March 4.

again. His remains were interred at

Eastham, Essex, in a spot he had shown, March 4, 1765, Died, Dr. William when on a visit to the vicar, his friend, Stukeley, an eminent antiquary, of the Rev. Joseph Simms. A friend placed varied attainments. He was born at

the following inscription over the door of Holbeach, in Lincolnshire, where, and at Dr. Stukeley's villa at Kentish-town: Benet College, Cambridge, he received every advantage of education. He prac

Me dulcis saturet quies ; tised with reputation as a physician, at

Obscuro positus loco Boston, London, and Grantham ; but was

Leni perfruar otio prevailed upon to take holy orders, , and

Chyndonax Druida. became, successively, rector of Somerby, O may this rural solitude receive, All-Saints, Stamford, and St. George's And contemplation all its pleasures give Hanover-square, London. He was one The Druid priest. of the founders of the society of antiquaries, the Spalding society, and the Egyp

“ Chyndonax Druida" is an allusion tian society. He was a fellow of the

to an urn of glass so inscribed, in France, Royal society, secretary to the antiqua- the ashes of an arch-druid of that name,

which Dr. Stukeley believed to contain rian society, and senior fellow and censor of the college of physicians. He became

whose portrait forms the frontispiece to a free-mason, under an impression that Stonehenge, though the French antiquathe order retained some of the Eleusinian ries, in general, considered it as a forgery. mysteries, and was afterwards master of Mr. Pegge, who seemed to inherit the a lodge. He wrote ably as

a divine, antiquarian lore and research of Dr. physician, historian, and antiquary. His Stukeley, says of him, in his work on the knowledge of British antiquities was

coins of Cunobelin:-“ The doctor, I am profound. He was a good botanist; and

sensible, has his admirers, but I confess erudite in ancient coins, of which he had

I am not one of that number, as not a good collection. He drew well, and

being fond of wildness and enthusiasm understood mechanics. He invented a upon any subject." Respecting his hand snccessful method of repairing the sinking writing Mr. Gray, mentioning other perpile of Westminster bridge, in which the

sons writing with him in the reading-room ablest artificers had failed. He cut a

at the museum, says,—“ The third person machine in wood, on the plan of the

writes for the emperor of Germany, or orrery, which showed the motions of the Dr. Pocock, for he speaks the worst heavenly bodies, the course of the tides, English I ever heard ; and, fourthly, Dr. &c., and arranged a plan of Stonehenge on

Stukeley, who writes for himself, the very a common trencher. His life was spent in

worst person he could write for."* gaining and communicating knowledge. He traced the footsteps of the Romans, and explored the temples of the ancient Bri- March 4. Day breaks

4 37 tons. His labors in British antiquities

Sun rises .

6 29

5 31 procured him the name of Arch-Druid. Returning from his retirement at Kentish

Twilight ends 7 23 town to his house in Queen-square, on

Grape hyacinth in flower if the season February 27, 1765, he reposed on a

is not backward. couch, as he was accustomed, while bis

Sweet violets are usually in flower. housekeeper read to him; she left the room for a short time, and, on her return, he said to her, with a smiling and serene

March 5. countenance,-“ Sally, an accident has

On the 5th of March, 1597, the son of happened since you have been absent."

the constable duke de Montmorency was “ Pray what is it, sir ?” “ No less than a stroke of the palsy.” “ I hope noi,

baptized at the hotel de Montmorency. sir." Observing that she was in tears, he legate officiated. So sumptuous was the

Henry IV. was a sponsor, and the pope's said, “ Nay, do not weep; do not trouble banquet, that all the cooks in Paris were yourself, but get some help to carry me

employed eight days in making preparaup stairs, for I shall never come down again, but on men's shoulders." lived a week longer, but he never spoke

Noble.

h. m.

sets

He

SPRING.
Sweet spring, thou com’st with all thy goodly train,
Thy head with flames, thy mantle bright with flow'rs,
The zephyrs curl the green locks of the plain,
The clouds for joy in pearls weep down their show'rs.
Sweet spring, thou com'st—but, ah! my pleasant hours,
And happy days, with thee come not again ;
The sad memorials only of my pain
Do with thee come, which turn my sweets to sours.
Thou art the same which still thou wert before,
Delicious, lusty, amiable, fair ;
But she whose breath embalm'd thy wholesome air
Is gone; nor gold nor gems can her restore.

Neglected virtue, seasons go and come,
When thine forgot lie closed in a tomb.

Drummond of lawthornden. When fruits, and herbs, and flowers are calculation; and each differing from the decayed and perished, they are continually rest in taste, color, smell, and every other succeeded by new productions, and this property! How powerful must that art governing power of the Deity is only his be which makes ihe flesh of the various creating power constantly repeated. So species of animals differ in all sensible it is with respect to the races of animated qualities, and yet be formed by the sepabeings. What an amazing structure of ration of parts of the same common food! parts, fitted to strain the various particles In all this is the Creator every where preihat are imbibed ; which can admit and sent, and every where active: it is he who percolate molecules of such various figures clothes the fields with green, and raises the and sizes! Out of the same common trees of the forest ; who brings up the lowearth what variety of beings !-a variety of ing herds and bleating docks; who guides which no human capacity can venture the the fish of the sea, wings the inhabitants

of the air, and directs the meanest insect • History of Paris, iii. 270.

and reptile of the earth. He forms their

h. m.

sets

bodies incomparable in their kind, and spirits to dance of breathless rapture, and furnishes them with instincts still more bring tears of mysterious tenderness to admirable. Here is eternally living force, the eyes, like the enthusiasm of patriotic and omnipotent intelligence.*

success, or the voice of one beloved sing

ing to you alone. Sterne says, that if he NATURAL SYMPATHY.

were in a desert he would love some. In solitude, or that deserted state where

cypress. So soon as this want or power

is dead, man becomes a living sepulchre we are surrounded by human beings and

of himself, and what yet survives is the yet they sympathize not with us, we love

inere husk of what once he was.* the flowers, the grass, the waters, and the sky. In the motion of the very leaves of spring, in the blue air, there is found a secret correspondence with our heart. March 6. Day breaks

4 32 There is eloquence in the tongueless wind,

Sun rises .

6 25 and a melody in the flowing brooks and

5 35 the whistling of the reeds beside them,

Twilight ends 7 28 which, by their inconceivable relation to Early daffodil, or Lent lily, blows in something within the soul, awaken the the garden.

BIRDS OF PASSAGE.
Birds, joyous birds of the wand'ring wing!
Whence is it ye come with the flowers of Spring?
-“We come from the shores of the green old Nile,
From the land where the roses of Sharon smile,
From the palms that wave through the Indian sky,
From the myrrh-trees of glowing Araby.
“We have swept o'er cities, in song renown'd-
Silent they lie, with the deserts round!
We have cross'd proud rivers, whose tide hath roll’d
All dark with the warrior-blood of old;
And each worn wing hath regaind its home,
Under peasant's roof-tree, or monarch's dome.”
And what have ye found in the monarch's dome,
Since last ye traversed the blue sea's foam ?
_“We have found a change, we have found a pall,
And a gloom o'ershadowing the banquet's hall,
And a mark on the floor, as of life-drops spilt-

- Nought looks the same, save the nest we built !"
Oh, joyous birds, it hath still been so!
Through the halls of kings doth the tempest go!
But the huts of the hamlet lie still and deep,
And the hills o'er their quiet a vigil keep.
Say, what have ye found in the peasant's cot,
Since last ye parted from that sweet spot ?
“A change we have found there, and many a change!
Faces and footsteps and all things strange!
Gone are the heads of the silvery hair,
And the young that were, have a brow of care,
And the place is hush'd where the children play'd-
-Nought looks the same, save the nest we made !"
Sad is your tale of the beautiful earth,
Birds that o'ersweep it in power and mirth!
Yet, through the wastes of the trackless air,
Ye have a guide, and shall we despair ?
Ye over desert and deep have pass'd-
-So shall we reach our bright home at last !

March 7.

LAYS OF THB MINNESINGERS. On the 7th of March, 1755, died Thomas There was once a gentle time, Wilson, the venerable bishop of Sodor When the world was in its prime, and Man, in the ninety-third year of his When every day was holiday, age. He was born of humble parents, at

And every month was lovely May,

Croly. Burton, a village in the hundred of Wirrel, Cheshire, where his ancestors had passed

These bland verses usher, as a motto, their unambitious lives for several ages. the “ Lays of the Minnesingers, or Ger From Chester school he went to the university of Dublin, which was then a custom thirteenth centuries,—with specimens of

man Troubadours, of the twelfth and with Lancashire and Cheshire youths de the cotemporary Lyric Poetry of Provence, signed for the church. His first prefer- and other parts of Europe.** From this ment was a curacy under Dr. Sherlock, volume will be derived subsequent partihis maternal uncle, then rector of Winwick; whence he went into the family of culars, and poetical illustrations of the

vernal season. the earl of Derby, as chaplain, and tutor to his lordship's sons. Ai that period he

The Minnesingers, which literally sig

nifies Love-singers, flourished in Germany refused the rich living of Baddesworth in Yorkshire, because, in his then situation, badours of Provence, Castille, Catalonia,

contemporaneously with the eminent trouhe could not perform the duties of it. The bishopric of Sodor and Man, which

and Italy. They sung, or wrote, first in the had been long vacant, was so reluctantly Saxon, the old Friesic, the more modern

low German, comprehending the Angloreceived by him, that it might be said he was forced into it. Baddesworth was

nether-Saxon, and the Belgic, or Dutch

dialect of the northern tribes; secondly, again offered to himn in commendam, and

the Francic, Alemanic, Burgundian, Suaagain refused. In his sequestered diocese

bian, and kindred dialects of the highhe was the father and the friend of bis

German, or south-western tribes. The flock. He repeatedly rejected richer bishoprics, saying, "he would not part Minnesingers is in this latter, the high

greater portion of the with his wife because she was poor." German, or Suabian tongue. His works, in two volumes 4to., prove that he deserved whatever could have been

Under the Saxon emperors, the literature

of Germany made great progress : its offered to him. Bishop Horne, when Dean of Canter- from the commencement of the Suabian

brightest age of poetry may be reckoned bury,gave the following character of Bishop dynasty, in the beginning of the twelfth Wilson's Works, in a letter to his son : am charmed with the view the books af. century, and it flourished most amidst the ford me of the good man your father, in Conrad III., the first emperor of that fac

storms of the empire. On the death of his diocese and in his closet. The Life, mily, his nephew, Frederick, duke of the Sacra Privata, the Maxims, the Paro. Suabia, surnamed Red-beard, was elected chialia, &c., exhibit altogether a complete emperor, and bore the title of Frederick I. and lovely portrait of a Christian Bishop, Under his reign the band of the Minnegoing through all his functions with con- singers flourished, and at their head, as summate prudence, fortitude, and piety- the earliest of date, Henry of Veldig, the pastor and father of a happy island who, in one of his poems, remarkably for nearly threescore years. The Sermons laments the degeneracy of that early age. are the affectionate addresses of a parent to He says, “ When true love was professed, his children, descending to the minutest then also was honor cultivated ; now, particulars, and adapted to all their wants."

h. m.

by night and by day, evil manners are

learnt. Alas! how may he who witnesses March 7. Day breaks

4 30 Sun rises.

6 23

the present, and witnessed the past, lasets

5 27

ment the decay of virtue !” Frederick Twilight ends 7 30

I. joined the third papal crusade, accomDaffodilly, or double Lent lily, begins of the east, held his court in the poetic

panied his armies through the fairy regions to blow, and in the course of the month makes a fine show in the gardens: thin

lands of the south of Europe, admired pale contrasts well with the deep yellow of the crocus.

• 8vo. Longman and Co., 1825.

poetry of the

the lays of the troubadours of Provence, of Hapsburgh ascended the throne in
stimulated the muse of his native minne- 1273; and, about that period, Conrad of
singers, and fostered the literature of Wurtzburgh, an eminent minnesinger,
Germany. There is a little piece ascribed lamented the failure of his art to attract,
to this emperor which is * curious as a in lines of which the following are a
commentary on the manners of the age," translation :-
and testifies discrimination derived from Unwilling stays the throng
travel and observation-

To hear the minstrel's song ;
Plas my cavallier Francés,

Yet cease I not to sing,
E la donna Catallana,

Though small the praise it bring ;
El' onrar del Gynoés,

Even if on desert wasto
E la cour de Kastellana,

My lonely lot were cast,
Lo cantar Provensallés,

Unto my harp, the same,
E la dansa Trevizana,

My numbers would I frame ;
B lo corps Aragonés,

Though never ear were found

To hear the lonely sound,
E la perla (?) Julliana,
Los mans e cara d'Anglés,

Still should it echo round;

As the lone nightingale
E lo donzel de Thuscana.

Her tuneful strain sings on
Translation.

To her sweet self alone,
I like a cavalier Francés'

Whiling away the hour
And a Catalonian dame ;

Deep in her leafy bow'r,
The courtesy of the Genoese,

Where night by night she loves
And Castilian dignity;

Her music to prolong,
The Provence songs my ears to please,

And makes the hills and groves
And the dance of the Trevisan ;

Re-echo to her song.
The graceful form of the Arragoneze, With the fourteenth century commenced

And the pearl (?) of the Julian ; a freebooting age, and an entire change An English hand and face to see, in the literature of Germany. Minstrels And a page of Tuscany.

could not travel amidst the turbulence of Frederick I. died suddenly in 1190. wars and feuds. The “meisters," masters, His memory is preserved by traditions of or professors of poetry, and their “songhis popularity, and by grateful attach- schools,” prescribed pedantic rules, which ment to the ruins of his palace at Geln- fettered the imagination ; poetry sunk hausen. A legend places him within a into silly versifying, and the minnesingers subterranean palace in the caverns of the became extinct. Hartz Forest, reposing in a trance upon a In the fourteenth century, Rudiger von marble throne with his beard flowing on the Manesse, a senator of Zurich, and his ground, awakening at intervals to reward sons, formed a splendid MS. collection of any child of song who seeks his lonely lyric poets, which is repeatedly noticed court.

during the sixteenth century, as seen at His son and successor, the emperor, different places by inquirers into the Henry VI., was himself a minnesinger. antiquities of German song, and was at Frederiek II. called to his court the most last found in the king's library at Paris. celebrated poets, orators, and philosophers The songs of each poet are introduced of the age. He wrote in the Provençal by an illumination, seeming to represent tongue, and there remain valuable memo- an event in the poet's life, or to be illusrials of his talents and zeal for the pro- trative of his character; and accompanied motion of knowledge, while engaged in by heraldic decorations, executed with a foreign wars and surrounded by domestic care and precision usual to such ornatreachery. Heavy misfortunes befel the ments in the albums of Germany. The successors of his house. Conrad IV. elder Manesse appears to have correspondstruggled in vain; and Conrad the ed with the most eminent men of his younger, another minnesinger, succeeded country, and held a kind of academy or to the crown of Sicily and Naples only to conversazione, where all poetry which perish on the scaffold, in 1268, by the could be collected was examined, and machinations of the Pope and Charles of the best pieces were enrolled in his Anjou.

" lieder-buoch.” Upon the extinction of the Suabian The lyric poetry of the minnesingers line of emperors, the minnesingers and combines and improves ‘upon all the literature of Germany declined. Rodolph pleasing features of the Provençal muse;