The cabbage butterfly also (papilio brassica) now ap

pears.

Trusting the first warm day of spring,
When transient sunshine warms the sky,
Light on his yellow spotted wing
Comes forth the early butterfly.

With wavering flight, he settles now
Where pilewort spreads its blossoms fair,
Or on the grass where daisies blow,
Pausing, he rests his pinions there.
But, insect! in a luckless hour
Thou from thy winter home hast come,
For yet is seen no luscious flower
With odour rich, and honied bloom.

And these that to the early day
Yet timidly their bells unfold,
Close with the sun's retreating ray,
And shut their humid eyes of gold.

For night's dark shades then gather round,
And night-winds whistle cold and keen,
And hoary frost will crisp the ground
And blight the leaves of budding green!

And thou, poor fly! so soft and frail,
May'st perish ere returning morn,
Nor ever, on the summer gale,

To taste of summer sweets be borne'!

On the habits and food of caterpillars consult T. T. for 1816, p. 124; and our last volume, p. 119. River fish leave their winter retreats, and again become the prey of the angler.

The river teems; swarming with finny tribes
That brisk forsake the oozy depth below,
And glittering sport upou the blue-faced stream,
Or in the shallows cast their countless spawn.
At wonted eve the nauseous bat, awaked

1 See Conversations on Natural History, by Charlotte Smith, vol. i, p. 52, a book which cannot be too strongly recommended to our juvenile readers of both sexes, but particularly to young females. See also the SWALLOWs, an ELEGY,' in our last volume, p. 128.

K

By gentle breezes, now and then renews
His flitting flight. The sluggard snail creeps slow
To meet the twilight dews; and from the earth
The naked worm trails out its slippery length.

BIDLAKE.

For the various employments of the Fisher Boy' in this month, and some lines descriptive of river fish, see our last volume, p. 121.

The spring flight of pigeons (columbæ) appears in this month, or early in the next.

Dry weather is still acceptable to the farmer, who is employed in sowing various kinds of grain, and seeds for fodder, as buck-wheat, lucerne, saintfoin, clover, &c. The young corn and springing-grass, however, are materially benefited by occasional showers.

In our last year's Diary for September, p. 282, we gave the pathetic poem of the humane Mr. PRATT, entitled, the Partridges, an Elegy;' as a companion to this, and as applicable to the present month, we now insert the ELEGY OF A NIGHTINGALE,' by the same elegant poet :

For Elusino lost, renew the strain,

Pour the sad note upon the ev'ning gale;
And, as the length'ning shades usurp the plain,
The silent moon shall listen to the tale.

Sore was the time-ill-fated was the hour,
The thicket shook with many an omen dire!
When from the topmost twig of yonder bow'r
I saw my husband tremble and expire.
'Twas when the peasant sought his twilight rest,
Beneath the brow of yonder breezy hill;
'Twas when the plumy nation sought the nest,
And all, but such as loved the night, were still;

That as I sat with all a lover's pride,

(As was my custom when the sun withdrew)
Dear Elusino sudden left my side,

And the vile form of man appeared in view.
For sport the tube he levelled at our head,
And, curious to behold more near my race,
Low in the copse the artful robber laid,
Explored our haunt, and thundered at the place.

Ingrateful wreteh! he was our shepherd's son-
The harmless good old tenant of yon cot!

That shepherd would not such a deed have done!'Twas love to him that fixed us to this spot.

Oft, as at eve his homeward steps he bent,
When the laborious task of day was o'er,
Our mellowed warblings soothed him as he went,
Till the charmed hind forgot that he was poor.
Ah! could not this thy gratitude inspire?
Could not our gentle visitations please?
Could not the blameless lessons of thy sire
Restrain thy barb'rous hand from crimes like these?
Oh, cruel boy! thou tyrant of the plain!
Couldst thou but see the sorrows thou hast made,
Or didst thou know the virtues thou hast slain,
And view the gloomy horrors of the shade:
Couldst thou-behold-my infant younglings lay,
In the moss cradle, which our bills prepared;
Babes as they were-the offspring of the day-
Their wings defenceless, and their bosom bared:
Surely the mighty malice of thy kind,
Thy pow'r to wrong, and readiness to kill,
In common pity, to the parent's mind,.

Would cease the new-made father's blood to spill.
Haply the time may come, when heav'n shall give
To thee the troubles thou hast heaped on me;
Haply-ere well thy babes begin to live,
Death may present the dart of misery.

Just as the tender hope begins to rise,
As the fond mother hugs her darling boy;
As the big rapture trembles in the eyes,
And the breast throbs with all a parent's joy;

Then may some midnight robber, skilled in guile,
Resolved on plunder and on deeds of death,
Thy fairy prospects, tender transports spoil,
And to the knife resign thy children's breath!
In that sad moment shall thy savage heart
Feel the keen anguish, desperate and wild;
Conscience, forlorn, shall doubly point the smart
And justice whisper-this is child for child.

'Reft of their sire-my babes, alas! must sigh-
For grief obstructs the widow's anxious care;
This wasted form-this ever-weeping eye,
And the deep note of destitute despair;

All load this bosom with a fraught so sore,
Scarce can I cater for their daily food!

Where'er I search-my husband searched before-
And soon-my nest will hold an orphan brood.

MAY.

MAY is so called from Maia, the mother of Mercury, to whom sacrifices were offered by the Romans on the first of this month; or, according to some, from respect to the senators and nobles of Rome, who were named Majores, as the following month was termed Junius, in honour of the youth of Rome. The Saxons called May tri-milki, because, in that month, they began to milk their kine three times in the day.

Remarkable Days

In MAY 1818.

1.-MAY-DAY.

IN the north of England, May-Day still retains some of its antient sports. The young people of both sexes go out early in the morning of the 1st of May (observes Mr. Hutchinson) to gather the flowering thorns and the dew of the grass, which they bring home with music and acclamations; and having dressed a pole on the town-green with garlands, dance around it. The dew was considered as a grand cosmetic, and preserved the face from wrinkles and the traces of old age; the happiest gift Flora could bestow on her votaries.-See further on this subject in T. T. for 1815, p. 159.

1.-SAINT PHILIP AND SAINT JAMES THE LESS.

Philip was born at Bethsaida, near the sea of Tiberias, the city of Andrew and Peter. He was one of the first disciples, and an apostle. James the Less, called also James the Just, and, by the apostle Paul,

James, the Lord's brother, was the son of Joseph, afterwards husband to the Virgin Mary, as is probable by his first wife. The first of these martyrs was stoned to death, and the second, having been thrown from a high place, was killed by a fuller's staff.

*1. 1807.-SLAVE TRADE ABOLISHED.

3.-INVENTION OF THE cross.

The Romish church celebrates this day as a festival, to commemorate the invention or finding of a wooden cross, supposed to be the true one, by Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great.

*4. 1795.-ABBÉ BARTHELEMY died.

The celebrated author of Anacharsis's Travels in Greece;' a general work on the history, manners, customs, literature, &c. of Greece, presented in the novel and elegant form of the supposed observations of a traveller, Anacharsis, an imagined descendant of the antient Scythian philosopher of that name. This person is represented as visiting Greece in the year 363 B.C., and fixing his residence in Athens, whence he makes excursions, not only to the other Grecian cities, but to Egypt, Asia Minor, Persia, and the islands of the Egean Sea. Admitting this basis of fiction, every thing else is supported by the authority, exactly referred to, of antient writers. An infinite number of detached circumstances derived from them are digested into a lively and connected narrative, which, by the help of retrospects, is made to comprise every thing curious and important relative to a people, undoubtedly the most interesting in the history of mankind, down to the period fixed upon for the philosopher's travels, which is that of Epaminondas, Phocion, Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes, and other men of extraordinary merit. The elegance of style, the beauties of narration, and the judiciousness of reflection, render this the first work, in point of entertainment and instruction, that so brilliant a subject has produced. It has added a capital piece.