the third season of the year, when the harvest and fruits are gathered in. Autumn is represented, in painting, by a man at perfect age, clothed like the vernal, and likewise girded with a starry girdle; holding in one hand a pair of scales equally poised, with a globe in each; in the other hand, a bunch of divers fruits and grapes. His age denotes the perfection of this season; and the balance, that sign of the zodiac which the sun enters when our autumn begins.

Autumn begins on the day when the sun's meridian distance from the zenith, being on the decrease, is a mean between the greatest and the least; which in these countries is supposed to happen when the sun enters Libra. Its end coincides with the beginning of winter. Several nations have computed the years by autumn; the English Saxons, by winters. Tacitus tells AUX

tells us, the ancient Germans were acquainted with all the other seasons of the year, but had no notion of autumn. Lidya observes of the beginning of the sev- eral seasons of the year, that

Dat Clemente hyemem, dat Petrus ver cathedratus, Efflat Urbanus, autumnat Bartholomaeus.

Autumn has always been reputed an unhealthy season. Tertullian calls it tentator valetudinum; and the satyrift speaks of it in the same light, Autumnus Littine quaestus acerbe.