18 h. 22 m. 7 s., when the estival, or summer quarter commences, at which ingress 40 m. of Leo will be found due east, and 6 deg. Aries due south, all the planets being above the horizon except Jupiter and Herschel. Mercury passes his ascending node on the 4th, in 7 deg. 15 m. of Gemini; he will be in his superior conjunction on the 8th, at 16 h.; in perihelio on the 9th ; in conjunction with Mars on the 15th, at 5 h.; and with the Moon on the 25th, at 13 4-5 h. in 20 deg. 47 m. of Cancer. Venus rises on the 1st, at 2 h. 22 m. morning, in 7 deg. 1 m. of Taurus, and on the 30th, at 2 h. 8 m. in 11 deg. 41 m. of Gemini; she has 10 digits east illuminated on the 4th, apparent diameter 13 sec. She will be in conjunction with the Moon on the 21st, at 73 h. Mars rises on the 1st, at 4 h. 43 m. in 22 deg. 12 m. Gemini, and on the 30th at 4 h. 7 m. in 11 deg. 28 m. Cancer. He will be in conjunction with Saturn on the 25th, at 22 h. Jupiter, who has been moving retrograde since the 28th of January, becomes stationary on the 1st, in 4 deg. 28 m. of Libra, and commences a direct motion on the 3rd. On the 30th, he will have reached 5 deg. 41 m. of the same sign. According to Kepler, Jupiter is in conjunction with Saturn in the same point of the zodiac once in 800 years. This is called the grand conjunction, and has happened only eight times since the creation; the last time in the month of December, 1603. There is only one of his eclipses visible this month, on the 12th, at 10 h. 8 m. 39 s. evening. PASCHE. Anecdotes and Recollections. Notings, selections, Anecdote and joke Our recollections; With gravities for graver folk CHIEF JUSTICE CARLETON. CHIEF JUSTICE CARLETON was a very lugubrious personage. He never ceased complaining of his bad state of health (or rather of his hypochondriasm), and frequently introduced Lady Carleton into his "Book of Lamentations ;" thence it was remarked by Curran to be very extraordinary, that the chief justice should appear as plaintiff (plaintive) in every cause that happened to come before him! One nisi prius day, Lord Carleton came into court, looking unusually gloomy. He apologized to the bar for being necessitated to adjourn the court and dismiss the jury for that day, though," pro 66 ceeded his lordship, "I am aware that an important issue stands for trial; but, the fact is, I have met with a domestic misfortune, which has altogether deranged my nerves! Poor Lady Carleton (in a low tone to the bar) has most unfortunately miscarried, and - "“Oh, then, my lord," exclaimed Curran, "there was no necessity for your lordship to make any apology, since it now appears that your lordship has no issue to try!" Barrington's Sketches. IRISH LAW PRECEDENT. JUDGE KELLY always most candidly admitted his legal mistakes. I recollect my friend William Johnson once pressed very fiercely to a decision in his favour, and stating as an argument (in his usual peremptory tone, to judges he was not afraid of,) that there could be no doubt on the point--precedent was imperative in the matter, as his lordship had decided the same points the same way twice before. "So, Mr. Johnson," said the judge, looking archly, shifting his seat somewhat, and shrugging up his right shoulder, -"so! because I decided wrong twice, Mr. Johnson, you'd have me do so a third time? No, no, Mr. Johnson ! you must excuse me; I'll decide the other way this bout;"-and so he did. Barrington's Sketches. With the yellow broom, so wild and sweet, So cloudless is the sky above, So freshly fair the leafy grove, How beautiful is Nature's face! Where is the wanderer? This the road Blackwood's Magazine. GIBBON'S APPRECIATION OF HIS OWN CHARACTER. MAY 8th, 1762. This was my birth-day, on which I entered into the twenty-sixth year of my age. This gave me occasion to look a little into myself, and consider impartially my good and bad qualities. It appeared to me, upon this inquiry, that my character was virtuous, incapable of a base action, formed for generous ones, but that it was proud, violent, and disagreeable in society. These qualities I must endeavour to cultivate, extirpate, or restrain, according to their different tendency. Wit I have none. My imagination is rather strong than pleasing. My memory both capacious and retentive. The shining qualities of my understanding are extensiveness and penetration; but I want both quickness and exactness. -Extracted from his Journal. See Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works. INDIAN ANSWER TO A CHALLENGE. I HAVE two objections to this duel affair. The one is, lest I should hurt you, and the other is, lest you should hurt me. I do not see any good it would do me to put a bullet through any part (the least langerous part) of your body. I could make no use of you when dead, for any culinary purpose, as I would of a rabbit or a turkey. I am no cannibal, to feed on the flesh of men, why, then, shoot down a human creature of whom I could make no use? A buffalo would be better meat; for though your flesh might be delicate and tender, yet it wants that firmness and consistency which makes and retains salt. At any rate it would not be fit for long voyages. You might make a good English stew or an American barbacue, it is true, being of the nature of a racoon or an oppossum; but people are not in the habit of barbacuing any thing human in these enlightened times. As to your hide, it is not worth taking off, being little better than a year colt. As to myself, I don't like to stand in the way of anything harmful. I am under great apprehension you might hit me! that being the case, I think it most advisable to stay at a distance. If you want to try your pistols, take some object, a tree or a barn door, about my dimensions; and if you hit that, send me word, and I shall acknowledge that had I been in the same place you might have also hit me. SEA-SIDE THOUGHTS.* 'Twere as casy to control * Poems by Bernard Barton. Sun, and moon, and stars shine o'er thee, Yet attempt not to explore thee Whether morning's splendours steep thee Earth, her valleys, and her mountains, Scoff his search, and scorn his sway. Such art thou-stupendous Ocean! THE FOLLY OF ENVY. Look not up with envy to those above thee. Sounding titles, stately buildings, fine gardens, gilded chariots, rich equipages; what are they? They dazzle every one but the possessor. To him that is accustomed to them, they are cheap and regardless things: they supply him not with brighter images or more sublime satisfaction than the plain man may have, whose small estate may just enable him to support the charge of a simple unencumbered life. He enters heedless into his rooms of state, as you or I do under our poor sheds. The noble paintings and costly furniture are lost on him; he sees them not; as how can it be other wise, when, by custom, a FABRIC infinitely more grand and finished, that of the UNIVERSE, stands unobserved by the inhabitants, and the everlasting lamps of Heaven are lighted up in vain, for any Lotice that mortals take of them. Spectator, No. 626. GEORGIAN LADIES. One THE females of Georgia, so remarkable for their beauty, are not, however, satisfied with the charms of countenance which nature has bestowed upon them, but have recourse to the odious use of paint. of the great luxuries is the bath, which they enjoy in perfection at Teflis, where artificial excavations in the rock, situated in deep caverns, are supplied with water naturally tepid. Georgian ladies devote a whole day in every week to these baths, not unfrequently passing a whole night in them. Here, reclining in luxurious ease on couches, they amuse themselves by staining their hair and nails; here also they paint their faces red and white, and above all torture themselves to make their eye-brows join an anacreontic charm absolutely essential in a Georgian beauty. O JUNE! prime season of the annual round, WELCOME once more to sweet June, Half prankt with spring, with summer half im browned. Yet it is almost startling to those who regret the speed of time, and especially of those Who like the soil, who like the clement skies, Who like the verdant hills, and flowery plains, to behold how far the season has advanced. But with this we must be sensibly struck, if we give a retrospective glance to the days when, in our walks, we hailed with delight the first faint announcements of a new spring, the first snatch of milder air, the first peep of green, the first flowers which dared the unsettled elements--the snow-drop, violets, primroses, and then a thousand beautiful and short-lived blooms. They are gone! The light tints of young foliage, so pure, so tender, so spiritual, are vanished. What the poet applied to the end of summer, is realized now: It is the season when the green delight A duller and darker uniformity of green has spread over the hedges; and we behold, in the forest trees, the farewell traces of spring. They, indeed, exhibit a beautiful variety. The oak has "spread its amber leaves out in the sunny sheen;" the ash has unfolded its more cerulean drapery; the maple, beech, and sycamore are clad in most delicate vestures; and even the dark perennial firs are enlivened by young shoots and cones or lighter green. Our admiration of the foliage of trees would rise much higher, did we give it a more particular attention. The leaves of the horse-chestnut are superb. Passing through a wood we broke off one without thinking of what we were doing; but being immediately struck with its size and beauty, we found, on trial, that it measured no less than one yard and three quarters round, and the leaf and footstalk three quarters of a yard in length, presenting a natural handscreen of unrivalled elegance of shape. It is now, too, that many of the forest trees put forth their blossoms. The chestnut in the earliest period of the month, is a glorious object, laden with "ten thousand waxen, pyramidal flowers." Then come the less conspicuous, but yet beautiful developements of other giants of the wood. The sycamore, the maple, and the hornbeam are affluent with their Pilgrims of summer, woich do bow the knee The general character of June, in the happiest seasons, is fine, clear, and glowing, without reaching the intense heats of July. Its commencement is the only period of the year in which we could possibly forget that we are in a world of perpetual change and decay. The earth is covered with flowers, and the air is saturated with their fragrance. It is true that many have vanished from our path, but they have slid away to quietly, and their places have been occupied by so many fragrant and beautiful successors, that we have been scarcely sensible of their departure. Everything is full of life, greenness, and vigour. Families of young birds are abroad, and a busy life the parents have of it till they can peck for themselves. Rooks have deserted the rookery, and are feeding their vociferous young in every pasture and umbrageous tree. The swallow and swift are careering in clear skies, and Ten thousand insects in the air abound The flower-garden is in its highest splendour. Roses of almost innumerable species (we have counted no less than fourteen in a cottage garden,) lilies, jasmines, speedwells, rockets, stocks, lupines, geraniums, pinks, poppies, valerians (blue and red) mignionette, &c. &c. and the rhododendron, as bright, though less enriched by contrast than the rhododendron on the Alps. fashioned cottages in the morning, when the bees are flitting forth with a rejoicing hum; or at eve, when the honeysuckle and sweet-briar mingle their spirit with the breeze. It is luxury to plunge into the cool river; and, if ever we were tempted to turn anglers, it would be now. To steal away into a quiet valley, by a winding stream, buried, completely buried in fresh grass; the foam-like flowers of the meadow-sweet, the crimson loosestrife, and the large blue geranium nodding beside us; the dragon-fly and king fisher glancing to and fro; the trees above casting their flickering shadows on the stream, and one of our ten thousand volumes of delectable literature in our pocket; then, indeed, could we be a most patient angler,-content though we caught not a single fin. What luxurious images would there float through the mind! Gray could form no idea of heaven superior to lying on a sofa and reading novels; but it is in the flowery lap of June that we can best climb Up to the sunshine of uncumbered ease. How delicious, too, are the evenings become. The damps and frosts of spring are past. The earth is dry. The night air is balmy and refreshing. The glow. worm has lit her lamp. Go forth when the business of the day is over, thou who art pent in city toils, and stroll through the newly shot corn, along the grassy and hay-scented fields. Linger beside the solitary woodland. The gale of evening is stirring its mighty and umbrageous branches. The wild rose, with its flowers of most delicate odour, and of every tint, from the deepest blush to the pures pearl; the wreathed and luscious honeysuckle, and the verdurous snowy-flowered elder, embellish every wayside, or light up the most shadowy region of the wood. Field peas and beans, in full flower, add their spicy aroma. The red clover is, at once, splendid and profuse of its honeyeu breath. The young corn is bursting into ear. The awned heads of rye, wheat, and barley, and the nodding panicles of oat, shoot forth from their green and glaucous stems in broad, level, and waying expanses of present beauty and future promise. The very waters are gar landed with flowers. The hickbean, like a fringed hyacinth, the delicate water violet (Hotlonia palustris,) the elegant flowering rush, and the queen of the waters, the pure and splendid white lily, invest every stream and lonely mere with grace. The mavis and the merle, those worthy favourites of the olden bards, and the woodlark, make the solitude resound It is luxury to haunt the gardens of old- with their eloquent even song. It is the very carnival of Nature," and she is prodigal of her luxuries. It is luxury to walk abroad, indulging every sense with sweetness, loveliness, and harmony. It is luxury to stand beneath the forest side, when all is basking and still at noon, and to see the landscape suddenly darken, the black and tumultuous clouds assemble as at a signal,-to hear the awful thunder crash upon the listening air, and then to mark the glorious bow rise on the lucid rear of the tempest, the sun laugh jocundly abroad, and Every bathed leaf and blossom fair Over its own sweet voice the stock-dove broods; and the cuckoo pours its mellowest note from some region of twilight shadow. The sun-sets of this month are commonly glorious. The mighty luminary goes down pavilioned amidst clouds of every hue, the splendour of burnished gold, the deepest mazarine blue, fading away, in the higher heavens, to the palest azure; and an ocean of purple shadow flung over the twilight of woods, or the far stretching and lovely landscape. The heart of the spectator is touched; it is melted and rapt into dreams of past and present, pure, elevated, and tinged with a poetic tenderness which can never awake amidst the crowd of mortals or of books. SONNET. The summer sun had set! the blue mist sailed Along the twilight lake: no sounds arose, Save such as hollow nature's sweet repose, And charm the ear of peace! Young zephyr hailed In vain the slumbering echo. In the grove The song of night's lone bard, sweet Philomel, Broke not the holy calm; the soft notes fell Like the low whispered smiles of timid love. I paused in adoration; and such dreams As haunt the pensive soul, intensely fraught With silent incommunicable thought, And sympathy profound, with fitful gleams Caught from the memory of departed years, Flashed on my mind, and woke luxurious tears! Blackwood's Magazine. The state of nature we have described is just that which might be imagined to co-exist with perpetual summer. There are sunshine, beauty, and abundance, without a symptom of decay. But this will not last. We soon perceive the floridity of nature merging into a verdant monotony; we find a silence stealing over the landscape so lately filled with the voice of every creature's exultation. The nightingale is gone, and the cuckoo will depart in less time than is allowed him in the peasant's traditionary calendar. In April The euckoo shows his bill. He sings both night and day. He altereth his tune. Away he'll fly In August Anon the scythe is heard ringing,-a sound happy in its immediate associations, but, in fact, a note of preparation for winter-a knell of the passing year. It reminds us, in the midst of warmth and fertility, that we must prepare for nakedness and frost; and that stripping away of the earth's glorious robe which it begins, will never cease till it leaves us in the dreary tempestuous region of winter; so That fair flower of beauty fades away, Faery Queene, b. iii. Let us not, however, anticipate too sensitively the progress of time; let us rather enjoy the summer festivities which surround us. The green fruits of the orchard are becoming conspicuous, and the young nuts in the hedges and copses; the garden presents ripe cherries, melting strawberries, and gooseberries, and currants, assuming tints of ripeness, are extremely grateful. Grasses are now in flower, and when the larger species are collected, and disposed tastefully, as we have seen them, by ladies, in vases, polished horns, and over pier-glasses, they retain their greenness through the whole year, and form, with their elegantly pensile panicles, bearded spikes, and silken plumes, exceedingly graceful ornaments. Sheep-shearing, begun last month, is generally completed in this. The hayharvest has commenced, and in some southern counties, if the weather be favourable, completed; but next month may be considered the general season of hay-making.* Select Biography. No. LIV. ROBERT BOWMAN. THE subject of this brief memoir was born at Bridgewood Foot, near Irthington, in Cumberland, and was a remarkable instance of longevity, for he died on the 13th of June, 1823, having reached the age of 118 years. From early youth he had been a laborious worker, and was at all times healthy and strong, having never taken medicine nor been visited with any kind of illness, except the measles when a child, and the hooping-cough when he was above one hundred years of age. During the course of his long life he was only once intoxicated, which was at a wedding, and he never used tea or coffee; his principal food having been bread, potatoes, hasty-pudding, broth, and occasionally a little flesh meat. He *Time's Telescope. |