and the deepness of the waters, and extensiveness of the fens which encompassed it, rendered it very difficult of access; so that nature seemed to have formed it for solitude and contemplation."

But Etheldreda was not doomed to live for a long time in this recluse state; another husband was in reserve for her, and, however unwilling she might be to enter again into connubial bonds, she was, after much persuasion from King Ethelwolf, married to Prince Egfrid, at York, with great pomp and solemnity. Egfrid was not more than fifteen or sixteen years old. In the year 670, Oswy, the father of this young man, died, and Etheldreda was now queen of the greatest of the Saxon kings. Her exalted station, however, made no change in her sentiments, and she solicited permission from her husband to retire into a monastery; who, wearied with her importunities, at last granted her request, and she accordingly took the veil at Coldingham Abbey, in Yorkshire, over which Ebba, the king's aunt, then presided. After some time, Egfrid was advised to take his wife by force from this retirement; but the queen being informed of it, fled into the Isle of Ely, where, in the year 673, she founded the conventual church of Ely, with the adjoining convent. Of this monastery she was constituted abbess, the monks and nuns living in society and regular order: it flourished for nearly two hundred years, but was destroyed, with its inhabitants, by the Danes, in 870. In Bentham's History of Ely, (4to, Lond. 1771, pp. 46-59) from which the above narrative has been collected, there are three curious plates relative to St. Etheldreda. The first (Plate VIII) is the effigies of the saint, in which she is pourtrayed with a pastoral staff in one hand, and is looking earnestly on a book which lies open in the other. The second (Plate IX) represents her marriage with Egfrid, and the ceremony of her taking the veil. The third (Plate X) contains the history of some miraculous events which happened

to Etheldreda in her travels from York to Ely; particularly the budding of her pilgrim's staff, which she had fixed in the ground while she slept.

18.-SAINT LUKE THE EVANGELIST.

Luke was born at Antioch, the metropolis of Syria, a place celebrated for the study of the liberal arts. He was probably converted by Paul, during his abode at Antioch after visiting Macedonia, he appears to have been a constant companion of his travels and sufferings, and is frequently mentioned as such in the epistles. The notion that Saint Luke was a painter is without foundation, as it is not countenanced by antient writers. Dr. Lardner thinks that he might have been by profession a physician, as the expression beloved physician,' Col. iv, 14, seems to intimate. Luke lived a single life, and died in the 84th year of his age, about the year of Christ 70; probably a natural death, because none of the antient writers say any thing of his martyrdom. Philostorgius informs us, that, in the reign of the Emperor Constantius, the reliques of Saint Luke were translated from Achaia to Constantinople; and, therefore, it must have been a general persuasion in those times that St. Luke had died and had been buried in Achaia.

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25.-ACCESSION OF KING GEORGE III.

Upon the death of George II, his present Majesty came to the throne, on the 22d of September 1760. 25. SAINT CRISPIN.

Two brothers, Crispinus and Crispianus, were born at Rome; whence they travelled to Soissons in France, about the year 303, to propagate the Christian religion. Being desirous, however, of rendering themselves independent, they gained a subsistence by shoe-making. It having been discovered that they privately embraced the Christian faith, and endeavoured to make proselytes of the inhabitants, the governor of the town immediately ordered them to

be beheaded, about the year 308. From this time the shoe-makers chose them for their tutelar saints.

26. PROCLAMATION OF KING GEORGE III.

His present Majesty was proclaimed King on the 26th of October 1760, the day after his accession to the throne.

28. SAINT SIMON AND SAINT JUDE, Apostles.

Simon is called the Canaanite, from the Hebrew word Cana, to be zealous: hence his name of Simon Zelotes, or the Zealot, Luke vi, 15. Simon being invested with the apostolic office, continued with the rest of the apostles till their dispersion, and then applied himself to the execution of his charge. Nicephorus says, that, having received the Holy Spirit, he travelled through Egypt, Cyrene, Mauritania, and Libya. Some traditions mention his visiting Britain, where he continued to preach the Gospel and perform many miracles; and afterwards, enduring various troubles and afflictions, he, with great cheerfulness, suffered death on the cross.

Jude is called both by the name of Thaddeus and Libbæus: Matt. x, 3, and Mark iii, 18. Jude, the brother of James: Jude, verse 1. And Judas, not Iscariot. John xiv, 22. He was of our Lord's' kindred; Is not his mother called Mary, and his brethren James and Joses, and Simon and Judas? Matt. xiii, 55. After our Lord's ascension to heaven, Eusebius says, that Thomas, one of the twelve apostles, despatched Thaddeus, one of the seventy disciples, to Abgarus, Governor of Edessa, where he healed diseases, wrought many miracles, expounded the doctrines of Christianity, and converted Abgarus and his people to the faith, refusing the presents of gold and silver that were offered to him by the governor. Cave observes that he is acknowledged by many writers of the Latin church to have travelled into Persia, where, after great success in his apostolic ministry, he was at last, for a free and open reproof of the superstitious rites of the Magi, cruelly

put to death. He has left one epistle of universal concern addressed to all Christians.

It appears that St. Simon's and St. Jude's Day was accounted rainy as well as St. Swithin's, from the following passage in the old play of the Roaring Girls: 'As well as I know 'twill rain upon Simon and Jude's Day.' See Reed's Old Plays, vol. vi, p. 23. And again: Now a continual Simon and Jude's rain beat all your feathers as flat down as pancakes.' Ibid. p. 31. And we learn from Holinshed that, in 1536, when a battle was appointed to have been fought upon this day between the king's troops and the rebels in Yorkshire, so great a quantity of rain fell upon the eve thereof, as to prevent the battle from taking place.

Astronomical Occurrences.

Of the Origin of the four newly discovered Planets.

THE existence of four planets between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, revolving round the Sun, at nearly the same distances, and differing from all the other planets in their dimnutive size, and in the form and position of their orbits, is acknowledged to be one of the most singular phenomena in the history of astronomy. The discordance of these phenomena with the regularity of the planetary distances, and with the general harmony of the system, naturally suggests the opinion, that the inequalities in this part of the system were produced by some great convulsion, and that the four planets, as we have already hinted, are the fragments of a large celestial body, which once existed between Mars and Jupiter. To suppose them independent planets, as they must necessarily be, if they `did not originally form one, their diminutive size, the great eccentricity and inclination of their orbits, and their numerous intersections, when projected on the

plane of the ecliptic, are phenomena absolutely inexplicable on every principle of science, and subversive of that harmony and order which, before the discovery of these bodies, seemed to pervade the planetary system. Admitting, however, the hypothesis that these planetary bodies are the remains of a larger body, which circulated round the Sun, nearly in the orbit of the greatest fragment, the system resumes its order, and we discover a regular progression in the distances of the planets, and a general harmony in the form and position of their orbits. But independently of analogical reasoning, the elements of the new planets furnish several direct arguments, drawn from the eccentricity and inclination of their orbits, and from the position of their perihelion and nodes; and all concur. ring to show that the four new planets have diverged from one point, and have, therefore, been originally combined in a larger body.

Let us inquire into the consequences that would arise from the bursting of a planet, and endeavour to determine, within certain limits, the form and position of the orbits in which the larger fragments would revolve round the Sun. When the planet is burst in pieces by some internal force capable of overcoming the mutual attraction of the fragments, it is obvious that the larger fragment will receive the least impetus from the explosive force, and will; therefore, circulate in an orbit deviating less than any other of the fragments from the original path of the large planet; while the lesser fragments, being thrown off with greater velocity, will revolve in orbits more eccentric, and more inclined to the ecliptic. The eccentricity of Ceres and Vesta is nearlyth of their mean distance, that of Ceres being the greater: and the eccentricity of Pallas and Juno is 4th of their mean distance, the eccentricity of the former being rather the largest. Hence we should expect, from the theory, that Pallas and Juno would be smaller than Ceres and Vesta, and that Ceres should be the larger fragment,