who does the same, as in succession do the rest. After having ploughed in several places, the Emperor sows the different grain: these are wheat, rice, millet, beans, and another kind of millet, called cas-leang; and the day following the husbandmen finish the field, and are rewarded by the Emperor with four pieces of dyed cotton for clothes. The governor of Pekin often goes to visit the field, which is cultivated with great care, and if he finds at any time a stalk that bears thirteen ears, it is esteemed a good omen. He also goes in autumn to get in the corn, which is put into yellow sacks and deposited in the imperial granary, only to be used on the most solemn occasions.

Seasons for Marriage.

In Aubrey's Gentilism, a MS. in the Lansdowne Collection, is the following advertisement, apparently cut out of an old almanack :—

"Marriage comes in on the thirteenth day of January, and at Septuagesima Sunday it is out again until Low Sunday; at which time it comes in again, and goes not out until Rogation Sunday: thence it is forbidden until Trinity Sunday, from whence it is unforbidden until Advent Sunday; but then it goes out, and comes not in until the thirteenth of January next following."

Of the marriage customs of his time, Aubrey says: "When I was a little boy, before the Civil Wars, I have seen the bride and bridegroom kiss over the bridecakes at the table. It was about the latter end of dinner, and the cakes were layd one upon another, like the picture of the shew-bread in the old Bibles. The bridegroom waited at dinner."

St. Anthony's Day.

Anthony, the first institutor of monastic life, was born at a village in Upper Egypt, in the year 251. His parents, who were wealthy, are said to have prohibited him, when young, from acquiring any other language than his native Coptic. Having understood some passages of Our Saviour's precepts in their literal sense, he distributed to his neighbours and the poor the property which came to him by inheritance. He placed his sister in a house of virgins, and then retired to a solitude in his native village, where he is represented to have been tempted by the devil in various shapes! In this retirement he was reputed to have received the gift of miracles; his disciples crowded about him, and at their importuning him he erected various monasteries, where they passed their time in acts of devotion and in manual labour. After a long residence in his first place of retreat, he withdrew to Mount Coldum, near the Red Sea, where he made a ruined sepulchre his residence, and here again he was tempted by the devil! St. Anthony next went to Alexandria, at the request of Athanasius, to defend the faith against the Arians, and he is said to have converted many to Christianity. He returned to his cell, where he died in 356, it is concluded, on the 17th of January.

Seven of St. Anthony's letters, written originally in Coptic, are ex

tant in the Bibliotheca Patrum. St. Anthony left one of his sheepskins, with the cloak in which he lay, to Athanasius; his other sheepskin to the Bishop Serapion; and his hair shirt to Macarius and Amathias, two brethren, or disciples, who were with him at his death.

The temptations of this saint were favourite subjects with the early engravers. Michael Angelo, when a boy, was so struck with Schongauer's print of St. Anthony tormented by devils, that he copied it in colours. Among the miracles believed to have been wrought by this saint's intercession, was the cure of the distemper called the Sacred Fire; since that time St. Anthony's Fire, and in modern days erysipelas. In 1095, a religious order was founded in France, called the Order of St. Anthony, the members of which were to take care of persons afflicted with the above disease; its old name was the rose. St. Anthony's emblem is a tau-cross and pig by his side, the bell at the end of the cross or round the neck of the pig. The Grocers' Company in London, of old, called themselves the Fraternity of St. Anthony, because they had their altar in St. Anthony's (Antholin's) Church, in Budge-row.

Mallard Night.

On January 14th, the Festival of the Mallard was formerly held at All Souls' College, Oxford, on this night. Tradition says, that when the workmen were preparing the foundation of the original college buildings, in 1437, they found in the sewer, or drain, a mallard of enormous size; in commemoration of which circumstance the festival of the Mallard was appointed. This is no longer observed; but on one of the college gaudies there is still sung, in memory of the occurrence, a "merry old song, set to ancient music," of which here is a stanza :

Therefore let's sing and dance a galliard

To the remembrance of the Mallard:
And as the Mallard dives in pool,
Let us dabble, duck, and dive in bowl.
Oh, by the blood of King Edward,
Oh, by the, &c.

It was a swapping, swapping Mallard.

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The story of the Mallard was productive of much amusement. The Rev. Mr. Pointer having, in his History of Oxford, rashly hazarded a doubt as to the true species of the bird, and even insinuated that it was not a huge drake, but a middle-sized goose, was replied to by Dr. Buckler, in his Complete Vindication of the Mallard, with much humour and delicate irony: this drew forth a reply, in Proposals for Republishing a Complete History of the Mallardians, The " Buckler" of the Mallardians, &c.

The old expression, Gaudy Day, or Night, a time of festivity and rejoicing, is yet fully retained in the University of Oxford.

St. Wulstan's Day.

The Feast of St. Wulstan, Bishop of Worcester, A.D. 1062, commencing on January 19th, sometimes continued four days together. He gave up the use of meat from this circumstance. One day, after he had been ordained priest, a cause in which he was engaged was about to come on; Wulstan had first to celebrate mass, and that he might not go without his dinner, his attendants put down a goose to roast in the meantime. The house was near the church, and while engaged in his devotions the savoury odour of the food filled his nostrils, and the anticipated pleasures of the repast distracted his mind. In vain he strove against the temptation. To punish himself, when mass was over, he went away without eating, and thenceforth, it is said, renounced the use of flesh and all more appetizing food. Alone, of all the Saxon bishops, at the time of the Conquest, he preserved to his death the pastoral staff. He rebuilt, in 1084, the cathedral at Worcester, wherein his remains rest in a stone coffin.

St. Agnes' Day or Eve,

January 21st, was famous for divinations practised by virgins, to discover their future husbands. St. Agnes was a Roman virgin and martyr, who suffered in the tenth persecution, under the Emperor Dioclesian, A.D. 306. About eight days after her execution, her parents saw at her tomb a vision of angels, among whom was their daughter, and a lamb standing by her as white as snow. Hence St. Agnes is pictured with a lamb by her side. At Rome, lambs gaily decked with ribands were led up to the altar and presented to the Pope. In the Sarum Missal she is the wise virgin in the Parable of the Virgins, the gospel of the day. Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, speaks of maids fasting on St. Agnes' Eve, to know who shall be their first husband, to which Ben Jonson thus alludes::

And on sweet St. Agnes' night,

Please you with the promis'd sight,
Some of husbands, some of lovers,
Which an empty dream discovers.

Aubrey, in his Miscellanies, directs that "upon St. Agnes' Night you take a row of pins, and pull out every one, one after another, saying a paternoster, sticking a pin in your sleeve, and you will dream of him or her you shall marry."

St. Vincent's Day.

This day, January 22nd, is recorded as Sunbeam-day in the Natural Calendar, from the old proverb that it bodes good luck if the sunbeams be seen breaking out any time to-day. A Latin proverbial line has it,

Vincenti festo si and extended:

Sol radiet memor esto, which has been thus Englished

Remember, on St. Vincent's Day,

If that the sun his beams display,

Be sure to mark the transient beam

Which through the casement sheds a gleam;
For 'tis a token bright and clear

Of prosperous weather all the year.

The Conversion of St. Paul.

This festival (January 25th) was instituted very early, and is mentioned in our history, in the reign of Henry III., in 1222.

St. Paul, the great Apostle of the Gentiles, originally called Saul, was born at Tarsus, in Cilicia; and though a Jew and a Pharisee, he was by birth a Roman citizen. He was present at the martyrdom of St. Stephen, A.D. 34, and was then a young man. He was highly educated in the learning of the times, went to Jerusalem to study the laws, and being a man of great talent, ardent mind, and inflexible resolution, and devotedly attached to the institutions of his country, he viewed with alarm the new religion. Accordingly, he took an active part against the Christians, and pursued them, "breathing out threatenings and slaughter." While on his journey to Damascus, authorized to bring to Jerusalem whomsoever of the disciples he might find there, his miraculous conversion took place, as related in the Acts of the Apostles, c. ix. This event, so important in its results upon the subsequent fortunes of Christianity, occurred A.D. 35, two years after the Crucifixion of our Lord. His conversion, which involved the loss of all his brilliant prospects, has, next to the miracles and resurrection of our Lord, been justly contemplated as one of the most striking and memorable events connected with Christianity; and Lord Lyttelton considered it a sufficient demonstration of the divine authority of the religion to which the Apostle was a convert.

From being a furious zealot and a fierce persecutor of the disciples of Jesus Christ, St. Paul became a disciple himself, and indefatigable in preaching the gospel. He was the main instrument of carrying the Christian religion among the Gentiles, and his mission continued many years, and spread over a territory of vast extent. Judea, Syria, and Asia Minor were filled with monuments of his zeal. He passed over into Europe, where he made converts and planted churches. "We see him," says Paley, "in the prosecution of his purpose, travelling from country to country, enduring every species of hardship, assaulted by the populace, punished by the magistrates, scourged, beat, and stoned, left for dead, expecting, wherever he came, the same treatment; yet, when driven from one city, preaching in the next, unsubdued by anxiety, want, labour, persecution, and the prospect of death."

He also wrote fourteen epistles to individuals and to churches, which show him to be a man of great genius and great abilities, of clear conception, fervid imagination, lofty intellect, and a large and liberal heart, his arguments sometimes disclosing in a few words the profoundest views of Christianity. His speeches in the Acts of the Apostles are worthy of the Roman senate, and his answers, when at

the bar, are distinguished for their address and their dignity. Whether among the Jews in Pisidia, or the Gentiles at Lystra, or the polished Greeks at Athens, or pleading before Felix and Agrippa, his discourses are admirably adapted to the character and capacities of his audiences. There is a tradition in the Church that Paul was beheaded near Rome, and buried about two miles from the city. A magnificent cathedral was built over his grave by Constantine; but his noblest monument consists in his immortal writings, invaluable for "the most sublime and beautiful, the most pathetic and impressive, the most learned and profound specimens of Christian piety, oratory, and philosophy." The journal of his Travels is one of the most interesting books published.

There is abundant evidence that St. Paul visited Britain: learned antiquaries, such as Camden, Ussher, Stillingfleet, Cave, and Burgess, are of this opinion; and as St. Augustine, on his arrival A.D. 596, found a British church in the remote fastnesses of Wales and Cornwall, with its archbishop, bishops, priests, and monastic orders, it is maintained that St. Paul was the founder of this church, and was thus, personally, the original founder of the Church in Britain. (See the works of the Rev. R. W. Morgan and the Rev. B. W. Savile, published in 1861, upon this important matter of history.)

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St. Paul is the patron saint of the Corporation of London, and the dagger" in the City arms is intended to represent the sword of the saint. To him is dedicated the vast metropolitan cathedral-the third church built upon the same site in twelve and a half centuries; and in the tympanum of the pediment of the great western portico is sculptured, by Bird, the miracle of the Conversion, represented by Christ appearing in Heaven with the Cross, Paul looking up to him, and his horse fallen under him; and the apex bears a colossal statue of the apostle. The corporate seal has St. Paul bearing a sword, and the second seal, St. Paul canopied. St. Paul's emblem is a sword; sometimes a book, or drawing a sword across the knee. In his legend as "Paul the Apostle and doctour," he carries a book open, in the other hand a staff.

This festival was called an Egyptian day, because (says Ducange) the Egyptians discovered that there were two unlucky days in every month, and prognostications of the good or bad course of the year were formed from the state of the weather on this day.

An old Latin weather proverb has been thus paraphrased :

If St. Paul's Day be fair and cleare,
It doth betide a happy yeare;
But if by chance it then should raine,
It will make deare all kinds of graine;

And if the clouds make dark the skie,

Then neate and fowles this year shall die;

If blustering winds do blow aloft,

Then wars shall trouble the realme full oft.

Late Winter now begins. The flowers are few; but in mild weather,

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