St. John in the Isle of Patmos. There is no evidence that St. John suffered martyrdom; on the contrary, he is said to have returned to Ephesus in the reign of Nerva, who succeeded Domitian in the imperial dignity. Painters usually represent him in Patmos with an eagle by his side; though, as St. John Port Latin, there are many engravings of him in the legendary oil cauldron. Other representations of him put a chalice in his hand, with a serpent issuing from it, founded on another legend, that being constrained to drink poison, he swallowed it without Sustaining injury. There is a further legend, that while St. Edward the Confessor was dedicating a church to St. John, a pilgrim demanded alms of him in the saint's name, whereupon the king gave him the ring from his finger. This pilgrim was St. John, who discovered himself to two English pilgrims in the Holy Land, bidding them hear the ring to the king in his name, and require him to make ready to depart this world; after this they went to sleep. On awakening they found themselves among flocks of sheep and shepherds in a strange place, which turned out to be Barham Downs in Kent, wherefore they thanked God and St. John for their good speed, and coming to St. Edward on Christmasday, delivered to him the ring with the warning; these the king received in a suitable manner, "And on the vigyll of the Epyphanye, next after, he dyed and departed holyly out of this worlde, and is buryed in the Abbey of Westmester by London, where as is yet unto this daye that same rynge." Again it is said, that Isidore affirms of St. John, that he transformed branches of trees into fine gold, and sea-gravel into precious stones, with other like incredibilities.* CHRONOLOGY. 1677. Samuel Bochart, a learned French Protestant divine and orientalist, died at Caen, aged 68 years. 1802. Died at Guernsey, aged 40, of water in his chest, serjeant Samuel M'Donald, of the 93d regiment, commonly known by the name of Big Sam. He served during the American war with his countrymen, the Sutherland Fencibles, and afterwards as fugelman in the Royals, till 1791, when he was taken into the household of his royal highness the prince of Wales, as lodge-porter at Carltonhouse, and remained in that capacity till 1793; he was then appointed a serjeant in the late Sutherland Fencibles, and continued to act in that corps, and the 93d regiment, formed from it, till his death.He was six feet ten inches in height, four feet round the chest, and well proportioned. He continued active till his 35th year, when he began to decline. His strength was prodigious, but he was never known to exert it improperly. Several considerable offers were made to engage him as a public exhibition, all of which he refused, and always disliked being stared at. 1 SPRING BLIGHT. The greatest misfortune that the cultivator of a garden apprehends at this season, is blight, of which, according to Dr. Forster, there are three kinds. "The first occurs in the early For oft engendered by the hazy north, "In our opinion, an east wind more often brings blights. Many circumstances, indeed, favour the opinion that blights are animalcule; as the suddenness with which they appear, being generally in the course of a single night, and those trees that are sheltered from the wind being uninfected: indeed, it Golden Legend. frequently happens that a single branch that chances to be screened, will escape unhurt, while the rest of the tree is quite covered with these minute destroyers. A third reason may be derived from the inactivity of these insects: they generally remain almost immovable on the branch or leaf where they are first seen, and are, for the most part, unprovided with wings; yet the places where they are commonly lifetime. William of Malmesbury relates, that the inhabitants of Beverley acknowledge the sanctity of their patron, because the fiercest bulls being dragged with the strongest ropes, by the lustiest men, into his church-yard, lose their fury, become gentle as lambs, and being left to their freedom, innocently sport themselves, instead of goring and trampling with their horns and feet all that come near them.* It is related by another author that in 1312, on the feast of St. Bernard, wonderful oil miraculously issued from his sepulchre, which was a sovereign remedy against many diseases. Also, that king Ethelstan laid his knife on the saint's altar, in pledge, that if by his interference he obtained a victory over the Scots, he would enrich his church; by the merits of the saint he conquered, and desiring to have a sign as a perpetual testimony of prerogative over the Scots, he struck his sword into a rock near Dunbar-castle, which for many ages retained a mark of a yard in length from the blow, and this was referred to by king Edward I. before pope Boniface, in proof of his right over Scotland. Ethelstan, in consequence of his victory, granted right of sanctuary to the church of Beverley, with other privileges.† SEASONABLE STORY. If the north-east wind blow on this day, or on any other day in May, or in any other summer month, the nervous reader will experience the uneasiness which is sure to afflict him from that baleful quarter. The sun may shine, and the birds may sing, and flowers may give forth their odours, yet pernicious influences prevail against the natural harmony and spirit of the season. Το one, therefore, so afflicted, the story of Daniel O'Rourke, from the "Fairy Legends," may be diverting. he lived at the bottom of Hungry Hill, just at the right hand side of the road as you go towards Bantry. An old man was he at the time that he told me the story, with gray hair, and a red nose; and it was on the 25th of June, 1813, that I heard it from his own lips, as he sat smoking his pipe under the old poplar tree, on as fine an evening as ever shone from the sky. I was going to visit the caves in Dursey Island, having spent the morning at Glengariff. "I am often ared to tell it, sir," said he, « so that this is not the first time. The master's son, you see, had come from beyond foreign parts in France and Spain, as young gentlemen used to go, before Buonaparte or any such was heard of; and sure enough there was a dinner given to all the people on the ground, gentle and simple, high and low, rich and poor. The ould gentlemen were the gentlemen, after all, saving your honour's presence. They'd swear at a body a little, to be sure, and, may be, give one a cut of a whip now and then, but we were no losers by it in the end;-and they were so easy and civil, and kept such rattling houses, and thousands of welcomes; and there was no grinding for rent, and few agents; and there was hardly a tenant on the estate that did not taste of his landlord's bounty often and often in the year; but now it's another thing: no matter for that, sir, for I'd better be telling you my story. "Well, we had every thing of the best, and plenty of it; and we ate, and we drank, and we danced, and the young master by the same token danced with Peggy Barry, from the Bohereen-a lovely young couple they were, though they are both low enough now. To make a long story short, I got, as a body may say, the same thing as tipsy almost, for I can't remember ever at all, no ways, how it was that I left the place: only I did leave it, that's certain. Well, I thought, for all that, in myself. I'd just step to Molly Cronahan's, the fairy woman, to speak a word about the bracket heifer what was bewitched; and so as I was crossing the stepping-stones of the ford of Ballyashenogh, and was looking up at the stars and blessing myself-for why? it was Lady-day-I missed my foot, and souse I fell into the water. 'Death alive!' thought I, I'll be drowned now?' However, I began swimming, swimming, swimming away for the dear life, till at last I got ashore, somehow or other, but never the one of me can tell how, upon a dissolute island. "I wandered and wandered about there, without knowing where I wandered, until at last I got into a big bog. The moon was shining as bright as day, or your fair lady's eyes, sir, (with your pardon for mentioning her,) and I looked east and west, and north and south, and every way, and nothing did I see but bog, bog, bog,-I could never find out how I got into it; and my heart grew cold with fear, for sure and certain I was that it would be my berrin place. So I sat down upon a stone which, as good luck would have it, was close by me, and I began to scratch my head, and sing the Ullagone-when all of a sudden the moon grew black, and I looked up, and saw something for all the world as if it was moving down between me and it, and I could not tell what it was. Down it came with a pounce, and looked at me full in the face; and what was it but an eagle? as fine a one as ever flew from the kingdom of Kerry. So he looked at me in the face, and says he to me, Daniel O'Rourke,' says he, how do you do?' 'Very well, I thank you, sir,' says I: 'I hope you're well; wondering out of my senses all the time how an eagle came to speak like a Christian. "What brings you here, Dan?' says he. Nothing at all, sir,' says I; 'only I wish I was safe home again.' 'Is it out of the island you want to go, Dan?' says he. "Tis, sir,' says I: so I up and told him how I had taken a drop too much, and fell into the water; how I swam to the island; and how I got into the bog, and did not know my way out of it. says he, after a minute's thought, 'though it was very improper for you to get drunk on Lady-day, yet as you are a decent, sober man, who 'tends mass well, and never flings stones at me or mine, nor cries out after us in the fields-my life for yours,' says he; 'so get up on my back, and grip me well for fear you'd fall off, and I'll fly you out of the bog.' 'I am afraid,' says I, 'your honour's making game of me; for who ever heard of riding a horseback on an eagle before?" "Pon the honour of a gentleman,' says he, putting his right foot on his breast, I am quite in earnest; and so now either take my offer or starve in the bog-besides, I see that your weight is sinking the stone.' Dan,' "It was true enough as he said, for I found the stone every minute going from under me. I had no choice; so thinks I to myself, faint heart never won fair lady, and this is fair persuadance:-'I thank your honour,' says I, for the loan of your civility; and I'll take your kind offer.' I therefore mounted upon the back of the eagle, and held him tight enough by the throat, and up he flew in the air like a lark. Little I knew the trick he was going to serve me. Upup-up-God knows how far up he flew. Why, then,' said I to him-thinking he did not know the right road home-very civilly, because why?-I was in his power entirely;-sir,' says I, please your honour's glory, and with humble submission to your better judgment, if you'd fly down a bit, you're now just over my cabin, and I could be put down there, and many thanks to your worship.' "Arrah, Dan,' said he, 'do you think me a fool? Look down in the next field, and don't you see two men and a gun? By my word it would be no joke to be shot this way, to oblige a drunken blackguard that I picked up off of a could stone in a bog.' Bother you,' said I to myself, but I did not speak out, for where was the use? Well, sir, up he kept, flying, flying, and I asking him every minute to fly down, and all to no use. 'Where in the world are you going, sir?' says I to him. Hold your tongue, Dan,' says he: mind your own business, and don't be interfering with the business of other people.' "Faith, this is my business, I think,' says I. 'Be quiet, Dan,' says he: so I said no more. "At last where should we come to, but to the moon itself. Now you can't see it from this, but there is, or there was in my time a reaping-hook sticking out of the side of the moon, this way (drawing the figure on the ground with the end of his stick.) "Dan,' said the eagle, I'm tired with this long fly; I had no notion 'twas so far.' 'And my lord, sir,' said I, 'who in the world axed you to fly so far-was it I? did not I beg, and pray, and beseech you to stop half an hour ago?' 'There's no use talking, Dan,' said he; I'm tired bad enough, so you must get off, and sit down on the moon until I rest myself.' Is it sit down on the moon?" said I; is it upon that little round thing, then? why, then, sure I'd fall off in a minute, and be kilt and spilt, and smashed all to bits you are a vile deceiver-so you are.' 'Not at all, Dan,' said he: 'you can catch fast hold of the reaping-hook that's sticking out of the side of the moon, and t'will keep you up.' 'I won't, then,' said I. May be not,' said he, quite quiet. If you don't, my man, I shall just give you a shake, and one slap of my wing, and send you down to the ground, where every bone in your body will be sinashed as small as a drop of dew on a cabbage-leaf in the morning.' 'Why, then, I'm in a fine way,' said I to myself, ever to have come along with the likes of you;' and so giving him a hearty curse in Irish, for fear he'd know what I said, I got off of his back with a heavy heart, took a hold of the reaping-hook, and sat down upon the moon, and a mighty cold seat it was, I can tell you that. "When he had me there fairly landed, he turned about to me, and said, 'Good morning to you, Daniel O'Rourke,' said he: I think I've nicked you fairly now. You robbed my nest last year,' ('twas true enough for him, but how he found it out is hard to say,) and in return you are freely welcome to cool your heels dangling upon the moon like a cockthrow.' "Is that all, and is this the way you leave me, you brute, you?' says I. You ugly unnatural baste, and is this the way you serve me at last? Bad luck to yourself, with your hook'd nose, and to all your breed, you blackguard.' 'Twas all to no manner of use: he spread out his great big wings, burst out a laughing, and flew away like lightning. I bawled after him to stop; but I might have called and bawled for ever, without his minding me. Away he went, and I never saw him from that day to this-sorrow fly away with him! You may be sure I was in a disconsolate condition, and kept roaring out for the bare grief, when all at once a door opened right in the middle of the moon, creaking on its hinges as if it had not been opened for a month before. I suppose they never thought of greasing 'em, and out there walks-who do you think but the man in the moon? I knew him by his bush. Daniel ""Good morrow to you, O'Rourke,' said he: 'How do you do?" 'Very well, thank your honour,' said I. 'I hope your honour's well.' 'What brought you here, Dan?' said he. So I told him how I was a little overtaken in liquor at the master's, and how I was cast on a dissolute island, and how I lost my way in the bog, and how the thief of |