in 1758, by Professor Hamberger, and quoted by Beckmann, proves incontestably that clocks were invented as early as the year 700; and, it seems, that undergoing successive improvements they were introduced into common use in the abbeys, monasteries, and churches of Europe about the middle of the eleventh century, and that they struck the hour on bells is also evident. The chimes, or a more perfect and numerous play of bells, such as are now used to measure the quarters, and to play tunes at certain hours, are of still more modern date. Those at Antwerp, Ghent, and throughout Holland are very musical. Carillons played by keys and pedals, such as those in the towers and steeples of the Low Countries of Flanders and Holland, and of the Lowlands of Scotland, are yet more modern. Burney, in his Musical Tours in Germany, has given a very good account of them. See also Gent. Mag. general Index, and Monthly Mag. xxii. 353, and Atmos. Phenom. 393.

November 15. St. Gertrude Virgin and Abbess. St. Leopold Confessor.

St. Malo Bishop.

St. Eugenius Martyr.

rises at VII. 35'. and sets at iv. 25'.

St. Gertrude of Erslebin in Saxony died in 1292.

St. Leopold was grandson of the Emperor Henry IV. He repulsed the attack of Stephen II. King of Hungary against Austria.

Machutus is recorded today in the Almanacks and Protestant Calendars.

CHRONOLOGY.-The memorable battle of Montgarten fought between the Swiss and Austrians in 1315.

Old Parr the longevist died in 1635, having lived in ten reigns.
Counter revolution in Holland in 1813.

Ludi Plebeii in Circo.-Rom. Cal.

The games and sports of the common people in the Roman Circus are noticed today in the Calendars. They seem to have lasted several days. See our observations on games December 24 and 26.

COELUM.-The weather at this as at every other time of year is liable to vary, and in the country is usually pleasant enough. In and near London it is always gloomy, and frequently muddy and wet, and frost seems only to add to the uncomfort when it occurs, never being perfect in London, and, only adding cold to wet, render the walking in the capital almost impossible.

Gay, in his Trivia, has given some rules for walking the streets of London in Winter, and he thus humourously concludes:

Who would of Watling Street the dangers share,
When the broad pavement of Cheapside is near?
Or who that rugged street would traverse o'er,
That stretches, O Fleet Ditch, from thy black shore
To the Tower's moated walls? Here steams ascend
That, in mix'd fumes, the wrinkled nose offend.
Where chandlers' cauldrons boil; where fishy prey
Hide the wet stall, long absent from the sea;
And where the cleaver chops the heifer's spoil,
And where huge hogsheads sweat with trainy oil;
Thy breathing nostril hold: but how shall I
Pass, where in piles Carnavian cheeses lie;
Cheese, that the table's closing rites denies,
And bids me with the unwilling chaplain rise?
O bear me to the paths of fair Pall Mall!
Safe are thy pavements, grateful is thy smell!
At distance rolls along the gilded coach,
Nor sturdy carmen on thy walks encroach;
No lets would bar thy ways were chairs deny'd,
The soft supports of laziness and pride:

Shops breathe perfumes, through sashes ribbons glow,
The mutual arms of ladies and the beau.

Yet still even here, when rains the passage hide,
Oft the loose stone spirts up a muddy tide
Beneath thy careless foot; and from on high,
Where masons mount the ladder, fragments fly,
Mortar and crumbled lime in showers descend,
And o'er thy head destructive tiles impend.

But sometimes let me leave the noisy roads,
And silent wander in the close abodes,

Where wheels ne'er shake the ground; there pensive stray,
In studious thought, the long uncrowded way.

Here I remark each walker's different face,

And in their look their various business trace.

November 16. St. Edmund Bishop and Confessor. St. Eucherius Bishop and Confessor.

CHRONOLOGY.-Ferguson the Scottish shepherd and astronomer died in London in 1776. Henry III. died at Bury St. Edmonds in 1272.

COELUM. The weather either continues wet or foggy, or else frost prevails. On the night of this day in 1823, about halfpast nine o'clock, Dr. T. Foster observed a very remarkable and brilliant phenomenon about the Moon. It was a Coloured Discoid Halo, consisting of six several concentric circles, the nearest to the Moon or the first disk around her being dull white, then followed circles of orange,

violet, crimson, green, and vermillion; the latter or outermost subtending in its diameter an angle of above ten degrees. This phenomenon was evidently produced by a refraction in the white mist of a stratus which prevailed through the night, but it varied in its colours as well as in its brilliancy at different times. The varieties and causes of these phenomena are described in Researches about Atmospheric Phenomena, 3d edition, p. 98.

Meteorologists have from time immemorial observed these luminous rings about the Sun and Moon to be signs of approaching rain or snow. They are ascribable to the dispersive property of peculiar clouds.

In investigating the cause of Halos we must make a division of them into-1st, those which result from the intervention of clouds between the spectator and the luminous body. And, 2dly, those which appear in a cloud opposite to the rays of the Sun or Moon. Of the first sort are all the different kinds of Halo, Corona, and Parhelion. Of the second sort are the different varieties of the Iris. With regard to the first kind of these, caused by intervention of clouds, many attempts have been made by different philosophers to explain them; but they have been generally founded more on vague conjecture than fact. All that can be said about them is, that they probably depend upon some peculiarity in the refractive and reflective powers of the intervening cloud, by which certain of the rays are thrown off at a particular angle. We may, in the first place, observe, that all the rays from the Sun or Moon must fall nearly parallel on the surface of the cloud. This will be evident, if we consider the great distance of those bodies when compared with the diameter of the largest halo. The rays which constitute the luminous ring of the halo, must be reflected at an angle equal to the angle of the semidiameter of its area; or, in other words, to the angle subtended by the distance from the Sun. or Moon's centre to the ring. The distance of the Sun or Moon being so that all the rays falling on the halorific cloud must be physically parallel to each other.

From the above, it appears then, that a halo of 48° diameter may be ascribed to a property in the cloud of reflecting certain of the rays at an angle of 24°. A double halo, the exterior ring whereof includes an area of 48°, and the interior ring whereof includes one of 10°, must be attributed to a property in the cloud of separating certain of the rays at an angle of 24°, and certain other rays at an angle of 5o, and so on of triple ones.

A Corona of 10° diameter appears to be the consequence of a property in the cloud to refract certain of the rays at

every angle, from the smallest, say an angle of 1" to 5°; beyond which the rays are transmitted through the cloud, in the usual manner. See Index, Refraction.

Even the breadth of the ring of a halo itself must be caused by a number of rays, separated at somewhat different angles; otherwise the breadth of the ring would equal only the breadth of one ray. See Aristot. Meteor. lib. iii. cc. 3, 4, 5, 6. Newton, Optic. 1st edit. 2d book, pp. 48, 134. Huygens's Post. Works, p. 293. Des Cartes. Treatise of Meteors. M. Helvetius.ˆ End of Mercurius in Sole. Phil. Trans. vol. v. 1065, xxii. 535, xxxi. 212, xxxix. 218, xlvi. 196, lii. 3. Manchest. Mem. vol. iii. We once saw two images of the crescent moon like the double refraction in the spar.

November 17.

St. Gregory Thaumaturgus Bishop and Confessor. St. Dionysius Bishop and Confessor. St. Gregory of Tours Bishop and Confessor. St. Hugh Bishop and Confessor. St. Anian Bishop and Confessor.

The St. Gregory recorded today was at first named Theodorus and afterwards Gregory Thaumaturgus, from his extraordinary miracles. He was born in Neocaesaria in Pontus, early in the third age. His life is detailed by Butler, who gives a particular account of the miracles performed by him; and thence describes the proofs of the continuation of the miracles operated even down to our days, in attestation of the Sanctity of the Church. See also our account of St. Peter ad Vincula, August 1st; see also our May 3d, September 14th, and November 3d. St. Gregory is related to have seen a remarkable Vision of the conflict of the holy martyr Troadius; and some profane writers have styled him and other Saints, to whom such appearances have been presented, as visionaries, in the reprobative sense of the word. The Fact, however, really is, that certain persons are gifted with a peculiar organization for seeing visions. Dr. Gall, the celebrated discoverer of the Anatomy of the Brain, has demonstrated that St. Ignatius, and other holy persons, St. Gregory among the rest probably, possessed this organization of the brain. But this circumstance, so far from discountenancing the doctrine of admonitory visions, rather confirms it; for the said Organ of Supernaturality may be the peculiar instrument that the Deity employs, whereby to operate visions on the minds of saints and holy persons. As the Organ of Veneration

assures us that God means to be worshipped; as the Organ of Hope confirms the Christian in the legitimacy of his Hope in Heaven; so the Organ which disposes to Visions, shews that such are a part of the plan of the Creator: for every Organ has a specific object, for which it was created. and made part of man's nature. Every faculty, however, is liable to be abused; and hence disease may raise false Phantoms and Apparitions in nervous parts intended for the medium of God's holy communications. See p. 65, and September 26th, p. 506.

CHRONOLOGY.

Queen Elizabeth's accession in 1558. As lately as Queen Anne's time, on this anniversary, the figure of the Pretender, in addition to those of the P- and the Devil, was burnt by the populace.

This custom was probably continued even after the defeat of the second Pretender; and no doubt gave rise to the following vile Epigram printed in the works of Mr. Bishop:

Three Strangers blaze amidst a bonfire's revel;
The P-, and the Pretender, and the Devil.
Three Strangers hate our faith, and faith's defender,
The Devil, and the P-, and the Pretender.
Three Strangers will be strangers long we hope;
The Devil, and the Pretender, and the P—.

Thus, in three rhymes, three Strangers dance the hay:
And be that chooses to dance after 'em, may.

"In a volume of Miscellanies, without a title, in the British Museum, but evidently of the time of George the First, I find, p. 65, Merry Observations upon every Month, and every remarkable Day throughout the whole year.' Under November, p. 99, it is said: The 19th of this month will prove another protestant Holiday, dedicated to the pious memory of that antipapistical Princess and virgin Preserver of the reformed Churches, Queen Elizabeth. This night will be a great promoter of the tallowchandler's welfare; for marvellous illuminations will be set forth in every window, as emblems of her shining virtues; and will be stuck in clay, to put the world in mind that grace, wisdom, beauty, and virginity, were unable to preserve the best of women from mortality.'"- Brand's Pop. Antiq. vol. i.

With the Society of the Temple, is the 17th of November considered as the grand day of the year. It is yet kept as a holiday at the Exchequer, and at Westminster and Merchant Tailors' Schools.

The Character of Queen Elizabeth, as well as of other pretended reformers, is nowadays better known. Those, however, and we believe they are but few, who still talk of good Queen Besse, may read Dr. Milner's Letters to a Prebendary—a work which, for eloquence and force of argument, will be esteemed as long as fme writing shall hold a place in the cabinet of literary excellence.

FAUNA. The Robin Redbreast Sylvia rubecola now approaches more closely to the habitations of man, and amuses us with its familiarity. In open mild weather, when we are digging up the earth in the garden or field, this little Bird comes and hops up the newly turned up mould in quest of some small insects on which it feeds, and seems to come fearlessly within a few inches of the spade. In frosty weather this is the first Bird to appear tapping with his bill against the windows for food. The Redbreast

TT