want, in which every cheerful, every conversable lineament has been long effaced by misery, is that a face to stay at home with? is it more a woman, or a wild cat? alas! it is the face of the wife of his youth, that once smiled upon him. It can smile no longer. What comforts can it share? what burdens can it lighten? Oh, it is a fine thing to talk of the humble meal shared together. But what if there be no bread in the cupboard? The innocent prattle of his children takes out the sting of a man's poverty. But the children of the very poor do not prattle. It is none of the least frightful features in that condition, that there is no childishness in its dwellings. Poor people, said a sensible old nurse to us once, do not bring up their children; they drag them up. The little careless darling of the wealthier nursery, in their hovel is transformed betimes into a premature reflecting person. No one has time to dandle it, no one thinks it worth while to coax it, to soothe it, to toss it up and down, to humour it. There is none to kiss away its tears. If it cries, it can only be beaten. It has been prettily said, that a babe is fed with milk and praise. But the aliment of this poor babe was thin, unnourishing; the return to its little baby-tricks, and efforts to engage attention, bitter ceaseless objurgation. It never had a toy, or knew what a coral meant. It grew up without the lullaby of nurses; it was a stranger to the patient fondle, the hushing caress, the attracting novelty, the costlier plaything, or the cheaper off-hand contrivance to divert the child; the prattled nonsense, (best sense to it,) the wise impertinencies, the wholesome lies, the apt story interposed, that puts a stop to present sufferings, and awakens the passion of young wonder. It was never sung to, no one ever told to it a tale of the nursery. It was dragged up, to live or to die as it happened. It had no young dreams. It broke at once into the iron realities of real life. A child exists not for the very poor as any object of dalliance; it is only another mouth to be fed, a pair of little hands to be betimes inured to labour. It is the rival, till it can be the co-operator, for food with the parent. It is never his mirth, his diversion, his solace; it never makes him young again, with recalling his young times. The children of the very poor have no young times. It makes the very heart to bleed to overhear the

casual street-talk, between a poor woman and her little girl, a woman of the better sort of poor, in a condition rather above the squalid beings which we have been contemplating. It is not of toys, of nursery books, of summer holidays (fitting that age); of the promised sight, or play; of praised sufficiency at school. It is of mangling and clear starching, of the price of coals, or of potatoes. The questions of the child, that should be the very outpourings of curiosity in idleness, are marked with forecast and melancholy providence. It has come to be a woman, before it was a child. It has learned to go to market; it chaffers. It haggles, it envies, it murmurs; it is knowing, acute, sharpened; it never prattles. Had we not reason to say that the home of the very poor is no home?"*

NATURALISTS' CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature ... 49.02.

April 30.

CHRONOLOGY.

On the 30th of April, 1745, the battle of Fontenoy was fought between the allied armies of England, Holland, and Austria, under the command of the duke of Cumberland, and a superior French army, under marshal count De Saxe. Here the advantage of the day was to the French; the duke of Cumberland left his sick and wounded to the humanity of the victors, and Louis XV. obtained the mastery of the Netherlands.

The battle was commenced with the

formal politeness of a court minuet. Captain Lord Charles Hay, of the English guards, advanced from the ranks with his hat off; at the same moment, lieutenant count D'Auteroche, of the French guards, advanced also, uncovered, to meet him. Lord Charles bowed :-"Gentleman of the French guards," said he, "fire!" The count bowed to lord Charles. "No my lord," he answered, "we never fire first!" They again bowed; each resumed his place in his own ranks; and after these testimonies of "high consideration," the bloody conflict commenced, and there was a carnage of twelve thousand men on each side.

NATURALISTS' CALENDAR. Mean Temperature.... 50 57.

*New Monthly Magazine, March, 1826.

Bona Dea, the Good Goddess, or the Earth, represented in the Frontispiece to the first volume of the Every-Day Book, with the zodiacal signs of the celestial system, which influences our sphere to produce its fruits in due order.

It is in May that "Spring is with us once more pacing the earth in all the primal pomp of her beauty, with flowers and soft airs and the song of birds every where about her, and the blue sky and the bright clouds above. But there is one thing wanting, to give that happy completeness to her advent, which belonged to it in the elder times; and without which it is like a beautiful melody with out words, or a beautiful flower without scent, or a beautiful face without a soul. The voice of man is no longer heard, hailing her approach as she hastens to bless him; and his choral symphonies no longer meet and bless her in return-bless her by letting her behold and hear the happiness that she comes to create. The soft songs of women are no longer blended with her breath as it whispers among the new leaves; their slender feet no longer trace her footsteps in the fields and woods and wayside copses, or dance delighted measures round the flowery offerings that she prompted their lovers to place before them on the village green. Even the little children themselves, that have an instinct for the spring, and feel it to the very tips of their fingers, are permitted to let May come upon them, without knowing from whence the impulse of happiness that they feel proceeds, or whither it tends. In short,

All the earth is gay;
Land and sea

Give themselves up to jollity,
And with the heart of May
Doth every beast keep holiday :'

while man, man alone, lets the season come without glorying in it; and when it goes he lets it go without regret; as if all seasons and their change' were alike to him; or rather, as if he were the lord of all seasons, and they were to do homage and honour to him, instead of he to them! How is this? Is it that we have sold our birthright for a mess of pottage?'-that we have bartered our being's end and aim' for a purse of gold? Alas! thus it is:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our

powers:

Little we see in nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away-a sordid boon!'

-But be this as it may, we are still able to feel what nature is, though we have in a great measure ceased to know it; though we have chosen to neglect her ordinances, and absent ourselves from her presence, we still retain some instinctive reminiscences of her beauty and her power; and every now and then the sordid walls of those mud hovels which we have built for ourselves, and choose to dwell in, fall down before the magic touch of our involuntary fancies, and give us glimpses into " that imperial palace whence we came," and make us yearn to return thither, though it be but in thought.

Then sing ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song!

And let the young lambs bound
As to the tabor's sound!
We in thought will join your throng,
Ye that pipe and ye that play,
Ye that through your hearts to-day
Feel the gladness of the MAY!'"*

May 1.

St. Philip and St. James.†
MAY DAY.

As we had some agreeable intimacies to-day last we will seek our year, country friends in other rural parts, this May morning," and see "how they do." To illustrate the custom of going " Maying," described in volume i., a song still used on that occasion is subjoined :

THE MAYER'S CALL.
Come, lads, with your bills,
To the wood we'll away,
We'll gather the boughs,

And we'll celebrate May.

We'll bring our load home,

As we've oft done before, And leave a green bough, At each good master's good neighbour's pretty maid's

}

* Mirror of the Months. + Sce vol. i. p. 541.

door.

a

To-morrow, when work's done,

I hold it no wrong,

If we go round in ribands,

And sing them a song.

Come, lads, bring your bills,
To the wood we'll away,
We'll gather the boughs,

And we'll celebrate May.

There is a rural ditty chanted in villages and country towns, preparatory to gathering the May :—

THE MAY EVE SONG.

If we should wake you from your sleep,

Good people listen now, Our yearly festival we keep,

And bring a Maythorn bough.

An emblem of the world it grows,
The flowers its pleasures are,
But many a thorn bespeaks its woes,
Its sorrow and its care.

Oh! sleep you then, and take your
rest,

And, when the day shall dawn,
May you awake in all things blest-
A May without a thorn.

And when, to-morrow we shall come
Oh! treat us not with scorn;
From out your bounty give us some-
Be May without a thorn.

May He, who makes the May to
blow,

On earth his riches sheds,

Protect thee against every woe,
Shower blessings on thy heads.

After "bringing home the May," there is another lay :

THE MAYER'S SONG.

On the Mayers deign to smile, Master, mistress, hear our song, Listen but a little while,

We will not detain you long.

Life with us is in its spring,

We enjoy a blooming May, Summer will its labour bring, Winter has its pinching day. Yet the blessing we would use

Wisely-it is reason's partThose who youth and health abuse, Fail not in the end to smart. Mirth we love-the proverb says, Be ye merry but be wise, We will walk in wisdom's ways, There alone true pleasure lies.

May, that now is in its bloom,
All so fragrant and so fair,
When autumn and when winter

come,

Shall its useful berries bear.

We would taste your home-brew'd beer,

Give not, if we've had enough,May it strengthen, may it cheer, Waste not e'er the precious stuff.

We of money something crave,

For ourselves we ask no share, John and Jane the whole shall have,

They're the last new married pair.

May it comfort to them prove,
And a blessing bring to you;
Blessings of connubial love,

Light on all like morning dew.

So shall May, with blessings crown'd,
Welcom'd be by old and young,
Often as the year comes round,
Shall the May-day song be sung.

Fare ye well, good people all,

Sweet to night may be your rest, Every blessing you befall,

Blessing others you are blest.

As the day advances, a ballad suitable to the "village sports" is sung by him who has the honour to crown his lass as the "May-day queen."

THR WREATH of May.

This slender rod of leaves and flowers,

So fragrant and so gay,
Produce of spring's serener hours,
Peculiarly is May.

This slender rod, the hawthorn bears,
And when its bloom is o'er,
Its ruby berries then it wears,

The songster's winter store.

Then, though it charm the sight and smell,

In spring's delicious hours, The feather'd choir its praise shall tell,

'Gainst winter round us lowers.

O then, my love, from me receive,
This beauteous hawthorn spray,
A garland for thy head I'll weave,

Be thou my queen of May.

Love and fragrant as these flowers,
Live pure as thou wert born,
And ne'er may sin's destructive
powers,

Assail thee with its thorn.

One more ditty, a favourite in many parts of England, is homely, but there is a prettiness in its description that may reconcile it to the admirers of a "country life:"

THE MAY DAY HERD.

Now at length 'tis May-day morn, And the herdsman blows his horn; Green with grass the common now, Herbage bears for many a cow.

Too long in the straw yard fed, Have the cattle hung their head, And the milk did well nigh fail, The milk-maid in her ashen pail.

Well the men have done their job,
Every horn has got its knob ;
Nor shall they each other gore,
Not a bag, or hide, be tore.

Yet they first a fight maintain,
Till one cow the mastery gain;
They, like man, for mastery strive,
They by others' weakness thrive.

Drive them gently o'er the lawn, Keep them from the growing corn; When the common they shall gain, Let them spread wide o'er the plain.

Show them to the reedy pool,
There at noon their sides they'll cool,
And with a wide whisking tail,
Thrash the flies as with a flail.

Bring them gently home at eve, That their bags they may relieve, And themselves of care divest, Chew the cud and take their rest.

Now the dairy maid will please,
To churn her butter, set her cheese;
We shall have the clotted cream,
The tea-table's delightful theme.

Raise the song, then, let us now,
Sing the healthful, useful cow,
England well the blessing knows,
A land with milk that richly flows.

May-day is a Spring day.

Spring-"the innocent spring," is the firstling of revolving nature; and in the first volume, is symbolized by an infant. In that engraving there is a sort of appeal to parental feeling; yet an address more touching to the heart is in the following little poem :

A Mother to her First-born.

'Tis sweet to watch thee in thy sleep,

When thou, my boy, art dreaming; "Tis sweet, o'er thee a watch to keep, To mark the smile that seems to creep O'er thee like daylight gleaming. 'Tis sweet to mark thy tranquil breast, Heave like a small wave flowing; To see thee take thy gentle rest, With nothing save fatigue opprest,

And health on thy cheek glowing. To see thee now, or when awake,

Sad thoughts, alas! steal o'er me⚫ For thou, in time, a part must take, That may thy fortunes mar or make, In the wide world before thee.

But I, my child, have hopes of thee,

And may they ne'er be blighted !— That I, years hence, may live to see Thy name as dear to all as me,

Thy virtues well requited.

I'll watch thy dawn of joys, and mould
Thy little mind to duty-
I'll teach thee words, as I behold
Thy faculties like flowers unfold,

In intellectual beauty.

And then, perhaps, when I am dead,
And friends around me weeping-
Thoul't see me to my grave, and shed
A tear upon my narrow bed,
Where I shall then be sleeping!

BARTON WILFORD.

then

The Maypole nearest to the metropolis, that stood the longest within the recollection of the editor, was near Kennington-green, at the back of the houses, at the south corner of the Workhouselane, leading from the Vauxhall-road to Elizabeth-place. The site was nearly vacant, and the Maypole was in the field on the south side of the Workhouse-lane, and nearly opposite to the Black Prince public-house. It remained till about the year 1795, and was much frequented, particularly by milk maids.

A delightfully pretty print of a merrymaking "round about the Maypole," supplies an engraving on the next page illustrative of the prevailing tendency of this work, and the simplicity of rural manners. It is not so sportive as the dancings about the Maypoles near London formerly; there is nothing of the boisterous rudeness which must be well remembered by many old Londoners on Mayday.