Shakespeare thus describes its fancified metamorphosis :

That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,
Flying between the cold Moon and the Earth,
Cupid all armed: a certain aim he took,
At a fair Vestal, throned by the West,
And loosed his loveshaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts:
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft

Quenched in the chaste beams of the watery Moon,
And the imperial votress passed on,

In maiden meditation, fancy free.

Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell,

It fell upon a little western flower;

Before milk white, now purple with Love's wound,
And Maidens call it Love in Idleness.

This plant continues to flower all the Spring and great part of the Summer.

St. Eulalia, celebrated in the calendar today, is Patroness of Barcelona, where her reliques are preserved: she died on the rack a virgin martyr in the persecution of Dioclesian.

St. Miletius was Patriarch of Antioch, where his memory is held in the highest veneration.

MOVEABLE FEASTS.-In years when the moveable Feasts happen early, Shrovetide and Ash Wednesday, and their consequent Feasts, occur about this time. On Shrove Tuesday a Bell rings in many Parishes at noon to admonish people to put on their Pancakes; and this is called the Pancake Bell. Infernal cruelties used to be practised towards Cocks on this day, which were put an end to at one village in England, in consequence, as Time's Telescope informs us, of the following lines being stuck up in the School Room of the Parish:

On Cruelty to Animals.

A Man of kindness to his beast is kind,

But brutal actions show a brutal mind:

Remember, He who made thee, made the brute;
Who gave thee speech and reason, formed him mute:
He can't complain, but God's allseeing eye

Beholds thy cruelty-He hears his cry.

He was designed thy servant, not thy drudge;

And know,--that his CREATOR is thy JUDGE!

On Ash Wednesday.-Formerly Lent began on the Sunday after Quinquagesima, i. e. our first Sunday in Lent, and ended at Easter, containing in all 42 days; and subtracting the six Sundays which are not fasts, there remained only 36 fasting days, the tenth part of 360, the number of days in the ancient year, then considered as a tythe of the year consecrated to God's service. To these 36 fasting days, however, of the Old Lent, Gregory added four days more, to render it equal to the time of our Saviour's fasting,

causing it to begin on Ash Wednesday, three days after Quinquagesima; and thus it has remained ever since. Lent is not of apostolic institution, nor was it known in the earliest ages of the Christian church.

The Cock was formerly styled, in an old song on the vile practice of cock throwing, The Shrovetide Martyr.-See Brand's Pop. Antiq. by Ellis, vol. i. p. 68.

February 13. St. Catherine de Ricci, V. St. Polyeuctus. IDUS Fauni et Jovis festum. Fabiorum caedes.-Rom. Cal.

FLORA.

POLYANTHUS Primula Polyantha begins to flower and show many beautiful varieties through the remainder of the Spring.

CHRONOLOGY.-Revolution in 1688.
HYGAEA.-The ancients guarded us against colds at

this time.

Verses from Gay.

When soft eyed Virgin near his window came,
His labour rests, his forge forgets to flame.
To hear his soothing tales, she feigns delays;
What woman can resist the force of praise?

At first she coyly every kiss withstood,
And all her cheek was flushed with modest blood;
With headless nails he now surrounds her shoes,
To save her steps from rains and piercing dews.
She liked his soothing tales, his presents wore,
And granted kisses, but would grant no more.
Yet Winter chilled her feet, with cold she pines,
And on her cheek the fading rose declines;
No more her humid eyes their lustre boast,
And in hoarse sounds her melting voice is lost.
Thus then he saw, and in his heavenly thought
A new machine mechanic fancy wrought,
Above the mire her sheltered steps to raise,
And bear her safely through the wintery ways.
Straight the new engine on his anvil glows,
And the pale Virgin on the patten rose.

No more her lungs are shook with dropping rheums,
And on her cheek reviving beauty blooms.
The god obtained his suit: though flattery fail,
Presents with female virtue must prevail.

The patten now supports each frugal dame,

Which from some blue eyed Patty took the name.

The Romans celebrated the Festival of Faunus today: the same day was celebrated the destruction of the Fabii. Thus Ovid:

:

Idibus agrestus fumant altaria Fauni,

Hic ubi discretas insula rumpit aquas,
Haec fuit illa dies in qua venientibus arvis,
Ter centum Fabii ter cecidere duo.

Horace commends his Villa, in his Ode Ad Tyndaridem, because Faunus frequented it :

Velox amoenum saepe Lucretilem
Mutat Lyaeo Faunus: et igneam
Defendit aestatem capellis

Usque meis, pluviosque ventos.

Tomorrow being St. Valentine's day, the vulgar believe that the first two single persons who meet in the morning may have a chance of becoming pairs. Jacob Cats, the Dutch author of the celebrated Spigel Book of Emblems, however, prefers choosing a wife by more certain means, and looking to the breed instead of consulting luck-Qualis mater talis filia.

Nosse cupris qualis tibi virgo futura sit uxor?
Matris ad ingeniam respice, certus eris.-Cats' Spigel.

February 14. ST. VALENTINE, P. M. St. Maro. Corvus, Crater, et Anguis oriuntur.-Rom. Cal.

FLORA. YELLOW SPRING CROCUS Crocus Maesiacus blows.

The first Crocuses are the deep yellow or luteous coloured it is the plant figured in Curtis's Botanical Magazine, ii. 45. The other sorts follow in succession.

:

St. Valentine's Day has for many years been imagined the day wherein birds pair, and for that reason has been considered ominous to lovers; so that billet doux sent on this day have received whimsically the cognomen of the Saint. The various customs practised on this day are best expressed in some of our popular songs. Wheatly, in his illustrations of the Common Prayer, states St. Valentine to have been a man of so much love and charity, that from thence arose the amorous divinations practised on his Feast Day.

Specimen of an ancient Valentine.

Ir is the hour of morning's prime,
The young day of the year,
The day of days before the time
When brighter hopes appear.

It is the time of early love
When suns but faintly shine;
It is the day, all days above,
The sweet St. Valentine!

The cold snows on the meadows lie,
And not a leaf is green,

Yet here and there in yonder sky
A gleam of light is seen.

So Love, young Love, 'mid storms and snow
Darts forth a light divine;

So darker days the brightness show

Of thine, St. Valentine!

Written on Valentine's Morning, from Dodsley's Miscellanies.
HARK! through the sacred silence of the night
Loud Chanticleer doth sound his clarion shrill,
Hailing with song the first pale gleam of light
Which floats the dark brow of yon Eastern hill.
Bright Star of Morn, oh! leave not yet the wave
To deck the dewy frontlet of the Day;
Nor thou, Aurora, quit Tithonus' cave,
Nor drive retiring darkness yet away.

Ere these my rustic hands a garland twine,
Ere yet my tongue endite a single song,
For her I mean to hail my Valentine,
Sweet maiden, fairest of the virgin throng.
Bishop Hall writes of this Saint thus:-

Now play the Satyre whoso list for me,
Valentine's self, or some as chaste as he.

Gay begins a description of a Valentine's morning exploit thus :

Last Valentine, the day when birds of kind
Their paramours with mutual chirping find,
I early rose, just at the break of day,
Before the Sun had chased the Stars away.

The rites of this day remind us of the old custom of guessing Sweethearts and of drawing lots for girls, a practice reprobated by St. Francis of Sales, who was aware that Valentine customs originated in the rites instituted in honour of Hymen and of Februata Juno by the Romans.

Óvid, however, notices nothing of this kind in his Fasti, but merely records the rising of certain stars :

Continuata loco tria sidera, Corvus, et Anguis,
Et medius Crater inter utrumque latet.

This is Old Candlemas Day.

February 15. SS. Faustina and Jovita. St. Sigefride, B. FLORA.-OLD CLOTH OF GOLD CROCUS Crocus sulphurius fl. see Bot. Mag. 938.

Lupercalia.-Rom. Cal.

The Lupercalia may be considered a yearly festival held by the Romans in honour of the god Pan. Milton in his

Christmas Hymn very improperly confounds Pan with Jesus Christ in the following lines :

The Shepherds on the Lawn,

Or ere the point of dawn,

Sat sitting chattering in a rustic row,

Full little thought they then

That the mighty Pan

Was kindly come to live with them below.

Many absurd ceremonies took place during the Lupercalia among others two Goats and a Dog were sacrificed, and the blood from the knife was sprinkled on the heads of certain young persons. The skins of the beasts were cut into thongs, with which whips were made, and employed for the festive castigation of persons of both sexes, who considered themselves as honoured by the stripes. Processions of young people, quite naked, took place in the Roman streets; and many other rites, too disgusting to be detailed, were performed. Cicero wrote a Philippic against Antony for running about without his clothes at this feast. See Varro, 1. 5. c. 3. The Priests who officiated were called Luperci, and were esteemed an ancient and most honourable order. Ovid observes of this day :

Tertia post Idus nudos Aurora Lupercos
Adspicit et Fauni sacra bicornis erunt.

Again, in allusion to the Processiones nudorum:

Ipse Deus nudus nudos jubet ire ministros,
Nec satis ad cursus commoda vestis erat.

:

An elaborate inquiry then follows:

Cur nunc praecipuè fugiat velamina Faunus?

Which, with the sequel, may be found in Ovid's Fasti by the classical inquirer, but which must be uninteresting to the general reader.

The superstitious custom of whipping as a religious ceremony was, like many other Heathen customs, transmitted to the Christians in later times. When the gods Pan, Jupiter, Mercury,and others, gave place to the God of the Christians, many of the rites of the former were adopted by the latter. Flagellation, among other things, prevailed to such a degree, and was so systematically practised, that there became a regular order of flagellants, of which the Abbé Boileau, and also M. de Lolme, have written elaborate and instructive histories.

St. Sigefride, celebrated today in the Christian Calendar, was the famous Apostle of Sweden, who founded the early churches there. He did in 1002, and was interred in the church of Wexiow. Many miracles were afterwards per