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.