White Lily. _Lilium candidum._
Dedicated to the _Virgin Mary_.
_A Morning’s Walk in July._
But when mild morn, in saffron stole,
First issues from her eastern goal,
Let not my due feet fail to climb
Some breezy summit’s brow sublime,
Whence Nature’s universal face
Illumined smiles with newborn grace,
The misty streams that wind below
With silver sparkling lustre glow,
The groves and castled cliffs appear
Invested all in radiance clear;
O! every village charm beneath.
The smoke that mounts in azure wreath
O beauteous rural interchange!
The simple spire and elmy grange;
Content, indulging blissful hours,
Whistles o’er the fragrant flowers:
And cattle rous’d to pasture new,
Shake jocund from their sides the dew.[206]
[206] Ode on the Approach of Summer.
~July 3.~
_St. Phocas_, a Gardener, A. D. 303. _St. Guthagon._ _St. Gunthiern_,
a Welsh Prince, 6th Cent. _St. Bertram_, 6th Cent.
_The Bleeding Image._
On the 3d of July is annually celebrated, in Paris, in the church of St.
Leu and St. Giles, a solemn office, in commemoration of a _miracle_
wrought by the blessed virgin, in la Rue aux Ours, or the street for the
bears; the history of which is as follows:--In the year 1518, a soldier
coming out of a tavern in this Bear-street, where he had been gambling,
and losing his money and clothes, was blaspheming the name of God; and
as he passed by the image of the holy virgin, standing very quietly and
inoffensively at the corner of the street, he struck it, _or her_,
furiously with a knife he had in his hand; on which _God permitted_, as
the modern and modest tellers of this tale say, the image to bleed
abundantly. The ministers of justice were informed, and the wretch was
seized, conducted to the spot where he had committed the sacrilege, tied
to a post, and scourged, from six o’clock in the morning till night,
till his eyes dropped out; his tongue was bored with a hot iron, and his
body was cast into the fire. The blessed image was transported to Rome.
This was the origin of a ceremony still remembered, and which once was
very curious. The zeal of the inhabitants of Bear-street was
conspicuous, and their devotion to the blessed virgin not less so. At
first they only made the figure of the soldier, as we in England do of
Guy Faux, and threw it into the fire; by degrees the feast became more
solemn, and the soldier, who had been rudely fashioned out of faggots,
was at last a composition of fireworks, which, after being carried in
procession through the streets of Paris, took a flight into the air, to
the great joy and edification of the Parisians, particularly of
Bear-street. At last, however, the magistrates wisely recollected that
the streets being narrow, and the buildings numerous in that part of the
city, a fire might happen, and it would then be still more miraculous if
the holy image should travel from Rome to Paris to extinguish the
flames: not to mention that the holy image might not at that precise
moment be so plentifully supplied as on a similar occasion our friend
Gulliver was. In 1744, therefore, they forbad any future fire-work
soldiers, and the poor distressed inhabitants of Bear-street, were once
more reduced to their man of wood, whom they continue to burn with great
affection every 3d of July, after having walked him about Paris three
days. This figure is now made of osier, clothed, and armed with a knife,
and of so horrid an appearance, it would undoubtedly frighten women and
children who did not know the story of the sacrilegious soldier; as it
is, they believe they see him breathe blasphemy. Messieurs, the
associated gentlemen of Bear-street, give the money formerly spent in
fireworks, to make a procession to the proxy of the blessed image which
now stands where the bleeding one did, and to say a solemn mass to the
blessed virgin, for the souls of the defunct gentlemen, associates of
Bear-street. The mummery existed under Napoleon, as appears by the
preceding particulars, dated Paris, July 12, 1807, and may be seen in
the _Sunday Advertiser_, of the 19th of that month.
* * * * *
On the 3d of July, 1810, a small loaf fastened by a string, was
suspended from the equestrian statue at Charing-cross, to which was
attached a placard, stating that it was purchased from a baker, and was
extremely deficient in weight, and was one of a numerous batch. The
notice concluded by simply observing, “Does this not deserve the _aid_
of parliament?” This exhibition attracted a great crowd of people,
until the whole of the loaf was nearly washed away by subsequent heavy
rain.
~The Dog-days.~
[Illustration: “The Dog-star rages.”]
Sirius, or the Dog-star, is represented as in the above engraving, on a
garnet gem, in lord Besborough’s collection, etched by Worlidge. The
late Mr. William Butler, in his _Chronological Exercises_, says, that on
this day “commence, according to the almanacs, the Canicular, or
Dog-days, which are a certain number of days preceding and following the
heliacal rising of Canicula, or the Dog-star, in the morning. Their
beginning is usually fixed in the calendars on the 3d of July, and their
termination on the 11th of August; but this is a palpable mistake, since
the heliacal rising of this star does not now take place, at least in
our latitude, till near the latter end of August; and in five or six
thousand years more, Canicula may chance to be charged with bringing
frost and snow, as it will then, owing to the precession of the
equinoxes, rise in November and December.”
Dr. Hutton remarks, that some authors say, from Hippocrates and Pliny,
that the day this 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; also, “the diseases it usually occasions
in men are burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies. The Romans
sacrificed a _brown dog_ every year to Canicula, at his first rising to
appease his rage.”
A Cambridge contributor to the _Every-Day Book_ affirms, that, in the
year 1824, an edict was issued there for all persons keeping dogs either
to _muzzle_ or _tie them up_, and many a dog was tied up by the neck as
a sacrifice; whether to the _Mayor_ or _Canicular_, this deponent saith
not; but the act and deed gave rise to the following