But of late years the spirit of this festival has disappeared. Lately, winter was uncouthly shaped of wood, and being covered with straw, was nailed against a large wheel, and the straw being set on fire, the apparatus was rolled down a steep hill! Agreeably to the intention of its inventors, the blazing wheel was by degrees knocked to pieces, against the precipices below, and then--winter’s effigy, to the admiration of the multitude, split into a thousand fiery fragments. This custom too, merely from the danger attending it, quickly fell into disuse; but still a shadow of the original festivity, which it was meant to commemorate, is preserved amongst the people of Eisenach. “Although” says the writer of these particulars, “we find winter no longer sent into banishment, as in former times, yet an attempt is made to represent and conciliate spring by offerings of nosegays and sprays of evergreen, adorned with birds or eggs, emblematical of the season.” Probably the latter usages may not have been consequent upon the decline of the former, but were coeval in their origin, and are the only remains of ancient customs peculiar to the season. * * * * * FLORAL DIRECTORY. Lent Lily. _Narcissus Pseudonarcissus multiplex._ Dedicated to _St. Colette_. ~March 7.~ _St. Thomas Aquinas_, A. D. 1274. _Sts. Perpetua_ and _Felicitas_, A. D. 203. _St. Paul_, Anchoret. _St. Perpetua._ This saint is in the church of England calendar. She was martyred under the emperor Severus in 205. _St. Paul_ the Anchoret. This saint was “a man of profound ignorance.” Butler says he was named “the simple.” He journeyed eight days into the desert on a visit, and to become a disciple of St. Antony, who told him he was too old, and bade him return home, mind his business, and say his prayers; he shut the door upon him. Paul fasted and prayed before the door till Antony opened it, and out of compassion made a monk of him. One day after he had diligently worked at making mats and hurdles, and prayed without intermission, St. Antony bid him undo his work and do it all over again, which he did, without asking for a morsel of bread though he had been seven days without eating; this was to try Paul’s obedience. Another day when some monks came to Antony for advice, he bid Paul spill a vessel of honey and gather it up without any dust: this was another trial of his obedience. At other times he ordered him to draw water a whole day and pour it out again; to make baskets and pull them to pieces; to sew and unsew garments and the like: these were other trials of his obedience. When Antony had thus exercised him he placed him in a cell three miles from his own, proposed him as a model of obedience to his disciples, sent sick persons to him, and others possessed with the devil, whom he could not cure himself, and “under Paul,” Butler says, “they never failed of a cure.” He died about 330. * * * * *