



Produced by Chris Curnow, S.D., and the Online Distributed
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  MIRROR

  OF

  THE MONTHS.


  Delectando pariterque monendo.


  LONDON:

  PRINTED FOR GEO. B. WHITTAKER,
  AVE-MARIA-LANE.

  1826.




CONTENTS.


                  Page

  PREFACE.           v
  JANUARY.           1
  FEBRUARY.         23
  MARCH.            43
  APRIL.            57
  MAY.              87
  JUNE.            111
  JULY.            145
  AUGUST.          169
  SEPTEMBER.       197
  OCTOBER.         215
  NOVEMBER.        237
  DECEMBER.        257




PREFACE.


As the first few pages of this little volume will sufficiently explain
its purport, the reader would not have been troubled with any prefatory
remarks, but that, since its commencement, two existing works have been
pointed out to me, the plans of which are, in one respect, similar to
mine: I allude to the Natural History of the Year, by the late Dr. Aikin
and his Son; and The Months, by Mr. Leigh Hunt.

I will not affect any obligations to these agreeable little works, (I
mean as a writer); because I feel none; and I mention them here, only to
add, that if, on perusing them, either, or both united, had seemed to
supersede what I proposed to myself in mine, I should immediately have
abandoned my intention of writing it. But the above-named works, in the
first place, relate to country matters exclusively. In the next place,
the first of them details those matters in the form of a dry calendar,
professedly made up from other calendars which previously existed, and
_not_ from actual observation; and the second merely throws gleams of
its writer's agreeable genius over such of those matters as are most
susceptible of that treatment: while both occupy no little portion of
their space by quotations, sufficiently appropriate no doubt, but from
poets whose works are in everybody's hands.

THE MIRROR OF THE MONTHS, therefore, does not interfere with the
abovenamed works, nor do they with it. It is in substance, though
certainly not in form, a Calendar of the various events and appearances
connected with a Country and a London life, during each successive Month
of the Year. And it endeavours to impress upon the memory such of its
information as seems best worth retaining, by either placing it in a
_picturesque_ point of view, or by connecting it with some association,
often purely accidental, and not seldom extravagant perhaps, but not the
less likely to answer its end, if it succeed in changing mere dry
information into amusement.

I may perhaps be allowed to add, in extenuation of the errors and
deficiencies of this little volume, that it has been written entirely
from the personal observations of one who uses no note-book but that
which Nature writes for him in the tablets of his memory; and that when
printed books have been turned to at all, it has only been with a view
to solve any doubt that he might feel, as to the exact period of any
particular event or appearance.

It is also proper to mention, that the four first Months have appeared
in a periodical work. In fact, it was the favourable reception they met
with there which induced the careful re-writing of them, and the
appearance of the whole under their present form.




MIRROR OF THE MONTHS.




JANUARY.


Those "Cynthias of a minute," the Months, fleet past us so swiftly, that
though we never mistake them while they are present with us, yet the
moment any one of them is gone by, we begin to blend the recollection of
its features with those of the one which preceded it, or that which has
taken its place, and thus confuse them together till we know not "which
is which." And then, to mend the matter, when the whole of them have
danced their graceful round, hand in hand, before us, not being able to
think of either separately, we unite them all together in our
imagination, and call them the Past Year; as we gather flowers into a
bunch, and call them a bouquet.

Now this should not be. Each one of the sweet sisterhood has features
sufficiently marked and distinct to entitle her to a place and a name;
and if we mistake these features, and attribute those of any one to any
other, it is because we look at them with a cold and uninterested, and
therefore an inobservant regard. The lover of Julie could trace fifty
minute particulars which were wanting in the portrait of his mistress;
though to any one else it would have appeared a likeness: for, to common
observers, "a likeness" means merely a something which is not so
absolutely _un_like but what it is capable of calling up the idea of the
original, to those who are intimately acquainted with it.

Now, I have been for a long while past accustomed to feel towards the
common portraits of the Months, of which so many are extant, what St.
Preux did towards that of his mistress: all I could ever discover in
them was the particulars in which they were _not_ like. Still I had
never ventured to ask the favour of either of them to sit to me for her
picture; having seen that it was the very nature of them to be for ever
changing, and that, therefore, to attempt to _fix_ them, would be to
trace the outline of a sound, or give the colour of a perfume.

At length, however, my unwearied attendance on them, in their yearly
passage past me, and the assiduous court that I have always paid to each
and all of their charms, has met with its reward: for there is this
especial difference between them and all other mistresses whatever,
that, so far from being jealous of each other, their sole ground of
complaint against their lovers is, that they do not pay equal devotion
to each in her turn; the blooming MAY and the blushing JUNE disdain the
vows of those votaries who have not previously wept at the feet of the
weeping APRIL, or sighed in unison with the sad breath of MARCH. And it
is the same with all the rest. They present a sweet emblem of the
_ideal_ of a happy and united human family; to each member of which the
best proof you can offer that you are worthy of _her_ love, is, that you
have gained that of her sisters; and to whom the best evidence you can
give of being able to love either worthily, is, that you love all. This,
I say, has been the kind of court that I have paid to the Months--loving
each in all, and all in each. And my reward (in addition to that of the
love itself--which is a "virtue," and therefore "its own reward") has
been that each has condescended to watch over and instruct me, while I
wrote down the particulars of her brief but immortal life--immortal,
because ever renewed, and bearing the seeds of its renewal within
itself.

These instructions, however, were accompanied by certain conditions,
without complying with which I am not permitted to make the results
available to any one but myself. For my own private satisfaction I have
liberty to personify the objects of my admiration under any form I
please; but if I speak of them to others, they insist on being treated
merely as portions or periods of their beautiful parent the YEAR, as
_she_ is a portion of TIME, the great parent of all things; and that the
facts and events I may have to refer to, shall not be essentially
connected with _them_, but merely be considered as taking place during
the period of their sojourn on the earth respectively.

I confess that this condition seems to savour a little of the
fastidious, not to say the affected. And, what is still more certain, it
cuts me off from a most fertile source of the poetical and the
picturesque. I will frankly add, however, that I am not without my
suspicions that this latter may have been the very reason why this
condition was imposed upon me; for I am by no means certain that, if I
had been left to myself, I should not have substituted cold abstractions
and unintelligible fictions (or what would have seemed such to others),
in the place of that simple _information_ which it is my chief object to
convey.

Laying aside, then, if I can, all ornamental figures of speech, I shall
proceed to place before the reader, in plain prose, the principal events
which happen, in the two worlds of Nature and of Art, during the life
and reign of each month; beginning with the nominal beginning of the
dynasty, and continuing to present, on the birthday of each member of
it, a record of the beauties which she brings in her train, and the good
deeds which she either inspires or performs.

Hail! then, hail to thee, JANUARY!--all hail! cold and wintry as thou
art, if it be but in virtue of thy first day. THE DAY, as the French
call it, par excellence; "Le jour de l'an." Come about me, all ye little
schoolboys, that have escaped from the unnatural thraldom of your
taskwork--come crowding about me, with your untamed hearts shouting in
your unmodulated voices, and your happy spirits dancing an untaught
measure in your eyes!