At what period the "Summer Broach" was taken down, does not appear, but it unquestionably could not long survive the Parliamentary Ordinance of 1644, even admitting it to have stood until then.

The restoration of Charles II. was the signal for the restoration of May-poles. On the very first May-day afterwards, in 1661, the May-pole, in the Strand, was reared with great ceremony and rejoicing, a curious account of which, from a rare tract, intituled "The City's Loyalty Displayed," we now give.

"Let me declare to you," says the writer, "the manner in general of that stately cedar, erected in the Strand, 134 foot high, commonly called the May-pole, upon the cost of the parishioners there adjacent, and the Gracious consent of His Most Sacred Majesty, with the Illustrious Prince the Duke of York. This tree was a most choice and remarkable piece; 'twas made below bridge, and brought in two parts up to Scotland Yard, near the King's Palace, and from thence it was conveyed, April 14th, to the Strand, to be erected. It was brought with a streamer flourishing before it, drums beating all the way and other sorts of music; it was supposed to be so long, that landsmen (as carpenters) could not possibly raise it. Prince James, the Duke of York, Lord High Admiral of England, commanded twelve seamen off aboord to come and officiate the business, whereupon they came and brought their cables, pullies, and other tacklins, with six great anchors; after this was brought three Crowns, bore by three men bare-headed and a streamer displaying all the way before them, drums beating and other musick playing; numerous multitudes of people thronging the streets, with great shouts and acclamations all day long. The May-pole then being joyned together, and hoopt about with bands of iron, the Crown and cane with the King's Arms richly gilded, was placed on the head of it, a large top like a balcony was about the middle of it. This being done the trumpets did sound, and in four hours space it was advanced upright, after which being established fast in the ground, six drums did beat, and the trumpets did sound; again great shouts and acclamations the people gave, that did ring throughout the Strand. After that came the Morris Dancers finely deckt, with purple scarfs, in their half shirts, with a tabor and pipe, the ancient musick, and danced round about the May-pole, and after that danced the rounds of their liberty. Upon the top of this famous standard is likewise set up a royal purple streamer, about the middle of it is placed four Crowns more, with the King's Arms likewise, there is also a garland set upon it of

various colours of delicate rich favours, under which is to be placed three great Lanthorns, to remain for three honours ; that is, one for Prince James, Duke of York, Lord High Admiral of England; the other for the Vice Admiral; and the third for the Rear Admiral; these are to give light in dark nights and to continue so long as the pole stands, which will be a perpetual honour for seamen. It is placed as near hand as they could guess, in the very same pit as the former stood, but far more glorious, bigger, and higher, than ever any one that stood before it; and the seamen themselves do confess that it could not be built higher, nor is there such a one in Europe beside, which highly doth please His Majesty and the Illustrious Prince, Duke of York. Little children did much rejoice, and ancient people did clap their hands, saying, 'golden days began to appear.' I question not but 'twill ring like melodious musick throughout every county in England, when they read this story exactly pen'd; let this satisfie for the glories of London, that other loyal subjects may read what we here do see."

A processional engraving by Vertue, among the prints of the Antiquarian Society, represents this May-pole, at a door or two westward beyond" where Catherine Street descends into the Strand," or near the site of the present Church of St. Mary-leStrand.

Strype, who lived at the time says, that "the May-pole in the Strand, being above 100 feet in height, and grown old and decayed was in 1717 obtained of the parish by Sir Isaac Newton, knt. and being taken down was carried away through the city, on a carriage of timber, unto Wanstead, in Essex," when by permission of Sir Richard Child, bart. afterwards Lord Castlemain, given to the Rev. Mr. Pound, the Rector, it was erected in Wanstead Park, for the support of a vast telescope, 125 feet in length, which had been presented by Monsieur Hugon, a French astronomer, to the Royal Society, of which he was a member.

The last poet who mentioned it was Pope; he says, of an assemblage of persons, that

"Amidst the area wide they took their stand,

Where the tall May-pole once o'er look'd the Strand." Customs are sometimes continued for ages after their real origin has been forgotten, or, otherwise, so amalgamated with baser matter" that no analysis can discover the primary germ. Thus, probably, it has fared with the practice of setting up the May-pole, although it may seem to bear relationship to

one species of the corrupt worship of antiquity, to which an allusion only can now be made. In the middle ages, crowned with gay wreaths, and decorated with variegated festoons of blooming flowers, it was regarded as an emblem of the genial productiveness of Spring, and the sports and dances which accompanied the festivity, were the emanations of gratitude for the blessings of returning vegetation and fruitfulness.

"The May-pole 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 flower's that crown'd it."

Stubbes, one of the most severe of the race of splenetic fanatics, who in his "Anatomy of Abuses," carps at the most harmless pleasures, and pours forth his angry denunciations at almost every ancient custom connected with social amusements and jocular hilarity, relates the fetching in of the May from the woods, and says, "the chiefest jewel they bring from thence is their Maie-pole, which they bring home with great veneration," and describes it as being "bounde rounde a boute with stringes, from top to the bottome, and sometyme painted variable colours, with twoo or three hundred men, women, and children followyng it, with greate devotion." "And thus," he continues, "beying reared up, with handkerchiefes and flagges streamyng on the toppe, they strawe the grounde aboute, binde green boughes about it, sett up sommer haules, Bowers, and Arbours hard by it. And then fall they too banquet and feast. to leape and dance aboute it, as the Heathen people did at the dedication of their Idolls, whereof this is a perfect patterne, o rather the thyng itself."

"I shall never forget," says Washington Irving, "the delight I felt on first seeing a May-pole. 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 Maypole gave a glow to my feelings, and spread a charm over the country for the rest of the day. One can readily imagine what a gay scene it must have been in jolly old London, when the doors were decorated with flowering branches, when every hat was decked with hawthorn; and Robin Hood, Friar Tuck, Maid Marian, the Morris-Dancers, and all the other fantastic masks and revellers were performing their antics about the May-pole in every part of the city." 'I value," continues our unversified poet, "every custom that tends to infuse poetical feeling

into the common people, and to sweeten and soften the rudeness of rustic manners, without destroying their simplicity. Indeed it is to the decline of this happy simplicity that the decline of this custom may be traced; and the rural dance on the green, and the homely May-day pageant, have gradually disappeared, in proportion as the peasantry have become expensive and artificial in their pleasures, and too knowing for simple enjoyment. Some attempts, indeed, have been made of late years, by men of both taste and learning, to rally back the popular feeling to these standards of primitive simplicity; but the time has gone by, the feeling has become chilled by habits of gain and traffic; the country apes the manners and amusements of the town, and little is heard of May-day at present, except from lamentations of authors, who sigh after it from among the brick walls of the city." But to conclude, it is somewhat curious that the most light and dancing nations should have conspired together to put an end to our merriment; but so it was. "The Parisian gentry," says a modern writer, "could sooner baulk our naturally graver temper, and pique it on being as reasonable as themselves, than they could stop the out-of-door pastimes of their own Boulevards and provinces. Our dancing was now to be confined, like a sick person, to its apartment. We might have as much gallantry as we pleased in a private way, a permission, of which our turn of mind. did not allow us to avail ourselves to the extent of our teachers; but none in a more open and innocent one. All our ordinary pleasures were to be sedentary. We were to show our refinement, by being superior to every rustic impulse; and do nothing but doubt, and be gentlemanly, and afraid of committing ourselves. The trader was too busy for pastime; the dissenter too serious; the sceptic too philosophical; the gentleman too high bred; and, like master like man, apprentices became too busy, like their employers: the dissenter must stop the dancing of the village; the philosopher was too much occupied with reading Plato, to remember that he was equally for cultivating mind and body; and the footman must be as genteel as his master, and have a spirit above clownish gambols."

The poetry of Shakspeare's time represents the age and the whole nation. There are pelting villages in it, as well as proud cities; forests, as well as taverns. There are gardens and camps; courts of kings and mobs of cobblers; and every variety of human life; its pains and its pastimes; business and holiday; our characters, minds, bodies, and estates. Its persons are not all obliged to be monotonous; to have but one idea or character

to sustain, and find that a heavy one. Its heroines can venture to "run on the green-sward," as well as figure in a great scene. Its heroes are not afraid of laughing and being companionable. Nothing that has a spirit of health in it, a heart to feel, and lungs to give it utterance, was thought alien to a noble humanity; and therefore the 66 sage and serious Spenser" can make his very creation laugh and leap at the coming of a holiday; and introduce May, the flowery beauty, borne upon the shoulders of a couple of demi-gods.

"Lord! how all creatures laught when her they spide;

And leapt and daunc't, as they had raptured beene,

And cupid self about her fluttered all in greene."

But let us see what a picture we make of this now in London:

"Then came dark May, the darkest maid on ground,
Deckt with no dainties of the season's pride,

And throwing soot out of her lap around.

Having grown scorn'd, on no one she did ride,
Much less on gods; who once on either side

Supported her, like to their sovereign queen.

Lord; how the sweeps all grinn'd, when her they spied,
And leapt and daunc't, as they had scorched been!

And Jack himself about her lumber'd all in green."

Such is May-Day in London-once the gayest of its holidays, furnishing the inhabitants with a pleasant prospect and retrospects perhaps for half the year. May was the central object of one half-year, as Christmas was of the other. Neither is scarcely worth mention now. The celebration of May in the country is almost as little attended to as in London. The remoter the scene from the metropolis, the more it flourishes. In some villages a pole is set up, but there is no dance. In others, the boys go about begging with garlands, and do nothing else. A lump of half dead blue-bells and primroses is sent in at your door, to remind you that May was once a festival.

But let us hope for a revival of by-gone sports and pastimes, and that the day may not be far distant when we shall join our friends and neighbours in a merry, though innocent, dance round the May-pole, and when

"the pipe and drum

Shall bid defiance to our enemy;

And that all fiddlers, which in corners lurke,
And have been almost starv'd for want of work,
Shall draw their crowds, and, at our exaltation,
Play many a bit of merry recreation."

W. S.