M. Stevenson, in "The Twelve Monethe, Lond. 1661, 4to." mentions the following superstition; "They say, so many dayes old the moon is on Michaelmass-day, so many floods after.” Anecdote of a Goose. An amusing account of a Canada goose once the property of Mr. Sharpe, at Little Grove, near East Barnet, was inserted by that gentleman in his copy of "Wilughby's Ornithology." He says:— The following account of a Canada goose is so extraordinary, that I am aware it would with difficulty gain credit, were not a whole parish able to vouch for e truth of it. The Canada geese are not fond of a poultry-yard, but are rather of a rambling disposition. One of these birds, however, was observed to attach itself, in the strongest and most affectionate manner, to the house-dog; and would never quit the kennel, except for the purpose of feeding, when it would return again immediately. It always sat by the dog; but never presumed to go into the kennel, except in rainy weather. Whenever the dog barked, the goose would cackle and run at the person she supposed the dog barked at, and try to bite him by the heels. Sometimes she would attempt to feed with the dog; but this the dog, who treated his faithful companion rather with indifference, would not suffer. This bird would not go to roost with the others at night, unless driven by main force; and when, in the morning, she was turned into the field, she would never stir from the yard gate, but sit there the whole day, in sight of the dog. At last, orders were given that she should be no longer molested, but suffered to accompany the dog as she liked: being thus left to herself, she ran about the vard with him all the night; and what is particularly extraordinary, and can be attested by the whole parish, whenever the dog went out of the yard and ran into the village, the goose always accompanied him, contriving to keep up with him by the assistance of her wings; and in this way of running and flying, followed him all over the parish. This extraordinary affection of the goose towards the dog, whicn continued till his death, two years after it was first observed, is supposed to have originated from his having accidentally saved her from a fox in the very moment of distress. While the dog was ill, the goose never quitted him day or night, not even to feed; and it was apprehended that she would have been starved to death, had not orders been given for a pan of corn to be set every day close to the kennel. At this time the goose generally sat in the kennel, and would not suffer any one to approach it, except the person who brought the dog's or her own food. The end of this faithful bird was melancholy; for, when the dog died, she would still keep possession of the kennel; and a new house-dog being introduced, which in size and colour resembled that lately lost, the poor goose was unhappily deceived; and going into the kennel as usual, the new inhabitant seized her by the throat, and killed her. Michaelmas-day is one of the “four usual quarter-days, or days for payment of rent in the year." A Michaeimas Notice to quit. TO ALL gad-flies and gnats, famed for even-tide hum, WHEREAS, on complaint lodged before me this day, AND, WHEREAS, on the last sultry evening in June, AND WHEREAS Sundry haunches and high-seasoned pies, AT YOUR PERIL, ye long-legs, this notice despise! FLORAL DIRECTORY. Michaelmas Daisy. Aster Tradescanti. Dedicated to St. Michael and all Angels. September 30. St. Jerome, Priest, Doctor of the Church, A. D. 420. St. Gregory, Bp. surnamed the Apostle of Armenia, and the Illuminator, 4th Cent. St. Honorius, Abp. of Canterbury, A. D. 653. St. Jerome. This saint is in the church of England calendar and almanacs. Particulars con cerning him will be related hereafter; it is sufficient to observe, for the present, that the church of England sets him forth as an authority for reading the Old Testament Apocrypha. Custom at Kidderminster. The annual election of a bailiff at this town, before noticed, is still accompanied by the rude mirth of the populace. The Editor is obliged to a lady for the following communicatio<. To the Editor of the Every-Day Book. Dear Sir, I have just cast my eye upon your definition of the term "costermonger," and it reminds me of an annual custom at Kidderminster, (my native town,) which you may perhaps think an account of, a fit subject for insertion in the Every-Day Book. The magistrate and other officers of the town are annually elected, and the first Monday after Michaelmas-day is the day of their inauguration, in celebration of which, they each of them cause to be In Col 1337. thrown to the populace, (who assemble to the amount of some thousands,) from the windows of their houses, or sometimes from the town-hall, a large quantity of apples, in the whole often amounting, from twenty to thirty pots, (baskets containing five pecks each.) This practice occasions, of curse, a kind of prescriptive holiday in the town, and any one having the temerity to refuse his apprentice or servant leave to attend the 66 apple-throwing," would most probably have cause to repent such an invasion of right. A rude concourse therefore fills the streets which are the scenes of action; and as a sort of "safety valve," if I may 'compare great things with small," recourse is had by the crowd to the flinging about of old shoes, cabbage stalks, and almost every accessible kind of missile; till at length the sashes are raised, and the gifts of Pomona begin to shower down upon the heads of the multitude. Woe be to the unlucky wight who may chance to ride through the town during the introductory part of this custom; no sooner does he appear, than a thousand aims are taken at him and his horse, or carriage, and the poor belated rider "sees, or dreams he sees," (if ignorant of the practice,) the inhabitants of a whole town raised to oppose his single progress, without being able to form the most distant idea of their motive for so doing. At Ludlow there is a custom as ancient and equally foolish, that of pulling a rope, but of this I know nothing except by report. I am, FLORAL DIRECTORY. H. M. Golden Amaryllis. Amaryllis Aurea Dedicated to St. Jerome. From Times Telescop OCTOBER. Then came October, full of merry glee, This is the tenth month of the year. From our Saxon ancestors, "October had ne name of Wyn-monat," wyn signifyng wine; "and albeit they had not anciently wines made in Germany, yet in this season had they them from divers countries adjoining." They also called it Winter-fulleth.t In noticing the stanza, beneath the above engraving by Mr. Williams from his own Spenser. says, that design, Mr. Leigh Hunt forest and fruit trees. Many of our readers, though fond of gardens, will learn perhaps for the first time that trees are cheaper things than flowers; and that at the expense of not many shillings, they may plant a little shrubbery, or make a rural skreen for their parlour or study windows, of woodbine, guelder-roses, bays, arbutus, ivy, virgin's bower, or even the poplar, horse-chestnut, birch, sycamore, and plane-tree, of which the Greeks were so fond. A few roses also, planted in the carth, to flower about his walls or windows in monthly succession, are nothing in point of dearness to roses or other flowers purchased in pots. Some of the latter are nevertheless cheap and long-lived, and may be returned to the nursery-man at a small expense, to keep till they flower again. But if the lover of nature has to choose between flowers or flowering shrubs and trees, the latter, in our opinion, are much preferable, inasmuch as while they include the former, they can give a more retired and verdant feeling to a place, and call to mind, even in their very nestling and closeness, something of the whispering and quiet amplitude of nature. "Fruits continue in abundance during this month, as everybody knows from the shop-keeper; for our grosser senses are well informed, if our others are not. We have yet to discover that imaginative pleasures are as real and touching as they, and give them their deepest relish. The additional flowers in October are almost confined to the anemone and scabious; and the flowering-trees and shrubs to the evergreen cytisus. But the hedges (and here let us observe, that the fields and other walks that are free to every one are sure to supply us with pleasure, when every other place fails,) are now sparkling with their abundant berries, the wild rose with the hip, the hawthorn with the haw, the blackthorn with the sloe, the bramble with the black berry; and the briony, privet, honeysuckle, elder, holly, and woody nightshade, with their other winter feasts for the birds. The wine obtained from the elder-berry makes a very pleasant and wholesome drink, when heated over a fire; but the humbler sloe, which the peasants eat, gets the start of hir 'n reputation, by changing its name to port of which wine it certainly makes a consi derable ingredient. A gentleman, whe lately figured in the beau-monde, and carried coxcombry to a pitch of the in genious, was not aware how much truth he was uttering in his pleasant and disavowing definition of port wine: strong intoxicating liquor much drank by the lower orders.' A "Swallows are generally seen for the last time this month, the house-martin the latest. The red-wing, field-fare, snipe, Royston crow, and wood-pigeon, returr from more northern parts. The rooks return to the roost trees, and the tortoise begins to bury himself for the winter. The mornings and afternoons increase in mistiness, though the middle of the day is often very fine; and no weather when it is unclouded, is apt to give a clearer and manlier sensation than that of October. One of the most curious natural appearances is the gossamer, which is an infinite multitude of little threads shot out by minute spiders, who are thus wafted by the wind from place to place. "The chief business of October, in the great economy of nature, is dissemination, which is performed among other means by the high winds which now return. Art imitates her as usual, and sows and plants also. We have already mentioned the gardener. This is the time for the domestic cultivator of flowers to finish planting as well, especially the bulbs that are intended to flower early in spring. And as the chief business of nature this month is dissemination or vegetable birth, so its chief beauty arises from vegetable death itself. We need not tell our readers we allude to the changing leaves with all their lights and shades of green, amber, red, light red, light and dark green, white, brown, russet, and yellow of all sorts." The orient is lighted with crimson glow, And the glorious roll of nature now Is in all its brightness spread. The autumn has tinged the trees with gold, And crimson'd the shrubs of the hills; And the full seed sleeps in earth's bosom cold; And hope all the universe fills. Guardian-Angels. The festival of "the Holy Angel-Guardians" as they are called by Butler, is this day kept by his church. He says that, "according to St. Thomas," when the angels were created, the lowest among them were enlightened by those that were supreme in the orders. It is not to be gathered from him how many orders there were; but Holme says, that "after the fall of Lucifer the bright star and his company, there remained still in heaven more angels then ever there was, is, and shall be, men born in the earth." He adds, that they are "ranked into nine orders or • Annual Register, 1769. chorus, called the nine quoires of holy 2. The order of cherubims. Some authors put them in this sequence: 1. seraphims; 2. cherubims; 3. thrones; 4. dominions; 5. virtues; 6. powers; 7. principalities; 8. archangels; 9. angels. Holme adds, that "God never erected any order, rule, or government, but the devil did and will imitate him; will have his synagogue." The latter part for where God hath his church, the devil of this affirmation is versified by honest Daniel De Foe. He begins his "Trueborn Englishman" with it :— Wherever God erects a house of prayer Angel, in its primitive sense, denotes a messenger, and frequently signifies men, when, from the common notion of the term, it is conceived to denote ministering spirits. Angels, as celestial intelligences, have been the objects of over curious inquiry, and of worship. Paul prohibits this: "Let no man," he says, "beguile you of your reward, in a voluntary humility, and the worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen.' "" An erudite and sincere writer remarks, that "The worship, which so many christians pay to angeis and saints, and images and relics, is really a false worship, hardly distinguishable from idolatry. When it is said, in excuse, that they worship these only as mediators,' that alters the case very little; since to apply to a false mediator is as much a departure from Jesus Christ, our only advocate, as to worship a fictitious deity is withdrawing our faith and allegiance from the true God."+ Amid the multiplicity of representations by Roman catholic writers concerning angels, are these by Father Lewis Henriques, "That the streets of Paradise are adorned with tapestry, and all the his. tories of the world are engraven on the + Jortin •Colossians ii. 17. |