These twelve Æglogues, every where answering to the seasons of the twelve monethes, may be well divided into three forms or ranks. For either they be plaintive, as the first, the sixth, the eleventh, and the twelfth; or recreative, such as all those be, which contain matter of love, or commendation of special personages; or moral, which for the most part be mixed with some satyrical bitterness; namely, the second, of reverence due to old age; the fifth, of coloured deceit; the seventh and ninth, of dissolute shepheards and pastors; the tenth, of contempt of Poetry and pleasant Wits. And to this division may every thing herein be reasonably applied; a few only except, whose special purpose and meaning I am not privy to. And thus much generally of these twelve Æglogues. Now will we speak particularly of all, and first of the first, which he calleth by the first moneth's name, Januarie: wherein to some he may seem foully to have faulted, in that he erroneously beginneth with that moneth, which beginneth not the year. For it is well known, and stoutly maintained with strong reasons of the learned, that the year beginneth in March; for then the sun reneweth his finished course, and the seasonable spring refresheth the earth, and the pleasance thereof, being buried in the sadness of the dead winter now worn away, reliveth.
This opinion maintain the old Astrologers and Philosophers, namely, the reverend Andalo, and Macrobius in his _Holy Days of Saturn_; which account also was generally observed both of Grecians and Romans. But, saving the leave of such learned heads, we maintain a custom of counting the seasons from the moneth Januarie, upon a more special cause than the heathen Philosophers ever could conceive, that is, for the Incarnation of our mighty Saviour, and Eternal Redeemer the Lord Christ, who as then renewing the state of the decayed world, and returning the compass of expired years to their former date and first commencement, left to us his heirs a memorial of his birth in the end of the last year and beginning of the next. Which reckoning, beside that eternal monument of our salvation, leaneth also upon good proof of special judgment.
For albeit that in elder times, when as yet the count of the year was not perfected, as afterward it was by Julius Cæsar, they began to tell the monethes from March's beginning, and according to the same, God (as is said in Scripture) commanded the people of the Jews, to count the moneth _Abib_, that which we call March, for the first moneth, in remembrance that in that moneth he brought them out of the land of Egypt: yet, according to tradition of latter times it hath been otherwise observed, both in government of the Church and rule of mightiest realms. For from Julius Cæsar who first observed the leap year, which he called _Bissextilem Annum_, and brought into a more certain course the odd wand'ring days which of the Greeks were called _Hyperbainontes_, of the Romans _Intercalares_, (for in such matter of learning I am forced to use the terms of the learned,) the monethes have been numbered twelve, which in the first ordinance of Romulus were but ten, counting but 304 days in every year, and beginning with March. But Numa Pompilius, who was the father of all the Roman ceremonies and religion, seeing that reckoning to agree neither with the course of the sun nor the moon, thereunto added two monethes, Januarie and Februarie; wherein it seemeth, that wise king minded upon good reason to begin the year at Januarie, of him therefore so called _tanquam janua anni_, the gate and entrance of the year; or of the name of the god _Janus_, to which god for that the old Paynims attributed the birth and beginning of all creatures new coming into the world, it seemeth that he _therefore_ to him assigned the beginning and first entrance of the year. Which account for the most part hath hitherto continued: notwithstanding that the Egyptians begin their year at September; for that, according to the opinion of the best Rabbins and very purpose of the Scripture itself, God made the world in that moneth, that is called of them _Tisri_. And therefore he commanded them to keep the feast of Pavilions in the end of the year, in the xv. day of the seventh moneth, which before that time was the first.