Verstegan says of our Saxon ancestors, that “the moneth of March they called _Lenct-monat_, that is, according to our new orthography, _Length-moneth_, because the dayes did then first begin in length to exceed the nights. And this moneth being by our ancestors so called when they received Christianity, and consequently therewith the ancient christian custome of fasting, they called this chiefe season of fasting the fast of _Lenct_, because of the _Lenct-monat_, whereon the most part of the time of this fasting alwayes fell; and hereof it cometh that we now cal it _Lent_, it being rather the fast of Lent, thogh the former name of _Lenct-monat_ be long since lost, and the name of March borrowed in stead thereof.” _Lenct_, or _Lent_, however, means _Spring_; hence March was the _Spring_-month. Dr. Sayer says the Saxons likewise called it _Rhed-monath_, a word derived by some from one of their deities, named Rheda, to whom sacrifices were offered in March; others derive it from _ræd_, the Saxon word for council, March being the month wherein wars or expeditions were usually undertaken by the Gothic tribes. The Saxons also called it _Hlyd-monath_, from _hlyd_, which means stormy, and in this sense March was the _Stormy_ month. No living writer discourses so agreeably on the “Months” as Mr. Leigh Hunt in his little volume bearing that title. He says of March, that--“The animal creation now exhibit unequivocal signs of activity. The farmer extends the exercise of his plough; and, if fair weather continues, begins sowing barley and oats. Bats and reptiles break up their winter sleep: the little smelts or sparlings run up the softened rivers to spawn: the field-fare and woodcock return to their northern quarters; the rooks are all in motion with building and repairing their nests; hens sit; geese and ducks lay; pheasants crow; the ring-dove coos; young lambs come tottering forth in mild weather; the throstle warbles on the top of some naked tree, as if he triumphed over the last lingering of barrenness; and, lastly, forth issues the bee with his vernal trumpet, to tell us that there is news of sunshine and the flowers.--In addition to the last month’s flowers, we now have the crown-imperial, the dog’s-tooth violet, fritillaries, the hyacinth, narcissus, (bending its face like its namesake,) pilewort, scarlet ranunculus, great snow-drop, tulips, (which turned even the Dutch to enthusiasts,) and violets, proverbial for their odour, which were perhaps the favourite flowers of Shakspeare. The passage at the beginning of ‘Twelfth Night,’ in which he compares their scent with the passing sweetness of music is well-known, and probably suggested the beautiful one in lord ‘Bacon’s Essays,’ about the superiority of flowers in the open air, ‘where the scent comes and goes like the warbling of music.’” Now, Winter, dispossessed of storms, and weak from boisterous rage,