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the tenth and eleventh ; May, the third and seventh; June, the tenth and fifteenth; July, the tenth and thirteenth; August, the first and second; September, the third and tenth; October, the third and tenth; November, the third and fifth ; December, the seventh and tenth. Each of these days was devoted to some peculiar fatality..

"The flowery May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose.
Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire

Mirth and youth, and warm desire;
Woods and groves are of thy dressing,
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with an early song,
And welcome thee, and wish thee long."

Thus sung the "blind old bard" of English verse, and a right fruitful theme has this "queen month" of the calendar been to the many worshippers of the muse from the days of old Chaucer down to our own.

May is the most instructive and religious, as well as the most delightful of all festival times. It seems to be the bridal season of heaven and earth, and the whole month the honey

moon.

"Buds are filling, leaves are swelling,

Flowers on field, and bloom on tree:
O'er the earth, and air, and ocean,
Nature holds her jubilee."

Wordsworth thus daintily pictures forth the harbingers of spring :

"Pansies, lilies, kingcups, daisies,
Let them live upon their praises;
Long as there's a sun that sets

Primroses will have their glory-
Long as there are violets

They will have a place in story."

The following lines of Tennyson seem to glow with the

beauty and bloom of spring :

"In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast, In the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest; In the spring a lovelier iris changes on the burnished dove,

In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love." With many other pastoral customs of the olden time, that of the rural celebration of May-day is well-nigh passed into oblivion. Bourne tells us, that in his time, in the villages in the North of England, the youth of both sexes were wont to rise before dawn, and assemble in some neighboring wood, accompanied with music, and there they gathered branches from the trees, and wove garlands and bouquets of flowers, with which they returned to deck their homes.

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The rustic festival of the May-pole, and the ceremony of crowning the pride of the village as May-queen, formed one of the most picturesque of the good old pastimes of our English ancestors and is also as ancient as any of which we have any record; it being doubtless identical with the festival of the Romans in honor of Flora, which they styled Floralia, and which occurred on the fourth of the kalends of May. Sometimes the May-pole was brought to the village-green in great pomp, being drawn by twenty yoke of oxen, each being garlanded with flowers, with which, as well as with branches, flags, and streamers, the pole itself was profusely wreathed and decked.

The rural festivities of the May-queen are no longer seen, but the denizens of New York, for the special benefit of the landlords, have substituted a custom instead, of a most moving and exciting character; we refer to their curious passion for changing their habitations on that day. On this eventful day, the entire community is in a transition state. Like a busy swarm of ants, people are hurrying to and fro; hither and thither, in the most amusing confusion; each eagerly in quest of his new abode. This singular fancy for change of habitation seems peculiar to this locomotive people; and so generally is the custom adopted by them, that all business for the time is suffered

to fall into a state of collapse. No wonder that scarce a vestige of antiquity is permitted to remain to point the past history of a city, whose inhabitants cease even to venerate the walls of their own consecrated homes. The festivals of this month, include among others, Whit Sunday, and Trinity Sunday; the former probably derived from the custom in the Romish church of converts, newly baptised, appearing from Easter to Whitsuntide dressed in white.

Maia, the brightest of the Pleiades, from whom this month derived its name, is fabled to have been the daughter of Atlas. The Anglo-Saxons called this month tremelki, because then they began to milk their kine three times a day.

The zodiacal sign of May is Gemini (the twins), named Castor and Pollux, who are fabled to have appeared to sailors in storms with lambent fires on their heads, as propitious to the mariner.

May is synonymous with sunny weather; the state of the weather, by the way, is an ever-fruitful theme of discourse with all sorts of people. It seems ever uppermost in our thoughts, or upon the tip of the tongue.

It is worthy of note when two friends meet together
The first topic they start is the state of the weather--
It is always the same, both with young and with old,
'Tis either too hot, or else 'tis too cold,

'Tis either too wet, or else 'tis too dry,

The glass is too low, or else 'tis too high

But if all had their wishes once jumbled together,
No mortal on earth could exist in such weather.

We e now approach the rosy, summer month of JUNE. It was by the Romans called Junius, in honor of the youth who served Regulus in the war; or it was more probably derived from Juno, the goddess of heaven.

The Saxons gave it the name of weyd-monath, from the German weiden, to pasture.

This is the season for fresh and fragrant flowers-those gaudy and brilliant gems, nature bedecks herself withal: the very air is perfumed with their rich odors: and in the words of Coleridge,

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'Many a hidden brook, in this leafy month of June,

To the sleeping woods, all night singeth a quiet tune.”

Towards the close of the month, that pleasant rural occupation, hay-making, commences: the country now begins to assume a most beautiful aspect-here the corn is already beginning to peep out, here the meadows are mown and cleared, and here again the grass still waves in all the rich luxuriance of wild flowers, awaiting the reapers.

Of the red-letter-days of June, one of the most notable is the longest of the year, the 21st., on which occurs the summer solstice.

We have now completed just half the circuit of the calendar; and it is high noon of the year; suppose we indulge in a brief homily upon Time-by way of tempering our trifling, and in order to save our sobriety from shipwreck. How important is it that we duly value the passing moment--all we can boast of time in possession-yet are we not ever prone rather to indulge vain regrets for the past, or eager anticipations for the future? "Spare minutes are the gold-dust of time," says a quaint author; "of all portions of our life they are the most to be guarded and watched, for they are the gaps through which idleness tempts us astray." An impartial review of the past is fraught with instruction to the future:

'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours,
And ask them what report they bore to heaven.

Midsummer, also, naturally reminds us of the meridian of life-a point in our history, when we may with advantage take a retrospective as well as a prospective survey; when the

premonitions of an occasional gray hair, or wrinkle on the brow, are too decisive to be mistaken.

The more we live, more brief appear,

Our life's succeeding stages:

A day to childhood seems a year,
And years, like passing ages.

The gladsome current of our youth,
Ere passion yet disorders,
Steals, lingering, like a river smooth,
Along its grassy borders.

But as the care-worn cheek grows wan,
And sorrow's shafts fly thicker,

Ye stars, that measure life to man!
Why seem your courses quicker?

When joys have lost their bloom and breath,
And life itself is vapid;

Why, as we reach the falls of Death,
Feel we the tide more rapid?

It may be strange-yet who would change
Time's course to slower speeding?
When one by one our friends are gone,
And left our bosoms bleeding.

Heaven gives our years of fading strength

Indemnifying fleetness;

And those of youth, a seeming length,
Proportioned to their sweetness.*

We now come to the sultry summer month of JULY—when Sol is in the ascendant, and in his glowing ardor to entertain his guests, gives to all creation such an ardent greeting. Punch's humorous apostrophe is too good to be omitted in this place: it runs in this wise :

* Campbell.

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