, wherever I may be placed, a delightful expansion of
the heart at the return of May. It is said that birds about this time
will become restless in their cages, as if instinct with the season,
conscious of the revelry that is going on in the groves, and impatient
to break from their bondage, and join in the jubilee of the year. In
like manner I have felt myself excited, even in the midst of the
metropolis, when the windows, which had been churlishly closed all
winter, were again thrown open to receive the balmy breath of May;
when the sweets of the country were breathed into the town, and
flowers were cried about the streets. I have considered the treasures
of flowers thus poured in, as so many missives from nature, inviting
us forth to enjoy the virgin beauty of the year, before its freshness
is exhaled by the heats of sunny summer.

One can readily imagine what a gay scene it must have been in jolly
old London, when the doors were decorated with flowering branches,
when every hat was decked with hawthorn, and Robin Hood, Friar Tuck,
Maid Marian, the morris-dancers, and all the other fantastic masks and
revellers, were performing their antics about the May-pole in every
part of the city.

I am not a bigoted admirer of old times and old customs, merely
because of their antiquity: but while I rejoice in the decline of many
of the rude usages and coarse amusements of former days, I cannot but
regret that this innocent and fanciful festival has fallen into
disuse. It seemed appropriate to this verdant and pastoral country,
and calculated to light up the too pervading gravity of the nation. I
value every custom that tends to infuse poetical feeling into the
common people, and to sweeten and soften the rudeness of rustic
manners, without destroying their simplicity. Indeed, it is to the
decline of this happy simplicity, that the decline of this custom may
be traced; and the rural dance on the green, and the homely May-day
pageant, have gradually disappeared, in proportion as the peasantry
have become expensive and artificial in their pleasures, and too
knowing for simple enjoyment.

Some attempts, the Squire informs me, have been made of late years, by
men of both taste and learning, to rally back the popular feeling to
these standards of primitive simplicity; but the time has gone by, the
feeling has become chilled by habits of gain and traffic, the country
apes the manners and amusements of the town, and little is heard