When mother Autumn fills their beaks with corn, January 16. St. St Marcellus, Pope. St. Macarius the 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, The spacious arch streams through the sky, "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 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 amarantlis 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 The suns of summer, nor the charms of song, 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 Mouks. Sts. Speusippus, Eleusippus, and Melensippuz. Sts. Sulpicius I. and II., Abps. of Bourges. St. Milgithe. St. Nennius, or Nennidhius. Literary Pocket Book, 1820. âmpits that by bemadding and disem sects he might make Tus stanement by Burdere St. Antony let go his design." In his ing agnich mors are estimate is confier with the devil he was vicmodes as if the guest arter and best satan appeared to him trariinary zmoracions ▼ich entere ʼn ainring sauce. Next he came in Ide of Anny eminenty murine de rn of a lack boy, and was again require at least s men ce if um, as beinet. Aber that Anthony got into a may made the genera renter a teen- tum sit shut down the top, but the devil mine upon the quaines actiuned a zim. Sunt man and with a great company and the reputation is name has aned of her beris, se beat and bruised him, Daca de mecing be was discovered by the person who brought his bread, lying like a dead man ca the ground; wheretoon he took him up and carried him to the 201 durere many of his friends sat by him until midnight. Anicey 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 ders being very much exasperated, coe night, made a noise so dreadful, that the walls sbook. 66 They transformed themselves into the shapes of all sorts of beasts, lins, 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 devii 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 i that state for twenty years, never seeing of being seen by any one, till his friends broke open the door, and "the specta Astording to Bucie, St. Anthony was born in 111, at Coma near Eracies in Leyte, and in that neighborhood commenced the de sé a hermit: he was contotally assaled by the deri Hs my food was bread with a little salt, he rack nothing but water, never ate before saset, sometimes only once in two or for days, and lay re a rush man or on the bare Boor. For further solitude he left Coma, and hid himself in an cid sepcichre, 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; a i 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 auch 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 t. Anthony before alluded to, which, not withstanding 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 66 peared with a light in the dark, and said, We are come, Anthony, to lend thee our light,' I prayed, shutting my eyes, because I disdained to behold their light, and presently their light was put out. After this they came and hissed and danced, but as I prayed, and lay along singing, they presently began to wail and weep as though they were spent. Once there came a devil very tall in appearance, that dared to say, 'What wouldst thou have me bestow upon thee?' but I spat upon him and endeavoured to beat him, and, great as he was, he disappeared with the rest of the devils. Once one of them knocked at the door of my cell, and when I opened it I saw a tall figure; and when I asked him, 'Who art thou?' he answered, 'I am satan; Why do the monks blame and curse me? I have no longer a place or a city, and now the desert is filled with monks; let them not curse one to no purpose.' I said to him, 'Thou art a liar,' &c. and he disappeared." A deal more than this he is related to have said by his biographer, who affirms that Anthony, having been prevailed upon to go into a vessel and pray with the monks, he, and he only, perceived a wretched and terrible stink; the company said there was some salt fish in the vessel, but he perceived another kind of scent, and while he was speaking, a young man that had a devil, and who had entered before them and hid himself, cried out, and the devil was rebuked by St Anthony and came out of him, and then they all knew that it was the devi! that stunk."—"Wonderful as these things are, there are stranger things yet; for once, as he was going to pray, he was in a rapture, and (which is a paradox) as soon as he stood up, he saw himself without himself, as it were in the air, and some bitter and terrible beings standing by him in the air too, but the angels, his guardians, withstood them.""He had also another particular favour, for as he was sitting on the mount in a praying posture, and perhaps gravelled with some doubt relating to himself, in the night-time, one called to him, and said, 'Anthony, arise, go forth and look;' so he went out and saw a certain terrible, deformed personage standing, and reaching to the clouds, and winged creatures, and him stretching out his hands; and some of them he saw were stopped by him, and others were flying beyond him; whereupon the tail one gnashed his teeth, and Anthony perceived that it was the enemy of souls, who seizes on those whe are accountable to him, but cannot reach those who are not persuadable by him." His biographer declares that the devils fled at his word, as fast as from a whip. It appears from lady Morgan, that at the confectioners' in Rome, on twelfthday, "saints melt in the mouth, and the temptations of St. Anthony are easily digested." Alban Butler says that there is an extant sermon of St. Anthony's wherein he extols the efficacy of the sign of the cross for chasing the devil, and lays down rules for the discernment of spirits. There is reason to believe that he could not read; St. Austin thinks that he did not know the alphabet. He wore his habit to his dying day, neither washing the dirt off his body, nor so much as his feet, unless they were wet by chance when he waded through water on a journey. The jesuit Ribadeneira affirms, that "all the world relented and bemoaned his death for afterwards there fell no rain from heaven for three years." The Engraving of ST. ANTHONY conflicting with the DEVIL, in the present sheet, is after Salvator Rosa. Saints' bodies appear, from the Romish writers, to have waited undecomposed in their graves till their odour of sanctity rendered it necessary that their remains should be sought out; and their bodies were sure to be found, after a few centuries of burial, as fresh as if they had been interred a few weeks. Hence it is, that though two centuries elapsed before Anthony's was looked for, yet his grave was not only discovered, but his body was in the customary preservation. It was brought to Europe through a miracle. One Joceline, who had neglected a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, was, therefore, sorely wounded in battle, and carried for dead into a chapel dedicated to St. Anthony. When he began to revive, a multitude of devils appeared to drag him to heil and one devil cast a halter about his neck to strangle him, wherefore St. Anthony appeared; the devils flew from him of course, and he commanded Joceline to perform his pilgrimage, and to convey his body from the east; whereupon Joceline obeyed, and carried it to France. When Patrick wrote, thesaint's beard was shown at Cologne, with a part of his hand, and another piece of him was shown at Tour |