URANIA. The following is the appearance which the bestarred heavens present about this time; but it must be remembered that this and the next month are unfavourable to evening stargazing from the absence of night, the Sun not sinking now above eighteen degrees below the horizon at midnight. At ten o'clock.-In the northwest Capella is near to the horizon; the first star of Libra on the meridian and also near the horizon. Nearer to the south southeast is Antares, a bright star, with alternating colours. Higher up and more southwards, is the second star of the Scorpion, which we cannot fail of recognizing, from its being the only bright star near to Antares. About as far distant from the meridian on the eastern side as Arcturus is on the western side of the meridian, but higher up, we recognize the Northern Crown; and lower down in the southeast, two bright stars near each other; the highest, the first of Hercules; the other, the first of the Serpentarius. And now, carrying your eye downward, you will perceive, rather to the south of east, a star of the first magnitude, which is the first of the Eagle; and carrying your eye a little farther to the north of east, you will be struck with the position of four small stars, very near to each other, forming the corners of a foursided figure, whose sides are almost equal. They are the four stars of Delphinus. The stars are of the same brilliancy, and are of the third magnitude. A line drawn with your hand from the zenith to the eastern point, will go between the first of the Eagle and these four stars, which are the four first stars of the Dolphin. If you look along the line thus drawn with your hand, you will be struck nearly halfway down by another star of the first magnitude, which is the first star of the Harp. You have thus a beautiful group in the eastern hemisphere, formed by the Crown, the first stars of Hercules, the Serpentbearer, and the Eagle, the four little brilliant stars of the Dolphin, and the first star of the Harp. The second and third stars of the Lesser Bear are now near the meridian, and the Swan is in the northeast. June 13. St. Anthony of Padua C. St. Damhnada Virgin. . We have seen somewhere a print of St. Anthony of Padua preaching to cattle.. IDUS.-Jovi invicto templum datum. Minora Quinquatria Palladis.— Rom. Cal. Ovid observes of the festivals of today Nulla nota est veniente die, quam dicere possis. Quid sibi personae, quid toga longa, volunt? Having omitted a full account of the Quinquatria under their proper day in March, we shall observe here that the Quinquatria signified a festival in honour of Minerva at Rome, which continued during five days. The beginning of the celebration was the 18th of March. The first day sacrifices and oblations were presented, but however without the effusion of blood. On the second, third, and fourth days, shows of gladiators were exhibited, and on the fifth day there was a solemn procession through the streets of the city. On the days of the celebration, scholars obtained holidays, and it was usual for them to offer prayers to Minerva for learning and wisdom, which the goddess patronized; and on their return to school they presented their master with a gift which has received the name of Minerval. They were much the same as the Panathenaea of the Greeks. Plays were also acted, and disputations were held on subjects of literature. They received their name from the five days which were devoted for the celebration. It was the minor Quinquatria celebrated today, a festival of shorter duration for on the 13th of June was held the Pipers' Feast, called Minusculae Quinquatrus. There was a society or college of these musicians, who used to attend on the grand religious ceremonies, as well as on private occasions, as weddings, burials, &c. Of the Quinquatria or Minerva's chief festival, celebrated in March, see Ovid's account in that month. ; These Roman festivals in a great measure corresponded to our ecclesiastical feasts and ceremonies, and more especially to the great fêtes out of doors, as the Fête St. Louis in Paris, the Fête Dieu, the Fête de St. Cloud, and others. FLORA. GARDEN POPPY Papaver somniferum begins to blow, and from the different ages of the young plants continues to flower all Summer. There are a great many varieties of this plant distinguished by their colours. The large white or officinal Poppy is only a variety of this, which, in its natural state, is of a pale purple colour, and which, when long established in gardens, shows very various hues and duplications of its petals, and assumes a just rank among ornamental flowers. They sow themselves every year by the falling of their seeds. About London, and also in France and Flanders, this plant is much cultivated for making Opium, that divine drug, so much praised and illustrated in its effects by the author of "Confessions of an English Opium Eater." It is certain that the effects of neither Opium nor Laudanum are so bad as those of any compound of Alcohol; and Opium can afford a heavenly relief under pain, which no other known drug has the power to do in the same degree. June 14. St. Basil Archbishop of Caesarea. Psalmodius H. St. Methodius and others. St. Corpus Christi Day, the fourteenth of June, says the "Festa Anglo Romana," p. 73, in all Roman Catholic Countries is celebrated with music, lights, flowers strewed all along the streets, and their richest tapestries hung out upon the walls. St. Basil the Great was born in 329 at Caesarea, in Cappadocia. He died in 379. He was one of the greatest men and brightest luminaries of the church in his age. No historian nor religionist ought to neglect to read the Life and peruse the Writings of St. Basil.-See Butler's Lives, vi. 184. FLORA.The Bearded Pink or Sweet William Dianthus Barbatus comes commonly into flower about this time and exhibits great and endless varieties, particularly if we raise new plants from seed every year. The sort called the Painted Lady is the most esteemed. The Canterbury Bells Campanula medium also begins to show its large blue bellflowers at this time, and continues till the end of July. A flower or two on some plants of this species is seen blowing here and there all the Summer, and even to the end of Autumn. In the fields the Pimpernel Anagallis arvensis, the Thyme, the Dog Rose R. canina, the Bitter Sweet Solanum dulcamara, and various other plants, are in full blow, Dr. Bidlake has thus described some of the various appearances of Nature in this month : A thousand beauties lost to vulgar eyes Each dry entangled copse, empurpled glows And, ah! what odours from the Hedgerow breathe, The Strawberry, blushing, hides its modest face HYGEIA. Rules of Health.-The rules of diet consist in temperance, the quality of food, and the times of taking it. It is not what we eat, but what we digest, that nourishes us, and this explains why people often thrive best on a scanty diet-the superfluity, in cases of repletion, irritating and disordering the stomach and bowels. Vegetable food is undoubtedly the best where it agrees with the stomach; and at all events, in the Summer months, a large proportion of our food should consist of vegetables and fruits. The times of taking food should not come too near together - they should be six or more hours apart; and we should never eat between meals, nor take exercise too soon after them, if we desire to have a good digestion. The reader who would pursue this subject, may read Abernethy's Constitutional Origin of Local Diseases, 8vo. London, 1813; Forster on Atmospherical Diseases, 8vo. London, 1817; Wilson Phillip on Digestion; Lambe on the Vegetable Diet, &c. - various works are extant by this Author on the subject. We shall conclude our Rule of Health by the following remark, that those who would enjoy good and even animal spirits, should abstain entirely from those drinks into which Alcohol enters as an ingredient. June 15. St. SS. VITUS, Modestus, and others. Landelin. St. Vague H. B. Gregory Bp. St. Vitus suffered with others in the persecution of Dioclesian in the beginning of the fourth century. Tertia nox veniet qua tu Dodona Thyene FLORA.-The Monkey Flower Mimulus luteus begins to flower in the South of Britain in gardens. In the Sententiae Rythmicae of J. Buchlerus, p. 384, is a passage which seems to prove that St. Vitus's Day was equally famous for rain with St. Swithin's : Lux sacrata Vito si sit pluviosa, sequentes Barnabe Googe, in the Translation of Naogeorgus, says: The nexte is Vitus sodde in oyle, before whose ymage faire See a Charm against St. Vitus's Dance in Turner on the Diseases of the Skin, p. 419. The sacrifice of Fowls against the Dance of St. Vitus, is alluded to probably in the following lines from the Anthol. Bor. et Aust.: Ne nimium saltet, saliens formidine gallum Mactat mortifero salsa puella pede. HYGEIA. We shall take this occasion to observe, that the Chorea St. Viti alluded to is an affection of the limbs depending on nervous irritation, so closely connected with a disordered state of the Stomach and Bowels and other organs of the abdomen, that gentle and repeated purgative medicines will usually cure it. See Hamilton on Purgative Medicines, under Chorea. Edinburgh, 8vo. 1815. A long train of nervous diseases are connected with Chorea St. Viti. COELUM. We have sometimes cold northerly winds at this time of year, and than a cold June we know nothing more disagreeable in the year. However, it is generally dry warm weather, and we are more inclined to seek the shelter of Trees than the Fireside. The following lines seem rather to allude to a Summer in more Southern latitudes than our own: Bear me, Pomona! to thy Citron groves, To where the Lemon, and the piercing Lime, The glowing green of the Orange Trees alluded to by the poet, have, we suspect, a more beautiful effect in the elegant rows of them in the gardens of the Tuilleries, than where growing wild. June 16. St. John Francis Regis C. St. Aurelian. rises at . 44'. and sets at vIII. 16'. At pater Heliadum, radios ubi tinxerit undis, URANIA. The Roman Calendar this day records the heliacal Rising of that beautiful constellation Orion, whose marked and peculiar stellification renders it at once distinguishable from every other. Orion is supposed to be one of the oldest constellations, and is mentioned in the |