LADY TIDE. 97 



APRIL 6. St. Sixtus T. pope and martyr, 2d age. 

 SS. Martyrs of Hadiab, in Persia, in 345. 

 St. Celestine, pope and e. 

 St. William, abbot of Eskille, c. 

 St. Prudentius, bishop of Troyes, confessor, in 861. 

 Lives of Rabanus Maurus ; the monk Hinemar ; 

 Lupus, abbot; Araolon, bishop; Remigius, 

 bishop ; and the deacon Florus. 

 St. Celsus, bishop in Ireland. 



Fortuna Puhlica. Diance Natalis, Julian CaL 



Obs. St. Sixtus I. succeeded St. Alexander, and governed the 

 ^church ten years, at a time when that dignity was the common step 

 to martyrdom ; in all martyrologies he is honoured with the title of 

 martyr. A portion of the relicks of St. Sixtus I. given by pope 

 Clement X. to Cardinal de Retz, was by him placed with great so- 

 lemnity in the abbey of St. Michael, in Lorraine. 



Lady Day in the Old Style fell at this time, and in many tene- 

 ments it is referred to instead of the 25th of March, which is called 

 New Lady Day. 



-J-Pasque, or Easter Day in 1828. — The best account of the 

 festival of Easter, in which the great miracle of our Lord's resurrection 

 is commemorated, will be found in Butler's Lives of the Saints 

 Abridged, and in the large work, in a note vol. v. p. 368, is an ac- 

 count of some of its antiquities. For many curious customs, games, 

 and ceremonies of Easter, such as Foot Ball, Stool Ball, Ninepins, 

 Kegel, and others, see Brande's Popular Antiquities, and the Peren- 

 nial Calendar, pp. 170, 17L ■ 



Starch Hyacinth Hyacinthus racemosus full flower. 

 Pasque Flower Aneinone Pulsatilla flowers. 

 Ladysmock Cardamine Pratensis flowers. 

 This plant derives its name from being in flower about Easter. In 

 Hone's Every Day Book the Starch Hyacinthus is quoted as being 

 called Flower of St. Sixtus. 



The Ladysmock, a corruption of Our Lady's Smock, so called 

 from its first flowering about Lady Tide, now blows : it is a pretty 

 purplish white tetradynamious plant, which blows from Lady Tide 

 till the end of May, and which during the latter end of April covers 

 the moist meadows with its silvery white, which looks at a distance 

 like a white sheet spread over the fields. Shakespeare alludes to it 

 in his Spring Song : — 



When daisies pied and Violet blue, 



And Lady Smocks of silver white. 

 And Cuckoo Buds of yillow hue. 



Do paint the meadows witli delight ; 

 When shepherds pipe on oaten straws, 



And merry Larks are plouglimen's clocks ; 

 When Turtles coo, and Koofes and Daws, 



And maidens bleach their summer smocks ; 

 The cuckoo sings on every tree. 



