the attack, hurled an impetuous defiance that kindled as it flew, and consumed the insulting defamer, though he were ensconced behind countless quarterings, or ermined and enthroned. To the constant calumny of jealous rivalry, and the daily lie of envy and enmity, he was utterly indifferent. When asked why he did not resent the aspersions incessantly poured upon him by one of his assailants, he answered "He who contends with the worthless can gain nothing worth possessing."

sudden

He

Michael Angelo's temper was and quick;" but his nature was kind and benevolent. Inferior artists frequently experienced his friendly disposition. sometimes made drawings and modelled for them. To Minigella, a very indifferent hand, he gave the model of a crucifix beautifully executed, from which the poor

fellow formed a mould and made casts

of papier mache to sell to the country people. Friendship and esteem for particular individuals oftener induced him to undertake works than proffers of large sums. Yet he was not indifferent or in sensible to a just estimation of his talents when they were undervalued. For Angelo Doni, a Florentine of taste, he painted a holy family, and sent it home with a note requiring seventy ducats for it. Doni told the messenger he thought forty were enough; Michael replied by demanding the picture or a hundred; Doni said he was willing to pay the seventy; Michael demanded a hundred and forty, and Doni paid the sum.

To

He honoured worthy men in every station. His purse was open to their necessities; he condoled with them in their afflictions, and lightened their oppressions by his sympathies and influence. artists and men of talent his liberality was munificent. He neither loved money nor accumulated it. His gifts were the free-will offerings of his heart, and hence its dispensations were unaccompanied by a notoriety which sullies the purity of primary obligation, by exposing the nakedness of its object.

This

reply. "Poor fellow," said Michael, "thou shalt not need another master," and he gave him two thousand crowns. was a large sum in those days: Vasari says such a donation would only have been expected from popes and great emperors. Michael afterwards procured him an appointment in the Vatican to take care of the pictures, with a monthly salary of six ducats; and preserving his regard for the old man, Michael, though at that time eighty-two years of age, sat up with him by night in his last illness. "His death has been a heavy loss to me," he wrote to Vasari, "and the cause of excessive grief, but it has also been a most im pressive lesson of the grace of God: for it has shown me, that he, who in his lifetime comforted me in the enjoyment of life, dying has taught me how to die; not with reluctance, but even with a desire of death, He lived with me twenty-six years, grew rich in my service, and I found him a

Inost rare and faithful servant; and now

that I calculated upon his being the staff and repose of my old age he is taken away, and has left me only the hope of seeing him again in paradise."

Michael Angelo was never married. To one who lamented that he had no children to inherit his property, Michael answered, "My works must supply their place; and if they are good for any thing they will live hereafter. It would have been unfortunate for Lorenzo Ghiberti, had he not left the doors of S. Giovanni, for his sons and his nephews have long since sold and dissipated his accumulated wealth; but his sculpture remains, and will continue to record his name to future ages." These "doors" were of bronze. When Michael was asked his opinion of them, he said they were fit to be the doors of paradise.

This zodiacal sign is said to symbolize the fishery of the Nile, which usually tommenced at this season of the year. According to an ancient fable, it represents Venus and Cupid, who, to avoid Typhon, a dreadful giant with a hundred heads, transformed themselves into fish This fabulous monster, it seems, threw the whole host of heathen deities into confusion. His story shortly is, that as soon as he was born, he began to avenge the death of his brethren, the giants who had warred against Olympus, by resuming the conflict alone. Flames of fire darted from his eyes and mouths; he uttered horrid yells, and so frightened the pagan celestials, that Jupiter himself became a

ram, Juno a cow, Mercury an idis, Apollo a crow, Bacchus a goat, Diana a cat, Venus a fish, &c. till Jupiter hurled a rock and buried him under Etna. The idol Dagon, with a human head and arms, and a fish's tail, is affirmed to be the symbol of the sun in Pisces, and to allegorize that the earth teems with corn and fruits.

The sun generally enters Pisces about the period of February; for instance, in 1824 on the 16th, in 1825 on the 18th of the month. The Romans imagined that the entrance of the sun into Pisces was attended by bad weather, and gales of uncertainty to the mariner.* Thomson sings, that in this month

for the encouragement of learning, extended only to the authors, purchasers, or proprietors of the copy-right of any book in English, published after the 10th of April,1710, and allowed the importation or vending of any books in foreign language printed beyond the seas; so that any books, first compiled and printed in this kingdom in any of those languages, might be reprinted abroad and sold in this kingdom, to the great damage of the first printer or proprietor: he therefore prayed, that he might be allowed the same benefit in his copy of the "History of Thuanus," in Latin, for fourteen years. Leave was given to bring in the bill, and it after wards passed into an act.

The protection of this excellent work was a justice due to the spirit and liberality of Mr. Buckley. He had been John Dunton

originally a bookseller.

says of him, "He is an excellent linguist, understands the Latin, French, Dutch, and Italian languages, and is master of a great deal of wit: he prints the Daily Courant,' and 'Monthly Register,' which, I hear, he translates out of the foreign papers himself:"-a great merit, it should seem, in the eyes of old Dunton.

Mr. Buckley was a really learned printer. The collections for his edition of Thuanus were made by Carte, who

had fled to France from an accusation of high treason, during the rebellion of 1715 and while in that country possessed himself of so many materials for the purpose, that he consulted Dr. Mead, the celebrated physician, and patron of literary men, concerning the undertaking. By the doctor's recommendation, it was intrusted to Mr. Buckley, who imported the paper for it, which, with the materials, cost him 2,3501. He edited the work with fidelity, and executed it with elegance.

Mr. Buckley was the publisher of the Spectator," which appeared in folio from his shop at the Dolphin in Little Britain, a place then filled with booksellers. At the close of the seventh volume this popular work was suspended, but resumed by Buckley in Amen-corner. He attained to opulence and respectability, was in the commission of the peace for Middlesex, and died, greatly esteemed, on the 8th of September, 1741, in the sixty-eighth year of his age .*

It is related of the great lord chancellor

Mr. Nichols's Lit. Anecdotes.

Hardwicke, that he so highly regarded "Thuanus's History," as to have resigned the seals for the express purpose of being enabled to read it in the original language.*

It has been computed that a person who gave his attention to this work for four hours every day, would not finish the perusal in twelve months. It comprehends the events of sixty-four years, during the times wherein Thuanus lived and flourished as an eminent French author and statesman. His English biographer quotes, as a character of his writings, that, "in a word, they are calculated to render those who attend to them better and wiser men."+

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Wall Speedwell. Veronica vivensis. Dedicated to St. Simeon of Jerusalem.

February 19.

St. Barbatus, or Barbas, Bp. A. D. 682.

which city he was bishop. Butler relates This saint is patron of Benevento, o' no miracle of him, nor does it appear from him that any other name in the calendar of the Romish church is affixed to this day.

THE SEASON.

A pretty trifle from the Greek is de scriptive of appearances about this pe riod:

To a Lady on her Birthday

See amidst the winter's cold,

Tender infant of the spring;
See the rose her bud unfold,

Every sweet is on the wing.

Hark! the purple flow'ret cries,

'Tis for thee we haste away,
'Tis for thee we brave the skies,
Smiling on thy natal day,

Soon shalt thou the pleasure prove,
Which awaits on virtuous love

Place us 'midst thy flowing hair,

Where each lovely grace prevails,
Happier we to deck the fair,

Than to wait the vernal gales.

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Field Speedwell. Veronica agrestia. Dedicated to St. Barbatus.

Bibliog. Dict.

† Mr. Collinson's Life of Thuanus,

February 20.

St. Tyrannio, Bp. &c. A. D. 310. Sts. Sadoth, Bp. &c. A. D. 342. St. Eleutherius, Bp. a. D. 532. St. Mildred, Abbess. St. Eucherius, Bp. A. D. 743. St. Ulrick.

St. Mildred.

This saint was the first abbess of Minster, in the isle of Thanet, founded by king Egbert about 670, in satisfaction for having murdered his two nephews, Etheldred and Ethelbright; to which satisfaction he was "miraculously terrified, by seeing a ray of bright light dart from the heavens upon their grave." In 1033, her remains were removed to St. Augustine's monastery at Canterbury, and venerated above all the relics there, and worked miracles, as all saints' relics did in those favoured times. The churches of St. Mildred, Bread-street, and St. Mildred in the Poultry, London, are dedicated to her.*

In St. Mildred's church in the Poultry, Thomas Tusser, whose "Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandrie" have been cited in former pages of this work, was buried, and on his tomb this

EPITAPH.

Here THOMAS TUSSER, clad in earth, doth lie, That sometime made

The pointes of Husbandrie : By him then learne thou maist; here learne we inust, When all is done, we sleepe, and turne to dust: And yet, through Christ,

to Heaven we hope to goe; Who reades his bookes,

shall find his faith was so.t

St. Ulrick.

Of this saint, who died the 28th of February, 1154, Butler says little.

"THE FLOWERS of the LIVES of the most renowned SAINCTS of the three kingdoms, England, Scotland, and Ireland, written and collected out of the best authours and manuscripts of our nation, and distributed according to their feasts in the calendar, By THE R. FATHER, HIEROME PORTER, Priest and Monke og the holy order of Sainct Benedict, of the Congregation of England, Printed at

Butler's Lives of the Saints. • Stow.

DOWAY with licence, and approbation of the Ordinary, M.Dc.xxxII," relates of this saint, that he was born in a village called Lenton, or Litton, near Bristol, with many marvels concerning him, and among them this-He became a priest, but kept hawks and dogs for sport, till he met a beggar who asked alms. Ulrick said, he did not know whether he had aught to bestow : "Look in thy purse," quoth the beggar, "and there thou shalt find twopence halfpenny." Ulrick finding as he was told, received thanks, and a prophecy that he should become a saint, whereupon he starved and hermitized at Hessleborough, in Dorsetshire, about thirty miles from Exeter. "The skin only sticking to his bones," his daintiest food was oaten-bread and water-gruel. He passed many nights without sleep, never slept but when he could not keep awake, and never went to bed, “but, leaning his head to a wall, he tooke a short allowance;" and when he awoke, "he would much blame and chastise his body, as yielding vnto ouermuch nicenesse." His pillow was ropes of hay, his clothing poor, and lined next the skin with a rough shirt of hair-cloth, till his flesh having overcome its uneasiness, he wore next his skin an iron coat of mail. In the sharpest cold of winter, having first put off his iron shirt, he was wont to get into a vessel of cold water and recite psalms. His coat of mail hanging below his knees, he went to the knight who gave it to him, to take counsel therein. His military adviser persuaded him to send it to London to be cut; but he gave the knight "a payre of sheares." The knight hesitated, the other entreated. "The one falls to his prayers, the other endeavours with iron and steale to cut iron and steale, when both their labours tooke prosperous effect; for the knight, in his cutting worke, seemed rather to divide a piece of cloath than a peece of iron." Then the saint, "without any sheeres, pulled asunder the little rings of that part of his coate cutt off, and distributed them charitably to all that desired, by virtue whereof manie diseases were cured." Envying such rare goodness, an infernal spirit, in most horrible shape, dragged him into the church, and ran him round the pave ment, till the apparition of a virgin stopped this rude behaviour; however, the infernal took advantage of the saint when he was sick, and with a staff he had in his hand gave him three knocks on the head, and departed. The devil tormented him other