me
innocent amusement associated with this popular holiday, and only the
most captious Puritan could object to it because of its derivation
from the old Roman festival of Flora; but, unfortunately, the manners
of the sixteenth century did not leave room for much of innocent
observance of sports and pastimes in the open air, so that, in fact,
the dances about the Maypole were too frequently gross and unseemly.
Charles Francis Adams, in his editing of Morton's _Narrative_, in
the Prince Society Publications, in commenting upon the Merrie Mount
incident in the early settlement of New England, calls attention
in a footnote to the judgment of a contemporary writer as to the
iniquities which were practised in connection with what in the
popular imagination of the day was a wholesome and happy pastime.
The statement in the passage quoted by him of the startling depravity
which signalized the day throughout rural England awakens the
pertinent question as to what was the moral state of the women of
the rural population of the country. The testimony of the manners and
customs of the day, and the effect upon England of the indescribable
profligacy of the peoples of France and Italy, force the unpleasant
conclusion, after making all extenuation for the standards which
then obtained, that the vice which in the higher circles was as "the
creeping thing that flieth" appeared in the lower circles of society
in all of its foulness.

Life in the country was very delightful; buildings of fanciful
architecture were erected, the majority of them still being of wood,
the better sort plastered inside and the walls hung with tapestry
or wainscoted with oak, against which stood out in bold relief the
glittering gold and silver plate, which not alone the nobles and
gentry, but the merchants and even the farmers and artisans, loved
to possess. But in spite of their love of plate, Venetian glassware,
because of its rarity, was preferred for drinking vessels. The
housewife of quality no longer had to strew rushes upon the floor,
for Turkish rugs were imported and used by the wealthy. Beds were hung
with the finest silk or tapestry, and the tables were covered with
linen. The homes of all classes showed the increase in the comfort
of living. Even the poorest women could boast of chimneys to their
houses, and were no longer suffocated by the smoke which for egress
depended upon a hole in the roof. In 1589 a wise law was passed that
no cottage shoul