collected, to the persons undertaking them, who within two months after receiving the money are to account in chancery for the sums gathered.* Briefs are farmed, and were lucrative to the farmers of the benevolent donations collected at church doors, until it became known that the benevolent donations under certain briefs became the property of brief-jobbers.

Martial alludes to a relief for fire among

the Romans similar to the brief.

Brief was a term applied to papal acts sealed with wax; those sealed with lead were termed bulls.t

A Brief, in law, is an abridgment of a client's case, as instructions to counsel on the trial of an issue, in which the circumstances are clearly but briefly stated, with whatever may be objected by the opposite side, accompanied by proofs of the facts in support of the case, and the names of the witnesses to be called, with what points each witness can prove.t

Brief, as used by Shakspeare, signifies a short writing, as a letter or inventory.

Mr. Nares says, that hence we may explain the following obscure passage in the same play :

Whose ceremony Shall seem expedient on the new-born brief, And be performed to-night. That is, says Mr. Nares, "whose ceremony shall seem expedient in consequence of the short speech you have just now made." But this exposition is not quite satisfactory. The passage ought to be taken in connexion with the previous words

Good fortune and the favour of the king Smile upon this contract; whose ceremony Shall seem expedient on the new-born brief, And be performed to-night.

The passage is figurative: indeed, in Mr. Nares's sense of the word brief, it might be said "that even a face is so termed." Philip of France says to our John,

In the open air and clear sunshine of a spring morning, while listening to the joyous singing of the birds, I turned my eye upon a piece of water, and viewed, through it, the various things it covered. The sun darted his glowing beams uninterrupted on this spot. The smooth bottom began to elate itself in bubbles, and quickly after to send up parts of its green coat, with every rising bladder of detached air. These plants, which were continued in long filaments to the surface, soon reared their leaves and benumbed branches towards the cause of their new life at the surface. The dusky floor whence they had arisen, being now naked and exposed to the sun's influence, disclosed myriads of worms, cheered by the warmth of the sun, unwinding their coiled forms in wantonness and revelry. Whole series of creatures began to expand their little limbs, and creep or swim, or emerge above the surface.

In contemplating this scene, I could not but persuade myself that the source of the Egyptian enthusiasm, all that had given rise to their fabled stories of the production of animals from the mud of the Nile, was now before me.

While I was ruminating a little creature of a peculiar form and singular beauty emerged from the mud. It soon began to vibrate its leafy tail, and to work the several rings of an elegantly constructed body, and to poise six delicate legs, as if to try whether they were fit for use. Numbers of others followed it in a few minutes all that part of the water seemed peopled by this species only.

A number of these newly animated beings clustered together under the leaves of a tall plant, part of which was immersed in the water, and part above its surface. One of the insects, allured by the warm rays, rose higher up the plant, came boldly out of the water, and basked in the more free sun-beams under the open

air. It had not stood long exposed to the full radiance of the sun, when it seemed on the point of perishing under his too strong heat. Its back suddenly burst open lengthwise, and, a creature wholly unlike the former arise from within it!—a very beautiful fly disengaged itself by degrees, and left behind it only a thin skin that had been its reptile covering. The newborn inhabitant of the air would now have been suffocated in an instant by the element in which it had before so long lived and enjoyed itself. It carefully avoided it. First, trying its recently disentangled legs, it crept to the summit of the herb, to it a towering pine. The sun, which at first seemed to create it, in its reptile state, out of the mud, now seemed to enlarge its wings. They unfolded as they dried, and gradually showed their bright and perfect silky structure. The creature now began to quiver them in various degrees of elevation and depression, and at length, feeling their destined purpose, launched at once into the wide expanse of air, and sported with unrestrained jollity and freedom.

Happiest of thy race! said I; how would thy brother insects envy thee, could they imagine what was now thy state, safe from the danger of the devouring fly,-delivered from the cold wet elements, and free as the very air in which thou wantonnest! I had scarcely finished my ejaculation, when a cloud obscured the sun's face; the air grew chill, and hail came rattling down upon the water. The newly animated swarins of reptiles it contained, instantly abandoned the transient pleasures they had enjoyed the last half hour, plunged to their original inactivity in the mud again, and waited in tranquillity a more favorable season. They were now safe, and at their ease; but the little beautiful fly, which I had before thought an object of their envy, was destroyed by the first falling of the frozen rain, and floated dead upon its watery bier.

-I ruminated again, and determined never to be insolent in prosperity; never to triumph over my friend or neighbour because some favorable event had happened to me-hoped I might ever after remember that the poor fly neither knew how his peculiar good fortune came about, nor foresaw, in his enjoyment, to what ruin he alone was exposed.*

*Sir John Hill.

CREATION OF THE SUN AND MOON.

For so the light of the world, in the morning of the creation, was spread abroad like a curtain, and dwelt no where; that filled the expanse with a disair's looser garment, or the wilder fringes semination great as the unfoldings of the of the fire, without knots, or order, or combination; but God gathered the beams in his hand, and united them into a globe of fire, and all the light of the world became the body of the sun; and he lent some to his weaker sister that walks in the night, and guides a traveller, and teaches him to distinguish a house from a river, or a rock from a plane field.-Jeremy Taylor.

THE HOMES OF ENGLAND.
The stately homes of England,
How beautiful they stand!
Amidst their tall ancestral trees,
O'er all the pleasant land!

The deer across the greenwood bound,
Through shade and sunny gleam ;
And the swan glides past them with the sound
Of some rejoicing stream.

The merry homes of England!

Around their hearths by night,
What gladsome looks of household love
Meet in the ruddy light!

There woman's voice flows forth in song,
Or childhood's tale is told,
Or lips more tunefully along
Some glorious page of old.
The blessed homes of England!
How softly on their bowers,
Is laid the holy quietness

That breathes from Sabbath-hours!
Solemn, yet sweet, the church-bells' chime
Floats through their woods at morn;
All other sounds in that still time
Of breeze and leaf are born.

The cottage homes of England!

By thousands, on her plains, They are smiling o'er her silvery brooks, And round the hamlet fanes. Through glowing orchards forth they peep, Each from its mote of leaves, And fearless there they lowly sleep,

As the bird beneath their eaves,
The free fair homes of England!

Long, long in hut and hall,
May hearts of native proof be rear'd
To guard each hallow'd wall!
And green for ever be thy groves,

And bright the flowery sod,
When first the child's glad spirit loves
Its country and its God!

Mrs. Hemans.

JULY is a large part of that portion of the year which is made "glorious summer by the sun."

A book which has not received its due share of honest praise, and by some accident is, comparatively, little known"The British Naturalist"-this delightful book-is composed of "Sketches of the more interesting productions of Britain, and the surrounding sea, in the scenes in which they inhabit; and with relation to the general economy of nature, and the wisdom and power of its Author."Through these little volumes

Nature speaks

A parent's language, and, in tones as mild As e'er hush'd infant on its mother's breast, Wins us to learn her lore.

From amongst a thousand beauties in "The British Naturalist," the following is an extract-on the summer appearance of the great luminary of our system :

The charm of a summer's morning is in the upland, and the extensive view; -they who have never beheld the rising sun from a mountain top, know not how fair the world is. Early though it be, there is a sentinel upon the heath; a shrill whistle comes sharp and clear upon the morning breeze, which makes all the echoes of the west answer. But be not alarmed, there is no danger; no guerilla, not even a solitary robber, upon the British uplands; and the eagle and the raven are yet in the rocks, and reynard just leaving his earth in the coppice below. That whistle is his revellie, to warn those birds that nestle among the grass in the heath that the enemy is coming abroad. It is the note of the plover.

The place to be chosen for a view of sun-rise on a summer morning is not the centre of a mountain ridge-the chine of the wilderness; but some elevation near the sea coast, the eastern coast, where, from a height of about two thousand feet, one can look down upon the chequered beauty of the land, and the wide expanse of the ocean; where the morning fog is found white and fleecy in the valleys along the courses of the streams, and the more elevated trees and castles, and houses, show like islands floating in the watery waste; when the uplands are clear and well defined, and the beam gilds yet higher peaks, while the streak upon the sea is of that soft purple which is really no color and every color at the same time. The whole landscape is so soft, so

undefined, and so shadowy, that one is left to fill up the outline by conjecture; and it seems to get more indefinite still as the sun comes nearer the horizon. The dews feel the coming radiance, and they absolutely ascend by anticipation. At length there is one streaming pencil of golden light, which glitters and breaks as if it were the momentary lightning of a cloud; the dew drops at your feet are rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and opals, for an instant; and then it is gone. If the horizon be perfectly clear, this "blink" of the rising sun (and we have observed it only on such occasions as that alluded to) has a very curious effect. It comes momentarily, and, when it is gone, all seems darker than before. But the darkness is of as brief duration as the light, and the rising grounds are soon brought out with a power of chiar' oscuro-a grouping of light and shade, that never can be observed when the sun is at any height, as the shadow is from eminence to eminence, filling all the hollows; and, though deep, it is remarkably transparent, as evaporation has not yet begun to give its fluttering indistinctness to the outlines of objects. By the time that half of the solar disc is above the horizon, the sea is peculiarly fine, and it is better if the view be down an estuary. In the distant offing it is one level sheet, more brilliant than burnished gold, in which the boats, with their dark lug sails, as they return from the deep sea fishing, project their streaky shadows for miles, though each seems but a speck. The lands on the opposite sides of the estuary pay their morning salutations, in soft breezes wafted across, as the sun touches a point of the one here, and of the other there; for the summer sun no sooner beams out upon one part of the landscape than the little Zephyr from all the others hasten thither to worship,-so instantly does the genial beam put the atmosphere in motion; and as those Zephyrs come from more moist places, there is absolutely dew upon the parched heights at sun-rise, if they be not too extensive. Those cross winds rippling the water this way and that way, give an opal play to the whole; while behind you, if the estuary stretches that way, it passes into a deep blue, as, from the small angle at which the rays fall, they are all reflected forward; and the very same cause that makes the water so brilliant before you, gives it that deep tint in your rear. By and by, the trees and buildings in lateral

positions come out, with a line of golden light on their eastern sides; while to the west every pane in the windows beams and blazes like a beacon fire. The fogs, too, melt away, except a few trailing fleeces, over the streams and lakes, that lie sheltered beneath steep or wooded banks; and they [soon fade from these also, and the mingled fields, and woods, and streams, are all arrayed in green and gold. The cottage smokes begin to twine upward in their blue volumes; the sheep are unfolded; the cattle sent to their pastures; and people begin the labor of the fields. *

Loud is the Summer's busy song
The smallest breeze can find a tongue,
While insects of each tiny size
Grow teazing with their melodies,
Till noon burns with its blistering breath
Around, and day dies still as death.
The busy noise of man and brute
Is on a sudden lost and mute;
Even the brook that leaps along
Seems weary of its bubbling song,
And, so soft its waters creep,
Tired silence sinks in sounder sleep.
The cricket on its banks is dumb,
The very flies forget to hum:
And, save the waggon rocking round,
The landscape sleeps without a sound.
The breeze is stopt, the lazy bough
Hath not a leaf that dances now;
The tottergrass upon the hill,

And spiders' threads, are standing still;
The feathers dropt from moorhen's wing,
Which to the water's surface cling,
Are stedfast, and as heavy seem
As stones beneath them in the stream;
Hawkweed and groundsel's fanning downs
Unruffled keep their seedy crowns;

And, in the oven-heated air,

Not one light thing is floating there,
Save that to the earnest eye
The restless heat seems twittering by.
Noon swoons beneath the heat it made,
And flowers e'en wither in the shade,
Until the sun slopes in the west,
Like weary traveller, glad to rest,
On pillow'd clouds of many hues ;
'Then nature's voice its joy renews,
And chequer'd field and grassy plain
Hum, with their summer songs again,
A requium to the day's decline,
Whose setting sunbeams coolly shine,
As welcome to day's feeble powers
As falling dews to thirsty flowers.

* British Naturalist, ii. p. 278.

Clare.

Cabbage, savoy, broccoli, some into nursery-beds, and others, according to their growth, into final plantations.

Celery, early in the month, from seed beds, into others of rich earth, four inches apart; and water regularly. Set out large grown plants in trenches for blanching.

Lettuces, Cos, Silesia, and others, from the seed-beds.

Attend to the onion beds, and bend down the stems of those that begin to turn color; take up ripe onions, shalots, and garlic, and expose them to the sun on a dry spot of ground.

Lay vines of cucumber plants in straight and regular order; dig lightly round, but

not too near their roots.

Gather herbs for drying-mint, balm, sage, &c.; dry them in the shade. Stick peas, top beans, and scarlet run