according to the season and scarcity, that the same root which in June sold for several shillings per quart, now sells as low, sometimes, as sixpence a bushel. Those who wish to taste the potato in the greatest perfection, inust pay a visit to a sister country, where this useful vegetable is much larger and finer than in England, and is cooked in a very superior manner. It is produced in such abundance in Ireland, as to form, with butter-milk, the almost only food of the lower classes.

The sowing of wheat is generally completed in this month: when the weather is too wet for this occupation, the farmer ploughs up the stubble fields for winter fallows. Acorns are sown at this season, and the planting of forest and fruit trees takes place.

The prudent will observe what passions reign
In various plants (for not a man alone,
But all the wide creation Nature gave
Love and avérsion). Everlasting hate
The vine to ivy bears, nor less abhors
The colewort's rankness, but with am'rous twine
Clasps the tall elm. The Pæstan rose unfolds
Her bud more lovely near the fetid leek,
(Crest of stout Britons), and enhances thence
The price of her celestial scent. The gourd
And thirsty cucumber, when they perceive
Th' approaching olive, with resentment fly
Her fatty fibres, and with tendrils creep
Diverse, detesting contact; whilst the fig
Contemns not rue nor sage's humble leaf
Close neighbouring. The Herefordián plant .
Caresses freely the contiguous peuch,
Hazel, and weight-resisting palm, and likes
T' approach the quince, and th' elder's pithy stem,
Uneasy seated by funereal yew
Or walnut (whose malignant touch impairs
All gen'rous fruits), or near the bitter dews
Of cherries : therefore weigh the habits well
Of plants, how they associate best, nor let
Ill neighbourhood corrupt thy hopeful plants.

PHILIPS,

NOCEMBER.

THE Saxons called November wint-monat, or wind-month, on account of the prevalence of high winds in this month.

Remarkable Days.

1.-ALL SAINTS. In the early ages of Christianity the word saint was applied to all believers, as is evident in the use of it by Saint Paul and Saint Luke; but the term was afterwards restricted to such as excelled in Christian virtues. In the Romish church, holy persons, canonized by the Pope, are called saints, and are invoked and supplicated by the professors of that religion. For some rural customs on this day, see T. T. for 1814, pp. 278-9.

2.-ALL SOULS. In Catholic countries, on the eve and day of All Souls, the churches are hung with black; the tombs are opened ; a coffin covered with black, and surrounded with wax lights, is placed in the nave of the church, and, in one corner, figures in wood, representing the souls of the deceased, are halfway plunged into the flames.

*3. 1787.-BISHOP LOWTH DIED.

EPITAP# on his Daughter.
Cara, VALE! ingenio præstans, pietate, pudore,

Et plusquam natæ nomine, card, VALE !
Cara Maria, VALE! at veniet felicius ævum,

Quando iterum tecum, sim modo dignus, ero,
Cara REDI, lætâ tum dicam voce, paternos
Eja age in amplexus, cara Maria, REDI.

5.-KING WILLIAM LANDED. The glorious revolution of 1688 is commemorated on this day; when the throne of England became

vested in the illustrious House of Orange. Although King William landed on the 5th of November, the almanacks still continue the mistake of marking it as the fourth.

5.-POWDER PLOT. This day is kept to commemorate the diabolical attempt of the Papists to blow up the Parliament House. The best account of this nefarious transaction is detailed in Hume's History of England, vol. vi, pp. 33-38, 8vo edition, 1802.

6.--SAINT LEONARD. Leonard, or Lienard, was a French nobleman of great reputation in the court of Clovis I. He died about the year 559, and has always been implored by prisoners as their guardian saint. *7. 1665.—FIRST ENGLISH GAZETTE:

*8. 1674.- MILTON DIED,

On the late MASSACRE in PIEMONT'. Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones

Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;
Even tbem who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshipt stocks and stones,
Forget not: in thy book record their grvans

Who were thy sheep, and in their antient fold
Slain by the bloody Piemontese that rolled
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans

s In 1655, the Duke of Savoy determined to compel bis reformed subjects, in the vallies of Piedmont, to embrace popery, or quit their country. All who remained and refused to be converted, with their wives and children, suffered a most barbarous massacre. Those who escaped, fled into the mountains, from whence they sent agents into England to CROMWELL for relief, He instantly commanded a general fast, and promoted a pational contribution, in which nearly forty thousund pounds were collected. The persecution was suspended, the duke recalled his army, and the surviving inhabitants of the Piedmontese vallies were reins ated in their cottages, and the peaceable exercise of their religion. On this business, there are several state-letters in Cromwell's name written by Milton.-See these Letters translated, and more on this interesting subject, in Jones's History of the Waldenses, vol. i, p. 342, et seq.

The vales redoubled to the bills, and they

To Heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow

O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway
The triple Tyrant ; that from these may grow

A hundred fold, who, having learned thy way,
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.

9.-LORD MAYOR'S DAY.
The word mayor, if we adopt the etymology of
Verstegan, comes from the antient English maier,
able or potent, of the verb may or can. King Ri-
chard I, A.D. 1189, first changed the bailiffs of
London into Mayors; by whose example, others were
afterwards appointed. The power of the Lord Mayor
is very extensive ; for he is not only the King's Re-
presentative in the civil government of the city, but
also First Commissioner of the Lieutenancy ; Per-
petual Coroner and Escheator within the city and its
liberties, and in the Borough of Southwark ; Chief
Justice of Oyer and Terminer, and gaol delivery of
Newgate ; Judge of the Courts of Wardmote at the
election of aldermen; Conservator of the rivers
Thames and Medway ; Perpetual Commissioner in
all affairs relating to the river Lea; and Chief Butler
to the King at all coronations. No corporation
business is valid without his authority; and no elec.
tion of a mayor-for the ensuing year is legal without
his presence, he being living.

Although the office of the Lord Mayor be elective, yet his supremacy does not cease even on the death of the sovereign; and when this happens, he is considered as the principal officer in the kingdom, and takes his place accordingly in the Privy-council, until the new king be proclaimed.'

The convivial preparations for the celebration of Lord Mayor's Day, in London, are upon a very Jarge scale :

1 a 1.2 ds were

The busy hum of greasy scullions sounds,
That the fixed beadles do almost perceive
The secret dainties of each other's watch:
Fire answers fire, and thro' their paly flames
Each table sees the other's bill of fare:
Cook threatens cook in high and saucy yaunt
Of rare and new-made dishes ; confectioners
(Both pastry-cooks and fruiterers in league)
With candied art their rivets closing up,

Give pleasing notice of a rich dessert.
The order of the procession is well described in
the following parody of a speech in Shakspeare's
Henry V:-

Suppose that you have seen
The new-appointed Mayor at QUEEN-STAIRS
Embark his royalty : his own company
With silken streamers the young gazers pleasing,
Painted with different fancies ;-have beheld
Upon the golden galleries music playing,
And the borns echo, which do take the lead
Of other sounds :-now view the city-barge
Draw its huge bottom thro' the furrowed Thames,
Breasting the adverse surge: 0 do but think
You stand in TEMPLE-GARDENS, and bebold
London herself, on her proud stream afloat,
For so appears this fleet of Magistracy

Holding due course to WESTMINSTER. Here the Lord Mayor lands, and proceeds to the Exchequer to be sworn; after this, he returns by water, and disembarks at Blackfriars. The cavalcade advances to Guildhall amidst admiring crowds of citizens, their wives, and children. Meanwhile, in Guildhall,

Common Council in their mazarine gowns
Sit patiently 2, and inly ruminate
The dinner's luxury: invited Courtiers,
Garter-invested Peers, and grave Judges,

* Three Cranes' Wharf, at the bottom of Queen-street, Cheapside, at which place the Lord Mayor used to take water. This place has been abandoned for Blackfriars, for some years past.

2 From three o'clock, when the doors are opened, till halfpact six,