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French king sending over his falconer to show that sport, his master falconer lay long here, but could not kill one kite, ours being more magnanimous than the French kite. Sir Thomas Monson desired to have that flight in all exquisiteness, and to that end was at £100 charge in gosfalcons for that flight; in all that charge he never had but one cast would perform it, and those, that had killed nine kites, never missed one. The earl of Pembroke, with all the lords, desired the king but to walk out of Royston town's end, to see that flight, which was one of the most stateliest flights of the world, for the high mountee; the king went unwillingly forth, the flight was showed, but the kite went to such a mountee, as all

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"Sir Charles. So; well cast off; aloft, aloft; well flown. O, now she takes her at the sowse, and strikes her down

To the earth, like a swift thunder clap.

Now she hath seized the fowl, and 'gins to plume her,

Rebeck her not; rather stand still and check her

So seize her gets, her jesses, and her bells;

Away.

Sir Francis. My hawk kill'd too!

Sir Charles. Aye, but 'twas at the querre,

Not at the mount, like mine.

Sir Fran. Judgment, my masters.

Cranwell.

Wendoll.

Yours miss'd her at the ferre.

Aye, but our Merlin first had plum'd the fowl,

And twice renew'd her from the river too;

Her bells, Sir Francis, had not both one weight,
Nor was one semi-tune above the other:

Methinks these Milan bells do sound too full,
And spoil the mounting of your hawk.—

Sir Fran.

Mine likewise seized a fowl
Within her talons; and you saw her paws
Full of the feathers: both her petty singles,
And her long singles griped her more than other;
The terrials of her legs were stained with blood:
Not of the fowl only, she did discomfit
Some of her feathers; but she brake away."

The technical terms in the above citation may admit of some explanation, from the following passage in Markham's edition of the Book of St. Alban's, 1595, where, speaking of the fowl being found in a river or pit, he adds, "if she (the hawl:) nyme, or take the further side of the river, or pit from you, then she slayeth the fowl at fere juttie: but if she kill it on that side that you are on your- March 3. Day breaks self, s many times it chanceth, then you shall say she killed the fowl at the jutty ferry. If your hawk nyme the fowl aloft, you shall say she took it at the mount. If you see store of mallards separate

from the river and feeding in the field, if your kawk flee covertly under hedges, or close by the ground, by which means she nymeth one of them before they can rise, you shall say, that fowl was killed at the querre."

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Purple spring crocus flowers.
Early sulphur butterfly appears.

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March 4.

again. His remains were interred at Eastham, Essex, in a spot he had shown, when on a visit to the vicar, his friend, the Rev. Joseph Simms. A friend placed the following inscription over the door of Dr. Stukeley's villa at Kentish-town :

March 4, 1765. Died, Dr. William
Stukeley, an eminent antiquary,, of
varied attainments. He was born at
Holbeach, in Lincolnshire, where, and at
Benet College, Cambridge, he received
every advantage of education. He prac-
tised with reputation as a physician, at
Boston, London, and Grantham; but was
prevailed upon to take holy orders, and
became, successively, rector of Somerby,
All Saints, Stamford, and St. George's
Hanover-square, London. He was one
of the founders of the society of antiqua-
ries, the Spalding society, and the Egyp-
tian society. He was a fellow of the
Royal society, secretary to the antiqua-
rian society, and senior fellow and censor
of the college of physicians. He became
a free-mason, under an impression that
the order retained some of the Eleusinian
mysteries, and was afterwards master of
a lodge. He wrote ably as a divine,
physician, historian, and antiquary. His
knowledge of British antiquities was
profound. He was a good botanist; and
erudite in ancient coins, of which he had
a good collection. He drew well, and
understood mechanics. He invented a
successful method of repairing the sinking
pile of Westminster bridge, in which the
ablest artificers had failed. He cut a
machine in wood, on the plan of the
orrery, which showed the motions of the
heavenly bodies, the course of the tides,
&c., and arranged a plan of Stonehenge on
a common trencher. His life was spent in
gaining and communicating knowledge.
He traced the footsteps of the Romans, and
explored the temples of the ancient Bri- March 4. Day breaks

Me dulcis saturet quies;
Obscuro positus locc
Leni perfruar otio
Chyndonax Druida.

O may this rural solitude receive,
And contemplation all its pleasures give
The Druid priest.

tons. His labors in British antiquities
procured him the name of Arch-Druid.
Returning from his retirement at Kentish-
town to his house in Queen-square, on
February 27, 1765, he reposed on a
couch, as he was accustomed, while his
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
countenance," Sally, an accident has
happened since you have been absent."
"Pray what is it, sir?" "No less than
a stroke of the palsy." "I hope noi,
sir." Observing that she was in tears, he
said, "Nay, do not weep; do not trouble
yourself, but get some help to carry me
up stairs, for I shall never come down
again, but on men's shoulders." He
lived a week longer, but he never spoke

to an urn of glass so inscribed, in France, "Chyndonax Druida" is an allusion which Dr. Stukeley believed to contain the ashes of an arch-druid of that naine, whose portrait forms the frontispiece to Stonehenge, though the French antiquaries, in general, considered it as a forgery. Mr. Pegge, who seemed to inherit the antiquaria lore and research of Dr. Stukeley, says of him, in his work on the coins of Cunobelin:-" The doctor, I am sensible, has his admirers, but I confess I am not one of that number, as not being fond of wildness and enthusiasm upon any subject." Respecting his hand writing Mr. Gray, mentioning other persons writing with him in the reading-room at the museum, says,-" The third person writes for the emperor of Germany, or Dr. Pocock, for he speaks the worst English I ever heard; and, fourthly, Dr. Stukeley, who writes for himself, the very worst person he could write for."

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Grape hyacinth in flower if the season

is not backward.

Sweet violets are usually in flower.

March 5.

On the 5th of March, 1597, the son of the constable duke de Montmorency was Henry IV. was a sponsor, and the pope's baptized at the hotel de Montmorency. legate officiated. So sumptuous was the banquet, that all the cooks in Paris were employed eight days in making prepara

Noble.

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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.

When fruits, and herbs, and flowers are decayed and perished, they are continually succeeded by new productions; and this governing power of the Deity is only his creating power constantly repeated. So it is with respect to the races of animated beings. What an amazing structure of parts, fitted to strain the various particles that are imbibed; which can admit and percolate molecules of such various figures and sizes! Out of the same common earth what variety of beings !—a variety of which no human capacity can venture the

• History of Paris, iii. 270.

Drummond of Hawthornden.

calculation; and each differing from the rest in taste, color, smell, and every other property! How powerful must that art be which makes the flesh of the various species of animals differ in all sensible qualities, and yet be formed by the separation of parts of the same common food! In all this is the Creator every where present, and every where active: it is he who clothes the fields with green, and raises the trees of the forest; who brings up the lowing herds and bleating flocks; who guides the fish of the sea, wings the inhabitants of the air, and directs the meanest insect and reptile of the earth. He forms their

bodies incomparable in their kind, and furnishes them with instincts still more admirable. Here is eternally living force, and omnipotent intelligence.*

NATURAL SYMPATHY.

In solitude, or that deserted state where we are surrounded by human beings and yet they sympathize not with us, we love 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. There is eloquence in the tongueless wind, and a melody in the flowing brooks and the whis ling of the reeds beside them, which, by their inconceivable relation to Something within the soul, awaken the

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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 regain'd 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!

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March 7.

On the 7th of March, 1755, died Thomas Wilson, the venerable bishop of Sodor and Man, in the ninety-third year of his age. He was born of humble parents, at Burton, a village in the hundred of Wirrel, Cheshire, where his ancestors had passed their unambitious lives for several ages. From Chester school he went to the university of Dublin, which was then a custom with Lancashire and Cheshire youths designed for the church. His first preferment was a curacy under Dr. Sherlock, his maternal uncle, then rector of Winwick; whence he went into the family of the earl of Derby, as chaplain, and tutor to his lordship's sons. At that period he refused the rich living of Baddesworth in Yorkshire, because, in his then situation, he could not perform the duties of it. The bishopric of Sodor and Man, which had been long vacant, was so reluctantly received by him, that it might be said he was forced into it. Baddesworth was again offered to him in commendam, and again refused. In his sequestered diocese he was the father and the friend of his flock. He repeatedly rejected richer bishoprics, saying, "he would not part with his wife because she was poor." His works, in two volumes 4to., prove that he deserved whatever could have been offered to him.

Bishop Horne, when Dean of Canterbury,gave the following character of Bishop Wilson's Works, in a letter to his son: "I am charmed with the view the books af. ford me of the good man your father, in his diocese and in his closet. The Life, the Sacra Privata, the Maxims, the Parochialia, &c., exhibit altogether a complete and lovely portrait of a Christian Bishop, going through all his functions with consummate prudence, fortitude, and pietythe pastor and father of a happy island for nearly threescore years. The Sermons are the affectionate addresses of a parent to his children, descending to the minutest particulars, and adapted to all their wants."

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to blow, and in the course of the month makes a fine show in the gardens: thin pale contrasts well with the deep yellow of the crocus.

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The Minnesingers, which literally signifies Love-singers, flourished in Germany badours of Provence, Castille, Catalonia, contemporaneously with the eminent tronand Italy. They sung, or wrote, first in the low German, comprehending the AngloSaxon, the old Friesic, the more modern nether-Saxon, and the Belgic, or Dutch dialect of the northern tribes; secondly, the Francic, Alemanic, Burgundian, Suabian, and kindred dialects of the highGerman, or south-western tribes. The greater portion of the poetry of the German, or Suabian tongue. Minnesingers is in this latter, the high

Under the Saxon emperors, the literature of Germany made great progress: its brightest age of poetry may be reckoned from the commencement of the Suabian

dynasty, in the beginning of the twelfth century, and it flourished most amidst the storms of the empire. On the death of Conrad III., the first emperor of that family, his nephew, Frederick, duke of Suabia, surnamed Red-beard, was elected emperor, and bore the title of Frederick I. Under his reign the band of the Minnesingers flourished, and at their head, as the earliest of date, Henry of Veldig, who, in one of his poems, remarkably laments the degeneracy of that early agc. He says, "When true love was professed, then also was honor cultivated; now, by night and by day, evil manners are learnt. Alas! how may he who witnesses the present, and witnessed the past, lament the decay of virtue!" Frederick I. joined the third papal crusade, accompanied his armies through the fairy regions of the east, held his court in the poetic lands of the south of Europe, admired

* 8vo. Longman and Co., 1825.

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