of the missal cut. Ribadeneira says of St. Nicholas, that "being present at the council of Nice, among three hundred and eighteen bishops, who were there assembled together to condemn the heresy of Arius, he shone among them all with so great clarity, and opinion of sanctity, that he appeared like a sun amongst so many stars.' It will be remembered that he is affirmed to have given Arius a clarifying "box on the ear.' The Boy Bishop. If there were no other, the miracle of the pickled children would be sufficient to establish Nicholas's fame as the patron of youth, and we find his festival day was selected by scholars, and the children of the church, for a remarkable exhibition about to be described. Anciently on the 6th of December, it being St. Nicholas's day, the choir boys in cathedral churches, chose one of their number to maintain the state and authority of a bishop, for which purpose the boy was habited in rich episcopal robes, wore a mitre on his head, and bore a crosier in his hand; and his fellows, for the time being, assumed the character and dress of priests, yielded him canonical obedience, took possession of the church, and except mass, performed all the ecclesiastical ceremonies and offices. Though the boy bishop's election was on the 6th of December, yet his office and authority lasted till the 28th, being Innocents' day. It appears from a printed church book containing the service of the boy bishop set to music, that at Sarum,* on the eve of Innocents' day, the boy bishop and his youthful clergy, in their copes, and with burning tapers in their hands, went in solemn procession, chanting and singing versicles as they walked into the choir by the west door, in such order that the dean and canons went foremost, the chaplains next, and the boy bishop with his priests in the last and highest place. He then took his seat, and the rest of the children disposed themselves on each side of the choir upon the uppermost ascent, the canons resident bore the incense and the book, and the petit-canons the tapers according to the Romish rubric. Af terwards the boy bishop proceeded to the altar of the Holy Trinity, and All Saints, which he first censed, and next the image of the Holy Trinity, while his priests were singing. Then they all Processionale ad usum insignit et preclare Ecclesie Sarum, Rothomagi, 1556, 4to. chanted a service with prayers and responses, and the boy bishop taking his seat, repeated salutations, prayers, and versicles, and in conclusion gave his benediction to the people, the chorus answering, Deo gratias. Having received his crosier from the cross-bearer other ceremonies were performed; he chanted the complyn; turning towards the quire delivered an exhortation; and last of all said, "Benedicat Vos omnipotens Deus, Pater, et Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus." By the statutes of the church of Sarum, for the regulation of this extraordinary scene, no one was to interrupt or press upon the boy bishop and the other children, during their procession or service in the cathedral, upon pain of anathema. It farther appears that at this cathedral the boy bishop held a kind of visitation, and maintained a corresponding state and prerogative; and he is supposed to have had power to dispose of prebends that fell vacant during his episcopacy. If he died within the month he was buried like other bishops in his episcopal ornaments, his obsequies were solemnized with great pomp, and a monument was erected to his memory, with his episcopal effigy. About a hundred and fifty years ago a stone monument to one of these boy bishops was discovered in Salisbury cathedral, under the seats near the pulpit, from whence it was removed to the north part of the nave between the pillars, and covered over with a box of wood, to the great admiration of those, who, unacquainted with the anomalous character it designed to commemorate, thought it "almost impossible that a bishop should be so small in person, or a child so great in clothes." Mr. Gregorie found the processional of the boy bishop. He notices the same custom at York; and cites Molanus as saying," that this bishop in some places did reditat census, et capones annuo accipere, receive rents, capons, &c. during his year," &c. He relates that a boy bishop in the church of Cambray disposed of a prebend, which fell void during his episcopal assumption to his master; and he refers to the denunciation of the boy bishop by the council of Basil which, at the time of the holding of that council, was a well-known custom. Mr. Gregorie, who was a prebendary of Salisbury, describes the finding of the boy bishop's monument at that place, and inserts a rewhich the annexed engraving is taken. presentation of it in his treatise, from The ceremony of the boy bishop is supposed to have existed not only in collegiate churches, but in almost every parish in England. He and his companions walked the streets in public procession. A statute of the collegiate church of St. Mary Overy, in 1337, restrained one of them to the limits of his own parish. On December 7, 1229, the day after St. Nicholas's day, a boy bishop in the chapel at Heton, near Newcastle-uponTyne, said vespers before Edward I. on his way to Scotland, who made a considerable present to him and the other boys who sang with him. In the reign of king Edward III., a boy bishop received a present of nineteen shillings and sixpence for singing before the king in his private chamber on Innocents' day. Dean Colet in the statutes of St. Paul's school which he founded in 1512, expressly ordains that his scholars should every Childermas (Innocents) day, "come to Paulis Churche and hear the Chylde Bishop's sermon: and after be at the hygh masse, and each of them offer a penny to the Chylde-Bishop and with them the maisters and surveyors of the scole." By a proclamation of Henry VIII. dated July 22, 1542, the show of the boy bishop was abrogated, but in the reign of Mary it was revived with other Romish ceremonials. A flattering song was sung before that queen by a boy bishop, and printed. It was a panegyric on her devotion, and compared her to Judith, Esther, the queen of Sheba, and the Virgin Mary. The accounts of St. Mary at Hill, London, in the 10th Henry VI., and for 1549, and 1550, contain charges for the boy bishops of those years. At that period his estimation in the church seems to have been undiminished; for on November 13, 1554, the bishop of London, issued an order to all the clergy of his diocese to have boy bishops and their ard's "Tables," is on the 7th of December. This quarter of the year comprehend. St. Ambrose, A. D. 397. St. Fara, Ab- eighty-nine days, except in leap-yea bess, A. D. 655. WINTER. The natural commencement of the winter season, according to Mr. HowNo. 50. when it has ninety days. Winter exhi bits as large a proportion of the cold, as summer did of the heat. In spring the cold gradually goes off, to be replaced in the middle of the season by warmth; the respective proportions being like those which obtain in autumn, while their positions are reversed. "The mean temperature of the season in the country is 37.76 degrees. The medium temperature of the twenty-four hours, descends from about 40 to 34 degrees, and returns again to the former point. "The mean height of the barometer is 29.802 inches, being .021 inches above that of autumn. The range of the column is greatest in this season; and in the course of twenty winters it visits nearly the two extremities of the scale of three inches. The mean winter range is however 2.25 inches. "The predominating winds at the beginning of winter are the south-west: in the middle these give place to northerly winds, after which the southerly winds prevail again to the close: they are at this season often boisterous at night. "The mean evaporation, taken in situations which give more than the natural quantity from the surface of the earth, (being 30.467 inches on the year,) is 3.587 inches. This is a third less than the proportion indicated by the mean temperature; showing the dampness of the air at this season. "De Luc's hygrometer averages about 78 degrees. "The average rain is 5.868 inches. The rain is greatest at the commencement, and it diminishes in rapid proportion to the end. In this there appears a salutary provision of divine intelligence: for had it increased, or even continued as heavy as in the autumnal months, the water instead of answering the purpose of irrigation, for which it is evidently designed, would have descended from the saturated surface of the higher ground in perpetual floods, and wasted for the season the plains and valleys. "Notwithstanding the sensible indications of moisture, which in the intervals of our short frosts attend this season, the actual quantity of vapour in the atmosphere is now, probably, at its lowest proportion, or rather it is so at the commencement of the season; after which it gradually increases with the temperature and evaporation."* Winter. This is the eldest of the seasons: he Howard's Climate of London. Moves not like spring with gradual step, nor grows No rains nor loud proclaiming tempests flee The suns of summer, nor the charms of song, As tho' to cheat man's ear: yet while he stays He seems as 'twere to prompt our merriest days, And bid the dance and joke be long and loud. FLORAL DIRECTORY. Hairy Achania. Achania pilosa. December 8. The Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. St. Romaric, Abbot, a. D. 653. The winter season of the year 1818, was extraordinarily mild. On the 8th of December, the gardens in the neighbourhood of Plymouth showed the following Howers in full bloom, viz. :—Jonquils, Larcissus, hyacinths, anemonies, pinks, Literary P. Book. stocks, African and French marigolds, the passion flowers, and monthly roses, in great perfection, ripe strawberries and raspberries. In the fields and hedges were the sweet-scented violets, heart'sease, purple vetch, red robin, wild strawberry blossom, and many others. The oak and the elm retained much of their foliage, and the birds were sometimes heard as in spring. FLORAL DIRECTORY. Arbor vitæ. Thuja occidentalis. Dedicated to the Conception of the B. V. Mary. December 9. obliged to be taken off before the coffin could be admitted, and it was so heavy, that the attendants were forced to move it along the churchyard upon rollers.* FLORAL DIRECTORY, St. Leocadia, s. D. 304. The Seven Mar- Portugal Cyprus. Cupressus Lusitanică. tyrs at Samosata, A. D. 297. St. Wulfhilde, A. D. 990. BURIED ALIVE. A remarkable instance of premature interment, is related in the case of the rev. Mr. Richards, parson of the Hay, in Herefordshire, who, in December, 1751, was supposed to have died suddenly. His friends seeing his body and limbs did not stiffen, after twenty-four hours, sent for a surgeon, who, upon bleeding him, and not being able to stop the blood, told them that he was not dead, but in a sort of trance, and ordered them not to bury him. They paid no attention to the injunction, but committed the body to the grave the next day. A person walking along the churchyard, hearing a noise in the grave, ran and prevailed with the clerk to have the grave opened, where they found a great bleeding at the nose, and the body in a profuse sweat; whence it was conjectured that he was buried alive. They were now, however, obliged to let him remain, as all appearance of further recovery had been precluded by his interment.* A writer in the "Gentleman's Magazine" some years before, observes, "I have undoubted authority for saying, a man was lately (and I believe is still) living at Hustley, near Winchester, December, 1747, who, after lying for dead two days and two nights, was committed to the grave, and rescued from it by some boys luckily playing in the churchyard!" Dedicated to St. Eulalia. December 11. St. Damasus, Pope, a. D. 384. Sts. Fuscian, Victoricus, and Gentian, a. D. 287. St. Daniel, the Stylite, a. D. 494. ST. NICHOLAS IN RUSSIA. A gentleman obligingly contributes the subjoined account of a northern usage on the 5th of December, the vigil of St. Nicholas. He communicates his name to the editor, and vouches for the authenticity of his relation, " having himself been an actor in the scene he describes." (For the Every-Day Book.) In the fine old city of Leewvarden, the capital of West Friezland, there are some curious customs preserved, connected with the celebration or the anniversary of this saint. this province, St. Nicholas has been From time immemorial, in hailed as the tutelary patron of children and confections; no very inappropriate association, perhaps. On the eve, or tival, the good saint condescends, (as Avond, as it is there termed, of this fescurrently asserted, and religiously believed, by the younger fry,) to visit these sublunar spheres, and to irradiate by his majestic presence, the winter fireside of his infant votaries. some twenty years agone, in the brief During a residence in the above town, days of happy boyhood, (that green spot in our existence,) it was my fortune to be present at one of these annual visitations. Imagine a group of happy youngsters sporting around the domestic hearth, in all the buoyancy of riotous health and spirits, brim-full of joyful expectation, but yet in an occasional pause, casting frequent glances towards the door, with a comical expression of impatience, mixed up with something like dread of the impending event. At last a loud knock is heard, in an instant the games are suspended, and the door slowly unfolding, self, arrayed in, his pontificals, with pasreveals to sight the venerated saint him * Gentleman's Magazine, |