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DOG DAYS.

In an ancient calendar preserved by Bede, the beginning of the dog-days was placed on the 14th of July. In one prefixed to the Common Prayer, printed in the time of Queen Elizabeth, they are said to begin on the 6th of July, and to end on the 5th of September ; and this was continued from that time till the Restoration, when that book was revised, and the dog-days omitted. From that time to the correction of the British calendar, our almanacs had the beginning of the dog-days on the 19th of July, and the end on the 20th of August; but since that correction, the times of the beginning and end have been altered, and the former was placed at the 30th of July, and the latter at the 7th of September. The dog-days have been commonly reckoned for about forty days, viz., twenty days before, and twenty days after the heliacal rising; and almanac-makers have usually set down the dogdays in their almanacs to the changing time of the star's rising; and thus they had at length fallen considerably after the hottest season of the year; till of late, a very proper alteration has been introduced into the almanacs, and they have been made to commence with the 3rd of July, and to terminate with the 11th of August. The propriety of this alteration will be evident, if we consider that the ancients meant to express by the dog-days, the hottest time of

the year, which is commonly during the month of July, about which month the dog-star rose heliacally in the time of the most ancient astronomers, whose observations have been transmitted to us.

Ancient authors tell us that on the day the Canicula, or dog-star, first rises in the morning, the sea boils, wine turns sour, dogs begin to grow mad, the bile increases and irritates, and all animals grow languid; and that the diseases ordinarily occasioned in men by it, are burning fevers, dysenteries, and frenzies. The Romans sacrificed a brown dog every year to Canicula, at its rising, to appease its rage. The Egyptians carefully watched the rising of this star, and, judging by it of the swelling of the Nile, called the star the sentinel and watch of the year. Hence, according to their mode of hieroglyphic writing, they represented it under the figure of a dog (that faithful animal having been even in these times distinguished for his peculiar qualities of watching over the affairs of man), or of a man with a dog's head, and worshipped him under the name of Anubis, whose figure was hung up in all their temples, to give notice of the approach of the inundation of the Nile.

LAMMAS DAY.

The 1st of August, Lammas, should rather have been Loaf-mass, of which Saxon name it is a corrup

tion. On this day the ancient Britons celebrated the gift of Ceres by offering a loaf made of new corn; this custom was adopted by the early Christians, and the first fruits were presented at the altar. This day is one of the Scottish quarter days; it is also called the Gule of August.

According to Gebelin, as the month of August was the first in the Egyptian year, it was called Gule, which being latinized makes Gula, signifying throat. "Our legendaries," says Brand, "surprised at seeing this word at the head of the month of August, converted it to their own purpose." They made out of it the feast of the daughter of the Tribune Quirinus, who they pretend was cured of a disorder in the throat (gula) by kissing the chain of St. Peter on the day of its festival. Forcing the Gule of the Egyptians into the throat of the tribune's daughter, they instituted a festival to Gule upon the festival day of St. Peter ad Vincula.

ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY.

The 24th August is so named, being the festival day of St. Bartholomew, who is supposed to be identical with Nathaniel; his surname being Tolmai, thus, Bar-Tolmai the son of Tolmai. He suffered martyrdom in Armenia by being flayed alive, which is the reason why he is represented with a butcher's or currier's flaying-knife. This day has been well termed

"Black Bartholomew," on account of the massacre of the Protestants in France in 1572, when 100,000 are said to have perished. It is also the day on which (in 1662) the Nonconforming Ministers were ejected from the Church of England.

MICHAELMAS DAY.

The festival of St. Michael and All Angels (Sept. 29th) has been celebrated with great solemnity by the Christian Church ever since the fifth age, and was certainly kept sacred in Apulia as early as 493.

The dedication of the great church of Mount Gorgano in Italy, to St. Michael, gave rise to the celebration of this feast in the West. It obtained the common name of Michaelmas; and the dedication of numerous churches at Rome, and other parts of Italy, subsequently took place on this day-a practice

followed in other countries.

The churches dedicated to St. Michael are usually to be found on elevated spots, in allusion to this Saint's having been the highest of the heavenly host.

Michaelmas is one of the regular quarter days for settling rents; but it is no longer remarkable for the hospitality which once attended this anniversary. At Martinmas, the old quarter day, the landlords used formerly to entertain their tenants with geese, then

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only kept by opulent persons. But these birds being esteemed in perfection early in the autumn, most families now have a goose dressed on St. Michael's day for

"At Michaelmas, by custom right divine,

Geese are ordained to bleed at Michael's shrine."*

In "Gascoigne's Flowers" we find

"And when the tenantes come to paie their quarter's rent, They bringe some fowle at Midsummer, a dish of fish in

Lent;

At Christmas a capon, at Michaelmas a goose;

And somewhat else at Newyere's tide, for feare their lease flies loose."

A writer in The World, No. 10, probably Lord Orford, remarking on the effects of the alteration of the style, says, "When the reformation of the calendar was in agitation, to the great disgust of many worthy persons, who urged how great the harmony was in the old establishment between the holidays and their attributes, and what confusion would follow if Michaelmas Day, for instance, was not to be celebrated when stubble geese are in their highest perfection; it was replied that such a propriety was merely imaginary, and would be lost of itself even without any alteration

*See origin of Goose on Michaelmas Day.

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