Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/327

 us. 111. APRIL 29, mi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

321

LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL, 1911.

CONTENTS. No. 70.

NOTES: May Day: May-games: May-poles, 321 Tottel's ' Miscellany ' and Sir John Harington, 322 Inscriptions in the Protestant Cemetery, Florence, 324 May Celebra- tions at Oxford in 1593 Governor Herbert, 325 Lunatics in Elizabeth's Reign Boole-lead, 326.

QUERIES : " Tertius Gaudens "Hanoverian Regiment The Authorized Version : its Translation A St. Helena Portraitist Delafleld : Age of Graduation at Oxford, 327T. Turner of Balcombe Carlyle and Charles L Milton in Ireland Madame Vestris W. A. Clouston Cookery MS. Derivation of " Rhubarb," 328 Authors of Poems Wanted ' May Fair,' a Poem 'Belgravia,' a Poem Clergymen and Crests Prince Charles of Bour- bon-Capua Walton and Cotton Medal, 329.

REPLIES : Barlow Trecothick, 330 Terrace ' Pickwick ' Difficulties -Harrison the Regicide, 332" When she was good" Ananias as a Christian Name Mediaeval " Ober- ammergaus," 333 Early Graduation : W. Wotton "Put a beggar on horseback "Prince of Wales as Church- warden Henry, Prince of Wales Trout Family Sir Patrick Trant Songs of the Peasantry, 334 "Skolpyne " Barabbas a Publisher Smallpox and the Stars ''Barnburner": " Hunker," 335 Hnmphrey Henchman " Totenlaterne " Scott's Poet Ancestor " Scavenger " and "Sea vager" Black Bandsmen In the Army, 336 Yews in Churchyards Pheasant Penny Dr. Johnson of Warwick Marie Huber, 337 Gray's ' Elegy ' Vestry held on Lady Day "No great shakes" A Cousin of Boswell 'A White Hand and a Black Thumb' John Thane Essex as Christian Name, 338.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Headlam's Translation of the Agamemnon of ^Eschylus ' Old English Instruments of Music ' ' L'lntermtfdiaire. '

Booksellers' Catalogues.

OBITUARY : Daniel Hipwell.

Notices to Correspondents.

MAY DAY: MAY-GAMES: MAY-POLES. (Continued from 10 S. xi. 343.)

THE May D<?,y festival lias fallen into disuse.

Us it that there has been a great change in our English climate which has affected our national character, or is it that altered

conditions of life have destroyed our old

spontaneous and unsophisticated sympathy

-with nature f ( It must be noticed, however, that may-games, so named, continued all through the month of June ; see, e.g., the

'instances recorded by Machyn. Hannah Wolley, 1681, quoted by Lamb, * Eliana,' under ' The Months,' describes May " having upon his head a garden of all manner of rosos, on the one hand a nightingale, in the other a lute." Where are the roses fled ?

Cowper was too grave to be attracted by may -games. Does any poet later than Wordsworth mention them as things current

.and natural? Tennyson's 'May Queen' is

simply hibtorical ; Matthew Arnold probably followed some local tradition of the Maidens who fro m the distant hamlets come To dance around the Fyfield elm in May.

' Scholar-Gipsy.'

Gerald Massey has a song " That merry, merry May," but it is "a tale of olden time."

Chaucer. " How fond he is, like other early English poets, of the month of May ! " Prof. Skeat, in ' Piers the Plowman,' Clar. Pr. Series, ed. 3, 1881, p. 92.

1377. ' Piers the Plowman.' The vision begins " on a May mornynge on Maluerne hulles."

Manor of Kingsthorpe, Northants. Any re fusing to be King or Queen of the May games" to forfeit vi". viij d. Glover, ' Kingsthorpiana.'

1500. Gawin Douglas, ' A Description of May.' A modernized version by F. Fawkes, 1752.

1552-9. Machyn's ' Diary ' describes many may-games (one being a pageant on the Thames), held on various days from 1 May to 25 June. These displays included St. George and the Dragon, Robin Hood, Little John, Maid Marian, Friar Tuck, the Nine Worthies, the Sultan, Moors, giants, devils, guisers, morris-dancers, elephants and castles, hobby-horses, horns, fish, wine, eggs, oranges, squibs, bagpipes, and of course the lord and lady of the May. Pp. 20, 89, 137, 196, 201, 283, 373.

1557. " The minstrels and hobby horse upon Maye daye " received 3s. at Beading. Cooper King, ' Hist, of Berkshire,' 1887, p. 264.

1578. "The Lord's Day is horriblie pro-

phaned by diuellishe inuentions, as with Lords of Misserule, Morice dauncers, Maygames, in- somuch that in some places, they shame not in ye time of diuine seruice, to come arid daunce aboute the Church." Sermon at Paul's Cross, 24 August, by John Stockwood, schoolmaster of Tunbridge, quoted by Arber in Gosson, ' School of Abuse,' 1868, p. 9.

1579-80. Edmund Spenser, ' Shepheards Cal- ender ' under ' Maye,' already quoted 11 S. i. 433.

1591-1613. Shakespeare, often.

1613-16. W. Browne in ' Britannia's Pastorals ' : As I have seen when on the breast of Thames, A heavenly bevy cf sweet English dames, In some calm evening of delightful May With music give a farewell to the day.

The " blooming of the hawthorn tree," " May's delight." The swiftest swain runs to the may- pole and comes again ; maids and shepherds ply their may-games ; " the choristers of May " ; " round a may-pole some the measures tread." The poet himself went to Tavy's stream on a May morning.

As I have seen the lady of the May Sit in an arbour on a holiday,

Built by the May-pole, where the jocund swains Dance with the maidens to the bagpipe's strains. [The rewards given by the lady follow.] II. iv.

In lovely May

Now was the lord and lady of the May Meeting the May-pole at the break of day, And Coelia as the fairest on the green Not without some maid's envy, chosen queen.

II. v.