eglantine, and one marigold of silver, two of each were given. The violet was appropriated to the best ode; the others were for a piece in heroic poetry, for one in pastoral poetry, for a satirical piece, and for a sonnet, a madrigal, a song, or some other minor effusion. Three of the deputies to the parliament had for some time presided at these games, instead of the chancellor of the Gay Science with his six assessors; and with them were associated the capitouls, or chief magistrates of the town. All the other magistrates, and the whole body of the parliament, attended in their robes of office, with the principal gentlemen of the town, and brilliant assemblage of ladies in full dress. These were ranged round the room in seats raised like an amphitheatre, and the students of the university sat on benches in the centre. The room was ornamented with festoons of flowers and laurel, and the statue of Clemence Isaure was crowned with them. After the oration in honour of her was pronounced, the judges, having previously consulted together in private, and assigned the prizes to the pieces which they thought most worthy of them, stood up, and, naming the poem to which one was given, pronounced with an audible voice, "Let the author come forward." The author then presented himself; when his name was declared, it was followed by a grand flourish of music. The same ceremony was repeated as each piece was announced. The whole concluded with each author publicly reading his poem. Toulouse, our kind feelings have been cultivated, and our literature is enriched by a race of poets, whom we may venture. to array against the united armies of coutinential bards. It may be doubted whether a May prize of Toulouse was ever awarded for sweeter verses, than Matt. Prior's on Chloe's May flowers. THE GARLAND. The pride of every grove I chose The violet sweet and lily fair, At morn the nymph vouchsaf'd to place That in her hair they looked more gay Undrest at evening, when she found Their odour lost, their colours past, She changed her look, and on the ground Her garland and her eye she cast. The eye dropt sense distinct and clear, As any muse's tongue could speak, When from its lid a pearly tear Ran trickling down her beauteous cheek. Dissembling what I knew too well, "My love, my life," said I," explain This change of humour; pr'ythee tell : That failing tear-what does it mean?" She sighed; she smil'd; and, to the flowers Pointing, the lovely moralist said, "See, friend, in some few flecting hours See yonder, what a change is made! And that of beauty are but one, At morn both flourish bright and gay; Both fade at evening, pale and gone. Many of these prize poems are to be found in different collections. Several prizes were in latter times adjudg d to females, without any strict investiga-Ah, me ! the blooming pride of May, tion having been previously made into the possibility of the pieces to which they were decreed being female compositions It was owing to having gained a silver eglantine at one of these festivals that the celebrated Fabre d'Eglantine assumed the latter part of his name. He was a Languedocian by birth, a native of Limoux, a small town about four leagues from Toulouse.* Without such encouragements to be poetical, as were annually offered by the conductors of the "floral games" at • Plumptre. "At dawn poor Stella danc'd and sung; The amorous youth arcund her bowed, At night her fatal knell was rung; I saw and kissed her in her shroud. "Such as she is, who died to-day ; Such I, alas! may be to morrow; Go, Damon, bid thy muse display The justice of thy Chloe's sorrow." Prior. A beautiful ode by another of our poets graces the loveliness of the season, and finally "points a moral" of sovereign virtue to all who need the application, and will take it to heart. SPRING. Lo! where the rosy bosom'd hours, The untaught harmony of spring: Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch A broader, browner shade; (At ease reclined in rustic state) Still is the toiling hand of care; The panting herds repose: And float amid the liquid noon: To Contemplation's sober eye Such is the race of man: Alike the busy and the gay In fortune's varying colours drest. Thus, thus begin, the yearly rites All envious, and profane away, Strew, strew, the glad and smiling ground, The garden-star, the queen of May, Drop drop your violets, change your hues, It is to be observed as a remarkable fact, that among the poets, the warmest advocates and admirers of the popular sports and pastimes in village retreats, uniformly invigorate and give keeping to their pictures, by sparkling lights and barmonizing shadows of moral truth. But hark! the bagpipe summons on the green, Around the flower-crown'd Maypole quick resort; Short as the whisper of the passing breeze. May-dew Dancers at Arthur's-seat, Edinburgh. Strathspeys and reels, Put life and metal in their heels. To the Editor of the Every-Day Book. Edinburgh, April 20, 1826. My Dear Sir,-Allow me, without preface, to acquaint you with a custom of gathering the May-dew here on the first of May. About four o'clock in the morning there is an unusual stir; a great opening of area gates, and ringing of bells, and a "gathering" of folk of all clans, arrayed in all the colours of the rainbow; and a VOL. II.-72. Burns. hurrying of gay throngs of both sexes through the King's-park to Arthur's-seat. In the course of half an hour the entire hill is a moving mass of all sorts and sizes. At the summit may be seen a company of bakers, and other craftsmen, dressed in kilts, dancing round a Maypole. On the more level part "next door," is usually an itinerant vender of whiskey, or moun. tain (not May) dew, your approach to whom is always indicated by a number of "bodies" carelessly lying across your path, not dead, but drunk. In another place you may descry two parties of Irishmen, who, not content with gathering the superficial dew, have gone "deeper and deeper yet," and fired by a liberal desire to communicate the fruits of their industry, actively pelt each other with clods. These proceedings commence with the daybreak. The strong lights thrown upon the various groups by the rising sun, give a singularly picturesque effect to a scene, wherein the ever-varying and unceasing sounds of the bagpipes, and tabours and fifes, et hoc genus omne, almost stun the ear. About six o'clock, the appearance of the gentry, toiling and pechin up the ascent, becomes the signal for serving men and women to march to the right-about; for they well know that they must have the house clean, and every thing in order earlier than usual on May-morning. About eight o'clock the "fun" is all over; and by nine or ten, were it not for the drunkards who are staggering towards the "gude town," no one would know that any thing particular had taken place. Such, my dear sir, is the gathering of May-dew. I subjoin a sketch of a group of dancers, and I am, &c. P. P., Jun. It is noticed in the" Morning Post" of the second of May, 1791, that the day before, "being the first of May, according to annual and superstitious custom, a number of persons went into the fields and bathed their faces with the dew on the grass, under the idea that it would render them beautiful." May-dew was held of singular virtue in former times. Pepys on a certain day in May makes this entry in his diary:- 66 My wife away, down with Jane and W. Hewer to Woolwich, in order to a little ayre, and to lie there to night, and so to gather May-dew to-morrow morning, which Mrs. Turner hath taught her is the only thing in the world to wash her face with; and" Pepys adds, "I am contented with it." His "reasons for contentment" seem to appear in the same line; for he says, "I (went) by water to Fox-hall, and there walked in Springgarden;" and there he notices "a great deal of company, and the weather and garden pleasant: and it is very pleasant and cheap going thither, for a man may go to spend what he will, or nothing-all as one: but to hear the nightingale and other birds; and here a fiddler, and there a harp; and here a jew's-trump, and here laughing, and there fine people walking, is mighty diverting," says Mr. Pepys, while his wife is gone to lie at Woolwich, "in order to a little ayre, and to gather May-dew.” GERARD'S HALL MAYPOLE. Basing Lane. Whence this lane derived its name of Basing, Stow cannot tell. It runs out of Bread-street, and was called the Bakehouse, but, "whether meant for the king's bakehouse, or bakers dwelling there, and baking bread to serve the market in Bread-street, where the bread was sold, I know not," says Stow; "but sure I am, I have not read of Basing or of Gerard, the gyant, to have any thing there to doe." It seems that this Maypole was fabled to have been "the justing staff of Gerard, a gyant." Stow's particulars concerning it, and his account of Gerard's-hall, which at this time is an inn for Bath and West of England coaches and other conveyances, are very interesting. He says, "On the south side of this (Basing) lane is one great house, of old time builded upon arched vaults, and with arched gates of stone, brought from Cane in Normandie; the same is now a common ostrey for receit of travelers, commonly and corruptly called Gerard's-hall, of a gyant said to have dwelled there. In the high roofed hall of this house, sometime stood a large Firre-Pole, which reached to the roofe thereof, and was said to be one of the staves that Gerard the gyant used in the warres, to runne withall. There stood also a ladder of the same length, which (as they said) served to ascend to the top of the staffe. Of later yeeres this hall is altered in building, and divers roomes are made in it. Notwithstanding, the pole is removed to one corner of the hall, and the ladder hanged broken upon a wall in the yard. The hosteler of that house said to mee, the pole lacked balf a foote of forty in length. I measured the compasse thereof, and found it fifteene inches. Reason of the pole could the master of the hostery give me none, but bade mee reade the Chronicles, for there he heard of it. Which answer," says Stow, "seemed to me insufficient: for he meant the description of Britaine, for the most part drawne out of John Leyland, his commentaries (borrowed of myselfe) and placed before Reynes Wolfe's Chronicle, as the labours of another." It seems that this chronicle has "a chapter of gyants or monstrous men-of a man with his mouth sixteene foote wide, and so to Gerard the gyant and his staffe," which Stow speaks of as "these fables," and then he derives the house called Gerard's-hall, from the owner thereof, "John Gisors, maior of London, in the yeere 1245," and says, "The pole in the hall might bee used of old time (as then the custome was in every parish) to bee set up in the summer, a Maypole, before the principall house in the parish or streete, and to stand in the hall before the scrine, decked with hollie and ivie at the feast of Christmas. The ladder served for the decking of the Maypole, and reached to the roof of the hall.' To this is added, that " every mans house of old time was decked with holly and ivie in the winter, especially at Christmas;" whereof, gentle reader, be pleased to take notice, and do "as they did in the old time." Wethink we remember something about milkmaids and their garlands in our boyish days; but even this lingering piece of professional rejoicing is gone; and instead of intellectual pleasures at courts, manly games among the gentry, the vernal appearance every where of boughs and flowers, and the harmonious accompaniment of ladies' looks, all the idea that a Londoner now has of May-day, is the dreary gambols and tinsel-fluttering squalidness of the poor chimney-sweepers! What a personification of the times;paper-gilded dirt, slavery, and melancholy, bustling for another penny! Something like celebrations of May-day still loiter in more remote parts of the country, such as Cornwall, Devonshire, and Westmoreland; and it is observable, that most of the cleverest men of the time come from such quarters, or have otherwise chanced upon some kind of insulation from its more sophisticated commonplaces. Should the subject come before the consideration of any persons who have not had occasion to look at it with reference to the general character of the age, they will do a great good, and perhaps help eventually to alter it, by fanning the little sparks that are left them of a brighter period. Our business is to do what we can, to remind the others of what they may do, to pay honours to the season ourselves, and to wait for that alteration in the times, which the necessity of things must produce, and which we must endeavour to influence as genially as possible in its approach.* From Mr. Leslie's pencil, there is a picture of May-day, "in the old time”the "golden days of good queen Bess" whereon a lady, whose muse delights in agreeable subjects, has written the following descriptive lines :— : ON MAY DAY. By Leslie. The Examiner. green, L. E. L |