March 19.

St. Joseph. St Alemund, 819.

St. Joseph.

The church of Rome has canonized Joseph the spouse of the Virign Mary, and honours him with offices and worship of various forms.

CHRONOLOGY .

720, B. C. The first eclipse of the moon on record happened on this day.

1355. Pressing for seamen to man the navy commenced.

1668. Sir John Denham, poet, died in London; he was born in Dublin, 1615.

1719. A surprising meteor was seen about eight o'clock in the evening, from all parts of England, Scotland and Ireland. To an observer in St. Paul's churchyard, it appeared a ball of fire as large as the moon, of a pale bluish light, and with little motion, till in a moment it assumed the shape of a common meteor with a stream of light, double the diameter of its first appearance, emitting a splendour by which the smallest print might have been read. Its duration was not above half a minute, and its greatest light about the tenth part of a minute. At Exeter its light exceeded that of the sun at noonday, and there it seemed to break like a skyrocket, into sparks of red fire, which reflected that colour on the houses, and shortly after a report, loud as a cannon, shook the windows, succeeded at the interval of a minute by about thirty others; "they sounded just as the tower guns did in Mincing-lane, but shook the houses and windows much more." Mr. Whiston calculated the greatest height of this extraordinary meteor to have been forty three or fifty-one statute miles: it gradually descended lower till it came to Devonshire, where it was about thirty-nine miles high, and broke over the sea near the coast of Brittany; its altitude then being about thirty miles.*[1]

---

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Yellow Star of Bethlehem. Ormithogalum luteum.
Dedicated to St. Joseph.

Notes [all notes are Hone's unless otherwise indicated]:

1. Whiston's Account of a Meteor, 8vo. 1719. [return]