24.0 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
Than doth a rich embroider’d canopy 
To kings who fear their subjects’ treachery 1” 
But perhaps no poet ever drew a fairer picture of the Hawthorn than Goldsmith, in his 
“Deserted Village :”"— 
“ The Hawthorn-bush with seats beneath the shade, 
For talking age and whispering lovers made.” 
The custom of going a Maying is of very great antiquity. The Greeks and Romans 
gathered May in honour of Flora, whose festival began with the month of May. In 
Britain we read of King Henry VIII., with his queen Katherine, and the lords and 
ladies of their court, going out i Maving from Greenwich to Shooter’s Hill. In a 
curious old MS., entitled “The State of Eton School,” 1560, it is stated, “On the day 
of St. Philip and St. James, May Ist, if it be fair weather, and the master grants leave, 
those boys who choose it may rise at four o’clock to gather May branches, if they can 
do it without wetting their feet.” We do not hear of any such innocent custom being 
continued in the revelations of the recent Public School Commission. We have to go 
back several generations to find the observances of May-day in their fullest develop- 
ment. They are evidently remnants of a heathen festival connected with the ancient 
floral games, which began about the 28th of April, and were connected with the early 
spring flowers, of which the Hawthorn is perhaps the most attractive. Not only did 
royal personages and the Eton boys go into the fields to gather the snowy boughs, but 
people of all ranks and conditions joined in the festival, and the prettiest maiden in the 
village was crowned “‘ Queen of the May ;” the lads and lasses met together, danced and 
sang and made merry in honour of the day, bringing home garlands and boughs where- 
with to decorate their houses and churches. In almost every village a pole was fixed 
as high as the mast of a vessel of a hundred tons, on which each May morning were 
suspended wreaths of flowers, and round which the Mayers danced in rings nearly all 
the day. The Puritans discountenanced the vanity of these proceedings, but after the 
Restoration they revived. Maypoles were again erected, and the appropriate rites 
recommenced. Now, alas! in the course of the change of manners, the Maypole has 
again vanished : they must be old people who remember seeing one. In London there 
are and have long been a few forms of May-day festivity in a great measure peculiar. 
‘The day is still marked by a celebration well known to every resident in the metropolis, 
in which the dancing sweeps play the sole part. Why this black profession should have 
been the last sustainers of the old rites of May-day in the metropolis we cannot say. At 
no very remote period there used to be a similar demonstration from the milk-maids, 
who would lead a milch cow, all garlanded with flowers, and dance round the animal to 
the sound of fife and drum. ° 
The most renowned of Maypoles is the one erected in the Strand immediately 
after the Restoration, and alluded to by many writers of the period as afterwards by 
Pope, who says :— 
“ Where the tall Maypole once o’erlook’d the Strand.” 
We nowadays find it hard to associate rural festivities with the busy thoroughfare 
where this gathering-point for floral wreaths and joyous dances once stood. Very 
interesting accounts exist in old chronicles of the doings and sayings of our forefathers 
on these May-day fétes ; and we can but remember many of their innocent, pleasant 
old customs when we see the Hawthorn-trees that delighted their eyes, year after year 
still bringing forth their fragrant white’blossoms, dear to the present generation, though 
less boisterously welcomed. 
Ci. ee 
