was tied, were broke asunder by the invisible power of an angel, and, the engine falling to pieces by the wheels being separated from one another, she was delivered from that death. Hence, the name of "St. Catharine's wheel."

The Catharine-wheel, a sign in the Borough, and at other inns and public houses, and the Catharine-wheel in fireworks, testify this saint's notoriety in England. Besides pictures and engravings representing her pretended marriage with Christ, others, which are more numerous, represent her with her wheel. She was, in common with other papal saints, also painted in churches, and there is still a very fine, though somewhat mutilated, painting of her, on the glass window in the chancel of the church of West Wicknam, a village delightfully situated in Kent, between Bromley and Croydon. The editor of the Every-Day Book went thither, and took a tracing from the window itself, and now presents an engraving from that tracing, under the expectation that, as an ornament, it may be acceptable to all, and, as perpetuating a relic of antiquity, be still more acceptable to a few. The figure under St Catharine's feet is the tyrant Maxentius. In this church there are other fine and perfect remains of the beautifully painted glass which anciently adorned it. A coach leaves the Ship, at Charing-cross, every afternoon for the Swan, at West Wickham, which is kept by Mr. Crittel, who can give a visiter a good bed, good cheer, and good information, and if need be, put a good horse into a good stable. A short and pleasant walk of a mile to the church the next morning will be gratifying in many ways. The village is one of the most retired and agreeable spots in the vicinity of the metropolis. It is not yet deformed by building speculations.

St. Catharine's Day.

Old Barnaby Googe, from Naogeorgl.s, says

"What should I tell what sophisters
on Cathrins day devise?

Or else the superstitious toyes
that maisters exercise."

Anciently women and girls in Ireland kept a fast every Wednesday and Saturday throughout the year, and some of them also on St. Catharine's day; nor would they omit it though it happened on their birthday, or they were ever so ill. The reason given for it was that the girls might get good husbands, and the women better ones, either by the death, desertion, or reformation of their living ones.*

St. Catharine was esteemed the saint and patroness of spinsters, and her holiday observed by young women meeting on this day, and making merry together, which they call "Cathar'ning." Something of this still remains in remote parts of England.

Our correspondent R. R. (in November, 1825,) says, "On the 25th of November, St. Catharine's day, a man dressed in woman's clothes, with a large wheel by his side, to represent St. Catharine, was brought out of the royal arsenal at Woolwich, (by the workmen of that place,) about six o'clock in the evening, seated in a large wooden chair, and carried by men round the town, with attendants, &c. similar to St. Clement's. They stopped at different houses, where they used to recite a speech; but this ceremony has been discontinued these last eight or nine years."

Much might be said and contemplated in addition to the notice already taken of the demolition of the church of St. Catharine's, near the Tower. Its destruction has commenced, is proceeding, and will be completed in a short time. The surrender of this edifice will, in the end, become a precedent for a spoliation imagined by very few on the day when he utters this foreboding.

25th of November, 1825.

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Sweet Butter-bur. Tussilago fragrans Dedicated to St. Catharine.

* Camden Brit.

↑ La Motte on Poetry and Painting, 1730, 12mo,

new

Sir,

I do not remember to have seen in your book," where every-day we turn the leaf to read," any notice of a custom, which is not only very prevalent, but which is, also, most harmless in its nature and endearing in its tendency-promotes in its practice goodwill and good humour-and, not unfrequently, with those who view the "future i' th' instant," love itself. Among the many moon customs, such as looking through a new silk handkerchief to ascertuin the number of your lovers, feeling for money in your pocket, to see if you will have a lucky month, &c.; I know of none so pleasant, or, to my thinking, so rational, as that of claiming the FIRST KISS FOR A PAIR OF NEW GLOVES! The person, in a company, male or female, who first gets a glimpse of the new moon, immediately kisses some member of the company, and pronounces with a triumphant chuckle, "Aha! Jane, (or as the name may be,) there's a pair of gloves for me!" By this means a pleasant interruption is often given to a tedious tale, or uninteresting debate, and a new subject starts, in which all may join with greater or less avidity. How happy is some modest youth, should the blushing and ingenuous girl, whom he has secretly "singled from the world," have laid him under the penalty of a pair of new gloves, by that soft phrase and that first delicious kiss-how fruitful are his sweet anticipations of that golden time—

"When life is all one dream of love and flowers."

How joyful is an amiable sister, if, by this species of initiation, she has been enabled to re-conciliate the vagrant affections of some estranged brother: and even where love and sisterly feelings are out of the question, viewed as an interchange of common (common !) friendship, between the sexes, how felicitous is

it in effect and operation! Should you,
Mr. Editor, be of opinion with me, re-
specting this no longer "tyrant custom,"
you may, possibly, by printing this letter
be productive of much good humour, and
a pair of new gloves.
I am,

Your constant and approving reader,
W. G. T.

Newcastle-on-Tyne.

P. S. I cannot write the name of the town where I reside, without feeling a strong inducement to say one word of him, who has been so pleasantly immortalized by yourself, and the inimitable being who wrote so affectingly of "Rosamund Gray," and the "Ŏld Familiar Faces"-I mean poor Starkey. I was born, and have lived all my life (not a long one), in the town where he terminated his humble career, and gave another name to the neglected and unpitied list of those, who seem chiefly to have entered the world for the purpose of swelling

"The short and simple annals of the

poor,"

and my earliest recollections are haunted by his meagre care-worn form;-many a time have I shrunk from the shaking of his stick, and the imperious "dem your bluds," which he bestowed with uncommon celerity on the defenceless heads of his young and unthinking sources of annoyance, as they assailed him from the corners which he was accustomed to pass. But the captain was a humble man, and these "moods of the mind" were seldom indulged in, save when he was returning, brim-full of brief and intemperate importance, from the Black Horse, in Pilgrim-street, the tap-room of which was the scene of many a learned disputation with the "unwashed artificers" of the evening, and in which the captain was always proportionably bril liant to the number of gills he had drank. On these occasions, in his efforts to silence the sons of toil, he did not scruple to use his Latin—and, in such instances, appeal was impossible, and victory sure. Among several anecdotes, I am in possession of two, which you, his most celebrious biographer, may not think unworthy of recording. On one evening, when he was returning from a carousal, furnished by the generosity of friends, or his own indiscretion-for the captain despised to-morrow as much as

any man, and was fully convinced of the propriety of the apophthegm, "sufficient unto the day is its own evil"-he found the gate of the Freemen's Hospital, where he resided, closed, and no one in a better condition for exclaiming with Dr. Beattie,

"Ah who can tell how hard it is to climb "

than himself. What was to be done? To fly over was impossible-and he was much too deep in the scale of intoxication to dream of scaling the wall. A party of young bucks," ripe for fun," fresh from their sacrifices at the shrine of "the reeling goddess with the zoneless waist," came up the street; to these, hat in hand, did the captain prefer his petition to be assisted over, and they, with a thoughtlessness hardly to be excused by their condition, took him up, and threw him completely on to the grass plot on the other side. The veteran scrambled to his legs, and, for the wall was not very high on the inside, returned them thanks in his best manner for their timely assistance, utterly forgetful that it might have proved most disastrous both to himself and them. The second, and with which I must conclude a postscript which has already far outgrown the letter, was less harmless and equally illustrative of the man. He had gone, with another eleemosynary worthy, on some gratulatory occasion, to the hall of one of the

members for the town, and the butler who was well aware of the object of his guests, treated them handsomely in hi refectory to cold beef and good ale. He was accidentally called away, and the two friends were left alone. Alas! for the temptations which continually beset us! The "expedition of" the captain's "violent love outran the pauser, reason:" he suggested, and both adopted, the expedient of secreting a slice or two of the member's beef, to make more substantial the repast of the evening. Starkey's share was deposited in his hat. The man in office returned, pressed his visiters afresh, "and still the circling cup was drained," until the homebrewed had made considerable innovations, and the travellers thought it fitting to depart. The captain's habitual politeness was an overmatch for his cunning: whilst he was yet at the door, casting his "last lingering looks behind," he must needs take off his hat to give more effect to the fervour of his farewellwhen-" out upon 't"-the beef fell as flat on his oration, as did the hat of corporal Trim on the floor in the scene of his eloquence. Starkey was dumb-founded, his associate was in agonies, and the butler was convulsed with the most "sidesplitting" laughter. The captain, like other great men, has not fallen unsung." Hearken to Gilchrist, one of the "bards of the Tyne," who thus sings in his apotheosis of Benjamin Starkey :-

66

W. G. T.

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Linear Wood Sorrel. Oralis linearis Dedicated to St. Conrad.

November 27.

St. Maximus, Bp. of Riez, A. D. 460. St. James, surnamed Intercisus, A. d. 421. St. Maharsapor, A. D. 421. St. Virgil, Bp. of Saltzburg, A. D. 784. St. Se cundin, or Seachnal, Bp. of Dunsaghlin, in Meath, A. D. 447.

ANNIVERSARY OF

The Great Storm

IN ENGLAND.

In Little Wild-street chapel, Lincoln's Inn Fields, a sermon is annually preached on this day in commemoration of the "GREAT STORM" in 1703.

This fearful tempest was preceded by a strong west wind, which set in about the middle of the month; and every day, and almost every hour, increased in force until

the 24th, when it blew furiously, occasioned much alarm, and some damage was sustained. On the 25th, and through the night following, it continued with unusual violence. On the morning or Friday, the 26th, it raged so fearfully that only few people had courage to venture abroad. Towards evening it rose still higher; the night setting in with excessive darkness added general horror to the scene, and prevented any from seeking security abroad from their homes, had that been possible. The extraordinary power of the wind created a noise, hoarse and dreadful, like thunder, which carried terror to every ear, and appalled every heart. There were also appearances in the heavens that resembled lightning. "The air," says a writer at the time, 66 was full of meteors and fiery vapours; yet," he adds, "I am of opinion, that there was really no lightning, in the common acceptation of the term; for the clouds, that flew with such violence through the air, were not to my observation such as are usually freighted with thunder and lightning; the hurries nature was then in do not consist with the system of thunder." Some imagined the tempest was accompanied with an earthquake. "Horror and confusion seized upon all, whether on shore or at sea; no pen can describe it, no tongue can express it, no thought can conceive it, unless theirs who were in the extremity of it; and who being touched with a due sense of the sparing mercy of their Maker, retain the deep impressions of his goodness upon their minds though the danger be past. To venture abroad was to rush into instant death, and to stay within afforded no other prospect than that of being buried under the ruins of a falling habitation. Some in their distraction did the former, and met death in the streets; others the latter, and in their own houses received their final doom." One hundred and twenty-three persons were killed by the falling of dwellings; amongst these were the bishop of Bath and Wells (Dr. Richard Kidder) and his lady, by the fall of part of the episcopal palace of Wells; and lady Penelope Nicholas, sister to the bishop of London, at Horsley, in Sussex. Those who perished in the waters, in the floods of the Severn and the Thames, on the coast of Holland, and in ships blown away an never heard of afterwards, are computed to have amounted to eight thousand

All ranks and degrees were affected by this amazing tempest, for every family that had any thing to lose lost something: land, houses, churches, corn, trees, rivers, all were disturbed or damaged by its fury; small buildings were for the most part wholly swept away, as chaff before the wind." Above eight hundred dwelling-houses were laid in ruins. Few of those that resisted escaped from being unroofed, which is clear from the prodigious increase in the price of tiles, which rose from twenty-one shillings to six pounds the thousand. sand stacks of chimnies were blown down in and about London. When the day broke the houses were mostly stripped, and appeared like so many skeletons. The consternation was so great that trade and business were suspended, for the first occupation of the mind was so to repair the houses that families might be preserved from the inclemency of the weather in the rigorous season. The streets were covered with brickbats, broken tiles, signs, bulks, and penthouses.

About two thou

The lead which covered one hundred churches, and many public buildings, was rolled up, and hurled in prodigious quantities to distances almost incredible; spires and turrets of many others were thrown down. Innumerable stacks of corn and hay were blown away, or so torn and scattered as to receive great damage.

Multitudes of cattle were lost. In one level in Gloucestershire, on the banks of the Severn, fifteen thousand sheep were drowned. Innumerable trees were torn up by the roots; one writer says, that he himself numbered seventeen thousand in part of the county of Kent alone, and that, tired with counting, he left off reckoning.

The damage in the city of London, only, was computed at near two millions sterling. At Bristol, it was about two hundred thousand pounds. In the whole, it was supposed that the loss was greater than that produced by the great fire of London, 1666, which was estimated at four millions.

The greater part of the navy was at sea, and if the storm had not been at its height at full flood, and in a spring-tide, the loss might have been nearly fatal to the nation. It was so considerable, that fifteen or sixteen men of war were cast away, and more than two thousand seamen perished. Few merchantmen were