BENEDICT TIDE. 77 



MARCH 17. St. Patrick, apostle of Ireland, 

 A.D. 464. 

 SS. martyrs of Alexandria. 

 St. Joseph of Arimathea. 

 St. Gertrude, virgin, and abbess of Nivelle. 



Liberalia et Agonalia celebr. — Julian Cal. 



Obs, St. Patrick was born in the end of the fourth century in the 

 village now called Killpatrick, on the river Cluyd in Scotland. 

 There is a tradition that his mother was niece to St. Martin of Tours. 

 He was the principal saint who established the Catholic faith in 

 Ireland, in effecting which he underwent a multitude of persecutions 

 and hardships. He is justly styled the Patron of Ireland, and held 

 by that nation in high veneration. The Shamrock, the Irish national 

 emblem, is still worn on his festival. St. Patrick is said to have 

 lived to be 123 years old, and to have died at Down in Ulster. 



St. Gertrude was daughter of Pepin of Landen, and younger 

 sister to St. Begga. She was born in 626. St. Amand superin- 

 tended the building of the great Nunnery of Nivelle, in Brabrant, 

 of which St. Gertrude was abbess when only twenty years old. 



Shamrock or Trefoil Trifolium repens grows. 



Sweet Violet Viola odorata flowers. 



The Sweet Violets in ordinary seasons are now abundantly in 

 flower, and shed a most delicious odour in the garden, when they 

 are often recognised by their sweet smell before they are seen, the 

 odour perfuming the air all around. The white or cream colored 

 Violet is a variety of this, and has nearly the same smell. Both 

 sorts flourish through April and part of May. Shakspeare in his 

 Winter's Tale calls them, 



Violets dim, 



But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes. 

 Or Cytherea's breath. 



" As Violets are perceived by their fragrant smell before they are 

 seen, so are those wlio have a fair reputation shedding around them 

 the sweet odour of virtue while they themselves are concealed." — 

 Florilegium, iii. 17. 



St. Gertrude was said in her convent of vestals to be as a sweet 

 Violet in a garden, overspreading other flowers with the odour of 

 her virtues in the early spring of her life. — Idem, 



Clare says .- 



And just to say tlie Spring was come, 

 The Violet left her woodland home, 

 And, liermitlike, from storms and wind 

 Sought the best shelter it could find 

 'Neath long grass banks. 



H2 



