Some one has said of the Scotch novels, that that is the best which we
happen to have perused last. It is thus that I estimate the relative
value and virtue of the Months. The one which happens to be present with
me is sure to be that one which I happen to like better than any of the
others. I lately insisted on the supremacy of January on various
accounts. Now I have a similar claim to put in in favour of the next in
succession. And it shall go hard but I will prove, to the entire
satisfaction of all whom it may concern, that each in her turn is,
beyond comparison, the "wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best." Indeed
I doubt whether, on consideration, any one (but a Scotch philosopher)
will be inclined to dispute the truth of this, even as a logical
proposition, much less as a sentiment. The time present is the best of
all possible times, _because_ it is present--because it _is_--because
it is something; whereas all other times are nothing. The time present,
therefore, is essentially better than any other time, in the proportion
of something to nothing. I hope this be logic; or metaphysics at the
least. If the reader determines otherwise, "he may kill the next Percy
himself!" In the mean time (and _that_, by the by, is the best time next
to the present, in virtue of its skill in connecting together two
refractory periods)--in the mean time, let us search for another and a
better reason why every one of the Months is, in its turn, the best. The
cleverest Scotch philosopher that ever lived has said, in a memoir of
his own life, that a man had better be born with a disposition to look
on the bright side of things, than to an estate of ten thousand a year.
He might have gone further, and said that the disposition to which he
alludes is worth almost as much to a man as being compelled and able to
earn an honest livelihood by the sweat of his brow! Nay, he might almost
have asserted that, with such a disposition, a man may chance to be
happy even though he be born to an estate of _twenty_ thousand a year!
But I, not being (thank my stars!) a Scotch or any other philosopher,
will venture to go still farther, and say, that to be able to look at
things _as they are_, is best of all. To him who can do this, all is as
it should be--all things work together for good--whatever is, is right.
To him who can do this, the present time is all-sufficient, or rather it
is all in all; for if he cannot enjoy any other, it is because no other
is susceptible of being enjoyed, except through the medium of the
present.
From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step. Consequently, from the
ridiculous to the sublime must be about the same distance. In other
words, the transition from metaphysics to love is easy; as Mr.
Coleridge's writings can amply testify. Hail! then, February! month and
mother of Love! Not that love which requires the sun of midsummer to
foster it into life; and is so restless and fugitive that nothing can
hold it but bands made of bright eye-beams; and so dainty that it must
be fed on rose-leaves; and so proud and fantastical that bowers of
jasmine and honeysuckle are not good enough for it to dwell in, or the
green turf soft enough for its feet to press, but it must sit beneath
silken canopies, and tread on Turkey carpets, and breathe the breath of
pastiles; and so chilly that it must pass all its nights within a
gentle bosom, or it dies. Not _this_ love; but its infant cousin, that
starts into life on cold Saint Valentine's morning, and sits by the fire
rocking its own cradle, and listening all day long for the "sweet
thunder" of the twopenny postman's knock!--Hail! February! Virgin mother
of this love of all loves, which dies almost the day that it is born,
and yet leaves the odour of its sweetness upon the whole after life of
those who were not too wise to admit it for a moment to their embraces!
The sage reader must not begrudge me these innocent little rhapsodies.
He must remember that all are not so wise and staid as he; and as in
January he permitted me to be, for a moment, a ranting schoolboy, so in
February he must not object to my reminding him that there are such
persons in the world as young ladies who have not yet finished their
education! He must not insist that, "because _he_ is virtuous, there
shall be no more cakes and ale." Besides, to be candid, I do not see
that it is quite fair to complain of us anonymous writers, even if we do
occasionally insinuate into our lucubrations a few lines that are
directed to our own exclusive satisfaction. In fact, the privilege of
writing nonsense now and then is the sweetest source of our emolument,
and one which, if our readers attempt to cut us off from altogether,
they may rest assured that we shall very soon _strike_, and demand
higher pay in other respects than those only true patrons of literature,
the booksellers, can afford to give; for if a man is always to write
sense and reason, he might as well turn _author_ at once,--which we
"gentlemen who write with ease" flatter ourselves that none of us are. I
put it to the candour of Mr. Whittaker himself, whether, if I would
consent to place my name in the corner of each of these portraits of the
Months (_so and so pinxit_, 1825), he would not willingly give me double
price for them, and reckon upon remunerating himself from the purchaser
in proportion? Then let him use his interest with the critics to allow
me but half a page of nonsense in each paper, and I consent to forego
all this profit. As for the fame, I am content to leave posterity in the
lurch, and live only till I die.
Having now expended _my_ portion of this paper, I shall henceforth
willingly "keep bounds" till the next month; to which end, however, I
must be permitted to call in the aid of my able suggestive, Now.
Now, the Christmas holidays are over, and all the snow in Russia could
not make the first Monday in this month look any other than _black_, in
the home-loving eyes of little schoolboys; and the streets of London are
once more evacuated of happy wondering faces, that look any way but
straight before them; and sobs are heard, and sorrowful faces seen to
issue from sundry postchaises that carry sixteen inside, exclusive of
cakes and boxes; and theatres are no longer conscious of unconscious
_eclats de rire_, but the whole audience is like Mr. Wordsworth's cloud,
"which moveth altogether, if it move at all."
_En revanche_, now newspaper editors begin to think of disporting
themselves; for the great national school for "children of a larger
growth" is met in Saint Stephen's Chapel, "for the _despatch_ of
business" and of time; and consequently newspapers have become a
nonentity; and those writers who are "constant readers" find their
occupation gone.
Now, the stones of Bond Street dance for joy, while they "prate of the
whereabout" of innumerable wheels; which latter are so happy to meet
again after a long absence, that they rush into each other's embraces,
"wheel within wheel," and there's no getting them asunder.
Now, the Italian Opera is open, and the house is full; but if asked on
the subject, you may safely say that "nobody was there;" for the _flats_
that you meet with in the pit evidently indicate that their wearers
appertain to certain counters and counting-houses in the city, or serve
those that do--having "received orders" for the Opera in the way of
their business.
Now, a sudden thaw, after a week's frost, puts the pedestrians of
Cheapside into a pretty pickle.
Now, the _trottoir_ of St. James's Street begins to know itself again;
the steps of Raggett's are proud of being pressed by right honourable
feet; and _the dandies' watch-tower_ is once more peopled with playful
peers, peering after beautiful frailties in furred pelisses.
Now, on fine Sundays, the citizens and their wives begin to hie them to
Hyde Park, and having attained Wellington Walk, fancy that there is not
more than two pins to choose between them and their betters on the other
side the rail; while these latter, having come abroad to take the air
(of the insides of their carriages), and kill the time, and cure the
vapours, permit inquisitive equestrians to gaze at them through
plate-glass, and fancy, not without reason, that they look like flowers
seen through flowing water: Lady O----, for example, like an overblown
rose; Lady H----, like a painted-lady pea; the Countess of B----, like a
newly-opened apple-blossom; and her demure-looking little sister beside
her, like a _prim_-rose.
Now, winter being only on the wane, and spring only on the approach,
Fashion, for once in the year, begins to feel herself in a state of
interregnum, and her ministers, the milliners and tailors, don't know
what to think. Mrs. Bean shakes her head like Lord Burleigh, and
declines to determine as to what may be the fate of future waists; and
Mr. Stultz is equally cautious of committing himself in the affair of
collars; and both agree in coming to the same conclusion with the
statesman in Tom Thumb, that, "as near as they can guess, they cannot
tell!" Now, therefore, the fashionable shops are shorn of their beams,
and none can show wares that are strictly in season, except the
stationer's. But _his_, which for all the rest of the year is dullest of
the dull, is now, for the first fourteen days, gayest of the gay; for
here the poetry of love, and the love of poetry, are displayed under all
possible and impossible forms and metaphors,--from little cupids
creeping out of cabbage-roses, to large overgrown hearts stuffed with
double-headed arrows, and uttering piteous complaints in verse, while
they fry in their own flames. And this brings us safe back to the point
from which we somewhat prematurely set out; for Now, on good Saint
Valentine's eve, all the rising generation of this metropolis, who feel
that they have reached the age of _in_discretion, think it full time for
them to fall in love, or be fallen in love with. Accordingly, infinite
are the crow-quills that move mincingly between embossed margins,
"And those _rhyme_ now who never rhymed before,
And those who always rhymed now rhyme the more;"
to the utter dismay of the newly-appointed twopenny postman the next
morning; who curses Saint Valentine almost as bitterly as does, in her
secret heart, yonder sulky sempstress, who has not been called upon for
a single twopence out of all the two hundred thousand[1] extra ones
that have been drawn from willing pockets, and dropped into canvas bags,
on this eventful day. She may take my word for it that the said
sulkiness, which has some show of reason in it to-day, is in the habit
of visiting her pretty face oftener than it is called for. If it were
not so, she would not have had cause for it now.
[1] This was the number of letters that passed through the Twopenny
Post-Office on the 14th of February, 1821, in addition to the usual
daily average.--See the official returns.
But good Bishop Valentine is a pluralist, and holds another see besides
that of London:
"All the air is his diocese,
And all the chirping choristers
And other birds are his parishioners:
He marries every year
The lyrique lark, and the grave whispering dove;
The sparrow, that neglects his life for love;
The household bird with the red stomacher;
He makes the blackbird speed as soon
As doth the goldfinch or the halcyon."
Let us be off to the country without more ado; for who can stay in
London in the face of such epithets as these, that seem to compel us,
with their sweet magic, to go in search of the sounds and sights that
they characterise? "The _lyric_ lark!" Why a modern poet might live for
a whole season on that one epithet! Nay, there be those that _have_
lived on it for a longer time, perhaps without knowing that it did not
belong to them!--"The sparrow that _neglects his life for love_!" "The
_household_ bird, _with the red stomacher_!"--That a poet who could
write in this manner, for pages together, should be almost entirely
unknown to modern _readers_ (except to those of a late number of the
Retrospective Review), would be somewhat astonishing, if it were not for
the consideration that he is so well known to modern _writers_! It would
be doing both parties justice if some one would point out a few of the
_coincidences_ that occur between them. In the mean time, _we_ shall be
doing better in looking abroad for ourselves into that nature to which
_he_ looked, and seeing what she offers worthy of particular
observation, in the course of this last month of winter in the Country,
though it is the first in London. Not that we shall, as yet, find much
to attract our attention in regard to the movements of the above-named
"parishioners" of good Bishop Valentine; for though he gives them full
authority to marry now as soon as they please, Frost forbids the bans
for the present; and when there is no love going forward in the
feathered world, there is little or no singing. On the contrary, even
the pert sparrows still go moping and sulking about silently, or sit
with ruffled plumes and drooping wings, upon the bare branches,
watching all day long for their scanty dole of crums, and thinking of
nothing else. The "lyric lark," indeed, may already be heard; the thrush
and blackbird begin to practise their spring notes faintly; and the
yellow-hammer, the chaffinch, and the wren, utter a single stanza or so,
at long intervals: but all this can scarcely be called singing, but
rather talking of it; for
"I shall not ask Jean Jacques Rousseau
If birds confabulate, or no;"
but shall determine at once that they do; at least if any dependence can
be placed on eyes and ears. In short, the only bird that really _is_ a
bird this month, is he "with the red stomacher." And he, with his low
plaintive piping, his silent spirit-like motions, and sudden and
mysterious appearings and disappearings,--coming in an instant before us
no one can tell whence, and going as silently and as suddenly no one
knows whither,--and, above all, his sweet and pert, yet timid confidence
in man--all these, to those who are happy enough to have nothing better
to do than to watch them, almost make up for the absence of all his
blithe brethren.
As for the general face of nature, we shall find _that_ in much the
same apparent state as we left it last month. And we must look into its
individual features very minutely, if we would discover any change even
in them. The trees are still utterly bare; the skies are cold and gray;
the paths and ways are, for the most part, dank and miry; and the air is
either damp and clinging, or bitter, eager, and shrewd. But then what
days of soft air and sunshine, and unbroken blue sky, do now and then
intervene, and transport us into the very heart of May, and make us look
about and wonder what is become of the green leaves and the flowers!
Now, hard frosts, if they come at all, are followed by sudden thaws; and
now, therefore, if ever, the mysterious old song of our school days
stands a chance of being verified, which sings of
"Three children sliding on the ice
All on a _summer's_ day!"
Now, the labour of the husbandman recommences; and it is pleasant to
watch (from your library window) the plough-team moving almost
imperceptibly along, upon the distant upland that the bare trees have
disclosed to you. And now, by the way, if you are wise, you will get
acquainted with all the little spots that are thus, by the bareness of
the trees, laid open to you, in order that, when the summer comes, and
you cannot _look at_ them, you may be able to _see_ them still.
But we must not neglect the garden; for though "Nature's journeymen,"
the gardeners, are undergoing an ignoble leisure this month, it is not
so with Nature herself. She is as busy as ever, if not openly and
obviously, secretly, and in the hearts of her sweet subjects the
flowers; stirring them up to that rich rivalry of beauty which is to
greet the first footsteps of Spring, and teaching them to prepare
themselves for her advent, as young maidens prepare, months beforehand,
for the marriage festival of some dear friend.
If the flowers think and feel (and he who dares to say that they do not
is either a fool or a philosopher--let him choose between the
imputations!)--if the flowers think and feel, what a commotion must be
working within their silent hearts, when the pinions of Winter begin to
grow, and indicate that he is at least meditating his flight! Then do
_they_, too, begin to meditate on May-day, and think on the delight with
which they shall once more breathe the fresh air, when they have leave
to escape from their subterranean prisons; for now, towards the latter
end of this month, they are all of them at least awake from their winter
slumbers, and most are busily working at their gay toilets, and weaving
their fantastic robes, and shaping their trim forms, and distilling
their rich essences, and, in short, getting ready in all things, that
they may be duly prepared to join the bright procession of beauty that
is to greet and glorify the annual coming on of their sovereign lady,
the Spring. It is true none of all this can be seen. But what a race
should we be, if we knew and cared to know of nothing, but what we can
see and prove!
"Whose mind is but the mind of his own eyes,
He is a slave--the meanest you can meet."
But there is much going on in the garden now that may be seen by "the
naked eye" of those who carefully look for it. The bloom-buds of the
shrubs and fruit-trees are obviously swelling; and the leaves of the
lilac are ready to burst forth at the first favourable call. The
laurestinus still braves the winds and the frosts, and blooms in blithe
defiance of them. So does the China rose, but meekly, and like a maiden
who _will_ not droop though her lover _be_ away; because she knows that
he is true to her, and will soon return.
Now, too, the viable heralds of Spring approach, but do not appear; or
rather, they appear, but have not yet put on their gorgeous tabards or
surcoats of many colours. The tulips are but just showing themselves,
shrouded closely in their sheltering alcoves of dull green. The
hyacinths, too, have sent up their trim fences of green, and are just
peeping up from the midst of them in their green veils,--the cheek of
each flower-bud pressed and clustering against that of its fellow, like
a host of little heads peeping out from the porch of an ivy-bound
cottage, as the London coach passes.
Now, too, those pretty orphans, the crocuses and snowdrops--those
foundlings, that belong neither to Winter nor Spring--show their modest
faces scarcely an inch above the dark earth, as if they were afraid to
rise from it, lest a stray March wind should whistle them away.
Finally, now appear, towards the latter end of the month, those flowers
that actually belong to Spring--that do not either herald her approach,
or follow in her train, but are in fact a part of her, and prove that
she is virtually with us, though she chooses to remain incognita for a
time. The prettiest and most piquant of these in appearance are the
brilliant little Hepaticas, crowding up in sparkling companies from the
midst of their dark ivy-like leaves, and looking more like gems than
flowers.
The next in brilliance are the Anemonies, as gay in their colours, and
more various, but not so profuse of their charms as their pretty
relation Hepatica, and more jealous of each other's beauty; as well they
may, for what flower can vie with them for exquisite delicacy of hue and
elegant fragility?
The primroses, polyanthuses, and daisies that venture to show themselves
this month, we will not greet; not because we are not even more pleased
to see them than their gayer and more gaudy rivals; but the truth is,
that they have no real claim upon our attention till next month, as
their pale hues and weakly forms evidently indicate.
In taking leave of the Country for this month, let me not forget to
mention that sure "prophet of delight and mirth," the Common Pilewort,
or Lesser Celandine; about which (and what more can I say to interest
the reader in its favour?) Mr. Wordsworth has written two whole poems.
Its little yellow stars may now be seen gemming the woodsides, when all
around is cold, comfortless, and dead.
I have said that I designed to prove this to be the best of all possible
months. Is the reader still incredulous as to its surpassing merits?
Then be it known to him that I should insist on its supremacy, if it
were only in virtue of _one_ birthday which it includes: and one that
the reader would never guess, for the best of all reasons. It is _not_
that of "the wisest of mankind," Lord Bacon, on the third; or of "the
starry Galileo," on the nineteenth; or of the "matchless master of high
sounds," Handel, on the twenty-fourth. True February does include all
these memorable days, and let it be valued accordingly. But it includes
another day, which is worth them all _to me_, since it gave to the
world, the narrow world of some half dozen loving hearts, one who is
wiser in her simplicity than the first of the abovenamed, since the
results of that wisdom are virtue and happiness; who is more far-darting
in her mental glance than the second, inasmuch as an instinctive
_sentiment_ of the truth is more infallible than the clearest
_perception_ of it; and whose every thought and look and motion are more
"softly sweet" and musical than all the "Lydian measures" of the third;
and, deprived of whom, those who have once been accustomed to live
within the light of her countenance would find all the wisdom of the
first to be foolishness, all the stars of the second dark, and all the
harmony of the third worse than discord.
Gentlest of readers (for I had need have such), pardon me this one
rhapsody, and I promise to be as "sobersuited" as the editor of an
Encyclopedia, for this two months to come. Nothing, not even the
nightingale's song in the last week in April, shall move me from my
propriety. But I will candidly confess, that the effects of May-day
morning are more than I can venture to answer for. Even the
chimney-sweepers are allowed to disport themselves then; so that when
that arrives, there's no knowing what may happen.