And all the lusty yonkers, in a rout, The lords of castles, mannors, townes, and towers, But since the summer poles were overthrown, And all good sports and merriment decay'd, How times and men are changed, so well is knowne, It were but labour lost if more were said. Alas, poore May-poles! what should be the cause Your greatest crime was harmlesse honest mirth: Some fiery, zealous brother, full of spleene, That all the world in his deepe wisdom scornes, By which the wicked merry Greeks came in. But I doe hope once more the day will come, That you shall mount and pearch your cocks as high As e'er you did, and that the pipe and drum Shall bid defiance to your enemy; And that all fidlers, which in corners lurke, And have been almost starved for want of worke, And you, my native town (Leeds), which was of old, The summer bower of peace and neighbourhood; Douce observes that, "during the reign of Elizabeth, the Puritans made considerable havoc among the May-games by their preachings and invectives. Poor Maid Marian was assimilated to the whore of Babylon; Friar Tuck was deemed a remnant of Popery; and the Hobby-horse as an impious and Pagan superstition: and they were at length most completely put to the rout, as the bitterest enemies of religion. King James's Book of Sports restored the Lady and the Hobby-horse but during the Commonwealth, they were again attacked by a new set of fanatics; and, together with the whole of the May festivities, the Whitsun-ales, &c., in many parts of England, degraded." (Illustr. of Shakespeare, ii. 463.) In a curious tract, entitled the Lord's loud Call to England, published by H. Jessey, 1660, there is given part of a letter from one of the Puritan party in the North, dated Newcastle, 7th of May, 1660: "Sir, the countrey, as well as the town, abounds with vanities; now the reins of liberty and licentiousness are let loose: May-poles, and playes, and juglers, and all things else, now pass current. Sin now appears with a brazen face," &c.1 In Rich's Honestie of this Age, 1615, p. 5, is the following passage: "The country swaine, that will sweare more on Sundaies, dancing about a May-pole, then he will doe all the week after at his worke, will have a cast at me." In Small Poems of divers Sorts, written by Sir Aston Cokain, 1658, p. 209, is the following, of Wakes and Maypoles: "The zealots here are grown so ignorant, That they mistake wakes for some ancient saint, 1 Dr. Stukeley, in his Itinerarium Curiosum, 1724, p. 29, says: There is a May-pole hill near Horn Castle, Lincolnshire, "where probably stood an Hermes in Roman times. The boys annually keep up the festival of the Floralia on May Day, making a procession to this hill with May gads (as they call them) in their hands. This is a white willow wand, the bark peel'd off, ty'd round with cowslips, a thyrsus of the Bacchinals. At night they have a bonefire, and other merriment, which is really a sacrifice or religious festival." Stevenson, in the Twelve Moneths, p. 25, has these observations at the end of May : "Why should the priest against the May-pole preach? How he the errour of the time condoles, And sayes, 'tis none of the cælestial poles; Whilst he (fond man!) at May-poles thus perplext, Forgets he makes a May-game of his text. But May shall tryumph at a higher rate, Having trees for poles, and boughs to celebrate; And the green regiment, in brave array, Like Kent's great walking grove, shall bring in May.” After the Restoration, as has been already noticed, Maypoles were permitted to be erected again. Thomas Hall, however, another of the puritanical writers, published his Funebriæ Floræ, the Downfall of May Games, so late as 1660. At the end is a copy of verses,1 from which the subsequent selection has been made :— "I am Sir May-pole, that's my name; Men, May, and Mirth give me the same. Till time and means so favour'd mee, under Heaven's cope, There's none as I so near the Pope; When he is chosen? so have I too : Men, women, children, on an heap, Do fright the earth and pierce the skies. [A copy of these lines may be seen in MS. Harl. 1221, where they are entitled, "A May-pooles speech to a traveller."] Hath holy Pope his holy guard, For, where 'tis nois'd that I am come, The scum of all the raskall crew I tell them 'tis a time to laugh, Old crones, that scarce have tooth or eye, I bid the servant disobey, The honour of the Sabbath-day At page 10, he says: "The most of these May-poles are stollen, yet they give out that the poles are given them.There were two May-poles set up in my parish [King's Norton]; the one was stollen, and the other was given by a profest papist. That which was stolen was said to bee given, when 'twas proved to their faces that 'twas stollen, and they were made to acknowledge their offence. This poll that was stollen was rated at five shillings: if all the poles one with another were so rated, which was stollen this May, what a considerable sum would it amount to! Fightings and bloodshed are usual at such meetings, insomuch that 'tis a common saying, that 'tis no festival unless there bee some fightings." "If Moses were angry," he says in another page, "when he saw the people dance about a golden calf, well may we be angry to see people dancing the morrice about a post in honour of a whore, as you shall see anon.' "Had this rudeness," he adds, "been acted only in some ignorant and obscure parts of the land, I had been silent; but when I perceived that the complaints were general from all parts of the land, and that even in Cheapside itself the rude rabble had set up this ensign of profaneness, and had put the lordmayor to the trouble of seeing it pulled down, I could not, out of my dearest respects and tender compassion to the land of my nativity, and for the prevention of the like disorders (if possible) for the future, but put pen to paper, and discover the sinful rise, and vile profaneness that attend such misrule." So, again, in Randolph's Poems, 1646, "These teach that dancing is a Jezabel, And Barley-Break the ready way to Hell; There is a zeal t' expresse how much they do So in the Welsh Levite tossed in a Blanket, 1691: "I remember the blessed times, when every thing in the world that was displeasing and offensive to the brethren went under the name of horrid abominable Popish superstition. Organs and May-poles, Bishop's Courts and the Bear Garden, surplices and long hair, cathedrals and play-houses, set-forms and painted glass, fonts and Apostle spoons, church musick and bull-baiting, altar rails and rosemary on brawn, nay fiddles, Whitson ale, pig at Bartholomew Fair, plum porrige, puppet shows, carriers bells, figures in gingerbread, and at last Moses and Aaron, the Decalogue, the Creeds, and the Lord's Prayer, |