to his neighbours. He was deemed eccentric, and so he was; for he was never proud to the humble, nor humble to the proud. His eloquence and wit elevated humility, and crushed insolence; he was the champion of the oppressed, a foe to the oppressor, a friend to the friendless, and a brother to him who was ready to perish. Though a prebend of the church with university honours, he could afford to make his parishoners happy without derogating from his ecclesiastical dignities, or abatement of self-respect, or lowering himself in the eyes of any who were not inferior in judgment, to the most inferior of the villagers of Hatton.

Formerly a pleasant character dressed out with ribands and flowers, figured in village May-games under the name of

JACK-O'-THE-Green.

The Jack-o'-the-Greens would sometimes come into the suburbs of London, and amuse the residents by rustic dancing. The last of them, that I remember, were at the Paddington May-dance, near the "Yorkshire Stingo," about twenty years ago, from whence, as I heard, they diverged to Bayswater, Kentish-town, and. adjoining neighbourhoods. A Jack-o'the-Green always carried a long walking stick with floral wreaths; he whisked it about in the dance, and afterwards walked with it in high estate like a lord mayor's

footman.

On this first of the month we cannot pass the poets without listening to their carols, as we do, in our walks, to the songs of the spring birds in their thickets. VOL. II.-71.

Το ΜΑΥ.

Welcome! dawn of summer's day,
Youthful, verdant, balmy May!
Sunny fields and shady bowers,
Spangled meads and blooming flowers,
Crystal fountains-limpid streams,
Where the sun of nature beams,
As the sigh of morn reposes,
Sweetly on its bed of roses!
Welcome! scenes of fond delight,
Welcome! eyes with rapture bright—
Maidens' sighs-and lovers' vows-
Fluttering hearts-and open brows!
And welcome all that's bright and gay,
To hail the balmy dawn of May!
J. L. Stevens.

The most ancient of our bards makes noble melody in this glorious month. Mr. Leigh Hunt selects a delightful passage from Chaucer, and compares it with Dryden's paraphrase:

It is sparkling with young manhood and a gentle freshness. What a burst of radiant joy is in the second couplet; what a vital quickness in the comparison of the horse," starting as the fire;" and what a native and happy case in the conclusion!

The busy lark, the messenger of day,
Saleweth in her song the morrow gray;
And fiery Phoebus riseth up so bright,
That all the orient laugheth of the sight;
And with his stremès drieth in the grevest
The silver droppès hanging in the leaves;
And Arcite, that is in the court real
With Theseus the squier principal,
Is risen, and looketh on the merry day :
And for to do his observance to May,
Remembring on the point of his desire,
He on the courser, starting as the fire;
Out of the court, were it a mile or tway;
Is risen to the fieldès him to play,
And to the grove, of which that I you told,
By àventure his way he gan to hold,
To maken him a garland of the greves,
Were it of woodbind or of hawthorn leaves,
And loud he sung against the sunny sheen:
"O May, with all thy flowers and thy green,
Right welcome be thou, fairè freshè May:
1 hope that I some green here getten may."
And from his courser, with a lusty heart,
Into the grove full hastily he start,
And in a path he roamed up and down.

Dryden falls short in the freshness and
feeling of the sentiment. His lines are
beautiful; but they do not come home
to us with so happy and cordial a face,

Here they are. The word morning in the first line, as it is repeated in the

second, we are bound to consider as a slip of the pen; perhaps for mounting.

The morning-lark, the messenger of day,
Saluteth in her song the morning gray;
And soon the sun arose with beams so bright,
That all the horizon laughed to see the joyous sight
He with his tepid rays the rose renews,

And licks the drooping leaves, and dries the dews;
When Arcite left his bed, resolv'd to pay
Observance to the month of merry May:
Forth on his fiery steed betimes he rode,
That scarcely prints the turf on which he trod :
At ease he seemed, and prancing o'er the plains,
Turned only to the grove his horses' reins,
The grove I named before; and, lighted there,
A woodbine garland sought to crown his hair:
Then turned his face against the rising day,
And raised his voice to welcome in the May:
"For thee, sweet month, the groves green liveries wear,
If not the first, the fairest of the year:

For thee the Graces lead the dancing hours,
And Nature's ready pencil paints the flowers:
When thy short reign is past, the feverish sun
The sultry tropic fears, and moves more slowly on.
So may thy tender blossoms fear no blight,
Nor goats with venom'd teeth thy tendrils bite,
As thou shalt guide my wandering steps to find
The fragrant greens I seek, my brows to bind."
His vows address'd, within the grove he stray'd.

"How poor," says Mr. Hunt, " is this to Arcite's leaping from his courser 'with a lusty heart.' How inferior the commonplace of the fiery steed,' which need not involve any actual notion in the writer's mind, to the courser starting as the fire;'-how inferior the turning his face to the rising day,' and raising his voice,' to the singing loud against the sunny sheen;' and lastly, the whole learned invocation and adjuration of May, about guiding his wandering steps' and so may thy tender blossoms' &c. to the call upon the fair fresh May, ending with that simple, quick-hearted line, in which he hopes he shall get some green here;' a touch in the happiest taste of the Italian vivacity. Dryden's genius, for the most part, wanted faith in nature. It was too gross and sophisticate. There was as much difference between him and his original, as between a hot noon in perukes

at St. James's, and one of Chaucer's
lounges on the grass, of a May morning.
All this worship of May is over now.
There is no issuing forth in glad compa-
nies to gather boughs; no adorning of
houses with the flowery spoil;' no
songs, no dances, no village sports and
coronations, no courtly-poetries, no sense
and acknowledgment of the quiet pre-
sence of nature, in grove or glade.

O dolce primavera, o fior novelli,
O aure o arboscelli, o fresche erbette,
O piagge benedette, o colli o monti,
O valli o fiumi o fonti o verde rivi,
Palme lauri ed olive, edere e mirti;
O gloriosi spirti de gli boschi ;
O Eco, o antri foschi o chiare linfe,
O faretrate ninfe o agresti Pani,
O Satiri e Silvati, o Fauni e Driadi,
Naiadi ed Amadriadi, o Semidee,
Oreadi e Napee,—or siete sole.

O thou delicious spring, O ye new flowers,

O airs, O youngling bowers; fresh thickening grass,
And plains beneath heaven's face; O hills and mountains,
Vallies, and streams, and fountains; banks of green,

Myrtles, and palms serene, ivies, and bays;

And ye who warmed old lays, spirits o' the woods,
Echoes, and solitudes, and lakes of light;

Sannazzar