II. 8, &c. Theocrit. 24. Eurip. in Herc.

Lucan. 3 & 6.

Apollon. 2.

Virg. Aen. viii. Dionys. Hal. 1. Senec. in Herc. Philostr. Icon. ii. Quint. Smyrn. vi.

v. 294. Sophocl. in Trachin. Plut. in Amphit. Furent. & Oet. Plin. iv. c. 6, 1. 11, &c. c. 5. Herodot. i. c. 7, 1. 2, c. 42, &c. v. 207, &c. Callim. Hymn. in Dian. Pindar. Olymp. Od. iii. Ital. i. v. 438. Stat. 2. Theb. v. 564. Mela. ii. c. 1. Lucian. Dial. Lactant. de Fals. Rel. Strab. 3, &c. Horat. Od. Sat. &c.

We now come to the consideration of Ceres, the goddess of corn and of harvests, daughter of Saturn and Vesta. She had a daughter by Jupiter, whom she called Pherephata fruit bearing, and afterwards Proserpine. This daughter was carried away by Pluto, as she was gathering flowers in the plains near Enna. The rape of Proserpine was grievous to Ceres, who sought her all over Sicily; and when night came, she lighted two torches in the flames of Mount Aetna, to continue her search by night all over the world. She at last found her veil near the fountain Cyane; but no intelligence could be received of the place of her concealment, till at last the nymph Arethusa informed her that her daughter had been carried away by Pluto. No sooner had Ceres heard this, than she flew to heaven with her chariot drawn by two dragons, and demanded of Jupiter the restoration of her daughter. The endeavours of Jupiter to soften her by representing Pluto as a powerful god, to become her son in law, proved fruitless, and the restoration was granted, provided Proserpine had not eaten any thing in the kingdom of Pluto. Ceres upon this repaired to Pluto, but Proserpine had eaten the grains of a pomegranate which she had gathered as she walked over the Elysian Fields; and Ascalaphus, the only one who had seen her, discovered it, to make his court to Pluto. The return of Proserpine upon earth was therefore impracticable; but Ascalaphus, for his unsolicited information, was changed into an owl. The Sicilians made a yearly sacrifice to Ceres, every man according to his abilities; and the spring of Cyane, through which Pluto opened himself a passage with his trident, when carrying away Proserpine, was publicly honoured with an offering of bulls, and the blood of the victims was shed in the waters of the fountain. Besides these, other ceremonies were observed in honour of the goddesses who had so peculiarly favoured the island. The commemoration of the rape was celebrated about the beginning of the harvest, and the search of Ceres at the time that corn is sown in the earth. The latter festival continued six successive days; and during the celebration, the votaries of Ceres made use of some free and wanton expressions, as

that language had made the goddess smile while melancholy for the loss of her daughter. Attica, which had been so eminently distinguished by the goddess, gratefully remembered her favours in the celebration of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Ceres also performed the duties of a legislator, and the Sicilians found the advantages of her salutary laws; hence, her surname of Thesmophora. She is the same as the Isis of the Aegyptians, and her worship, it is said, was first brought into Greece by Erechtheus. She met with different adventures when she travelled over the earth, and the impudence of Stellio was severely punished. To avoid Neptune she changed herself into a mare; but the god took advantage of the metamorphosis, and from their union arose the horse Arion. The Parcae were sent by the god to comfort her, and at their persuasion she returned to Sicily, where her statues represented her veiled in black, with the head of a horse, and holding a dove in one hand, and in the other a dolphin. In their sacrifices the ancients offered Ceres a pregnant sow, as that animal often injures and destroys the productions of the earth. While the corn was yet in the grass, they offered her a ram, after the victim had been led three times round the field. Ceres was represented with a garland of ears of corn on her head, holding in one hand a lighted torch, and in the other a poppy, which was sacred to her. She appears as a countrywoman mounted on the back of an ox, and carrying a basket on her left arm, and holding a hoe; and sometimes she rides in a chariot drawn by winged dragons. She was supposed to be the same as Rhea, Tellus, Cybele, Bona Dea, Berecynthia, &c. The Romans paid her great adoration, and her festivals were yearly celebrated by the Roman matrons in the month of April, during eight days. These matrons abstained during several days from the use of wine and every carnal enjoyment. They always bore lighted torches in commemoration of the goddess; and whoever came to these festivals without a previous initiation, was punished with death. Ceres is metaphorically called bread and corn, as the word Bacchus is frequently used to signify wine. Apollod. i. c. 5, 1.2, c. 1, 1. 3, c. 12 & 14. Paus. i. c. 31, 1. 2, c. 34, 1. 3, c. 23, l. 8, c. 25, &c. Diod. 1, &c. Hesiod. Theog. Ovid. Fast. iv. v. 417. Met. Fab. 7, 8, &c. Claudian. de Rapt. Pros. Cic. in Verr. Callimach. in Cer. Liv. 29 & 31. Stat. Theb. 12. Dionys. Hal. i. c. 33. Hygin. P. A. 2.

APOLLO.-The musical festivities of Christmas time usually begin about this time in most Christian countries. That species of nocturnal street music commonly called the Waits, or more properly Wakes, commonly begins on or

before this day, and continues till Christmas; so that at this dreary season we are serenaded during the night by the music of fiddles, hautbois, clarionets, flutes, French horns, lyres, lutes, and other instruments-the effect of which, when they first awake us from our slumbers, is very pleasing and fanciful. This custom originated evidently in commemoration of the early salutation of the Virgin Mary before the birth of Jesus Christ, or the Gloria in Excelsis, the hymn of the angels.

The Christmas Carol and Waits. From "Christmas," a Poem.

Now too is heard

The hapless cripple, tuning through the streets
His Carol new; and oft, amid the gloom

Of midnight hours, prevail the accustomed sounds
Of wakeful Waits: whose melody, composed

Of hautboy, organ, violin, and flute,

And various other instruments of mirth,

Is meant to celebrate the coming time.

Bishop Taylor observes that the Gloria in Excelsis, sung by the angels to the shepherds at our Lord's Nativity, was the earliest Christmas Carol. Bourne cites Durand, who endeavours to prove that in earlier ages of the churches, the bishops were accustomed on Christmas Day to sing carols among their clergy. He derives the word carol from cantare to sing, and rola an interjection of joy.

This species of pious song is undoubtedly of most ancient origin.

In London the bellman usually gives about, or perhaps sings, a large paper of verses concerning the circumstances of the Nativity, which is ornamented with prints of the Saints and the Holy Family.

The following Christmas Carol is preserved in Poor Robin's Almanack for 1695:

A Christmas Song.

Now thrice welcome Christmas, which brings us good Cheer,
Minced Pies and Plumb Porridge, good Ale and strong Beer;
With Pig, Goose, and Capon, the best that may be,
So well doth the Weather and our Stomachs agree.

Observe how the Chimneys do smoak all about,
The Cooks are providing for Dinner, no doubt;
But those on whose tables no Victuals appear,
O may they keep Lent all the rest of the Year!

With Holly and Ivy so green and so gay;
We deck up our Houses as fresh as the Day,
With Bays and Rosemary, and Laurel compleat,
And every one now is a King in conceit.

Some faint traces are still left of a custom of Going a Gooding, as it is called, on St. Thomas's Day, which seems to have been done by women only; who, in return for the alms they received, appear to have presented their benefactors with sprigs of evergreens, probably to deck their houses with at the ensuing festival. Perhaps this is only another name for the northern custom of going about and crying Hagmena.

Whimsical Customs. There are many other customs which relate to the Saints' days, which we have omitted for want of room; one, however, might be mentioned here, that of collecting children with small whips to whip the dogs about the streets of York on St. Luke's Day, called, therefore, Whip Dog Day; and which, Drake assures us, in his Eboracum, used to be very common in that city. It resembled the horridly brutal custom, formerly practised by dairymaids on St. Peter's Day, of whipping to death a poor Cock tied to a spit, and then plucking and roasting him, in pious vengeance of this bird's crowing too soon for St. Peter, at the fatal moment when he denied his Lord. The custom of whipping the dogs is said to have originated in the following accident, related in Ellis's edition of Brand, vol. ii. p. 323, note :

"The tradition that I have heard of its origin seems very probable, that in times of popery, a priest celebrating mass at this festival in some church in York, unfortunately dropped the Pax after consecration, which was snatched up suddenly and swallowed by a dog that lay under the altar table. The profanation of this high mystery occasioned the death of the dog, and a persecution began, and has since continued, on this day, to be severely carried on against his whole tribe in our city." He tells us, p. 218, that "A Fair is always kept in Mickle Gate in York on St. Luke's Day, for all sorts of small wares. It is commonly called Dish Fair, from the great quantity of wooden dishes, ladles, &c. brought to it." HYGEIA. Of the Headache. -Headaches seem to be more common in the Winter than in the Summer; and though the precise proximate cause of this disease is unknown, yet it usually is, under almost all its varieties, the sympathetic consequence of indigestion - the irritated or overloaded stomach acting on the brain, which is the seat of headache. The causes of this indigestion which produce the headache are various. Frequently some disagreement exists between the food and the stomach, occasioned by its quality, or by our eating too much and too often. The patient rises in the morning with the headache in most cases, and it increases through the day, getting tolerably well in the evening.

The symptoms on first rising are often slight, and the patient is worst when he moves: the tongue is found furred, and the mouth out of taste. But there are some varieties; the pain being in a few instances relieved by moving, and this is not so severe a kind as the last described. Some headaches seem to be produced by electrical changes in the weather, the occurrence of neighbouring thunderstorms, and the first change of wind from any other quarter to East. In these cases the atmospheric peculiarities seem to affect the head by means of disturbing the digestion. As atmospheric changes of an electrical and obscure nature often occur about the full and new Moon, so we find a sort of irregularly periodical headache, in some persons, to occur once in about a month, or even once a fortnight. Another sort of headache immediately follows an undigested breakfast, or supervenes on a long state of repletion, when the alimentary canal first begins to move: it is preceded by a temporary imperfection of vision and giddiness, which goes off as the pain creeps on; sickness often follows, with shivering and rigor, and the whole goes off in ten or twelve hours. Headaches are worst when there is a combination of their causes; as, for instance, when a disturbing Electric Atmosphere and East wind occur at the unfortunate crisis when we have overloaded our stomach, or irritated it by mental perturbation after meals.

In all cases of Headache a cathartic is the best remedy; and in violent cases cupping and local bleeding may in general be resorted to. The best opening medicines to be immediately taken are Rhubarb, Calomel, and the Extract of Aloës. For example-Rhei, gr. iii.—Extr. Aloës, gr. ii.Calomel. gr. i.-fiat pilula. This pill may be repeated every night for two or three nights. Hunt's Pills, as they are called, are very good for persons subject to indigestion and costive bowels. And the diet of persons subject to headaches should be light and of a quality easily digested. And they should keep their bowels freely open with ripe fruits and well boiled vegetables. See Heberden's Commentaries, article Capitis Dolor. Dr. Hamilton on Purgative Medicines. Dr. Wilson Philip on Indigestion. Dr. Forster on Atmospherical Diseases; and Mr. Abernethy on the Constitutional Origin of local Diseases.

FAUNA. On the Colours of Cats.-Among the numerous colours which distinguish the hairs of domestic animals, sex seems to be connected, in the Cat kind alone, with the production of any particular varieties. All the completely sandy Cats are males, with only a rare exception here and there. In like manner the true Tortoiseshell Cats are females,