MARCH. March, which with the ancients ranked the first month of the year, was named in honour of Mars, the god of war, and the supposed father of the founder of Rome. Our Anglo-Saxon ancestors called it Lenct Monath-that is, Lent or Spring Month. 1. Mid Lent Sunday.-A holiday of the Church of England. It was considered as incumbent upon all true Christians on this day to pay a visit, if possible, to their mother church, or church of their native parish, and there make some small offering. The epistle for the day accordingly contains an appropriate allusionHierosolyma mater omnium, Jerusalem the mother of all (Gal. iv. 21). And it was customary on the same day for people to visit their parents, carrying with them some gift, and receiving the parental blessing in return, together with a mess of furmety-that is, a porridge composed of whole grains of wheat, boiled in milk, and sweetened and spiced. This practice was called going a-mothering,' and the day was sometimes called Mothering Sunday. The festival, with all its peculiar observances, is supposed to have taken its rise in the heathen festival of the Hilaria, celebrated by the ancient Romans in honour of the mother of the gods, on the ides of March. St David's Day. The interest attached to this saint and his day is confined to the Welsh, whose patron saint St David is considered. The most rational accounts of St David represent him as Archbishop of Menevy (since, from him, called St David's) in the sixth century. He is said to have been the illegitimate son of a prince of Cardigan, and uncle of the famous, but more than half fabulous, King Arthur. Learning, and more particularly asceticism, the great sources of promotion in those days, raised him to high esteem and ecclesiastical rank, and gave him the reputation of a power to perform miracles. At a synod called at Brevy in Cardigan, in 519, in consequence of the Pelagian heresy, he made an eloquent and convincing display against the erroneous doctrines, which were therefore condemned. He died in 544, at an advanced age, and was buried in the church of St Andrew, but in 962 his remains were transferred to Glastonbury Abbey. I on St David's Day, on which occasion each member wears a representation of the leek in his hat, the marshals in front being decorated in like manner. In the household expenses of the Princess Mary, in 1544, there is entered a gift of fifteen shillings to the yeomen of the king's guard for bringing a leek to her grace on St David's Day. 8. The Fifth Sunday in Lent.—It was popularly distinguished as Care or Carling Sunday, terms which appear to be of very dubious import. The peasantry and yeomanry used to steep peas and afterwards parch them, and then, frying them with butter, made a feast of them on the afternoon of this day. It is thought not unlikely that the custom bore some reference to the superstitious notions which the ancients entertained respecting beans, as containing the souls of the departed. The peas, as eaten in the north of England, were called carlings. We may presume that the day took its name from this word, carling being in time softened into Care. It figures in the following old rhyme which enumerates the Sundays of Lent by popular appellations— Tid, Mid, and Misera, Carling, Palm, and good Pace-day. The three first words are supposed to have been derived from the beginnings of certain psalms-thus, Te deum, Mi deus, Miserere mei. 15. Palm Sunday, called in the English Prayer-book the Sunday next before Easter; also sometimes called Passion Sunday, as being the commencement of Passion Week, or the week celebrative of the sufferings or passion of our Lord. It is a festival of great antiquity and a partly joyous character, as more particularly commemorating the brilliant though short-lived popularity of the reception which Christ met with on entering Jerusalem immediately before his passion. On this day, in Catholic countries, the priests bless branches of palm, or some other tree, which are then carried in procession, in memory of those strewed before Christ at his entrance into the holy city. The procession is as splendid as circumstances will admit of; and after it is done, the boughs used on the occasion are burnt, and their ashes preserved, that they may be laid on the heads of the people next Ash Wednesday, with the priest's blessing. After the Reformation, 1536, Henry VIII. declared the carrying of palms on this day to be one of those ceremonies not to be contemned or dropped. The custom was kept up by the clergy till the reign of Edward VI., when it was left to the voluntary observance of the people. Fuller, who wrote in the ensuing age, speaks of it respectfully, as in memory of the receiving of Christ into Hierusalem a little before his death, and that we may have the same desire to receive him into our hearts. It has continued down to a recent period, if not to the present day, to be customary in many parts of England to go a-palming on the Saturday before Palm Sunday; that is, young persons go to the woods for slips of willow, which seems to be the tree chiefly employed in England as a substitute for the palm, on which account it often receives the latter name. They return with slips in their hats or buttonholes, or a sprig in their mouths, bearing the branches in their hands. Not many years ago, one stall-woman in Covent-Garden market supplied the article to a few customers, many of whom, perhaps, scarcely knew what it meant. Slips of the willow, with its velvety flower-buds or catkins, are still stuck up in some rural parish churches in England. While the Welsh venerate the memory of St David, they are unacquainted with our idea of him as their patron saint, a notion which has sprang up in consequence of the popular fiction of the Seven Champions of Christendom. They observe the 1st of March as the anniversary of his death. On this day all true Welshmen, whether in their own country or far removed from it, make it a point of conscience to wear a leek in their hats; and this custom is alluded to in writings of considerable antiquity. It has also been made effective use of by Shakspeare in his historical drama of King Henry V.;' and the heroic cudgelling which he there represents the choleric Welshman Fluellen as having administered to Ancient Pistol when he compelled him to eat the leek which he had mocked at on St Tavy's Day,' has given rise to a proverbial saying; for of an individual who has been forced to do anything contrary to his own inclination, it is by no means uncommon to say that he has been made to eat his leek.' How the leek has become connected with St David and the affections of Welshmen is not ascertained. The most probable story is, that at a great battle between the Welsh and Saxons in the sixth century, the former, by advice of St David adorned their hats with leeks, for the sake of distinction from their enemies, taking the herb from a neigh- 17. St Patrick's Day, a high festival of the Romish bouring field, where they grew in abundance. The Church. The interest attached to this saint and his victory gained by the Welsh being partly attributed day is, however, chiefly confined to the Irish, whose to this cause, the leek was ever after held in vene- patron saint he is considered; though that term, as in ration, and associated with the name of St David. the case of St David, is of modern and English origin. The most honourable and loyal society of Ancient The Irish venerate St Patrick as the person who introBritons,' instituted in London in 1714, and who support duced Christianity into their country. He is said to a school in the metropolis for the support and educa- have been born at Kilpatrick, near Dumbarton in Scottion of poor Welsh children, have an annual procession | land, and to have first visited Ireland as a boy and a prisoner. Afterwards travelling into Gaul and Italy, | assembled, their feet were first washed by the yeomen and growing up as a learned priest, he was commis- As the Welsh are solicitous to display the leek on St David's Day, so are the Irish to show the shamrock on that of St Patrick. The shamrock is a bunch of trefoil, a species of grass. It is associated with St Patrick and his day in consequence, as popular story goes, of the saint having made a very adroit use of the plant in his first preaching, immediately after landing. The people being staggered by the doctrine of the Trinity, and disposed to show some violence to him, he took up a trefoil growing by his side, and illustrated the point by showing its three blades growing on one stalk; whereupon they were immediately convinced, and became converts. In Dublin, St Patrick's Day is, or was lately, a scene of festivity and mirth unparalleled. From the highest to the lowest,' says Mr Hone, 'all seem inspired by the saint's beneficence. At daybreak flags fly from the steeples, and the bells ring out incessant peals till midnight. The rich bestow their benevolence on the poor, and the poor bestow their blessings on the rich, on each other, and on the blessed St Patrick. The 'green immortal" shamrock is in every hat. Sports of manly exercise exhibit the capabilities of the celebrated shilelah. Priestly care soothes querulousness; laughter drowns casualty; lasses dance with lads; old women run about to share cups of consolation with each other; and by the union of wit, humour, and frolic, this miraculous day is prolonged till after the dawn of next morning.' 66 of the laundry with warm water and sweet herbs, afterwards by the sub-almoner, and finally by the queen herself, kneeling; these various persons, the yeomen, the sub-almoner, and the queen, after washing each foot, marked it with the sign of the cross above the toes, and then kissed it. Clothes, victuals, money, and other gratuities were then distributed. This strange ceremonial, in which the highest was for a moment brought beneath the lowest, was last performed in its full extent by James II. King William left the washing to his almoner; and such was the arrangement for many years afterwards. Thursday, April 15 [1731], being Maundy Thursday, there was distributed at the Banqueting House, Whitehall, to forty-eight poor men and forty-eight poor women (the king's [George II.] age being forty-eight), boiled beef and shoulders of mutton, and small bowls of ale, which is called dinner; after that large wooden platters of fish and loaves-namely, undressed, one large old ling, and one large dried cod; twelve red herrings and twelve white herrings, and four half-quarter loaves. Each person had one platter of this provision; after which were distributed to them shoes, stockings, linen and woollen cloth, and leathern bags, with one penny, twopenny, threepenny, and fourpenny pieces of silver and shillings-to each about four pounds in value. His Grace the Lord Archbishop of York, Lord High Almoner, performed the annual ceremony of washing the feet of a certain number of poor in the Royal Chapel, Whitehall, which was formerly done by the kings themselves, in imitation of our Saviour's pattern of humility.' For a considerable number of years the washing of the feet and other ceremonies has been entirely given up; and since the beginning of the reign of Queen Victoria, an additional sum of money has been given in lieu of provisions. 20. Good Friday.--This day, as the presumed anniversary of the Crucifixion, has for ages been solemnly observed throughout Christian Europe, the only exceptions being in Presbyterian countries, such as Scotland. In Catholic times, the observances of the day in England were of the same character with those which are still maintained in many parts of the continent. It is still a solemn festival of the Church of England, and the only one besides Christmas which is honoured by a general suspension of business. Strictly observant Church-of- England people abstain from all kind of animal food, even from cream to tea; such, we are informed by Boswell, was the custom of Dr Johnson. The churches are in general well attended, and it is considered proper to appear there in black clothes. 19. Maundy Thursday, called also Shere Thursday, the day before Good Friday. Its name of Shere Thursday appears to have arisen from the practice which the priests had of shearing their hair on this day, to make themselves as trim as possible for Easter. The other name is more doubtful, but seems most probably to have been derived from maund, an old English word for a basket, in consequence of the distribution of gifts on this day in baskets-the word maundy, used by old Amongst the usages of this day was a strange cereauthors for alms or gifts, being apparently derived in mony of creeping to the cross, which even the king was its turn from the practice of this day. The religious not exempt from performing. The king also distributed customs of the day consisted in works of humility, and rings at Westminster Abbey for the cure of the cramp. in conferring gifts on the poor. The object seems to The ceremonious burying of a crucifix, as representhave been to commemorate, or imitate, the humility of ing the burial of Christ, is calculated to give less surChrist in washing the feet of his disciples-the giving prise. It is still in some measure kept up in the serof maundies being an additional good work. Cardinal vice of the Tenebræ, performed in St Peter's at Rome. Wolsey, at Peterborough Abbey, in 1530, made his It was also customary at great churches to have a maund in our lady's chapel, having fifty-nine poor men small building in the form of a tomb, in which the host whose feet he washed and kissed; and after he had was this day deposited, by way of representing the burial wiped them, he gave every of the said poor men twelve of Christ. In England, and perhaps also in other counpence in money, three ells of good canvas to make tries, eggs and bacon were the kinds of food appropriate them shirts, a pair of new shoes, a cast of red her- to Good Friday. The eggs laid on this day were rings, and three white herrings; and one of these had thought to have the power of extinguishing any fire two shillings-the number of the poor men being pro-into which they might be thrown. In modern times, bably in correspondence with the years of his age. Even royalty condescended to this practice. The king of England was accustomed on Maundy Thursday to have brought before him as many poor men as he was years old, whose feet he washed with his own hands, after which his majesty's maunds, consisting of meat, clothes, and money, were distributed amongst them. Queen Elizabeth, when in her thirty-ninth year, performed this ceremony at her palace of Greenwich, on which occasion she was attended by thirty-nine ladies and gentlewomen. Thirty-nine poor persons being the only species of viands connected with Good Friday in Britain is the well-known hot cross bun, a small spiced cake, marked with the figure of a cross, and sold not only in bakers' shops but by persons traversing the streets with baskets. In London, as well as in almost every other considerable town in England, the first sound heard on the morning of Good Friday is the cry of Hot Cross Buns!' uttered by great numbers of people of a humble order, who parade the streets with baskets containing a plentiful stock of the article, wrapped up in flannel and linen to keep it warm. The cry, which | in attire as gay as possible. But in rural districts is rather musical, is strictly Hot cross buns One a penny, buns-two a penny, buns; Hucksters of all kinds, and many persons who attempt no traffic at any other time, enter into the business of supplying buns on Good Friday morning. They make a stir on the streets, which lasts till church time, and it is resumed in the afternoon. About a century ago there was a baker's shop at Chelsea, so famous for its manufacture of excellent buns, that crowds of waiting customers clustered under its porch during a great part of the day. The buns were brought up from the oven on small black tin trays, and so given out to the people. The king himself had stopped at the door to purchase hot cross buns, and hence the shop took the name of the Royal Bun-House. As always happens in London when anything original and successful is struck out, the Royal Bun-House soon obtained a rival, and was obliged to advertise as the Old Original Royal Bun-House. The wars of these two houses, like those of York and Lancaster, have long since been hushed to rest; and we find it stated in a recent work [Mr Hone's amusing Every-Day Book,' vol. i. p. 404] that neither of them is now distinguished for this article above the other bakers' shops of Chelsea. In old times, Good Friday was distinguished in London by a sermon preached at Paul's Cross (a wooden pulpit placed on stone steps, and surmounted by a cross, which stood till the time of the civil war, in the open air, near the north-east corner of St Paul's Cathedral). The sermon was generally on the subject of Christ's passion. Connected with it, two or three others were preached on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, in Easter week, at the Spital in Spitalfields, where the Lord Mayor and all the most eminent persons in London generally attended. The 'Spital sermons' are still kept up, but take place in St Bride's Church. 21. Easter Eve.-In Catholic times, it was customary to put out all fires on this day, and light them anew from flint. The priest blessed the new fire, and a brand from it was thought to be an effectual protection against thunder-strokes. A large wax taper, called the Pascal Taper, was also blessed, and lighted beside the representative sepulchre above-mentioned, and there a vigil was kept till morning. The taper used on one of these occasions in Westminster Abbey church is said to have been 300 pounds in weight. 22. Easter Day, a solemn festival in celebration of the Resurrection. The word used by us is from the Saxon oster (rising). Easter is observed with much ceremonial, not only throughout Catholic Europe, and in the countries where the Greek church is established, but in Turkey and the Mohammedan countries along the coast of Africa. The festival is an engraftment upon the Jewish Passover, the name of which (pascha) is still applied to it in almost every country besides England. The Catholic observances of Easter are of an elaborate character. At Rome, the Pope is carried in state to perform high mass in St Peter's, from the balcony of which he afterwards blesses the people assembled in the piazza below-perhaps one of the most imposing religious spectacles which the world any where presents. In England, before the Reformation, the Catholic observances of Easter were as fully enacted as in any other country. Early in the morning, a sort of theatrical representation of the Resurrection was performed in the churches, the priests coming to the little sepulchre where, on Good Friday, they had deposited the host, which they now brought forth with great rejoicings, as emblematical of the rising of the Saviour. In the course of the day, the clergy had a game at ball in the church, a custom of which it is now difficult to believe that it ever could have existed. there still exist a few vestiges of old superstitions and customs connected with the day. It was once a general belief, and probably still is so in a few out-ofthe-way places, that on Easter morning the sun danced or played immediately after his rising. People rose early, and went into the fields to see this supposed phenomenon. The viands appropriate to Easter Day in the old times were, first and above all, eggs, then bacon, tansy pudding, and bread and cheese. The origin of the connection of eggs with Easter is lost in the mists of remote antiquity. They are as rife at this day in Russia as in England. There it is customary to go about with a quantity, and to give one to each friend one meets, saying, Jesus Christ is risen,' to which the other replies, Yes, he is risen, or, It is so of a truth.' The Pope formerly blessed eggs to be distributed throughout the Christian world for use on Easter Day. In Germany, instead of the egg itself, the people offer a print of it, with some lines inscribed. Formerly, the king of England had hundreds prepared to give to his household: in a roll of the expenses of Edward I. the following occurs, in the accounts of Easter Sunday, in the eighteenth year of his reign-Four hundred and ahalf of eggs, eighteenpence.' The custom is supposed to have been originally Jewish. At this day, the Easter eggs used in England are boiled hard in water containing a dye, so that they come out coloured. The boys take these eggs and make a kind of game, either by throwing [bowling] them to a distance on the green sward-he who throws oftenest without breaking his eggs being the victoror hitting them against each other in their respective hands, in which case the owner of the hardiest or last surviving egg gains the day. It was at one time customary to have a gammon of bacon on this day, and to eat it all up, in signification of abhorrence of Judaism. The tansy seems to have been introduced into Easter feasts as a successor to the bitter herbs used by the Jews at the Passover. It was usually presented well sugared. It was a custom in the thirteenth century to seize all ecclesiastics found walking abroad between Easter and Pentecost, and make them purchase their liberty with money. This was an acting of the seizure of the apostles after Christ's passion. We have still what appears to be a relic of this fashion in a custom which exists in various parts of England. A band of young men go abroad, and whatever female they meet they take hold of her, and pull off her shoes, which are only returned to her upon her paying some trifling forfeit. In Durham it is done by boys, who, on meeting any woman, accost her with, Pay for your shoes, if you please.' The trifling sums which they thus collect are spent in a feast at night. At Ripon, celebrated for its manufacture of spurs, travellers riding through the town are stripped of those articles, which in like manner they have to redeem. On Easter Monday, the women make a return by going abroad in groups, and causing the men to redeem their shoes. 'Lifting at Easter' is another old custom, which may be presumed to have originated in a design of dramatising the events connected with Christ's passion. It consisted in hoisting individuals up into the air, either in a chair or otherwise, until they relieved themselves by a forfeit. A curious record makes us aware that on Easter day, in the eighteenth year of the reign of Edward I., seven ladies of the queen's household went into the king's chamber and lifted him, for which fourteen pounds appears to have been disbursed as a forfeit. The men lifted the women on Easter Monday, and the women claimed the privilege of lifting the men in return on the ensuing day. Three hoists were always given, attended by loud huzzas. 23. Easter Monday. This and the ensuing day are At present, in large seats of population, Easter Sun-holidays of the church. The week commencing with day is distinguished by little besides the few peculia- Easter, and called thence Easter week, is a season of rities of the service, and the custom of going to church | festivity and partial suspension of business; and the earlier days of it after Easter itself are in London devoted by the working-classes to recreation and amusement, which they chiefly seek for at Greenwich Fair, and in excursions to taverns near town. 25. The Annunciation of our Lady, a festival of the Church of England. It is commonly called in England Lady-Day, as an abridgment of the Day of our Blessed Lady. This festival is in celebration of the incarnation of Christ, or the announcement by the Holy Ghost to Mary that she should bear the Son of God. The Annunciation is observed as a holiday at all the public offices, excepting the Stamps, Excise, and Customs. It is a gaudy day in the Romish Church. In Catholic countries the service of this day resounds with Hail, Mary!' uttered in a strain of the highest enthusiasm. The 25th of March is held as a quarter-day for many commercial purposes in England. | Hock Day is applied. The custom peculiar to the day consisted in the men and women of rural districts going out to the roads with ropes, and intercepting passengers jocularly, and raising money from them, to be bestowed, it may well be presumed, in pious uses. St 23. St George's Day in the Romish calendar. George is held as the tutelar or patron saint of England. He is said to have been a native of Cappadocia; and it is tolerably certain that he was held in great veneration by the Greeks in the fourth century. Throughout the countries once constituting the Lower Empire, in the Crimea, and in Tartary, he has for ages been worshipped; in the former countries as a saint, in the latter as a deity. By all he is invariably represented as a man on horseback, spearing a dragon. With a regard apparently to his military character, our Edward III. adopted his name as his war-cry, and his figure as a 29. The first Sunday after Easter, called Low Sun-badge in connection with the order of the garter; thus day, because it is Easter day repeated, with the churchservice somewhat abridged or lowered in the ceremony from the pomp of the festival the Sunday before. Natural History.-March is eminently a spring month, and the season more particularly devoted to sowing. Its general character, as far as the extreme uncertainty of our climate warns us to speak, is dryness. The frosts of winter, followed by the sharp dry winds of this month, have the effect of pulverising the soil, and fitting it for the reception of the seed. The value of the weather appropriate to March is expressed in the saying, A peck of March dust is worth a king's ransom.' This month is also expected to undergo a change between its beginning and its end. The English say March comes in like a lion, and goes out like a lamb;' the Scotch version of the same idea is, March comes in with an adder's head, and goes out with a peacock's tail.' The general average temperature of March (41 degrees) is so little above that of February, as to make the greater dryness appear to arise in but a small degree from heat. There is in March a general bursting of the trees into leaf, of the meadows into flower, and partly, it may be added, of the birds into song. It is the season for planting gardens, as well as sowing the fields, although in many situations there are few which may not be deferred for a little longer without disadvantage. APRIL. The Romans gave this month the name of Aprilis, from aperio, because it was the season when things opened. By the Saxons it was called Ostre month, probably from the same word from which Easter is supposed to have been derived. The Dutch and Germans term it Gras month. 1. All Fool's Day.—From a very early age, this day has been considered as one set apart for the exercise of all kinds of mirthful folly and practical joking: the term given to it we may hold as a travestie of the festival of All Saints' Day. The custom of playing off little tricks on this day, whereby ridicule may be fixed upon unguarded individuals, appears to be universal throughout Europe. In France, one thus imposed upon is called Un poisson d'Avril (an April fish). In England, such a person is called an April fool; in Scotland, a gowk. Gowk is the Scotch for the cuckoo, and also signifies a foolish person, being in fact from the same root as the English word gawky. The favourite jest in Britain is to send one upon an errand for something grossly nonsensical-as for pigeon's milk, or the History of Adam's Grandfather; or to make appointments which are not to be kept; or to call to a passerby that his latchet is unloosed, or that there is a spot of mud upon his face. When he falls into the snare, the term April fool or gowk is applied with a shout of laughter. It is very remarkable that the Hindoos practise precisely similar tricks on the 31st of March, when they have what is called the Huli Festival. originated the association of St George with England, since in many respects so conspicuous. It is remarkable that in Russia St George is as much a favourite saint as he is in England. The sovereigns of that country have borne his emblem from a time previous to Edward III. The derivation of Russian Christianity from the Greek Church suggests a ready explanation of this fact. The English do not mark the day of their national saint with any of those observances which give St David's and St Patrick's days so peculiar a character in Wales and Ireland; but it was customary at no distant period for people of fashion to wear a blue coat on this day in honour of St George. 25. St Mark the Evangelist's Day, a holiday of the Church of England. It was once customary to bless the fruits of the earth on this day; hence, perhaps, a notion amongst the peasantry, that to plough or do any other work on St Mark's Day will be apt to bring down Divine wrath. The eve of St Mark was distinguished by some superstitious ceremonies. Maidens met to make the dumb cake. This was done by a number not exceeding three, and it was to be done in silence. At twelve o'clock, the cake being prepared, each broke off a piece and ate it; then walked backwards to her sleeping-room. It was thought that those who were to be married would hear a noise as of a man approaching. Those who heard nothing were to remain unmarried. Watching the church porch was another practice of this eve. A man went fasting and took his station there before midnight. It was thought that during the hour between twelve and one he would see the spirits of all who were to die in the parish during the ensuing year walk into church, in the order in which they were to die, those who were to perish by violence making gesticulations appropriate to the peculiar modes of their death. There were similar superstitions regarding the Eve of St John (June 24); which see. 26. Rogation Sunday.-The Sunday before Ascension is always so called. The three days immediately following are also called Rogation Days. The Archbishop of Vienne in Dauphiné, about the year 469, caused the litanies or supplications to be said on those days for deliverance from earthquakes, by which his city had been much injured. The days were thence called Rogation—that is, supplication-days. They were distinguished by great processions of ecclesiastics throughout the bounds of their districts. 30. Ascension Day, or Holy Thursday, a holiday of the Church of England, observed by the shutting of most of the public offices. This festival, which invariably occurs on the fortieth day after Easter, is designed to celebrate the ascension of Christ into Heaven. It was once distinguished by great festivities. On this day, also, there was a custom of the parish schoolmaster going with his pupils round the bounds of the parish, the pupils carrying peeled willow wands, wherewith they struck the boundaries. This was an expedient for keeping those boundaries in memory, in an age when more accurate means of attaining the same end did not exist. 7. The fifteenth day after Easter is marked by an Natural History.-Mild weather, with genial showers, old English festival, to which the inexplicable term | is the character usually given to April; but in modern times the weather is often the reverse of this, being | Little John, Maid Marian, and others of the celebrated dry, with cold winds. On the average, indeed, there is more north wind and less rain this month than in any other. The progressive advance of temperature from winter toward summer is very apparent this month, the general average height of the thermometer being 46 degrees. April is a busy month in the fields, and the usual seed-time for barley. In the gardens it is the busiest time of the year for seed-sowing. MAY. Among the Romans, this was the mensis maiorum, or month dedicated to the elder persons of their community, while the next was the mensis juniorum, or month of the younger people. Thus most probably arose the names of May and June. Others suppose that May would derive its name from Maia, the mother of Mercury, who was worshipped on the first day; but it is not impossible that Maia and her day were afterthoughts, when the real origin of the name of May was out of mind. The Saxons are said to have given this month the strange-looking name of Trimilchi, because they then began to milk their cows three times a day. The Romans believed it to be unlucky to marry in May. 1. St Philip and St James the Less, a holiday of the Church of England. As a popular festival, under the name of May-Day, this day has been celebrated from time immemorial. The celebration must doubtless have been prompted by nature herself: the time of the young flower and leaf, and of all the promise which August fulfils, could not but impress the minds of the simplest people, and dispose thein to joyful demonstrations in word and act. The sun, as the immediate author of the glories of the season, was now worshipped by the Celtic nations under the name of Baal; hence the festival of Beltane, still faintly observed in Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland. Even in Ayrshire, they kindled Baal's fire in the evening of May-day till about the year 1790. The Romans held games called Floralia, at which there was great display of flowers, and where women danced, if we are to believe Juvenal, only too enthusiastically. The May-day jollities of modern Europe seem to be directly descended from the Floralia. In England, we have to go back a couple of hundred years for the complete May-day; since then it has gradually declined, and now it is almost extinct. When it was fully observed, the business of the day began with the day itself that is to say, at midnight. We have the authority of Shakspeare, that with the populace of England it was impossible to sleep on May morning. Immediately after twelve had struck, they were all astir, wishing each other a merry May, as they still, at the same hour on the 1st of January, wish each other a happy new year. They then went forth, with music and the blowing of horns, to some neighbouring wood, where they employed themselves in breaking down and gathering branches. These they brought back at an early hour, and planted over their doors, so that by daylight the whole village looked quite a bower. The citizens of London went a-Maying in this fashion, notwithstanding their comparative distance from woods. They went marshalled in parishes, or in unions of two or three parishes; their mayor and aldermen went also; and we read of Henry VIII. and Queen Catharine riding from Greenwich to Shooter's Hill, attended by lords and ladies, to join in the sport. In some places, the Mayers brought home a garland suspended from a pole, round which they danced. In others, and this was a more general custom, there was an established May-pole for the village, which it was their business to dress up with flowers and flags, and dance around throughout all the latter part of the day. A May-pole was as tall as the mast of a sloop of fifty tons, painted with spiral stripes of black and white, and properly fixed in a frame to keep it erect. Here lads and lasses danced in a joyful ring for hours to the sounds of the viol, and masquers personating Robin Hood, Sherwood company of outlaws, as well as morrisdancers, performed their still more merry pranks. May-poles, as tending to encourage levity of deportment, were condemned by the Puritans in Elizabeth's time; James I. supported them in his Book of Sports; they were altogether suppressed during the time of the Commonwealth, but got up again at the Restoration. Now change of manners has done that which ordinances of parliament could not do. This object, so interwoven with our national poetical literature, is all but rooted out of the land. A certain superstitious feeling attached to May-day. The dew of that morning was considered as a cosmetic of the highest efficacy; and women, especially young women, who are never unwilling to improve in this respect, used to go abroad before sunrise to gather it. To this day there is a resort of the fair sex every Maymorning to Arthur's Seat near Edinburgh, for the purpose of washing their faces with the dew. Mr Pepys, in his Diary,' gravely tells us of his wife going to Woolwich for a little air, and to gather May-dew, which Mrs Turner hath taught her is the only thing in the world to wash her face with.' Scott, in his 'Discovery of Witchcraft,' speaks of a sprig of hawthorn gathered on May-day, and hung in the entry to a house, as a presumed preservative against all malign influences. There was also a practice of making fools on May-day, similar to what obtains on the first of the preceding month. The deluded were called Maygoslings. It was held unlucky to marry in May-a notion which, as already mentioned, existed among the Romans. It still exists in Scotland, where very few marriages take place in May, the higher classes being equally superstitious on the subject with the lower. In London, as has been said, May-day was once as much observed as it was in any rural district. There were several May-poles throughout the city, particu larly one near the bottom of Catharine Street in the Strand, which, rather oddly, became in its latter days a support for a large telescope at Wanstead in Essex, the property of the Royal Society. The milkmaids were amongst the last conspicuous celebraters of the day. They used to dress themselves in holiday guise on this morning, and come in bands with fiddles, whereto they danced, attended by a strange-looking pyramidal pile, covered with pewter plates, ribbons, and streamers, either borne by a man upon his head, or by two men upon a hand-barrow: this was called their garland. The young chimney-sweepers also made this a peculiar festival, coming forth into the streets in fantastic dresses, and making all sorts of unearthly noises with their shovels and brushes. The benevolent Mrs Montagu, one of the first of the class of literary ladies in England, gave these home slaves [their liberation was effected in 1841] an annual dinner on this day, in order, we presume, to aid a little in reconciling them to existence. In London, May-day still remains the great festival of the sweeps, and much finery and many vagaries are exhibited on the occasion. The Robin Hood games and morris-dances, by which this day was distinguished till the Reformation, appear, from many scattered notices of them, to have been entertainments full of interest to the common people. Robin has been alternately styled in at least one document as the King of May, while Maid Marian seems to have been held as the Queen. The various scattered particulars respecting these festivities, which make but dry reading by themselves, have been wrought up to some advantage by Mr Strutt in his 'Queen Hoo Hall,' where he describes May-day as celebrated by the servants and dependants of an English baron of the fifteenth century. 3. The Invention of the Cross, a festival of the Romish Church, designed to commemorate the finding of the cross upon which Jesus had suffered, by St Helena. The festival is shortly called Rood Day. 10. Whit-Sunday, a festival of the Church of England, designed to commemorate the descent of the Holy Spirit |