;

Eve, and gather a rose, and keep it in a clean sheet of paper, without looking at it, till Christmas Day, it will be as fresh as in June ; and if I then stick it in my bosom, he that is to be my husband will come and take it out.' Grose observes, any unmarried women fasting on Midsummer Eve, and at midnight laying a clean cloth, with bread, cheese, and ale, and sitting down as if going to eat, the streetdoor being left open, the person whom she is afterwards to marry will come into the room and drink to her by bowing; and after filling the glass will leave it on the table, and, making another bow, retire.'

The subsequent extract from the antient Calendar of the Romish church, will show the eeremonies observed at Rome on the eve and day of St. John the Baptist :

" 23. The Vigil of the Nativity of John the Baptist. Spices are given at vespers.

Fires are lighted up.

A girl with a little drum that proclaims the garland.

Boys are dressed in girls' clothes.

Carols to the liberal; Imprecations against the avaritious.

Waters are swum in during the night, and are brought in vessels that hang for the purposes of divination.

Fern in great estimation with the vulgar, on account of its seed.

Herbs of different kinds are sought, with many ceremonies. Girls' Thistle is gathered, and an hundred crosses by the same. 24. The Nativity of John the Baptist. Dew and new Leaves in estimation. The Vulgar Solstice.'

According to Grose, any person fasting on Midsummer Eve, and sitting in the church porch, will, at midnight, see the spirits of the persons of that parish who will die that year, come and knock at the church door, in the order and succession in which they will die. One of these watchers (there being several in company) fell into a sound sleep, so that he could not be waked. While in this state, his ghost, or spirit, was seen by the rest of his com

panions knocking at the church door. This circumstance is noticed in the elegant poem of the Cottage Girl: '

Now to relieve her growing fear,

That feels the haunted moment near
When ghosts in chains the churchyard walk,
She tries to steal the time by talk.

But hark! the church clock swings around,
With a dead pause, each sullen sound,
And tells the midnight hour is come,
That

wraps the groves in spectred gloom!

On the subject of gathering the Rose on Midsummer Eve, we have also the following lines:

The Moss-rose that, at fall of dew,
(Ere Eve its duskier curtain drew)
Was freshly gathered from its stem,
She values as the ruby gem;
And, guarded from the piercing air,
With all an anxious lover's care
She bids it, for her shepherd's sake,
Await the new-year's frolic wake-
When faded, in its altered hue
She reads the rustic is untrue!
But, if it leaves the crimson paint,
Her sick'ning hopes no longer faint;
The Rose upon her bosom worn,
She meets him at the peep of morn.
With these on the sowing of hemp:

To issue from beneath the thatch,
With trembling hand she lifts the latch,
And steps, as creaks the feeble door,
With cautious feet the threshold o'er ;
Lest, stumbling on the horseshoe dim,
Dire spells unsinew ev'ry limb.
Lo! shudd'ring at the solemn deed,
She scatters round the magic seed,
And thrice repeats, The seed I sow,
My true-love's scythe the crop shall mow.'
Straight, as her frame fresh horrors freeze,
Her true-love with his scythe she sees.
And next, she seeks the yew-tree shade,
Where he who died for love is laid;
There binds, upon the verdant sod
By many a moonlight fairy trod,

The cowslip and the lily-wreath

She wove her hawthorn hedge beneath :
And whisp'ring, Ah! may Colin prove
As constant as thou wast to love!'
Kisses, with pale lip full of dread,
-The turf that hides his clay-cold head!
29.-SAINT PETER.

Peter's original name, Simon, was not abolished by Christ, but that of Cephas was added to it, which, in Syriac, the vulgar language of the Jews, signifies a stone, or rock; hence the Greek Пéreds, and our Peter. The apostle's father was Jonah, probably a fisherman of Bethsaida. His brother Andrew, being first converted, was said to be an instrument of Peter's conversion, John i, 40, 41.

Some writers assert that Nero, being attached to the practices of the magicians, and resenting Peter's opposition to them, was not only the cause of his imprisonment, but also of his martyrdom, which was put into execution in the following manner: Peter was first scourged, and then led out to be crucified upon the hill called Janiculus, desiring to be fastened to the cross with his head downwards, alleging that he thought himself unworthy to die in the same way as his Lord and Master.

Astronomical Occurrences.

Of the Diurnal Motion of the Heavens, and of the fixed Stars.

IF in a fine night, says M. La Place, and in a place where the horizon is uninterrupted, we follow with attention the appearance of the heavens, it will be seen to vary at every instant. Some stars are rising above, others setting below the horizon; some begin to appear in the west, others to disappear towards the west; several, as the pole star and the stars of the Great Bear, never reach the horizon. In these various motions their respective positions to each other remain unchanged, and they describe circles so much the less as they are nearer a point which appears to be immoveable.. Thus the heavens seem

to revolve round two fixed points, called, from this circumstance, the poles of the world, and in this motion is included the whole system of stars. The pole elevated above our horizon, is the north pole; the opposite pole, which we imagine beneath the horizon, is the south pole. Several interesting questions present themselves to be resolved: What be comes of those stars during the day, which we have beheld in the preceding night; and from thence do those come which begin to appear? Where are those gone which have departed from our view? An attentive examination of these phenomena will afford a simple answer to these questions. In the morning the brightness of the stars grows fainter, as the dawning-light increases; in the evening they become more brilliant as the twilight diminishes; it is not therefore because they cease to shine, but because they are effaced by the more vivid light of the Sun, that we are unable to see them. The discovery of the telescope has enabled us to verify this explanation, by showing us the stars, even when the Sun is at its greatest elevation above the horizon: those which are near enough the pole never to reach the horizon, appear constantly above it.

La.

It becomes also an inquiry as to the number of fixed stars that we can at any one time see with the naked eye. To a common observer in a very bright night, and in the absence of the Moon, there appears to be an immense number, very many thousands; but astronomers contend that, without the assistance of glasses, we cannot at one time see so many as a thousand, and that the deception is occasioned by the numberless reflections and refractions to which the light, in its passage from those stars, is subject. The heavens, however, examined by telescopes, present us with innumerable stars; the better the glasses, the greater the number that are ascertained to exist. Dr. Herschel, in a paper on the Construction of the Heavens, says it is probable that the great stratum,

called the milky way, consists of an indefinite number of stars of various magnitudes, and at different distances; and that our Sun is actually one of the heavenly bodies belonging to it. We will,' says the doctor, retreat to our own retired station in one of the planets attending a star in the great combination with numberless others; and in order to investigate what will be the appearances from this contracted situation, let us begin with the naked eye.The stars of the first magnitude, being in all probability the nearest, will furnish us with a step to begin our scale; setting off, therefore, with the distance of Sirius or Arcturus, for instance, as unity, we will suppose that those of the second magnitude are at double, and those of the third at treble the distance, and so on. Taking it then for granted, that a star of the seventh magnitude is about seven times as far from us as one of the first, it follows that an observer, who is enclosed in a globular cluster of stars, and not far from the centre, will never be able, with the naked eye, to see to the end of it: for since, according to the above estimations, he can only extend his view about seven times the distance of Sirius, it cannot be expected that his eyes should reach the borders of a cluster which has, perhaps, not less than fifty stars in depth, every where around him. The whole universe, therefore, to him, will be comprised in a set of constellations richly ornamented with scattered stars of all sizes. Or if the united brightness of a neighbouring cluster of stars should, in a remarkably clear night, reach his sight, it will put on the appearance of a small, faint, nebulous cloud, not to be perceived without the greatest attention. Allowing him the use of a common telescope, he begins to suspect that all the milkiness of the bright path which surrounds the sphere, may be owing to stars. By increasing his power of vision, he becomes certain that the milky way is indeed no other than a collection of very small stars, and the nebulæ nothing but clusters of stars.'