When JULIUS CESAR introduced the Bissex tile, or intercalary day, to regulate the method of keeping time as nearly as possible to the course of the sun, it was intended that this day should have been added at the end of every fourth year; but the priests, who had been the authors of the old confusion in the calendar, either through ignorance or by design, interposed the leap day at the beginning of every fourth year. This error OCTAVIUS CAESAR rectified, and thus, by following the steps of JULIUS CAESAR, gave the pretext for his name being alike honoured in the register of time.

It was originally proposed that SEPTEMBER should bear the name of AUGUSTUS, from the circumstance of his having been born in that month. That emperor, however, was led to prefer SEXTILIS, not only as it stood immediately next to JULY, recently named after JULIUS, but more especially for the reasons which influenced the senate when they deliberated on the matter, as detailed by MACROBIUS: "It was in the month hitherto called SEXTILIS, that the emperor CESAR AUGUSTUS took possession of his first consulship; that he celebrated three triumphs; that he received the oath of allegiance of the legions that occupied the Janiculum; that he reduced EGYPT under the power of the Roman people; that he put an end to all civil wars; it appears that this month is and has been a most happy month to this empire; the senate therefore ordains, that this month shall

henceforth be called AUGUSTUS."-The month SEXTILIS was accordingly named AUGUSTUS, whence our AUGUST, a title which was conferred upon OCTAVIUS when the senate placed the sovereign power in his hands, to denote his royal and important situation.

AUGUSTUS, ambitious that the month thus preferred should not consist of less days than the one to which JULIUS had given name, added to it the 31st day, which he took from February; and having thereby disordered August and the four succeeding months, which before consisted of 30 and 31 days successively, making July, August, and September, all have 31 days, he changed the former ordination, and depriving September and November each of one day, assigned them to October and December.

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This month was called, by the Anglo-Saxons, Arn-Monat (more rightly Barn-Monat), intending thereby the then filling of their barnes with corne;” and Dead afterwards Weod-monath: each bearing the like signification; the Saxon Peod being expressive of a full covering of cloathing, and originally allusive to the corn on the ground; and our English word weed, as well as the Saxon Dead, being both derived from peod; which latter, an expression yet in common use, of widow being in her mourning-weeds, or garments, fully confirms. That corn too was the cloathing of the earth, which gave the Saxon appellative to the month, is perfectly consistent with propriety,

from the several harvests then arriving at maturity, which would afford a much more important character of the period than that of the growth of weeds, as some authors explain that name. And it is to be remembered, that not only was this month dedicated by the Romans to CERES, the Goddess of Corn and Harvests, but that all nations regarded the harvest and vintage seasons, with particular demonstrations of festivity. We yet say, "A man has made his harvest, &c." when we would imply that he has been successful; and the French have a proverb of the same tendency, though differently expressed, "A man has made his august, &c." which latter expression proves August to have been the acknowledged time of in-gathering; although the Saxons, when they altered the title of this month to Weod-monath, or the month of weeds, expressly called September their harvest monath.

The drawings that are to be found in the Saxon calendars characterize AUGUST by the appearance of a carter standing near a loaded cart of corn, &c. In later times, men mowing grass was the emblem of the month; and still nearer our own period, but of old date, August was delineated as a young man with a fierce countenance, dressed in a flame-coloured garment, bearing a victim, and crowned with a garland of wheat; having on his arm a basket of summer-fruits, and a sickle stuck through his belt.

The sign of the zodiac, which the sun reaches on the 23d day of this month, is Virgo, the Virgin, or a representation of a young woman; considered as an appropriate type of the increase of the human race, and as such, peculiarly expressive of the fruits of the earth being then brought to perfection.

September

was dedicated by the Romans to VULCAN, and was originally, as its name denotes, the seventh month of the year in the Latin and Roman calendars, though it is the ninth in our present series of months. The word is composed from Septem, seven, and a contraction of Imber, a shower of rain, this month having been considered as the commencement of the showery or rainy season.

In the Alban calendar it consisted of 16 days; ROMULUS assigned to it 30 days, which were continued at Numa's reform; JULIUS CÆSAR added to it one more, but AUGUSTUS CÆSAR reduced it again to 30, at which it has ever since remained.

The senate of Rome, in the time of TIBERIUS, the Third Emperor and immediate successor of AUGUSTUS, were desirous of naming this month

TIBERIUS, out of compliment to that sovereign; but he declined the proffered honour, with the hypocritical and delusive modesty so truly characteristic of that deceitful and sanguinary tyrant. DOMITIAN, the twelfth Emperor, did actually change the appellation of this month to GERMANICUS, (the surname he had assumed,) in perpetuation of his *pretended victory over the Catti, a people of Germany; but it held that altered title only a very short period. It was afterwards called ANTONINUS, out of respect to TITUS ANTONINUS, the sixteenth emperor, surnamed Pius, whose virtues had rendered him an object of universal esteem. That odious miscreant COMMODUS, the eighteenth emperor, called it Herculeus, a surname he had arrogated to himself, as the pretended son of JUPITER; and subsequently TACITUS, the thirty-sixth emperor, was desirous

* The best historians agree that DOMITIAN obtained only trifling and temporary advantages over the Catti; retiring almost the instant after coming into combat with that hardy race. A splendid TRIUMPH was, however, prepared in honour of this petty warfare; and medals were struck upon the occasion, many of which are yet preserved in the cabinets of the curious, of the date of the year 86, (Cos. XII.) on which are the words GERMANIA S. C. In memory of this falsely assumed victory, coins also had been struck in the preceding year, on one side of which were inscribed, CAES. DOMIT. AVG. COS. XI. CENS. POT. P. P. and on the reverse, the figure of a prisoner sitting, intended to signify Germany, with the words, GERMANIA CAPTA. S. C.

VOL. I.