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The Conversion of St. Paul.

This is a festival in the calendar of the church of England, as well as in that of the Romish church.

St. Paul's Bay.

On this day prognostications of the months were drawn for the whole year. If fair and clear, there was to be plenty; if cloudy or misty, much cattle would die; if rain or snow fell then it presaged a dearth; and if windy, there would be

wars:

If Saint Paul's Day be fair and clear.
It does betide a happy year;
But if it chance to snow or rain,
Then will be dear all kinds of grain:
If clouds or mists do dark the skie,
Great store of birds and beasts shall die;
And if the winds do fly aloft,
Then wars shall vex the kingdome oft.

Willsford's Nature's Secrets.

These prognostications are Englished from an ancient calendar: they have likewise been translated by Gay, who enjoins,

Let no such vulgar tales debase thy mind, Nor Paul nor Swithin rule the clouds and wind.

The latter lines are allusive to the popular superstitions, regarding these days, which were before remarked by bishop Hall, who observes of a person under such influences, that "St. Paule's day, and St. Swithine's, with the twelve, are his oracles, which he dares believe against the almanacke." It will be recollected that "the twelve" are twelve days of Christmastide, mentioned on a preceding day as believed by the ignorant to denote the weather throughout the year.

Concerning this day, Bourne says. "How it came to have this particular knack of foretelling the good or ill fortune of the following year is no easy matter to find out. The monks, who were undoubtedly

the first who made this wonderful observation, have taken care it should be handed down to posterity; but why, or for what reason, they have taken care to conceal. St. Paul did indeed labour more abundantly than all the apostles; but never that I heard in the science of astrology: and why this day should therefore be a standing almanac to the world, ather than the day of any other saint,

will be pretty hard to find out." In an ancient Romish calendar, much used by Brand, the vigil of St. Paul is called "Dies Egyptiacus;" and he confesses his ignorance of any reason for calling it Mr. Fosbroke exan Egyptian-day."

plains, from a passage in Ducange, that it was so called because there were two unlucky days in every month, and St. Paul's vigil was one of the two in January.

Dr. Forster notes, that the festival of the conversion of St. Paul has always been reckoned ominous of the future weather of the year, in various countries remote from each other.

According to Schenkius, cited by Brand, it was a custom in many parts of Germany, to drag the images of St. Paul and St. Urban to the river, if there was foul weather on their festival

APOSTLE-SPOONS.

St. Paul's day being the first festival of an apostle in the year, it is an opportunity for alluding to the old, ancient, English or visitors at custom, with sponsors, christenings, of presenting spoons, called apostle-spoons, because the figures of the twelve apostles were chased, or carved on the tops of the handles. Brand cites several authors to testify of the practice. Persons who could afford it gave the set of twelve; others a smaller number, and a poor person offered the gift of one, with the figure of the saint after whom the child was named, or to whom the child was dedicated, or who was the patron saint of the good-natured donor.

Ben Jonson, in his Bartholomew Fair, has a character, saying, " And all this for the hope of a couple of apostle-spoons, and a cup to eat caudle in." In the Chaste Maid of Cheapside, by Middleton, "Gossip" inquires, "What has he given her? What is it, Gossip ?" Whereto the answer of another "Gossip" is, “A faire high-standing cup, and two great 'postlespoons-one of them gilt." Beaumont and Fletcher, likewise, in the Noble Gentleman, say:

"I'll be a Gossip. Bewford, I have an odd apostle-spoon." The rarity and antiquity of apostlespoons render them of considerable value as curiosities. A complete set of twelve is represented in the sketch on the opposite page, from a set of the spoons themselves on the writer's table

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179

The apostles on this set of spoons are
somewhat worn, and the stems and
bowls have been altered by the silver-
smith in conformity with the prevailing
fashion of the present day; to the eye of
the antiquary, therefore, they are not so
interesting as they were before they un-
derwent this partial modernization: yet
in this state they are objects of regard.
Their size in the print is exactly that of
the spoons themselves, except that the
stems are necessarily fore-shortened in
the engraving to get them within the
page. The stem of each spoon measures
exactly three inches and a half in length
from the foot of the apostle to the com-
mencement of the bowl; the length of
each bowl is two inches and nine-six-
teenths of an inch; and the height of
each apostle is one inch and one-six-
teenth the entire length of each spoon is
seven inches and one-eighth of an inch.
They are of silver; the lightest, which is
St. Peter, weighs 1 oz. 5 dwts. 9 gr. ; the
heaviest is St. Bartholomew, and weighs
1 oz. 9 dwts. 4 gr.; their collective weight
is 16 oz. 14 dwts. 16 gr. The hat, or flat
covering, on the head of each figure, is
usual to apostles-spoons, and was pro-
bably affixed to save the features from
effacement. In a really fine state they

are very rare.

It seems from "the Gossips," a poem by Shipman, in 1666, that the usage of giving apostle-spoons' at christenings, was at that time on the decline:

"Formerly, when they us'd to troul,
Gilt bowls of sack, they gave the bowl;
Two spoons at least; an use ill kept;
"Tis well if now our own be left."

An anecdote is related of Shakspeare
and Ben Jonson, which bears upon the
usage: Shakspeare was godfather to one
of Jonson's children, and, after the christ-
ening, being in deep study, Jonson cheer-
ingly asked him, why he was so melan-
choly?" Ben," said he, " I have been
considering a great while what should be
the fittest gift for me to bestow upon my
godchild, and I have resolved it at last."
"I prithee, what?" said Ben, "I' faith,
Ben," answered Shakspeare, "I'll give
him a dozen good latten spoons, and thou
shalt translate them." The word latten,
intended as a play upon latin, is the name
for thin iron tinned, of which spoons, and
similar small articles of household use, are
sometimes made. Without being aware
of the origin, it is still a custom with
many persons, to present spoons at christ-

enings, or on visiting the "lady in the
straw;" though they are not now adorned
with imagery.

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Winter hellebore. Helleborus hyemalis.

January 26.

THE SEASON.

St. Polycarp. St. Paula. St. Conan."
On winter comes-the cruel north
Pours his furious whirlwind forth
Before him-and we breathe the breath
Of famish'd bears, that howl to death:
Onward he comes from rocks that blanch
O'er solid streams that never flow,
His tears all ice, his locks all snow,
Just crept from some huge avalanche. Incog.

BEARS AND BEES.

M. M. M. a traveller in Russia, communicates, through the Gentleman's Magazine of 1785, a remarkable method of cultivating bees, and preserving them from their housebreakers, the bears. The Russians of Borodskoe, on the banks of the river Ufa, deposit the hives within excavations that they form in the hardest, strongest, and loftiest trees of the forest, at about five-and-twenty or thirty feet high from the ground, and even higher, if the height of the trunk allows it. They hollow out the holes lengthways, with small narrow hatchets, and with chisels and gouges complete their work. The longitudinal aperture of the hive is stopped by a cover of two or more pieces exactly fitted to it, and pierced with small holes, to give ingress and egress to the bees. No means can be devised more ingenious or more convenient for climbing the highest and the smoothest trees than those practised by this people, for the construction and visitation of these hives. For this purpose they use nothing but a very sharp axe, a leathern strap, or a common rope. The man places himself against the trunk of the tree, and passes the cord round his body and round the tree, just leaving it sufficient play for casting it higher and higher, by jerks, towards the elevation he desires to attain, and there to place his body, bent as in a swing, his feet resting against the tree, and preserv ing the free use of his hands. This done, he takes his axe, and at about the height of his body makes the first notch or step in the tree; then he takes his rope, the two ends whereof he takes care to have tied very fast, and throws it towards the top of the trunk. Placed thus in his rope by the middle of his body, and resting

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from these voracious animals, but for their destruction. The method most in use consists in sticking into the trunk of the tree old blades of knives, standing upwards, scythes, and pieces of pointed iron, disposed circularly round it, when the tree is straight, or at the place of bending, when the trunk is crooked. The bear has commonly dexterity enough to avoid these points in climbing up the tree; but when he descends, as he always does, backwards, he gets on these sharp hooks, and receives such deep wounds, that he usually dies. Old bears frequently take the precaution to bend down these blades with their fore-paws as they mount, and thereby render all this offensive armour useless.

Another destructive apparatus has some similitude to the catapulta of the ancients. It is fixed in such a manner that, at the instant the bear prepares to climb the tree, he pulls a string that lets go the machine, whose elasticity strikes a dart into the animal's breast. A further mode is to suspend a platform by long ropes to the farthest extremity of a branch of the tree. The platform is disposed horizontally before the hive, and there tied fast to the trunk of the tree with a cord made of bark. The bear, who finds the seat very convenient for proceeding to the opening of the hive, begins by tearing the cord of bark which holds the platform to the trunk, and hinders him from executing his purpose. Upon this the platform immediately quits the tree, and swings in the air with the animal seated upon it. If, on the first shock, the bear is not tumbled out, he must either take a very dangerous leap, or remain patiently in his suspended seat. If he take the leap, either involuntarily, or by his own good will, he falls on sharp points, placed all about the bottom of the tree; if he resolve to remain where he is, he is shot by arrows or musket balls.

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

White butterbur. Tressilago alba.

often finely varnished to protect them from
the wet and cold, are the principal bo-
tanical subjects for observation in Janu--
ary, and their structure is particularly
worthy of notice; to the practical gar-
dener an attention to their appearance is
indispensable, as by them alone can he
prune with safety.
Buds are always
formed in the spring preceding that in
which they open, and are of two kinds,
leaf buds and flower buds, distinguished
by a difference of shape and figure, easi-
ly discernible by the observing eye; the
fruit buds being thicker, rounder, and
shorter, than the others-hence the gar-
dener can judge of the probable quantity
of blossom that will appear:"

Lines on Buds, by Cowper.
When all this uniform uncoloured scene
Shall be dismantled of its fleecy load,
And flush into variety again.
From dearth to plenty, and from death to life,
Is Nature's progress, when she lectures man
In heavenly truth; evincing, as she makes
The grand transition, that there lives and
works

He sets the bright procession on its way,
A soul in all things, and that soul is God.
And marshals all the order of the year;
He marks the bounds which winter may not

pass,

And blunts his pointed fury; in its case,
Russet and rude, folds up the tender germ,
Uninjured, with inimitable art;
And ere one flowery season fades and dies,
Designs the blooming wonders of the next.

"Buds possess a power analogous to that of seeds, and have been called the viviparous offspring of vegetables, inasmuch as they admit of a removal from their original connection, and, its action being suspended for an indefinite time, can be renewed at pleasure."

On Icicles, by Cowper.
The mill-dam dashes on the restless wheel,
And wantons in the pebbly gulf below.
No frost can bind it there; its utmost force
Can but arrest the light and smoky mist,
That in its fall the liquid sheet throws wide.
And see where it has hung th' embroidered
banks

With forms so various, that no powers of art,
The pencil, or the pen, may trace the scene!
Here glittering turrets rise, upbearing high
(Fantastic misarrangement !) on the roof
St. Julian of Large growth of what may seem the sparkling
Mans. St. Marius.

January 27.

St. John Chrysostom.

THE SEASON

It is observed in Dr. Forster's "Perennial Calendar," that "Buds and embryo blossoms in their silky, downy coats,

trees

And shrubs of fairy land. The crystal drops
That trickle down the branches, fast con
gealed,

Shoot into pillars of pellucid length,
And prop the pile they but adorned before,

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