ward, and tell us that he whom you had consorted with, and flattered and urged on, whose follies you had used, whose time you had usurped, was a wretched being harassed by perpetual terrors lest his daily bread should fail-bankrupt in health-bruised in spirit-dragging abroad with him the chain of debt, and all its enginry of torment from one scene of mirth to another; and when at home (the home your presence so often brightened) derived the most healthy support and the wholesome solace which Husband and Father can enjoy. Verily, Theodore Hook had his reward! Wits-party-writers -facetious novelists-boon companions, think of these things; be grateful for the modesty of the grave in Fulham church-yard. To me that unhonoured stone speaketh with a voice louder than a trumpet's. And for you, sir,--as Hook's old familiar friend-the share you have had, be it more or less, in reading a lesson so important to all possessing what are called "social qualities," entitles you to the world's warmest gratitude. But we do not promise to emulate your example. Your virtues may be written on your tombstone. I have the honour to remain, Your admiring and grateful servant, MAY-DAY FOR THE PEOPLE. PAUL BELL. THE month of May is upon us—these pages will see the light upon the birth-day of the summer time. The season of the leaf and the flower-of the greenness of the wood, and the richness of the sward, and the soothing murmurs of the brooklet has come. This is not the age for pastorals. We know it, and do not intend to "babble o' green fields,' to conjure up mossy grots-to make them resound to the lay of merriest birds-to people flowery meads with fickle Chloes, and shady groves with love-sick Strephons. Nevertheless there is something in the season to make us think of smokeless air, and budding trees, and turf in which you shall sink to the ancle-the richest carpet of Nature's weaving. It is the joyous period when Time for a space renews its youth. It is a period of renewed energy-a blithe awakening in green freshness of the earth. The world's blood which stag nated during winter's sleepy frosts-which moved but with an inconstant and halting circulation under Spring's fickle influences, is now rushing, hot and mantling through Nature's veins, and the denizens of earth and air participate in the flushed vigour of the Universal Mother. May-day is a high festival of Nature. It is the real NewYear's day. The earth is rejoicing around us. The birds sing from their nests, and rising incense-like from the earth-floats upwards the dumb music of the flowers. And we all partake, although perchance we know it not, in this general jubilee. The townpent man hurrying along the crowded street, hears with a species of semi-conscious thrill, the voice of the caged blackbird, hung out where a patch of sunshine comes cheeringly on the brown brick wall; or he looks with a momentarily-awakened interest upon the budding greenness of a solitary tree, impounded as it were in some black city-garden; and donning, with all the haste it may, every shred of summer-livery which smoke and confined air will permit it to assume. It was then, yielding to these impulses-preparing a channel for these feelings to run riot in—that our forefathers instituted the games of May. And they were in the right. Gladness is natural to the season. Man is not so far removed from inanimate things that he too should not feel some impulse from the influence which quickens them, and causes them to burst into the full flush of their beauty. Not that every season is not cheerful in its turn. Do we disparage the bracing days of frost and driving snow-when the fire is ruddy on the hearth, and the genial solemnities of Christmas tide are celebrated under the wreathed mistletoe and holly bough? Then come-smiling and cryingcoaxing and scolding-the fickle days of Spring. Perhaps Winter, which always seems loath to depart, and will keep dragging on an unhonoured existence, gives poor Spring a worse name than she deserves. But for all that, she ripens into Summer-the bud becomes a leaf, the snowdrop, which seemed afraid of showing Winter that she could don Spring's livery, and therefore peeped fearfully out, as white as the snow around her has drooped and died-and the whole tribe of gaudy flowrets-a gorgeous host, bedight in every hue-come forth, exultingly brighten on the earth, and open their bosoms to Summer's sun and Summer's breeze. And our forefathers went forth with them. May-day sounded a voice of joy throughout the land. The maidens bathed their rosy cheeks in May-dew, and if the fluid did them no good, the early rising and the fresh air of the summer dawn were more effectual. And here let us not be met by sneering remarks upon the quality of our ordinary May weather; about East-winds and rheumatism; drenching rains and colds in the head. If as you say, the seasons have changed since Chaucer's time, make the 1st of June May-day. Here is no bull: postpone the festivaldo not omit it. What we want is a joyful welcome to the pleasant summer time; a welcome to the leaf and to the flower; a recognition of that awakening influence, which stirs within us and prompts to gaiety and cheering thoughts. This comes with the summer; receive it, acknowledge it when the summer arrives. May-day is but a word, which signifies the opening of the balmiest, the pleasantest season of the year. Take it in its largest meaning, and hail Queen Summer when her buxom Majesty first smiles upon her throne ! We want May-day to be again celebrated. Not, mind, as of yore; but one would fain see the same spirit run in a more sagely-planned channel. Think for a moment of May-day in the reign of Queen Bess. Leslie's gorgeous picture rises before our eyes as we pen the words. First, a gallant May-pole floats on the vision. See the green wreaths which garland it-in spiral veins of dewy greenery-crowned with a diadem of flowers. Mark the merry crowd which gambol round this, the standard of the summer. The sward is green and soft and springy beneath them. The summer sky is blue over head, and the summer sun shines down, flinging its light in dancing patches through the waving richness of the trees. Truly it is a most quaint revel. It is the bal masqué of the middle ages. Hark to the clash-rude but sprightly of the pipe and tabor; and see the antics which dancers play. Merry on us! what a group-what monsterswhat hobby horses what quaint jesters-what marvellous masques-what a merry pageant! Truly, Master Erasmus, Holiday must have been the marshal of the host. Jolly old Pedant! reply in thy quaint vernacular. Thou hast ordered the folds of that dragon's tail: thou hast traced the quaint mummings of the morris-dance: the attirings of Maid Marian, are they not thy right merrie conceit? and the Pope of fools-hast thou not set his Holiness up in his greenwood Vatican? Round the May pole! Round to the quaint cadence of that primeval music-hand in hand with uncouth caper and black-letter joke. Jump hobby horse-roll dragon! Jester-varlet as thou art-joke thy jokes; it is Summer's Saturnalia-the feast of the greenwood tree. "Now creatures all are merrie minded.” Chant as ye dance some quaint old madrigal: make the bright air ring with the traditional tra-la-la of the roaring burden. Nature is singing around you. Join your voices in one flood of joyous revelry to those of "Shallow rivers to whose falls It is the time for jest and quip and crank. The cottage and the castle confess its influence. Hark! mingling in the rustic revelry, the uncouth babble of the village swain, with the courtly words the wire-drawn phraseology of a mimic Arcadia, which the Cavalier-all forms and pedantic state-addresses in measured accents to the high-born dame, moving floatingly along the dance with high-heeled shoe and rustling fardingale! Such was Mid-day in the times gone by. It gradually fell away from its quaint glory. We got more business like and less pleasure-seeking. We became, somehow, ashamed of dancing in the open air. To the radiance of the sun we preferred the glimmer of melting tallow. The bounding freshness of the Elizabethan times when European mind, shaking off a mighty incubus, sent out its Shakspeares and its Spencers to show how much of God there was in man-drooped and died for a time under the sad-coloured vestments of the Puritan. Another change came on. Praise-God-Barebones vanished. The snuffling twang of his tabernacle was silent; but great stern minds vanished with the men, who sung psalms to celebrate the downfal of the Cavaliers. Then our country was ruled in the spirit throned amid the gilded salons and marble terraces of Versailles. Revelry became debauch-love-making, intrigue. The rule of conduct was the law of ceremony. Heart-fresh impulse was gone. The court shone like the moon-without heat. Its withering influence fell upon the people. The blithe Welch milkmaid became the jaded mistress of the king. Another change. In prim sobriety of soul, a Dutchman built his bricken palace. The land was grave and plodding. Then Queen Anne's reign came-a time of tasteless pedantry of perriwigs, hoops and elouded canes-and those days gradually merged through a shifting, changing century into those in the memory of our own generation, men becoming less formal but more industrious-cities springing up from villages; huge trading ports from fishing hamlets; the whole land becoming one hive of busy, swarming industry. And from all those revolutions our holiday customs suffered. The Puritans held them to be abominations before the Lord. The Second Charles's reign passed amid the mummery of the court and the murmurings of the people. May-day was not more favoured by the House of Orange. Pope tells us what happened "Where the tall Maypole once o'erlooked the Strand, But now-so Ann and piety ordain A church collects the saints of Drury-lane." And after the "little crooked thing which asks a question" had passed away from time and Twickenham, we became so busy-so monstrously active in spinning, hammering, weaving, and at last fighting, that we proclaimed the undivided reign of Industry, and banished holidays as a species of vagrants-interlopers who could give no good account of themselves-fellows quite unsuited to come between the wind and our respectability. True, we kept one or two as samples of the banished race; but even they were not suffered to exist, until by decking them with the outward badges rather than inspiring them with the subtle spirit of religion, we had taken bond-so far as we could-that they should not, in the ordinary sense of the term, be days of amusement; that is to say, that people should not dance, or hear cheerful music, or witness lively plays then-although, of course, they might get drunk ad libitum. The Such is nearly our condition at present. We have nominal Easter and Whitsun holidays, but they are very partial-very imperfect. We would have something like National Jubilees. French have-not, it is true, a very rational one-in Carnival time, when the whole population get frantic with pleasurable excitement in that crescendo of rejoicings, which has its final crash on Mardi gras. The advent of summer time, we contend, naturally inspires men with pleasurable sensations. Why not, then, devote something like a week to universal relaxation-to rational holiday keeping? No use in re-erecting the fallen May-poles-no use in summoning back the departed race of morris-dancers-no use in extending the sooty revelry of Jack-in-the-Green, and attempting |