nativity

[…] me semeth to be a souerayn wele to Incyte & exhorte men & wymmen to kepe them from slouthe & ydlenesse & to lete to be vnderstonden to suche peple as been not lettered the natyuytees, lyues, the passyons, the myracles and the dethe of the holy saynts […]

You starres that raignd at my natiuitie, / Whose influence hath alloted death and hel, / Now draw vp Faustus like a foggy mist, / Into the intrailes of yon labring cloude, / That when you vomite foorth into the ayre, / My limbes may issue from your smoaky mouthes, / So that my soule may but ascend to heauen: […]

[…] towards the end of dinner […] there is an hymn sung, varied according to the invention of him that composeth it […] but the subject of it is (always) the praises of Adam and Noah and Abraham; whereof the former two peopled the world, and the last was the Father of the Faithful: concluding ever with a thanksgiving for the nativity of our Saviour, in whose birth the births of all are only blessed.

Be it therefore enacted by the authority of this present parliament, that the said statute of repeal, and every thing therein contained […] shall be void and of none effect, from, and after the feast of the Nativity of S. John Baptist, next coming.

He would think of us when he was abroad and in all sorts of places where a daddy might reasonably forget his little boys; he brought us back delightful flat tin soldiers marching, cooking, camping, in oval wood boxes from Paris, and entertaining earthenware Nativities with kings, shepherds, and irrelevant crowds complete, from Italy.

[…] ’tis justly to be apprehended, that persecutions will put a speedy period to the Protestant religion in the place of its nativity.

For a long time I believed the common yarrow to be introduced, as the country had been settled at least ten years before I saw it, but my belief in that is shaken, as I never sent for flowers by friends, when they went to an unknown region, but they inevitably brought yarrow. I have had it sent from Texas, Utah, Pike’s Peak and Long’s Peak, Colorado, and at last from the Alps and Germany; so its nativity is very uncertain.

Much difference of opinion has prevailed with reference to the genuine nativity of this species [Vinca minor] in Britain.