mild; but always uncertain. Rains are expected to prevail rather than frost during the latter part of the month winds freshen, the revival of solar influence quickens atmospheric action, and the ground is well supplied with moisture in preparation for the coming spring. Fine weather would be thought unseasonable, at least in the first fortnight; and there is still said to be a lingering superstition in the country that augurs futurity from the state of the sky on the 2d of the month, "Candlemas-day,"-for so that day used to be called when candles were burnt in honour of the "Purification of the blessed Virgin." Fine weather then, they say, portends a late spring.

"The hind had as lief see his wife on the bier,

As that Candlemas-day should be pleasant and clear."

This outrageous sentiment is, of course, subordinate to the rhyme ; but the plain meaning is just that which is expressed above. About the middle of the month signs of revivification become apparent. God will renew the face of the earth, and animate and inanimate nature vie with each other in opening the way to spring. The woodlark, one of our earliest and sweetest songsters, renews his note. Rooks begin to pair. The thrush and the yellow-hammer sing. So does the chaffinch, and the redbreast warbles. Partridges begin to pair. The house-pigeon has young. Field-crickets open their holes. Missel-thrushes couple, and wood-owls hoot. Gnats, and small flies, are seen to swarm under sunny hedges. The stonecurlew clamours, and the frogs croak. The mole wakes up, and as the relenting frost leaves the earth soft for him, he burrows under the turf, nibbles the young roots, and hillocks betray his progress. Field-mice suddenly swarm, and set about their mischief, like the moles.

Some plants emerge from under-ground; but there are not many flowers beyond the snowdrop, or the broom-flower, or the yewblossom, with a few early primroses under the warm hedge. The alder-tree and the hazel, the gooseberry and the currant bush, put forth their buds, foremost in the career of renovation.

The husbandman is busy by the end of this month. Soon as the ground is thawed, he ploughs up his fallows, sows beans and peas, rye and spring-wheat. He sets early potatoes, drains wet land, dresses the live fences and makes them good, lops trees, and plants such sorts as thrive in a wet soil,-poplars and willows. And let the gardener take clever Mrs. Loudon's counsels, thus:

"When sowing seeds, never press the soil after they are covered. Never turn shrubs, or plants of any description, out of pots into the open border, without breaking the ball of earth about the roots, if they are matted together. Never dig holes for shrubs below the good soil on a clayey sub-soil; for if filled up with good soil, it only becomes a receptacle for water. Never prune tender herbs that have been partially destroyed by frost until late in the spring, or when the part that is not killed has begun to shoot."

After this plain prose, the reader, if he pleases, may accept the

following lines of the poet Mason, beautifully descriptive of the latter part of February :

"In the long course of seventy years and one,

Oft have I known, on this my natal day,

Hoar-frost and sweeping snow prolong their sway,

The wild winds whistle, and the forests groan.

But now Spring's smile has veil'd stern Winter's frown;
And now the birds, on every budding spray,

Chant orisons, as to the morn of May."

But this was a rare gleam of spring, and is not likely often to recur. Preparatory labour, with patience, and with trust in Him who paints the lily, and makes the grass adorn the hills, and, opening His hand, satisfies the desire of every living thing, filling all who wait upon Him with food and gladness,-these are the exercises now most proper for those who look forward to the toils of a year. Not on the presage of a Candlemas-day, nor on the weather of a doubtful month, but on the faithful promises of God they rest their hope. "Trust in the Lord, and do good, and verily thou shalt be fed."

ASTRONOMICAL FACTS OF FEBRUARY, 1852.

RISING AND SETTING OF THE SUN.

First Quarter, 28th day, 5h. 31m. morn.

MERCURY, in the constellations Sagittarius, Capricornus, and Aquarius, is a morning star till near the end of the month; then invisible on the 14th, at 2h. 5m., P.M., in aphelion. VENUS, in the constellations Aquarius and Pisces, is a morning star throughout the month. MARS, in the constellation Cancer, on the 15th passes the meridian at 10h. 18m., P.M. JUPITER, in the constellation Libra, on the 11th, at 3h. 17m., P.M., in quadrature with the Sun; on the 15th passes the meridian at 5h. 44m., A.M. SATURN, in the constellation Pisces, on the 15th passes the meridian, at 4h. 13m., P.M., and sets at 11h. 3m. URANUS, in the constellation Pisces, on the 15th passes the meridian, at 4h. 17m., P.M.

H. T. & J. Roche, Printers, 25, Hoxton-square, London.

YOUTH'S INSTRUCTER

AND

GUARDIAN.

MARCH, 1852.

THE TEMPLE OF BACCHUS,

OR CHURCH OF SAINT CONSTANCE.

(With an Engraving.)

THE shadows of many dark, dark ages still rest upon the monuments of Rome. Long before antiquarians first groped their uncertain way among the remains of this desolated Queen of cities, ruin had fallen upon ruin in inextricable confusion, and a thousand chances of demolition had sported among the fragments of republican and imperial grandeur. Oftentimes the geologist finds greater certainty, because he may be working by the light of a few established laws, than can be obtained by the "Old Mortalities" who glide amidst those fragments, lit only by the dim flashes of a poetical allusion, an incident of minute narrative, or the nearly obliterated remnant of some intractable inscription. The temples of the gods, like the gods themselves, were, even when in good repair, many of them of uncertain name, and in rank obscure. So the edifice before us is called, commonly, the "Temple of Bacchus," from the circumstance that there are vine-leaves discoverable among the carvings; whereas more exact criticism, conducted since the imposition of the name, attributes the erection of the building to the Emperor Constantine the Great, not to be used as a church or temple indeed, for in his day there were temples enow and to spare, but as a mausoleum for his family. They also suppose that a Christian lady of that family, named Constantia, who died in Asia, was buried, there; and she is now, as it would seem, VOL. XVI. Second Series. E