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they said, that he would not lose a word in a whole dayes conversation. It is true, one great misbecomingnesse he was apt to fall into whilst he spoke; which was an uncertainty in the tone of his voice; for, not hearing the sound he made when he spoke, he could not steadily govern the pitch of his voice; but it would be sometimes higher and sometimes lower, though for the most part what he delivered together, he ended in the same key as he began it."

Sir Kenelm goes on to say, that Charles, who took pleasure in the society of this extraordinary man, used to make some Welshmen of his retinue "speak words of their language, which he so perfectly echoed, that I confesse I wondred more at that, than at all the rest; and his master himselfe would acknowledge that the rules of his art reached not so far, and therefore concluded, that this in him must spring from other rules, which he had framed unto himselfe out of his own attentive observation; which the advantage which nature had justly given him, in the sharpnesse of senses, to supply the want of this, endowed him with an ability and sagacity to do beyond any other man that had his hearing." And, as a proof of this, Sir K. adds. "I have seen him at the distance of a large chamber's breadth say words after one, that I, standing close by the speaker, could not hear a syllable of." But enough of this curious story, which may be found at length in Dr. Bulwer's Philocophus, or Deaf and Dumb Man's Friend.

UPON THE DEATH OF A CHILD OF EIGHT YEARS OLD.

OH! if the fond regrets of mortal love

Are heard before the throne of God above-
If to a soul too young for guilt, 'tis given
To find its own congenial home in Heaven--
If the warm tears of those who gave thee birth
May cleanse thy spirit from the stains of earth-
My Brother, go!--and while thy youthful lyre
Blends its fresh incense with th' immortal choir,
Oh may its holy echoes earthward flow

To soothe the hearts that weep thy loss below,
And Henry's form in all its new-born bloom
Chase the cold thought of Henry in the tomb!

MAY MORNING.

Up and away! 'tis a holiday!
Come lads and lasses with merry faces
To the May-bowers;

Behold the grass is pranckt with daisies,
The banks with flowers.

The sun is flinging on waters glancing
His early light;

The birds are singing, and branches dancing,

At the glad sight.

Come, let us rush in the maze of boughs,

And meet at the May-pole to dance and carouse;

He that is first shall be Jack in the Green,

And the forwardest lass shall be crown'd our Queen.

LISTEN to the author of the Faery Queen, who curbs the exuberance of his rich imagination, and confining himself to a simple though beautiful transcript from nature, thus ushers in the month of May :

Is not thilke the merry moneth of May,
When love-lads masken in fresh array?
How falles it, then, we no merrier beene,
Ylike as others, girt in gawdy greene?
Our bloncket liveries* bene all too sadde
For thilke same season, when all is ycladde

With pleasaunce; the ground with grasse, the woods
With greene leaves, the bushes with bloosming buds.
Youngthes folke now flocken in every where,
To gather May-buskets † and smelling brere;
And home they hasten the postes to dight,
And all the kirk pillows, eare day-light,
With hawthorne buds, and sweete eglantine,
And girlonds of roses, and soppes in wine.
Such merimake holy saints doth queme, !
But we sitten here as drownde in dreme.

Reader! if thou dost not catch the fragrance of the May-garlands, and inhale the freshness of the morning grass, springing up from beneath thy feet; if thou dost not see the sparkling eyes and joy-flushed cheeks of the country damsels and youths as they return from their Maying; if thou dost not hear their songs and laughter, borne fitfully to thine ear by the balmy breeze, then do I maintain that thou lackest taste to relish the rural accuracy, the cordial and countrified simplicity, the gusto, in short, with which Spenser, in the above passage from his Shepheards Calender, commences his May Eclogue. Perhaps thou art offended with the rude antiquity of the garb in which

* Gray Coats.

+ Boskets, bushes: from Boschetti, Ital.

Please.

it is clothed:-nay then, thou shalt have something as gorgeous and modern as thy heart could wish, if thou wilt but read Darwin's Invocation to the same month.

Born in yon blaze of orient sky,

Sweet May! thy radiant form unfold,
Unclose thy blue voluptuous eye,

And wave thy shadowy locks of gold.
For thee the fragrant Zephyrs blow,
For thee descends the sunny shower;
The rills in softer murmurs flow,

And brighter blossoms gem the bower.
Light Graces dress'd in flowery wreaths,
And tiptoe joys their hands combine;
And Love his sweet contagion breathes,
And laughing dances round thy shrine.
Warm with new life the glittering throngs
On quivering fin and rustling wing,
Delighted join their votive songs,

And hail thee, Goddess of the Spring.

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Here are mellifluous diction, poetical personifications, and elaborate generalities, but no picture of life, or portrait of nature; none of that kindly union of human happiness and nature's flowery outpouring; nothing of that holiday of earth and its inhabitants, which form the charm of Spenser's delineation. The modern is correct and insipid, heartless and fine. Alas! these extracts illustrate but too accurately ine feelings of the respective periods in which they were produced, and the different cordiality with which the same festival was celebrated. May-day is no holiday dependent on the rubric, or the musty fables of monks and saints:-it is a jubilee of nature's own appointing, when the earth, dressing herself up in flowers and green garlands, calls aloud to her children to come out into the fields and participate in her merry-making, a gladsome invitation which has been accepted with sparkling eyes and happy hearts since the world itself was young. Romulus named the month of May in honour of his nobles and senators, termed Majores, or Elders; as the following month was called June out of compliment to the Juniors who served him in his wars; and though it is well known that we have some absolute wisdom among our Elder or Alder-men, yet it must be admitted that those worshipful dignitaries, in the time of Romulus, evinced a more genial and cheerful sagacity than has been ever exemplified by their successors, for they nearly converted the whole month of May into holidays. As they saw the young year advancing towards them, budding with beauty, and pouring out bounteous promises of fruits and harvests, they sent out their hearts and voices into the valleys

and meadows to meet her, escorting her emblematically into the city under the symbol of the Goddess Flora, crowned with triumphant garlands, and preceded by banners and dancing. Jack in the Green and our gambols round the May-pole are but sorry types of this splendid festival, so far as externals are concerned; but they "have that within which passeth show;" they retain the essentials of the old Pagan jubilee :-to go a Maying is not less healthy to the spirit than the frame; it is a reprieve from the thraldom of cities and artificial life, and rubs the canker of care from our hearts, by sending them out among the green leaves. It enables the plodders and the sons of toil to shake hands with nature; and as they pluck the blossomy bough amid freshness and fragrance, and the music of birds and the sounds of human happiness, it brings them into direct and grateful communion with that benignant Deity whom they have been too apt to view through the medium of gloomy or mysterious abstractions. This is to render it a religious rejoicing in the finest sense of the word; and so was it observed and felt over the west of Europe for a number of happy centuries, a special act having passed in our own country so late as the time of James I. legalising the observance of the usual May-games, Morris dances, and dancing round the pole, even on a Sunday. Who but must feel his face flush with delight if he suffer his imagination to run back through all the Mays of antiquity with their awakening suns, delicious meadows, budding groves, sparkling waters, and rejoicing creatures? Who but must feel his heart sink within him, when he reflects that all this bloom of happiness was blighted by the withering hand of the Puritans, who, after having suppressed the theatres, enacted that all convicted actors should be publicly whipped, and all spectators of plays fined five shillings for every offence, proceeded to denounce May-poles and Morris-dances as "the devil's standards, which all those who follow do it unto damnation." "It is certain," says the historian and apologist of the Puritans, "that the Lord's day was duly observed, neither servants or children being allowed to walk in the fields, or frequent the public-houses."* What strange notions must these miserable fanatics have entertained, when they deemed it irreligious to pour forth their grateful hearts to the Deity amid the glories of his own creation.

In the fresh fields, his own cathedral meet,

Built by himself-star-roof'd, and hung with green;
Wherein all breathing things, in concord sweet,
Organ'd by winds, perpetual hymns repeat.

Neale's History of the Puritans, abridged, chap. 19.

Thank Heaven! these wretched tormentors of themselves and others have passed away; at least the rod has been wrenched from their hands, and their successors, the vice-suppressers, are but puny whipsters, waging a petty warfare of annoyance against the recreations of the poor and the defenceless. But as if human happiness were for ever to be sacrificed to some fatal mistake, the god of Avarice succeeded to the empire from which the dæmon of Bigotry had been expelled, and we drudged and toiled, and made ourselves slaves, for the base ambition of wearing chains of gold. Then began the period when our children were educated in the faith of "wise saws and modern instances," and Poor Richard's morals, such as-"stick to your business and your business will stick to you," "a penny saved is a penny got," "a fool and his money are soon parted," and a thousand similar axioms, until a holiday was considered an enormity, and the expenditure of an unnecessary shilling a profligate abomination. Such were the sordid prostrations that prepared us for the toilsome and anxious delirium of the last twenty or thirty years, the æra of our commercial prosperity, as it is called, when increased taxation excited fresh efforts to defray it, and the enlarged manufactures and trade justified additional imposts; when speculators and capitalists became wholesale slave-masters, and men, women, and children voluntarily and rapidly wore out` their frames by task-work, until the former were bloated and choaked with their overgrown wealth, and the latter had no more enjoyment of life, or communion with nature, than the steamengines and spinning-jennies to which they were made subsidiary. This was indeed the "propter vitam vivendi perdere causas ;" an enormous mistake of the means for the end; a desperate struggle to keep our heads above water, which was worse than drowning. But this long fit of Mammon-madness is subsiding; the convulsions are abated; we have time at last to wipe the perspiration from our brows; and though we may emerge from our agonies somewhat poorer and more exhausted than we could wish, we may be ultimate gainers, both in health and happiness, if we dedicate the first-fruits of our unaccustomed leisure to the rural duties, and the renewal of that cheerful and cordial intercourse with nature, which exhilarated the lives of our ancestors, but from which we have profanely cut ourselves off by our plodding, sophisticated, and artificial modes of existence.

How can we begin this reform better than by recurring to the ancient and heart-refreshing observance of May-Day?-C'est le premier pas qui coute.-Who will step out of the dust, and smoke, and anxious turmoil of London, into the green fields, and with a sprig of blossoming hawthorn in his hand, give up the day to rural rambles and holiday associations? I will, for one; and I hereby invite the reader, whether gentle or simple, to ac

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