JULY TWELFTH.

"I heard a Stock-dove sing or say
His homely tale, this very day;
His voice was buried among trees,
Yet to be come at by the breeze;

He did not cease; but cooed-and cooed;
And somewhat pensively he wooed;
He sang of love, with quiet blending,
Slow to begin, and never ending ;
Of serious faith, and inward glee;
That was the Song-the Song for me!"

-WORDSWORTH.

"I see the buds of larkspur with purple Eyes, tall hollyhocks, red and yellow; the broad sunflowers, caked in gold, with bees buzzing round them; wildernesses of pinks and hot-glowing peonies; poppies run to seed, the sugared lily, and faint mignonette."

Bring hither the Pincke and Purple
Cullambine with Gelliflowres;

Bring Coronations, and Sops in Wine,

Worn of Paramoures:

Strowe me the ground with Daffadowndillies,
And Cowslips, and King's Cups, and loved Lillies.
The pretie Pawnce

And the Chevisaunce,

Shall match with the fayre flowre Delice."

The Bohemians say, "In July the quail calls to the reapers in the field, 'Come cut: come cut: here's five kreuzers, five kreuzers for you.'

N

JULY THIRTEENTH.

"MONICA, DARLING,-Frown not at me again; it And I, I have been trying to live up to your saddens birds and flowers but-I have failed.

me.

See, see, mine own sweet jewel,
What I have for my darling:
A robin red-breast and a starling.

These I give both in hope to move thee;
Yet thou say'st I do not love thee.'

go out

"A canzonet, Monica, written in 1593. So I pray thee say you love me. If you write too much you will of your mind, and it would weary us to death to hear you prate prate prate-all day long of birds and flowers.

Sleep, O sleep, fond fancy,

My head, alas, thou tirest

With false delight of that which thou desireth.

Sleep, I say, fond fancy,

And leave my thoughts molesting:

Monica's head hath need of sleep and resting.'

"The flowers I have planted do not come up, birds I look for never appear, hives I place by the lavender beds are uninhabited, even the nightingales prefer other gardens to mine. Oh how tired I am of the country. Meals outof-doors that I dreamt of result only in midges. Caterpillars have eaten my roses, and all my plants of clematis have caught the disease from the lilies. There are wasps galore, and the hawfinches, your horrid beloved hawfinches, have eaten all my peas. Monica, I am tired of life, your life. There is too much sun for one thing, and too much rain for another. Nothing is ever right in the country. I will come and see you when I come home again. I see you frown. Good-bye.-Thine ever, CORNINA."

JULY FOURTEENTH.-Noon! and the day is hot and parched and weary.

"All how silent and how still ;
Nothing heard but yonder mill;
While the dazzled eye surveys
All around a liquid blaze;
And amid the scorching gleams,
If we earnest look, it seems
As if crooked bits of glass
Seem'd repeatedly to pass.
Oh, for a puffing breeze to blow!
But breezes are all strangers now ;
Not a twig is seen to shake,

Nor the smallest bent to quake;

JULY FIFTEENTH.-ST. SWITHIN.

ST. SWITHIN was Bishop of Winchester in 852, and so I come to look on him as a near neighbour, Farnham Castle being close at hand. In Poor Robin's Almanack for 1697 I find the following lines (Poor Robin was the pseudonym of Robert Herrick the poet) :

:

"In this month is St. Swithin's Day;
On which, if that it rain, they say
Full forty days after it will,
Or more or less, some rain distil.
This Swithin was a saint, I trow,
And Winchester's bishop also,
Who, in his time, did many a feat,
As Popish legends do repeat.
A woman having broke her eggs
By stumbling at another's legs,
For which she made a woeful cry,
St. Swithin chanced for to come by,
Who made them all as sound, or more
Than ever that they were before.
Better it is to rise by time

And to make hay when the Sun do shine,

Than to believe in tales and lies,

Which idle monks and Friars devise.”

"St. Swithin is christening the apples" is a very old saying.

"If day star appeareth, day comfort is nye,
If sunne be at south, it is noone by and by ;
If sunne be at westward, it setteth anon,
If sunne be at setting, the day is soon gon.”

-TUSSER, 1573

JULY SIXTEENTH.-I want to gather thee a bouquet. "There be some flowers make a delicious Tussie-Mussie or Nosegay, both for sight and sound." We could not write so delightfully in these days as they wrote of yore. "What flower like you best in all this border, heere be faire roses, sweete violets, fragrant Prime Roses, heere be Gilly-floures, Carnations, Sops in wine, sweet Johns, and what may either please you for sight, or delight you with savour: loth we are you should have a Posie of all, yet willing to give you one, not that which shall looke best, but such a one as you shall lyke best." So writes one in the sixteenth century; so write I to thee now.

"The bouquet may be an exile now; but the revolutions of fashion will sure return this beautiful ornament to favour again. With us the nosegay yet retains its station as a decoration to our Sunday beaux; but at our spring clubs and associations it becomes an essential, indispensable appointment; a little of the spirit of rivalry seeming to animate our youths in the choice and magnitude of this adornment. The superb spike of a Brompton, or a ten weeks' stock, long cherished in some sheltered corner for the occasion, surrounded by all the gaiety the garden can afford till it presents a very bush of flowers, forms the appendage of their bosoms, and, with the gay knots in their hats, and the sprightly hilarity of their looks, constitutes a pleasing village scene, and gives an hour of unencumbered felicity to common man and rural life, not yet disturbed by refinement and taste."—Journal of a Naturalist, 1830.