distinguished by the appellation of the Great Storm of 1703. See City Remembrancer, vol. ii. page 43 to 187.

ERYNNIS. The punishment of fatal revenge and murders of the worst class with death is preserved in all states, even in Philadelphia, and is founded on the passage in Genesis, ix. 6. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. But how can we interpret literally the context which precedes it: Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you. Even the green herb have I given you, all things. 3. But flesh, with the blood thereof, which is the life thereof, ye shall not eat. 4. And surely your blood of your lives will I require: at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man: at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. 5. How shall we understand at the hand of every beast? Και γαρ τὸ ὑμέτερον αἷμα των ψυχών ύμων εκ χειρος παντων των θηρίων εκζητήσω, αυτο.

HECATE. Hideous Faces. In the celebrated John Locke's Conduct of the Understanding is an account of two familiar Diseases of the Imagination. 1. The jingling of some rhyme or verse in the head all day to one's great annoyance. 2dly. The passing by of some hideously ugly faces of various sorts before one at night in bed. The latter is a spectral disorder, and approaches towards the Image of Spectral Illusion, described September 30th; but is much fainter, and we still hold some sort of controul over it. These faces occur, probably, because the human face is what most engages our organ of perception of forms. See October 20th and 22d. The spectres are sometimes seen upon the wall like stars or interchanges of lozenges, squares, checques or patterns of calico, in endless profusion and variety. See December 28.

FLORA.The scented Coltsfoot Tussilago fragrans, in very mild weather begins to blow about this time, and erects its sweetly smelling blossoms, while its old leaves are rotting on the ground. It is the first of the few plants that constitute the true hybernal Flora. We have noticed this plant as in blow on the 1st of January, which it often is; for it continues flowering all the winter, when the weather is open. The next species in succession that flowers with us is the white Coltsfoot, which flowers at the end of January; then the common yellow Coltsfoot in March: and lastly, the large Butterbur, at the end of March or beginning of April. But the present species, and the white one, are the only two that can be called hybernal.

In mild weather many Plants remain in flower, which either blow all the year, as Stocks, Wallflowers, Groundsell, Daisies, and Dead Nettle, or those which belong to other Seasons, and remain in flower, as the Musk flower, the Leopardsbane, the Marigold, the Chrysanthemum, and others. But though we enjoy flowers in winter, from their coming at a dreary season, yet they want the luxuriance and fullness which distinguishes them in Spring; and a bright flower or two here and there have, perhaps, rather a melancholy appearance, when surrounded by the dead or dying harme of other Plants.

Farewell to Autumn and her yellow bowers,
Her waning skies and fields of sallow hue;
Farewell, ye perishing and perished flowers,

Ye shall revive when vernal skies are blue.
But now the tempest cloud of Winter lowers,
Frosts are severe, and snowflakes not a few;
Lifting their leafless boughs against the breeze,
Forlorn appear the melancholy trees.

COELUM.-The weather at this time is usually mild and wet, with fogs; we have, however, an occasional interchange of frosts. On some occasions a kind of weather occurs now which happens every now and then during the course of all the winter months. The air becomes perfectly calm, the sky clouded and dark, without much mist below, and the ground gets dry. Not a leaf stirs on the trees, and the sounds of distant bells, and other sounds and noises are heard at a great distance, just as they are on other occasions before rain. The thermometer is often from 45° to 52°. The barometer rises to set fair and remains steady, and the current of smoke from the chimneys either goes straight upright into the air in a vertical column, or inclines so little with the breath of air as to indicate sometimes one wind and sometimes another. At this time the crowing of the Cocks, the noise of busy Rooks and Daws, which feed in flocks in the meadows, and fly at morning and eventide in flocks to and from their nests, the music of distant singing, and the strokes of the church clocks and chimes are heard for miles, as if carried along under the apparent sounding board of the clouds above. Even the voices of persons are heard at a vast distance, all being hushed around. This sort of weather is well described by Mr. White of Selborne, in some verses which we have already quoted in the Perennial Calendar, January 20, p. 23. At the moment we are now writing the same sort of weather prevails, and has so continued for near a fortnight; during which time the Dor Beetle has been on the wing of an evening.

November 27. St. Maximus Bishop and Confessor. St. James Martyr. St. Maharsaphor Martyr. St. Virgil of Ireland Bishop and Confessor. St. Secundin Bishop in Ireland.

Hoc mense Inferiae fiebant Gallis defossis et Graecis in foro Boario. Plut.-Rom. Cal.

FLORA. We observed a phenomenon today, which, as it may often occur, we shall notice. We observed some large stubble fields, on which weeds were growing, apparently covered with some white flowers, which at

us :

this dreary time of year surprised us: on a closer examinatiou, what we took to be flowers turned out to be the little round and white puffs of the Common Groundsel Senecio vulgaris, which, having flowered in thousands in the field during the late mild weather, were now in seed and covered the field, unshaken by any wind during this calm season. tardiflorus still remains in flower.

The Aster

On the indefinite Period called Cockcrow.-Cockcrow is vulgarly used for the early dawn of the day, but there are many circumstances so remarkable in the crowing of this bird that it demands particular attention; for Cocks, besides crowing at daybreak, seem to have crowing matches at different times of the night; and the ancients regarded these as happening at or about certain particular hours, and called them night watches. See December 24 of this Calendar, where we shall discuss the subject of the Alectrophone.

Of the Departure of Ghosts at Cockcrow.

They say the wandering powers, that love
The silent darkness of the night,
At cockcrowing give o'er to rove,
And all in fear do take their flight.

The approaching salutary morn,

The approach divine of hated day,
Makes darkness to its place return,
And drives the midnight ghosts away.
They know that this an emblem is,
Of what precedes our lasting bliss,

That morn when graves give up their dead
In certain hope to meet their God.- Bourne.

The Cock crows and the morn grows on,
When 'tis decreed I must be gone.-Butler.

The tale

Of horrid Apparition tall and ghastly

That walks at dead of night, or takes his stand
O'er some new opened grave; and, strange to tell!
Evanishes at crowing of the Cock.-Blair.

The traditions of all ages appropriate the appearance of spirits to the night. The Jews had an opinion that hurtful spirits walked about in the night. The same opinion obtained among the ancient Christians, who divided the night into four watches, called the evening, midnight, and two morning cockcrowings. See December 24.

The opinion that spirits fly away at cockcrow is certainly very ancient, for we find it mentioned by the Christian poet Prudentius, who flourished in the beginning of the fourth century, as a tradition of common belief.

Bourne very seriously examines the fact, whether Spirits roam about in the night, or are obliged to go away at Cockcrow first citing from the Sacred Writings that good and evil angels attend upon men: and proving thence also that there have been apparitions of good and evil spirits. He is of opinion that these can ordinarily have been nothing but the appearances of some of those angels of light or darkness: "for," he adds, "I am far from thinking that either the ghosts of the damned or the happy, either the soul of a Dives or a Lazarus, returns here any more." Their appearance in the night, he goes on to say, is linked to our idea of apparitions. Night, indeed, by its awfulness and horror naturally inclines the mind of man to these reflections, which are much heightened by the legendary stories of nurses and old women.

That the ancients counted the watches of the night by Cockcrowings we have abundant proof. See December 24. So in King Lear, "He begins at Curfew, and walks till the first Cock." Again, in The Twelve Mery Jestes of the Widow Edith, 1573 :

The time they pas merely til ten of the clok,

Yea, and I shall not lye, til after the first Cok.

It appears from a passage in Romeo and Juliet, that they were carousing till three o'clock :

The second Cock has crow'd,

The curfew bell has toll'd; 'tis three o'clock.

Tusser, in his Five Hundreth Pointes of good Husbandrie, makes this point clear :

Cocke croweth at midnight times few above six,
With pause to his neighbour to answer betwix:
At three aclocke thicker, and then as ye know,
Like all in to mattens neere day they doo crowe,
At midnight, at three, and an hour yer day,

They utter their language as well as they may.

We have noticed that during the still dark weather, which often happens about the Brumal Solstice, Cocks often crow all day and night; and hence the superstition that they crow all night on the vigil of the Nativity. They begun to crow during the darkness of the eclipse of the Sun, Sept. 4, 1820. And it seems that crepusculum is the sort of light in which they crow most.

The unseasonable crowing of Cocks was reckoned ominous, particularly as prophesying the event of wars. It is from the known courage of this bird in combat, that he was sacred to

Mars, and was called Tou ApEOS VEOTTOS by Aristophanes. The Gallicantus presaged the victory of Themistocles. The feasts Axexτguwvwv ȧyúv were called so from this event, and were celebrated by fighting Cocks. And a victory of the Boeotians over the Lacedaemonians was also said to be foretold by the Cocks. See Researches about Atmospheric Phenomena, 3d edit. p. 306; also our Index, articles Cockcrowing, Alectrophone, and Nightwatches.

In Brand by Ellis, vol. i. we find, "Vanes on the tops of steeples were anciently made in the form of a Cock, called from hence Weather Cocks, and put up, in papal times, to remind the clergy of watchfulness." "In summitate crucis quae companario vulgò imponitur, galli gallinacei effugi solet figura, quae ecclesiarum rectores vigilantiae admoneat." Du Cange, Glossary.

"I find the following on this subject in 'A Helpe to Discourse,' 12mo, Lond. 1633:

Q. Wherefore on the top of Church Steeples is the Cocke set upon the Crosse, of a long continuance?

A. The flocks of Jesuits will answer you. For instruction that whilst aloft we behold the Crosse and the Cocke standing thereon, we may remember our sinnes, and with Peter seeke and obtaine mercy; as though without this dumbe Cocke, which many will not hearken to, untill he crow, the Scriptures were not a sufficient larum.'

"The following occurs in Johnson and Steevens's Shakespeare, vol. vi. p. 242: The inconstancy of the French was always the subject of satire. I have read a Dissertation written to prove that the Index of the wind upon our steeples was made in form of a Cock, to ridicule the French for their frequent changes.'-Johnson.

"A writer in the Gent. Mag. for January 1737, vol. vii. p. 7, says, Levity and inconstancy of temper is a general reproach upon the French. The Cock upon the steeples, set up in contempt and derision of that nation on some violation of peace, or breach of alliance, naturally represents these ill qualities.' This derivation, however, seems to be as illiberal as it is groundless and absurd.

"In the Minute Book of the Society of Antiquaries, vol. i. p. 105, we read, 29 January 1723-4, Mr. Norroy, Peter Le Neve, brought a Script from Gramaye, Historia Brabantiae, Bruxell. p. 14, shewing that the manner of adorning the tops of Steeples with a Cross and Cock, is derived from the Goths, who bore that as their warlike ensign.'"-Brand by Ellis.

Milton has alluded in his customary beauty of language