and obscure parts of the land, I had been silent; but when I perceived that the complaints were general from all parts of the land, and that even in Cheapside itself the rude rabble had set up this ensign of prophaneness, and had put the lord-mayor to the trouble of seeing it pulled down, I could not, out of my dearest respects and tender compassion to the land of my nativity, and for the prevention of the like disorders (if possible) for the future, but put pen to paper, and discover the sinful rise, and vile prophaneness that attend such misrule." In Small Poems of Divers Sorts. written by Sir Aston Cokain (1658), is the following: 33. Of Wakes, and May-poles.

"The Zelots here are grown so ignorant,

That they mistake Wakes for some ancient Saint,
They else would keep that Feast; for though they all
Would be cal'd Saints here, none in heaven they call:
Besides they May-poles hate with all their soul,

I think, because a Cardinal was a Pole."

Stevenson, in The Twelve Moneths, has these observations at the end of May

"Why should the Priest against the May-pole preach?
Alas! it is a thing out of his reach :

How he the errour of the time condoles,

And sayes, 'tis none of the cælestial poles ;

Whilst he (fond man!) at May-poles thus perplext,
Forgets he makes a May-game of his text.
But May shall tryumph at a higher rate,

Having Trees for poles, and Boughs to celebrate;
And the green regiment, in brave array,

Like Kent's Great walking Grove, shall bring in May."

The author of The Way to Things by Words, and Words by Things, in his specimen of an etymological vocabulary, considers the May-pole in a new and curious light. We gather from him that our ancestors held an anniversary assembly on May-day; and that the column of May (whence our May-pole) was the great standard of justice in the Ey-Commons or Fields of May. Here it was that the people, if they saw cause, deposed or punished their governors, their barons, and their kings. The judge's bough or wand (at this time discontinued, and only faintly represented by a trifling nosegay), and the staff or rod of authority in the civil and in the military (for it was the mace of civil power, and the truncheon of the field officers), are both derived from hence. A mayor, he says, received his name from this May, in the sense of lawful power; the crown, a mark of dignity

* "At Hesket (in Cumberland) yearly on St. Barnabas's Day, by the highway side under a thorn tree (according to the very ancient manner of holding assemblies in the open air), is kept the court for the whole Forest of Englewood."-Nicolson and Burn's Hist. of Westmor. and Cumb. vol. ii. p. 344. Keysler, says Borlase, thinks that the custom of the May pole took its rise from the earnest desire of the people to see their king, who, seldom appearing at other times, made his procession at this time of year to the great assembly of the states held in the open air.

and symbol of power, like the mace and sceptre, was also taken from the May, being representative of the garland or crown, which, when hung on the top of the May or pole, was the great signal for convening the people; the arches of it, which spring from the circlet and meet together at the mound or round bell, being necessarily so formed, to suspend it to the top of the pole.

The word May-pole, he observes, is a pleonasm. In French it is called simply the Mai.

He farther tells us that this is one of the most ancient customs, which from the remotest ages has been, by repetition from year to year, survived to the present day, not being at this instant totally exploded, especially in the lower classes of life. It was considered as the boundary day, that divided the confines of winter and summer, allusively to which there was instituted a sportful war between two parties; the one in defence of the continuance of winter, the other for bringing in the summer. The youth were divided into troops, the one in winter livery, the other in the gay habit of the spring. The mock battle was always fought booty; the spring was sure to obtain the victory, which they celebrated by carrying triumphantly green branches with May flowers, proclaiming and singing the song of joy, of which the burthen was in these or equivalent terms: "We have brought the summer home."

A singular custom used to be annually observed on May day by the boys of Frindsbury and Stroud (Hasted says the boys of Rochester and Stroud). "They met on Rochester Bridge, where a skirmish ensued between them. This combat probably derived its origin from a drubbing received by the monks of Rochester in the reign of Edward I. These monks, on occasion of a long drought, set out on a procession for Frindsbury to pray for rain; but the day proving windy, they apprehended the lights would be blown out, the banners tossed about, and their order much discomposed. They, therefore, requested of the Master of Stroud Hospital leave to pass through the orchard of his house, which he granted without the permission of his brethren; who, when they had heard what the Master had done, instantly hired a company of ribalds, armed with clubs and bats, who waylaid the poor monks in the orchard, and gave them a severe beating. The monks desisted from proceeding that way, but soon after found out a pious mode of revenge, by obliging the men of Frindsbury, with due humility, to come yearly on Whit Monday, with their clubs in procession to Rochester, as penance for their sins. Hence probably came the byword of Frindsbury clubs."-Ireland's Picturesque Views of the Medway, sect. 4.

In the British Apollo (1708), to the question "whence is derived the custom of setting up May-poles, and dressing them with garlands ; and what is the reason that the milk-maids dance before their customers' doors with their pails dressed up with plate?" it is answered: "It was a custom among the ancient Britons, before converted to Christianity to erect these May-poles, adorned with flowers, in honour of the goddess Flora; and the dancing of the milk-maids may be only a corruption of that custom in complyance with the town."

Piers, in his Description of Westmeath, in Ireland, 1682, says :

"On

May Eve every family sets up before their door a green bush, strewed over with yellow flowers, which the meadows yield plentifully. In countries where timber is plentiful, they erect tall slender trees, which stand high, and they continue almost the whole year; so as a stranger would go nigh to imagine that they were all signs of ale-sellers, and that all houses were ale-houses."

MORRIS DANCERS.*

MAID MARIAN, OR QUEEN OF THE MAY.

'OLLET, in his Account of the Morris Dancers upon his window,

Tepes the celebrated Maid Marian, arrayed as Queen of May,

as having a golden crown on her head, and in her left hand a red

The Morris dance, in which bells are gingled, or staves or swords clashed, was learned, says Dr Johnson, by the Moors, and was probably a kind of Pyrrhic or military dance.

"Morisco," says Blount "(Span.) a Moor; also a Dance, so called, wherein there were usually five men, and a boy dressed in a girl's habit, whom they called the Maid Marrion, or, perhaps, Morian, from the Italian Morione, a head-piece, because her head was wont to be gaily trimmed up. Common people call it a Morris Dance."

The Churchwardens' and Chamberlains' Books of Kingston-upon-Thames furnished Lysons with the following particulars illustrative of our subject, under the head of

66 ROBIN HOOD AND MAY GAME."

23 Hen. VII. To the menstorel upon May-day.

For paynting of the Mores garments, and for sarten
gret leveres*

For paynting of a bannar for Robin-hode

For 2 M. and

pynnys

For 4 plyts and of laun for the Mores garments
For Orseden for the same

For a goun for the lady

For bellys for the dawnsars.

24 Hen. VII. For Little John's cote.

i Hen. VIII. For silver paper for the Mores dawnsars

For Kendall, for Robyn-hode's cote's

For 3 yerds of white for the frere's cote

The word Livery was formerly used to signify anything delivered: see the Northumberland Household Book, p. 60. If it ever bore such an acceptation at that time, one might be induced to suppose, from the following entries, that it here meant a badge, or something of that kind

For 24 great lyverys

O O 4.

Probably these were a sort of cockades, given to the company from whom the money was collected.

pink, as emblem of summer. Her vesture was once fashionable in the highest degree; for Margaret, the eldest daughter of Henry VII., was married to James King of Scotland with the crown upon

1 Hen. VIII. For 4 yerds of Kendall for Mayde Marian's huke O 3 4 For saten of sypers for the same huke.

For 6 brode arovys

To Mayde Marian, for her labour for two yeers
To Fygge the taborer.

Rec for Robin-hood's gaderyng 4 marks +
Rec for Robin-hood's gaderyng at Croydon
Paid for three brode yerds of rosett for makyng the
frer's cote

O 0 6

. O 3 6

Shoes for the Mores daunsars, the frere, and Mayde

Maryan, at 7d. a peyre

.0 5 4

Eight yerds of fustyan for the Mores daunsars coats o 16 O
A dosyn of gold skynnes ‡ for the Morres
Hire of hats for Robyn hode

Paid for the hat that was lost

Rec at the Church-ale and Robyn-hode, all things

deducted

O 10

.

3 10

Payd for 6 yerds of satyn for Robyn-hode's cotys 0 12 6

022100

600024+00000

O 4 6

O 10 8

To the fryer and the piper for to go to Croydon. o O 8 28 Hen. VIII. Mem. lefte in the keping of the Wardens now beinge, a fryer's cote of russet, and a kyrtele of worsted weltyd with red cloth, a mowrens || cote of buckram, and 4 Morres daunsars cotes of white fustian spangelyd, and two gryne saten cotes, and a dysardd's ¶ cote of cotton, and 6 payre of garters with bells."

**

"After this period," says Lysons, "I find no entries relating to the above game. It was so much in fashion in the reign of Henry VIII. that the king and his nobles would sometimes appear in disguise as Robinhood and his men, dressed in Kendal, with hoods and hosen."

*Steevens suggests, with great probability, that this word may have the same meaning as Howve, or Houve, used by Chaucer for a head-dress. Maid Marian's head-dress was always very fine. It appears that this, as well as other games, was made a parish concern.

Probably gilt leather, the pliability of which was particularly accommodated to the motion of the dancers.

§ A sort of coarse linen.

Probably a Moor's coat; the word Morian is sometimes used to express a Moor. buckram appears to have been much used for the dresses of the ancient mummers.

Disard is an old word for a fool.

Black

** In the Churchwardens' Accounts of Great Marlow, it appears that dresses for the Morris Dance "were lent out to the neighbouring parishes. They are accounted for so late as 1629."-See Langley's Antiquities of Desborough, 4to. 1797, p. 142.

her head and her hair hanging down; and between the crown and the hair was a very rich coif, hanging down behind the whole length of the body. This simple example sufficiently explains the dress of Marian's head. Her coif is purple, her surcoat blue, her cuffs white, the skirts of her robe yellow, the sleeves of a carnation colour, and her stomacher red, with a yellow lace in cross-bars. In Shakespeare's play of Henry VIII., Anne Boleyn, at her coronation, is in her hair, or, as Holinshed says, her hair hanged down, but on her head she had a coif, with a circlet about it full of rich stones.

In Coates's History of Reading, under Churchwardens' Accounts of St Mary's parish, we have

A.D. 1557. Item. payed to the Mynstrels and the Hobby Horse uppon May Day

Item. payed to the Morrys Daunsers and the Myn-
strelles, mete and drink at Whitsontide
Payed to them the Sonday after May Day
P to the Painter for painting of their cotes
Pa to the Painter for 2 dz. of Lyveryes

.

030

.

. O O 20

. O

2 8

. O

O 20

In the rare tract, of the time of Queen Elizabeth, entitled Plaine Percevall the Peace-maker of England, mention is made of a "stranger, which seeing a quintessence (beside the Foole and the Maid Marian) of all the picked youth, strained out of a whole endship, footing the Morris about a May-pole, and he not hearing the minstrelsie for the fidling, the tune for the sound, nor the pipe for the noise of the tabor, bluntly demaunded if they were not all beside themselves, that they so lip'd and skip'd without an occasion."

Shakespeare makes mention of an English Whitson Morris Dance, in the following speech of the Dauphin in Henry V.—

"No, with no more, than if we heard that England
Were busied with a Whitson Morrice Dance."

"The English were famed," says Dr Grey in his Notes on Shakespeare, "for these and such like diversions; and even the old, as well as young persons, formerly followed them: a remarkable instance of which is given by Sir William Temple (Miscellanea, Part 3. Essay of Health and Long Life), who makes mention of a Morrice Dance in Herefordshire, from a noble person, who told him he had a pamphlet in his library, written by a very ingenious gentleman of that county, which gave an account how, in such a year of King James's reign, there went about the country a sett of Morrice Dancers, composed of ten men, who danced a Maid Marrian, and a tabor and pipe: and how these ten, one with another, made up twelve hundred years. 'Tis not so much, says he, that so many in one county should live to that age, as that they should be in vigour and humour to travel and dance." The following description of a Morris Dance occurs in Cobbe's Prophecies, his Signes and Tokens, his Madrigalls, Questions, and Answers (1614)