appearance of the cross to Constantine in the sky at mid-day. It was instituted by the Romish church on occasion of the recovery of a large piece of the pretended real cross which Cosroes, king of Persia, took from Jerusalem when he plundered it. The emperor Heraclius defeated him in battle, retook the relic, and carried it back in triumph to Jerusalem. According to Rigordus, a historian of the thirteenth century, the capture of this wood by Cosroes, though it was recaptured by Heraclius, was a loss to the human race they never recovered. We are taught by him to believe that the mouths of our ancestors" used to be supplied with thirty, or in some instances, no doubt according to their faith, with thirty-two teeth, but that since the cross was stolen by the infidels, no mortal has been allowed more than twentythree !"* Nutting appears to have been customary on this day. Brand cites from the old play of "Grim, the Collier of Croydon:" This day, they say, is called Holy-rood day, And all the youth are now a nutting gone." It appears, from a curious manuscript six times out of seven fine on this day.‡ It yet is not day; The morning hath not lost her virgin blush, Nor step, but mine, soiled the earth's tinsel robe. By a full quire of feathered choristers, Wedding their notes to the inamoured air. Here Nature, in her unaffected dresse, Plaited with vallies, and imbost with hills, Enchast with silver streams, and fringed with woods, Chamberlayne. Sts. Ninian, or Ninyas, St. Editha, A. D. 984. JEMMY GORDON. This eccentric individual, who is recorded on the 23d of May, died in the workhouse of St. Leonard's, at Cambridge, on the 16th of September, 1825. He had for many years been in the receipt of an annuity of five and twenty pounds be Slater's Schol. Eton, A. D. 1560. M. G. Donat. Brit. Mus. 4843. Brand. t Gentsleman's Magazine. Dr. Forster's Peren, Calendar queathed to him by Mr. Gordon, a deceased relative. Several confinements in the town goal left Gordon at liberty to write memoirs of himself, which are in Fine singers we have, both woman and the possession of Mr. W. Mason, picturedealer of Cambridge. He may amuse man, Gallop O! fly away! jump! and essentially benefit society if he pub- They all bravura, as fast as they can, lish the manuscripts, accompanied by details drawn from personal recollections of the deceased biographer, with reflections on the misapplication of talent and the consequences of self-indulgence. It is an opportunity whereon to "point a moral, and adorn a tale." FLORAL DIRECTORY. Sea Starwort. Aster Tripolum. Dedicated to St. Editha. September 17. St. Lambert, Bp. A. D. 709. St. Columba, A. D. 853. St. Hildegardis, Abbess, A. D. 1179. St. Rouin, or Rodingus, or Chrodingus, a. D. 680. Sts. Socrates and Stephen, Martyrs under Dioclesian. Lambert. He is a saint in the Romish calendar; his name "Lambert" stands unsainted in the church of England calendar and almanacs sometimes he is called Landebert. He was bishop of Maestricht from which see he was expelled in 673, and retired to the monastery of Stavelo, where he continued seven years, submitting to the rules of the novices. He was afterwards restored to his bishopric, and discharged its functions with zeal and success. But during the disorders which prevailed in the government of France, he was mur dered on the 17th of September, 703, and in 1240, his festival was ordained to be kept on this day.* They mock Catalani, Up long laney, Bawling, Squalling, Galloping all away! drag and tail,-die away-plump! They come on the stage, so fine and so gay, Gallop O fly away! jump! They mount in the air, and they ride away, They mock Catalani, &c. They mock Catalani, &c. I sing by myself, but pray take a peep, Gallop O! fly away! jump! You'll soon find singers, to sing you to sleep, They mock Catalani, &c. [Exit Song. From the same piece there may be another "seasonable" extract, for we are at that period of the year when the chase, which was once a necessary pursuit, is indulged as an amusement. In Von Weber's "Der Freischütz," the casting of the fifth bullet by Caspar is accompanied by "a wild chase in the clouds;" the writer who travestied that opera, as it was represented at the Lyceum theatre, represents this. operation to be thus accompanied :Neighing and barking 'old clothes!'—Skylarking---A wild chase in the clouds; an Etherial Race---inhabitants of air,' consisting of skeleton dogs muzzled, skeleton horses, and skeleton horsemen, with overalls and preservers, and MR. Green from the city, are in pursuit of a skeleton stag to Bachelor's-hall,' with grare music accompanying the following— SONG AND CHORUS, BY SKELETON HUNTSMEN. "Bright Chanticleer proclaims the dawn." To join the ghostly crowds, And off we go, with a ho! so-ho! With a hey, ho, chivey! he was discovered and beheaded near the river. The anniversary of this saint and martyr is celebrated at Marseilles with great pomp. The houses are decorated with streamers to the very tops; and the public way is crossed by cords, on which are suspended numberless flags of various colours. The ships are always ornamented with flags and streamers. The procession passes under several arches, Hark forward, hark forward, tantivy! hung with boughs, before it stops at the &c. No hill, no dale, no glen, no mire, No dew, no night, no storm, With a hey, ho, chivey! altars or resting-places, which are covered with flowers every thing concurs to give to this solemnity an air of cheerfulness. The eye dwells with pleasure on the garlands of beautiful flowers, the green boughs, and the emblem of the divinity contained in the flags of the procession. The attendants are extremely numerous; every gardener carries his wax taper, ornamented with the most rare and beauti Hark forward, hark forward, tantivy, ful flowers; he has also the vegetables &c. Dedicated to St. Lambert. September 18. A. D. 311. St. Thomas, Abp. of Valentia, A. D. He was "a tribune or colonel," Butler says, at Vienne in France, and imprisoned on suspicion of being a christian, which he verified by refusing to sacrifice according to the religion of the country, whereupon being scourged and laid in a dungeon, on the third day his chains fell off his hands, and legs and he swam over the Rhone. It appears that the miraculous chain-falling was ineffectual, for and fruits with which heaven had blessed his labour, and sometimes he bears some nests of birds. The butchers also make a part of this procession, clothed in long tunics, and with a hat à la Henri IV. armed with a hatchet or cleaver; they lead a fat ox dressed with garlands and ribands, and with gilt horns, like the ox at the carnival: his back is covered with a carpet, on which sits a pretty child, dressed as St. John the Baptist. During the whole week which precedes the festival, the butchers lead about this animal: they first take him to the police, where they pay a duty, and then their collection begins, which is very productive: every wishes to have the animal in his house; and it is a prevailing superstition among the people, that they shall have good luck throughout the year if this beast leave any trace of his visit, however dirty it may be. The ox is killed on the day after the festival. The child generally lives but a short time: exhausted by the fatigue which he has suffered, and by the caresses which he has received, and sickened by the sweetmeats with which he has been crammed, he languishes, and often falls a victim. one A number of young girls, clothed in white, their heads covered with veils, adorned with flowers, and girded with ribands of a uniform colour are next in the procession. Children, habited in different manners, recal the ancient "mysteries." Several young women are dressed as nuns; these are St. Ursula, St. Rosalia, St. Agnes, St. Teresa, &c. The handsomest are clothed as Magdalens; with their hair dishevelled on their lovely faces, they look with an air of contrition on a crucifix which they hold in the hand: others appear in the habit of the Sœurs de la Charité, whose whole time is devoted to the service of the sick. Young boys fill other parts, such as angels, abbots, monks; among whom may be distinguished St. Francis, St. Bruno, St. Anthony, &c. In the midst of the shepherds marches the little St. John, but half covered with a sheep's skin, like the picture of his precursor; he leads a lamb decked with ribands, a symbol of the saviour who offered himself for us, and died for the remission of our sins. The streets are strewed with flowers; numerous choristers carry baskets full of roses and yellow broom, which they throw, on a given signal, before the host or holy sacrament: they strew some of these on the ladies who sit in rows to see the procession; these also have baskets of flowers on their knees, which they offer to the host; they amuse themselves with covering the young virgins and little saints with the flowers. The sweet scents of the roses, the cassia, the jessamine, the orange, and the tuberose, mingled with the odour of the incense, almost overpower the senses. The procession proceeds to the port, and it is there that the ceremony presents a sublime character: the people fill the quays; all the decks are manned with seamen, dressed in their best blue jackets, their heads uncovered, and their red caps in their hands. All bend the knee to the God of the Universe: the seamen stretch out their hands towards the prelate, who, placed under a canopy, gives the benediction: the most profound silence reigns among this immense crowd. The benediction received, every one rises instantaneously; the bells begin to ring, the music plays, and the whole train takes the road to the temple from which they came *. FLORAL DIRECTORY. Pendulous Starwort. Aster pendulus. Dedicated to St. Thomas, of Villanova. Times Telescope, 1819; from Coxe's Gentleman's Guide through France. This place, near Cambridge, is also called Sturbridge, Sturbitch, and Stirbitch. A Cambridge newspaper speaks of Stirbitch fair being proclaimed on the 19th of September, 1825, for a fortnight, and of Stirbitch horse-fair commencing on the 26th of the month. The corruption of this proper name, stamps the persons who use it in its vulgar acceptation better instructed should cease as being ignorant as the ignorant; the from shamefully acquiescing in the long continued disturbance of this appellation. Stephen Batman, in his "Doome warning," published in 1582, relates that "Fishers toke a disfigured divell, in a certain stoure, (which is a mighty gathering togither of waters, from some narrow lake of the sea,) a horrible monster with a goats heade, and eyes shyning lyke fyre, whereuppon they were all afrayde and himselfe under the ise, and running uppe ranne awaye; and that ghoste plunged and downe in the stowre made a terrible noyse and sound." We get in Stirbitch a most "disfigured divell" from Stourbridge. The good people derive their "good name" from their river. mayor, having refused to receive into the tolbooth certain persons of "naughty and corrupt behaviour," who were "prisoners, taken by the proctors of the university, in the last Sturbridge fair" wherefore he was called before the lords and others of the council, and his fault therein "so plainly and justly opened" that he could not deny it, but did "sincerely and willingly confess his said fault."* In 1613, Stourbridge fair acquired such celebrity, that hackney-coaches attended it from London. Subsequently not less than sixty coaches plied at this fair, which was the largest in England. Vast quantities of butter and cheese found there a ready market; it stocked the people of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and other counties with clothes, and all other necessaries; and shopkeepers supplied themselves from thence with the commodities wherein they dealt.+ Barnwell. As a trustee under an act for the turnpike road from Cambridge to London, Mr. Butler was impeached of abuses in common with his co-trustees. Being obnoxious, he was singled out to make good the abuse, and summoned to the county sessions, where he appeared in his barrister's gown, was convicted and fined ten pounds, which he refused to pay, and was committed. He excepted to the jurisdiction, wherein he was supported by the opinion of sir Joseph Yorke, then attorney-general, and to save an estreat applied to the under-sheriff, who refused his application, and afterwards went to the clerk of the peace at Newmarket, from whom he met the like treatment; this forced him to the quartersessions, where he obtained his discharge, after telling the chairman he felt it hard to be compelled to the trouble and expense of teaching him and his brethren law. He appears to have been a lawyer of that school, which admitted no law but the old common law of the land, and statute law. In 1754, "to stem the venality and corruption of the times, he offered himself a candidate to represent the county in parliament, unsupported by the influence of the great, the largess of the wealthy, or any interest, but that which his single character could establish in the esteem of all honest men and lovers of their country. But when he found the struggles for freedom faint and ineffectual, and his spirits too weak to resist the efforts of his enemies, he contented himself with the testimony of those his own unbiassed conscience, which, few friends who dare to be free, and of upon this, as well as every other oc Jacob Butler, Esq. who died on the 28th of May, 1765, stoutly maintained the charter of Stourbridge fair: he was of Bene't-college, Cambridge, and a barrister-at-law. In stature he was six feet four inches high, of determined character, and deemed "a great eccentric" because, among other reasons, he usually invited the giants and dwarfs, who came for exhibition, to dine with him. He was so rigid in seeing the charter literally complied with, that if the ground was not cleared by one o'clock on the day appointed, and he found any of the booths standing, he had them pulled down, and the materials taken away. On one occasion, voted in his favour; and upon casion when the wares were not removed by the time mentioned in the charter, he drove his carriage among the crockery and destroyed a great quantity. The rev. John Butler, LL. D. rector of Wallington, in Hertfordshire, father of Mr. Butler, who was his eldest son, endeavoured in the year 1705, to get Stourbridge fair rated to the poor. This occasioned a partial and oppressive assessment on himself that involved him in great difficulties. Dr. Butler died in 1714, and Jacob Butler succeeded to his difficulties and estates in the parish of Mr. Dyer's Privileges of Cambridge, vol. i. p. 111. + Dr. N. Drake's Shakspeare and his Times, these accounts he was justly entitled to the name of the old Briton." He bore this appellation to the day of his death. The loss of a favourite dog is supposed to have accelerated his end; upon its being announced to him, he said, "" I shall not live long now my dog is dead." He shortly afterwards became ill, and, lingering about two months, died. His coffin, which was made from a large oak by his express order, some months before his death, became an object of public curiosity; it was of sufficient dimensions to contain several persons, and wine was copiously quaffed therein by many of those who went to see it. To a person, who was one of the legatees, the singular trust was delegated |