It may seem strange that Romulus should have made the year begin with winter, and not with spring, which, as the opener of all things, would more naturally seem to be its commencement. To this doubt Ovid has returned an ingenious, though perhaps not a very satisfactory answer, through the mouth of his God, Janus :— "The Winter Solstice is the first of the new sun, and the ast of the old; the year and the sun have the same origin." It may be permitted to us to doubt whether the office, which Ovid himself has assigned to Janus, would not better account for his being placed at the head of the months; he was the door-keeper of heaven and earth,† Jupiter himself could not go in or out unless he opened the door for him, and thus he seems naturally enough to have been the porter, opening the gates of time to the " καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἐφεξῆς ὁμοίως ἕκαστον. Ἐπεὶ τὸν Ἰανεάριον (καὶ * "Bruma novi prima est, veterisque novissima solis; New Year. Plutarch, however, has adduced other reasons. He firsts suggests that Numa, who was a lover of peace and its attendant arts, might have dedicated the beginning of the year to Janus, as being a God more favourable to civil institutions and the cultivation of the soil than to war;* at the same time he is more inclined to believe Numa made this choice from the fact that the sun, having completed his advance and now retrograding, there is also a certain change in nature, the nights being diminished in duration and the days encreased.† If it be difficult to choose amongst these reasons, it seems yet harder to say why the Christians should have chosen this month in the early ages as the commencement of their year. Baronius, in his Martyrology, supposes that they did so because about this time Christ was born, and by his rising illuminated as it were the world, Νεμᾶς δ ̓ αὖθις εἰρηνικὸς γενόμενος, καὶ πρὸς ἔργα τῆς γῆς φιλοτιμούμενος τρέπσαι τὴν πόλιν, ἀποστῆσαι δὲ τῶν πολεμικῶν, τῷ Ἰανεαρίῳ τὴν ἡγεμονίαν ἔδωκε, καὶ τὸν Ιανόν εἰς τιμὰς προήγαγε μεγάλας ὣς πολιτικὸν καὶ γεωργικὸν μᾶλλον ἢ πολεμικὸν Yεvóμεvov." PLUTARCHI QUÆSTIONES ROMANE. Q. 19, p. 86, tom. vii. Edit. Reiskii.-p. 67. tom. ii. Editio Wyttenbachii. "Numa on the other hand, who was fond of peace, and desirous of directing the attention of the city to agriculture while he turned it from war, assigned the first place to January, and gave great honour to Janus, as being more given to civil and agricultural pursuits than to arms." +Αριτα δὲ οἱ τὴν μετὰ τροπὰς χειμεριὰς λαμβάνοντες, ὁπηνίκα το πρόσω βαδίζειν πεπαυμένος ὁ ἥλιος ἐπιστρέφει καὶ ἀνακάμπτει πάλιν πρὸς ἡμᾶς. γίνεται γὰρ αὐτοῖς τρόπον τινὰ καὶ φύσει, τὸν μὲν τὸ φωτὸς αὔξεσα χρόνον ἡμῖν, μειᾶσα δὲ τὸν τῶ σκότες, ἐγγυτέρω δὲ ποιᾶσα τὸν κύριον καὶ ἡγεμόνα τῆς ρευστης ἐσίας ἁπάσης.” Id. p. 68, Wyttenbachii. 86, Reiskii. "But they do best, who commence the year with the winter solstice, when the sun, having ceased to advance, turns back, and directs his course again towards us. For then there is a revolution, as it were, in nature, which encreases the time of light, lessens that of darkness, and brings nearer to us the Lord and principle of all moving nature." B till then obscured by darkness.* To such puerile babbling, it is only necessary to reply that it is far from being certain in what month Christ was born, and in the absence of any better guide we may safely infer that the Christians adapted this æra, as they did so many of their customs, from the heathens, without any reasoning upon the matter. Why should they not have done so ? But though in the first instance the Roman mode of computation prevailed, yet this was far from being fixed or general. The New Year has at different times and places commenced on Christmas Day, i. e. the 25th of December; on the Day of the Circumcision, i. e. the 1st of January; on the Day of the Conception, i. e. the 25th of March; and on Easter Day, or the day of the Resurrection; nor was it till a comparatively recent period that a general rule was adopted. By the Anglo-Saxons this month was named Wolfmonat, and Giuli Aftera. The first of these names it received "because people are wont always in that month to be in niore danger to be devoured of wolves than in any season else of the year; for that through the extremity of cold and snow these ravenous creatures could not find of other beasts sufficient to feed upon." It was called, Giuli Aftera, as being immediately after, or second to, Christmas. The derivation of this word will be found in its proper place hereafter, when I shall have occasion to speak of the summer solstice. The principal vegetable productions of this season are the various mosses. The Early Moss may now be gathered; the Yellow Tremella is seen on palings, rotten wood, "Quòd his fermè diebus novus Sol, ipse Christus, redemptor noster, mundo offuso tenebris, nasces, illuxit." MARTYROLOGIUM ROMANUM-Kalendis Januarii. VERSTEGAN'S RESTITUTION OF DECAYED INTELLIGENCE, p. 64, 8vo. London, 1673. &c. and both the Straight Screw Moss and the Hygrometic Moss are in fructuation. But these are not the only signs of vegetable life independent of the few herbs and greens grown for culinary purposes in the garden; the Laurestine, the White Butterbur, and the Christmas Rose, all flower at different periods of the month, and about the time of its drawing to a close a single snow-drop may be occasionally seen; or, if the year be very mild, a primrose will peep out upon a warm bank. Even after the middle of January considerable flocks of fieldfares may be seen; but, as it yet farther advances, the severity of the season encreases, and the wild quadrupeds are driven from their accustomed haunts. Hares enter the gardens to browze on the few remaining vegetables, and the foxes are more than usually bold in plundering the hen-roosts. THE CIRCUMCISION; NEW YEAR'S DAY.-January 1st.The festival of the Circumcision is, comparatively speaking, of modern date; no mention of such an observance being made by the antient fathers of the church, nor does it occur in Saint Isidore or any similar writer. Baronius too confirms this notion by observing that this day is indeed called both the Circumcision and the Octave of the Nativity, but that in the antient manuscripts it has the latter name only.* The New Year has been from time immemorial, what it now is, one of those resting points in life, at which by a happy delusion men persuade themselves the current of things is about to change with them for the better. It is welcomed like a new sovereign, till a very brief experience suffices to teach us that the reign of the one and In "Et Circumcisio Domini, et Nativitatis Octava, dicitur. antiquis manuscriptis nonnunquã titulo tantum Octavæ Natalis Domini pronotatus hic dies legitur." MARTYROLOG. ROMANUM— Kalendis Januarii. the advent of the other have made but very little real alteration, or it may even be an alteration for the worse. All this however does not prevent hope from playing the same game as the season comes round again, so that we are perpetually wishing each other "a happy new year!" a custom which existed among the Romans, and may probably boast of a much higher antiquity. We have the fact recorded by Ovid, who in a friendly dialogue between himself and Janus, asks the reason of such an observance, to which the communicative God replies, leaning familiarly on his stick as one disposed for a gossip, omens are attached to the commencement of all things; it is the first sound you hear, the first bird you see, that becomes an omen.' The reasoning of the deity may not be the most convincing, but the fact of the New Year's salutation is proved by the question of the poet.† New Year's Day has in all ages, and among all people, been a time of rejoicing. Libanius, the rhetorician, has left us a vivid account of the manner in which it was celebrated among the Romans, and as the greater part of our New Year's customs have come to us from that source, a brief epitome of his amusing pages will scarcely be thought irrelevant to our present purpose. He sets out with informing us that all men love holydays, an assertion which few will be inclined to dispute; "Tum Deus incumbens baculo, quem dextra gerebat, Ad primam vocem timidas advertitis aures, OVIDII FASTI, Lib. 1. v. 177. "At cur læta tuis dicuntur verba Calendis Et damus alternas accipimusque preces?" OVIDII FASTI- -Lib. 1. v. 175. Η Λιβανίου σοφιστοῦ Ἐκφράσεις—"Εκφρασις Καλάνδων-LIBANI ORATIONES ET DECLAMATIONES. Jac. Reiske, ed.-vol iv. p. 1053. |