makes, when seen in beds, exhibiting the richest and most beautiful colours that the imagination can picture. Unless carefully guarded, however, against the uncertainty of our climate, the hopes and expectations of the cultivator will be greatly disappointed. To this subject the poet sweetly alludes in the following elegant comparison: As some fair tulip by a storm opprest, The storm that caused your fright is past and done. DRYDEN. Towards the end of spring all our birds of prey are very active and bold; their food becomes scarce, and, to satisfy their hunger, they incur risks which they avoid at other seasons: watching the dove-cot, they will seize the birds at the very doors of their asylums. The common sparrow-hawk takes his prey by different methods: at one time he glides along the hedge in the utmost silence, and, with unmoving wing, rushing on his victim the moment he sees it, with undeviating certainty. At other times he singles out his object from some eminence whereon he is perched; or, when on the wing, not always moving on in a direct line, but sailing above, he drops on his prey with a rapidity that insures a capture. The devoted creature makes no exertion to escape, but sees his enemy advance in motionless terror, and becomes an unresisting victim: so fixed is the attention of the hawk upon this one object, that he seems unmindful of his own danger, and, rushing by on precipitate wing, he snatches up his morsel at our very sides. Some wary bird generally gives the alarm of danger, and, in a moment, the little troop hurry away to the adjoining hedge; but most commonly the evil is too near for the victim he has singled out to escape. The female glow-worm (lampyris noctiluca) is now seen on dry banks, about woods, pastures, and hedgeways. The marine plants which flower this month, and which are chiefly found on sea-shores and in the crevices of rocks, are, buck's horn (plantago coronopus), which flowers the whole summer; burnet saxifrage (pimpinella dioica), sea arrow-grass (triglochin. maritimum) on muddy shores; the clammy lychnis (lychnis viscaria); the cerastium-tetrandum; scurvy-grass (cochlearia), sea-kale (crambe maritima), on sandy shores; the sea-cabbage (brassica oleracea), the seastork's bill (erodium maritimum), the slender bird'sfoot trefoil (lotus diffusus), the mountain flea-wort (cineraria integrifolia) on chalky cliffs; and the sedge (carex arenaria) on sea shores. The leafing of trees is usually completed in May. -See T. T. for 1818, p. 132; and T.T. for 1817, p. 155, for some lines on planting trees. This is the season in which cheese is made: the counties most celebrated for this article are Cheshire, Wiltshire, and Gloucestershire. The corn is benefited by a cold and windy May, and is too apt to run into stalk, if the progress of vegetation be much accelerated by warm weather at this season. In late years, some sowing remains to be done; and, in forward ones, the weeds should be well kept under. JUNC. Remarkable Days In JUNE 1823. 1.-NICOMEDE. NICOMEDE was a pupil of St. Peter, and was discovered to be a Christian by his burying Felicula, a martyr, in a very honourable manner. He was beaten to death with leaden plummets, on account of his religion, in the reign of Domitian. 5.-SAINT BONIFACE. Boniface was a Saxon presbyter, born in England, and at first called Winfrid. He was sent as a missionary, by Pope Gregory II, into Germany, where he made so many converts, that he was distinguished by the title of the German Apostle. He was created Bishop of Mentz in the year 145. Boniface was one of the first priests of his day, and was also a great friend and admirer of the Venerable Bede. He was murdered in a barbarous manner by the populace near Utrecht, while preaching the Christian religion. *JUNE. 1536. and Destruction of Libraries by Henry VIII.—It is a circumstance well known to every one at all conversant in English history, that the suppression of the lesser monasteries by that rapacious monarch, Harry the VIII, took place in 1536. Bishop Fisher, when the abolition was first proposed in the convocation, strenuously opposed it, and told his brethren that this was fairly showing the king how he might come at the great monasteries. And so, my lords,' concluded he, if you grant the king these smaller monasteries, you do but make him a handle, whereby he may cut down all the cedars within your lebanons.' Fisher's fears were borne out by the subsequent acts of Henry, who, after quelling a civil commotion occasioned by the suppression of the lesser monasteries, immediately abolished the remainder; and, in the whole, suppressed 645 monasteries, of which 28 had abbots who enjoyed seats in parliament. Ninety colleges were demolished, 2374 chantries and freechapels, and 110 hospitals. The havoc that was made among the libraries cannot be better described than in the words of Bayle, Bishop of Ossory, in the preface to Leland's New Year's Gift to King Henry VIII: DISSOLUTION OF MONASTERIES 'A greate nombre of them whyche purchased those superstycyouse mansyons (monasteries) reserved of those librarye bookes, for various purposes, some to scoure theyr candlestyckes, some to rubbe theyr bootes, &c. &c. Some they solde to the grossers and sope sellers, and some they sent over see to ye booke bynders, not in small nombre, but at tymes whole shyppes full to ye wonderynge of foren nacyons. Yea ye Universytees of thys realme are not alle clere in thys detestable fact. But cursed is that bellye whyche seketh to be fedde with suche ungodlye gaynes, and so depelye shameth hys natural conterye. I knowe a merchant manne, whyche shall at thys time be namelesse, that boughte ye contentes of two noble lybraryes for forty shyllynges pryce: a shame it is to be spoken. Thys stuffe hathe he occupyed in ye stede of greye paper, by ye space of more than these ten yeares, and yet he hathe store ynoughe for as manye yeares to come. A prodygyouse example is thys, and to be abhorred of all men whyche love theyr nacyon as they shoulde do. The monkes kepte them undre duste, ye ydle-headed prestes regarded them not, theyr latter owners have most shamefully abused them, and ye covetouse marchantes have solde them awaye into foren nacyons for mo neye.' On the dissolution of the monasteries,' Mr. Wordsworth has written a series of most beautiful Sonnets, three of which we are tempted to present to our readers, as conveying sentiments (perfectly in unison with our own), and clothed in language worthy of the pen from which it flows: I. Threats come which no submission may assuage; The tapers shall be quenched, the belfries mute, The warbling wren shall find a leafy cage; The owl of evening, and the woodland fox, To stoop her head before these desperate shocks— II. The lovely nun (submissive but more meek With equal wrath the steps of strong and weak) While through the convent gate to open view Poured forth, while summer suns at distance shine, III. Yet some, noviciates of the cloistral shade, Like ships before whose keels, full long embayed Their liquid world, for bold discovery, In all her quarters temptingly displayed. Hope guides the young; but when the old must pass The threshold, whither shall they turn to find The hospitality-the alms (alas! Alms may be needed) which that house bestowed? 11.-SAINT BARNABAS. Our saint's proper name was Joses; he was descended of the tribe of Levi, and born at Cyprus. His parents being rich, had him educated at Jerusalem, under the care of Gamaliel, a learned Jew; and, after his conversion, he preached the Gospel with Paul, in various countries, for fourteen years. Barnabas suffered martyrdom at Salamis, in his native island:-being shut up all night in the synagogue by some Jews, he was, the next morning, cruelly tortured, and afterwards stoned to death. The Epistle |