1

senior Queen, and four little trots for Nellie, the little Queen. They made a lovely group. Alice had a very simple dress with a wreath of marguerites, and a large Arum lily for a sceptre. Nellie had a pale green silk frock, with a wreath of apple blossoms.

"I had a rare May Pole put up in the yard—a real old-fashioned one, with a big bush tied on the top trimmed with ribbons and a large garland beneath. The whole was about thirty feet in height. I think this did my heart more good than anything. One of our men put it up for me the evening before, and when it was up we gave a hearty cheer, and the band played a good old tune. I had about thirty girls besides the little ones, and quite a hundred invited guests. Hundreds lined the road to see us go to church. The clergymen in their robes went first, then the little maids of honour, two little Dowager Queens, Edith and I with the little Queen between us, next the girls. In the church we placed our baskets of flowers on the chancel steps whilst the service was going on. We had a beautiful little service, having the same hymns as at Whitelands. Next came a nice tea in my schoolroom, then the choosing of the Queen, a stately procession through the rooms to the throne, presentation to the Queens and Maids of Honour by Mr. Monckton, and speeches by friends; afterwards games and dancing.

"Edith very kindly brought her gold cross, and we went round showing it to the guests. They all took great interest, and many were the questions asked about Mr. Ruskin, and right well did we preach about him.

"You see, dear sir, there are lots of people who do not know anything about him, and some, who do know a little, do not know that which comes nearest to people like these.

"I have told my little ones that he is the gentleman who loves flowers and clean hands and faces': they can understand that. To some of the people I said, 'You would not have been here to-day and seen these pretty sights, if it had not been for Mr. Ruskin.'

My own class of girls have, I sometimes think, a better idea of what he is like than lots of great people; for they have the simple, true idea of a great, good man, who loves all that is noblest, purest, brightest.

"Of the other Festival on the 3rd of May I sent you a newspaper with the account in it,* which I should like Mr. Ruskin to see, if it would not trouble him.

"Dear sir, I have been almost overwhelmed; first, at being Queen, and then at receiving such a magnificent present, and from Mr. Ruskin too! I have hardly known where I was lately.

"Dear sir, I write in all reverence, but I could do nothing but kneel down silently in my own room with a heart full to overflowing. I am sure that even at our beloved Whitelands no gift has been seen so beautiful. It is simply a gift for a princess. If, dear sir, you have not seen it, I must try to bring it to show you some time. There are no less than six lovely gold filagree ornaments, all of a beautiful flower, like a jessamine somewhat, but I am not sure.

"There is a tiara to go round the head, two sweet little silver pins, with a flower on the end, two brooches, as I suppose, of different shapes, and a magnificent spray for the bodice.

* Vide infrà.

"If you have seen them, dear sir, I wish you would be so kind as to tell me about them, for none of us can have any proper idea of their rare beauty. I have tried to thank our dear and honoured Mr. Ruskin as well as I could in the letter I enclose [which was forwarded]. I sat over it all last night, and I feel how unworthy it is.

"Dear sir, I should be grateful if you would thank him for me, and send the letter, also the one to Mrs. Severn, as Mr. Monckton has told me that she has been most kind. When Edith was showing the guests her cross she could tell them several interesting facts about it: how the petals were made, and that Mr. Burne Jones designed it. I feel sure there is a wonderful history about my lovely gift if I only knew it.

"As to the Festival, it was simply such a day as has not been seen in this country before. The weather was delightful, and the people flocked in thousands. In fact, the crowds were so great as to upset some of the plans.

"I had fourteen maids of honour, all in white dresses with garlands of spring flowers. My own dress was of palest pink and green, with a long train, and wreath of marguerites. Edith was very good to me all day, and so was every one. It made me feel very humble when the people cheered me so. I had no idea I had so many friends. That has pleased me most of all to see how glad all the people were, especially those from Blackheath.

"The Foresters formed a guard of honour, and took me all round the field, the band going first, with a mounted Forester dressed like Robin Hood. When the speeches had been made and the gift presented to me, the people grew so thick round us that none could get out or do anything, so I stood up and asked the people to make way for me, which they did quite quietly. I went first, and the others followed in the passage made for us. It was hundreds of people deep, and if I had not have done this I greatly fear some one would have been pressed very badly; but it all ended well.

'I trust, dear sir, you will not be tired reading this very bad letter. I must close now, and wait till I can write to you again; but I have not said half I ought to tell you, and expect you will hardly have patience to read this.

"Both my Queens send their love and duty to you. You are only second to Mr. Ruskin, you must know, sir; and my dear parents join me in very kindest regards, and to those also that I know at Whitelands, especially Miss Stanley.

"I am,

etc."

MAY FESTIVAL AT WARLEY.

Birmingham Daily Post, Monday, May 5th.

"THE invitation, 'Come, lasses and lads, get leave of your dads, and away to the maypole hie,' issued to the dwellers on the fringe of the Black Country, was responded to on Saturday in a fashion at once gratifying and startling. The happy idea of reviving, within sight of the smoke-stacks of Oldbury and Smethwick, those spring frolics which, no doubt, were indulged in with much gusto in the district when this part of the country was a bright and beautiful bit of Merry England, originated with Mr. Arthur Monckton, of Brand Hall Farm. The project received the blessing

of Mr. Ruskin, sent from his bed of sickness, with an earnest of his good wishes in the shape of some beautiful filagree gold ornaments for the adornment of the May Queen; and Viscount Lewisham readily agreed to lend a number of hobby-horses which he had had prepared for a similar revival. Brand Hall Farm, though so near the tracts whose disfigurement must have caused Mr. Ruskin many a shudder, is itself picturesquely placed; and the fields and hedgerows, washed by recent rains, were green enough on Saturday. The site chosen for the games was one of the slopes bordering the little valley in which the homestead stands, and appeared likely to lend itself to an effective display of the curious pageant that had been prepared. But the very attractiveness of the fête became to a large extent its bane, for the crowds that came were so large and so eager as to be utterly unmanageable. Those who stood near the brow of the hill, where the throne of the May Queen was placed, caught a glimpse of the procession as it passed through the farmyard, and that was all they saw of it as a procession. The crowd had kept the space in front of the daïs pretty clear, and a way was opened with much good-will for the processionists, but the path was so hemmed in that as a spectacle the procession was simply a failure. As far as could be gathered from an investigation of its component parts when massed in the enclosure, the procession consisted of the Oldbury Volunteer Band, the Oldbury Bicycle Club (who perforce had to push their machines), an old English farmer on horseback, the Fire Brigades from Smethwick, Chance's Alkali Works, and Harborne, a number of Mummers representing various political and other celebrities, boys with hobby-horses, and the Foresters and Free Gardeners from Blackheath with a band. The Oldbury Fire Brigade came on the ground, but had a call to a fire before the procession started. In the rear of this heterogeneous pageant walked the children from fourteen schools in the district-the girls making a charming appearance in light print dresses with gay ribbons galore-and the May Queen (Miss Kate Downing, of Blackheath) with her fourteen maids of honour. Her Majesty bore herself with dignity and grace, and the mimic court would have furnished a painter with a most successful study for a picture of Flora and her train. Mr. H. C. D. France acted as master of the ceremonies, but the conditions were not favourable for the exertion of his well-known skill in stage management. He conducted the Queen to her seat amid very hearty cheers. Then Mr. G. Stacey Allbright, who was the president of the feast pending the coronation, gave a brief address on the history of Mayday observances, and said that they had come together once more, as in the old days, 'with music, mirth and flowers to bring the summer home.' Mr. E. Gem, as the senior local magnate present, had the honour of crowning the May Queen, which he did by adding to her coronet of flowers the gold ornaments which Mr. Ruskin had sent. So far things had gone fairly well; but as soon as the May Queen had bowed her acknowledgments of the cheers of her subjects the crowd broke into the enclosure and even invaded the daïs. Consequently the Queen, who was to have retained her throne while the revellers passed before her in orderly array, had to hastily pack up her jewels, and with her terror-stricken maids get out of the press as quickly as she could. Similar difficulties attended the performance of the maypole dances, which were only got through by the aid of a gay Forester, who rode round and round on a big waggon-horse. Singing contests between different schools and church and chapel choirs afterwards

took place, the judges being Mrs. Reid, of Warley Hall; Mrs. Ray, of Leasowes; and Mrs. France, of Perry Hill. Apart from the difficulties attending the unforeseen popularity of the gathering, the festival was excellently carried out. And if the crowd did spoil the procession, the promoters had the consolation of taking a goodly sum in 'gate-money' for the benefit of the Causeway Green Day School."

With Caligula in Rome.

T was the hour of sunset. Zenith-high,

IT

Up-piled on columns of carved alabaster,
Towered cupolas and domes in the dim sky:
Fabric of clouds: fret, frieze, and huge pilaster
Glared in the tawny sun's blaze, bronzed and hoary,
As though for Rome some sure heaven-hurled disaster
Hung in mid ether. Like a promontory

Or isle adrift on the bewildered deep,

Slowly up-grew, sheeted with solemn glory,

The ominous storm-rack, gathering heap on heap
Till heaven's clear cope was blotted; save one bar,
Wherethrough the labouring light of day did leap
Red on a solitary swimmer far

'Mid Tiber-waves emergent. From the tide
The splendour of his forehead, like a star,
And all his broad bare breast shone glorified.

Therewith along that river swept a train
In military pomp arrayed and pride

Imperial. Homeward from the Martial plain—

Due honours done to dead Germanicus

With hollow praise and heartless prayer profane-
Rode Caius. On his black brows orgillous

Sat dull satiety: the quenched desire

Of one whose lusts, erewhile innumerous,

Had drooped and dwindled on their living pyre,
Leaving a charred and disenchanted bier
For death to brood on. Yet phantasmal fire,
Like corpse-lights quivering in each sunken sphere
Of those deep eyes, told that the spirit still
Burned inextinguished; a frail thing of fear,
Enormous in her appetite of ill.

For having all deflowered, all sullied, all
Subdued to frenzies of a frantic will,
This soul yet yearned with greed maniacal
For other worlds to ravish, fain would find
Of sin and death some crowning festival.

Rank after rank in brazen state behind
Went senators and soldiers, and the roar
Of Ave Cæsar! rolled upon the wind.
Godlike along the granite-bordered shore,
All heedless of the imminent wrath of heaven,
Straight to that swimmer rode the Emperor.
By some magnetic thrill the cloud was riven
Of his dull mood. Smiling, half sneeringly,
"Hail, river-god!" he cried: "Let there be given
A steed unto this gracious deity!

Nay, pull the purple-barred paludament

From those tired shoulders: 'tis not fit that he,

A guest divine, with me omnipotent

Naked should sup, should commune!" Here his face,
Writhed in a smile more like a spasm, senty
Soul-palsying terror of unnamed disgrace
And death 'mid laughter after lingering pain
In some abhorred God-cursed abandoned place,
Like a keen arrow to the sentient brain

Of that brave Roman.-When was Cæsar known
To notice save for scorning, to enchain
Even with charms and roses on a throne,

But for some fell caprice fantastical,
Some farce in action with a dying groan.
For epilogue ?-Upon his knees to fall,
Mercy to crave, excuse to plead, or flight.
To fashion, now were bootless. Like a pall

Around his marble shoulders and the white
Wonder of radiant manhood folding fell
The robe imperial, with rough jewels bright,

And fastened with a graven golden bell,

Whereon were stars and thunders. Then the steed Surged under him like storm-waves, when they swell On Northern sandbanks, and the shivering reed Bends in the blast of breakers arrogant.

Thus came they to the very gates indeed
Of Cæsar, hinged with sculptured adamant,