MARCH, the third month of our modern year, contains thirty-one days. As in the Roman year so in the English ecclesiastical calendar used till 1752 this was the first month, and the legal year commenced on the 25th of March. The Romans called this month Martius, from the god Mars; and it received the name Illyd Monath, i.e., loud or stormy month, from the Anglo-Saxons. In France March was also generally reckoned the first month of the year until 1564, when, by an edict of Charles IX., January was decreed to be thenceforth the first month. Scotland followed the example of France in 1599; but in England the change did not take place before 1752. There is an old saying, common to both England and Scotland, which represents March as borrowing three days from April; thus the last three days of March are called the “borrowing” or the “borrowed days.” In the Complaynt of Scotland we find “the borial blastis of the thre borouing dais of Marche bed chaisset the fragrant Anreise of evyrie fruit-tree far athourt the feildis.” An ancient popular rhyme says

“March borrowit from Averill Three days, aud they were ill;” anl then there is another rhyme which graphically characterizes those three “ill” days in detail :—

“The first, it sail be wind and weet, The next, it sail be snaw and sleet; The third, it sail be sic a freeze, Sall gar the birds stick to the trees.”

There is an old proverb, “A bushel of March dust is worth a king’s ransom.” Dry weather in March is generally favourable to the production of grain on clay lands; and hence a “dusty March” portended a plenteous season; while, on the contrary, a “wet March” frequently proved destructive of both wheat and rye....

MARCHE, a former province of central France, was bounded on the N. by Berri, on the N. E. by Bourbonnais, on the E. by Auvergne, on the S. by Limousin, and on the W. by Angoumois aud Poitou, embracing the greater part of the modern department of Creuse, a considerable portion of Haute-Vienne, and fragments of Charente and Indre. It derived its name from the circumstance of its being the “mark” or boundary between Poitou and Berri; it is sometimes referred to as Marche Limousine. It is first mentioned in history as a separate fief about the middle of the 10th century, when the countship of Marche was committed by Duke William III. of Aquitania to Boso I., count of Limoges and Charroux.

MARCHENA, a town of Spain, in the province of Seville, lies in a sandy valley, not far from the Corbones, a tributary of the Guadalquivir, about 30 miles eastsouth-east from Seville. It is a station on the line by which Seville and Utrera are connected with Osuna and the Cordova-Malaga line. Formerly it was surrounded wdth walls and towers, of which some traces still remain. Among the principal buildings is the palace of the dukes of Arcos (descendants of Ponce de Leon), within the enclosure of which is an ancient Moorish building, now the church of Santa Maria de la Mota, with a tower of considerable architectural merit. The ancient parish church of San Juan, rebuilt in 1490, has five naves. At the eastern end of the town is a sulphur spring which is a place of considerable resort for the cure of cutaneous diseases. The manufactures of the place are unimportant; there is some trade in the wheat, barley, olives, oil, and wine produced in the neighbourhood. The population in 1877 was 13,768. Marchena (the Castra Gemina of Pliny?) was taken from the Moors by St Ferdinand in 1240, and was presented to Ponce de Leon by Ferdinand IV. in 1309.