Mirror of the Months

by P. G. Patmore

Now, an occasional butterfly is seen fluttering away over the heads of the pale pedestrians of Ludgate Hill, who wonder what it can portend. Now, country cousins pay their triennial visits to the sights of London; and having been happy enough to secure lodgings in a side street in the Strand, have no doubt whatever that they are living at the west end of the town. Accordingly, they perambulate Parliament-street with exemplary perseverance, and then return to the country, to tell tales of the fashionables they have seen.

Finally, now the Parks really are the pleasantest imitations of the country that can be met with away from it. That of Hyde is worth walking in at five on a fine week-day, if it be only to see how the footmen and the horses enjoy themselves; and still more so at four on a fine Sunday, to see how the citizens do the same. The Green Park, in virtue of the youths and maidens who meander about it in all directions on the latter day, looks, at a distance, like a meadow strewn all over with moving wild-flowers. And the great alley in Kensington Gardens, when the fashionables please to patronise it, is as pretty to look down upon, from the Pavilion at top, as one of Watteau’s pictures.

JUNE.

Summer is come—come, but not to stay; at least, not at the commencement of this month. And how should it, unless we expect that the seasons will be kind enough to conform to the devices of man, and suffer themselves to be called by what name and at what period he pleases? He must die and leave them a legacy (instead of they him) before there will be any show of justice in this. Till then the beginning of June will continue to be the latter end of May, by rights; as it was according to the old style. And, among a thousand changes, in what one has the old style been improved upon by the new? Assuredly not in that of substituting the utile for the dulce, in any eyes but those of almanack makers. Let all lovers of Spring, therefore, be fully persuaded that, for the first fortnight in June, they are living in May; and then, all the sweet truths that I had to tell of the latter month, are equally applicable to half the present. We shall thus be gaining instead of losing, after all, by the impertinence of any breath, but that of Heaven, attempting to force Spring into Summer, even in name alone.

Spring, therefore, may now be considered as employed in completing her toilet, and, for the first weeks of this month, putting on those last finishing touches which an accomplished beauty never trusts to any hand but her own. In the woods and groves also, she is still clothing some of her noblest and proudest attendants with their new annual attire. The oak until now has been nearly bare; and, of whatever age, has been looking old all the Winter and Spring, on account of its crumpled branches and wrinkled rind. Now, of whatever age, it looks young, in virtue of its new green, lighter than all the rest of the grove. Now, also, the stately Walnut (standing singly or in pairs in the fore-court of ancient manor-houses; or in the home corner of the pretty park-like paddock at the back of some modern Italian villa, whose white dome it saw rise beneath it the other day, and mistakes for a mushroom), puts forth its smooth leaves slowly, as “sage grave men” do their thoughts; and which over-caution reconciles one to the beating it receives in the autumn, as the best means of at once compassing its present fruit, and making it bear more; as its said prototypes in animated nature are obliged to have their brains cudgelled, before any good can be got from them.

Among the ornamental trees, the only one that is not as yet clothed in all its beauty is, the most beautiful of all—the white Acacia. Its trim taper leaves are but just spreading themselves forth to welcome the coming summer sun; as those pretty female fingers which they resemble are spread involuntarily at the approach of the accepted lover.

The Mulberry, too, which in this country never sees itself unprovided with a smooth-shaven carpet of green turf beneath it, on which to drop (without injuring) its tender fruit, is only now rousing itself from its late repose. Its appearance is at present as poverty-stricken, in comparison with most of its well-dressed companions, as six weeks hence it will be rich, full, and umbrageous.

These are the chief appearances of the early part of this month which appertain exclusively to the Spring. Let us now (however reluctantly) take a final leave of that lovely and love-making season, and at once step forward into the glowing presence of Summer—contenting ourselves, however, to touch the hem of her rich garments, and not attempting to look into her heart, till she lays that open to us herself next month: for whatever school-boys calendar-makers may say to the contrary, Midsummer never happens in England till July.