August 5. ST. JAMES'S DAY, Old Style. It is on this day, and not on St. James's day new style, as mistakingly represented in vol. i. col. 878, that oysters come in. OYSTER DAY. For the Every-Day Book. With oysters fine the tub is filled; To give a relish to the taste; Some take them with their steak for sauce, And some in gutting them excel.* Poor creatures of the ocean's wave! Born, fed, and fatted for our prey ;E'en boys, your shells when parted, crave, Perspective for the" Grotto day." With watchful eye in many a baud The urchin wights at eve appear; They raise their "lights" with voice and hand "A grotto comes but once a year!" Then, in some rustic gardener's bed The shells are fixed for borders neat; Or, crushed within a dustman's shed, Like deadmen's bones 'neath living feet. *. *. P. See the supper scene in "Don Giovanni,”-also the Irishman's joke of eating the oysters and taking his master the shells. Speaking of "Oysters"-the song sung by Grimaldi senior," An oyster crossed in love," has been very popular. CHRONOLOGY. Sir Reginald Bray, the architect of king Henry the seventh's chapel, died August 5, 1503. His family came into England with the Conqueror, and flourished in Northampton and Warwickshire. He was second son to sir Richard Bray, a privy counsellor to king Henry VI. In the first year of Richard III. Reginald had a general pardon, for having He favoured the advancement of the earl adhered, it is presumed, to Henry VI. of Richmond to the throne as Henry VII., who made him a knight banneret, probably on Bosworth field. At this king's coronation he was created a knight of the bath, and afterwards a knight of the garter. Sir Reginald Bray was a distinguished statesman and warrior. He served at the battle of Blackheath in 1497, on the Cornish insurrection under lord Audley, part of whose estates he acquired by grant. He was constable of Oakham castle in Rutlandshire, joint chief justice of the forests south of Trent, high steward of the university of Oxford, chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, and high treasurer. Distinguished by the royal favour, he held the Isle of Wight for his life at an annual rent of three hundred marks, and died possessed of large estates, under a suspicious sovereign who extorted large sums from his subjects when there was very little law to control the royal will. His administration was so just as to procure him the title of " the father of his country." To his skill in architecture we are indebted for the most eminent ecclesiastical ornament of the metropolis-the splendid chapel founded by Henry in his lifetime at Westminster; and he conducted the chapel of St. George, at Windsor palace, to its completion. ST. AFRA. This saint is alleged to have suffered martyrdom under Dioclesian. She had led an abandoned life at Augsburg, but being required to sacrifice to the heathen deities she refused; wherefore, with certain of her female companions, she was bound to a stake in an island on the river Lech, and suffocated by smoke from vine branches. She is honoured as chief patroness of Augsburg. ST. ULRIC. This saint was bishop of Augsburg, which city he defended against the barbarians by raising walls and erecting fortresses around it, and died in 973, surrounded by his clergy, while lying on ashes strewed on the floor in the form of a cross. NATURALISTS' CALENDAR. Mean Temperature.... 63 20. August 8. THE SEASON. We This time of the year is usually remarkably fine. The rich glow of summer is seldom in perfection till August. now enjoy settled hot weather, a glowing sky, with varied and beautiful, but not many clouds, and delightfully fragrant and cool evenings. The golden yellow of the ripe corn, the idea of plenty inspired by the commencing harvest of wheat, the full and mature appearance of the foliage, in short the tout ensemble of nature at this time is more pleasing than perhaps that of any of the other summer months. One of the editors of the "Perennial Calendar," inserts some verses which he found about this time among his papers; he says they are "evidently some parody," and certainly they are very agreeable. INFANTINE RECOLLECTIONS In Fancy how dear are the scenes of my childhood The cool shady Elm Grove, the Pond that was by it, That Portugal Laurel I hail as a treasure, For often in Summer when tired of play, I found its thick shade a most exquisite pleasure, There I first thought my scholarship somewhat advancing, While my thirst for some drink the Sun's beams were enhancing No image more dear than the thoughts of these baubles, Those three renowned Poplars, by Summer winds waved How well I remember, when Spring flowers were blowing, Nor dreamt I that all the green boughs would be sear. E'en in that frosty season, my Grandfather's Hall in, The Chesnuts I picked up and flung in the fires, By the starspangled Sky's Magic Lantern admonished But now when embarked on Life's rough troubled ocean, This is an exactly reduced fac-simile representation of the wood-cut in Stow, and the following is Anthony Munday's story: "This monument, or that of which this is a shadow, with their characters engraven about it, stands in Petty France, at the west end of the lower churchyard of St. Botolphes, Bishopsgate, (not within, but without the walls, the bounds of our consecrated ground,) and was erected to the memory of one Coya Shawsware, a Persian merchant, and a principal servant and secretary to the Persian ambassadour, with whom he and his sonne came over. He was aged forty-four, and buried the tenth of August, 1626: the ambassadour himselfe, young Shawsware his sonne, and many other Persians (with many expressions of their infinite love and sorrow) following him to the ground betweene eight and nine of the clocke in the morning. The rites and ceremonies that (with them) are done to the dead, were chiefly performed by his sonne, who, sitting crosse-legged at the north end of the |