Volume 1

The every-day book, or, The guide to the year : relating the popular amusements, sports, ceremonies, manner, customs, and events, incident to the three hundred and sixty-five days, in past and present times : being a series of five thousand anecdotes and facts : forming a perpetual key to the almanac... / by William Hone.

  • Hone, William, 1780-1842.
Date:
[1857?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The every-day book, or, The guide to the year : relating the popular amusements, sports, ceremonies, manner, customs, and events, incident to the three hundred and sixty-five days, in past and present times : being a series of five thousand anecdotes and facts : forming a perpetual key to the almanac... / by William Hone. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    THK EVERY-DAY BOOK 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 deiiy represented by the Romans with two faces, because he was acquainted with past and future event-. 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, I'he prospect is not good that way. f’hus 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. Hut stay ! but s’ay ! Methinks mv sight. Better inform’d by clearer light. No. 1. Discerns sereneness in that brow, J hat 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 sym- bolize 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 repre- sented with four heads, and placed in a temple of four equal sides, with a door and three windows in each side, as em- blems of the four seasons and the twelve months over which he presided According to Veistegan (Restitution o. Decayed Intelligence, 4fo. 1628, p. 59) the Saxons called this month “ Wolf- monal,” or Wolf-montn, Decause ifie