If to a rock from rains he fly,
Or some bright day of April sky,
Imprisoned by hot sunshine lie
Near the green holly,

And wearily at length should fare;
He need but look about, and there
Thou art!-a friend at hand, to scare
His melancholy.

A hundred times, by rock or bower, Ere thus I have lain couched an hour, Have I derived from thy sweet power

Some apprehension;

Some steady love; some brief delight; Some memory that had taken flight; Some chime of fancy, wrong or right; Or stray invention.

If stately passions in me burn,
And one chance look to thee should turn,
I drink out of an humbler urn

A lowlier pleasure;

The homely sympathy that heeds The common life, our nature breeds; A wisdom fitted to the needs

Of hearts at leisure.

When, smitten by the morning ray,
I see thee rise alert and gay,
Then, cheerful flower! my spirits play
With kindred gladness:
And when, at dusk, by dews opprest
Thou sink'st, the image of thy rest
Hath often eased my pensive breast

Of careful sadness.

And all day long I number yet,
All seasons through, another debt,
Which I, wherever thou art met,

To thee am owing;

An instinct call it, a blind sense;
A happy genial influence,

Coming one knows not how nor whence,
Nor whither going.

Child of the year! that round dost run
Thy course, bold lover of the sun,
And cheerful when the day's begun
As morning leveret,

Thy long-lost praise thou shalt regain;
Dear shalt thou be to future men
As in old time;-thou, not in vain,
Art Nature's favourite."

NATURALISTS' CALENDAR. Mean Temperature... 42. 10.

Yes-Flowers again! It is the season of their approach; therefore make ready for their coming, and listen to the fair herald who is eloquent in praise of their eloquence. She tells us, in her "Flora Domestica," and who dare deny ? that "flowers do speak a language, a clear and intelligible language: ask Mr.Wordsworth, for to him they have spoken, until they excited thoughts that lie too deep for tears; ask Chaucer, for he held companionship with them in the meadows; ask any of the poets, ancient or modern. Observe them, reader, love them, linger over them; and ask your own heart, if they do not speak affection, benevolence, and piety. None have better understood the language of flowers than the simpleminded peasant-poet, Clare, whose volumes are like a beautiful country, diversified with woods, meadows, heaths, and flower-gardens :

Bowing adorers of the gale,
Ye cowslips delicately pale,

Upraise your loaded stems;
Unfold your cups in splendour, speak!
Who decked you with that ruddy streak,
And gilt your golden gems?
Violets, sweet tenants of the shade,
In purple's richest pride arrayed,

Your errand here fulfil;
Go bid the artist's simple stain
Your lustre imitate, in vain,

And match your Maker's skill.
Daisies, ye flowers of lowly birth,
Embroiderers of the carpet earth,
That stud the velvet sod;
Open to spring's refreshing air,
In sweetest smiling bloom declare
Your Maker, and my God.

Clare.

NATURALISTS' CALENDAR. Mean Temperature ... 39 69.

According to Miss Plumptre, it was held on the eve of St. John the Baptist. A large bird of any kind was tethered in a field without the town, so that it could fly only to a certain height, and the youth of the place, those only of the second order of nobles, took aim at him with their bows and arrows in presence of all the nobility, gentry, and magistracy. He who killed the bird was king of the archers for the year ensuing, and the two who had gone the nearest after him were appointed his lieutenant and standardbearer; he also nominated several other officers from among the competitors. The company then returned into the town, the judges of the contest marching first, followed by the victors: bonfires were made in several parts, round which the people danced, while the king and his officers went from one to the other till they had danced by turns at them all. The same diversions were repeated the following day; and both evenings the king, at the conclusion of them, was attended home by his officers and a concourse of people, among whom he distributed largesses to a considerable amount.

At the first institution of this ceremony, the intention of which was to incite the young men to render themselves expert marksmen, the king enjoyed very extensive privileges during the year; but in latter times they had been reduced to those of wearing a large silver medal which was presented to him at his accession, of enjoying the right of shooting wherever he chose, of partaking in the grand mass celebrated by the order of Malta at their church on the festival of St. John, and of being exempted from lodging soldiers, and paying what was called Le droit de piquet, a tax upon all the flour brought into the town. After the invention of the arquebuse, instead of shooting at a live bird with arrows, they fired at a wooden bird upon a pole, and he who could bring it down was appointed king: any one who brought it down two years together was declared emperor, and in that quality exempted for life from all municipal taxes. This ceremony continued till the revolution.

It appears from hence that this custom of shooting at a wooden bird on St. John's eve is very similar to that which the engraving represents, as the merriment of the Papeguay, or wooden bird, belonging to the month of March.

Anecdotes of BROWNE WILLIS, The Antiquarian.

To the portrait of this eminent antiquary at p. 194, is annexed the day of his birth, in 1682, and the day whereon he died, in 1760. That engraving of him is after an etching made" in 1781, at the particular request of the Rev. William Cole, from a drawing made by the Rev. Michael Tyson, from an original painting by Dahl." Mr. Cole, in a letter to Mr. Steevens, speaks of the etching thus: "The copy pleases me infinitely; nothing can be more exact and like the copy I sent, and which, as well as I can recollect, is equally so to the original. Notwithstanding the distance of time when Dahl drew his portrait and that in which I knew him, and the strange metamorphose that age and caprice had made in his &gure, yet I could easily trace some lines and traits of what Mr. Dahl had given of him." Agreeably to the promise already given, some particulars remain to be added concerning the distinguished individual it represents.

Browne Willis was grandson of Dr. Thomas Willis, the most celebrated physician of his time, and the eldest son of Thomas Willis, esq., of Bletchley, in the county of Bucks. When at Westminster school, "the neighbouring abbey drew his admiration: here he loved to walk and contemplate. The solemnity of the building, the antique appearance, the monuments, filled his whole mind. He delighted himself in reading old inscriptions. Here he first imbibed the love of antiquities, and the impression grew indelible." At seventeen he was admitted a gentleman commoner of Christ Church college; in 1705 he represented the town of Buckingham in parliament, where he constantly attended, and often sat on committees; in 1707 he married; in 1718 he became an active member of the society of antiquaries; in 1720 the university of Oxford conferred on him the degree of M. A. by diploma; and in 1740 he received from it the degree of LL. D. On the 11th of February, 1760, he was buried in Fenny Stratford chapel, an edifice which, though he founded it himself, he was accustomed to attribute to the munificence of others, "who were in reality only contributors." Of his numerous antiquarian works the principal are "Notitia Parliamentaria, or