cies of diabolical and nefarious schedule, drawn up for the purpose of making incantations, enchantments, and other such magical operations, from which they concluded that it could not soon enough be thrown into the fire. Fortunately, however, the proprietor of the castle thought otherwise; he sent it to the Academy of Inscriptions, and M. Lancelot, having found out that it was a perpetual almanack, published in the following year a full description of it. Table 10

This almanack was engraved over on both sides, and each side contained six divisions, exhibiting thus the twelve months of the year. The first six divisions were engraved on the upper side, the remaining on the lower; but at the top of both there were engraved two heads, one of a man, another of a woman, most probably meant to represent the king and queen then reigning. Each division, or month, contains several marks, or dots, corresponding to the number of its days; and opposite many of these dots there is an emblematical sign, shewing the most remarkable feast-days in the year, or at least those for which the contriver of this almanack felt a particular veneration. All these feastdays are of a fixed nature, that is, such as return every year, on the same day, without alteration; and thus it differs from the almanacks of the Greek Church, both in Asia and Russia, a specimen of which has been published at Antwerp in the "Acts of the Saints," under the article of " the month of May;" but it resembles the ancient alma

nacks published in Norway, which Olaüs Rudbeck, in his "Atlantique," calls Primstafs, and in which the principal feast-days were designated by marks and points differing very little from one another.

The most remarkable feature, however, which is to be found in this almanack is, that the divisions, or months, do not run from left to right, but go backward, from right to left. Thus, in the first division, January holds the place where we now should place June; and in the second, July, where we should put December.

Although the figures which mark the feast-days may be the offspring of the author's own fancy, yet they generally have some real or allegorical relation to the object of this feast, or to the character or employment of the person. A cross, for instance, is meant to represent all the mysteries of our Saviour, although varied by further additional circumstances.

We find it, in fact, on the 1st of January, the day of the Circumcision; on the 6th, the day of the Epiphany; on the 3d of May for the invention of the Cross; on the 6th of August for the Transfiguration; on the 14th of September for the exaltation of the Cross; on the 25th of December for the Nativity. The same sign, with different additions, we find as a mark for All Saints' day, on the 1st of November, and for many of the Apostles; such as the 25th of January for the Conversion of St. Paul; on the 24th of February for St. Matthias, and the like.

All the festivals of the Virgin Mary are distinguished by a fleur-de-lys; as on Purification day, the 2d of February; on the Annunciation, the 25th of March; on the 8th of September, the day of the Nativity; on the 8th of December, the day of the Conception. It is equally employed for the feast of St. Mary Magdalen, on the 22d of July, most probably on account of her name of Mary; and on the 26th of the same month, to mark the feast of St. Anne, the mother of the Virgin.

The festivals of those Saints who bore the name of John, are represented by a kind of cup, which is the emblem generally put into the hands of St. John the Evangelist. In this way we find expressed the festival of St. John Chrysostom, on the 27th of January; of St. John the Hermit, on the 27th of March; of St. John Port Latin, on the 6th of May; of the Decollation of St. John the Baptist, on the 27th of June; and on the 27th of December for St. John the Evangelist.

A key represents all the festivals of St. Peter; for instance, on the 29th of June, and on the 1st of August; a gridiron that of St. Laurence, on the 10th of August; a bundle of arrows that of St. Sebastian, on the 20th of January; and a species of scraper, very much resembling the instrument used by tanners to peel skins, to exhibit the festival of St. Bartholomew, on the 24th of August.

To distinguish the female Saints, who died virgins and martyrs, the author has employed a species of axe, surmounted by three sharp points. We

meet with this mark on the 21st of January, the day of St. Agnes; on the 5th of February, the day of St. Agatha; on the 9th of the same month, for St. Apollina; on the 16th of June, for St. Judith; on the 2d of November, for St. Cecilia; and the like.

The popes, the bishops, the abbots, and, indeed, all clergymen, are designed by a cross. Those intended for popes and bishops are more complicated, and more bent; the others more simple and more straight. Of the more simple sort is that on the 12th of March, the festival of St. Paul, who was the first bishop of Leon; on the 31st of December, the festival of St. Silvester; and the like.

Of the second, or more complicated sort, is the mark opposite the 21st of June, the festival of St. Meen, the abbot of St. Malo; opposite the 22d of August, for St. Philbert, abbot of Tumiège. Sometimes this same cross is turned the contrary way, as on the 13th of January, the feast of St. Hilary, bishop of Poitier; on the 4th of November, for St. Melaine, bishop of Rennes. To some prelates, however, our author has granted different marks; such are, for instance, those to express the two festivals of St. Martin, on the 4th of July, and the 11th of November, which is a kind of episcopal crosier; whilst those of St. Nicholas, of the 9th of May, and the 6th of December, look very much like the upper part of the capital letter B.

Some of the signs, however, are very curious.

Those expressed to signify the festivals of St. Anthony, on the 17th of January, and on the 13th of June, are a kind of half-circle, furnished inside with sharp points; while those employed for the two apparitions of St. Michael, on the 29th of September, and 16th of October, consist of three straight lines, two of which, having a ring at each end, hang right and left from the one which lies in the middle. Whether such a sign was meant to signify the wings with which this archangel is generally represented, or to make an allusion to the employment of weighing the souls of men, which some painters have attributed to him, it is impossible for me to decide. And it is equally impossible to explain the sort of bird which we find on the 18th of October, to express the day of St. Luke the Evangelist; unless we should have recourse to the French proverb of "L'oiseau de S. Luc," the origin and signification of which I do not feel myself authorized to state in this place.

Of the same sort is the mark employed to signify All Souls' day, on the 2nd of November, and the day of the Innocents, on the 28th of December.

Such is this curious almanack, which, at the time it was found, produced so much alarm, and created so much curiosity, as to engage the attention of one of the first learned societies of Europe.

To return now to our subject. From these facts, and from others, which I shall by and by produce of the Chinese, I have a right to conclude