Puslapio vaizdai
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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 round 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 th oatwort, the liverwort, and every other vegetable specific which the kind hand of nature has spread over the globe, and which I have designated by their qualities,

and have converted to your use and benefit. Mindful 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 engraving by a catholic artist, who has impressed them with devotional monograms, and symbols of his faith.

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Margaret. What sports do you use in the forest?

Simon.-Not many; some few, as thus :

To see the sun to bed, and to arise,

Like some hot amourist with glowing eyes,
Bursting the lazy bands of sleep that bound him,
With all his fires and travelling glories round him:
Sometimes the moon on soft night clouds to rest,
Like beauty nestling in a young man's breast,
And all the winking stars, her handmaids, keep
Admiring silence, while those lovers sleep,
Sometimes outstretcht, in very idleness,
Naught doing, saying little, thinking less,
To view the leaves thin dancers upon air,
Go in eddy ground and small birds, how they fare,

When mother Autumn fills their beaks with corn,
Filch'd from the careless Amalthea's born;
And how the woods berries and worms provide
Without their pains, when earth has naught beside
To answer their small wants

January 16.

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

St. Marcellus, Pope.

St.

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

C. LAMB.

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.
ATHENEUM.

"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 you 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 botanical 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 alater

nus,

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: '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 amaranth's 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."

WINTER.

This is the eldest of the seasons: he

Moves not like Spring with gradual step, nor grows
From bud to beauty, but with all his snows

Comes down at once in hoar antiquity.

No rains nor loud proclaiming tempests flee
Before him, nor unto his time belong

The suns of summer, nor the charms of song,
That with May's gentle smiles so well agree.
But he, made perfect in his birthday cloud,

Starts into sudden life with scarce a sound,
And with a tender footstep prints the ground,
As tho' to cheat man's ear; yet while he stays
He seems as 'twere to prompt our merriest lays,
And bid the dance and joke be long and loud.

January 17.

St. Anthony, Patriarch of Monks. Sts.
Speusippus, Eleusippus, and Meleusip-
pus.
Sts. Sulpicius I. and II., Abps.
of Bourges. St. Milgithe. St. Nen-
nius, or Nennidhius.

Literary Pocket Book, 1820.

St. Anthony, Patriarch of Monks. The memoirs of St. Anthony make a distinguished figure in the lives of the saints by Alban Butler, who states the particulars to have been extracted from "The Life of St. Anthony," compiled by the great St. Athanasius; a work," says

Butler," much commended by St. Gre gory Nazianzen, St. Jerom, St. Austin," &c. This statement by Butler, whose biographical labours are estimated by catholics as of the highest order, and the extraordinary temptations which render the life of St. Anthony eminently remarkable, require at least so much notice of him, as may enable the general reader to determine upon the qualities attributed to him, and the reputation his name has attained in consequence.

According to Butler, St. Anthony was born in 251, at Coma near Heraclea in Egypt, and in that neighbourhood commenced the life of a hermit: he was continually assailed by the devil. His only food was bread with a little salt, he drank nothing but water, never ate before sunset, sometimes only once in two or four days, and lay on a rush mat or on the bare floor. For further solitude he left Coma, and hid himself in an old sepulchre, till, in 285, he withdrew into the deserts of the mountains, from whence, in 305, he descended and founded his first monastery. His under garment was sackcloth, with a white sheepskin coat and girdle. Butler says that he "was taught to apply himself to manual labour by an angel, who appeared, platting mats of palmtree leaves, then rising to pray, and after some time sitting down again to work; and who at length said to him, 'Do this, and thou shalt be saved.' The life, attributed by Butler to St. Athanasius, informs us that our saint continued in some degree to pray whilst he was at work; that he detested the Arians; that he would not speak to a heretic unless to exhort him to the true faith; and that he drove all such from his mountain, calling them venomous serpents. He was very anxious that after his decease he should not be embalmed, and being one hundred and five years old, died in 356, having bequeathed one of his sheepskins, with the coat in which he lay, to St. Athanasius." So far Butler.

St. Athanasius, or rather the life of St. Anthony before alluded to, which, notwithstanding Butler's authorities, may be doubted as the product of Athanasius; but, however that may be, that memoir of St. Anthony is very particular in its account of St. Anthony's warfare with the infernal powers. It says that hostilities commenced when the saint first determined on hermitizing; "in short, the devil raised a great deal of dust in his

thoughts, that by bemudding and disordering his intellects he might make St. Anthony let go his design." In his first conflict with the devil he was victorious, although satan appeared to him in an alluring shape. Next he came in the form of a black boy, and was again defeated. After that Anthony got into a tomb and shut down the top, but the devil found him out, and, with a great company of other devils, so beat and bruised him, that in the morning he was discovered by the person who brought his bread, lying like a dead man on the ground; whereupon he took him up and carried him to the town church, where many of his friends sat by him until midnight. Anthony then coming to himself and seeing all asleep, caused the person who brought him thither to carry him back privately, and again got into the tomb, shutting down the tomb-top as before. Upon this, the devils being very much exasperated, one night, made a noise so dreadful, that the walls shook. "They transformed themselves into the shapes of all sorts of beasts, lions, bears, leopards, bulls, serpents, asps, scorpions and wolves; every one of which moved and acted agreeably to the creatures which they represented; the lion roaring and seeming to make towards him, the bull to butt, the serpent to creep, and the wolf to run at him, and so in short all the rest; so that Anthony was tortured and mangled by them so grievously that his bodily pain was greater than before." But, as it were laughingly, he taunted them, and the devils gnashed their teeth. This continued till the roof of his cell opened, a beam of light shot down, the devils became speechless, Anthony's pain ceased, and the roof closed again. At one time the devil laid the semblance of a large piece of plate in his way, but Anthony, perceiving the devil in the dish, chid it, and the plate disappeared. At another time he saw a quantity of real gold on the ground, and to show the devil "that he did not value money, he leaped over it as a man in a fright over a fire." Having secluded himself in an empty castle, some of his acquaintance came often to see him, but in vain; he would not let them enter, and they remained whole days and nights listening to a tumultuous rout of devils bawling and wailing within. He lived in that state for twenty years, never seeing or being seen by any one, till his friends broke open the door, and "the specta

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