You To thee we owe the beauties of the field, The sky no longer lowers: but calm and clear, Spreads its pure azure to the world's extreme.---Lucretius. Acts. THE MONTHS. If we disregard the (certainly) pleasing inventions of ancient fable, we may consider the second Romulian month, Aprilis, but expressive of the Earth, as she appears in this position of the sun, freed from the embrace of winter, and crowned with promise and beauty. The name is derived from aperire, to open, or uncover; Venus (in Greek, oinas, and in Latin, columba) is her prototype, as was the Phaennis of the Dodonians, and the Frea of pagan Saxony. The fourth Julian month, April, corresponds with the second moon, Pharmuthi, in the ancient, and the eighth of the modern Egyptian year; with the eighth historical, and the second ecclesiastical moon, Jiar (called before their captivity, Zif,) of the Hebrews; with the eighth moon, Aben (the month in which the musteraca, or five intercalary days of the Yesdegerdic year were inserted) of the Persians; with the eighth moons Artemisius, Demarchexasius, and Strategius, of the Syro-Macedonians, Paphians, and Bithynians; with the eighth moons Miazia, Barmoudah, and Arieki, of the Abyssinians, Copts, and Armenians; with the seventh solar month, Nisan, of the Syrians; with the eleventh moon, Thargelion, of the Athenians; the eighth, Dasius, of the Macedonians, and the fourth, Xanthicus, of their solar year; and with the tenth moons, Schevval, and Schevrail, of the Arabs and the Turks; by the Anglo-Saxons it was named Oster month (according to Bede from Eostre, a Saxon goddess), and Gras month is its denomination among the Dutch and Germans. The foundations of the Temple of Solomon were laid in the month Jiar, the fourth year of this Prince's reign, and the eleventh year of that of Hiram, King of Tyre, B. C. 1012. It was completed and dedicated at the end of seven years and six months. According to the Hebrew historian the citadel of Tyre was founded two hundred and forty years before the temple. In reply to Solomon's letter for assistance, his royal friend observes: “Do you take care to procure us corn for this timber; because, living upon an island, it is a commodity we shall much want." A dainty draught to lay her down in blue, The colour commonly betokening true. ---Peele's Flora. Thou art not of that wilder race And winter blast to bide; But thou art of that gentle growth Which asks some loving eye To keep it in sweet guardianship, Or it must droop and die.---The Myrtle. Acts. VENUS. Upon the first of April the festival of Venus Verticordia (the chaste) was kept within the temple dedicated to her homage in the Salarian way, where she sat enthronized, crowned with myrtle and flowers, and scattered (tropically) the virtues of the cestus to the most deserving of her votaresses. The morning they employed in bathing, which was performed at the Temple of Fortune, standing on the banks of the Tiber, an edifice constructed by Servius Tullius, for the exclusive use of the fair. The image of the goddess was also stripped, with great care and nicety, of her ornamental dress (the breast-plate was composed of British pearls presented by Julius Cæsar), and then replaced, after the accustomed ablutions, with the same regard to the supremacy of the queen of smiles and wrinkles. She is termed by the master of these ceremonies, "Mother of the two Loves," her double offspring Cupid and Anteros, symbolizing that mutual endearment which is produced by emulation. The general respect of the Pagan nations for the shrine of this all-powerful divinity is to be censured so far only as it gave authority to idolatrous worship; otherwise there could be no irregularity in a decent attention (which, however, in more polished times was rarely understood) to the purposes of life-those means by which the earth preserves its happiness, its order, its existence. All Fools' Day, was the octave, or last day of the "Hilaria" already noticed in the Roman Calendar. The long-coats are a very ancient house; and it being vain to trace the institution of this festival to any particular people, we are perhaps better occupied in plucking the moral from its mystery, which teaches us to reconcile every state that is subsolar with occasional disappointment. All men were children of folly upon this day, because devoted to universal mirth and equality; and because the rich and wise reversed their insignia, if not voluntarily, at length by a trick of their inferiors, these were dubbed old fools of the college; or to speak as statists, the herring and the mackerel, the lamb and lion, enjoyed, upon the first of April, a community of privileges. Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.---Shakspeare. Beneath a willow, long forsook, The fisher seeks his custom'd nook; And bursting through the crackling sedge, That crowns the current's cavern'd edge, He startles from the bordering wood The bashful wild-duck's early brood.---Warton's April. Acts.* THE month of abstinence observed by the Turks and the rest of the Mohammedan sects concludes with Ramadhan; and the high festival called the "Little Bairam" commences with the new moon of Schevrail. There is but little variance in the species of sacrifice from the offerings at the Jewish Passover. This is the season of the plague in Egypt, arising from the dry and putrid state of the river, until the atmosphere becomes purified by those rains and dew-falls which are always expected about St. John's day. Emylius Paulus passes from Brundusium to Corcyra (the modern Corfu) on his famous Macedonian expedition; and upon the sixth of this month he sacrifices to Apollo at the shrine of Delphi, B. C. 168. Urban VIII. issues his bull In cana Domini, A. D. 1627, announcing the usual spiritual anathema upon Holy Thursday (the anniversary of the last supper), against all infringers of the papal Hierarchy. Erasmus is entertained at London by the great and learned, 1506. Lady Montagu writes from Adrianople upon this day, 1716: "Here are some little birds held in a sort of religious reverence, and for that reason they multiply prodigiously: turtles, on the account of their innocence; and storks, because they are supposed to make every winter the pilgrimage to Mecca. I am patriot enough to take pains to bring this useful invention of ingrafting into fashion in England; and I should not fail to write to some of our doctors very particularly about it, if I knew any one of them that I thought had virtue enough to destroy such a considerable branch of their revenue for the good of mankind. Perhaps, if I live to return, I may, however, have courage to war with them." divine creature kept her word—she killed the rats. This The ancient abbey of Cistercians at Flaxley, is burnt, 1771. Napoleon's state marriage with the Archduchess is solemnized in his own capital, 1810.-Here begins the season to angle for the barbel, the bream, the carp, and the smelt. What may not we expect from a creature that went out the most perfect of this part of the world, and is every day improving by the sun in the other! Pope to Lady Montagu. Day. Now Philomel renews her tender strain, I sought the groves to hear the wanton sing, As bright, as lively, but as wild as they.--Ibrahim Pacha. Births. IV. Wm. Harvey, 1578, Folkstone. Non. Jas. Winslow, 1669, Odensee. 2. Peter Remi Willemet, 1762, Deaths. Richard Earl of Cornwall (King of Rome), 1272. Hales. Prince Arthur (of Wales), 1502. d. Ludlow. Charles Nicolas Oudinot, 1767, Sir Robert Drury, 1615. Bar-sur-Ornain.] Obits of the Latin Church. St. Apian (or Aphian), Martyr in Casarea, of Palestine, d. 306. St. Theodosia, V. Martyr in St. Nicetius (or Nizier), Arch- Matthias Casimir, 1640. d. John James Dillenius, 1747. Honoré Gabriel, Count de Mi- They ought not to esteem difference of positive institutions a sufficient cause of alienation; but rather they should join with Constantine II. (King of Scot- us in the pursuit of virtue and land), 874. St. Bronacha (or Bronanna), St. Francis of Paula, Founder probity, for this belongs to all men in common, and of itself alone is sufficient for the preservation of human life.-Josephus. The spirit of the metropolis is the life-blood of the state, collected at the heart: from that point it circulates, with health and vigour, through every artery of the constitution. Junius. Amen,---verily I say unto you, wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall this also, that which this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her.-Christ's mandate. Acts. MAUNDY THURSDAY. This day records the institution of the holy sacrament of The Lord's Supper, when our Saviour celebrated, for the last time, the national Passover.. According to Spelman, the mande is the hand-basket in which the king was accustomed to give alms to the poor : but its derivative is most probably the initial mandate in the Greek text -that the poor should always be remembered, even as this woman (Mary of Bethany) had remembered me; or perhaps a corruption of the muron, the casket of odorous funereal ointment bestowed by her upon the person of the Saviour. This ointment, said Judas Iscariot, who was the purse-bearer or almoner of Christ and the apostles, we might have purchased, and with it embalmed or purified the poor; but Christ rebuked him, saying " the poor always ye have with you, but me ye have not always." Edward III. in 1363, the 30th of March, first distributed the Maundy, and purified the poor, which latter ceremony was, however, discontinued at the Revolution; but the provisions and silver pieces are still bestowed upon this day by the King's Sub-Almoner in the Royal Chapel at Whitehall. The siege of Constantinople by Alexius Comnenus, 1081. The Earl of Bothwell's skirmish with the cavalry of King James at Edinburgh, 1594. A petty king of Canton commands eleven of the bonzes or priests of Fohi to be burned for incontinence, 1667. The Eddystone Lighthouse is founded of stone by Smeaton, 1757; which great work he completed on the 24th of August 1759. Burns writes upon this day, 1789, "Wealth daily bestows his greatest kindnesses on the undeserving and the worthless—assure him that I bring ample documents of meritorious demerits! —that for the glorious cause of Lucre, I will do any thing—be any thing but the horse-leech of private oppression, or the vulture of public robbery!" The pseudo-tragedy of "Vortigern" is produced at DruryLane, 1796. The naval victory of Copenhagen, 1801. The setting of the seven Pleiades in the Roman calendar, when the plays, in the time of the commonwealth, were represented in honour of Cybele. As a blush is the colour of virtue, so poverty is her fortune.---Bacon. |