COELUM.-Story of the Flying Dutchman.-A ship is said by mariners to be seen about the Cape of Good Hope in blowing weather, under the following extraordinary circumstances. She is never known to get into port, and is seen at uncertain periods sailing at an immense rate before the wind, under full press of canvas, in the most violent gales. The story attached to this appearance is, that she was a merchant ship from Holland, and that the captain having sworn a tremendous oath in consequence of not being able to make the port, he was condemned, as a punishment, together with all the rest of the crew, to beat about the sea till the Day of Judgment. From the corroborated accounts of many navigators, there seems to be no doubt but that something is seen, which they take for a distant sailing vessel. It may be some atmospherical phenomenon that they see, and the imaginations of spectators may supply the rest; but there must be something actually seen, as many different persons have testified to it.

Lines written at the Parsonage of Fornham All Saints, near to
Bury St. Edmund's, in 1808.

On Fornham's undistinguished plain
Calm ease and privacy remain ;
And there alone I seem to meet
True Freedom's unmolested seat:
There can my random Fancy range

O'er lengthened life's scarce noticed change;
And there, in distant prospect, view
Scenes which in early life were new.
Successive seasons have removed,
By gradual lapse, the friends we loved.
The world, grown thin to us-around
How few, how very few, are found!

Then wonder not that Fornham's bowers

Give pleasure to my aged hours;

For there, and almost only there,

My moments pass untinged by care.-D. R.

The following Lines were written to a parish priest on his sending a Drawing of Boconnoc Parsonage, with this Motto,

Praerupti nemoris patientem vivere dorso:

To live at the back of a pleasant old grove
Which slopes down the mountain's steep side,
Enjoying at leisure the quiet I love,
Job's patience was never so tried.

But should Fortune still favours more ample bestow,

And all Lynch's preferments be mine;

*

Though the weight of the cross on my back she should throw,
She would find me a patient divine.

Of temper so meek, and of suffering so long,
Should she more of her burthens still push on,
Imprisoned in state, surpliced prebends among,
I could patiently bear a dean's cushion.-F.

November 21.

PRAESENTATIO B. V. MARIAE.

St. Columban of Ireland Abbot and Confessor.
St. Gelasius Pope and Confessor.

CHRONOLOGY.-- M. Pilâtre de Rosier and the Marquis d'Arlandes made the first Aërial Voyage today in a rarefied Air Balloon in 1783, being the first year after the discovery of Aerostation.

COELUM.-During the violent gales of wind and rain, and particularly during a certain unhealthy continuance of such weather, which often takes place in the winter, we have noticed a phenomenon to prevail, which at all times of year happens before rain accompanied by wind; namely, the snapping of the wicks of Candles and Lamps, and the growth of a foul excrescence about them, called funguses. Virgil represents the women at work by Lamplight, as foreknowing the coming weather by these signs:- Testa cum ardente viderent scintillare oleum ac putres concrescere fungos." Lights of all sorts, and also fires, burn badly in this kind of weather; and it is recorded that the Lamps burning before the Figures of the Virgin Mary have gone out prematurely, when their wicks were found to be full of fungi.

Nox. Shakespeare hath well described the circumstances of a Winter's night, at no time of year more striking than at this, when first that season begins. The allusion to Ghosts at this time is very popular, and we have before explained its probable cause. See Apparitions, in our Index. We have in these passages shewed the cause why Ghosts are said to appear at the time when "The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve."

Night.

Now the hungry Lion roars,

And the Wolf behowls the Moon;
Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,
All with weary task foredone.

The Mastership of St. Cross, a rich sinecure.

Now the wasted brands do glow,
Whilst the Scritchowl, scritching loud,
Puts the wretch that lies in woe,
In remembrance of a shroud.
Now it is the time of night,

That, the graves all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his sprite,

In the churchway paths to glide.

"We inscribe, in the Album, for the amusement of such as can be entertained with them, the following

"Lines inscribed for a Blank Leaf of Telemachus, and addressed to Penelope; by a Blue Stocking."

[The Lines are only a curiosity, from the very celebrated Authoress from whose pen they emanated, and whom motives of delicacy prevent the Editors from exposing.]

To Penelope.

Although so enchantingly fair,
Although such an Angel you be,
I take up my pen to declare
You are only a Devil to me.

You enslave like the Tempter my heart,
I strive, but in vain, to get free;
Your network, composed with such art,
Soon caught a poor fellow like mee.

My powers of resistance are weak,

While yours of attraction are strong,
Armed with steel I a hiding place seek,
Which the Loadstone will find ere it's long.

On Calypso's fair island then I

Unresisting have paddled my sails :

Like a Moth in the Candle I fly,

And though scorched yet the Candle prevails.

Think not to enslave me, my fair,

The attempt I shall make to get free,
For Telemachus means to beware
Of such a sweet Devil as thee.

November 22. St. Cicily Virgin and Martyr. St. Theodoret the Studite Abbot. SS. Philemon and Appia.

Old Martinmas Day.

St. Cecilia or Cecily was a native of Rome, and suffered martyrdom for refusing to acknowledge the gods of the pagans, about the year 230. She was, according to some authors, thrown into a cauldron of boiling water, and scalded to death; or, as others state, nearly stifled in a dry bath, and afterwards

beheaded. She is regarded as the patroness of music, and is represented by Raffaele with a regal in her hand. Some part of the adoration of this saint seems to have arisen from the tradition that she was a skilful musician, and that an Angel who visited her was drawn from the mansions of the blessed by the charms of her melody; a circumstance to which Dryden has alluded, in the conclusion of his celebrated Ode to Cecilia :

Music the fiercest grief can charm,
And fate's severest rage disarm;
Music can soften pain to ease,
And make despair and madness please:
Our joys below it can improve,

And antedate the bliss above.

This the sweet Saint CECILIA found,
And to her Maker's praise confined the sound.
When the full organ joins the tuneful quire,
The immortal powers incline their ear;
Borne on the swelling notes our souls aspire,
While solemn airs improve the sacred fire;
And angels lean from heaven to hear.

At last divine CECILIA came,
Inventress of the vocal frame;

The sweet enthusiast from her sacred store
Enlarged the former narrow bounds,

And added length to solemn sounds,

With nature's mother wit, and arts unknown before.

It was after the change of religion in Rome, that St. Cecilia seems to have been substituted for Apollo and the Muses, as the legendary Patroness of Music.

Melody or the sweet flow of successive sounds is well distinguished from Harmony or the accordance of sounds together in different parts, in the following sonnet. There is, for example, more melody in Mozart's music; but Corelli's Muse beats him altogether in composition by her delightful harmonies.

To Music, from Sixtyfive Sonnets, &c.

Music, high maid, at first essaying drew

Rude sketches for the ear, till, with skilled hand,
She traced the flowing outline, simply grand,

In varied groups to grace and nature true;

And this was MELODY.-Her knowledge grew,

And, more to finish, as her powers expand,

Those beauteous draughts, a noble scheme she planned;
And o'er the whole a glow of colouring threw,
Evening's rich painting on a pencilled sky,

Tints that with sweet accord bewitch the sense,
'Twas HARMONY: the common crowd, that press
Around, prefer the charms these hues dispense,
As they, chancemingled, on the pallet lie,

To her white forms of undecked loveliness.

On the Chapter relating to Bells, in M. Chateaubriand's Génie du Chrétienisme." In the Génie du Chrétienisme, M. Chateaubriand has admirably employed the imagination to lead revolutionary Europe back again to a love of religion, by painting Catholic institutions and the spirit of Christianity in the fairest and most fascinating colours. Among other things, he begins his description of the holy temple, by an Eulogium of Bells employed to convoke the faithful, and gives an animated description of their power of producing in the minds of thousands of devout persons at once a similar sentiment of devotion, of their power to terrify the guilty culprit, to warn the wavering Christian of fleeting time, and sound the glad tidings of religious festivity in due season. See Génie du Chr. vol. iii. p. 1; also our November 2d and 6th. We have always been of opinion, that bells, as well as all music in churches, was an excellent introduction; for the imagination has always a powerful effect on devotion: and there is no doubt that religious fervour has declined since the middle ages of the Church, when more attention was paid to impressive ceremonies and external ensigns of piety. The Cock on the Vane is still an emblem of clerical vigilance, which in many countries no longer exists, except in solitary instances, and the Bells call to Church, where philosophers hardly ever go. The Windows storied of History, painted in grave but mellow colours, still present to us a visible incentive to virtue and religion, which we view only as antiquarian curiosities; and the pious Images of Saints are without Candles, as our own minds are without spiritual light.”—P.

On Distant Evening Bells.
Translation.

Hark! now I hear those evening bells,
What doleful tales their music tells,
Of comfort past, of hours misspent,
Of youth to sensual vices lent;
Of childish joys in days of yore,
Of merry playmates now no more;
Of all that frightful change of things
Which each succeeding season brings.
Softly ring on, melodious peal,
Your soft persuasive strains I feel,
Which give refreshment to the soul,
By carolling to its proper goal.
For though each soulentrancing knell,
Seems some fair image lost to tell
Of love entombed, of friendship dead,
Of infant hopes for ever fled;