cipal ingredient in what is known by the name of Hungary water; and the herb is taken as tea by many persons for the headach, and disorders called

nervous.

The winter aconite (helleborus hiemalis), and the bear's foot (h. fœtidus), are in flower about the middle of the month; the mezereon (daphne m.) 'breathes mild its early sweets;' and the red-deadnettle (lamium purpureum) flowers under the shelter of southern hedges. The snowdrop (galanthus nivalis) seems on the point of blowing; the common creeping crowfoot (ranunculus repens) is in flower; and the crocus, if the weather be mild, appears above ground. Ivy casts its leaves; the catkin, or male blossom of the hazel (corylus avellana), unfolds; the flowers of the holly (ilex aquifolium) begin to open; and the leaves of the honeysuckle (lonicera periclymenum) are quite out. Towards the end of January, the daisy (bellis perennis) is in full bloom.

In this month, the farmer carries out manure to his fields, and repairs quickset hedges; taking advantage of the dry and hard ground, during frost. The barn resounds with the flail, barley being now thrash

Come, press my lips, and lie with me
Beneath the lowly alder tree;

And we will sleep a pleasant sleep,
And not a care shall dare intrude,
To break the marble solitude,
So peaceful, and so deep.

And, hark! the wind-god, as he flies,
Moans hollow, in the forest-trees,
And, sailing on the gusty breeze,
Mysterious music dies.

Sweet flower! that requiem wild is mine;
It warns me to the lonely shrine,

The cold turf altar of the dead:
My grave shall be in yon lone spot,
Where, as I lie by all forgot,

A dying fragrance thou wilt o'er my ashes shed.

KIRKE WHITE.

ed for malting. He lops forest-trees, and cuts timber for winter use,

The woodman, urgent, plies his axe;
The copse resounds with the repeated lapse
Of boughs.

About the end of the month, in dry weather, peas and beans are sown, and vetches for seed or fodder, Hogs are killed for bacon, and beef and hams are smoked.

Shooting is a favourite amusement at this season of the year; other sports, also, are resorted to, when the weather permits.

In giddy circles, whirling variously,

The skater fleetly thrids the mazy throng,

While smaller wights the sliding pastime ply.

But, in these hazardous exercises, we should remember the poet's advice, and

Trust not incautiously the smooth expanse ;
For oft a treach'rous thaw, ere yet perceived,
Saps, by degrees, the solid-seeming mass.

The winter of England, however, allows but few of those sports which continue for so long a time in more northerly regions, where

Eager, on rapid sleds,

Their vigorous youth in bold contention wheel
The long-resounding course.

The ice-hills of St. Petersburgh, during the carnival, are well deserving of notice. Every ice-hill is composed of a scaffold, having steps on one side for ascending it; and, on the opposite side, a steep inclined plane covered with large blocks of ice, consolidated together by pouring water repeatedly from the top to the bottom. Men, as well as women (the latter, however, only of the lower orders), in little low sledges, descend, with amazing velocity, this steep hill; and, by the momentum acquired by this descent, are impelled to a great distance, along a large field of ice carefully swept clear of snow for that purpose, which brings them to a

second hill; by the side of which they alight, take their sledge on their back, and mount it by the steps behind, as they had done the former. Some young people venture to ascend the dangerous precipice in skates.

་

The ice-palace of Anne, Empress of Russia, is an eminent instance of the wonders that may be produced by this frozen liquid. It was built on the banks of the Neva, in the year 1740, and was constructed of hugh quadrates of ice hewn in the manner of freestone. The edifice was fifty-two feet in length, sixteen in breadth, and twenty in height. The walls were three feet thick. In the several apartments were tables, chairs, beds, and all kinds of household furniture of ice. In front of the palace, besides pyramids and statues, stood six cannons carrying balls of six pounds weight, and two mortars, of ice. From one of the former, as a trial, an iron ball with only a quarter of a pound of powder was fired off. The ball went through a two-inch board at sixty paces from the mouth of the cannon; and the piece of ice-artillery, with its carriage, remained uninjured by the explosion. The illumination of the ice-palace, at night, had an astonishingly grand effect.-See Tooke's View of the Russian Empire, vol. i, pp. 44,

45.

The following very curious circumstance is recorded by Captain Monk, who was deputed by Christian IV, King of Denmark, to attempt the discovery of a north-east passage to China. He wintered on the shore of Hudson's Bay, in the year 1619; and relates that the cold was so intense, that neither beer, wine, nor brandy, could resist it. These were all frozen, and the vessels which contained them were split into pieces; and, before they could use the liquors, they were obliged to hew them with hatchets, and dissolve them by fire. Virgil speaks of hewing wine, in his description of a Scythian winter ;'cæduntque securibus humida vina.'

FEBRUARY, according to some, is derived from Februa, a feast held by the Romans in this month in behalf of the manes of the deceased; when sacrifices were performed and the last offices paid to the shades of the defunct. Others assert that this month takes its name from Februa, an epithet given to Juno, as the goddess of purification. Near the emblematical representation of February is the sign Pisces. The Saxons called February sprout-kele, by kele meaning the kele-wurt which we now call the colewurt, the greatest pot-wurt in time long past that our ancestors used, and the broth made therewith was thereof also called kele; for before we borrowed from the French the name of potage, and the name of herbe, the one in our owne language was called kele, and the other wurt; and as this kele-wurt, or potage-hearbe, was the chiefe winter-wurt for the sustenance of the

husbandman, so it was the first hearbe that in this moneth began to yeeld out wholsome young sprouts, and consequently gave thereunto the name of sproutkele.'-(Verstegan, p. 59.)

Shakspeare, in allusion to this month, says,
You have such a February face,

Full of frost, of storm, and cloudiness.

Remarkable Days.

2.-PURIFICATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY. THIS festival is held to commemorate the Presentation of Christ in the Temple; for it was a precept of the Mosaic law, that every first-born son should be holy unto the Lord. They were to attend on the service of the Temple or Tabernacle, or to make an offering of money, or a sacrifice. The mother also was obliged to separate herself forty days from the congregation after the birth of a male, and eighty after a female; and then was to present a lamb, if in good circumstances, or a pair of pigeons, if poor. And all these ceremonies were complied with after the birth of our Saviour. This festival is of high antiquity, and the antient Christians observed it by using a great number of lights; in remembrance, as it is supposed, of our blessed Saviour's being declared by Simeon, to be a light to lighten the Gentiles. This practice continued in England till the second year of Edward the Sixth, when Archbishop Cranmer forbade it by order of the then privy council. And hence the name of Candlemas Day. The Greeks call this festival Hypante, which signifies the meeting, because Simeon and Anna met our Lord in the Temple on this day.

The candles carried about on this day were blessed by the priests, as Hospinian' tells us, who gives the

The original is in Latin, and commences thus:- Domine Jesu, benedicus, obsecro, &c. &c.