72 LEAVES EROM THE 



narch and disposer of events, wlio in His own good 

 time will send the desired change. 



Still, shivering mortals may be pardoned for looking 

 with intense anxiety for the winged herald of summer, 

 whose advent ever has been and ever will be hailed by 

 man. A Greek design is now before me, representing 

 three persons of different ages. The one on the left, a 

 young man in the flower of youth, exclaims, as he points 

 to the bird flying above him, ' Behold a swallow !' The 

 centre figure, a man of more advanced but still vigorous 

 age, seated, like the former, has just turned his up-lifted 

 head, saying — ' True, by Hercules !' and at the same 

 moment a boy, standing and pointing to the welcome 

 apparition, cries ' There she is.' All this the eldest per- 

 sonage ratifies with ' The spring is come !' Nearly the 

 same exclamations flow through a line of Aristo- 

 phanes.* 



Speaking of the American barn swallow,t Wilson says, 

 * We welcome their first appearance Avith delight, as the 

 faithful harbingers and companions of flowery spring and 

 ruddy summer ; and when, after a long frost-bound and 

 boisterous winter, we hear it announced that ' the swal- 

 lows are come,' what a train of charming ideas are asso- 

 ciated with the simple tidings.' The human heart was 



ordained for to pray for the health of Divus Augustus. Verstigan 

 writes, that at Segovia, in Spain, it was reported that a woman 

 lived a hundred and sixty yeers. Franciscus Alvarez reports, that 

 he saw an Archbishop of Ethiopia a hundred and fifty yeers old. 

 Buchanan testifies that one Laurentius, of the Orcades, when he 

 was a hundred and fourty yeers old, went a fishing in his boat in the 

 coldest winter commonly.' All these, however, with our own old 

 Parr to boot, must hide their diminished youthful heads before 

 John Jonston's other example, which we have reserved for the 

 last. ' John of Times, that was armour-bearer to Charles the 

 Great, lived 360 yeers ! !' 



* ^Keyjraade TraiSey, k. r. X. — Equites. 

 t Hirundo rufa, Gm.; Hirundo Americana, Wilson. 



