a kind of film, which passes off as the season advances, when they appear in their full perfection of colour and vigour. Mackerel are taken, generally, in nets, and, when first caught, exhibit an alternation of the most vivid and beautiful colours; we have seen more than four thousand of these delicate and elegant fish taken at a single hawl. Their flavour is much. impaired even a few hours after their capture1.

The maritime plants which flower this month, are, the sea-barley (hordeum maritimum), sulphur-wort (pucedanum officinale), and loose sedge (carex distans), in salt marshes; the sea-plantain (plantago maritima), among rocks on the sea-coast; the slender-leaved buffonia (buffonia tenuifolia), and the tassel pond-weed (ruppia maritima), in salt-water ditches. To these may be added, the common alkanet (anchusa officinalis), the narrow-leaved pepperwort (lepidum ruderale), and the Roman nettle (urtica pilulifera), in sea wastes; the black salt-wort (glaux maritima), on muddy shores; the sea-chickweed (arenaria peploides), and the common sea-rocket (bunias cakile), on sandy shores; and the perfoliate cabbage (brassica orientalis) among maritime rocks.

Multitudes of mackerel are taken on our coast: at times they sell exorbitantly dear, but chiefly in the opposite extreme. The first Brighton boat of mackerel sold, the 14th of May, 1807, at Billingsgate, for forty guineas per hundred (seven shillings each), the highest price ever known at that market. The next boat that came in, reduced their value to thirteen guineas per hundred. In 1808, these fish were caught so plentifully at Dover, that they sold sixty for a shilling. At Brighton, in June, the same year, the shoal of mackerel was so great, that one of the boats had the meshes of her nets so closely occupied by them, that it was impossible to drag them in. The fish and nets, therefore, in the end, sank together, the fisherman thereby sustaining a loss of nearly sixty pounds, exclusive of what his cargo, could he have got it into the boat, would have produced. -Daniel's Sports.

THIS word is derived from the Latin Julius, the surname of C. Cæsar, the dictator, who was born in it. Mark Antony first gave to this month the name of July, which was before called Quintilis, as being the fifth month in the year, in the old Roman calendar established by Romulus. July, I would have drawn in a jacket of light yellow, eating cherries, with his face and bosom sun-burnt; on his head a wreath of centaurie and wild thyme; a sithe on his shoulders a bottle at his girdle; carrying the sign Leo.' (Peacham, p. 419.) July was, by the Saxons, called heu monat, or hey-monat, that is to say, hey-moneth, because therein they usually mowed, and made their hey-harvest.' (Verstegan, p. 61.)

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July, to whom the Dog-Star in her train,

Saint James gives oysters, and Saint Swithin rain.

S

CHURCHILL.

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Remarkable Days.

2.-VISITATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY. THIS festival was first instituted by Pope Urban VI, in commemoration of that remarkable journey which the Mother of our Lord took into the mountains of Judæa, in order to visit the mother of St. John the Baptist. It was afterwards confirmed, not only by a decree of Pope Boniface IX, but by the Council of Basil, in 1441.

3.-DOG-DAYS BEGIN.

See

These are a certain number of days before and after the heliacal rising of Canicula, or the dog-star, in the morning. The antients imagined that this star so rising occasioned the sultry weather usually felt in the latter part of the summer, or dog-days; with all the distempers of that sickly season. Homer's Iliad, lib. v, 10, and Virgil's Eneid, lib. 1. They did not consider that the heliacal rising of this star varies much in the course of a few years, and indeed in the same year in different latitudes; as is now well known. The dog-days in our modern almanacks occupy the time from July 3 to August 11; the name being applied now, as it was formerly, to the hottest time of the year.

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4.TRANSLATION OF SAINT MARTIN.

This day was appointed to commemorate the removal or translation of St. Martin's body from one tomb to another much more noble and magnificent ; an honour conferred upon the deceased saint by Perpetuus, one of his successors in the see of Tours. His festival is celebrated on the 11th of November, which see.

7.-THOMAS A BECKET.

This haughty prelate was born in London, in the year 1119, and was the son of Gilbert, a merchant, and Matilda, a Saracen lady, who is said to have

fallen in love with him when he was a prisoner to her father in Jerusalem. Thomas received the first part of his education at Merton Abbey in Surrey, whence he went to Oxford, and afterwards studied at Paris. Being in high favour with Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, he sent him to Bononia, to study the civil law; and on his return made him archdeacon of Canterbury and provost of Beverley. Theobald also recommended him to King Henry II in so effectual a manner, that in 1158 he was appointed high chancellor, and preceptor to the prince. Becket now laid aside the churchman, and affected the courtier; he conformed himself in every thing to the king's hu mour; he partook of all his diversions, and observed the same hours of eating and going to bed. He kept splendid levees, and courted popular applause; and the expenses of his table exceeded those of the first nobility. In 1159 he made a campaign with King Henry into Toulouse, having in his own pay 1200 horse, besides a retinue of 700 knights or gentlemen.

In 1160, he was sent by the king to Paris, to treat of a marriage between prince Henry and the king of France's eldest daughter, in which he succeeded, and returned with the young princess to England. He had not enjoyed the chancellorship above four years, when Archbishop Theobald died; and the king, who was then in Normandy, immediately sent over some trusty persons to England, who managed matters so well with the monks and clergy, that Becket was almost unanimously elected archbishop. His first step, which was to resign the office of chancellor, much offended his benefactor; and his subsequent haughtiness and obstinacy, and the high tone in which he asserted the privileges of the church, further widened the breach, and disturbed the peace of the kingdom. As the guardian of his people, Henry wished for a community of laws; but Becket refused to repress the dist

orders of his clergy, by suffering them to be tried in the same manner as the laity; and though for a time he assented to the famous constitutions of Clarendon, he retracted his acquiescence, and resigned his archiepiscopal office at the feet of the pope, who not only forgave the error of his judgment by reinstating him, but espoused his cause and annulled the decrees. Supported by the papal power, the primate excommunicated those who favoured the royal cause, and Henry, swollen with indignation, banished his relations and adherents, and sent them in disgrace and indigence to their exiled master. Becket continued to indulge his resentment: not only the representations and entreaties of the clergy, but the interference of the pope, by two cardinals, proved, for a time, abortive with the haughty prelate, who when, in 1167, he condescended to see his sovereign, broke off the conference, because Henry refused to give him the kiss of peace.

In 1169, however, an accommodation was at length concluded between Henry and Becket, upon the confines of Normandy, where the king held the bridle of Becket's horse, while he mounted and dismounted twice. Soon after the archbishop embarked for England; and upon his arrival received an order from the young king to absolve the suspended and excommunicated bishops; but, refusing to comply, the archbishop of York, and the bishops. of London and Salisbury, carried their complaint to the king in Normandy, who was highly provoked at this fresh instance of obstinacy in Becket, and said on the occasion, That he was an unhappy prince, who maintained a great number of lazy, insignificant persons about him, none of whom had gratitude or spirit enough to revenge him on a single insolent prelate, who gave him so much disturbance;' or, as some report his words, Shall this fellow, who came to court on a lame horse, with all his estate in a wallet behind him, trample upon his king, the royal family, and the