freshing at this season. The cranberry is a small red fruit, with purple dots, produced by a slender wing plant (vaccynium oxycoccos) which grows in the peaty bogs of several parts of the north of Eng land, and also in Norfolk, Lincolnshire, and Cambridgeshire. The leaves are small, somewhat oval, and rolled back at the edges, and the stem is threadshaped and trailing. The blossoms are small, but beautiful, each consisting of four distinct petals rolled back to the base, and of a deep flesh colour.

+

The collecting of cranberries is a tiresome and disagreeable employ, since each, berry, which seldom exceeds the size of a pea, grows on a separate stalk, and the morasses in which they grow are frequently very deep. Cranberries are much used in the northern counties, and great quantities are bottled and sent to London. So considerable a traffic in them is carried on, that at Longtown in Cumberland alone the amount of a market day's sale, during the season for gathering them, is stated by Dr. Withering to be from £20 to £30. They begin to ripen about the month of August, and continue in perfection for some weeks.

Cranberries are much used in confectionary, but particularly in tarts, their rich flavour being very generally esteemed. The usual mode of preserving them is in dry bottles, these being corked so closely as to exclude all access of the external air; some persons, however, fill up the bottles with spring water; others prepare this fruit with sugar. From the juice of cranberries, mixed with a certain portion of sugar, and properly fermented, a grateful and wholesome wine may be made. A considerable quantity of cranberries is annually imported into this country from North America and Russia. These however are larger than our own, of a different species, and by no means of so pleasant a flavour. -Bingley's Useful Knowledge, vol. ii. pp. 126,

127.

Towards the end of the month, the flowers of the laurustinus (viburnum tinus), and the burdock (arctium lappa), begin to open; and the elecampane (inula helenium), the amaranth (amaranthus caudatus), the great water plantain (alisma plantago), water mint (mentha aquatica), and the common nightshade, have their flowers full blown. The me zereon (daphne mezereon), which in January cheered the eye with its rods of purple flowers without leaves, and regaled the smell, now displays its scarlet berries through its bright green leaves. Towards the close of this month the flower-garden exhibits symp toms of decay; and Time, who thins the ranks of all animated beings, does not spare those of the ornamented and highly fascinating Flora:

The garlands fade that Spring so lately wove,

Each simple flower which she had nursed in dew;
Anemonies, that spangled every grove,

The primrose wan, and hare-bell mildly blue.
No more shall violets linger in the dell,

Or purple orchis variegate the plain,

Till Spring again shall call forth every bell,

And dress with humid hands her wreaths again.—

Ah! poor Humanity! so frail, so fair,
Are the fond visions of thy early day,

Till tyrant Passion, and corrosive Care,
Bid all thy airy colours fade away!

Another May new buds and flowers shall bring;
Ah! why has happiness-no second Spring?

C. SMITH.

The beautiful rose, however, the glory of the gar den, still continues to spread its blushing honours' thick before us'.

1 The ROSE.

As late each flow'r that sweetest blows,
I plucked the garden's pride!

Within the petals of a rose

A sleeping love I spied.

Around his brows a beaming wreath

Of many a lucid hue;

All purple glowed his cheek beneath,
Inebriate with dew.

The busy bee' still pursues his ceaseless task of collecting his varied sweets to form the honey for his destroyer man, who, in a month or two, will close the labours of this industrious insect by the suffocating fumes of brimstone.

Child of patient industry,
Little active busy bee,

Thou art out at early morn,

Just as the opening flowers are born,
Among the green and grassy meads
Where the cowslips hang their heads;
Or by hedge-rows, while the dew
Glitters on the harebell blue.

Then on eager wing art flown,
To thymy hillocks on the down;
Or to revel on the broom;

Or suck the clover's crimson bloom;
Murmuring still, thou busy bee,
Thy little ode to industry!

The maritime plants which flower in July, are the club rúsh (scirpus maritimus), bearded cat's tail grass (phleum crinitum), bulbous fox tail grass (alopecurus bulbosus), the reflexed and creeping meadow grass (poa distans & maritima), the field eryngo (eryngium

I softly seized th' unguarded pow'r,
Nor scared his balmy rest;

And placed him, caged within the flow'r,
On spotless SARAH's breast.

But when, unweeting of the guile,
Awoke the pris'ner sweet,

He struggled to escape awhile,
And stamped his fairy feet.

Ah! soon the soul-entrancing sight
Subdued th' impatient boy!

He gazed, he thrilled, with deep delight,
Then clapped his wings for joy.

'And O,' he cried—' of magic kind,

What charms this throne endear!

Some other love let Venus find

I'll fix my empire here,'

COLERIDGE.

campestre), parsley water dropwort (œnanthe pimpinelloides), smooth sea-heath (frankenia lævis), and the golden dock (rumex maritimus); all of which are to be found in salt marshes.

On sandy shores may be seen the sea mat-weed (arundo arenaria), upright sea-lime grass (elymus arenarius), the sea lungwort (pulmonaria maritima), the sea bind-weed (convolvulus soldanella), saltwort (salsola), sea-holly (eryngium maritimum); prickly samphire (echinophora spinosa), and the sea-lavender (statice limonium), are found on maritime rocks; and the sea pea (pisum maritimum) on rocky shores.

About the middle or latter end of July, pilchards (clupea pilchardus) appear in vast shoals, off the Cornish coast; and prawns and lobsters are taken in this month.

Grouse-shooting usually commences towards the latter end of July. The angler is busily engaged in his favourite pursuit. On trout fishing some pretty descriptive lines will be found in our last volume, pp. 180, 181.

The storms of wind and rain in this month are frequently accompanied by thunder and lightning'.

The GoD of THUNDER.

O th' immense, th' amazing height,
The boundless grandeur of our God!
Who treads the worlds beneath his feet,
And sways the nations with his nod!
He speaks; and, lo, all nature shakes:
Heav'n's everlasting pillars bow;
He rends the clouds with hideous cracks,
And shoots his fiery arrows through.

Well, let the nations start and fly

At the blue lightning's horrid glare!

Atheists and emp'rors shrink and die,

When flame and noise torment the air.

See T. T. for 1817, p. 217; for 1818, p. 185, and our last volume, P. 182.

Let noise and flame confound the skies,
And drown the specious realms below;
Yet will we sing the Thund'rer's praise,
And send our loud hosannas through.

Celestial King, thy blazing pow'r

Kindles our hearts to flaming joys;
We shout to hear thy thunders roar,
And echo to our Father's voice.

Thus shall the God our Saviour come,
And lightnings round our chariot play :
Ye lightnings, fly to make him room;
Ye glorious storms, prepare his way.

WATTS.

AUGUST.

SEXTILIS was the antient Roman name of this month, being the sixth from March. The Emperor Augustus changed this name, and gave it his own, because in this month Cæsar Augustus took possession of his first consulship, celebrated three triumphs, reduced Egypt under the power of the Roman people, and put an end to all civil wars.

Remarkable Days

1.

In AUGUST 1820.

LAMMAS DAY.

This day, in the Romish church, is generally called St. Peter in the Fetters, in commemoration of this apostle's imprisonment. It is probably derived from an old Saxon term, signifying Loaf-Mass; as it was customary for the Saxons to offer an oblation of loaves, made of new wheat, on this day, as the first-fruits of their new corn.

6.-TRANSFIGURATION. Though this day was observed in remembrance of our Lord's Transfiguration on the Mount, by the

R