with certainty, cheapness, and unparalleled expedition, exemplifying truly the Mercurius alatus of antiquity.

October 16. St. Gall Abbot. St. Lullus Bishop and Confessor. St. Mummolin Bishop and Confessor. CHRONOLOGY.-Ridley and Latimer were burnt at Oxford in 1555. Count Munich, the favourite of Czarina Anne, died at Riga, aged 84, in 1767.

Robert Ferguson the astronomer died in 1774.

MM. Blanchard and Sheldon ascended in an air balloon from Chelsea in 1784.

Decollation of the Queen of France in 1793.
John Hunter the anatomist died in 1793.

FLORA.-China Asters, African and French Marigolds, common Marigolds, Stocks, Dahlias, and some other plants continue in blow, but in general the aestival plants are mostly faded. The autumnal Flora still prevails; and the Michaelmas Daisy Aster Tradescanti, and some others of this sort, still flower plentifully. Fungi begin to be common, but the appearance of this tribe is very uncertain, and depends on the wetness of the weather. At whatever period of Autumn wet weather succeeds a drought, Fungi are sure to spring up, and to entertain the botanist in his walks with their curious forms and colours.

FAUNA. A few Swallows and Martins are still seen, particularly if the wind continue for a long time to blow from southerly and westerly points of the compass. The general migration, however, of these birds, has already taken place. DIANA. The country is said about this time to be ready for regular Foxhunting, though the fallen and falling leaves make the trail in cover very doubtful yet. The still and damp intervals of weather, with only a gentle or almost imperceptible air from south and southwest, which occurs at this time of year, often renders a good day's hunting, as the scent is then good. Scent, however, at best is but an uncertain thing, and the most promising mornings often disappoint the sportsman. That scent is caused by the suspension in the air of the odorous effluvia of the hunted beast, and that rain will wash it down, and wind blow it away, and thus spoil the chase, is well known to every body; but even those calm days, in which the huntsman expects the best scent, frequently deceive him, so that there seems to be some other cause for the hanging in the air of the scent than merely the stillness of the wind. The scent too at times falls nearer to the ground than at others, and a good breast high scent is often enjoyed when least expected. A raw frosty morning, when the white rime goes off, has often given as good a run to hounds as a calm warm cloudy sky;

and though southerly winds are preferred for hunting, yet we have known some of the best chases to happen with the wind from the north. See Beckford's Thoughts on Hunting.

Infallible Criterion of good Scent. From having constantly amused ourselves with our pipe early in the morning, we have discovered and are enabled to point out an almost infallible method of judging of good scent. When the tobacco smoke seems to hang lazily in the air, scarcely sinking or rising, or moving from the place where it is emitted from the pipe, producing at the same time a strong smell which lasts some time in the same place, after the smoke is apparently dispersed, we may on that day be sure that the scent will lay well. We have seldom known this rule to deceive; but it must be remembered that the state of the air will sometimes change in the course of the day, and that the scent will drop all of a sudden, and thus throw the hounds all out and break off the chase abruptly. For as Sommerville says:

Thus on the air

Depend the hunter's hopes. When ruddy streaks
At eve forebode a blustering stormy day,
Or lowering clouds blacken the mountain's brow,
When nipping frosts, and the keen biting blasts
Of the dry parching east, menace the trees
With tender blossoms teeming, kindly spare
Thy sleeping pack, in their warm beds of straw
Low sinking at their ease; listless they shrink
Into some dark recess, nor hear thy voice
Though oft invoked; or haply if thy call
Rouse up the slumbering tribe, with heavy eyes
Glazed, lifeless, dull, downward they drop their tails
Inverted; high on their bent backs erect

Their pointed bristles stare, or among the tufts
Of ranker weeds, each stomachhealing plant

Curious they crop, sick, spiritless, forlorn.
These inauspicious days, on other cares
Employ thy precious hours.

But if the weather be calm and moist, fit for hunting,

We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top,
And mark the musical confusion

Of hounds and echo in conjunction.

I was with Hercules and Cadmus once,
When in a wood of Crete they bayed the bear
With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear
Such gallant chiding; for, besides the groves,
The skies, the fountains, every region near
Seemed all one mutual cry: I never heard
So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.

On the late John Hunter and his Doctrines.
To know what's what is quite as high
As metaphysic wit can fly.

It was our intention to have appended a short memoir of

the late Mr. Hunter to his death recorded on this day, but on due consideration it was deemed expedient to omit it, his life having been written before by one of his connexions, and his opinions and character more ably illustrated, and more gallantly and pertinaciously defended by the most illustrious of his successors in the chirurgical art, than it could have been done by us. We allude to the Hunterian Orations delivered by Mr. Abernethy before the College of Surgeons of London. Laudari laudato viro has been in all ages esteemed an honour, and the Manes of John Hunter, if such there be who can take delight in his mundane fame, must be highly flattered at the eulogy pronounced upon him in these rhapsodies, during the delivery of which the panegyric was always spoken with a degree of elocutionary intonation and emphasis that do credit to the strong feelings and enthusiasm of the illustrious author, whom a near approximation to the best part of Mr. Hunter's character and talents has justly placed at the head of his pro

fession.

The sequel of this history is remarkable. Strange as it may appear to medical men remote from the scene of action, the physiological opinions of Mr. Hunter, as discussed by Mr. Abernethy, have led to a controversy of the most extraordinary and imposing character, respecting the nature of Matter, Vitality, and Intelligence.

The views of physiology taken by some of Mr. Abernethy's fellow orators not coinciding with his own, and the parties having spun out their reciprocal parley into terms of seeming asperity, a controversy ensued which drew forth, not only the opinions of the surgical combatants, but of other persons, who ranged themselves in a party either to attack or defend a somatopsychonoological hypothesis of the coexistence of Body, of Life, and of Soul, which, had it been broached in the sixteenth century, would have made an enormous figure, but which was unfortunately introduced to the philosophers of modern times at a critical juncture, when, after the elaborate and deep metaphysics of Bishop Berkley and Professor Kant, the demonstrative system commonly called Phrenology was just developing all that was yet wanting to the history of the human mind and its material conditions, and had already approached as nearly as seems possible to that veil of mystery which Nature has hung before the final cause of things, which we are not enabled to lift up. In pursuing the inquiry alluded to, we shall often detect ourselves endeavouring to substantiate by argument positions which do not admit of definition, and seeking for proofs of that which we are conscious of by simple intuition; of which

the consideration of the personal identity of the percipient individual affords the most striking example.

October 17. St. Etheldreda. SS. Hegwiges. St. Anstrudis V. St. Andrew of Crete Martyr.

St. Etheldreda was a princess of distinguished piety, daughter of Anna, King of the East Angles, and Hereswitha his queen, and was born about the year 630, at Ixning, a small village in Suffolk. In the year 673, she founded the conventual church of Ely with the adjoining convent. Of this monastery she was constituted abbess, the monks and nuns living in society and regular order: it flourished for nearly two hundred years, but was destroyed, with its inhabitants, by the Danes in 870. In Bentham's History of Ely are many curious particulars of this saint.

CHRONOLOGY.-Battle of Neville's Cross in 1346, in which David Bruce was made prisoner, and the Scots defeated.

DIANA. We noticed of late the commencement of hunting, which applies rather to Foxhunting, as Harehunting usually begins with October. But though most. Foxhounds begin to hunt regularly about this time, yet the country is not by any means fit for it: either the weather remains too dry or the leaves intercept the view. We should fix the period, when good hunting begins, no earlier than November. For the amusement of our readers we subjoin the following Essex hunting song:

A false Hallow. A humorous Song.

Bright was the morning, and Thursday the day,
Two brothers in Essex to hunt rode away;

'Twas at Thorney Down Common the hounds were to meet,

And the Squire was there all the hunters to greet.

Tallyo, tallyo, tallyo, tallyo—0—0—0—

-o, &c.

The Banker was mounted on a pert little bay,
The Doctor he rode a mare active and grey;

Through Woodford and Loughton they both take their course,
While John rode abaft on a wounded bay horse.

Tallyo, tallyo, &c.

As the church clock of Epping eleven did sound,
The hunt all assembled, went forth from the ground;
After drawing seven covers, and finding no vermin,

They returned from the course, and to home did determine.

Tallyo, tallyo, &c.

But while onward they jogged, and for hunting good lack,
They heard the Hounds open, and the Whipperin crack,
At last came Sir Rennard beside of the road,
So the Banker sung out most tremendously loud,
Tallyo, Tallyo.

They followed the chase for an hour and more,
And lost the Fox just as the daylight was o'er,
When mistaking the plumes of a Goose, Ned, anon
Sung out the view hollow,-the Hounds were set on!
Tallyo, Tallyo.
When the Huntsman found out there was really no Fox,
He hollowed out, Zounds 'tis a confounded hoax;
He turned and went on, but the Doctor and Banker
Went home, for they found there was nothing but raucour.
Tallyo, Tallyo.

At the Baldfaced Stag they halted awhile,
And got a few Biscuits the time to beguile,
But coming home dark they near lost the right way,
Their Dinner, and also a bout at the play.

Tallyo, Tallyo.

Should the Banker some day take it into his head,
To leave hunting, and chase some fair vixen instead;
May he ne'er be deceived, nor when too late to choose,
Discover the game he has tallied 's a Goose.

Tallyo, Tallyo.

October 18. ST. LUKE Evangelist. St. Julian Sabas Hermit. St. Justin Martyr. St. Monon Martyr.

St. Luke the Evangelist was born at Antioch the metropolis of Syria, a place celebrated for the study of the liberal arts. The opinion that he was a painter seems without foundation, as it is not countenanced by ancient writers. Dr. Lardner thinks that he might have been by profession a physician, as the expression "beloved physician," Col. iv. 14. seems to intimate. St. Luke lived a single life, and died in the eightyfourth year of his age, about the year of Christ 70, probably a natural death. He mentions himself with peculiar diffidence in his own history of the Acts of the Apostles.

Another jovial festival in old Rome.

COELUM.-Fair warm weather frequently occurs about this time, and lasts several days; it is called, in the south of England, St. Luke's Little Summer. A gentle breeze from the South or perhaps Southeast, the Thermometer about 60° of Fahrenheit's scale, a high and rather rising Barometer, fair Sky, with Sonderclouds, Curlclouds, and an elevated mass of the lighter modifications, much mixed