Yellow Cistus. _Cistus Helianthemum._
Dedicated to _St. Paul_.
[202] Butler.
[203] Golden Legend.
[204] Ribadeneira.
[Illustration: JULY.]
Then came hot July, boiling like to fire,
That all his garments he had cast away.
Upon a lyon raging yet with ire
He boldly rode, and made him to obey:
(It was the beast that whilom did forray
The Nemæan forest, till the Amphitrionide
Him slew, and with his hide did him array:)
Behind his backe a sithe, and by his side
Under his belt he bore a sickle circling wide.
July is the seventh month of the year. According to ancient reckoning it
was the fifth, and called QUINTILIS, until Mark Antony denominated it
July, in compliment to Caius Cæsar, the Roman dictator, whose surname
was Julius, who improved the calendar, and was born in this month.
July was called by the Saxons _hen-monath_, which probably expressed the
meaning of the German word _hain_, signifying wood or trees; and hence
_hen-monath_ might mean foliage month. They likewise called it
_heymonath_, or _haymonth_; “because,” says Verstegan, “therein they
usually mowed and made their hay harvest;” and they also denominated it
_Lida-aftera_, meaning the second “Lida,” or second month after the
sun’s descent.[205]
The beautiful representation preceding Spenser’s personification of
July, on the preceding page, was designed and engraved by Mr. Samuel
Williams, of whom it should in justice be said, that his talents have
enriched the _Every-Day Book_ with most of its best illustrations.
Now comes July, and with his fervid noon
Unsinews labour. The swinkt mower sleeps;
The weary maid rakes feebly; the warm swain
Pitches his load reluctant; the faint steer,
Lashing his sides, draws sulkily along
The slow encumbered wain in midday heat.
Mr. Leigh Hunt in his _Months_, after remarking that “July is so called
after Julius Cæsar, who contrived to divide his names between months and
dynasties, and among his better deeds of ambition reformed the
calendar,” proceeds to notice, that--“The heat is greatest in this month
on account of its previous duration. The reason why it is less so in
August is, that the days are then much shorter, and the influence of the
sun has been gradually diminishing. The farmer is still occupied in
getting the productions of the earth into his garners; but those who can
avoid labour enjoy as much rest and shade as possible. There is a sense
of heat and quiet all over nature. The birds are silent. The little
brooks are dried up. The earth is chapped with parching. The shadows of
the trees are particularly grateful, heavy, and still. The oaks, which
are freshest because latest in leaf, form noble clumpy canopies,
looking, as you lie under them, of a strong and emulous green against
the blue sky. The traveller delights to cut across the country through
the fields and the leafy lanes, where nevertheless the flints sparkle
with heat. The cattle get into the shade, or stand in the water. The
active and air-cutting swallows, now beginning to assemble for
migration, seek their prey about the shady places, where the insects,
though of differently compounded natures, ‘fleshless and bloodless,’
seem to get for coolness, as they do at other times for warmth. The
sound of insects is also the only audible thing now, increasing rather
than lessening the sense of quiet by its gentle contrast. The bee now
and then sweeps across the ear with his gravest tone. The gnats
Their murmuring small trumpets sounden wide;
_Spenser._
and here and there the little musician of the grass touches forth his
tricksy note.
The poetry of earth is never dead;
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead:
That is the grasshopper’s.
_Keats._
“Besides some of the flowers of last month, there are now candy-tufts,
catchfly, columbines, egg-plant, French marygolds, lavateras,
London-pride, marvel of Peru, veronicas, tuberoses, which seem born of
the white rose and lily; and scarlet-beans, which though we are apt to
think little of them because they furnish us with a good vegetable, are
quick and beautiful growers, and in a few weeks will hang a walk or
trellis with an exuberant tapestry of scarlet and green.
“The additional trees and shrubs in flower are bramble, button-wood,
iteas, cistuses, climbers, and broom. Pimpernel, cockle, and fumitory,
are now to be found in corn-fields, the blue-bell in wastes or by the
road-sides; and the luxuriant hop is flowering.
“The fruits begin to abound and are more noticed, in proportion to the
necessity for them occasioned by the summer heat. The strawberries are
in their greatest quantity and perfection; and currants, gooseberries,
and raspberries, have a world of juice for us, prepared, as it were, in
so many crowds of little bottles, in which the sunshine has turned the
dews of April into wine. The strawberry lurks about under a beautiful
leaf. Currants are also extremely beautiful. A handsome bunch looks like
pearls or rubies, and an imitation of it would make a most graceful
ear-ring. We have seen it, when held lightly by fair fingers, present as
lovely a drop, and piece of contrast, as any holding hand in a picture
of Titian.
“Bulbous rooted flowers, that have almost done with their leaves, should
now be taken up, and deposited in shallow wooden boxes. Mignionette
should be transplanted into small pots, carnations be well attended to
and supported, and auriculas kept clean from dead leaves and weeds, and
in dry weather frequently watered.
“It is now the weather for bathing, a refreshment too little taken in
this country, either in summer or winter. We say in winter, because with
very little care in placing it near a cistern, and having a leathern
pipe for it, a bath may be easily filled once or twice a week with warm
water; and it is a vulgar error that the warm bath relaxes. An excess,
either warm or cold, will relax; and so will any other excess: but the
sole effect of the warm bath moderately taken is, that it throws off the
bad humours of the body by opening and clearing the pores. As to summer
bathing, a father may soon teach his children to swim, and thus perhaps
might be the means of saving their lives some day or other, as well as
health. Ladies also, though they cannot bathe in the open air as they do
in some of the West Indian islands and other countries, by means of
natural basins among the rocks, might oftener make a substitute for it
at home in tepid baths. The most beautiful aspects under which Venus has
been painted or sculptured, have been connected with bathing: and indeed
there is perhaps no one thing that so equally contributes to the three
graces of health, beauty, and good temper;--to health, in putting the
body into its best state; to beauty, in clearing and tinting the skin;
and to good temper, in rescuing the spirits from the irritability
occasioned by those formidable personages ‘the nerves,’ which nothing
else allays in so quick and entire a manner. See a lovely passage on the
subject of bathing in sir Philip Sydney’s ‘Arcadia,’ where ‘Philoclea,
blushing, and withall smiling, making shamefastnesse pleasant, and
pleasure shamefast, tenderly moved her feet, unwonted to feel the naked
ground, until the touch of the cold water made a pretty kind of
shrugging come over her body, like the twinkling of the fairest among
the fixed stars.’”
[205] Dr. Frank Sayers.
~July 1.~
_St. Rumbold_, Bp. A. D. 775. _Sts. Julius_ and _Aaron_. _St.
Theobald_, or _Thibault_, 11th Cent. _St. Gal I._ Bp. 5th Cent. _St.
Calais_, or _Carilephus_, A. D. 542. _St. Leonorus_, or _Lunaire_, Bp.
_St. Simeon Salus_, 6th Cent. _St. Thieri_, A. D. 533. _St. Cybar_, A.
D. 581.