TEN O’CLOCK A. M. DO. P. M.
11th 30·4 30·3
12th 30·3 30·2
13th 30·5 29·9
14th 29·5 29·7
At Paris, in the latter end of 1824, the barometer was exceedingly high,
considering the bad weather that had prevailed, and the moisture of the
atmosphere. There had been almost constant and incessant rain. The few
intervals of fair weather, were when the wind got round a few points to
the west, or the northward of west: but invariably, a few hours after,
the wind again got to the southwest, and the rain commenced falling. It
appeared as if a revolution had taken place in the laws of the
barometer. The barometer in London was at 30·48 in May, 1824, and never
rose higher during the whole year.
~January 22.~
_St. Vincent._ _St. Anastasius._
St. Vincent was a Spanish martyr, said to have been tormented by fire,
so that he died in 304. His name is in the church of England calendar.
Butler affirms that his body was “thrown in a marshy field among rushes,
but a crow defended it from wild beasts and birds of prey.” The Golden
Legend says that angels had the guardianship of the body, that the crow
attended to drive away birds and fowls greater than himself, and that
after he had chased a wolf with his bill and beak, he then turned his
head towards the body, as if he marvelled at the keeping of it by the
angels. His relics necessarily worked miracles wherever they were kept.
For their collection, separation, and how they travelled from place to
place, see Butler.
Brand, from a MS. note by Mr. Douce, referring to Scot’s “Discoverie of
Witchcraft,” cites an old injunction to observe whether the sun shines
on St. Vincent’s-day:
“Vincenti festo si Sol radiet memor este.”
It is thus done into English by Abraham Fleming:
Remember on St. Vincent’s day
If that the sun his beams display
Dr. Forster, in the “Perennial Calendar,” is at a loss for the origin of
the command, but he thinks it may have been derived from a notion that
the sun would not shine unominously on the day whereon the saint was
burnt.