To the author of the "Flora Domestica," and to the reader who may not have seen a volume so acceptable to the cultivator of flowers, it would be injustice to extract from its pages without remarking its usefulness, and elegance of composition. Lamenting that "plants often meet with an untimely death from the ignorance of their nurses," the amiable author" resolved to obtain and to communicate such information as should be requisite for the rearing and preserving a portable garden in pots;-and hence forward the death of any plant, owing to the carelessness or ignorance of its nurse, shall be brought in at the best as plantslaughter." The cultivation of plants commences with our infancy. If estranged from it by the pursuits of active life, yet, during a few years' retirement from the " great hum" of a noisy world, we naturally recur to a garden as to an old and cheerful friend whom we had forgotten or neglected, and verify the saying, once a man, and twice a child." There is not one of woman born" without a sense of pleasure when he sees buds bursting into leaf; earth yielding green shoots from germs in its warm bosom; white fruitblossoms, tinted with rose-blushes, standing out in clumps from slender branches; 66 flowers courting the look by their varied loveliness, and the smell by their delicacy; large juicy apples bowing down the almost tendril-shootswherefrom they miraculously spring; plants of giant growth with multiform shrubs beyond, and holly-hocks towering like painted pinnacles from hidden shrines : Can imagination boast, 'Mid all its gay creation, charms like these? Dr. Forster, the scientific author of a treatise on "Atmospheric Phenomena," and other valuable works, has included numerous useful observations on the weather in his recently published "Perennial Calendar," a volume replete with instruction and entertainment. He observes, in the latter work, that after certain atmospheric appearances on this day in the year 1809," a hard and freezing shower of hail and sleet came with considerable violence from the east, and glazed every thing on which it fell with ice; it incrusted the walls, encased the trees and the garments of people, and even the plumage of birds, so that many rooks and other fowls were found lying on the ground, stiff with an encasement of ice. Such weather," Dr. Forster observes, "has been aptly described by Philips as occurring oftentimes during a northern winter : Ere yet the clouds let fall the treasured snow, And every pointed thorn, seemed wrought in glass, The spreading oak, the beech, and tow'ring pine, "It may be observed, that in both the above descriptions of similar phenomena, the east wind is recorded as bringing up Philips, Lett. from Copenhagen. the storm. There is something very remarkably unwholesome in east winds and a change to that quarter often di Formerly this was a night of great import to maidens who desired to know who they should marry. Of such it was required, that they should not eat on this day, and those who conformed to the rule, called it fasting St. Agnes' fast. And on sweet St. Agnes' night BEN JONSON. Old Aubrey has a recipe, whereby a lad or lass was to attain a sight of the fortunate lover. "Upon St. Agnes' night you take a row of pins, and pull out every one, one after another, saying a Pater Noster, sticking a pin in your sleeve, and you will dream of him or her you shall marry." "The custom alluded to by Horace of sticking a tail, is still practised by the boys in the streets, to the great annoyance of old ladies, who are generally the objects of this sport. One of the ragged striplings that wander in crowds about Seville, having tagged a piece of paper with a hooked pin, and stolen unperceived behind some slow-paced female, as wrapt up in her veil, she tells the beads she carries in her left hand, fastens the paper-tail on the back of the black or walking petticoat called Saya. The whole Little is remembered of these homely gang of ragamuffins, who, at a convenient methods for knowing" all about sweetdistance, have watched the dexterity of hearts," and the custom would scarcely their companion, set up a loud ery of have reached the greater number of readLargalo, largalo'- Drop it, drop it'ers, if one of the sweetest of our modern this makes every female in the street look to the rear, which, they well know, is the fixed point of attack with the merry lighttroops. The alarm continues till some friendly hand relieves the victim of sport, who, spinning and nodding like a spent top, tries in vain to catch a glance at the poets had not preserved its recollection in a delightful poem. Some stanzas are culled from it, with the hope that they may be read by a few to whom the poetry of Keates is unknown, and awaken a desire for further acquaintance with his beauties :— Out went the taper as she hurried in; As though a tongueless nightingale should swell A casement high and triple arch'd there was, Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot grass, Full on this casement shone the wintry moon, * Her vespers done But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled. Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest, He took her hollow lute, Tumultuous, and, in chords that tenderest be, Upon his knees he sank, pale as smooth-sculptured stone. Her eyes were open, but she still beheld, "Ah, Porphyro!" said she," but even now Thy voice was at sweet tremble in mine ear, "How chang'd thou art! how pallid, chill, and drear Give me that voice again, my Porphyro, "Those looks immortal, those complainings dear! "6 Oh, leave me not in this eternal woe, "For if thou diest, my love, I know not where to go." Beyond a mortal man impassion'd far Blendeth its odour with the violet,— Solution sweet: meantime the frost-wind blows Like Love's alarum pattering the sharp sleet Against the window-panes. Aquarius, OR, THE WATER BEARER. The sun enters Aquarius on this day, though he does not enter it in the visible zodiac until the 18th of February. Ganymede, who succeeded Hebe as cup-bearer to Jove, is fabled to have been changed into Aquarius. Canobus of the Egyptian zodiac, who was the Neptune of the Egyptians, with a water-vase and measure, evidently prefigured this constellation. They worshipped him as the God of many breasts, from whence he replenished the Nile with-fertilizing streams. Aquarius contains one hundred and eight stars, the two chief of which are about fifteen degrees in height : His head, his shoulders, and bis lucid breast, Glisten with stars; and when his urn inclines, Rivers of light brighten the watery track. January 21. Eudosia. was wonderful miracles before her death, which, was by beheading, when she was thirteen years oid; whereupon he enjoins females to a single life, as better than a married one, and says, that her anniversary formerly a holiday for the women in England." Ribadeneira relates, that she was to have been burned, and was put into the fire for that purpose, but the flames, refusing to touch her, divided on each side, burnt some of the bystanders, and then quenched, as if there had been none made: a compassionate quality in fire, of which iron was not sensible, for her head was cut off at a single blow Her legend further relates, that eight days after her death she came to her parents arrayed in white, attended by virgins with garlands of pearls, and a lamb whiter than snow; she is therefore usually represented by artists with a lamb by her side; though not, as Mr. Brand incautiously says, "in every graphic representation." It is further related, that a priest who officiated in a church dedicated to St. Agnes, was very desirous of being married. He prayed the pope's license, who gave it him, together with an emerald ring, and commanded him to pay his addresses to the image of St. Agnes in his own church. Then the priest did so, and the image put forth her finger, and he put the ring thereon; whereupon the image drew her finger again, and kept the ring fast, and the priest was contented to remain a ba |