W. J. BERNHARD SMITH.
Temple.
"Thirty Days hath September," &c. (Antiquity of).
—Professor De Morgan, in his useful List of Works on Arithmetic, published in 1847, enters one, under the date 1596, with the following title: "The Pathway to Knowledge, written in Dutch, and translated into English by W. P., 4to." To this he notes:
"The translator gives the following verses, which are now well known. I suspect he is the author of them, having never seen them at an earlier date. Mr. Halliwell, who is more likely than myself to have found them if they existed very early, names no version of them earlier than 1635:—
"'Thirtie daies hath September, Aprill, June and November,
Febuarie eight and twentie alone, all the rest thirtie and one.'"
Now it seems to me noteworthy to be recorded in your pages, that these lines, so familiar to us all from childhood, appear in a more complete shape in Harrison's Description of Britaine prefixed to the first edition of Holinshed's Chronicles of England, &c., 1577, where at p. 119. the writer says:
"Agayne touching the number of dayes in every moneth:
"'Junius, Aprilis, Septemq; Novemq; tricenos