The very name of January, from Janus, two-faced, “looking before and after,” indicates the reflective propensities which she encourages, and which when duly exercised cannot fail to lead to good.
And then January is the youngest of the yearly brood, and therefore prima facie the best; for I protest most strenuously against the comparative age which Chaucer (I think) has assigned to this month by implication, when he compares an old husband and a young wife to “January and June.” These poets will sacrifice any thing to alliteration, even abstract truth. I am sorry to say this of Chaucer, whose poetry is more of “a true thing” than that of any other, always excepting Mr. Crabbe’s, which is too much of a true thing. And nobody knew better than Chaucer the respective merits of the Months, and the peculiar qualities and characteristics which appertain to each. But, I repeat, alliteration is the Scylla and Charybdis united of all who embark on the perilous ocean of poetry; and that Chaucer himself chose occasionally to “listen to the voice of the charmer, charmed she never so unwisely,” the above example affords sufficient proof. I am afraid poets themselves are too self-opiniated people to make it worth while for me to warn them on this point; but I hereby pray all prose writers pertinaciously to avoid so pernicious a practice. This, however, by the by.
I need scarcely accumulate other arguments and examples to show that my favourite January deserves to rank first among the Months in merit, as she does in place. But lest doubters should still remain, I will add, ask the makers-out of annual accounts whether any month can compare with January, since then they may begin to hope for a settlement, and may even in some cases venture to ask for it; which latter is a comfort that has been denied them during all the rest of the year; besides its being a remote step towards the said settlement. And on the other hand, ask the contractors of annual accounts whether January is not the best of all possible months, since then they may begin to order afresh, with the prospect of a whole year’s impunity. The answers to these two questions must of course decide the point, since the two classes of persons to whom they are addressed include the whole adult(erated) population of these commercial realms.
FEBRUARY.
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