Ladybird! Ladybird! fly away home,
Your house is on fire, your children will roam,
List! list! to their cry and bewailing!
The pitiless Spider is weaving their doom;
Then Ladybird, Ladybird, fly away home,

Hark! hark! to thy children's bewailing!
Fly back again, back again, Ladybird dear;
Thy neighbours will merrily welcome thee here,
With them shall no peril attend thee;
They'll guard thee so safely from danger or care,
They'll gaze on thy beautiful winglets so fair,
They'll love thee, and ever befriend thee.
Ladybird, Ladybird, whither fly you,

To rest on the Rose or to sip of the dew?
Ladybird, Ladybird, come to my bower;

It will shade you from Sun and defend you from shower.

August 3. Invention of St. Stephen's Relics. St. Nicodemus. St. Gamaliel. St. Wolthen.

This day is celebrated the finding of the relics of St. Stephen under the ruins of an old temple called Carphagansala, near Jerusalem, by Lucian a priest, who was warned to look for them by an extraordinary vision in the year 415; a full account whereof is to be found in Butler's Lives of the Saints, 8vo. London, 1815, vol. 8. p. 39. Some consider St. Nicodemus as being the greatest festival today. Lydia of Thyatira is by some martyrologists commemorated today. CHRONOLOGY.-Columbus sailed on his first voyage this day in 1492, from Palos in Andalusia.

FLORA.-The Amaranth Amaranthus hypochondriacus is in full flower. This plant has got the whimsical name of Love lies Bleeding, perhaps from the manner, in which its long spiral red flower stalks fall down and lie on the ground. There is, however, another common species with red leaves, whose flowers are always erect, called Prince's Feather. The Holyhock Althea rosea is now in full flower, and shows innumerable varieties of colour: it continues to blow till the end of October. The hedges are now ornamented with the Toadflax Antirrhenum Linaria, whose tall pyramida. spikes of yellow flowers have a very pleasing effect when rising from the green hedge. This plant continues to flower till September. But of all the abovementioned plants the Holyhock is the most conspicuous, and is known all over Europe. The French call it Rose d'outre Mer or La passe Rose; the Italians Alcea rosea. The poet Smith says,

And from the nectaries of Holybock

The humble Bee e'en till he faint will sip.

We have observed of Amaranths that there are two kinds most commonly cultivated. They are beautiful plants, and they remind us of Milton's use of the Amaranth, when speaking of the multitude of angels assembled before the Deity:

-

To the ground.
With solemn adoration down they cast

Their crowns inwove with Amaranth and gold;
Immortal Amaranth, a flower which once
In Paradise, fast by the tree of life,

Began to bloom, but soon for man's offence
To heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows
And flowers aloft, shading the fount of life,

And where the river of bliss through midst of heaven
Rolls o'er Elysian flowers her amber stream;
With these that never fade, the spirits elect

Bind their resplendent locks enwreathed with beams;
Now in loose garlands thick thrown off the bright
Pavement, that like a sea of jasper shone,
Impurpled with celestial Roses smiled.

The following occurs in Shelley's Rosalind and Helen:
Whose sad inhabitants each year would come,
With willing steps climbing that rugged height,
And hang long locks of hair, and garlands bound
With Amaranth flowers, which, in the clime's despite,
Filled the froze air with unaccustomed light.
Such flowers as in the wintry memory bloom
Of one friend left, adorned that frozen tomb.

"In Portugal, and other warm countries, the churches are, in Winter, adorned with the Globe Amaranth. Cowley and Rapin, in their Latin poems on plants and gardens, make honourable mention of the Amaranth; but the translations of those poems are too unworthy of their originals to admit of quotation, and a friend who would have supplied me with better is on a distant journey."-Domestic Flora.

The Cockscomb Amaranth is a very showy and remarkable plant.

The Amaranth is recommended, among other flowers, as a food for Bees:

Il timo e l' Amaranto

Dei trapiantare ancora, e quell' altr' erbe
Che danno a questa greggia amabil cibo.

Le Api del Rucellai.

Moore speaks of them as being used for the hair :

Amaranths such as crown the maids

That wander through Zamara's shades.

From a passage in Don Quixote one may suppose that Amaranths were sometimes worn by the Spanish ladies in the time of Cervantes.

August 4. St. Dominic Confessor. St. Luanus Abbot in Ireland.

rises at Iv. 23'. and sets at VII. 37'.

CHRONOLOGY.-Battle of Eversham in Worcestershire in 1265. Calais taken by Edward III. in 1347.

FLORA.-The Roundleaved Bellflower Campanula rotundifolia, which begins to blow in July, now flowers abundantly, and continues through the Autumn to decorate the ruined walls, dry banks, and sides of pastures, with its little hanging lightblue flowers. A few specimens in suitable situations blow earlier, but the flowers are not numerous till this time. The following descriptive lines are from "May you like it?"—

To the Bellflower.

With drooping bells of clearest blue,
Thou didst attract my childish view,
Almost resembling

The azure butterflies that flew

Where on the heath thy blossoms grew,
So lightly trembling.

Where feathery fern and golden broom
Increase the sandrock cavern's gloom,
I've seen thee tangled,

'Mid tufts of purple heather bloom
By vain Arachne's treacherous loom
With dewdrops spangled.

'Mid ruins tumbling to decay,

Thy flowers their heavenly hues display,
Still freshly springing,

Where pride and pomp have past away
On mossy tomb and turret gray,
Like friendship clinging.

When Glowworm lamps illume the scene,
And silvery Daisies dot the green,
Thy flowers revealing,
Perchance to soothe the fairy queen,
With faint sweet tones on night serene,
Soft bells are pealing.

But most I love thine azure braid,
When softer flowers are all decayed,
And thou appearest

Stealing beneath the Hedgerow shade,
Like joys that linger as they fade,
Whose last are dearest.

Thou art the flower of memory;
The pensive soul recalls in thee
The year's past pleasures;
And, led by kindred thought, will flee,
Till, back to careless infancy,
The path she measures.

Beneath autumnal breezes bleak,
So faintly fair, so sadly meek,
I've seen thee bending,
Pale as the pale blue veins that streak
Consumption's thin, transparent cheek,
With death hues blending.

Thou shalt be Sorrow's love and mine;
The Violet and the Eglantine

With Spring are banished.

In Summer Pinks and Roses shine,
But I of thee my wreath will twine,
When these are vanished.

August 5. Dedication of the Church of St. Mary ad Nives. St. Oswald. St. Memmius. SS. Afra and others Martyrs.

The dedication of the Church of St. Mary ad Nives at Rome is regarded by Catholics as sufficient whereon to found an anniversary festival.

Saluti in Colle Quirinali.-Rom. Cal.

HYGEIA. The Romans consecrated this day to health on the Quirinal Mountain, which suggests our salutary article for this time of year. It may be observed that Midsummer as well as Midwinter are, generally speaking, the most healthy seasons, and that Spring and Autumn produce a much larger proportion of their respective diseases. It seems therefore wise to sacrifice to health at a season when, from the first decline of temperature, we may anticipate the beginning of autumnal complaints. A moderate diet and occasional gentle doses of opening medicine at this time often prevent the occurrence of the bowel complaints so prevalent a few weeks hence. But the notion that these disorders are produced by eating the autumnal fruits is quite without foundation. Excess in any thing is bad, but in moderate quantities fruits are likely, not only by keeping the bowels open to prevent the occurrence of violent diarrheas, but to mollify their effects on the constitution when they do occur, and to render the occurrence of fatal inflammation of the intestines less likely, by cooling the whole system.

Salus was the goddess of health, and the porch of the temple was called Porta Salutaris. Hygeia, which we have used to head our medical articles, was daughter to Aesculapius the father of medicine, who was so skilled in the art that he raised Hippolytus to life. He used to carry a Dog with him as his Surgeon, and a Goat as his Apothecary.

COELUM.-We cannot help adverting to the beauties of a Summer evening at this time of year, before the long twilight is exchanged for the more perfect darkness of autumnal nights; and subjoin these descriptive lines:

A Summer Evening Churchyard, Lechlade, Gloucestershire.

The wind has swept from the wide atmosphere

Each vapour that obscured the sunset's ray;
And pallid evening twines its beaming hair

In duskier braids around the languid eyes of day:
Silence and twilight, unbeloved of men,
Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen.

They breathe their spells towards departing day,
Encompassing the earth, air, stars, and sea;
Light, sound, and motion, own the potent sway,
Responding to the charm with its own mystery.
The winds are still, or the dry churchtower grass
Knows not their gentle motions as they pass.

Thou too, aërial Pile! whose pinnacles

Point from one shrine like pyramids of fire,
Obeyest in silence their sweet solemn spells,

Clothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire,
Around whose lessening and invisible height
Gather among the stars the clouds of night.

The dead are sleeping in their sepulchres;

And, mouldering as they sleep, a thrilling sound,

Half sense, half thought, among the darkness stirs,

Breathed from their wormy beds all living things around,

And, mingling with the still night and mute sky,

Its awful hush is felt inaudibly.

Thus solemnized and softened, death is mild
And terrorless as this serenest night:

Here could I hope, like some inquiring child

Sporting on graves, that death did hide from human sight Sweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleep

That loveliest dreams perpetual watch did keep.

August 6.

St.

TRANSFIGURATIO JESU CHRISTI. Xystus 11. Pope and Martyr. SS. Justus and Pastor Martyrs.

URANIA. If, about half past nine at this time of year, we go out and look up into the sky, the following will be the appearance and order of the constellations. In the western hemisphere, we shall observe Ursa Major whose stars are called Charles's Wain and whose English name is the Great Bear, to the northwest; and Arcturus below midheaven in the west: in west southwest, about midheaven, the Northern Crown: in the southwest by south, near the horizon, the two first stars of the Scorpion, Antares the first being the lowest and more to the south in the south southwest, nearly in midheaven, the two first stars of Hercules