urban's tide. 147 



MAY 26. St. Augustine, apostle of England, 



A.D. 604. 



St. Philip Neri, confessor, 1595. 



St. Eleutherius, pope and martyr. 



St. Quadratus, bishop and confessor. 



St. Oduvald, abbot and confessor. 



Obs. The Saxons, English, and Jutes, Pagan Gennans, who in 

 this island began in 454 to expel the old Britons, had reigned here 

 about one hundred and fifty years when God was pleased to open 

 their eyes to the light of the gospel. St. Augustine was deputed by 

 St. Gregory the Great to be their apostle. He landed on the east 

 side of Kent in 596 : he converted Ethelbert, the powerful King of 

 Kent, and many of his subjects. St. Augustine, after many years 

 labour, was translated to glory ; the year nor time of his death is not 

 expressed by any historian, nor in his epitaph, which seems com- 

 posed before the custom of counting dates. See account of St. 

 Augustine in Cough's edition of Camden's Britannia. We must 

 observe that the St. Augustine celebrated today was not the great 

 St. Augustine celebrated on the 28ih of August, see that day. 



St. Philip Neri was a native of Florence, aad founded the Congregation of 

 theOratoryin 1.551. Hediedin 1595. From the holy fathers of this order of 

 the Oratory began that species of sacred music which we call the Oratorio. 

 Like the chant introduced by St. Gregory, it became at length the common 

 music of Europe. 



Rhododendron Rhododendron Ponticum fullest fl. 

 Yellow Azalea Azalea Pontica full flower. 

 Germander Speedwell Veronica Chamaedris full fl. 

 Stinking Groundsel Senecio squalidus flowers. 

 Ofiicinal Borage Borago officinalis full flower. 

 Spearwort Ranunculus Flammula flowers. 



The fruit trees are beginning now to go out of blossom apace, but the Flora 

 in general presents the richest appearance. 



"In many places great havoc is made in spring among Sparrows and other 

 small birds by the farmer, and rewards are sometimes offered for their destruc- 

 tion. How ignorant are the generality of mankind of their own good ! This 

 order of birds, the Sparrows, includes no fewer than forty diff'erent kinds of 

 birds which do not eat a single grain of corn, but which, in the course of the 

 spring and summer, devour millions of insects that would otherwise prove 

 infinitely more injurious to the farmer than all the Sparrows that haunt his 

 fields, were they ten times more numerous than they are; and even with re- 

 spect to House Sparrows, which are certainly in some measure injurious to the 

 crops, were the farmer seriously to reflect that Nature has not formed 

 any race of beings whatever without giving to them an important destination, 

 he would not probably be so anxious for their destruction. It has been satis- 

 factorily ascertained that a single pair of common Sparrows, while their young 

 ones are in the nest, destroy on an average above three thousand Caterpillars 

 every week ! At this rate, if all the species of small birds were to be extir- 

 pated, what would then become of the crops V 



