Lenct, now called Lent, means spring; hence March was the spring month. The Saxons also called it Hlyd-monath, from hlyd, which means stormy, and in this sense March was the stormy month.

March is a rude, and sometimes boisterous month, possessing many of the characteristics of winter, yet awakening sensations. more pleasant than the two following months, for it gives us the first announcement and taste of spring. What can equal the delight of the heart at the very first glimpse of spring -the first peeping of buds and green herbs? It is like a new life infused into our bosoms. A spirit of tendernessburst of freshness and luxury of feeling possesses us; and though fifty springs have broken upon us, their joy, unlike many joys of time, is not an atom impaired.

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True it is that blustering, rude Boreas causes boisterous excitement about this time, as if seeking to awaken nature from her long sleep of winter; while dusty particles scorn all local habitation, performing fantastic gyrations in the air, to the serious discomfiture of our physical organs, especially the optical and olfactory.

The dry winds of lusty March, however they may be deprecated for their personal incivilities, are nevertheless useful to the purposes of agriculture. Its zodiacal sign, Aries, was assigned to this, originally the first month of the year, because the ancients considered the ram as the father of the fleecy flock which afforded them both food and raiment.

St. David's Day is celebrated by the Welsh as commemora tive of their patron Saint: it occurs on the first of the month. We now come to the festival held in honor of the tutelar Saint of Ould Ireland-Saint Patrick-who, according to ancient lore, in the year of grace 433 landed near Wicklow, having, it is said, been born at Kilpatrick, Scotland. His glorious memory is mnemonized by the well-known Shamrock. The real name of this notable apostle of the Irish was Maenwyn. Pope Celestine gave him his ecclesiastical patronymic of Patri

cus, when he consecrated him as bishop to Ireland in 433, A.D. Originally there was a dispute, according to Lover, as to the true anniversary of this renowned saint, some supposing the eighth and others the ninth to be the correct date: the humorist, however, represents a priest as settling the difficulty as follows:

Says he, "Boys, don't be fighting for eight or for nine;
Don't be always dividing-but sometimes combine.
Combine eight with nine, and seventeen is the mark.
So let that be his birth-day." "Amen," says the clerk.
So they all got blind drunk-which completed their bliss,
And we keep up the practice from that day to this.

St. Agnes' Eve was deemed propitious for young maidens in the affair of securing good husbands; and St. Paul's Day was also regarded as one among the numerous days of ominous character by the superstitious of olden time.

Easter Sunday is always the first Sunday after the full moon which happens upon, or next after, the 21st day of March, and if the full moon should occur upon a Sunday, Easter day is the Sunday after. It was so fixed in early times, that the Christians might avoid the celebration of Easter at the time of the Jewish passover, held on the very day of the full moon.

Palm, or Passion Sunday, is the first Sunday before Easter, so called in commemoration of Christ's entering into Jerusalem, eight days before the passover. The Passover of the Jews closely agrees with the time when the sun crosses or passes over the equator, an event that could hardly fail to be celebrated with rites and ceremonies by a people so devoted to astronomy as the Egyptians who had educated Moses. Pascha was the primitive term, the English name passover being derived from God's passing over the houses of the Israelites and sparing their first-born, when those of the Egyptians were put to death.

Lady-day occurs on the 25th. Its title is also derived from

the Roman calendar and memorializes the Annunciation of the Virgin. It is the high festival of Catholicism, which, in consequence of the extreme honors it pays to the Virgin Mary, has been sometimes termed the Marian Church.

Ascension Day, called also Holy Thursday, is celebrated by the Church as the day on which our Saviour ascended into heaven, which happened the fortieth day after the resurrection.

APRIL, is derived from aperio, to open. The first of April was by the Romans consecrated to Venus, the goddess of beauty, as the earth begins at this time to be covered with beautiful flowers.

The Saxons called it oster, or easter month, it being the time when the feast of the Saxon goddess, Eastre, Easter or Eòstèr, was celebrated.

The month of April is one of alternating smiles and tears. By some writers it has been designated the sweetest of the series, because it ushers in the "delicate-footed May."

Sighing, storming, singing, smiling,
With her many moods beguiling,
April walks the wakening earth.
Wheresoe'er she looks and lingers,
Wheresoe'er she lays her fingers,

Some new charm starts into birth.
Fitful clouds about her sweeping,
Coming, going, frowning, weeping,
Melt in fertile blessings round.
Frequent rainbows that embrace her,
And with gorgeous girdles grace her,
Dropping flowers upon the ground.*

This month, it will be recollected, is introduced by the equivocal practice of imposing upon our credulity, under the style and title of April-fooling. Antiquarians have puzzled them

*J. C. Prince.

selves and their readers by their vain attempts to account for a custom, which still obtains even among some of the more sapient and refined. Without, therefore, following in their wake, and thus incur the risk of suspicion with the reader, that we mean to illustrate the practice at his expense-we shall content ourselves by simply citing the emphatic words of an old and respectable authority-Mr. Douce. "After all the conjectures," he says, "which have been formed touching its origin, it is certainly borrowed from the French, and may, I think, be deduced from this simple analogy. The French call their April fish (Poissons d'Avril,)-silly mackerel, or simpletons, which suffer themselves to be caught in this month. But, as with us," he continues, "April is not the season of that, fish, we have very properly substituted the word-fools."

Be very circumspect on this day of attending to gratuitous advice, given in the street, respecting your costume or appearance. Do not heed any officious person who may insist upon your picking up anything he may imagine you have dropped.

"Few persons are aware of the real derivation of many of the old customs which have been handed down almost from time immemorial. Thus, decking the house with evergreens at Christmas is the remains of a pagan superstition. In Great Britain the holly is used for this purpose, and the holly in the days of paganism was dedicated to Saturn, as the mistletoe was to Friga, the Scandinavian Venus. The yule log bears reference to the constant fire kept up by the priests of Baal, and the Maypole, with all its adjuncts, offers an imitation of the games formerly held in honor of the goddess Flora."

About the nineteenth day the sun enters Taurus—a constellation which includes one hundred and forty-one stars, the principal of which is Aldebaran, of the first magnitude: it also comprises two remarkable representations, viz. the Pleiades, and the Hyades. Alcyone, the principal star in the Pleiades, is supposed by Prof. Madler to be the grand central sun in the universe.

Good Friday is designed to commemorate the crucifixion. It is religiously regarded by the Episcopacy as a solemn festival of the church and at St. Peter's at Rome, it is kept up in the service of the Tenebræ-a ceremonial representing the entombment of the Saviour. Cross-buns used on this day, are in imitation of the ecclesiastical eulogia, or consecrated loaves, formerly bestowed in the church as alms, or given to those, who, from any impediment could not receive the host. It will be remembered (speaking of Friday) that popular superstition has marked this day of the week as "unlucky." This vulgar notion arose doubtless from the fact of the crucifixion having been supposed to occur on that day, with all its solemn and ominous accessories of darkness and earthquake. Leigh Hunt records. it against no less a name than Byron's, that he was the victim of this silly superstition; and-alas that it is so there are many still extant who confess to so ludicrous a weakness, especially among sailors and silly women. The conceit doubtless took its rise in heathen times-the monks endorsing the usage in their designating certain days of their calendar by the names dies atri and dies albi.

In order to put a stop to the superstition which attached to this unlucky day, a company of men once laid the timbers of a ship on Friday, launched her on Friday; after some trouble they found a captain of the name of Friday, and with still more trouble procured men who were willing to sail in her on that day. She started on a Friday for her destination, and was never more heard of. This fact is accredited, being stoutly insisted upon by all sailors.

If Friday was ever ill-omened, its reputation is sufficiently redeemed, for it was on that day that Columbus discovered the American continent, that George Washington was born, and that the Pilgrim fathers reached the Plymouth rock.

Ancient calendars designate two days in each month as unfortunate, namely-of January, the first and seventh; February, the third and fourth; March, the first and fourth; April,