THE HAWTHOKN. 83 



with the village festivities of the first of May, possesses a 

 kind of antiquarian interest, which is deepened by the 

 recollection that it illustrates "the simple annals of the 

 poor." The first day of the month, from which it derived 

 its name, " May-bush," was formerly a general rustic holi- 

 day, looked forward to, and prepared for, with as much zest 

 as accompanies many a nobler entertainment ; and it was a 

 matter of no little solicitude whether the Hawthorn would 

 be fully blown in good time ; for a " bunch of May " was 

 the crowning ornament of the May-pole, and encircled the 

 head of the May-queen, her consort for the day being 

 crowned with the more manly Oak. 



Before the alteration of the style 1 in 1752, the Hawthorn 

 rarely failed to be in flower in good time : but since that 

 period, May-day falling eleven or twelve days earlier, its 

 blossoms are rarely fully expanded even in the south 

 of England, until the second week in the month. 2 In 



1 The ancient Church calendar was constructed on the erroneous 

 supposition that the year contained 365J days exactly, being nearly 

 twelve minutes too much. The error, therefore, in 129 years amounts 

 to a whole day. In consequence of the inconvenience which was 

 found to result from this error during a long course of years, Pope 

 Gregory XIII. in the month of March 1582 issued a brief, in which 

 he abolished the old calendar, and substituted that which has since 

 been received in all Christian countries, except Russia, under the 

 name of the Gregorian Calendar or New Style (N.S.). Gregory, in 

 order to restore the commencement of the year to the same place in 

 the seasons that it had occupied at the time of the Council of Nice 

 (A. D. 325), directed the day following the feast of St. Francis, that 

 is to say the 5th of October, 1582, to be reckoned as the 15th of 

 that month. The New Style was adopted in Britain in 1752 ; from 

 that year till 1800, May-day fell eleven days earlier ; and during 

 the present century it fails twelve days earlier than when calculated 

 by the Old Style (O.S.) ; May-day of the Season being now the 13th 

 day of the month. 



2 I have, however, seen it in Devonshire so early as the 29th of 

 April ; and in the year 1846 it was gathered in Cornwall on the 

 18th of April. So unusually mild was the season of that year, that 

 the Oaks at Clowance, Cornwall, had made shoots between two and 

 three inches long on the llth of April ; though it not uufrqeuently 

 happens that the Oak is not sufficiently in leaf "to hide King 

 Charles" on the 29th of May. The blossom of the Hawthorn, 

 though early, was so exceedingly scarce that many trees might be 

 searched in vain for a single sprig, and scarcely one tree in a hundred 

 bore an average crop of flowers. 



