of a M. Foscue, one of the farmers-general of the province of Languedoc He had amassed considerable wealth by means which rendered him an object of universal detestation. One day he was ordered by the government to raise a considerable sum: as an excuse for not

complying with the demand, he pleaded extreme poverty; and resolved on hiding his treasure in such a manner as to escape detection. He dug a kind of a cave in his wine-cellar, which he made so large and deep, that he used to go down to it with a ladder; at the entrance of it was a door with a spring lock on it, which on shutting would fasten of itself. He was suddenly missed, ar.d diligent search made after him; ponds were drawn, and every suggestion adopted that could reasonably lead to his discovery, dead or alive. In a short time after, his house was sold; and the purchaser beginning to make some al erations, the workmen discovered a door in the wine-cellar with a key in the lock. On going down they found Foscue lying dead on the ground, with a candlestick near him, but no candle in it. On searching farther, they found the vast wealth that he had amassed. It is supposed, that, when he had entered his cave, the door had by some accident shut after him; and thus being out of the call of any person, he perished for want of food, in the midst of his

treasure.

SIGNS OF FOUL WEATHER.
The hollow winds begin to blow;
The clouds look black, the glass is low;
The soot falls down, the spaniels sleep ;
And spiders from their cobwebs pecp.
Last night the sun went pale to bed;
The moon in halos hid her head.
The boding shepherd heaves a sigh,
For, see, a rainbow spans the sky.
The walls are damp, the ditches smell,
Clos'd is the pink-ey'd pimpernel
Hark! how the chairs and tables crack,
Old Betty's joints are on the rack :
Her corns with shooting pains torment her,
And to her bed untimely send her.
Loud quack the ducks, the sea fowl cry,
The distant hills are looking nigh.
How restless are the snorting swine!
The busy flies disturb the kine.

Low o'er the grass the swallow wings
The cricket too, how sharp he sings!
Puss on the hearth, with velvet paws,
Sits wiping o'er her whisker'd jaws.
The smoke from chimneys right ascends
Then spreading, back to carth it bends.

The wind unsteady veers arouna,
Or settling in the South is found.
Through the clear stream the fishes rist,
And nimbly catch the incautious flies.
The glow-worms num'rous, clear and bright,
Illum'd the dewy hill last night.
At dusk the squalid toad was seen,
Like quadruped, stalk o'er the green.
The whirling wind the dust obeys,
And in the rapid eddy plays.
The frog has chang'd his yellow vest,
And in a russet coat is drest.
The sky is green, the air is still,
The mellow blackbird's voice is shrill.
The dog, so alter'd is his taste,
Quits mutton-bones, on grass to feast.
Behold the rooks, how odd their flight
They imitate the gliding kite,
And seem precipitate to fall,
As if they felt the piercing ball.
The tender colts on back do lie,
Nor heed the traveller passing by.
In fiery red the sun doth rise,
Then wades through clouds to mount the
skies.

"Twill surely rain, we see't with sorrow,
No working in the fields to-morrow.

January 14.

Darwin.

OXFORD LENT TERM begins.

St. Hilary.

Sts. Felix. Sts. Isaias and Sabbas. St. Barbasceminus, &c. St. Felix of Nola, an exorcist, and afterwards a priest, was, according to Butler and Ribadeneira, a great miraculist. He lived under Decius, in 250; being fettered and dungeoned in a cell, covered with potsherds and broken glass, a resplendent angel, seen by the saint alone, because to him only was he sent, freed him of his chains and guided him to a mountain, where bishop Maximus, aged and frozen, lay for dead, whom Felix recovered by praying; for, straightway, he saw a bramble bear a bunch of grapes, with the juice whereof he recovered the bishop, and taking him on his back carried him home to his diocese. Being pursued by pagans, he fled to some ruins and crept through a hole in the wall, which spiders closed with their webs before the pagans got up to it, and there lay for six months miraculously supported. According to the Legend, his body, for ages after his death, distilled a liquor that cured diseases.

CHRONOLOGY.

In January, 1784, died suddenly in Macclesfield-street, Soho, aged 79, Šam

Crisp, esq., a relation of the celebrated sir Nicholas Crisp. There was a remarkable singularity in the character of this gentleman. He was a bachelor, had been formerly a broker in 'Change-alley, and many years since had retired from business, with an easy competency. His daily amuseinent, for fourteen years before, was going from London to Greenwich, and immediately returning from thence, in the stage; for which he paid regularly £27 a year. He was a good-humoured, obliging, and facetious companion, always paying a particular attention, and a profusion of compliments, to the ladies, especially to those who were agreeable. He was perpetually projecting some little schemes for the benefit of the public, or, to use his own favourite maxim, pro bono publico; he was the institutor of the Lactarium in St. George's Fields, and selected the Latin mottoes for the facetious Mrs. Henniver, who got a httle fortune there. He projected the mile and half stones round London; and teased the printers of newspapers into the plan of letter-boxes. He was re markably humane and benevolent, and, without the least ostentation, performed many generous and charitable actions, which would have dignified a more a.nple fortune.

THE WINTER ROBIN.

A suppliant to your window comes,
Who trusts your faith, and fears no guile :
He claims admittance for your cruinbs,

And reads his passport in your smile.

For cold and cheerless is the day,

And he has sought the hedges round;
No berry hangs upon the spray,
Nor worm, nor ant-egg, can be found.

Secure his suit will be preferred,

No fears his slender feet deter; For sacred is the household bird That wears the scarlet stomacher. Charlotte Smith.

Decius to a cavern, near which grew a palm-tree, that supplied him with leaves for clothing, and fruit for food, till he was forty-three years of age; after which he was daily fed by a raven till he was ninety, and then died. St. Anthony, in his old age, being tempted by vanity, imagined himself the first hermit, till the contrary was revealed to him in a dream, wherefore, the next morning, he set out in search of St. Paul. "St. Jerome relates from his authors," says Butler, "that he met a centaur, or creature, not with the nature and properties, but with something of the mixt shape of man and horse; and that this monster, or phantom of the devil, (St. Jerome pretends not to determine which it was,) upon his making the sign of the cross, fled away, after pointing out the way to the saint. Our author (St. Jerome) adds, that St. Anthony soon after met a satyr, who gave him to understand that he was an inhabitant of those deserts, and one of the sort whom the deluded gentiles adored for gods." Ribadeneira describes this satyr as with writhed nostrils, two little horns on his forehead, and the feet of a goat. After two days' search, St. Anthony found St. Paul, and a raven brought a loaf, whereupon they took their corporal refection. The next morning, St. Paul told him he was going to die, and bid him fetch a cloak given to St. Anthony by St. Athanasius, and wrap his body in it. St. Anthony then knew, that St. Paul must have been informed of the cloak by revelation, and went forth from the desert to fetch it; but before his return, St. Paul had died, and St. Anthony found two lions digging his grave with their claws, wherein he buried St. Paul, first wrapping him in St. Athanasius's cloak, and preserving, as a great treasure, St. Paul's garment, made of palm-tree leaves, stitched together. How St.Jerome, in his conclusion of St. Paul's life, praises this garment, may be seen in Ribadeneira.

FLOWERS.

A writer, who signs himself " Crito" in the "Truth Teller," No. 15, introduces us to an honest enthusiast, discoursing to his hearers on the snow-drop of the season, and other offerings from Flora, to the rolling year. "Picture to your imagination, a poor, 'dirty' mendicant, of the order of St. Francis, who had long prayed and fasted in his sanctuary, and long laboured in his garden, issuing out on the morning of his first pilgrimage, without money and with

out provisions, clad in his mantle and hood, like a sad votarist in palmer's weeds; and thus, and in these words, taking leave of the poor flock who lived found his gothic habitation.- Fellowmen, I owe you nothing, and I give you all; you neither paid me tithe nor rent, yet I have bestowed on you food and clothing in poverty, medicine in sickness, and spiritual counsel in adversity. That I might do all these things, I have devoted my life in the seclusion of those venerable walls. There I have consulted the sacred books of our church for your spiritual instruction and the good of your souls; to clothe you, I have sold the embroidered garment, and have put on the habit of mendicity. In the intercalary moments of my canonical hours of prayer, I have collected together the treasures of Flora, and gathered from her plants the useful arts of physic, by which you have been benefited. Ever mindful of the useful object of the labour to which I had condemned myself, I have brought together into the garden of this priory, the lily of the valley and the gentian of the mountain, the nymphæa of the lake, and the cliver of the arid bank; in short, I have collected the pilewort, the throatwort, the liverwort, and every other vegetable specific which the kind hand of ature has spread over the globe, and which I have designated by their qualities,

and have converted to your use and benefit. Mindfur also of the pious festivals which our church prescribes, I have sought to make these charming objects of floral nature, the timepieces of my religious calendar, and the mementos of the hastening period of my mortality. Thus I can light the taper to our Virgin Mother on the blowing of the white snowdrop, which opens its floweret at the time of Candlemas; the lady's smock and the daffodil remind me of the Annunciation; the blue harebell, of the festival of St. George; the ranunculus, of the Invention of the Cross; the scarlet lychnis, of St. John the Baptist's day; the white lily, of the Visitation of our Lady and the virgin's bower, of her Assumption; and Michaelmas, Martinmas, Holy Rood and Christmas, have all their appropriate monitors. I learn the time of day from the shutting of the blossoms of the star of Jerusalem and the dandelion, and the hour of the night by the stars."

From kind feelings to the benevolence of the Franciscan mendicant's address, which we may suppose ourselves to have just heard, we illustrate something of his purpose, by annexing the rose, the tulip, and the passion-flower, after an engrav ing by a catholic artist, who has impressed them with devotional monograms, and symbols of his faith.

January 16.

St Marcellus, Pope.

St. Macarius the
elder, of Egypt. St. Honoratus. St.
Fursey. St. Henry, Hermit, &c.
St. Marcellus, Pope.

According to Butler, he was so strict in penance, that the Christians disliked him; he was banished by Maxentius, "for his severity against a certain apostate;" and died pope in 310.

WINTER RAINBOW in Ireland.

In the first of the "Letters from the Irish Islands," in 1823, the writer addresses to his friend, a description of the rainbow on the hills at this season of the year. He says, "I could wish (provided I could ensure you one fine day in the course of the week) that you were here, to enjoy, in rapid succession, and, with all its wild magnificence, the whirlwind, the tempest, the ocean's swell, and, as Burns beautifully

expresses it,

Some gleams of sunshine, 'mid renewing

storms.

To-day there have been fine bright intervals, and, while returning from a hasty ride, I have been greatly delighted with the appearance of a rainbow, gradually advancing before the lowering clouds, sweeping with majestic stride across the troubled ocean, then, as it gained the beach, and seemed almost within my grasp, vanishing amid the storm, of which it had been the lovely, but treacherous, forerunner. It is, I suppose, a consequence of our situation, and the close connection between sea and mountain,that the rainbows here are so frequent, and so peculiarly beautiful. Of an amazing breadth, and with colours vivid beyond description, I know not whether most to admire this aerial phenomenon, when, suspended in the western sky, one end of the bow sinks behind the island of Boffin, while, at the distance of several leagues, the other rests upon the misty hills of Ennis Turc; or when, at a later hour of the day, it has appeared stretched across the ample sides of Mülbrea, penetrating far into the deep blue waters that flow at its base. With feelings of grateful recollection too, we may hail the repeated visits of this heavenly messenger, occasionally, as often as five or six times in the course

of the same day, in a country exposed to such astonishing, and, at times, almost incessant floods of rain."

Behold yon bright, ethereal bow,
With evanescent beauties glow;

The spacious arch streams through the sky,
Deck'd with each tint of nature's dye,
Refracted sunbeams, through the shower,
A humid radiance from it pour ;
Whilst colour into colour fades,
With blended lights and softening shades.
ATHENAUM

"It is a happy effect of extreme mildness and moisture of climate, that most of our hills (in Ireland) are covered with grass to a considerable height, and afford good pasturage both in summer and win

ter.

The grasses most abundant are the dogstail, (cynosurus cristatus,) several fescue, (festuca duriuscula and pratensis,) species of the meadow grass, (poa,) the and particularly the sweet-scented vernal grass, (anthoxanthum odoratum,) which abounds in the dry pastures, and mountain sides; where its withered blossoms, which it is remarkable that the cattle do not eat, give a yellowish brown tint to the whole pasture. Our bog lands are overrun with the couch, or fiorin grass, (agrostis stolonifera,) several other species of the agrostis, and the aira. This is, indeed, the country for a botanist; and one so indefatigable as yourself, would not hesitate to venture with us across the rushy bog, where you would be so well rewarded for the labour of springing from one knot of rushes to another, by meeting with the fringed blossoms of the bog-bean, (menyanthes trifoliata,) the yellow asphodel, (narthecium ossifragum,) the pale bog violet, (viola palustris,) both species of the pinguicula, and of the beautiful drosera, the English fly-trap, spreading its dewy leaves glistening in the sun. I could also point out to you, almost hid in the moist recesses of some dripping rock, the pretty miniature fern, (trichomanes Tunbridgensis,) which u may remember showing me for the first time at Tunbridge Wells: the osmunda lunaria and regalis are also to be found, with other ferns, mosses, and lichens, which it is far beyond my botanica) skill to distinguish.-The man of science, to whatever branch of natural history his attention is directed, will indeed find

never-failing sources of gratification, in exploring paths, hitherto almost untrodden, in our wild country. Scarcely a county in England is without its peculiar Flora, almost every hill and every valley have been subject to repeated, scientific examination; while the productions of nature, so bountifully accorded to poor Ireland, are either unknown or disregarded."

A SEASONABLE DIVERSION.

From the many games of forfeits that are played in parlours during in-door weather, one is presented to the perusal of youthful readers from "Winter Evening Pastimes." Aunty's Garden.

"The company being all seated in a circle, the person who is to conduct the game proposes to the party to repeat, in turns, the speech he is about to make; and it is agreed that those who commit any mistake, or substitute one word for another, shall pay a forfeit. The player then commences by saying, distinctly, 'I am just come from my aunt Deborah's garden. Bless me! what a fine garden is my aunt's garden! In my aunt's garden there are four corners.' The one seated to the player's right is to repeat this, word for word: if his memory fails he pays a forfeit, and gives up his turn to his next right-hand neighbour, not being permitted to correct his mistake.

When this has gone all round, the conductor repeats the first speech, and adds the following:

In the first corner stands a superb alaternus,

Whose shade, in the dog-days, won't let the sun burn us.'

"This couplet having been sent round as before, he then adds the following: 6 In the second corner grows

A bush which bears a yellow rose : Would I might my love disclose!' "This passes round in like manner: "In the third corner Jane show'd me much London pride;

Let your mouth to your next neighbour's ear be applied,

And quick to his keeping a secret confide." "At this period of the game every one must tell his right-hand neighbour some secret.

In the fourth round, after repeating the whole of the former, he concludes thus: In the fourth corner doth appear Of amaranthis a crowd; Each secret whisper'd in the ear Must now be told aloud.'

"Those who are unacquainted with this game occasionally feel not a little embarrassed at this conclusion, as the secrets revealed by their neighbour may be such as they would not like to be published to the whole party. Those who are aware of this finesse take care to make their secrets witty, comic, or complimentary."

Literary Pocket Book, 1820.