The garlands which the girls carry are sometimes large and handsome, and a doll is usually placed in the middle, dressed in white, according to certain traditional regulations: this doll represents the Virgin Mary, and is a relic of the ages of Romanism.
The May-pole still lingers in the village of St. Briavel's, in the picturesque forest of Dean. In the village of Burley in the New Forest, a May-pole is erected, a fête given to the school children, and a May-queen is chosen by lots; a floral crown surmounts the pole, and garlands of flowers hang about the shaft. Among other late instances are recorded a May-pole, eighty feet high, on the village-green of West Dean, Wilts, in 1836; and in 1844, there was "dancing round the May-pole" in St. James's district, Enfield. William Howitt describes May-poles in the village of Lisby, near Newstead; and in Farnsfield, near Southwell, Derbyshire, May-poles are to be seen. Dr. Parr was a great patron of May-day festivities: opposite his parsonage-house at Hatton, near Warwick, stood the parish May-pole, which was annually dressed with garlands, and the doctor danced with his parishioners around the shaft. He kept its large crown in a closet of his house, from whence it was produced every May-day, and decorated with fresh flowers and streamers, preparatory to its elevation to the top of the pole.
On May-day and December 26th, is distributed the fund bequeathed in 1717 and 1736, by Mr. Raine, a wealthy brewer at St. George's-in-the-East, who founded schools and a hospital for girls, and added marriage portions of 100l., to be drawn by lots: the winner is married to a young man, of St. John's, Wapping, or St. Paul's, Shadwell; the couple dine with their friends, and in the evening an ode is sung, and the marriage portion of one hundred new sovereigns is presented to the bride.
Miss Baker, in her Northamptonshire Glossary, tells us that there are very few villages in that county where the May-day Festival is not noticed in some way or other.
[BANBURY CAKES.—CONGLETON CAKES, etc.]
hat the ancient town of Banbury, lying on the northern verge of the county of Oxford, should have been famed, from time immemorial, for its rich cakes, should not excite our special wonder, seeing that the district has some of the richest pasture land in the kingdom; a single cow being here known to produce 200 pounds of butter in a year! Butter, we need scarcely add, is the prime ingredient of the Banbury cake, giving it the richness and lightness of the finest puff-paste; and, to the paper in which the cakes are wrapped, the appearance of their having been packed up by bakers with well-buttered fingers.
The cause of this cake-fame must, however, be sought in a higher walk of history than in the annals of pastry-making. It appears that the Banbury folks went on rejoicing in the fatness of their cakes until the reign of Elizabeth; from which time to that of Charles II., the people of the town were so noted for their peculiar religious fervour, as to draw upon themselves most unsparingly the satire of contemporary playwrights, wits, and humorists. By some unlucky turn of time, cakes, which were much valued by the classical ancients, and were given away as presents, in the Middle Ages, instead of bread, became looked upon as a superstitious relic by the Puritans, who thereupon abolished the practice. They formed so predominant a party at Banbury, in the reign of Elizabeth, that they pulled down Banbury Cross, so celebrated in our nursery rhymes. In the face of this historical fact, however, the reputed "zeal" of the Banburians has been attributed to an accidental circumstance, in modern phrase, "an error of the press." In Gough's edition of Camden's Britannia, in the MS. supplement, is this note: "Put out the word zeale in Banbury, where some think it a disgrace, when a zeale with knowledge is the greater grace among good Christians; for it was first foysted in by some compositor or press-man, neither is it in my Latin copie, which I desire the reader to hold as authentic." It was, indeed, printed, as a proverb, "Banbury zeal, cheese, and cakes," instead of "Banbury veal, cheese, and cakes." Gibson, in his edition of Camden, however, gives another version, relating: "There is a credible story—that while Philemon Holland was carrying on his English edition of the Britannia, Mr. Camden came accidentally to the press, when this sheet was working off; and looking on, he found, that to his own observation of Banbury being famous for cheese, the translator had added cakes and ale. But Mr. Camden thinking it too light an expression, changed the word ale into zeal; and so it passed, to the great indignation of the Puritans, who abounded in this town." Barnaby Googe, in his Strappado for the Divell, refers to Banbury as