"The groves and hills are adorned with all sorts of flowers: a pavilion of roses, as the seat of pleasure, is raised in the garden. Who knows which of us will be alive when the fair season ends? Be cheerful, &c. "The edge of the bower is filled with the light of Ahmed; among the plants the fortunate tulips represent his companions. Come, O people of Mohammed! this is the season of merriment. Be cheerful, &c." Such is the description of May by the poets, and such its character really is, in a greater or less degree, to all who enjoy youth and health. The torpitude of age often imbibes warmth from its influence, which, however, is chilled by the reflection that life, unlike nature, has no second spring; it "blossoms but to die." In some temperaments, however, the impression produced by the season is overpowering from excess of excitation, and a feeling of sadness is generated amidst gaiety and hope. Burke observes, that the passion of love has in it more of melancholy than of jollity or mirth; and it is the same with impressions made by natural objects, where these impressions are more than commonly deep. They always tend, during the highest enjoyment of them, to a pleasing melancholy. The scent of a flower, where the perception of its odour is more exquisite than usual, will do this, and the view of an unclouded evening sky, or a rich setting sun, is uniformly productive of sadness to persons of great sensibility, and even in a limited degree to others. We are seldom aware of the cause of this; but it will often take its departure from the mind, leaving a feeling of mingled admiration and devotion behind.* This perhaps arises from an unconscious regret, that all we are looking at is but for a short time, that the majesty of this "breathing world" will not be much longer for us, and we feel forcibly, though hardly conscious of it, the instability of our being. Who that is arrived at manhood can forget his youthful feelings in May ?-who can forget "The spot where spring its earliest visit paid”? Such reminiscences are the food of after-life, and enlighten with a solitary ray of sunshine even the gloom of the grave into which age is tottering. But the majority of mankind have fibres too coarse to vibrate with such impressions, and May is their month of boisterous rapture and unreflecting joy. Even care corrodes the heart less during the reign of this queen of months, for it is then that the tide. of being flows to its full height. And why should it not be so?~ Hard his herte that loveth nought In Mey, when al this mirth is wrought. Our forefathers paid great honour to the month of May, and the custom of commemorating it is of the most remote antiquity. We must look to the festivals of the Romans, and to their invasion and This particular kind of feeling may be understood by the following passage: "Combien de fois, de ma fenêtre exposée au Nord, j'ai contemplé avec émotion les vastes déserts du ciel, sa voûte superbe, azurée, magnifiquement dessinée, depuis le levant bleuâtre, loin derrière le Pont-au-Change, jusqu'au couchant, dorée d'une brillante couleur aurore derrière les arbres du cours et les maisons de Chaillot ! Je ne manquois pas d'employer ainsi quelques momens à la fin d'un beau jour, et souvent des larmes douces couloient silencieusement de mes yeux ravis, tandis que mon cœur, gouflé d'un sentiment inexprimable, heureux d'être et reconnoissant d'exister, offroit à l'Etre supreme un hommage pur et digne de lui." Vie privée de Mad. Roland. conquest of Britain, for the ceremonies afterwards adopted by its inhabitants, relics of which have come down to our day. The Floralia, or games in honour of Flora, were celebrated on the 4th of the Kalends of May, according to Pliny, and continued during the remainder of the month. They were instituted about the year of Rome 613, in honour of Flora, a Sabine Goddess. The notion that Flora was a courtesan appears to rest upon no competent authority. Her image was annually exhibited at Rome, in the temple of Castor and Pollux, dressed in a close dress, and holding bean flowers in her hand. These games might in time have been corrupted, and many of the ceremonies have been exceptionable; but that they were originally instituted to call down a blessing from heaven on the various productions of the land cannot be reasonably doubted. The May-games, including dancing, and the display of elegant garlands of flowers, are clearly remnants of Pagan festive worship. Some have contended that the Maypole is of Druid origin, but there is no ground for the supposition; it was at first, most probably, only a substitute for a living tree, on which flowers and offerings were suspended; the cross pieces nailed to it being clearly for the better suspension of them. The May-games too were often held in situations where trees would not be found growing, as in towns or cities. The sports of May were not always celebrated on the first day of the month, though people generally went to gather May-trees on the 30th of April. The May-tree, or May as it is still called in the West of England, always means there the white thorn, which is commonly in blossom by that day, and which the young people, rising up early in the morning, bring into the towns and villages. It is remarkable, that at Helston, an obscure town in Cornwall, May-day is still kept on the 8th day of the month, and is called the Furry-day, the etymology of which is unknown. There is no stationary May-pole, but green branches of a large size are displayed, decorated with garlands. The doors of all the dwelling-houses are thrown open, and the youth of both sexes, and of all ranks, dance up and down the streets, having wreaths of flowers in their hands. They enter in and come out of the houses dancing, till night closes the scene of festivity. This furry-day is perhaps the most perfect of the remains of the Festival of Flora, in the island. In other parts of Cornwall, May-day is only distinguished by the early rising of the young people of both sexes to gather May, and ramble into the country to breakfast at farm-houses or cottages on milk and clotted cream, a delicacy peculiar to the West of England. In London, the most noted May-pole was formerly affixed in front of St. Andrew's Church, Cornhill. In Fenchurch street, there was also anciently a noted May-game on the 30th of the month, when a lord and lady of the May were chosen. At later periods, Robin Hood was introduced into these sports, and styled lord of the May, together with Maid Marian, his faithful mistress. That the London chimney-sweepers hold the 1st of May as their holiday is well known. The communion of this nauseous sooty tribe, indigenous only in the corrupted atmospheres of cities, with the natural May, its flowers, and fragrance, is about as inconsistent as a lord and lady mayoress dressed See Strutt, page 312. + See also note, p. 432. like a shepherd and shepherdess, with pipe and crook, acting in an Arcadian pastoral,-a sight once not unfrequent on a London holiday. That the Festival of May might often have led to excesses is very probable, and thus the anger of some puritanical writers has condemned it altogether. If it were viewed as a religious rite, and made use of for cherishing a blind superstition, such a censure might be just. Laying this aside, the merriment of villages and country people on May-day, as it was formerly kept, was far better than pot-house feasts and drunken revelling, which are the marks of the festivals observed in the present day. The fair sex also then participated and heightened the simple pleasures of the time. What can be a more harmless amusement than greeting the most delicious of seasons with dance and music? The virtuous and learned author of "The Minstrel" expresses a wish that the sports common in the month of May should be celebrated around his grave. thither let the village swain repair; When nature smiles to greet her worshippers, how graceless to withhold our hearts from sharing the common happiness! He who formed us with the capacity for relishing natural beauty, is not illpleased that we should express our joy and gratitude by innocent mirthfulness-that "we" should "frolic while 'tis May." One instance of this feeling, in a revival of the festival of May-day, shall conclude this article. The writer was travelling, on foot, in Warwickshire, on a delicious old May-day, two or three years ago, and being about four miles from the county town, took a path on the right-hand side of the road, invited by a better prospect of the country beyond. At a short distance he entered a church-yard, where reposed the remains of many of the humble in life, but apparently few of those who even in death display, by the "frail memorials" erected over their ashes, the vanity In the Anatomie of Abuses, printed in 1595, is the following account of Maykeeping - Every parish, town, or village, assemble themselves, both men, women, and children; and either altogether, or dividing themselves into companies, they go some to the woods and groves, some to the hills and mountains, some to one place and some to another, where they spend all the night in pleasant pastimes, and in the morning they return, bringing with them birch boughs and branches of trees to deck their assemblies withal. But their chiefest jewel they bring from thence is the Maie-pole, which they bring with great veneration, as thus-they have twentie or fourtie yoake of oxen, every ox having a sweet nosegaie of flowers tied to the tip of his hornes, and those oxen drewe home the May-poale, their stinking idol rather, which they covered all over with flowers and herbs, bound round with strings from the top to the bottome, and sometimes it was painted with variable colours, having two or three hundred men, women, and children, following it with great devotion. And thus equipped, it was reared, with handkerchiefs and flaggs streaming on the top: they strawe the ground round about it, they bind green boughs about it, they set up summer halles, bowers, and arbours, hard by it, and then they fall to banquetting and feasting, to leaping and dancing about it, as the heathen people did at the dedication of their idols. I have heard it credibly reported, that of fourscore or an hundred maidens that have gone forth to the woods in the evening, not above one-third have returned home again as they went." of human pretensions. A small ancient Gothic church stood in the midst of the graves, having a tower of little elevation at the west end, and near it on each side grew yew-trees, the children of many a century's growth, fast hastening to decay. Unclipped they spread their funereal shade wide over the burial mounds beneath them. The site of the church was on the flat summit of an eminence, which latter sloped towards the east somewhat steeply. The church-yard commanded a noble and very extensive prospect. On the eastern side were seen the feudal turrets of Warwick Castle rising over the deep green foliage beneath them; and still farther beyond lay an extensive and rich country that melted far away into the blue distance. In the southeast or southerly point of the horizon, the Edge hills were distinguished, so renowned in the civil wars; and on the north, distant a very few miles, arose the grey ruins of Kenilworth Castle-melancholy remnants of departed magnificence. The intervening space was filled with fine meadow land, the turf of which was scarcely visible for the thickly growing trees that marked the different boundaries. Yet farther than Kenilworth, and in nearly the same direction, the spires and towers of Coventry presented themselves, peering above the dark forest that seemed to fill up the whole interval between. From the western end of the church, the view was confined, and presented a meadow crossed by a broad carriage path which led to a few houses on the village green, close by the road side. The church appeared to be carefully kept in repair; but there was nothing to induce a belief that the churchAwardens were either masons or carpenters by profession, becausé all seemed to be done with consistency, and there was no "beautifying," to adopt a parish phrase. Painted glass of great elegance had been introduced into the narrow windows, and cast a dim religious light" on the simple interior of the edifice; the coloured rays from which alone attracted the eye to any thing like ornament. The largest of these designs represented the crucifixion, and the prevailing colour being a deep blue, the effect was peculiarly striking. These windows had been made and placed there at the sole expense of the minister, who must have taken no little pride in thus adorning the humble scene of his labours: for humble it was, compared to the majority of churches, or to the pompous cathedrals of our island. It was truly the church of the village minister; yet fervent aspirations had been offered up there and by hearts as pure as in places of greater ecclesiastical note, where often men display to congregations wide Devotion's every grace except the heart. 66 In the centre of the irregularly-shaped village-green there were several trees, surrounded by groups of persons of both sexes, many of whom appeared to belong to the genteeler circles of society, and a number of private carriages were drawn up in a line near, the horses being taken out. A May-pole, decorated with sumptuous garlands of natural and artificial flowers, the gifts of the fair parishioners, stood not far from the road side; and a band of rustic music was stationed at a place which was enclosed with ropes for dancing, close to the foot of the May-pole. On the other side of the road, and a hundred yards farther on, was a plain but comfortable brick dwelling, in a garden, with the usual appendages of out-houses on the right-hand side. Se veral well-dressed persons were loitering about its front in conversation, apparently waiting for the festive scene to commence. In a few minutes a venerable son of the church, in a wig of no common dimensions, and a clerical cocked hạt, came out of the house. It was the minister. In stature he was short and stoutly made, his hands were crossed behind his back, unless when he presented them to receive the hearty shake of a well-known bystander. His large bushy eyebrows completely shaded eyes shewing considerable liveliness and fire; and though they evidently belonged to a septuagenary, he was not one whom the usual feebleness of body, at that era of life, had yet overtaken. The furrows of time on his face were not deeply indented; indeed his cheeks were rather smooth and full than wrinkled. He conversed with those around him smilingly, and the character of his countenance was then remarkably attractive. There was a strong cast of benevolence in his physiognomy even when it approached to sternness, which it was capable of putting on in a moment of indignation, to the utmost degree of severity. His features proved the fallacy of Lavater's system, for they did not shew any thing remarkably intellectual, and yet few men were possessed of stronger intellect. By those of the parish around he appeared to be much beloved, and he moved towards the green with a firm step, inquiring of one individual the health of his family, and even of his domestics, with an interest that shewed he was truly sincere about their welfare. On arriving there he ordered the music to strike up, and the dancing to begin. All mingled in the harmless and graceful amusement without regarding those distinctions in life, which are commonly witnessed on similar occasions. The daughter of the humble farmer was the partner of the son of the patrician; every individual present seemed to devote himself, for a season, to cheerful gaiety. It was one of those scenes which are so very rare in this land of ostentation, when the vulgar distinctions of wealth are forgotten, and human beings seem to acknowledge that they are all children of the same common parent. Such occasional interminglings of classes in the country are not without their uses, and the donor of the fête was no doubt well aware of this: two young ladies, who, as is commonly the case in similar circumstances, had very little reason to "lift high the head" beyond their fellows, having come under his marked displeasure for exhibiting symptoms of their illbreeding from self-consequence. After dancing an hour or two in the open air, the assemblage adjourned to different places for refreshment. Fifty of the company dined in the library, at the parsonage-house. After dinner dancing was resumed, at intervals, until nine o'clock, when it ceased entirely, to commence again on the accustomed anniversary, in the succeeding year. This revival of May-day keeping, divested, by the spirit of the times, of all superstitious taint, deserves general imitation, if it be only to bring together, occasionally, the inhabitants of the same district belonging to different classes. Abroad such scenes are common throughout the year here it would require a local example among the higher orders to establish something similar in our villages, once or twice in the same space of time, which might be more distinguished by the society, and by sobriety and correctness of manners, than noisy fairs and vicious wakes. Different ranks would then meet, and with |
