This is the ninth month of the year: anciently it was the seventh, as its name imports, which is compounded of septem, seven, and imber, a shower of rain, from the rainy season usually commencing at this period of the year.
Our Saxon ancestors called this month “Gerst-monat, for that barley which that moneth commonly yeelded was antiently called gerst, the name of barley being given unto it by reason of the drinke therewith made, called beere, and from beerlegh it come to be berlegh, and from berleg to barley. So in like manner beereheym, to wit, the overdecking or covering of beere, came to be called berham, and afterwards barme, having since gotten I wot not how many names besids.—This excellent and healthsome liquor, beere, antiently also called ael, as of the Danes it yet is (beere and ale being in effect all one,) was first of the Germans invented, and brought in use.”[268]
Mr. Leigh Hunt notices, that Spenser takes advantage of the exuberance of harvest, and the sign of the zodiac, libra, in this month, to read another lesson on justice. “This is the month,” Mr. Hunt continues, “of the migration of birds, of the finished harvest, of nut-gathering, of cyder and perry-making, and, towards the conclusion, of the change of colour in trees. The swallows and many other soft-billed birds that feed on insects, disappear for the warmer climates, leaving only a few stragglers behind, probably from weakness or sickness, who hide themselves in caverns and other sheltered places, and occasionally appear upon warm days. The remainder of harvest is got in; and no sooner is this done, than the husbandman ploughs up his land again, and prepares it for the winter grain. The oaks and beeches shed their nuts, which in the forest that still remain, particularly the New Forest in Hampshire, furnish a luxurious repast for the swine, who feast of an evening in as pompous a manner as any alderman, to the sound of the herdsman’s horn. But the acorn must not be undervalued because it is food for swine, nor thought only robustly of, because it furnishes our ships with timber. It is also one of the most beautiful objects of its species, protruding its glossy green nut from its rough and sober-coloured cup, and dropping it in a most elegant manner beside the sunny and jagged leaf. We have seen a few of them, with their stems in water, make a handsome ornament to a mantle-piece, in this season of departing flowers.—The few additional flowers this month are cornflowers, Guernsey-lilies, starwort, and saffron, a species of crocus, which is cultivated in separate grounds. The stamens of this flower are pulled, and dried into flat square cakes for medicinal purposes. It was formerly much esteemed in cookery. The clown in the Winter’s Tale, reckoning up what he is to buy for the sheepshearing feast, mentions ‘saffron to colour the warden-pies.’ The fresh trees and shrubs in flower are bramble, chaste-tree, laurustinus, ivy, wild honeysuckle, spirea, and arbutus, or strawberry-tree, a favourite of Virgil, which, like the garden of Alcinous, in Homer, produces flower and fruit at once. Hardy annuals, intended to flower in the spring, should now be sown; annuals of curious sorts, from which seed is to be raised, should be sheltered till ripened; and auriculas in pots, which were shifted last month, moderately watered. The stone-curlew clamours at the beginning of this month, wood-owls hoot, the ring-ouzel reappears, the saffron butterfly is seen, hares congregate; and, at the end of it, the woodlark, thrush, and blackbird, are heard.”
Mr. Hunt further observes that, September, though its mornings and evenings are apt to be chill and foggy, and therefore not wholesome to those who either do not, or cannot, guard against them, is generally a serene and pleasant month, partaking of the warmth of summer and the vigour of autumn. But its noblest feature is a certain festive abundance for the supply of all the creation. There is grain for men, birds, and horses, hay for the cattle, loads of fruit on the trees, and swarms of fish in the ocean. If the soft-billed birds which feed on insects miss their usual supply, they find it in the southern countries, and leave one’s sympathy to be pleased with an idea, that repasts apparently more harmless are alone offered to the creation upon our temperate soil. The feast, as the philosophic poet says on a higher occasion—
The feast is such as earth, the general mother,
Pours from her fairest bosom, when she smiles
In the embrace of Autumn. To each other
As some fond parent fondly reconciles
Her warring children, she their wrath beguiles
With their own sustenance; they, relenting, weep.
Such is this festival, which from their isles,
And continents, and winds, and oceans deep,
All shapes may throng to share, that fly, or walk, or creep.
Shelley.
[268] Verstegan.