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Book of Com. Prayer est. 1549.
Galileo died, 1642.

Fire Insurance expires.

Royal Exchange burnt, 1838.

Hilary Law Term begins.
St. Benedict.

Cambridge Term begins.

Oxford Term begins.
Queen Elizabeth crowned.
Battle of Corunna, 1809.

17. Benjamin Franklin born, 1706.
The Helleborus niger blooms.
James Watt born, 1736.
Independence of America, 1783.
St. Agnes. Louis XVI. behd.
Lord Byron born, 1788.
Snow-drops about this time.
24. Frederick the Great born, 1712.

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22. 23.

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28.

Conversion of St. Paul.

Jenner died, 1823.

New S. Wales colonised, 1788.
Henry VII. b. 1491, d. 1547.

29. King George III. died, 1820.
King Charles I. mart. 1649.
31. Hilary Law Term ends.

30.

B

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THE SEASONS.

SIT thee by the ingle, when
The sear faggot blazes bright,
Spirit of a winter's night;

When the soundless earth is muffled,
And the caked snow is shuffled
From the ploughboy's heavy shoon;
When the Night doth meet the Noon
In a dark conspiracy

To banish Even from her sky,
Sit thee there, and send abroad,
With a mind self-overawed,
Fancy,

high-commission'd;-send her!

She has vassals to attend her;
She will bring, in spite of frost,
Beauties that the earth hath lost;
She will bring thee, all together,
All delights of summer weather;
All the buds and bells of May,
From dewy sward or thorny spray;
All the heaped autumn's wealth,
With a still, mysterious stealth:
She will mix these pleasures up
Like three fit wines in a cup,

And thou shalt quaff it:-thou shalt hear
Distant harvest-carols clear;

Rustle of the reaped corn;
Sweet birds antheming the morn ;
And, in the same moment-hark!
"Tis the early April lark,

Or the rooks, with busy caw,
Foraging for sticks and straw.
Thou shalt, at one glance, behold
The daisy and the marigold;
White-plumed lilies, and the first
Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst;
Shaded hyacinth, alway

Sapphire queen of the mid-May;
And every leaf, and every flower
Pearled with the self-same shower.
Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep
Meagre from its celled sleep;
And the snake, all winter-thin,
Cast on sunny bank its skin;
Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see
Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,
When the hen-bird's wing doth rest
Quiet on her mossy nest;

Then the hurry and alarm

When the bee-hive casts its swarm;

Acorns ripe down-pattering,

While the autumn breezes sing.

KEATS.

The crocus in the shrewd March morn
Thrusts up its saffron spear;

And April dots the sombre thorn
With gems and loveliest cheer.

Then sleep the seasons, full of might,
While slowly swells the pod,
And rounds the peach, and in the night
The mushroom bursts the sod.

The winter comes, the frozen rut

Is bound with silver bars;

The white drift heaps against the hut,
And night is pierced with stars.

COVENTRY PATMORE.

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Stern winter's icy breath, intensely keen,
Now chills the blood, and withers every green;
Bright shines the azure sky, serenely fair,
Or driving snows obscure the turbid air.

YEAR is not only an astronomical, but a natural period, and the first imperfect year of ancient times must, no doubt, have originated from observing the regular vicissitudes of heat and cold, of the leafing, flowering, and fruiting of the various tribes of vegetables; and the coincidence of these appearances with the laying and hatching of birds, and the production of the young of quadrupeds. This way of reckoning, however, was subject to so many variations, that it was soon necessary to make choice of some more constant periodical occurrence by which to mark the annual revolution.

The ancient year began in the month of March, and it may appear singular, that modern civilised nations should choose to commence their year at a period when nature lies almost dormant, in preference to that season when the race of vegetables and animals is actually renewed. In defence of the present custom it may, however, be said, that the time of the renovation of nature varies in different countries,

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