It has been mentioned that these tables relate to 1823, and that, for succeeding years, due calculations can be easily made.

JUNE. BRACHMONAT. SOLSTITIALIS.

June 1. St. Nicomede.* St. Justin the Philosopher. St. Caprais. St. Wistan. St. Peter of Pisa. St. Pamphilius.

rises at III. 54. and sets at VIII. 6'.

KALENDAE JUNLI. Festa Carnae, Junonis Monetae, Martis, et Tempestatis. Aquila oritur chronice.-Rom. Cal.

Ovid tells us, in his Fasti,

That June from Juno's name is surely made.

He then goes on to relate the Feast of Carna :-
Prima dies tibi Carna datur: dea cardinis haec est,
Numine clausa aperit claudit aperta suo.

Carna, the goddess of the hinge, demands
The first of June; upon her power depends
To open what is shut, what 's shut unbar:

And whence this power she has, my muse, declare;
For length of time has made the thing obscure,

Fame only tells us that she has that power.

Helernus' grove near to the Tiber lies,
Where still the priests repair to sacrifice;

From hence a nymph, whose name was Grane, sprung,

Whom many, unsuccessful, courted long;

To range the spacious fields, and kill the deer,
With darts and mangling spears, was all her care;
She had no quiver, yet so bright she seemed,
She was by many Phoebus' sister deemed.

We purposely omit a disgusting and foolish detail of the amours of Janus and Carna. This Carna seems to be the most unaccountable, and even ridiculous, amongst all the Roman deities. Macrobius tells us, that some supposed the month of June to be so named from Junius Brutus, Rome's first consul; and that he, in consequence of a vow, having routed Tarquin, offered a sacrifice to this goddess Carna on Mount Coelius; and that she presided over the vital parts in men, especially the liver and heart. But what connexion there is between such a power, and that of the

* See Sept. 14.

Goddess of the Hinge, which the poet sets forth in this story, we cannot comprehend.

It is questioned whether cardinal, which comes from cardo a hinge, and also carnival, have any thing to do with Carna; but this is too farfetched on the part of derivatists.

We proceed to give Ovid's account of the other feats belonging to the Kalends of June:

Jove's hill Moneta's temple also shows

To Juno raised, from brave Camillus' vows;
There Manlius had a house, who nobly saved
Rome's Capitol, well nigh by Gauls enslaved;
Had he, great Jove, as thy defender died,
He would have been esteemed his nation's pride;
Accused of aiming at a kingly state,

A longer life caused his untimely fate.
A festival to Mars on the same day
Is kept, whose temple, in the public way,
Stands near Capena's gate; nor was thy fane,
O Tempest! hallowed on that morn in vain,
Which in Sardinian seas Marcellus vowed,
For a fleet saved, and which the state allowed.
These are the deeds of men; but view the skies,
And you'll behold Jove's hookbilled Eagle rise.

On Tempestas the Goddess.-It is strange that men being saved at sea, in the time of a great hurricane, should make a goddess of that hurricane, as if it were a free and selfmoving agent, and look no farther for the author and causer thereof; not to him who

Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm:

that is, to one Universal Cause of phenomena. Common philosophy surely was then at a very low ebb.

On the first of June, in the evening, the Eagle, a northern constellation, rises acronycally; it consists, according to the Britannic catalogue, of seventy stars, and, with the Harp, and the Swan, makes a figure in the zenith during the Summer and Autumn nights.

CHRONOLOGY.-The great engagement between the English and Dutch began this day in 1666, and lasted four days. In 1794, Howe's Victory over the French Fleet in the Atlantic.

FLORA. The two Yellow Day Lilies Hemerocallis flava and H. graminea in blow. The Flora still advancing, assumes now a new character, from the gradual succession of the Solstitial flowers to those which we have called Vernal. The Garden and the wild Roses begin now to come forth in profusion. Pinks speedily follow, and the earliest or Orange Lily Lilium bulbiflorum opens its flowers. The Yellow Flag Iris Pseudacorus often on this very day first shows her yellow painted fleur de lis, by the sides of ponds and ditches. Several Garden species of Iris also blow, and many plants, too numerous to be specified. All these circumstances, and

the addition of a warmer air, frequently give the first week in June the true character of incipient Summer.

The Papaver Argemone, the earliest of our field Red Poppies, is now in blow, and is distinguished from the other sorts by its long rough capsule.

The Monkey Poppy, and most of the later plants of the Vernal Flora, remain in flower; but the Peonies are going out, and Tulips are no longer in their beauty. The blossoms on the latest fruit trees now begin to fall rapidly, and the full green foliage to appear. The yellow colour of the flowerbespangled fields still remains, and continues till the grass is cut down by the scythe in the end of the month, the Ranunculus acris or Buttercup being the latest of this genus which in succession ornament our meadows.

June.

Now genial suns and gentle breezes reign,

And Summer's fairest splendours deck the plain;
Exulting Flora views her newborn Rose,

And all the ground with shortlived beauty glows.

June," says Aikin, " is really in this climate what the poets represent May to be, the most lovely month in the year. Summer is commenced, and warm weather thoroughly established; yet the heats rarely rise to excess, or interrupt the enjoyment of those pleasures which the scenes of nature at this time afford. The trees are in their fullest dress, and a profusion of the gayest flowers is every where scattered around, which put on all their beauty just before they are cut down by the scythe, or withered by the heat."

June 2. St. Erasmus B. M. SS. Pothinus, Marcellinus, and other Martyrs.

Hyades oriuntur heliace.-Rom. Cal.

Ovid seems to hint at this rising of the Hyades as being the period of Rain; whence they took their name :

Postera lux Hyadas Taurinae cornua frontis

Evocat, et multa terra madescit aqua.

CHRONOLOGY.-General Monk defeated the Dutch on North Foreland

in 1653.

PALES. The season for sheepshearing commences as soon as the warm weather is so far settled that the Sheep may without danger lay aside great part of their clothing. The following tokens are laid down by Dyer in his Fleece, to mark out the proper time:

If verdant Elder spreads

Her silver flowers, if humble Daisies yield
To yellow Crowfoot and luxuriant Grass,
Gay shearing time approaches.

Before shearing, the Sheep undergo the operation of washing, in order to free the wool from the foulness which it has contracted; then, as Dyer says,

On the bank

Of some clear river, gently drive the flock,
And plunge them one by one into the flood.
Plunged in the flood, not long the struggler sinks.
With his white flakes, that glisten through the tides,
The sturdy rustic, in the middle wave,
Awaits to seize him rising; one arm bears
His lifted head above the limpid stream,
While the full clammy fleece the other laves
Around, laborious, with repeated toil;

And then resigns him to the sunny bank,

Where, bleating loud, he shakes his dripping locks.

The shearing itself is conducted with a certain degree of ceremony and rural dignity, being a festival, as well as a piece of labour.

Thomson thus describes the washing and shearing of Sheep in his SUMMER :

Fast, fast they plunge amid the flashing wave,
And, panting, labour to the farther shore;
Repeated this, till the deep well washed fleece
Has drunk the flood, and from his lively haunt
The Trout is banished by the sordid stream.
Heavy and dripping, to the breezy brow

Slow move the harmless race; where, as they spread
Their swelling treasures to the sunny ray,
Inly disturbed, and wondering what this wild
Outrageous tumult means, their loud complaints
The country tell; and tossed from rock to rock,
Incessant bleatings run around the hills.
At last, of snowy white, the gathered flocks
Are in the wattled pen innumerous pressed
Head above head; and, ranged in lusty rows,
The shepherds sit, and whet the sounding shears.
Some mingling stir the melted tar, and some
Deep on the new shorn vagrant's heaving side
To print his master's cipher ready stand;
Others the unwilling Wether drag along;
And, glorying in his might, the sturdy swain
Holds, by his twisted borns, the indignant Ram.
The housewife waits to roll her fleecy stores,
With all her gay drest maids attending round.
One, chief, in gracious dignity enthroned,
Shines o'er the rest, the pastoral queen, and rays
Her smiles, sweet beaming, on her shepherd king.
A simple scene! yet hence Britannia sees

Her solid grandeur rise; hence she commands
The exalted stores of every brighter clime,
The treasures of the Sun without his rage.

FLORA. At this time of year a profusion of fragrance arises from the fields of Clover in blossom. Of this plant

there are the varieties of white and purple; the latter of which is sometimes called Honeysuckle Clover, from the quantity of sweet juice contained in the tube of the flower, whence the Bees extract much honey. A still more exquisite odour proceeds from the Beans in blossom, of which Thomson speaks in this rapturous language:

Long let us walk

Where the breeze blows from yon extended field

Of blossomed Beans. Arabia cannot boast

A fuller gale of joy than, liberal, thence

Breathes through the sense, and takes the ravished soul.

Beans and Peas, which now adorn the fields with their purple flowers, belong to a large natural family of plants called the papilionaceous, or having blossoms like a Butterfly; and also leguminous, from the pods which they bear. Most of these in our climate afford food for man or beast. Of some the seeds alone are used, as of Pea and Bean; of others the entire pod also, as of Haricot and Kidney Bean; and of some the whole plant, as of Clover, Lucerne, and Vetch.

The hedges are now beginning to be in their highest beauty and fragrance. The place of the Hawthorn is supplied by the flowers of the Dogrose, the different hues of which, from a light blush to a deep crimson, form a most elegant variety of colour.

Then the Hips succeed the Haws,

As the Summer onward draws.

To the Midnight Owl.

While the Moon, with sudden gleam,
Through the clouds that cover her,
Darts her light upon the stream,
And the Poplars gently stir;
Pleased I hear thy boding cry,
Owl, that lovest the cloudy sky;
Sure thy notes are harmony!

June 3. St. Clotildis Queen.

St. Cecilius C. St.

Coemgen B. St. Lifard A. St. Genesius.

Bellonae festum.—Rom. Cal.

Bellona was the goddess of war, daughter to Phorcys and Ceto, was called by the Greeks Enyo, and often confounded with Minerva. She was anciently called Duelliona, and was the sister of Mars, or, according to others, his daughter, or his wife. She prepared the chariot of Mars when he was going to war; and she appeared in battles armed with a whip to animate the combatants, with dishe