AND CELEBRATED GARDENS 
Then comes the reference to gardens : 
‘Mary, Mary, quite contrary, 
How does your garden grow ?”’ 
And many other examples. I have made no study of folk- 
lore, but I cannot help thinking that though some of these rhymes 
and songs may be comparatively modern, others bear the mark 
of antiquity, and that the origin of the simplest of these may be 
traced back to customs and observances that have fallen into 
disuse ; to beliefs, traditions, and superstitions, themselves for- 
gotten; or to some incident, maybe, in the life of medizval 
England, which, did we but know it, would invest the childish 
rhymes and the bucolic songs with even greater charm, interest, 
and significance, than on the surface they may seem to possess. 
If the Rush-bearing still practised in some parts of the country, if 
the festival of Harvest Home, if the ceremonies attendant on 
bringing in the May, if the crowning of the fairest and most 
virtuous maiden of the village annually, as Queen of the May, 
if Milton’s lovely “‘ Hymn on May Morning” mean anything at 
all, they point to an outdoor manner of existence practically 
universal, and in which garden and meadow alike played an 
important part; and surely “ Little Jack Horner who sat in the 
corner” is the only evidence forthcoming on the other side—that 
the youth of “‘ Merrie England ” did not live out of doors even at 
Christmas-time ! 
I am indebted to W. C. Hazlitt for an amusing story, which 
gives indirect support to the theory that the English always lived 
much in plein air. 
A man, whose demesne probably sloped to the water’s edge, 
having invited a friend to dinner, contrary to the wish of his wife, 
insisted that the repast should be served on the river’s bank. 
The lady could not endure contradiction, and sat sulking, with 
her back to the stream. The more he begged her to look pleasant, 
the farther she pushed her chair from the table, till at last, backing 
too near the edge of the river, she fell in. The husband, jumping 
into a boat, insisted on going against the tide in search of her, 
and when his friend remonstrated, urging him to look for her 
down-stream, he refused, saying that, as his wife had been so 
opposite all her life, he was sure her body would float against the 
current. 
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