'Another favour I must request is, that Mr. Balmanno will be so good as to send me a proof of these illustrations, as my hand is very bad, and there may be errors both of the pen and of the press. Jocose hæc, as the old Laird of Restalrig writes to the Earl of Gowrie. Farewell, my old tried and dear friend of forty long years. Our enjoyments must now be of a character less vivid than we have shared together, "But still at our lot it were vain to repine,

"Youth cannot return, or the days of Lang Syne."
"Your's affectionately,

Abbotsford, August 2.

'WALTER SCOTT.'

LINES.

[Written for Time's Telescope by J. H. Wiffen.]
Alas! the scenes through which on earth we stray
Are but the semblance of an April day;

us,

Tempest to calms, to sunshine show'rs succeed,
Point the strong thorn, and nurse the noxious weed.
Fast as in thought we reach some happy glade,
A cloud comes by, and chills us with its shade;
We rear the rose, and, as it bursts to bloom,
The canker kills it, or the frosts consume;
On pleasure, pain; on mirth, dejection treads-
Here hope allures, and there her nets she spreads;
Charm follows charm, but still, where'er we go,
The promised rapture takes the tint of woe;
We look behind
and a mist appears,
Veils our gay steps, and fills our path with tears:
We sport, we sigh, smile, weep, and evermore
The bliss grows shorter, and the smart more sore;
Till night sets in, and, as her shadows creep,
Like wearied babes we moan ourselves to sleep.
Still there are intervals for all to know
A rest from care, a breathing-time from woe:
Not always sorrow haunts the pilgrim's view,
Not always duty wears its harshest hue:
The storm whirls seldom all our wealth away,
Some hopes, some joys, still keep th' assaulted spray;
Like a few grapes in vintage-time, like one
Ungathered olive in th' autumnal sun,

Left on its topmost bough, erewhile to shoot
In earth, the germ of more luxuriant fruit.

S

Astronomical Occurrences

In AUGUST 1828.

SOLAR PHENOMENA.

THE Sun will enter Virgo at 36 m. after 5 on the morning of the 23d of this month; and he rises and sets, during the same time, as in the following

TABLE

Of the Sun's Rising and Setting for every fifth Day. August 1st, Sun rises 18 m. after 4. Sets 42 m. past 7

6th

11th

26

35

34

25

TOTT

16th

.....

44

4

7

4

16

7

53

4

7

7

26th

2

5

58

6

.....

31st

5

21st

Equation of Time.

To find mean time from apparent, the numbers in the following Table must be added to the latter for the noon of each day it contains; and for the intermediate days, those to be used must be obtained as already directed:

TABLE

Of the Equation of Time for every fifth Day.

m. 5.

Friday, August 1st, to the time by the dial add 5 57

Moon's Passage over the Meridian.

The most convenient times for observing the Moon's transits during this month, if the weather prove favourable, will be the following: viz.

August 1st, at 32 m. past 4 in the morning

2d

3d

4th

22

5

......

Time of High Water at London, for every fifth Day. In addition to the times stated in the following Table, we must refer to the Occurrences in January for finding those of other days and other places.

This planet now is scarcely visible, as her illuminated disk is so extremely narrow; the following being the proportion of the light and dark parts at this time:

Eclipses of Jupiter's Satellites.

Only two of these eclipses will be visible this month, which are the following: viz.

Emersion.

First Satellite, 24th day, at 3 m. 33 s. after 8 in the evening Immersion.

Second Satellite, 6th

......

50 m. 47 s. after 8 in the evening

Conjunction of the Moon with the Planets and Stars. August 17th, with Jupiter at 5 in the morning 8 in Capricorn 6

23d

....

Other Phenomena.

Mercury and Mars will both be stationary on the 3d of this month. Mercury will attain his greatest elongation on the 12th, and Venus will be stationary on the 18th. Mercury will be in conjunction with in Cancer at 3 in the morning of the 17th, and again with a in Leo, at 10 in the evening of the 28th.

The following Sonnet is admirably descriptive of many of the still evenings of this month:

SONNET.-NOCHE SERENA.

[By Delta of Blackwood's Magazine]

How tranquil is the night! the torrent's roar
Dies off far distant; through the lattice streams
The pure, white, silvery moonshine, mantling o'er
The couch and curtains with its fairy gleams.
Sweet is the prospect; sweeter are the dreams
From which my loathful eyelid now unclosed:
Methought beside a forest we reposed,
Marking the summer sun's far western beams,
A dear loved friend and I. The nightingale
To silence and to us her pensive tale
Sang forth the very tone of vanished years
Came o'er me-feeling warm, and visions bright!
Alas! how quick such vision disappears,
To leave the spectral moon and silent night.

The Naturalist's Diary

For AUGUST 1828.

Hark! the ripe and hoary rye,
Waving white and billowy,
Gives a husky rustle, as

Fitful breezes fluttering pass.
See the brown and bending wheat
By its posture seems to meet
The harvest's sickle, as it gleams
Like the crescent moon in streams,
Brown with shade and night, that run
Under shores and forests dun.

C. WEBBE.

THE various kinds of grain are generally ripened in this month by the powerful influence of the solar ray; and as every month has its peculiar beauties, so August has its fields of waving corn, its groups of nutbrown reapers, and its cheerful HARVEST-HOME. See our previous volumes for an account of many curious ceremonies at this season.--In the greater part of the country churches in France, an offering is made of the first sheaf of corn that is cut. These first-fruits of the harvest are variously ornamented with ingenious devices in straw; and the sheaf is almost always surmounted by a cross made of the same material. In the department of the Maine and Loire, and even in La Vendée, the following ceremonies are still practised at harvest-home :-In these countries, it must be observed, the whole of the grain is threshed in the open air, immediately it is taken from the field; consequently a great number of labourers are required, that all the sheaves may be threshed, and the grain promptly housed. When a single sheaf only remains, the labourers collect together, and with their flails in one hand, and nosegays in the other, they come to the master, carrying an arm-chair decked with flowers. They announce to him that one sheaf only remains, but it is so heavy