who are dressed as gaily as may be in ribands, sashes, rosettes, and flowers-the lady' wearing a smart tasty cap, and carrying a large purse. They then go from house to house, and sing this simple verse to a very primitive tune :'Gentlemen and ladies,

We wish you happy May;

We come to show you a garland,
Because it is May-day.'

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"One of the bearers then asks, 'Please to handsel the lord and lady's purse;' and on some money being given, the ‘lord' doffs his cap, and taking one of the lady's' hands in his right, and passing his left arm around her waist, kisses her; the money is then put in the purse, and they depart to repeat the same ceremony at the next house. In the village are upwards of a dozen of these garlands, with their lords and ladies,' which give to the place the most gay and animated appearance."

The May Garlands are thus alluded to in Fletcher's Poems, 12mo, Lond. 1656, p. 209.

"Heark, how Amyntas in melodious loud

Shrill raptures tunes his horn-pipe! whiles a crowd

Of snow-white milk-maids, crownd with garlands gay,
Trip it to the soft measure of his lay;

And fields with curds and cream like green-cheese lye;
This now or never is the Gallaxie.

If the facetious Gods ere taken were

With mortal beauties and disguis'd, 'tis here.

See how they mix societies, and tosse

The tumbling ball into a willing losse,

That th' twining Ladyes on their necks might take
The doubled kisses which they first did stake."]

MAY-POLES.

"The after

Bourne, speaking of the 1st of May, tells us : part of the day is chiefly spent in dancing round a tall pole, which is called a May Pole; which being placed in a convenient part of the village, stands there, as it were, consecrated to the Goddess of Flowers, without the least violation offer'd to it in the whole circle of the year." Stubbs, a puritanical writer, in his Anatomie of Abuses, says: "But their cheefest jewell they

bring from thence [the woods] is their Maie poole, whiche they bring home with greate veneration, as thus :-They have twentie or fourtie yoke of oxen, every oxe havyng a sweete nosegaie of flowers tyed on the tippe of his hornes, and these oxen drawe home this Maie poole (this stinckyng idoll rather), which is covered all over with flowers and hearbes, bounde rounde aboute with stringes, from the top to the bottome, and sometyme painted with variable colours, with twoo or three hundred men, women, and children followyng it with greate devotion. And thus beyng reared up, with handkerchiefes and flagges streamyng on the toppe, they strawe the grounde aboute, binde greene boughes about it, sett up sommer haules, bowers, and arbours, hard by it. And then fall they to banquet and feast, to leape and daunce aboute it, as the Heathen people did at the dedication of their idolles, whereof this is a perfect patterne, or rather the thyng itself."

[No essay on this subject can be considered complete without the curious old ballad in the Westminster Drollery, called the "Rural Dance about the May-pole, the tune the first figure dance at Mr. Young's ball, May 1671:"

"Come lasses and lads, take leave of your dads,

And away to the May-pole hie;

For every he has got him a she,

And the minstrel's standing by.

For Willy has gotten his Jill, and Johnny has got his Joan.
To jig it, jig it, jig it, jig it up and down.

Strike up, says Wat. Agreed, says Kate,
And, I prithee, fidler, play;

Content, says Hodge, and so says Madge,

For this is a holiday!

Then every man did put his hat off to his lass,

And every girl did curchy, curchy, curchy on the grass.

Begin, says Hall. Aye, aye, says Mall,

We'll lead up Packington's Pound:

No, no, says Noll. And so, says Doll,
We'll first have Sellenger's Round.

Then every man began to foot it round about,
And every girl did jet it, jet it, jet it in and out.

You're out, says Dick. "Tis a lie, says Nick;
The fiddler played it false :

'Tis true, says Hugh; and so says Sue,

And so says nimble Alce.

The fiddler then began to play the tune again,

And every girl did trip it, trip it, trip it to the men."

"I shall never forget," says Washington Irving, "the delight I felt on first seeing a May-pole. It was on the banks of the Dee, close by the picturesque old bridge that stretches across the river from the quaint little city of Chester. I had already been carried back into former days by the antiquities of that venerable place, the examination of which is equal to turning over the pages of a black-letter volume, or gazing on the pictures in Froissart. The May-pole on the margin of that poetic stream completed the illusion. My fancy adorned it with wreaths of flowers, and peopled the green bank with all the dancing revelry of May-day. The mere sight of this May-pole gave a glow to my feelings, and spread a charm over the country for the rest of the day; and as I traversed a part of the fair plain of Cheshire, and the beautiful borders of Wales, and looked from among swelling hills down a long green valley, through which the Deva wound its wizard stream,' my imagination turned all into a perfect Arcadia."]

In Vox Graculi, 1623, p. 62, speaking of May, the author says: "This day shall be erected long wooden idols, called May-poles; whereat many greasie churles shall murmure, that will not bestow so much as a faggot-sticke towards the warming of the poore: an humour that, while it seems to smell of conscience, savours indeed of nothing but covetousness.” Stevenson, in the Twelve Moneths, 1661, p. 22, says, "The tall young oak is cut down for a May-pole, and the frolick fry of the town prevent the rising of the sun, and, with joy in their faces and boughs in their hands, they march before it to the place of erection." I find the following in A Pleasant Grove of New Fancies, 1657, p. 74:

"The Maypole is up,

Now give me the cup,

I'll drink to the garlands around it,
But first unto those

Whose hands did compose

The glory of flowers that crown'd it."1

In Northbrooke's Treatise, wherein Dicing, Dauncing, vaine Playes or Enterluds, with other idle Pastimes, &c., commonly used on the Sabbath-day, are reproved, 1577, p. 140, is the

In the Chapel-wardens' Accounts of Brentford, 1623, is the following article: "Received for the Maypole £1 4s." Lysons's Envir. of Lond. ii. 54.

following passage: "What adoe make our yong men at the time of May? Do they not use night-watchings to rob and steale yong trees out of other men's grounde, and bring them into their parishe, with minstrels playing before: and when they have set it up, they will decke it with floures and garlands, and daunce rounde (men and women togither, moste unseemely and intolerable, as I have proved before) about the tree, like unto the children of Israell that daunced about the golden calfe that they had set up.”

Owen, in his Welsh Dictionary, in v. Bedwen, a birch-tree, explains it also by "a May-pole, because it is always (he says) made of birch. It was customary to have games of various sorts round the bedwen; but the chief aim, and on which the fame of the village depended, was to preserve it from being stolen away, as parties from other places were continually on the watch for an opportunity, who, if successful, had their feats recorded in songs on the occasion."

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Tollett, in the account of his painted window, printed in the Variorum Shakespeare, tells us, that the May-pole there represented" is painted yellow and black, in spiral lines." Spelman's Glossary mentions the custom of erecting a tall May-pole, painted with various colours and Shakespeare, in A Midsummer Night's Dream, iii. 2, speaks of a painted Maypole. Upon our pole," adds Tollett, "are displayed St. George's red cross, or the banner of England, and a white penon or streamer, emblazoned with a red cross, terminating like the blade of a sword, but the delineation thereof is much faded." Keysler, in p. 78 of his Northern and Celtic Antiquities, gives us, perhaps, the origin of May-poles; and that the French used to erect them appears also from Mezeray's History of their King Henry IV., and from a passage in Stow's Chronicle in the year 1560. Mr. Theobald and Dr. Warburton acquaint us that the May-games, and particularly some

1 Lodge, in his Wit's Miserie, 1596, p. 27, describing Usury, says: "His spectacles hang beating like the flag in the top of a May-pole." Borlase, speaking of the manners of the Cornish people, says, "From towns they make incursions, on May Eve, into the country, cut down a tall elm, bring it into the town with rejoicings, and having fitted a straight taper pole to the end of it, and painted it, erect it in the most public part, and upon holidays and festivals dress it with garlands of flowers, or ensigns and streamers."

of the characters in them, became exceptionable to the puritanical humour of former times. By an ordinance of the [Long] Parliament, in April, 1644, all May-poles were taken down, and removed by the constables, churchwardens, &c. After the Restoration they were permitted to be erected again.

By Charles I.'s warrant, dated Oct. 18, 1633, it was enacted, that, "for his good people's lawfull recreation, after the end of Divine Service, his good people be not disturbed, letted, or discouraged from any lawfull recreation; such as dancing, either men or women; archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or any other such harmless recreations: nor from having of May Games, Whitson Ales, and Morris Dances, and the setting up of May-poles, and other sports therewith used; so as the same be had in due and convenient time, without impediment or neglect of Divine Service. And that women shall have leave to carry rushes to the church for the decorating of it, according to their old custom. But withal his Majesty doth hereby account still as prohibited, all unlawful games to be used on Sundays only, as bear and bull-baitings, interludes, and, at all times, in the meaner sort of people by law prohibited, bowling." (Harris's Life of Charles I., p. 48.) The following were the words of the ordinance for their destruction, 1644: "And because the prophanation of the Lord's Day hath been heretofore greatly occasioned by Maypoles, (a heathenish vanity, generally abused to superstition and wickednesse,) the Lords and Commons do further order and ordain that all and singular May-poles, that are or shall be erected, shall be taken down and removed by the constables, borsholders, tything-men, petty constables, and churchwardens of the parishes, when the same shall be; and that no May-pole shall be hereafter set up, erected, or suffered to be within this kingdom of England, or dominion of Wales. The said officers to be fined five shillings weekly till the said May-pole be taken downe."

In Burton's Judgments upon Sabbath Breakers, a work written professedly against the Book of Sports, 1641, are some curious particulars illustrating May-games, p. 9, Example 16:-"At Dartmouth, 1634, upon the coming forth and publishing of the Book of Sports, a company of yonkers, on May-day morning, before day, went into the country to fetch