succeeding morning, distinguished as the day dedicated to St. John. These ceremonies were supposed particularly to interest young unmarried persons; and, like those of Halloween in Scotland, were considered, by the superstitious observers, to lift the veil of futurity for the coming year, and enable the enquirers to prognosticate their lot for married or single life. These practices still exist in some parts of the continent. In Lower Saxony, the young girls gather sprigs of St. John's Wort, on the eve of St. John, and secretly suspend them on the walls of their chambers, with certain mysterious ceremonies. The state of the sprig on the following morning is considered to indicate their fortune. If fresh and undrooping, it foretels a prosperous marriage; if faded and dying, the reverse. They forget, in their simplicity, what would overthrow all their faith in the omen; namely, that the state of the plant must depend entirely on the dampness or dryness of the wall. The following legend, on the subject of this superstition, is from the German. THE FLOWER AND THE EVE OF ST. JOHN. THE young maid stole through the cottage-door, And the glow-worm came With its silvery flame, And sparkled and shone Through the night of St. John; And soon as the young maid her love-knot tied, To her chamber she sped, Where the spectral moon her white beams shed. And when a year was passed away, All pale on her bier the young maid lay ! And the glow-worm came With its silvery flame, And sparkled and shone Through the night of St. John, As they closed the cold grave o'er the maid's cold clay. Eryngium maritimum. Pentandria Digynia. Sea Eryngo. Flowers forming a head: general involucrum many-leaved. Receptacle chaffy. Seeds rough, with flexible scales. Rootleaves roundish, plaited, thorny. Flowering-heads on fruitstalks. Chaff three-pointed. Leaves mealy on the surface, with a whitish wood-like border; angles ending in sharp, whitish thorns. Blossom whitish-blue.-Withering. THE SEA ERYNGO. REV. W. R. DRUMMOND The Eryngo here Sits as a queen amongst the scanty tribes A gorgeous ruff of leaves, with snowy points, With clustering florets, whose light anthers dance In the fresh breeze, like tiny topaz gems. From arid sands, and salt sea dew-drops, strength; The native of the beach, by nature form'd To dwell among the ruder elements. * Dr. Drummond's "First Steps to Botany." Primula officinalis. Cowslip. Pentandria Monogynia. Leaves wrinkled and toothed. Stalk many-flowered; all the flowers drooping; border of the blossom concave. Leaf-stalk often longer that the leaves, which is not the case in the primrose or oxlip. Blossom sweet-scented, full yellow, with an orange blotch at the base of each segment; contracted about the middle of the tube, where the stamens are inserted.-Withering. "THE Cowlips tall her pensioners be, In those freckles live their savours." SHAKSPEARE. UNFOLDING to the breeze of May, In princely halls and courts of kings |