Under the Protection of Juno. Annue, purpureâque veni perlucida pallâ: Ter tibi fit libo, ter, dea casta, mero.-Tibullus. HAIL, wedded love! mysterious law, true source In Paradise of all things common else. By thee adulterous lust was driven from men Of father, son, and brother, first were known. Mixed dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball, Or serenade, which the starved lover sings To his proud fair, best quitted with disdain.-Milton. MINE eye yet fixed on Heaven's unchanging clime, With inward stillness, and submitted mind; Starting from my silent sadness Then, with no unholy madness, Ere yet the entered cloud foreclosed my sight, I raised the impetuous song, and solemnized his flight. Coleridge. Upon an huge great earth-pot steane he stood.-Spenser. IF then, Young Year! thou need'st must come, Let neither Loss of Friends, or Fame, or Liberty, Be seen among thy train : Nor let thy livery be Either black Sin, or gaudy Vanity.-Cowley. Ask me why I send you here This sweet Infanta of the year? This primrose, thus bepearled with dew? The sweets of love are mixed with tears. Ask me why this flower doth shew Ask me why the stalk is weak What fainting hopes are in a lover. The Primrose.-Hesperides. THE shepherds on the lawn, Or e'er the point of dawn, Sat simply chatting in a rustic row; Full little thought they then, That the mighty Pan Was kindly come to live with them below; Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep, Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep. Christmas Ode. THE Temple shakes, the sounding gates unfold, The sage Historians in white garments wait; Temple of Fame. HERE Patriots live, who for their country's good Teach us so to number our Days, that we may apply our hearts unto Wisdom. Pentateuch. Day. Cal. Births. 1. Stephen Morin, 1625, Caen. Obits of the Latin Church. St. Almachus (or Telemachus), St. Fanchea (or Faine), Virgin of Ireland, 6th Century. St. Mochua (or Moncain, alias Cluanus), Virgin of Ireland, 6th Century. St. Mochua (or Cronan), Abbot of Balla in Ireland, 637. St. Odilo (or Olon), Abbot of Cluni, d. 1049. Deaths. St. Basil, Abp. of Cæsarea, 379. Charles the Bad, 1387. d. Pampeluna. Charles (of Orleans), 1466. d. Louis XII. (the Just) 1515. As no man can, rightly, be said to be born, until he has arrived at some station worthy of his life; so, in a religious view, death is the great birth-day of the departed. Anon. 'Tis man alone that joy descries With forward and reverted eyes.-Gray. Acts. THE CIRCUMCISION. By the primitive Christians the 1st day of January was observed as a fast, to distinguish it from the abuses of paganism. It was not until the year 487, that the festival, called in the Latin ritual, the Octave of Christmas, became known to the Church; nor, under its present title of Circumcision," as introduced into our English Liturgy in 1550, is it to be traced higher than about the close of the 11th Century. The ceremony itself to which Christ submitted, is remembered, with reverence, by every Christian. 66 NEW YEAR'S DAY. That wholesome custom of making presents on the opening of the year, is as ancient as humanity; for it was "in the end of the days," at the Autumnal Equinox, that Abel offered up to God a lamb of nine months old, and Cain (when every branch yielded him the means of happiness) the first fruits of his husbandry. It became traditionary with all the Celtic tribes, the Jews, Sarmatæ, and Romans, and was peculiarly a British observance; and, in a later age, we find it still blended with feelings of piety, as well as friendship. Even now the usage is reserved amongst us, in common with the Jews, of exchanging, on this day, visitings and congratulations. The Laureate's Lyric note, which chimed in the year, was silenced 1790; but from no dishonour in the institution, that had enrolled the proudest names in the annals of English poesy. THE MONTH OF JANUARY, and its successor, were adapted for their present station, as leaders of the year, by the wisdom of Numa Pompilius, B.C. 672. The Roman Consuls from B. C. 154, inclusive, were regularly inaugurated on the 1st of January; and the Senate afterwards, in the times of the Emperors, annually renewed on the same day their oath of allegiance. Then also began, B. C. 45, the famous Julian Period, after the Roman Calendar had first been reformed by Sosigenes, I am sent to the ant, to learn industry; to the dove, to learn innocency; to the serpent, to learn wisdom; and why not to the Robin redbreast, who chants it as cheerfully in winter as in summer, to learn equanimity and patience.-Warwick. |