bring rejoicing holidays. There is
good reason to suppose that this poem was written in the declining times
of the empire; if so, it seems that, amidst the public misfortunes that
followed one another during that age, the people were not woe-worn and
distressed; that they were able to forget, in social pleasures, the
gradual decay of their ancient glory. Rome "smiled in death." England is
still great and powerful, but she is no longer Merry England.

Most people have heard of the Floralia, and have learned to deduce the
frolics of Maid Marian and her comrades from the Roman observances on
that festive occasion. But few are aware of the close similarity which
this poem shows to have existed between the customs of the Romans and
those of our fathers. In the denunciations of the latter by the acrid
Puritans of the 17th century, we might almost imagine that the tirade
was expressly levelled against the vigils described in the _Pervigilium
Veneris_. If the poem had ever fallen into the hands of those worthies,
it would have afforded them an additional handle for invective against
the foul ethnic superstitions which the May-games were denounced as
representing. Hear Master Stubbes, in his _Anatomie of Abuses_,
published in 1585:--

"Against May, Whitsonday, or other time, all the yung men and
maides, old men and wives, run gadding over the night to the
woods, groves, hils, and mountains, where they spend all the
night in pleasant pastimes, and in the morning they return,
bringing with them birch and branches of trees, to deck their
assemblies withall; and no meruaile, for there is a great Lord
present amongst them as superintendent and Lord of their
sports, namely, Sathan prince of hel. But the chiefest jewel
they bring from thence is their May-pole, (say rather their
stinking poole,) which they bring home with great veneration."

Who does not remember Lysander's appointment with Hermia:

----"in that wood, a league without the town,
Where I did meet thee once with Helena,
To do observance to a morn of May,
There will I stay for thee."

These passages point us to the time when man and nature met to rejoice
together on May-day: to the time before the days of the workhouse and
factory; when the length and breadth of the land rung to the joyaunce
and glee of the holiday-rejoicing nation, and the gay sounds careered on
fresh breezes even where now the dense atmospher