O, LIBERTY! thou goddess heavenly bright, Addison. WHEN in mid-air the golden trump shall sound, To raise the nations under ground; When in the valley of Jehoshaphat, The judging God shall close the book of fate; When rattling bones together fly From the four corners of the sky; When sinews o'er the skeletons are spread, Those cloth'd with flesh, and life inspires the dead; Which removeth the mountains, and they know not, overturning them in his anger: which shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble: which commandeth the sun and it riseth not; and sealeth up the stars: which alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea: which maketh to appear Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south. Book of Job. Cal. Wm. Lilly, 1602, Diseworth. 1. 1632, Geneva. Sebastian de Vauban, 1633, Nivernois. Dr. Woodward, 1665, Derbysh. Obits of the Latin Church. Deaths. Arcadius (Emperor), 408. d. Maud the Good, (of England), Albert I. (Emperor), 1308. as sassinated in Switzerland. Street. (Westminster Abbey.) Medard's, Paris. Dr. John Rogers, 1729. Ens- the Just), Apostle and Mar-Thomas Earl of Coningsby, 1729. tyr, 62. (See English Church St. Philip of Bethsaida, Apostle, St. Marcou (or Marculfus), Abbot in Normandy, d. 558. d. Geneva. J. B. Oudri, 1755. d. Puris. Miles Cooper, 1785. Edinburgh. killed near Lutzen. James Delille, 1813. d. Paris. Forsake not an old friend; for the new is not comparable to him: a new friend is as new wine; when it is old, thou shalt drink it with pleasure.-Ecclesiasticus. ! Abundant, blessed; thou who sepiercing sight And changing seasons from thy music flow: Hence to thy care, the figur'd seal's consign'd, Which stamps the world with forms of every kind.-Orpheus. Acts. MAIUS. The present month and Junius, its successor, would seem to rest upon a positive and settled origin, when we are assured that the first Roman devoted this to the majores, the heads and majesty of the kingdom, and the latter to those youth, juniores, who being beneath the age for magistracy, had upheld it by their arms. But as the month of May was sacred to Mercury, who was the offspring of Maia, the brightest of the Pleiades (some princess the destinies had cut out, for her virtues, into a sweet star), and as the Bona Dea, Maia Cybele, received also her worship in the house of the chief magistrate, upon the calends, it is probable that Numa substituted the last two months for those civil holidays, and gave undivided rites to the Mother of harvest and production. In eastern latitudes the Earth is now in her maturity. The golden Apollo that dispensed this universal laughter over the undulating furrows of Asia, received his homage in numerous houses; at Delphi, Didyma, at Abæ in Phocis, Claros, Larissa, Eutresis, Orope, Ichnæa, Corypæ, Hybla, Orobiæ, Tegyræ, on the Mounts Ptous, Ismenus, and Parnassus, and in his birth-nest at Delos, whence he sent forth his first and purest oracles,—the best were but crooked mutilations of the Babylonian records, and the fountain of Grecian mythology.-See 7th May. Apollo was the Orus of the Egyptians; according to Bryant the Chus of the Mosaic narrative; but like Saturnus he left his home, saith Claudian, and found an asylum among the Hyperboreans. The Lares Præstites or little household guardians of stone received their offerings upon this day. They were placed before the hearths and gates of the Roman mansions, with the image of a dog at their feet, in terrorem, as emblems of the vigilance or piety of the inhabitants. We ought by all means to cut off from the body sickness, from the soul ignorance, from the belly luxury, from the city sedition, from a family discord, and from all things, excess. Pythagoras. As Sappha home did bring The treasure of the Spring, Her apron gave, as she did pass, An odour more divine, More pleasing, too, than ever was The lap of Proserpine.-Hesperides. Acts. THE FLORALIA. The first day of May, par excellence was the day of pleasure and delight, when Flora threw out from her "pictured urn," (two-handled like the Greek Psi, figuring the two months of her dominion) to the smiling Hours, the messengers of the Graces, every blossom that perfumes or variegates the Spring. Her festivals are coeval with the Seasons; but appear to have been discontinued at Rome, although commanded by a Sibylline oracle, for a winter of sixty-six years, until restored in all their fragrance under the consuls Lænas and Posthumius, B. C. 173. From Flora we derive our Lady of May, and that crested mast which once, as Pope sings, overlook'd the Strand.' The "Morris-dance" was an ancient English game peculiar to this day. Before the time of Queen Elizabeth it was composed of twelve figures. 1. The Bavaan fool, with his yellow slabbering bib. 2. Maid Marian, the Queen of May, with a golden crown upon her head, hair dishevelled, and in her left hand a red pink, as the emblem of summer. (Their May Day of course now falls twelve days later.) 3. A Franciscan friar, in the full clerical tonsure, with corded girdle and wallet, the greyrusset habit, a chaplet of white and red beads in his right hand, and looks, expressive of humility, commercing with the ground. 4. Hocus Pocus, in a juggler's jerkin, with the Epimedium, upon his forehead. 5. The Hobby-horse, was a steed of pasteboard, in which the master danced and displayed tricks of legerdemain, such as threading the needle, 'daggers in the nose," &c.: his golden crown indicates the monarch of the May. 6. A clown, or villane. 7. A franklin, or gentleman. 8. The May-pole, painted yellow and black in spiral lines. Upon it were displayed the red cross of St. George, or the banner of England, and a white pennon emblazoned. 9. Tom, the Piper, as the ancient minstrel, with his pipe and tambour de basque. 10. A Spaniard, with flying sleeves. 11. A Morisco, in a purple coronetted cap and feather, and 12. The counterfeit fool, with his bauble, cock's-comb and bell, and what a foolscap never lacked, the asinine auricles. The mean, the music makes in every thing.---Herrich. Methinks, I see great Dioclesian walk In the Salonian garden's noble shade, Which by his own imperial hands was made: I see him smile, methinks, as he does talk With the ambassadors, who come in vain T'intice him to a throne again.-Cowley's Garden. Acts. THE MONTHS. The fifth month, Maius of the Julian calendar, agrees with the third moon, Pachon, in the old, and the ninth of the new Egyp-tian year; with the ninth civil, and the third sacred moon, Sivan, of the Jews; with the ninth moon, Adar, of the Persians; with the ninth moons, Desius, Plethutatus, and Arius, of the Syro-Macedonians, Paphians, and Bithynians; with the ninth moons, Ginboth, Bashansh, and Anki, of the Ethiopian, Coptic, and Armenian calendars; with the eighth solar month, Icar, of the Syrians; with the twelfth and concluding month, Scirophorion, of the Athenian year; the ninth, Panemus, of the Macedonians, and the fifth, Artemisius, of their solar year; and with the eleventh moons, Dulkaiadath, and Zilkaade, of the Arabians and Turks. By the ancient Saxons it was called Tri-milchi, a pastoral title from the dairy, and by the Dutch and Germans Blou month, as florists. Upon this day, B. C. 129, the prætors of Pergamus issued a singular decree in which it is attested that their ancestors were friendly to the Jews even in the time of Abraham, who was the father of all the Hebrews, as we have found it set down in our public records." The Lacedemonians and Parthians were also from the same reverend stock. Dioclesian in the twenty-first year of his reign abdicates the imperial throne in the presence of his soldiery and a multitude of people, from a hill upon a plain about three miles from Nicomedia, 305. Maximian resigned his share of the imperial dignity at Milan upon the same day. When this ambitious old man afterwards solicited Dioclesian to resume the purple, the latter, with a smile of commiseration, calmly replied that if he could show Maximian the cabbages which he had planted with his own hands at Salona, he should no longer be urged to relinquish the enjoyment of happiness for the pursuit of power." It is as proper for age to retire, as for youth to produce itself in the world. Temple. |
