoes, and died about 480.

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FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Purple Crocus. Crocus vernus.
Dedicated to St. Proterius.

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Five Sundays in February.

The February of 1824, being leap-year, consisted of twenty-nine days; it contained five Sundays, a circumstance which cannot again occur till another leap-year, wherein the first o February shall fall on Sunday.

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FOR THE MEMORY.

Old Memorandum of the Months.

Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November,
All the rest have thirty and one,
Except February, which hath twenty-eight alone.

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