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.

    19/884
    Be this day frugal, and not spare his friend Some gift, to show his love finds not an end W ith the deceased year. PooLES's Eng. Parnassus. In the volume of “ Elia,” an excellent paper begins with “ Every man hath two birthdays : two days, at least, in every year, which set him upon revolving the lapse of time, as it affects his mortal dura- tion. The one is that which in an especial manner he termeth his. In the gradual desuetude of old observances, this custom of solemnizing our proper birthday hath nearly passed away, or is left to children, who reflect nothing at all about the mat- ter, nor understand any thing beyond the cake and orange. But the birth of a new year is of an interest too wide to be pretermitted by king or cobbler. No one ever regarded the First of January with indifference. It is that from which all date their time, and count upon what is left. It is the nativity of our common Adam. “ Of all sound of all bells—(bells, the music Highest bordering upon heaven)— most solemn and touching is the peal which rings out the old year. I never hear it without a gathering-up of ir.y mind to a concentration of all the images that have been diffused over the past *welvemonth ; all I have done or suffered, performed, or neglected—in that regretted time. I begin to know its worth as when a person dies. It takes a personal colour; nor was it a poetical flight in a contem- porary, when he exclaimed, ‘ I saw the skirts of the departing year.’ “ The elders with whom I was brought up, were of a character not likely to let slip the sacred observance of any old in- stitution ; and the ringing out of the old year was kept by them with circumstan- ces of peculiar ceremony. In those days the sound of those midnight chimes, though it seemed to raise hilarity in all around me, never failed to bring a train of pensive imagery into my fancy. Yet I then scarce conceived what it meant, or thought of it as a reckoning that con- cerned me. Not childhood alone, but the young man till thirty, never feels practi- cally that he is mortal.” Ringing out the old and ringing in the new year, with “ a merry new year! a happy new year to you !” on new year’s day, were greetings that moved sceptred pride, and humble labour, to smiles and kind feelings in former times ; and wl.y should they be unfashionable in our own ? Dr. Drake observes, in “Shakspeare and his Times,” that the ushering in of the new year, or new year’s tide, with rejoicings, presents, and good Wishes, was a custom observed, during the 16th century, with great regularity and parade, and was as cordially celebrated in the court of the prince as in the cottage of the peasant. The Rev.T. D. Fosbroke, in his valuable “ Encyclopedia of Antiquities,” adduces various authorities to show that congratu- lations, presents, and visits were made by the Romans on this day. The origin, he says, is ascribed to Romulus and Tatius, and that the usual presents were figs and dates, covered with leaf-gold, and sent by clients to patrons, accompanied with a piece of money, which was expended to purchase the statues of deities. He men- tions an amphora (a jar) which still exists, with an inscription denoting that it was a new year’s present from the potters to their patroness. He also instances from Count Caylus a pietj of Roman pottery, with an inscription wishing “ a happy new year to youanother, where a person wishes it to himself and his son; and three medallions, with the laurel leaf, fig, and date; one, of Commodus; another, of Victory; and a third, Janus, standing in a temple,with an inscription,wishing ahappy new year to the emperor. New year’s gifts were continued under the Roman emperors until they were prohibited by Claudius. Yet in the early ages of the church the Christian emperors received them; nor did they wholly cease, although condemned by ecclesiastical councils on account of the pagan ceremonies at their presentation. The Druids were accustomed on certain days to cut the sacred misletoe with a golden knife, in a forest dedicated to the gods, and to distribute its branches with much ceremony as new year’s gifts among the people. The late Rev. John Brand, in his “Popular Antiquities” edited by Mr. Ellis observes from Bishop Stillingfleet, tha. among the Saxons of the North, the fes- tival of the new year was observed with more than ordinary jollity and feasting, and by sending new year’s gifts to one another. Mr. Fosbroke notices the con- tinuation of the Roman practice during the middle ages; and that our kings, and the nobility especially, interchanged pre- sents. Mr. Ellis quotes Matthew Paris, who appears to show that H^iiry HI ear-