THE MONTHS-APRIL. WRITERS are by no means agreed in their derivation of the Latin name assigned to this month. Ovid stoutly maintains that it was called April from the Greek name of Venus, Αφροδίτη, the deity having been born of ἀφρον, i. e. the sea-foam.* At the same time he notices, although with the contempt becoming a descendant of Venus, that there were some who endeavoured to rob the goddess of her just rights by deriving the month from aperire, to open, because at this season the spring uncloses everything, and the prolific earth is open to receive the seeds.† Macrobius gives us a variety of derivations for the word. First he says that as Romulus called the first month of the year March after his father, Mars, so he named the second month April, in honour of the mother of Æneas; but he admits that some have imagined the founder of Rome to have been influenced by other and more ab* "Sed Veneris mensem Graio sermone notatum Auguror; a spumis est Dea dicta maris. Nec tibi sit mirum Graio rem nomine dici, Itala nam tellus Grecia major erat." P. Ovidii Nasonis Fastorum, lib. iv., v. 61. † “Quo non livor abiit? sunt qui tibi mensis honorem Eripuisse velint, invideantque, Venus. Nam quia Ver aperit tunc omnia, densaque cedit P. Ovid. Nas. Fast., lib. iv., v. 85–90. stract considerations, and that as he had given March to the slayer of mankind, so he appropriated April to Venus, that her gentleness might temper his ferocity.* Scaliger, however, denies the authority both of Ovid and Macrobius, and oddly enough chooses to derive April from aper, a wild boar, asserting that the Romans in this only imitated the Greeks, who called February λapnßoliwv, from the striking of deer, which were then immolated to Diana. If it were allowable to form one's own opinion where such high authorities differ from each other, I should be inclined to adopt the conjecture so angrily set aside by * "Secundum mensem nominavit Aprilem, ut quidam putant cum aspiratione, quasi Aphrilem, a spumâ, quam Græci appòv vocant, unde orta Venus creditur. Et hanc Romuli fuisse asserunt rationem, ut primum quidem mensem a patre suo, Marte, secundum ab Æneæ matre Venere nominaret; et hi potissimum anni principia servarent, a quibus esset Romani nominis origo; cum hodie quoque in sacris Martem patrem, Venerem genetricem vocemus. Alii putant Romulum, vel altiore prudentiâ, vel certi numinis providentiâ, ita primos ordinasse mer.ses, ut cum præcedens Marti esset dicatus, Deo plerumque hominum necatori, ut Homerus ait, naturæ conscius,"Αρες, Αρες βροτολοιγε, μιαιφόνε, τειχεσιπλητα—secundus Veneri dicaretur quæ vim ejus quasi benefica leniret."-AUR. MACROBII SATURNALIJRUM, lib. i., p. 256, 8vo. Bipont, 1788.-"The second month he called April, as some think with an aspiration, as if Aphril, from the foam, which the Greeks call appòv, whence Venus is believed to have sprung. And this they assert to have been Romulus' reason; that, as he named the first month from his father, Mars, so he would name the second from Venus, the mother of Æneas; and that these two should chiefly possess the commencement of the year, from whom was the origin of the Roman name; thus even in the present day we invoke in the sacred rites Mars the father and Venus the mother. Others think it was either from a deeper wisdom, or by some divine providence, Romulus thus ordained the months, that as the preceding one had been dedicated to Mars, the general destroyer of men, as Homer says― 'Mars! Mars! thou homicidal, sanguinary, shaker of walls! ' so the second should be dedicated to Venus as if by her gentleness to temper his violence." Ovid. The deriving of Aprilis from aperio-of the name of the season from its principal characteristic-has at least a great show of probability. It is to this opinion also that Macrobius inclines, telling us from Cincius and Varro, that the ancient Romans had instituted no particular festival to Venus in April, and how therefore could it have derived its name from her? He then winds up all from the same authority by saying, "prior to the Vernal Equinox, the skies were clouded, the earth covered with snow, and the rivers closed by ice, all of which became dispersed and broken up by spring, and therefore the month took its name from this general opening up as it were of nature, the trees budding, the streams flowing, and earth disclosing its bosom to receive the seeds." The same uncertainty seems to prevail in regard to the etymology of the Saxon term for this month, Oster, or Oster Monat. Verstegan says, "they, (the Saxons) called April by the name of Oster-Monat, some think of a goddess, called Goster, whereof I see no great reason, for if it took appellation of such a goddess, a supposed cause of the easterly winds, it seemeth to be somewhat by some miswritten, and should rightly be Oster, and not Goster. The winds indeed by ancient observation were found in this month most commonly to blow from the East, and East in the Teutonic is Ost; and Ost-End, which rightly in English is East End, hath that name for the Eastern situation thereof, as to the ships it appeareth, which through the narrow seas do come from the West."+ Where Verstegan picked up his GOSTER, is more than I can pretend to say. The G and E being extremely alike in the old black letter, it is possible he may have mis * Aur. Macrobie Saturnaliorum, lib. i. cap. xii. p. 257. Varro maintains that neither the Latin nor Greek name of Venus was known amongst the early Romans. + Verstegan, p. 66, 12mo. London, 1675. taken the one for the other and thus have built up his whole theory upon a palpable blunder, for Eoster, or Eastre, is the usual way, in which the name of the goddess is written. True it is, if we may believe Spelman, that, in some old edition of Bede, Coster is read, and not Eoster; but this certainly is not the general reading of the editions of that author, and I should imagine it is, like the Goster of Verstegan, nothing more than a mere typographical blunder. In the copy now before me* the text is plain enough,-" Eosturmonath, qui nunc Paschalis mensis interpretatur, quondam a Deâ illorum, quæ Eostre vocabatur, et cui in illo festa celebrabant, nomen habuit -that is, "Eosturmonath, which is now interpreted to mean the paschal month, formerly had its name from one of their goddesses (i. e. Saxon goddesses) who was called Eostre, and to whom in that month they celebrated festivals." Every thing now denotes the vivifying influence of spring. The birds that had left us during the winterseason begin to return, the woods are alive with their cheerful notes, and the process of nidification commences. The lesser pettychaps, who is the smallest of the willowwrens, and the wood-wren, the largest of the same tribe, are now seen upon the wing; the bittern begins to boom in marshy places at even-tide, and the heron sails heavily from one pond to another in search of fish, over * Venerabilis Bedæ Opera, vol. ii. p. 68. Folio. Col. Agrippinæ According to some authorities the bittern begins this booming, lowing, or bumping, as it is variously called, so early as March, or even February, but it always ceases after the breeding season. is at morning and evening that the bird makes this deep, lowing sound, and often while high in the air, its flight being lofty and spiral. "Those," says Lord Montague, "who have walked in a summer's evening by the sedgy sides of unfrequented rivers, must remember a variety of notes from different water-fowl; the loud scream of the wild goose, the croaking of the mallard, the whining of the It a large extent of country; the swallows make their appearance, though not in numbers; the wryneck comes back from its winter residence; the nightingale pours forth her song, which whether it be sad or cheerful the poets have not yet been able to decide, Milton,* Virgil, lapwing, and the tremulous neighing of the jack-snipe. But of all these sounds there is none so dismally hollow as the booming of the bittern. It is impossible for words to give those, who have not heard this evening call, an adequate idea of its solemnity. It is like the interrupted bellowing of a bull, but hollower and louder, and is heard at a mile's distance, as if issuing from some formidable being that resided at the bottom of the waters. From the loudness and solemnity of the note, many have been led to suppose that the bird made use of some external instrument to produce it, and that so small a body could never eject such a quantity of tone. The common people are of opinion that it thrusts its bill into a reed, that serves as a pipe for swelling the note above its natural pitch, while others imagine that the bittern puts its head under water, and then by blowing violently produces its boomings. The fact is that the bird is sufficiently provided by nature for this call, and it is often heard when there are neither reeds nor water to assist its sonorous invitations. It hides in the sedges by day, and begins to call in the evening, booming six or eight times, and then discontinuing for ten or twenty minutes it resumes the same sound." * Milton, as most readers will recollect, thus addresses the nightingale ; to "Sweet bird that shunn'st the noise of folly, Most musical, most melancholy! Thee, chantress, oft the woods among, I woo to hear thy evening song."-Il Penseroso. Virgil uses the melancholy of the nightingale in an exquisite simile express the grief of Eurydice for Orpheus; "Qualis populeâ mærens Philomela sub umbrâ Amissos queritur fœtus."-Georg. Lib. iv. v. 511. To be sure in this case the nightingale is supposed to have lost her young, which may account for her sadness without any general disposition to melancholy. And Petrarca, in a sonnet written after the death of Laura, says; "Quel Rossignol, che si soave piagne Fórse suoi figli, o sua cara cónsòrte, |