for them their coach; but it being so late, I doubted what to do how to get them home. After half an hour's stay in the street, I sent my wife home by coach with Mr. Creed's boy; and myself and Creed in the coach home with them. But, oh! the fear that my Lady Paulina was in every step of the way: and indeed at this time of the night it was no safe thing to go that road; so that I was even afraid myself, though I appeared otherwise. We come safe, however, to their house; where we knocked them up, my Lady and all the family being in bed. So put them into doors; and leaving them with the maids, bade them good night.'

Saint Alban suffered martyrdom at Verulam, now St. Alban's, in 303. A splendid abbey was founded in memory of the martyr, A.D. 795, by Offa, King of the Mercians.

*18.—BATTLE OF WATERLOO.

It was the Veteran's yearly holiday;

I called,-my annual wont,-and found him drest
In all the pride of by-gone soldiership:

There was the gorget, and the feather gay,
The whitened sword-belt, o'er the scarlet vest;
And the old sabre, war-notched in his grip;
And honour's orders on his heaving breast.
We drank some toasts together, which did seem
To make the beverage nectar sweet to quaff:
Anon the warrior, as in wildest dream,
Would shout out Victory! and wave his staff,
And tears would mingle with his loudest laugh.
It was no marvel; o'er his mem❜ry flew
Visions of former days,-of WATERLOO!

A. M. TEMPLETON, JUN.

20.—TRANSLATION OF EDWARD, King of W. Saxons. Edward was first buried at Wareham; but, three years afterwards, his body was removed to Shrewsbury, and there interred with great pomp.

21.-LONGEST DAY.

This day is, in London, 16 h. 34 m. 5 s., allowing 9 m. 16s. for refraction.

Oh, what a fearful ebb and flow
Of versatile existence there has been,
Since Egypt and the cities of the plain,
Babylon, Macedon, and Rome,

Tower, Temple, Obelisk, and Dome,
All went down to the dust!

Il Pastore Incantato.

The longest day, equally with the shortest, affords matter for serious reflection. Life, with its morning of infancy, its noon of manhood, and its night of age, is, at best, but one long day,-and 'death on the pale horse' strikes his unerring dart; regardless, equally, of the smiles of summer, or of the frowns of winter :-some writhing under disease, he kills with a thousand deaths, while others he summons at once to their account. 'Yet no man,' says Quevedo, dies suddenly, for death surprises no one, but gives all sufficient warning and notice. Do you complain of sudden death, that have carried death about you ever since you were born; that have been entertained with daily spectacles of carcases and funerals; that have heard so many sermons upon subject, and read so many books upon the frailty of life and the certainty of death? Are you not sensible, that every moment you live, brings you nearer to your end? Your clothes wear out; your woods and your houses decay; and yet you hope that your bodies shall be immortal'! What are the common

'Man? and for ever? wretch! what wouldst thou have?
Heir urges heir, like wave impelling wave.
All vast possessions (just the same the case,
Whether you call them villa, park, or chase):
Alas, my Bathurst! what will they avail?
Join Cotswould hills to Saperton's fair dale,
Let rising granaries and temples here,
There mingled farms and pyramids appear,
Link towns to towns with avenues of oak,
Inclose whole downs in walls, 'tis all a joke!
Inexorable DEATH shall level all,

the

And trees, and stones, and farms, and farmers fall.'
HORACE, Ep. ii, imitated by POPE.

accidents and diseases of life, but so many warnings to provide yourself for a remove? You have death at your table, in your daily food and nourishment, for your life is maintained by the death of other creatures; and you have the lively picture of it every night in your bedfellow. With what face, then, can you charge your misfortune upon sudden death, who have spent your whole life, both at bed and board, among so many remembrances of your mortality? No, no; change your style, and hereafter confess yourselves to have been careless and incredulous. You die, thinking you are not to die yet, and forgetting that death grows upon you, and goes along with you, from one end of your life to the other, without distinction of person or age, sex or quality, and whether it find you well or ill doing:-as the tree falls, so it lies.'

24.-SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST and MIDSUMMER

DAY.

The nativity of St. John the Baptist is celebrated by the Christian church on this day, because he was the Forerunner of our blessed Lord, and, by preaching the doctrine of repentance, prepared the way for the gospel. See our last volume, p. 160.

At Magdalen College, Oxford, a sermon was formerly preached every year, on this day, in the Stone Pulpit in the Quadrangle, which was built upon the site of the dissolved Hospital of St. John. The walls were adorned with boughs and flowers, and the ground was covered with green rushes and grass; the whole being intended to commemorate the preaching of St. John in the Wilderness. DR. PHANUEL BACON preached the last sermon in the stone-pulpit; upon which occasion it was facetiously observed by one of the collegians present, that they had had not only an excellent sermon, but had also been treated with the substantial fare of bacon and greens.

'At Westchester, on St. John Baptist's Eve, (ob

serves Mr. Aubrey) they bring a multitude of young birch-trees, and place before their dores to wither. Also, I remember (says our antiquary) the mayds (specially the cooke-mayds and dayry-mayds) would stick up in some chinks of the house, Midsommer Men, which are slips of orpine; they placed them by pairs; that is, one for such a man, the other for such a mayd, his sweet heart; and accordingly as the orpine did incline to, or recline from the other, that there would be love or aversion: if either did wither, death.'-Aubrey MS., A.D. 1686.

There was formerly a custom on Midsummer Eve at Burford, in Oxfordshire, of making a dragon yearly, and carrying it up and down the streets in great jollity, &c.-Kennett MS.

*25. CURIOUS CUSTOM AT ST. MARY-AT-HILL,

LONDON.

There is this solemn and charitable custom in ye ch. of St. Mary-Hill, London. On the next Sunday after Midsummer-Day, every year, the fellowship of the Porters of ye city of London, time out of mind, come to this church in ye morning, and whilst the Psalms are reading, they go up two and two towards the rails of ye communion table, where are set two basons; and there they make their offering, and so return to the body of ye church again. After them the inhabitants of ye parish and their wives, and others also then at church, make their offering likewise, and the money so offered is given to the poor decrepit Porters of the said fellowship for their better subsistence.'-Mr. Newcomb's MS. Collect., cited by Bp. Kennett.

29.-SAINT PETER.

The festival in honour of this apostle was instituted in the year 813. Hegesippus, Eusebius, and other early historians, say that he was crucified with his head downwards. Of the Cock Mass, as celebrated in Colombia, Captain Cochrane gives the following account.

At midnight a curious custom of the Roman Catholic church was performed, called the Cock Mass, in commemoration of the crowing of the cock which took place on Peter's denial of Christ. When the curate commences the service, the people imitate and mock his gesture, tone of voice, and manner of reading; make all kinds of noise-shouting, bawling, hooting, and imitating the crowing of the cock, with every possible exertion of lungs; the whole forming an exhibition most deafening to the ear, and perfectlyridiculous to the eye. There is another church service, quite as ludicrous and preposterous, on the day of celebrating the Rending of the Veil of the Temple, when our Saviour gave up the ghost. The people have large hammers, with which they beat the benches, and have sheets of tin, &c. which they shake, to imitate the noise of thunder as nearly as possible. An English colonel, in the republican service, on this occasion thought he could add to the scene, by imitating the English foxhunter's tallyho, which he did with so much strength and clearness of lungs, as quite to exceed any noise of other persons; and gained by it so much of the curate's good will, who imagined that his religion was in proportion to the vehemence of his utterance, that after the service he came to him, and, seizing his hand, thanked him most cordially for his kind addition to the devotion of the night.'

*30. 1825.-REV. HENRY KETT DIED, ÆT. 64. About noon, of this day, the weather being hot, he proceeded to take a cold bath, when it is supposed that, venturing out of his depth, he was seized with cramp, and sank to rise no more. He was the author of Bampton Lectures,' which appeared in 1792; and of two excellent works, viz. History the Interpreter of Prophecy,' 1798, and Elements of General Knowledge,' 2 vols. 8vo, a ninth edition of which has just appeared. For a list of Mr. Kett's other works and an interesting biographical sketch, see the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xcv, pt. ii, p. 184.