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to have planted Christianity, and to have become Bishop of Paris. But Mons. Launoy, a learned doctor of the Sorbonne (to mention no other), has unanswerably proved Dionysius of Athens, and St. Denis of France, or Paris, to have been distinct persons.'

For an account of the immense treasures contained in the Abbey Church of St. Denis, near Paris, see T. T. for 1819, p. 247; and reflections on its past and present state in our volume for 1818, p. 250.

11.-OLD MICHAELMAS DAY,

Still observed as the quarter day in many places, and as the end of one year, and beginning of another, in hiring servants.-See Sept. 29, p. 234.

13.-TRANSLATION OF KING EDWARD the

CONFESSOR.

He was the youngest son of King Ethelred; but as all his elder brothers were either dead, or had fled away, he succeeded to the crown of England in the year 1042. He collected all the most useful laws made by the Saxon and Danish kings. The additional title of Confessor was probably given him by. the pope, for settling what was then called Rome Scot, but now is better known by the name of Peter's Pence. For some pretty lines on this subject, see T. T. for 1815, p. 281.

*15. 1400'.-JOHN GOWER, POET, died,

Not long after this day; 'he, who lieth buried in St. Mary Överie's church or St. Mary's on the bank in Southwarke. He new builded a great parte of that church, and compiled three famous books. The firste in Latine, Vox Clamantis; the seconde in Frenche, Speculum Meditantis; the thirde in English, Confessio Amantis, which is in prynte.' (Summarie of English Chronicles.) Our learned antiquarian Leland tells us, that this John Gower was of the Knightly Order,

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Ritson, in his Bibliographia Poetica, says 1402.

and born in Yorkshire: that he was a lawyer by profession, and laboured much in poetry, and was the first polisher of his own country language, which before his time lay uncultivated, and almost quite rude: that he wrote many things in English, not only in verse, but also in prose, which were read with pleasure by the learned even in his time, the reign of K. Henry VIII. He flourished in King Richard II's reign, to whom he dedicated his works; and, when he was blind, presented to him his Song in Praise of Peace. He was an intimate friend and acquaintance of that eminent poet Geoffery Chaucer, as he shows in this book, and used to submit his lu`cubrations to his judgment, as Chaucer did his Loves of Troilus to the censure and correction of Gower and Strode.'-(Lewis's Life of W. Caxton, p. 80.)

17.-SAINT ETHELDREDA.

She was a princess of distinguished piety, daughter of Anna, King of the East-Angles, and Hereswitha his queen, and was born about the year 630, at Ixning, a small village in Suffolk. 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.—See T. T. for 1814, p. 255. 18. SAINT LUKE THE EVANGELIST.

Luke was born at Antioch, the metropolis of Syria, a place celebrated for the study of the liberal arts. The notion that he 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.

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*19. 1682.-SIR THOMAS BROWNE died, Author of Vulgar Errors,' Religio Medici,' Urn-Burial,' &c. The works of Browne are a never-failing treasury; to which the divine may resort for passages of fervent piety, the philosopher for deep inquiry into nature, and the poet for flights of sublimity and grandeur. Browne's first work was his Religio Medici,' a work written in the full vigour of his faculties, when his fancy was at the highest, which, rendered still more eccentric by his original way of thinking, imbrowned by learning, and deepened by enthusiasm, communicated to every subject which it touched upon, all the attractions of paradoxical subtlety, and fantastic and often highly impressive sublimity. From this work we select the following beautiful passage on' Sleep :'

'We term sleep a death, and yet it is waking that kills us and destroys those spirits that are the house of life. "Tis, indeed, a part of life that best expresseth death, for every man truly lives so long as he acts his nature, or some way makes good the faculties of himself: Themistocles, therefore, that slew his soldier in his sleep, was a merciful executioner; 'tis a kind of punishment the mildness of no laws hath invented (I wonder the fancy of Lucan and Seneca did not discover it). It is that death by which we may be literally said to die daily; a death which Adam died before his mortality, a death whereby we live a middle and moderating point between life and death. In fine, so like death, I dare not trust it without my prayers and an half adieu unto the world, and take my farewel in a colloquy with God.

The night is come, like to the day,
Depart not thou, great God, away;
Let not my sins, black as the night,
Eclipse the lustre of thy light.

Keep still in my horizon, for to me
The sun makes not the day, but thee.
Thou, whose nature cannot sleep,
On my temples centry keep;

Guard me 'gainst those watchful foes
Whose eyes are open while mine close.
Let no dreams my head infest,
But such as Jacob's temples blest:
While I do rest, my soul advance,
Make my sleep a holy trance,
That I may, my rest being wrought,
Awake into some holy thought,
And with as active vigour run
My course, as doth the nimble sun.
Sleep is a death! O, make me try,
By sleeping, what it is to die;
And as gently lay my head
On my grave, as now my bed.
Howe'er I rest, great God, let me
Awake again, at last, with thee;
And, thus assured, behold I lie
Securely, or to wake or die.
These are my drowsie days, in vain
I do now wake to sleep again.

O come that hour, when I shall never

Sleep again, but wake for ever!

This is the dormitive I take to bedward; I need no other laudanum than this to make me sleep, after which I close mine eyes in security, content to take my leave of the sun, and sleep unto the resurrection."-Religio Medici, pp. 42, 43.

25.-SAINT CRISPIN. Crispinus and Crispianus, two brothers, 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 shoemaking. It having been discovered that they privately embraced the Christian faith, and endea

'There is an excellent life of Sir Thomas Browne, by Dr. Johnson, in his Works, vol. xii. See also pp. 72-73 of the present volume.

voured 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 shoemakers chose them for their tutelar saints. There is a curious anecdote relative to this day in T. T. for 1816, p. 291..

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 Zelotės, or the Zealot, Luke vi, 15. After enduring various troubles and afflictions, he, with great cheerfulness, suffered death on the cross.

Jude is called both by the name of Thaddæus 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 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 to Christians.

Astronomical Occurrences

In OCTOBER 1821.

SOLAR PHENOMENA.

THE Sun enters Scorpio at 47 m. after 5 in the afternoon of the 23d of this month; and he rises and sets during the same period as in the following

TABLE

Of the Sun's Rising and Setting for every fifth Day.

October 1st, Sun rises 12 m. after 6.

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Sets 48 m. past 5

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