(Vol. vii., p. 522.)
Your correspondent J. A., jun., invites further contributions on the
subject to which he refers. Though by no means infallible, such prognostics
are not without a measure of truth, founded as they are on habits of close
observation:
1. "Si sol splendescat Maria Purificante
Major erit glacies post festum quam fuit ante."
Rendered thus:
"When on the Purification sun hath shin'd,
The greater part of winter comes behind."
2. "If the sun shines on Easter-day, it shines on Whit
Sunday likewise."
To this I may add the French adage:
"Quel est Vendredi tel Dimanche."
From a MS. now in my possession, dating two centuries back, I extract the
following remarks on "Times and Seasons," as not wholly unconnected with
the present subject:
"Easter-day never falleth lower than the 22nd of March, and never
higher than the 25th of April."
"Shrove Sunday has its range between the 1st of February and the 7th of
March."
"Whit Sunday between the 10th of May and the 13th of June."
"A rule of Shrovetide:--The Tuesday after the second change of the moon
after New Year's-day is always Shrove Tuesday."
To these I may perhaps be permitted to add certain cautions, derived frown
the same source:
"The first Monday in April, the day on which Cain was born, and Abel
was slain.
"The second Monday in August, on which day Sodom and Gomorrah were
destroyed.
"The 31st of December, on which day Judas was born, who betrayed
Christ.
"These are dangerous days to begin any business, fall sick, or
undertake any journey."
We smile at the superstition which thus stamps these several periods as
days of ill omen, especially when we reflect that farther inquiry would
probably place every other day of the week under a like ban, and thus
greatly impede the business of life--Friday, for instance, which, since our
Lord's crucifixion on that day, we are strongly disinclined to make the
starting-point of any new enterprise.
In many cases this superstition is based on unpleasing associations
connected with the days proscribed. Who can wonder if, in times less
enlightened than our own, undue importance were attached to the strange
coincidence which marked the deaths of Henry VIII. and his posterity. They
all died on a Tuesday; himself on Tuesday, January 28, 1547; Edward VI. on
Tuesday, July 6, {600} 1553; Mary on Tuesday, November 17, 1558; Elizabeth
on Tuesday, March 24, 1603.