Schenekins relates the history of a certain noble gentlewoman, about sixteen or seventeen years of age, who would expose her bare head to the fervent heat of the sun daily, for some hours, that she might obtain long and yellow hair, by anointing it with a certain unguent; and although she obtained the effect she desired, yet she consequently procured to herself a violent headache, and bled every day abundantly through the nose. Another maiden, also, by using this same art, became almost blind with sore eyes. Painting the hair blue or red, has been anciently noted by many poets, who took occasion to describe it, as may be seen in Pliny and Ovid. This yellow hair was esteemed so great a rarity, that oftentimes, also, the natural crop was shaven off, and a yellow periwig clapped on instead; this Martial happily ridicules: The golden hair that Galla wears, Is hers――who would have thought it? She swears ’tis hers――and true she swears, For I――know where she bought it. This, indeed, is carried to a great extent in the Low Countries, where the Jewish women, who are all black-haired by nature, wear great yellow periwigs instead,――golden-haired Dutch Venuses. [Illustration] April. This second month of spring derives its name from the Latin word _Aperio_, to open, in allusion to the opening of the flowers, or the opening of the earth to receive the seed. Its zodiacal sign is Taurus, which the sun enters on the 20th day of the month. It is true that in April the flowers do not always begin to open, at least among us; but in Italy, and France, and England, and also in the more southern parts of our country, it is a month of buds and blossoms. It is the time for setting out trees and shrubs; for ploughing the fields, and getting the gardens ready for seed. As this is a season which seems expressly made for the husbandman, let us quote a passage we have met with in relation to him. “The farmer is a lucky man; he is subject to few cares, diseases or changes. He holds in fee a certain part of this planet, running from the surface down to the centre, together with the atmosphere above it; and if any man should build a tower overhanging his line by a single brick, though a thousand feet in the air, it may be abated as a nuisance. It is a great thing to have a legal and equitable title to a portion of earth, to cultivate it, and to owe a support to the application of strength, rather than the misapplication of wit. The farmer is independent of all but Providence――he calls no man master. ‘He would not flatter Neptune for his pitchfork.’