ornaments, learned and graceful as they were, nor in her cadences, did she ever lose sight of the appropriate characteristics of the sense of melody. She was, by turns, majestic, tender, pathetic, and elegant, but in the one or the other not a note was breathed in vain. She justly held every species of ornamental execution, to be subordinate to the grand end of uniting the effects of sound sense, in their operations upon the feelings of her hearers. True to this spirit, if any one commended the agility of a singer, Mara would ask, "Can she sing six plain notes?" In majesty and simplicity, in grace, tenderness, and pathos, in the loftiest attributes of art, in the elements of the great style, she far transcended all her competitors in the list of fame. She gave to Handel's compositions their natural grandeur and effect, which is, in our minds, the very highest degree of praise that we can bestow. Handel is heavy, say the musical fashion-mongers of the day. Milton would be heavy beyond endurance, from the mouth of a reader of talents even above mediocrity. The fact is, that to wield such arms, demands the strength of giants. Mara possessed this heavengifted strength. It was in the performance of Handel that her finer mind fixed its expression, and called to its aid all the powers of her voice, and all the acquisitions of her science. From the time of her retirement from England, Mara chiefly resided in Russia; yet as the conflagration of Moscow destroyed great part of her property, towards the close of the year 1819, or the beginning of 1820, she returned to London, and determined on presenting herself once more to the Judgment of the English public, who had reverenced her name so highly and so long. She, consequently, had a concert at the Opera-house, but her powers were so diminished that it proved unsuccessful. Justice to the channel which supplies these particulars concerning madame Mara requires it to be observed, that they are almost verbatim from a book of great merit and extensive usefulness, The Dictionary of Musicians. Its information obviously results from extensive research concerning the deceased, and personal acquaintance with many of the living individuals whose memoirs it contains. The work has experienced the fate of originality and excellence-it has been pillaged without acknowledgment; and the discovery of an error or two,

preceding Sunday morning, while the sexton of All Saints' church, at Stamford, was engaged in ringing the bells, two youths, named King and Richards, through mere emulation, ascended the steeple by means of the crotchets, or projecting stones on the outside of that beautiful and lofty spire. The projecting stones on which they stepped in the ascent are twenty-six in number, three feet asunder, and the summit of the spire 152 feet from the ground. In ten or twelve minutes the feat was performed, and the adventurers had safely descended; one of them (Richards) having hung his waistcoat on the weathercock as a memento.

This offence was by no means uncommon in England some years ago. In the London Chronicle for 1762, there is an extract from a letter, dated "Sunday, Highgate, June 6," from whence it appears, that on that morning, between twelve and one, a postchaise, in which was a lady, was driven through that place very furiously by two postillions, and attended by three persons who had the appearance of gentlemen, from which she cried out, "Murder! save me! Oh, save me!" Her voice subsided from weakness into faint efforts of the same cries of distress; but as there was at that time no possibility of relief, they hastily drove towards Finchley Common. "From another quarter," says the London Chronicle, we have undoubted intelligence of the same carriage being seen, and the same outcries heard, as it passed through Islington, with the additional circumstance of

On the 8th of June, 1825, a publican in the neighbourhood of Whitechapel was charged at the Public Office, Bow-street, by Mr. John Francis Panchaud, a foreigner, with having, in conjunction with several other persons, defrauded him of a 10% note, at Ascot Heath race-course, on the Thursday preceding. The alleged fraud, or robbery, was effected by means of an unfair game known among the frequenters of races and fairs by the name of "the thimble rig," of which J. Smith, the officer, this day gave the following description to Mr. Minshull, in order that the worthy magistrate might perfectly understand the case:-A gang of seven or eight, or more, set up a table, but they

all appear strangers to each other, and unconnected with the game, except one who conducts it,and who appears to be the sole proprietor. This master of the ceremonies has three thimbles, and is provided with a number of peas, or pepper-corns. He puts one under each thimble, or perhaps only under one or two, as the case may be. He then offers a bet as to which thimble a pepper-corn is or is not under, and offers at first such a wager as is eagerly taken by those round the table, and he loses. He pays the losings freely, and the other members of this joint-stock company affect to laugh at him, as what they call a "good flat." Having thus drawn the attention, and probably excited the cupidity of a stranger, who appears to have money, they suffer him to win a stake or two, and get him to increase his bets. When he seems thoroughly in the humour, the master of the table lifts a thimble, under which is a pepper-corn, and turning his head aside to speak to some one, he suffers the corn to roll off; and, seeming to be unconscious of this, he replaces the thimble, and offers bets to any amount that there is a corn underneath that particular thimble. The stranger having seen the corn roll off" with his own eyes," as the phrase is, chuckles to himself, and eagerly takes the bet; the thimble is removed, and behold!-there is a pepper-corn under it still, the fellow having dexterously slipped another under it when the first rolled off the table. "So that the plain fact is, sir," continued Smith," that the stranger, fancying he is taking in the master of the table, cheerfully stakes his money with a dead certainty, as he supposes, of winning, and he finds that he has been taken in himself." Smith said, he had known instances of gentlemen getting from their carriages, and in a few moments ridding themselves of 201. or 301., or perhaps more, and going off wondering at their folly, and looking uncommon silly.

It appeared that Mr. Panchaud went up to one of these tables, at which the defendant and many others were playing, and after winning two or three times, the trick above described was commenced. The conductor of the game offered a bet of 51., and Mr. Panchaud having seen the pepper-corn roll off, took the wager, and put down a 10l. note. In a moment after there was a general hustling, the table was upset, and the whole party speedily disappeared, together with the

107. note. When the bet was offered, the defendant, who stood next to him, jogged his elbow, and said eagerly, "Bet him, bet him; you must win, the ball is under our feet." Mr. Panchaud had no doubt, from his whole manner, that the defendant was concerned with the others in the trick. The case stood over for further investigation. It is only mentioned here for the purpose of showing a species of slight of hand continued in our own times to defraud the unwary.

Passion Flower.

This flower, says the elegant author of the Flora Domestica, derives its name from an idea, that all the instruments of Christ's passion are represented in it.

The above engraving from an ancient print, shows the curious distortion of the flower in those parts whereon the imagination has indulged. The original print bears an inscription to this effect; that nature itself grieves at the crucifixion, as is denoted by the flower representing the five wounds, and the column or pillar of scourging, besides the three nails, the crown of thorns, &c.

Most of the passion-flowers are natives

of the hottest parts of America. The rose coloured passion-flower is a native of Virginia, and is the species which was first known in Europe. It has since been, in a great measure, superseded by the blue passion-flower, which is hardy enough to flower in the open air, and makes an elegant tapestry for an unsightly wall. The leaves of this, in the autumn, are of the most brilliant crimson; and, when the sun is shining upon them, seem to transport one to the gardens of Pluto.*

St. Barnabas the Apostle.

He was of the tribe of Levi, and coadjutor with the apostle Paul for several years. Though denominated an apostle, it seems agreed that he was not entitled to that character; if he were, his extant epistle would have equal claim with the writings of the other apostles to a place among the books in the New Testament. He is said to have been martyred, but of this there is not sufficient evidence.

St. Barnabas' Day.

This was a high festival in England formerly.

never

Besides the holy thorn, there grew in the abbey churchyard of Glastonbury, on the north side of St. Joseph's chapel, a miraculous walnut-tree, which budded forth before the feast of St. Barnabas, viz. the eleventh of June, and on that very day shot forth leaves, and flourished like its usual species. This tree is gone, and in the place thereof stands a very fine walnut-tree of the common sort. It is strange to say how much this tree was sought after by the credulous; and, though not an uncommon walnut, queen Anne, king James, and many of the nobility of the realm, even when the times of monkish superstition had ceased, gave large sums of money for small cuttings from the original.*

Midsummer, or nightless days, now begin and continue until the 2d of July.† There is still this saying among country people,—

"Barnaby Bright, Barnaby Bright,
The longest day and the shortest night."

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Yellow Fleur-de-lis. Iris Pseudacorus. Dedicated to St. Margaret.

June 11.

more.

* Flora Domestica.

canthemum.

Churchill, sister to the great duke of Marlborough, was killed by a cannon ball, at the siege of Phillipsburgh, in Germany, in the 64th year of his age. He was only excelled in the art of war by the duke of Marlborough himself.

FLORAL DIRECTORY

White Dog Rose. Rosa arvensis. Dedicated to St. John.

June 13.

St. Antony of Padua, A. D. 1231. St. Damhanade.

CHRONOLOGY.

1625. Henrietta Maria, youngest daughter to Henry IV. of France, landed at Dover, and was married to Charles I., at Canterbury, on the same day; her portraits represent her to have been beautiful. She was certainly a woman of ability, but faithless to her unfortunate consort, after whose death on the scaffold she lived in France, and privately married her favourite, the lord Jermyn, a descendant of whom, with that name, is (in 1825,) a grocer in Chiswell-street, and a member of the society of friends. Henrietta Maria, though a Bourbon, was so little regarded in the court of the Bourbons, and reduced to so great extremity, that she was without fuel for her fire-place during the depth of winter, in the palace assigned to her by the French

monarch.

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

artillery and ammunition. Among the spoil was the king's cabinet with his letters, which the parliament afterwards published. Hume 66 says, they give an advantageous idea both of the king's genius and morals." Yet it is a fact, which every person who reads the correspondence must inevitably arrive at, that the king purposed deception, when he professed good faith, and that, as true genius never exists with fraud, these letters do not entitle him to reputation for common honesty, or real ability.

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Sweet Basil. Oscimum Basilicum. Dedicated to St. Basil.

June 15.

Sts. Vitus, or Guy, Crescentia, and Modestus, 4th Cent. St. Landelin, Abbot, A. D. 686. B. Bernard, of Menthon, A. D. 1008. St. Vauge, Hermit, A. D. 585. B. Gregory Lewis Barbarigo, Cardinal Bp. A. D. 1697.

St. Vitus.

This saint was a Sicilian martyr, under Dioclesian. Why the disease called St. known. Dr. Forster describes it as an Vitus's dance was so denominated, is not affection of the limbs, resulting from nervous irritation, closely connected with a disordered state of the stomach and

bowels, and other organs of the abdomen. In papal times, fowls were offered on the festival of this saint, to avert the disease. It is a vulgar belief, that rain on St.

aticus.

Dedicated to St. Antony.

June 14.

St. Basil, Abp. A. D. 379. Sts. Rufinus and Valerius, 3d Age. St. Methodius, Patriarch of Constantinople, A. D. 846. St. Docmael, 6th Cent. St. Nennus, or Nehemias, Abbot, A. D. 654. St. Psalmodius, A. D. 630.

CHRONOLOGY.

1645. The battle of Naseby, between the royalists under Charles I., and the parliament troops under Fairfax, was decided this day by the entire rout of the king's army, and the seizure of all his

cates rain for a certain number of days following.

It is related, that after St. Vitus and his companions were martyred, their heads were enclosed in a church wall, and forgotten, so that no one knew where they were, until the church was repaired, when the heads were found, and the church bells began to sound of themselves, which causing inquiry, a writing was found, authenticating the heads; they consequently received due honour, and worked miracles in due form.

FLORAL DIRECTORY. Sensitive Plant. Mimosa sensit. Dedicated to St. Vitus.