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It is communicated by T. A. that it was formerly a custom in Cheshire for young men to place birchen boughs on May-day over the doors of their mistresses, and marke the residence of a scold by an alder bough. There is an old rhyme which mentions peculiar boughs for various tempers, an owler (alder) for a scolder, a nut for a slut, &c. Mr. Ormerode, the county historian, presumes the practice is disused; but he mentions that in the main street of Weverham, in Cheshire, are two Maypoles, which are decorated on this day with all due attention to the ancient solemnity: the sides are hung with garlands, and the top terminat

ed by a birch, or other tall slender tree with its leaves on; the bark being peeled, and the stem spliced to the pole, so as to give the appearance of one tree from the

summit.

ORIGIN OF MAY DAY.

Our usages on this day retain the character of their ancient origin.

The Romans commenced the festival of Flora on the 28th of April, and continued it through several days in May. Ovid records the mythological attributes and dedication of the season to that goddess:

Fair Flora! now attend thy sportful feast,
Of which some days I with design have past ;-
A part in April and a part in May

Thou claims't, and both command my tuneful lay;
And as the confines of two months are thine

To sing of both the double task be mine.
Circus and stage are open now and free-
Goddess! again thy feast my theme must be.
Since new opinions oft delusive are

Do thou, O Flora, who thou art declare;
Why should thy poet on conjectures dwell?
Thy name and attributes thou best can'st tell.
Thus I.-to which she ready answer made,
And rosy sweets attended what she said;
Though, now corrupted, Flora be my name,
From the Greek Chloris that corruption came :—
In fields where happy mortals whilome stray'd
Chloris my name, I was a rural maid;
To praise herself a modest nymph will shun,
But yet a god was by my beauty won.

Flora then relates, that Zephyr became enamoured of her as Boreas had been, that "by just marriage to his bed," she was united to Zephyr, who assigned

her the dominion over Spring, and that
she strews the earth with flowers and pre-
sides over gardens. She further says, as
the deity of flowers,-

I also rule the plains.
When the crops flourish in the golden field;
The harvest will undoubted plenty yield;
If purple clusters flourish on the vine,
The presses will abound with racy wine;
The flowering olive makes a beauteous year,
And how can bloomless trees ripe apples bear?
The flower destroyed of vetches, beans, and peas,
You must expect but small or no increase;
The gift of honey's mine, the painful bees,
That gather sweets from flowers or blooming trees,
To scented shrubs and violets I invite,

In which I know they take the most delight;
A flower an emblem of young years is seen,
With all its leaves around it fresh and green;
So youth appears, when health the body sways,
And gladness in the mind luxuriant plays.

From these allegorical ascriptions, the Roman people worshipped Flora, and

celebrated her festivals by ceremonies and rejoicings, and offerings of spring flowers

and the branches of trees in bloom, which through the accommodation of the Romish church to the pagan usages, remain to us at the present day.

WELLINGTON, Under the WREKIN.

For the Every-Day Book.

It has been usual for the people in this neighbourhood to assemble on the Wrekin-hill, on the Sunday after May-day, and the three successive Sundays, to drink a health "to all friends round the Wrekin;" but as on this annual festival, various scenes of drunkenness and other licentiousness were frequently exhibited, its celebration has, of late, been very properly discouraged by the magistracy, and is going deservedly to decay. February, 1826.

W. P.

the place, of a late bishop of Carlisle passing through in his carriage on this particular day, when his attention being attracted by the group of persons assembled together, very naturally inquired the cause. His question was readily answered by a full statement of facts which brought from his lordship a severe lecture on the iniquity of such a proceeding; and at the conclusion, he said, "For my part I never told a lie in my life." This was immediately reported to the judges, upon which, without any dissent, the hone was awarded to his lordship as most deserving of it; and, as is reported, it was actually thrown into his carriage.

For the truth of the anecdote I cannot venture to assert; but the existence of the custom is a well-known fact to many of your readers in the metropolis. I am, Sir, &c.

C. T.

MAY DAY STORY-TELLING. To the Editor of the Every-Day Book. April 25, 1826.

Sir,-At a village in Westmoreland called Temple Sowerby, perhaps if not the most, at least one of the most beautiful in the north of England, there has been, "from time whereof the memory of man is not to the contrary," and still is, a custom on the first day of May for a number of individuals to assemble on the green, and there propose a certain number as candidates for contesting the various prizes then produced, which consist of a grindstone as the head prize; a hone or whetstone, for a razor, as the second; and whetstones of an inferior description, for those who can only reach a state of mediocrity in "the noble art of lying."

The people are the judges: each candidate in rotation commences a story, such as his fertile genius at the moment prompts; and the more marvellous or improbable his story happens to be, so much the greater chance is there of his

success.

After being amused in this manner for a considerable length of time, and awarding the prizes to the most deserving, the host of candidates, judges, and other attendants, adjourn to the inns, where the sports of the day very often end in a few splendid battles.

There is an anecdote, very current in

FLORAL GAMES OF TOULOUSE. Over a door in the consistory of the Hôtel de Ville at Toulouse, is a small marble figure of Clemence Isaure. In this consistory, the meetings were held for distributing the prizes in the floral games; the figure had flowers in her hand, but they are broken off. Below it on a tablet of brass, is a Latin inscription, in Roman capitals, but with so many abbreviations, and some of these of a nature so unintelligible, that the meaning is scarcely to be deciphered. Thus much, however, is to be collected from it, that Clemence Isaure is represented to have been the daughter of L. Isaurus, of the ancient and illustrious family of the Isauræ of Toulouse; that the institution of the "floral games" is ascribed to her; that she is said to have built the Hôtel de Ville at her own expense; to have bequeathed to the city the markets for corn, wine, fish, and vegetables; and to have left the remainder of her property in perpetuity to the city for the support of the floral games; yet, it does not mention her age, or at what period she lived, or whether she was maiden, wife, or widow..

"Le Roman de Clemence Isaure," an old ballad story, represents her to have been a fair lady of Toulouse, with whom the handsome Lautrec was deeply enamoured, and that she returned his love with equal passion. Alphonso, her fa

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ther, having chosen another husband for Clemence, she resisted the union, declaring that her life was at his disposal, but that as long as she should live, her heart must be wholly Lautrec's. Then Alphonso caused her to be chained, and shut her up in a strong tower, and threatened Lautrec's life if he could get him into his power; and Lautrec, having found the place of his mistress's imprisonment, like a true lover despised her cruel father's threats, and went to the tower and repeated his vows and sorrows to the fair Clemence, who came to the grate and told him of his danger, and prayed him to enter into the service of the French king, and follow military glory, and chase the recollection of their loves and their misfortunes; and as a pledge, she presented him with three flowers, a violet, an eglantine, and a marigold. The first she gave him as her colour, that he might appear as her knight; the second was her favourite flower; and the third an emblem of the chagrin and sorrow by which her heart was consumed. Then Clemence kissed the flowers, and let her tears fall on them, and threw them to her lover, and her father appeared, and Lautrec gathered up the flowers, and hastily withdrew. In obedience to the injunctions of his mistress, he departed from Toulouse for the French king's court; but before he had proceeded far on his journey, he heard that the English were marching against the city; and he returned when the inhabitants were flying before the enemy, and abandoning the ramparts, and leaving them defenceless and only one old man resisted and valiantly maintained his ground. Then Lautrec fled to his assistance, and discovered him to be Alphonso, the father of Clemence and at the moment when a fatal stroke was aimed at the old man, he rushed forward and received the mortal wound himself, and died in Alphonso's arms, and gave him the flowers he received from Clemence, and conjured him to deliver them to his daughter, and to console her under the distress his fate

would bring upon her. And Alphonso elented, and in great sorrow carried the Mowers to Clemence, and related the untimely death of Lautrec; and her afflicdons were too heavy for her to bear, and she fell a victim to despair and anguish, and followed her lover to the grave. But in remembrance of their sad story, she

bequeathed her whole property to the city of Toulouse for the celebration of annual games, at which, prizes of golden flowers, like those she had given to Lautrec, were to be distributed to the skilful troubadours who should compose the best poem, upon the occasion. This is the history of the gallant Lautrec and the fair Clemence, in the poetical romance.

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But according to Pierre Caseneuve, the author of an Inquiry into the Origin of the Floral Games at Toulouse," there is strong reason to doubt whether such a person as Clemence ever existed. Among the archives of the Hôtel de Ville are several chronicles of the floral games, the oldest of which states, that in the year 1324, seven of the principal inhabitants of Toulouse, desirous to promote the fame and prosperity of the city, resolved to establish an annual festival there, for the cultivation of the Provençal poetry, a spirit of piety, and suavity of manners. They therefore proposed that all persons skilled in Provençal poetry, should be invited to assemble at Toulouse every year in the beginning of May, to recite their compositions, and that a violet of gold should be given to him whose verses the judges should determine the most worthy; and a circular letter in the Provençal poetry was dispersed over the province of Languedoc, inviting competitors to assemble in the beginning of May the following year, to celebrate this festival.

The poetical compositions were not to be confined to the lays of lovers reciting their passion, and the fame of their mistresses; but the honour of God, and glorifying his name, was to be their first object. It was wished that poetry should conduce to the happiness of mankind, and by furnishing them a source of innocent and laudable amusement, make time pass pleasantly, repress the unjust sallies of anger, and dissipate the dark vapours of sadness. For these reasons it was termed, by the institutors, the Gay Science."

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In consequence of this invitation, a large concourse of competitors resorted to Toulouse; and in May, 1325, the first festival of the floral games was celebrated. Verses were recited by the candidates before a numerous assembly The seven persons with whom the meeting originated, presided under the title of the chancellor of the "Gay Science,

and his six assessors, and there also sat with them, the capitouls or chief magistrates of the town as judges; and there was a great assemblage of knights, of gentlemen, and of ladies. The prize was given to the candidate whose verses were determined by the majority of the judges to be the most worthy.

The "floral games" of Toulouse continued to be celebrated in like manner, at the sole expense of the institutors, till the magistrates seeing the advantage they were of to the town, by the vast concourse of people brought thither, and considering that their continuance must be precarious while they depended upon the ability and disposition of a few individuals for their support, resolved to convert the institution into a public concern; and, with the concurrence of the principal inhabitants, it was determined that the expense should in future be defrayed by the city, that to the original prize two others should be added, a silver eglantine, and a silver marigold; and that occasional ones might be distributed at the option of the judges to very young poets, as stimulants to them to aim at obtaining the principal prizes.

After about thirty years it was judged expedient to appoint a committee, who should draw up such a code of statutes as might include every possible case that could occur, and these statutes were laid before the judges for their approbation.

Among these decrees the principal were, that no prize could be given to a heretic, a schismatic, or an excommunicated person; that whoever was a candidate for any of the prizes. should take a solemn oath that the poetry was his own composition, without the least assistance from any other person; that no woman should be admitted to the competition, unless her talents in composing verses were so celebrated as to leave no doubt of her being capable of writing the poetry offered :-that no one who gained a prize was allowed to be a candidate again till after a lapse of three years, though he was expected in the intervening years to compose verses for the games, and recite them; and that if any or all the prizes remained undisposed of, from no verses being produced that were judged worthy of them, the prizes were to remain over to the next year, then to be given away in addition to the regular prizes of the year.

Under these and other regulations the "floral_games" became celebrated throughout Europe; and within fifty years from their first institution they were the resort of all persons of distinction. In 1388, the reigning king of Arragon sent ambassadors to Charles the Sixth of France, with great pomp and solemnity, requesting that some of the poets of the "floral games" at Toulouse might be permitted to come to the court, and assist in establishing similar games there; promising that, when they had fulfilled their mission, they should receive rewards equal to their merits, and consistent with his royal munificence.

This account of the institution of the "floral games" is from the oldest registers relative to them; wherein there is no mention made of the lady Clemence Isaure till 1513, nearly two hundred years after their institution; and it is well known that the statue of the lady Clemence in the consistory, was not put up till the year 1557. In that year it had been proposed in the college of the Gay Science to erect a monument to her me mory in the church of La Dorade, where she was reputed to have been buried; but this idea was afterwards changed for putting up her statue in the room where the "floral games" were held. From that time the statue was always crowned with flowers at the time of the celebration of the games, and a Latin oration pronounced in honour of her. A satirical sonnet in the Provençal language upon the idea of erecting either a monument or a statue to a lady who never had any eixstence in the world, is preserved in Pierre Caseneuve's "Inquiry into the Origin of the Floral Games."

"floral

But by whomsoever the games" of Toulouse were instituted, it is remarkable, that the festival was constantly observed for more than four centuries and a half without interruption. It did not cease to be celebrated till the revolution. It was not, however, continued entirely according to the original institution, since for a considerable time the use of the Provençal language, in the poetry for the prizes, had been abandoned, and the French substituted for it. At what period this change took place does not seem to be well ascertained. The number of prizes, too, was increased to five, the principal of which was still the golden violet; but instead of one

eglantine, and one marigold of silver, two of each were given. The violet was appropriated to the best ode; the others were for a piece in heroic poetry, for one in pastoral poetry, for a satirical piece, and for a sonnet, a madrigal, a song, or some other minor effusion.

Three of the deputies to the parliament had for some time presided at these games, instead of the chancellor of the Gay Science with his six assessors; and with them were associated the capitouls, or chief magistrates of the town. All the other magistrates, and the whole body of the parliament, attended in their robes of office, with the principal gentlemen of the town, and a brilliant assemblage of ladies in full dress. These were ranged round the room in seats raised like an amphitheatre, and the students of the university sat on benches in the centre. The room was ornamented with festoons of flowers and laurel, and the statue of Clemence Isaure was crowned with them. After the oration in honour of her was pronounced, the judges, having previously consulted together in private, and assigned the prizes to the pieces which they thought most worthy of them, stood up, and, naming the poem to which one was given, pronounced with an audible voice, "Let the author come forward." The author then presented himself; when his name was declared, it was followed by a grand flourish of music. The same ceremony was repeated as each piece was announced. The whole concluded with each author publicly reading his poem.

Many of these prize poems are to be found in different collections. Several prizes were in latter times adjudged to females, without any strict investigation having been previously made into the possibility of the pieces to which they were decreed being female compositions. It was owing to having gained a silver eglantine at one of these festivals that the celebrated Fabre d'Eglantine assumed the latter part of his name. He was a Languedocian by birth, a native of Limoux, a small town about four leagues from Toulouse.*

Without such encouragements to be poetical, as were annually offered by the conductors of the "floral games" at

* Plumptre.

Toulouse, our kind feelings have been cultivated, and our literature is enriched by a race of poets, whom we may venture to array against the united armies of continential bards. It may be doubted whether a May prize of Toulouse was ever awarded for sweeter verses, than Matt. Prior's on Chloe's May flowers. THE GARLAND.

The pride of every grove I chose

The violet sweet and lily fair,
The dappled pink, and blushing rose,
To deck my charming Chloe's hair.

At morn the nymph vouchsaf'd to place
Upon her brow the various wreath ;
The flowers less blooming than her face,
'The scent less fragrant than her breath.
The flowers she wore along the day,

That in her hair they looked more gay
And every nymph and shepherd said,
Than glowing in their native bed.
Undrest at evening, when she found

Their odour lost, their colours past,
She changed her look, and on the ground
Her garland, and her eye she cast.

The eye dropt sense distinct and clear,

As any muse's tongue could speak, When from its lid a pearly tear Ran trickling down her beauteous cheek.

Dissembling what I knew too well,

"My love, my life," said I," explain This change of humour; pr'ythee tell : That falling tear-what does it mean?"

She sighed; she smil'd; and, to the flowers
Pointing, the lovely moralist said,
"See, friend, in some few fleeting hours
See yonder, what a change is made!
"Ah, me! the blooming pride of May,

And that of beauty are but one,
At morn both flourish bright and gay;

Both fade at evening, pale and gone.

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