Hone’s Everyday Book (page 1/6)

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May

A poem beneath the picture reads as follows: [more...] [$]

March

“—Sturdy March with brows full sternly bent
  And armed strongly, rode upon a ram,
  The same which over Hellespontus swam;
Yet in his hand a spade he also hent,
  And in a bag all sorts of weeds ysame,
Which on the earth he strewed as he went,
And fill’d her womb with fruitfull hope of nourishment.     Spenser.” (p. 311) [more...] [$]

Fourteenth Century Man

Showing how men dressed in the fourteenth century. [$]

Bookplate, R. B. Colvin

It seems that my copy of this book once belonged to one B. B. Colvin, probably Beale Blackwell Colvin (1809 – 1865), of Monkham’s Hall, Waltham, Essex; he was the high sheriff of Essex in 1848. [more...] [$]

Awaiting the postman on Saint Valentine’s Day

St. Valentine’s day, the 14th of February (US: February 14)

“Where can the postman be, I say?
He ought to fly—on such a day!Of all days in the year, you know,
It’s monstrous rude to be so slow:
The fellow’s so exceeding stupid—
Hark!—there he is!—oh! the dear Cupid!” (p. 215)

The woodcut (signed S.W. and T.W., probably artist and engraver respectively) shows a man wearing a top hat and riding a donkey, blowing a bugle or trumpet; he is arriving a a house with an open door and window, out of which several ladies anxiously peer. A boy dances outside [more...] [$]