For the Table Book.
Where May-day is still observed, many forms of commemoration remain, the rude and imperfect outlines of former splendour, blended with local peculiarities. The festival appears to have originated about A. M. 3760, and before Christ 242 years, in consequence of a celebrated courtezan, named Flora, having bequeathed her fortune to the people of Rome, that they should at this time, yearly, celebrate her memory, in singing, dancing, drinking, and other excesses; from whence these revels were called Floralia, or May-games.[143] After some years, the senate of Rome exalted Flora amongst their thirty thousand deities, as the goddess of flowers, and commanded her to be worshipped, that she might protect their flowers, fruits, and herbs.[144] During the Catholic age, a great portion of extraneous ceremony was infused into the celebration, but that the excesses and lawless misrule attributed to this Floralian festival, by the fanatic enthusiasts of the Cromwellian age, ever existed, is indeed greatly to be doubted. It was celebrated as a national festival, an universal expression of joy and adoration, at the commencement of a season, when nature developes her beauties, dispenses her bounties, and wafts her “spicy gales,” rich with voluptuous fragrance, to exhilarate man, and enliven the scenes around him.
In no place where the custom of celebrating May-day still continues does it present so close a resemblance to its Roman origin as at Lynn. This perhaps may be attributed to the circumstance of a colony of Romans having settled there, about the time of the introduction of Christianity into Britain, and projected the improvement and drainage of the marsh land and fens, to whom Lynn owes its origin, as the mother town of the district.[145] That they brought with them their domestic habits and customs we know; and hence the festival of May-day partakes of the character of the Roman celebrations.
Early on the auspicious morn, a spirit of emulation is generally excited among the juveniles of Lynn, in striving who shall be first to arise and welcome “sweet May-day,” by opening the door to admit the genial presence of the tutelary goddess,
———— borne on Auroral zephyrs
And deck’d in spangled, pearly, dew-drop gems.
The task of gathering flowers from the fields and gardens for the intended garland succeeds, and the gatherers frequently fasten the doors of drowsy acquaintances, by driving a large nail through the handle of the snack into the door-post, though, with the disappearance of thumb-snacks, that peculiarity of usage is of course disappearing too.
The Lynn garland is made of two hoops of the same size, fixed transversely, and attached to a pole or staff, with the end through the centre, and parallel to the hoops. Bunches of flowers, interspersed with evergreens, are tied round the hoops, from the interior of which festoons of blown birds’ eggs are usually suspended, and long strips of various-coloured ribbons are also pendant from the top. A doll, full dressed, of proportionate size, is seated in the centre, thus exhibiting an humble, but not inappropriate representation of Flora, surrounded by the fragrant emblems of her consecrated offerings. Thus completed, the garlands are carried forth in all directions about the town, each with an attendant group of musicians, (i. e. horn-blowers,[146]) collecting eleemosynary tributes from their acquaintances. The horns, used only on this occasion, are those of bulls and cows, and the sounds produced by them when blown in concert, (if the noise from two to twenty, or perhaps more, may be so termed,) is not unlike the lowing of a herd of the living animals. Forgetful of their youthful days, numberless anathemas are ejaculated by the elder inhabitants, at the tremendous hurricane of monotonous sounds throughout the day. Though deafening in their tones, there appears something so classically antique in the use of these horns, that the imagination cannot forbear depicturing the horn-blowers as the votaries of Io and Serapis,[147] (the Egyptian Isis and Osiris,) in the character of the Lynn juveniles, sounding their Io Pæans to the honour of Flora.
Having been carried about the town, the garland, faded and drooping, is dismounted from the staff, and suspended across a court or lane, where the amusement of throwing balls over it, from one to another, generally terminates the day. The only public garland, amongst the few now exhibited, and also the largest, is one belonging to the young inmates of St. James’s workhouse, which is carried by one of the ancient inhabitants of the asylum, as appears in the sketch, attended by a numerous train of noisy horn-blowing pauper children, in the parish livery. Stopping at the door of every respectable house, they collect a considerable sum, which is dropped through the top of a locked tin canister, borne by one of the boys.
Previous to the Reformation, and while the festival of May-day continued under municipal patronage, it was doubtless splendidly celebrated at Lynn, with other ceremonies now forgotten; but having, by the order of council in 1644,[148] become illegal, it was severed from the corporation favour, and in a great measure annihilated. After the Restoration, however, it resumed a portion of public patronage, and in 1682 two new May-poles were erected; one in the Tuesday market-place, and the other at St. Anne’s Fort. The festival never entirely recovered the blow it received under the Commonwealth; the May-poles have long since disappeared, and probably the remnants, the garlands themselves, will soon fade away; for the celebration is entirely confined to the younger branches of the inhabitants. The refinement, or, more strictly speaking, the degeneracy of the age, has so entirely changed the national character, that while we ridicule and condemn the simple, and seemingly absurd, habits of our ancestors, we omit to venerate the qualities of their hearts; qualities which, unmixed with the alloy of innovating debasement, are so truly characteristic, that
——— “with all their faults, I reiterate them still,
———— and, while yet a nook is left,
Where ancient English customs may be found,
Shall be constrain’d to love them.”