Delectando pariterque monendo.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR GEO. B. WHITTAKER,
AVE-MARIA-LANE.
1826.
| Page | |
| PREFACE. | v |
| JANUARY. | 1 |
| FEBRUARY. | 23 |
| MARCH. | 43 |
| APRIL. | 57 |
| MAY. | 87 |
| JUNE. | 111 |
| JULY. | 145 |
| AUGUST. | 169 |
| SEPTEMBER. | 197 |
| OCTOBER. | 215 |
| NOVEMBER. | 237 |
| DECEMBER. | 257 |
As the first few pages of this littlevolume will sufficiently explain its purport,the reader would not have been troubledwith any prefatory remarks, but that, sinceits commencement, two existing works havebeen pointed out to me, the plans of whichare, in one respect, similar to mine: I alludeto the Natural History of the Year,by the late Dr. Aikin and his Son; andThe Months, by Mr. Leigh Hunt.
I will not affect any obligations to theseagreeable little works, (I mean as a writer);because I feel none; and I mention themhere, only to add, that if, on perusing them,either, or both united, had seemed to su{vi}persedewhat I proposed to myself in mine,I should immediately have abandoned myintention of writing it. But the above-namedworks, in the first place, relate tocountry matters exclusively. In the nextplace, the first of them details those mattersin the form of a dry calendar, professedlymade up from other calendarswhich previously existed, and not fromactual observation; and the second merelythrows gleams of its writer’s agreeable geniusover such of those matters as are mostsusceptible of that treatment: while bothoccupy no little portion of their space byquotations, sufficiently appropriate no doubt,but from poets whose works are in everybody’shands.
The Mirror of the Months, therefore,does not interfere with the abovenamedworks, nor do they with it. It is in substance,though certainly not in form, aCalendar of the various events and ap{vii}pearancesconnected with a Country and aLondon life, during each successive Monthof the Year. And it endeavours to impressupon the memory such of its informationas seems best worth retaining, by eitherplacing it in a picturesque point of view,or by connecting it with some association,often p