_May, 1826._
THE
EVERY-DAY BOOK
[Illustration: JANUARY.]
This is the first and the coldest month of the year. Its zodiacal sign
is Aquarius or the Waterbearer. It derives its name from Janus, a deity
represented by the Romans with two faces, because he was acquainted with
past and future events. Cotton introduces him into a poem on the new
year--
Hark, the cock crows, and yon bright star
Tells us, the day himself’s not far;
And see where, breaking from the night,
He gilds the western hills with light.
With him old Janus doth appear,
Peeping into the future year,
With such a look as seems to say,
The prospect is not good that way.
Thus do we rise ill sights to see,
And ’gainst ourselves to prophesy;
When the prophetic fear of things
A more tormenting mischief brings,
More full of soul-tormenting gall
Than direst mischiefs can befall.
But stay! but stay! Methinks my sight,
Better inform’d by clearer light,
Discerns sereneness in that brow,
That all contracted seem’d but now.
His revers’d face may show distaste,
And frown upon the ills are past;
But that which this way looks is clear,
And smiles upon the new-born year.
According to the ancient mythology, Janus was the god of gates and
avenues, and in that character held a key in his right hand, and a rod
in his left, to symbolize his opening and ruling the year: sometimes he
bore the number 300 in one hand, and 65 in the other, the number of its
days. At other times he was represented with four heads, and placed in a
temple of four equal sides, with a door and three windows in each side,
as emblems of the four seasons and the twelve months over which he
presided.
According to Verstegan (Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, 4to. 1628,
p. 59) the Saxons called this month “Wolf-monat,” or Wolf-month, because
the wolves of our ancient forests, impelled by hunger at this season,
were wont to prowl and attack man himself; the inferior animals, on whom
they usually preyed, having retired or perished from the inclemency of
the weather. The Saxons also called this month “Aefter-yula,” or After
Christmas. In illuminated calendars prefixed to catholic missals, or
service books, January was frequently depicted as a man with fagots or a
woodman’s axe, shivering and blowing his fingers. Spenser introduces
this month in his Faerie Queene:
Then came old January, wrapped well
In many weeds to keep the cold away;
Yet did he quake and quiver like to quell;
And blow his nayles to warme them if he may;
For they were numb’d with holding all the day
An hatchet keene, with which he felled wood,
And from the trees did lop the needlesse spray.
~January 1.~
{ A close holiday at all public
_Circumcision._ { offices except the Excise, Customs,
{ and Stamps.
This festival stands in the calendar of the church of England, as well
as in that of the Roman catholic church. It is said to have been
instituted about 487; it first appeared in the reformed English liturgy
in 1550.
Without noticing every saint to whom each day is dedicated in the
Roman catholic calendars, the names of saints will be given day by
day, as they stand under each day in the last edition of their
“Lives,” by the Rev. Alban Butler, in 12 vols. 8vo. On the authority
of that work the periods will be mentioned when the saints most noted
for their miracles flourished, and some of those miracles be stated.
Other miracles will be given: First, from “The Golden Legend,” a black
letter folio volume, printed by W. de Worde.--Secondly, from “The
Church History of Britain,” by the Benedictine father, S. Cressy,
dedicated by him to the queen consort of Charles II., a folio, printed
in 1668.--Thirdly, from the catholic translation of the “Lives of the
Saints,” by the Rev. Father Peter Ribadeneira, priest of the society
of Jesus, second edition, London, 1730, 2 vols. folio; and Fourthly,
from other sources which will be named. By this means the reader will
be acquainted with legends that rendered the saints and the
celebration of their festivals popular. For example, the saints in
Butler’s Lives on this day occur in the following order:
_St. Fulgentius; St. Odilo, or Olou; St. Almachus, or Telemachus; St.
Eugendus, or Oyend; St. Fanchea, or Faine; St. Mochua, or Moncain, alias
Claunus; St. Mochua, alias Cronan, of Balla_.
_Sts. Mochua._ According to Butler, these were Irish saints. One founded
the monastery, now the town of Balla, in Connaught. The other is said to
have founded 120 cells, and thirty churches, in one of which he passed
thirty years, and died about the sixth century. Bishop Patrick, in his
“Reflexions upon the Devotions of the Roman Church,” 1674, 8vo. cites of
St. Mochua, that while walking and praying, and seeing a company of
lambs running hastily to suck their mothers, he drew a line upon the
ground which none of the hungry lambs durst pass. Patrick again cites,
that St. Mochua having been visited by St. Kyenanus and fifteen of his
clergy, they came to an impetuous and impassable river on their return,
and wanted a boat; whereupon St. Mochua spread his mantle on the water,
and Kyenanus with his fifteen priests were carried safely over upon the
mantle, which floated back again to St. Mochua without wrinkle or
wetting.
_St. Fanchea_, or _Faine_, is said by Butler to have been an Irish saint
of the sixth century. Patrick quotes that St. Endeus desiring to become
a monk, his companions approached to dissuade him; but, upon the prayers
of St. Faine, and her making the sign of the cross, their feet stuck to
the earth like immovable stones, until by repentance they were loosed
and went their way.
_St. Fulgentius_, according to Butler, died on the 1st of January, 533,
sometimes went barefoot, never undressed to take rest, nor ate flesh
meat, but chiefly lived on pulse and herbs, though when old he admitted
the use of a little oil. He preached, explained mysteries, controverted
with heretics, and built monasteries. Butler concludes by relating, that
after his death, a bishop named Pontian was assured in a vision of
Fulgentius’s immortality; that his relics were translated to Bourges,
where they are venerated; and that the saint’s head is in the church of
the archbishop’s seminary.