February.

“They called February Sprout-kele, by kele meaning the kele-wort, which we now call the cole-wort, the great pot-wort in time long past that our ancestors used; and the broth made therewith was thereof also called kele. For before we borrowed from the French the name of potage, and the name of herb, the one in our own language was called kele, and the other wort; and as the kele-wort, or potage herb, was the chief winter wort for the sustenance of the husbandman, so was it the first herb that in this month began to yield out wholesome young sprouts, and consequently gave thereunto the name of Sprout-kele.” So writes old Verstegan; and perhaps if we had weighed earlier what he thus affirms, we might have better understood Shakspere when he sings of the wintery time,

Figures:

228.—Saxon Emblems of the Month of February.

The Saxon pictures of February show us the chilly man warming his hands at the blazing fire; and the labourers more healthily employed in the woods and orchards, pruning their fruit-trees and lopping their timber (Fig. 228). Spenser has mingled these emblems in his description of January, in the ‘Faery Queen;’ but he carries on the pruning process into February:—