---------- Ling’ring on the verge of Spring, Retires reluctant, and from time to time Looks back, while at his keen and chilling breath Fair Flora sickens. ~March 1.~ _St. David_, Archbishop, A. D. 544. _St. Swidbert_, or _Swibert_, A. D. 713. _St. Albinus_, Bishop, A. D. 549. _St. Monan_, A. D. 874. ST. DAVID. _Patron of Wales._ St. David, or, in Welch, Dewid, was son of Xantus, prince of Cardiganshire, brought up a priest, became an ascetic in the Isle of Wight, afterwards preached to the Britons, founded twelve monasteries, ate only bread and vegetables, and drank milk and water. A synod being called at Brevy, in Cardiganshire, A. D. 519, in order to suppress the heresy of Pelagius, “St. David confuted and silenced the infernal monster by his learning, eloquence, and miracles.” After the synod, St. Dubritius, archbishop of Caerleon, resigned his see to St. David, which see is now called St. David’s. He died in 544. St. Kentigern saw his soul borne by angels to heaven; his body was in the church of St. Andrew. In 962, his relics were translated to Glastonbury.[13] Butler conceals that St. David’s mother was not married to his father, but Cressy tells the story out, and that his birth was prophecied of thirty years before it happened. One of the miracles alleged of St. David is, that at the anti-Pelagian synod he restored a child to life, ordered it to spread a napkin under his feet, and made an oration; that a snow white dove descended from heaven and sat on his shoulders; and that the ground whereon he stood rose under him till it became a hill, “on the top of which hill a church was afterwards built, which remains to this day.” He assembled a provincial synod to confirm the decrees of Brevy; and wrote the proceedings of both synods for preservation in his own church, and to be sent to the other churches of the province; but they were lost by age, negligence, and the incursions of pirates, who almost every summer came in long boats from the Orkneys, and wasted the coasts of Cambria. He invited St. Kined to this synod, who answered that he had grown crooked, distorted, and too weak for the journey; whereupon ensued “a double miracle,” for “St. Kined having been restored to health and straightness by the prayers of St. David, by his own prayers he was reduced again to his former infirmity and crookedness.” After this synod he journeyed to the monastery of Glastonbury, which he had built there and consecrated, with intent to repair it, and consecrate it again; whereupon “our Lord appearing to him in his sleep, and forbidding him to profane the sacred ceremony before performed, he, in testimony, with his finger pierced a hole in the bishop’s hand, which remained open to the view of all men till the end of the next day’s mass.” Before his death “the angel of the lord appeared to him, and said to him, Prepare thyself.” Again: “When the hour of his departure was come, our Lord Jesus Christ vouchsafed his