Her feet beneath her petticoat, As if they fear'd the light: Is half so fine a sight. Acts. THE feast of Purim, or Lots, among the Jews, to commemorate their deliverance by Esther from Haman's conspiracy. This festival begins on the preceding evening, and lasts two days. It was called the feast of Lots, because Haman, according to Persian superstition, drew lots to decide the day when his design should be put into execution. in VALENTINE. This day derives its name from the Saint mentioned in the Latin calendar; but the holiday is of heathen institution.-See 15th. Among the household expenses of the princess Mary, 1543, is a gift of forty shillings to George Mountjoy, for " drawing her Lady's Grace to his Valentine." The unprosperous marriage of the princess Elizabeth, called "The Queen of Hearts," with Count Ferdinand, Elector Palatine of the Rhine, was solemnized with appropriate magnificence on the present day, 1613. The chief poets, excepting Ben Jonson, who seems to have been upon the continent, were in requisition on this very teresting occasion. Beaumont and Chapman supplied masques, and Donne the Epithalamion. Sir Henry Wotton then (perhaps) composed his celebrated Canzo to "the Lady Elizabeth," and it is more than probable that Shakspeare, who was certainly in town on the 10th of March, revived the Winter's Tale with some courteous changes in the persons and diction of the piece, if indeed it was not composed expressly for the nonce, and as a trial of skill with Fletcher, whose sweet pastoral of "The Faithful Shepherdess," was condemned about two years before, by the many-headed bench. Admiral Jervis achieves his splendid victory over the Spanish Fleet, off Cape St. Vincent, 1797. Our age, commendable in other things, is the age of dryness.-Voltaire. With looks demure, and silent pace, a Dun, The voice ill-boding, and the solemn sound.—Splendid Shilling. Day. Births. XV. Thomas Wagstaff, 1645. Deaths. Oswy (of Northumbria), 670. Cal. Louis XV. (of France), 1710. Sir Thomas Lyttleton, 1590. 15. I beheld his body half wasted away with long expectation and confinement, and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it was : which arises from hope deferred. Sir Dudley Carleton, 1632. Abbey. Claude de la Colombiere, 1682. d. Parai. John Philips, 1708. Hereford. Chas. Andrew Vanloo, 1765. There is nothing more illustrious in the life of Socrates, than that he had thirty whole Obits of the Latin Church. days wherein to ruminate upon St. Faustinus and Jovita, Mar- the sentence of his death; to tyrs at Brescia, c. 121. have digested it all that time St. Sigefride (or Sigfrid), of with an assured hope, without York, Apostle of Sweden, d. care, and without alteration. 1002. Montaigne. Any sect in philosophy will serve my turn, and honest Sancho Panca's is as good as any; who, on his return from an important commission, when asked by his master whether they should mark the day with a black or a white stone, said, Sir, if you will be ruled by me, with neither; but with good brown ochre.Such is the complexion of human life in general.-Warburton, in diê. A lazar-house it seem'd; wherein were laid Numbers of all diseas'd; all feverous kinds. Dire was the tossing, deep the groans; Despair Tended the sick, busiest from couch to couch.-Milton. Acts. QUINQUAGESIMA, or Shrove Sunday, is the fiftieth day, and seventh Sunday preceding Easter.-See 5th April. The Lupercalia, originally, were rural sacrifices in honour of Pan, introduced into Latium by Evander, the Arcadian. Augustus, with his usual good sense, abated this licentious festival; but the nude superstition was restored, and continued until the time of the Emperor Anastasius, when its rites were totally abrogated, A. D. 496. The Roman youth, by a kind of conjugalia sortes, chose their paramours upon this day. The custom, however innocent, was endeavoured to be restrained by the Catholic clergy, who substituted the names, says Mr Butler, of particular saints, written on billets of paper, which they distributed not on the present but the preceding day, and from that pious intention we receive the name of the mysterious anniversary of St. Valentine. It was Cecrops that first established a marriage vow, in Attica; and perhaps the Juno distinguished by the surname Februata, who presided over the nuptial bed at Rome, was no other than the wife of the founder of the Palladium-nearly the only virtue it adopted of the Greeks. In 1319, the Prior and Convent of St. Swithin's, at Winchester, grant to Thomas of Shaftesbury, Clerk, a corody of two dishes daily, from the prior's kitchen, bread, drink, robes, and a competent chamber in the monastery for the term of his life; for which the said Thomas paid fifty marks, with an obligation to serve them in the art of medicine, " deservire nobis in arte medicina." The peace of Hubertsburg is concluded at the electoral palace of that name, which terminates the seven years' war between the Austrian and Prussian states, 1763. Joseph Buonaparte enters Naples upon the capitulation of the garrison, 1806; and on the 30th of March is chosen king, by the acclamation of an enslaved and enervate people. His studie was but litel on the Bible.-Chaucer. Day. Who broke no promise, serv'd no private end, Births. Deaths. XIV. Philip Melancthon, 1497, Bret-St, Pamphilus, 309. d. Cæsarea. 16. 1279. Canterbury. Abp. (John) Sharp, 1644, Brad- Abp. (Henry) Deane, 1502. ford. Ottomar Elliger, the Younger, 1666, Hamburg. . The prerogative of infancy is innocency; of childhood, reverence; of manhood, maturity; and of old age, wisdom. Raleigh. Obits of the Latin Church. Bp. (John) du Bellay, 1560. Rome. James Craggs, 1721. Abbey. A sot is like a statue placed in a moist air; all the lineaments of humanity are mouldered away. He has a different humour for every nick his drink rises to, like the degrees of a weather-glass, and proceeds from ribaldry and bawdry to St. Juliana, V. Martyr at Nico-politics, religion, and quarrel media, c. 309. ing, until it is at the top, and then are the dog-days with him; but falling down again then— he is frozen up.-Butler. The deeds of old are like paths to our eyes.-Ossian. Come, Sleep, O Sleep, the certain knot of peace, The baiting place of wit, the balm of woe, The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release, The indifferent judge between the high and low.-Sidney. Acts. THE DIONYSIA were solemnities in memory of Bacchus, the Osiris of the Egyptians, observed within the city of Athens, between the eighth and eighteenth days of Elaphebolion, with great splendour and decorum ; for those women (fourteen in number, and styled the venerable,) officiated whose lives were the most free from pollution, as the oath, which they took before the wife of one of the chief magistrates, declared. Then the Tragedies were exhibited; and a new spirit was infused into emulation, benevolence, and glory, with the spring of the seasons. Terrestrial Dionysius, annual god, Who laid asleep in Proserpine's abode, Thou mov'st in concert with the circling hours.-Orpheus. The remains of that incomparable piece of virtue Sir Philip Sidney are deposited within the Cathedral of St. Paul, with the honours, if not the sympathy, of royalty, 1587. Bruce, the traveller, enters Gondar, the capital of Abyssinia, and is introduced into the palace of the emperor, 1770. "Abba Salama, the first religious officer there, was a man exceedingly rich, and of the very worst life possible; though he had taken vows of poverty and chastity, it was said that he had at that time above seventeen mistresses, and his way of seducing them was as extraordinary as the number seduced; for when he had fixed his desires upon a woman, he forced her to comply under pain of excommunication." According to the tables of Dr. Herschel, if it be new or full moon, or the moon enters into the first or last quarters, at or near to midnight, it is a sign of fair and frosty weather, unless the wind be S. or S. W. The business of a poet is to remark general properties, and large appearances: he does not number the streaks of the tulip, or describe the different shades in the verdure of the forest. He must write as the interpreter of nature, and the legislator of mankind, and consider himself as presiding over the thoughts and manners of future generations; as a being superior to time and place.-Rasselas. |
