CHAPTER II.
“The flow'ry May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose.”
'Tis Flora's holiday, and in ancient times the goddess kept it with joyous festivity. Ah! those ancient times, they are food for melancholy. Yet may melancholy be made to “discourse most eloquent music,”—
“O why was England 'merrie' called, I pray you tell
me why?—
Because Old England merry was in merry times gone by!