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VOL. 2.]

Explanation of Saints' Days, Ancient Customs, &c.

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certain, gentlemen, that he will not ed."-"I can satisfy, in some measure, arrive here in less than two hours ?"- the obliging desire which you manifest, "Yes, Madam." The time advanced, without your taking the trouble to go and Joseph wishing to put an end to this abroad. Look on this box-the porscene, so gratifying to his heart, said: trait is striking. Recognize the original "So, Madam, you cannot be satisfied of this painting in the stranger to whom until you have seen the Emperor?" you have so cordially granted hospitality." "No, Sir, for I am convinced he is the The lady, filled with astonishment, fixed only individual of his age, who unites so her eyes upon the Emperor, who saluted many good qualities in a rank so elevat- her, and speedily departed.

THE

TIME'S TELESCOPE,* FOR JANUARY.

At one wide view God's eye surveys
His works, in every distant clime;
He shifts the seasons, months, and days,
The short-lived offspring of revolving time;
By turns they die, by turns are born.
Now cheerful Spring the circle leads,
And strows with flowers the smiling meads;
Gay Summer next, whom russet robes adorn,

And waving fields of yellow corn;

Then Autumn, who with lavish stores the lap of nature spreads
Decrepit Winter, laggard in the dance,

(Like feeble age oppressed with pain)
A heavy season does maintain,

With driving snows, and winds and rain;
'Till Spring, recruited to advance,
The various year rolls round again.

HE name given to this month by the Romans was taken from Janus, one of their divinities, to whom they gave two faces; because on the one side, the first day of this month looked towards the new year, and on the other towards the old one.

CIRCUMCISION.

On the first day of the year is celebrated the Circumcision of our Saviour, a rite of the Jewish law, first enjoined to Abraham as a token of the covenant God made with him and his posterity.

HUGHES.

ing-glasses, intermixed with festoons of silk or muslin, and branches of ribands or flowers. The counters are covered over with table-cloths, and set out with cakes, sweetmeats, dried fruits, and bonbons, made up into pyramids, castles, columns, or any form which the taste of the decorator may suggest; and in the evening they are illuminated for the reception of company, who come to buy their bonbons for the next day. Endless are the devices for things in which they are to be inclosed; there are little boxes or baskets made of satin, ornamented In France, particularly in the south, with gold, silver, or foil; balloons,---early in the morning of New Year's books,-fruit, such as apples, pears, Day, a nd of visits is commenced to oranges,—or vegetables, such as a caulirelations and friends, to wish them a flower, a root of celery, an onion; any happy new year, and to present them thing, in short, which can be made with with bonbons (sweet-meats). The re- a hollow within to hold the bonbons: lations are first visited, beginning with but the most prevailing device is what is those nearest in affinity, then those that called a cornet, that is, a little cone ornaare further removed, and lastly come the mented in different ways with a bag to friends and acquaintance. It is a con- draw over the large end and close it up. test of politeness on this occasion which In these things, the prices of which vary shall start first, and anticipate the call of from one franc (ten pence) to fifty, the a relation or friend.

NEW YEAR'S DAY.

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The shops of the confectioners are dressed up on the day before with look days, notices of obsolete Rites and Customs, &c. &c.

From the London Time's Telescope for 1817; containing an explanation of Saints' Days and Holi

272

SAINT LUCIAN.

GIBBON

Explanation of Saints' Days, Ancient Customs, &c. [VOL. 2 bonbons are presented by those who plain in its composition, not much better choose to be at the expense of them, and than a bun, only large, so as to cut into by those who do not they are only wrap- slices. In one part a bean is introduced, ped in a piece of paper; but bonbons and the person who draws the slice that in some way or other must be presented. has the bean in it, is king or queen, acThe celebration of New Year's cording to the sex of the person by whom Day,' observes Mr. Hutchinson (Hist. it is drawn, who receives the general of Northumberland), is preserved in homage of the company for the evening. this county as a rural festival. On certain festivals the Romans gave pieces of On the eighth day, St. Lucian, conmoney to travellers and strangers who fessor and martyr, was born at Samosata were present at the sacrifice. On our in Syria. He was well versed in the day of festivity, mirth is excited by a Hebrew language, and employed much rustic masquerading and playing tricks time in comparing and amending the coin disguise; the hide of the ox slain for pies of the bible. He was put to death the winter cheer, is often put on; and by Maximinus II. the person thus attired, attempts to show the character of the devil, by every Died on the 16th of January, 1794. horrible device in his power. All the "It was on the day, or rather night, of winter sports seem to express a strong the 27th of June, 1787, between the opinion of the antients, that genii of very hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote contrary natures prevailed on earth, that the last lines of the last page in a sumthe one was constantly concomitant to mer-house in my garden. After laying light as the other was to darkness; and down my pen, I took several turns in a this image of the devil, which is frequently berceau, or covered walk of acacias, permitted to expel the inhabitants and which commands a prospect of the countake possession of the house, is typical of the power of the evil genius, in the season when the sun is longest absent from our hemisphere. This corresponds with the lamentation used by those who held the Elusinian mysteries, and mourned for Adonis. It is very difficult to make any probable determination to what people we owe these customs. In the Roman Saturnalia and Sigillaria, this kind of frolicking was practised.'

EPIPHANY.

The sixth day is Epiphany, or manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles, commonly called Twelfth-day, the Eastern magi were guided by the star to pay homage to their Saviour; and it takes its name from their coming on that day, which was the twelfth after the nativity. The usual celebration of Twelfth-day in London and in the south of England, is by drawing lots, and assuming fictitious characters for the evening; formerly the king or queen was chosen by a bean found in a piece of divided cake; and this was once a common Christmas gambol in both the English universities.

In France, there is a ceremony of drawing Twelfth-cake, though not quite à la mode Angloise. The cake is very

try, the lake, and the mountains. The air was temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon was reflected from the waters, and all nature was silent.

I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and, perhaps, the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that, whatsoever might be the future date of my History, the life of the historian might be sort and precarious. I will add two facts which have seldom occurred in the composition of six, or, at least, five quarto volumes: 1. My rough MS., without any intermediate copy, has been sent to press. 2. Not a sheet has been seen by any human eyes, excepting those of the author and of the printer; the faults and merits are exclusively my own.Gibbon's Common Place Book.

BISHOP HORNE

Died on the 17th of January, 1792. This great man thus beautifully characterises the Psalms of David: "They present (says he) religion to us in the most en

* Of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

VOL. 2.] Death of Werner, Founder of the Neptunist or Wernerian System. 273 gaging dress; communicating truths dive into the depths of dungeons; to which philosophy could never investi- plunge into the infection of hospitals; to gate, in a style which poetry can never survey the mansions of sorrow and pain; equal; while history is made the vehicle to take the gage and dimensions of of prophecy, and creation lends all its misery, depression, and contempt; to charms to paint the glories of redemption. remember the forgotten, to attend to the Calculated alike to profit and to please, neglected, to visit the forsaken, and to they inform the understanding, elevate compare and collate the distresses of men the affections, and entertain the imagina- in all countries.-Burke. tion. Indited under the influence of HIM, to whom all hearts are known, and

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS

Died on the 23d of January, 1792.

SAINT VINCENT, JAN. 22. Vincent, a deacon of the church in all events foreknown, they suit mankind Spain, suffered martyrdom in the Dioin all situations, grateful as the manna clesian persecution, about the year 303, which descended from above, and conformed itself to every palate. The being extended upon burning coals; and, fairest productions of human wit, after thrown upon heaps of broken tiles. after his body was broiled there, he was a few perusals, like gathered flowers, wither in our hands, and lose their fragrancy; but these unfading plants of paradise become, as we are accustomed to them, still more and more beautiful; their bloom appears to be daily height ened; fresh odours are emitted and new sweets extracted from them. He who hath once tasted their excellencies, will desire to taste them yet again; and he who tastes them oftenest, will relish them best,'

HOWARD THE PHILANTHROPIST

the

Study Sir Joshua's Works, young men ;---
Not pictures only, but his pen :
Who, when Cimmerian darkness whelmed our

isle,

Appeared a comet in his art ;---
Bid Nature from the canvas start,
And with the Graces bade that canvas smile.
Could Titian from his tomb arise,
And cast on Reynolds' art his eyes,
How would he heave of jealousy, the groan 1
Here possibly I may mistake;
As Titian probably might take
The works of our great master for his own.

DR. WOLCOTT.

CONVERSION OF SAINT PAUL.

Died on the 20th January, 1790. He visited all Europe, not to survey sumptuousness of palaces, nor the state- This day, January the 25th, celebrates liness of temples; not to make accurate the miraculous conversion of St. Paul. measurements of the remains of antient He was beheaded under the general pergrandeur, nor to form a scale of the secution of Nero; hence the usual repcuriosity of modern art; not to collect resentation of him with a sword in his medals, or collate manuscripts ;-but to hand.

MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PERSONS.

From the New Monthly Magazine, Sept. 1817.

ABRAHAM GOTTLOB WERNER, THE GEOLOGIST.

WERNER, the most celebrated In order fully to qualify himself for his

geologist and mineralogist of the intended profession, he went first for age, died at Dresden on the 30th of June, some years to the Mineralogical Acade1817, in the arms of his friends and of my at Freiberg, and then to the Univerhis only sister, who hastened from Silesia sity of Leipsig, where he applied himself to see him. He was born on the 25th to the study of natural history. While of September, 1750. His father, who at the university he employed himself was inspector of an iron work at Wehrau, in the study of the external characterison the Queiss, in Upper Lusatin, in- tics of fossils, in which a singular quicktended him from his early youth for a ness of perception was of great use to similar vocation. He first went to him, and published there, in the year school at Bunzlau, where he received, 1774, his well-known work, (on the exhowever, but very scanty instruction. ternal characteristics of fossils,) which is ATHENEUM. Vol. 2.

2 M

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Memoirs of Eminent Persons-Werner, the Geologist.

[VOL. 2 still considered as the basis of his whole shake it. His idea of formations,one of Oryktognosis, but of which he could the most fruitful of consequences, and never be induced to print a new and en- the most ingenious in Werner's Geoglarged edition, because he feared dis- nosis, has been admirably developed by putes, and had not in fact concluded his his scholar Steffens of Breslau; and his researches. Soon after he was invited formation of the flötz mountains of to Freiberg, to have the care of the cabi- Thuringia well supported by Von net of natural history there, and to read Freiesleben, in his theory of copper lectures upon it. Here his mind, which slate mountains (Kupferschiefergebirge.) was early exercised in observation and Werner sustained an obstinate, but for classification, found the most welcome that reason the more honourable, conmaterials. Here, daily extending the test with the Volcanists. No well-inbounds of his science, and supporting formed person will now consider the its foundation by the surest external dis- basalt and other flötz mountains as of tinctive marks, he formed that system, volcanic origin. Werner's theory of the which afterwards embracing also the older and newer formation of mountains, Geognosis which was peculiarly his own, by the waters, stands immoveable; and and forming an intimate connection with a satisfactory link between them is afall the branches of mineralogy, gradually forded in the transition mountains. Evconquered all opposition, and raised its en the new chemical discoveries of the inventor to the rank of the creator of a Kalimetals may be made to accord with new mineralogy, which might be sup- it. Another science, mining, on which ported and extended, but not superseded Werner used also to lecture, was renderby the crystallography of Haüy, and ed extremely clear to the attentive schothe chemical theory of Vauquelin and lar, by his luminous explanation, and by others. His peculiar talent for observa- the reduction of the most complicated tion was animated by the most lively machinery to the most simple proposifancy, assisted by the most extensive tions, at the same time drawing all the reading in every branch of knowledge figures on his table. connected with his own, and excited by Indefatigable application and an indaily intercourse with ingenious travel- satiable thirst of knowledge enriched his lers and foreigners, who chiefly visited retentive memory with every thing that Freiberg on Werner's account. The history and philology, in the most exclassification in genera and species, and tensive sense, can offer to the attentive the ingenious appellations of minerals inquirer. No science was foreign to him. down to the newest, egron, is peculiarly All served as a basis to his studies, which his own. Nothing but too scrupulous were constantly directed to natural phiconscientiousness prevented him from losophy, and the knowledge of the earth publishing the Oryktognostic Tables, and its inhabitants. He always advanwhich have been finished, and quite ced before his age, and often knew what ready for the press these four years. others only presumed. After 1779 and The attempt of the ingenious Berzelius, 1780,when he first lectured on Oryktogof Stockholm, at classification, by inves- nosis and Geognosis, at Freiberg, he tigating the laws of elementary combina- was heard with gratitude by scholars tion, did not indeed shake his belief in from all parts of Europe. Never conthe method of recognition by means of tented with what was discovered, always the external characteristics; yet be at seeking something new, he rather formed last thought that a mutual conciliation scholars who wrote than wrote himself. was possible, and reserved the first analy- But many MSS. almost wholly ready for sis of the latest writings of Berzelius, for the press are included in his fine library the next winter. The method created and collection of coins and MSS. beby Werner is the only satisfactory one, queathed on the day of his death to the much as it may yet want to be a com- Mineralogical Academy, for 5000 crowns. plete system of the earth. His predecessor Charpentier's doubts respecti. g In his lectures he had only heads of Werner's theory have never been able to the subject before him. In lecturing he

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sovereign of Saxony causes the most expensive enterprizes to be executed in silence. This undertaking of canals and aqueducts, which has already cost above half a million of crowns, and on which more than a thousand men are employed, is little known and visited by foreigners, though on it depends the continuance of mining in Saxony. The mineralogical survey and description of all Saxony, divided into districts, which has been prosecuted for twenty years, under disciples of Werner, and includes the forest

used to abandon himself, as he was accustomed to say, to the inspiration of his mineralogical muse, and when his spirit hovered over the waters and the strata, he often became animated with lofty enthusiasm. But he caused his lectures to be written ont by approved scholars, and by revising himself what they had thus written after him, made it, properly speaking, a MS. A great many parts of his lectures have been made public by others, among which may be reckoned what André at Brunn, in Moravia, has published in the valuable journal entitled of Thuringia, even a part of the Harz, Hesperus. But none of these bears the stamp of the master. What is particularly desirable is the publication of his manuscript on Mineralogical Geography (which he only once drew up for a particular lecture) and upon the Literature of Mineralogy, in which he solved the difficulties of the ancient classic mineralogy, and gave incomparable illustrations na, he found means to interest the Ausof Pliny's Natural History. He was like a father to all his scholars, to whom he was a model, not only as a man of science, but as a moral character.

and the mountains on the frontiers of Bohemia and Silesia, will one day furnish a mineralogical map, surpassing in accuracy and extent what any other country can produce. This too was Werner's work, and was constantly directed by him in the most attentive manner. In his visits to Prague and Vien

trian government in these mineralogical surveys, and it is to be hoped that the enlightened Bavarian government, as well as the direction of the mines in the Having filled, from the year 1792, a Prussian monarchy under Werner's high situation in the Council of the grateful scholars in Berlin and Silesia, Mines, he had a great share in the di- will readily contribute to support and rection both of the Mineralogical Acad- complete the great work which Werner emy and of the administration in general. so happily set on foot. His cabinet of Two things must be mentioned here with minerals, unrivalled in completeness and particular honour. One is the works scientifick arrangement, and consistbegun in 1786, to furnish a great part of ing of about 100,000 specimens, has bethe deeper mines with water for working come, in consideration of a life annuity, the wheels. This astonishing aqueduct, the amount of which devolves to the Inparticularly the artificial canal of Doer- stitution itself, the property of the Freirenthal, with its subterraneous brick berg Mineralogical Academy. Werchannels, already extending above a ner's favorite pupil, Koehler, is appointleague, are in the main due to him, ed inspector of it. Werner had receivthough Scheuchler made the plan, and ed from England an offer of 50,000 Lampe the calculations. By the con- crowns, but sold it to his country for tinued support of the ever active King 40,000, of which he reserved the interof Saxony, this great work still proceeds est of 33,000 as an annuity, on condiin the most prosperous manner. The Amalgamation works, twice built by the excellent Charpentier, chief of the council of Mines, (the first building having been maliciously burnt down) and for ever secured by most ingenious fire-engines from similar accidents, are indeed unique the admiration of all who behold them, a jewel in the crown of the Saxon art of mining, and a proof of the unostentatious energy with which the

tion, that after his own death, and that of his only sister, who is without children, the interest should continue to be annually paid to the Mineralogical Academy; so that this, his only daughter as it may be called, will obtain an additional annual income of 1,600 crowns.

Werner's literary studies, like his mind, embraced every branch of science. Every thing excited his thirst of knowledge, and thus it often happened that he

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