the same fiery pillar upon him, wherefore he was "miraculously betrayed."

After St. Gregory's death there was a hermit, who had left all his goods, and left the world, and kept nothing but his cat, and this cat he used to play with, and hold in his lap tenderly: one day he prayed that it might be revealed to him, to the joy of what saint he should hereafter come; then St. Gregory was revealed to him, and that he should come to his joy; wherefore the hermit sighed, and disliked his poverty, because St. Gregory had possessed so much earthly riches: and in revelation it was commanded him to be quiet, because he had more pleasure in stroking and playing with his cat, than St. Gregory had in all his riches. Then the hermit prayed that he might have the like merit and reward with St. Gregory; and in this story, lieth great moral.

DOMESTIC MEDICINE.

Although this is not a family receipt book, yet a prescription is extracted from the "Yea and Nay Almanack for 1678," because the remedy has been tried and approved.

For the Eyes.

In the morning as soon as you rise, instead of fasting spittle, or a cat's tail, rub your eyes with a hundred broad pieces of your own gold; and I tell thee friend, it will not only do thy eyes good but thy purse also.

CHRONOLOGY.

1689. King James II. landed at Kinsale in Ireland, with an army he brought from France, to assist in the recovery of the throne he had abdicated. He afterwards made a public entry into Dublin, and besieged Londonderry, which vigorously defended itself under the Rev. George Walker, and suffered dreadful privations till it was relieved, and the siege abandoned. He then held a parliament in Dublin, coined base money, and committed various outrages, till William III. signally defeated him at the battle of the Boyne, and compelled him to fly to France.

SOCIETY FOR THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF

LITERATURE.

Among the proposals in 1825, a year prolific of projects, there is one for a Joint Stock Company or Society for the

* Porter's Flowers.

Encouragement of Literature; the capital to be £100,000. in shares of £25. to be increased, if advisable; shareholders to be allowed to subscribe at par; each shareholder to be entitled to a copy of every work published by the society, at two-thirds of the publication price; interest 5 per cent., to be paid half yearly of the instalments subscribed; a deposit of £1. per share to be paid on subscribing, the remainder by instalments as the extension of the society's concerns may demand; of the profits one-fourth to form a fund for the benefit of authors, at the discretion of the society; two-fourths to be divided among the proprietors annually; the remaining one-fourth to accumulate into a perpetual triennial fund, to meet unforseen expenditure, the possibility of loss, &c. &c. &c. There is not one word about the Encouragement of Literature beyond the title. This absence is the most intelligible part of the proposals.

There was a Society for the Encou ragement of Learning, established in May, 1736. The duke of Richmond was president, sir Hugh Smithson, (afterwards duke of Northumberland,) and sir sidents. The trustees were the earl of Thomas Robinson, bart., were vice-preHertford, earl of Abercorn, Harley, earl Dr. Mead, Dr. Birch, Paul Whitehead, of Oxford, earl Stanhope, lord Percival, Ward, the professor at Gresham college, Sale, the translator of the Koran, and other really eminent men; Alexander Gordon, the author of "Iter Septentrionale," a history of amphitheatres, and other learned and antiquarian works, was their secretary. In the December of the same year Gordon wrote a letter to Dr. Richardson, master of Emanuel college Cambridge, soliciting his interference with Dr. Conyers Middleton, to obtain for the society the publication of the life of Cicero. "They have already entirely paved the way for the reception of authors," says Gordon; "appointed booksellers for their service; settled the regula tions concerning printers, and the printing part;" and, " in fine nothing is wanting but to set out with some author of genius and note." Dr. Middleton chose to publish his life of Cicero with a bookseller, notwithstanding an army of really great names had made all those arrangements, and courted him to their encouragement. In the outset of this society Mr. Clarke in a letter to Mr. Bowyer

expressed his conviction, that "it must be at last a downright trading society," and said "I hope you will take care to be one of their printers, for there will certainly be a society for encouraging printing." Mr. Bowyer took the hint, and printed for them. The security was good, because each member of such a society is answerable individually for its debts. At the end of three years "Dr. Birch, as treasurer to the society, handed over to Mr. Stephen le Bas, his successor in office, the astonishing balance of 59. 38. 94d. During that period the society had printed only four books; and then, deeming the assistance of booksellers necessary, they entered into a contract for three years with A. Millar, J. Gray, and J. Nourse; afterwards they contracted with six other booksellers, whose profits they retrenched: then they became their own booksellers; then they once more had recourse to three other booksellers; and finally, finding their finances almost exhausted, they laid before the public a memorial of the Present State of Affairs of the Society, April 17, 1748," whereby it appeared that they had incurred so considerable a debt they could proceed

no further."

Less than fifty years ago another society existed, under the very title of the Joint Stock Society proposed in 1825. Mr. Tyson, in a letter of June 21, 1779, to his friend Mr. Gough, the antiquary, mentions that a bequest of £5. was "left at the disposal of the Society for the Encouragement of Literature."+ If the literature of the present day owes its existence to that society, its offspring is most ungrateful; the foster-parent is not even remembered, nor is the time of its birth or death recorded in any public register. That it survived the bequest alluded to, only a very short period, appears certain; for in the very next year, 1780, Dr. Lettsom issued "Hints for establishing a Society for promoting useful Literature." The doctor, a most benevolent man, and a good physician, dis-. pensed much charity in private as well as in public, and patronized almost every humane institution for the relief and cure of human infirmity; and hence his eye was as microscopic in discernment, as his hand was experimental in the healing of griefs. Literature seems to have been to him as a gentle river that he rilled into,

and which he thought could be diverted, or regulated by new channels and sluices; he appeared not to know, that it is an ocean of mighty waters, with countless currents and varying tides. He proposed largesses to indigent writers, and their widows and orphans, and "honorary rewards" to successful ones. Robertson, Bryant, Melmoth, Johnson, Gibbon, and many other "useful and accomplished writers," were to have had the "honorary rewards" of the encouraging society. Such honours, such a society was to have forced on such men! The doctor's "hints" were not adopted, except that to relieve the casualties of minor literary men, and their dependents, there now exists the Literary Fund.

In the records of former days there is mention of a project for extracting, bottling, and preserving sunbeams from cucumbers, for use at that season when sunbeams are rare, and cucumbers not at all. The projector seems to have inferred, that as cucumbers derived their virtue from sunbeams, it would be virtuous in cucumbers to return the deposit. Whatever virtue cucumbers had, it would not be forced. Experiment, doubtless, disappointed hope; the promising project absorbed the capital advanced, as completely as the cholicky vegetables tenaciously retained the solar rays; and the deposit never found its way to the shareholders.

Any Society for the Encouragement of Literature, save one, is a fallacy—that one is society itself. All interposition in its behalf is feeble and doting interference. A public Joint Stock Company can neither create literary talent, nor by divided efforts obtain so much; nor with capital, however great, reward it so well, as the undivided interest, industry, and unshared purse of the private publisher.

If a Society for the Encouragement of Literature be instituted, when more institution is threatened, and less institution is necessary, than at any former period, such society will be a hot-bed for the cultivation of little more than hopeful weeds. A few literary shoots may be set in warm borders, and drawn up under frames, to look handsome, but they will not bear transplanting to open ground. Their produce will be premature, of inferior quality, and not repay the trouble and expense of rearing. If left unsheltered, the first chill will kill them. Weak suckers, however well favoured, will never come to trees.

court martial, for not having done his duty in an action between the British and French fleets on the 20th of May preceding. After he had made his defence, and conducted himself throughout the trial with coolness and courage, he was so sure of acquittal, that he ordered his coach to be in waiting to convey him to London. He suffered on board the Monarque with undaunted firmness, walking out of the cabin with unchanged countenance to the quarter-deck,where the marines were stationed to execute the sentence. He desired to die with his eyes uncovered; but on its being represented that his intrepid looks might intimidate the soldiers, and frustrate their aim, he tied a handkerchief over his eyes, and then dropping another, five musket balls passed through his body, and he fell dead instantly. An historian of the day says of him, that "Whatever his errors and indiscretions might have been, he seemed to have been rashly condemned, meanly given up, and cruelly sacrificed to vile considerations." It is believed that popular fury had been excited against him by various arts, and especially by the suppression of important passages in his official despatches. He delivered a paper to the marshal of the admiralty on the morning of his death, wherein he expressed his conviction, that he should hereafter be regarded as a victim to divert the indignation and resentment of an injured and deluded people from the proper objects, and that his very enemies believed him innocent.

1797. Courtney Melmoth died at Bath, aged 89 years; he translated part of "Cicero's Works," and "Pliny's Epistles," and wrote "Fitzosborne's Letters," and the "Memoirs of a late eminent Advocate," his father, who was the author of "The great Importance of a Religious Life."

1803. Frederick Klopstock, a German writer, author of the "Messiah" and other works, chiefly poetical, died at Hamburgh, aged 80. His funeral was a public one, and conducted with a marked solemnity, denoting affectionate respect for his talents and character.

CHRONOLOGY.

Forty-four years before Christ, Julius Cæsar was assassinated by Brutus and his associates in the senate-house of Rome, in the 56th year of his age. He is said to have conquered three hundred nations, taken eight hundred cities, defeated three hundred millions of men, and slain one hundred millions on the field of battle. He was learned himself, and an encourager of learning and the arts. He wrote the "Commentaries on the wars of Gaul," a book which bears his name, and which would have been lost in the bay of Alexandria, if he had not swam from his ship with his book in one hand, and his arms in the other. His ruling passion was ambition, yet he was a slave to sensuality; with talents that might have made him the protector of Roman liberty he destroyed it.

1784. Dr. Thomas Franklin, translator of Sophocles, Phalaris, and Lucian, died. He was born about 1720, and wrote two tragedies, the " Earl of Warwick" and "Matilda."

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Coltsfoot. Tussilago Farfala. Dedicated to St. Zachery. Lasting Mercury. Mercurialis perennis, Dedicated to St. Abraham.

March 16.

St. Julian, of Cilicia. St. Finian, surnamed Lobhar, or the Leper.

St. Finian.

He was descended from Alild, king of Munster, built the abbey of Innis-Fallen in an island on the lake of Loughlane,

county of Kerry; another at Ardfinnan, in Tipperary; and a third at Cluin-more Madoc, in Leinster, where he was buried.*

St.

It is related of St. Finian, that he visited St. Ruadanus, who had a miraculous tree in his cell, dropping a liquor so peculiar, into a vessel from nine o'clock to sun-set, that it sufficed to dine him and all his brotherhood every day. Finian's visit was to persuade St. Ruadanus to live like other people; therefore, when St. Finian came to the tree, he signed it with the sign of the cross, by virtue of which the liquor ceased to flow after nine o'clock. This was in the absence of Ruadanus, who being informed on his return, that St. Finian and others had come to see him, he ordered his servant

Butler's Saints.