MARCH.
—Sturdy March with brows full sternly bent
And armed strongly, rode upon a ram,
The same which over Hellespontus swam;
Yet in his hand a spade he also hent,
And in a bag all sorts of weeds ysame,
Which on the earth he strewed as he went,
And fill’d her womb with fruitfull hope of nourishment.
Spenser.
March is the third month of the year; with the ancients it was the first: according to Mr. Leigh Hunt, from Ovid, the Romans named it from Mars, the god of war, because he was the father of their first prince. “As to the deity’s nature, March has certainly nothing in common with it; for though it affects to be very rough, it is one of the best natured months in the year, drying up the superabundant moisture of winter with its fierce winds, and thus restoring us our paths through the fields, and piping before the flowers like a bacchanal. He sometimes, it must be confessed, as if in a fit of the spleen, hinders the buds which he has dried from blowing; and it is allowable in the less robust part of his friends out of doors, to object to the fancy he has for coming in such a cutting manner from the east. But it may be truly said, that the oftener you meet him firmly, the less he will shake you; and the more smiles you will have from the fair months that follow him.”
Perhaps the ascription of this month to Mars, by the Romans, was a compliment to themselves; they were the sons of War, and might naturally deduce their origin from the belligerent deity. Minerva was also patroness of March.
Verstegan says of our Saxon ancestors, that “the moneth of March they called Lenct-monat, that is, according to our new orthography, Length-moneth, because the dayes did then first begin in length to exceed the nights. And this moneth being by our ancestors so called when they received Christianity, and consequently therewith the ancient christian custome of fasting, they called this chiefe season of fasting the fast of Lenct, because of the Lenct-monat, whereon the most part of the time of this fasting alwayes fell; and hereof it cometh that we now cal it Lent, it being rather the fast of Lent, thogh the former name of Lenct-monat be long since lost, and the name of March borrowed in stead thereof.” Lenct, or Lent, however, means Spring; hence March was the Spring-month. Dr. Sayer says the Saxons likewise called it Rhed-monath, a word derived by some from one of their deities, named Rheda, to whom sacrifices were offered in March; others derive it from ræd, the Saxon word for council, March being the month wherein wars or expeditions were usually undertaken by the Gothic tribes. The Saxons also called it Hlyd-monath, from hlyd, which means stormy, and in this sense March was the Stormy month.
No living writer discourses so agreeably on the “Months” as Mr. Leigh Hunt in his little volume bearing that title. He says of March, that—“The animal creation now exhibit unequivocal signs of activity. The farmer extends the exercise of his plough; and, if fair weather continues, begins sowing barley and oats. Bats and reptiles break up their winter sleep: the little smelts or sparlings run up the softened rivers to spawn: the field-fare and woodcock return to their northern quarters; the rooks are all in motion with building and repairing their nests; hens sit; geese and ducks lay; pheasants crow; the ring-dove coos; young lambs come tottering forth in mild weather; the throstle warbles on the top of some naked tree, as if he triumphed over the last lingering of barrenness; and, lastly, forth issues the bee with his vernal trumpet, to tell us that there is news of sunshine and the flowers.—In addition to the last month’s flowers, we now have the crown-imperial, the dog’s-tooth violet, fritillaries, the hyacinth, narcissus, (bending its face like its namesake,) pilewort, scarlet ranunculus, great snow-drop, tulips, (which turned even the Dutch to enthusiasts,) and violets, proverbial for their odour, which were perhaps the favourite flowers of Shakspeare. The passage at the beginning of ‘Twelfth Night,’ in which he compares their scent with the passing sweetness of music is well-known, and probably suggested the beautiful one in lord ‘Bacon’s Essays,’ about the superiority of flowers in the open air, ‘where the scent comes and goes like the warbling of music.’”
Now, Winter, dispossessed of storms, and weak from boisterous rage,
———— Ling’ring on the verge of Spring,
Retires reluctant, and from time to time
Looks back, while at his keen and chilling breath
Fair Flora sickens.