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RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS
of January, when, after the seed had been sown, the ploughs were laid up in ordinary, and the cattle were decorated with garlands.
- nunc ad præsepia debent Plena coronato stare boves capite.-Tib. lib. XI, El. 1, 1. S.
A palpable relique of which rite is also traceable in the Plough Monday of our calendar (13th January), and the games with which it was celebrated.
The long course of ages which has elapsed has necessarily impaired the evidence of a perfect concordance between the ceremonies with which the nations of antiquity commemorated the sun's northern journey; yet no reasonable doubt can be entertained that they did agree in celebrating that event with practices, if not precisely the same, yet of a very similar character; and that traces of such conformity are still to be discovered in the unaltered ritual of the Hindus, and the popular, though ill-understood and fastexpiring practices of the Christian world, — affording a curious and interesting proof of the permanency of those institutions which have their foundation in the immutable laws of nature, and in the common feelings of mankind.
The important character of the Uttaráyana festival, and the remarkable analogies which, whether indisputable or not, it unavoidably suggests, have led to a more copious detail, perhaps, than the subject deserves. It is only, however, in such cases that prolixity will admit of apology. The greater number of
