January.
If you are ill at this season, there is no occasion to send for the doctor—only stop eating. Indeed, upon general principles, it seems to me to be a mistake for people, every time there is any little thing the matter with them, to be running in such haste for the “doctor;” because, if you are going to die, a doctor can’t help you; and if you are not—there is no occasion for him.[29]
Angling in January.
Dark is the ever-flowing stream,
And snow falls on the lake;
For now the noontide sunny beam
Scarce pierces bower and brake;
And flood, or envious frost, destroys
A portion of the angler’s joys.
Yet still we’ll talk of sports gone by,
Of triumphs we have won,
Of waters we again shall try,
When sparkling in the sun;
Of favourite haunts, by mead or dell.
Haunts which the fisher loves so well.
Of stately Thames, of gentle Lea,
The merry monarch’s seat;
Of Ditton’s stream, of Avon’s brae,
Or Mitcham’s mild retreat;
Of waters by the meer or mill,
And all that tries the angler’s skill.
Annals of Sporting.
Plough Monday.
The first Monday after Twelfth-day is so denominated, and it is the ploughman’s holyday.
Of late years at this season, in the islands of Scilly, the young people exercise a sort of gallantry called “goose-dancing.” The maidens are dressed up for young men, and the young men for maidens; and, thus disguised, they visit their neighbours in companies, where they dance, and make jokes upon what has happened in the island; and every one is humorously “told their own,” without offence being taken. By this sort of sport, according to yearly custom and toleration, there is a spirit of wit and drollery kept up among the people. The music and dancing done, they are treated with liquor, and then they go to the next house of entertainment.[30]
[29] Monthly Magazine, January, 1827.
[30] Strutt’s Sports, 307.