with simple beauty in imperial Rome? She retains indeed the name of Christian, and usurps the name of Catholic; but alas! how grievously is she defiled! Her native purity is gone and abomination, yea, Mother of Abominations is written upon her forehead."

It appears that the Papal authority was first attempted to be introduced into these islands by the monk Austin, in the year 596. Now, taking only a few notices from ancient history, as we are compelled to do from the necessary brevity of this article, we learn from Gibbon, the infidel, that the council held at Arminium or Rimini, in the year 359, "was composed of about 400 Bishops of Italy, Africa, Spain, Gaul, BRITAIN, and Illyricum." Du Pin tells us that the Western Bishops assembled, from all parts, to this council; and that "the Emperor had sent his letters mandatory for them, and provided for them public carriage, and money for their journey; but the Bishops of France and BRITAIN thought it below them, and chose rather to travel at their own expense." This took place 237 years before Austin set foot upon our shores ; while we are expressly informed that, about 45 years earlier still, there were present at the great council held at Arles, in the reign of the Emperor Constantine, "THRee Bishops, one Priest, and ONE DEACON, FROM BRITAIN."

From these references, then, it appears that in the years 314 and 359 there were Christian Bishops in Britain, who were acknowledged to be such by the Emperor Constantine, and by the Bishops of the whole western Catholic Church.

"Austin first preached in England, says a late writer on this subject, in the year 596; and although I think better of him than Jortin seems to have thought, who says that "the christianity which this pretended Apostle, and sanctified ruffian taught us, seemed to consist principally in two things,—to keep Easter upon a proper day, and to be slaves to our Sovereign Lord God the Pope, and to Austin his deputy vicegerent," yet certainly he burned with zeal for the extension of his master's authority, and the elevation of himself. Now it is a matter of historical fact, that Austin found certain Bishops at the head of well-defined, and, as far as possible in those times, well regulated dioceses. They impeded his ambitious career. And could he, or his powerful master the Pope, have

proved them to be not true Bishops, it is impossible to doubt what course they would have taken. These Bishops had a meeting with Austin, which Camden refers to in the following words :-" There is a place whose situation is not exactly known in this county (Worcestershire) called Austin's Oak, where Augustine, the Apostle of the English, and the BRITISH BISHOPS met, and, after some squabbling about the observance of Easter, the preaching of the gospel, and the administration of Baptism according to the Romish Church, separated with as little agreement as before."

Du Pin further tells us, that, in the commencement of his work, Austin sent a series of questions to Pope Gregory, for his direction and counsel. Amongst others, he asked :—“ After what manner he should deal with the Bishops of Gaul, and of BRITAIN, He was informed that he was to have no power over the Gallic Bishops, but as to the British Bishops, Gregory gave full authority over them." Now this was to give Austin what Gregory had no power to grant, and therefore the pretended jurisdiction of the Pope was vigorously opposed by the British Bishops and Monks, who refused to receive any Romish customs different from those of their own Church.

From these early Bishops, and not from the Bishop of Rome, does the Church of England derive the commission of her ministers. A few more notices, and we must conclude. Gildas, our oldest native historian says, A.D. 38, that Joseph of Arimathea, who took down Christ from the cross, being sent here by Philip the Apostle, out of France, began first to preach the Gospel in this Realm, in the time of Tiberias the Emperor. Nicephorus says, that Simon Zelotes came, about the same time, into this Island, and did the same. Theodoretus says, that St. Paul, immediately after his first delivery in Rome, under the Emperor Nero, preached the Gospel in this island, and in other countries of the west. Tertullian, A.D. 230, says that the island of Britain was subject unto Christ in his time. Origen, A.D. 240, says the same; in whose time Lucius, the English King, was baptized, and received the Gospel and Bishop Jewel tells us that "Helena, being an English woman, wife unto Constantius the Emperor, and mother unto Constantinus, is notably praised for her faith and religion, by St. Ambrose, by Eusebius, by Sozomenus, and others."

Lucius wrote to Eleutherius, the Bishop of Rome, to inquire how he should order his Church and Kingdom. The answer he received was not that which would be given in the present day :"Ye have received in the kingdom of Britain, by God's mercy, both the law and faith of Christ. Ye have both the New Testament and the Old. Out of the same, through God's grace, by the advice of your Realm, take a law, and by the same, through God's sufferance, rule you your Kingdom of Britain. For in that kingdom you are

God's Vicar."

We tell the Papists, then, that whatever power the Bishop of Rome may, at any time, have obtained in England, it was a usurpation; and that he used it for purposes of tyranny, extortion, and fraud that 300 years ago, our forefathers died at the stake to emancipate their children from so grievous a yoke; and that we trust the day may never arrive when superstition so gross, and authority so cruel as theirs, will again spread darkness and death over our land.

The rejoicing of the heart at the return of Summer, bounteous with gaieties and cheering influences, must have been coeval with the first created beings-with the first revolving year; and all nations and people of whom we have any trace or history seem to have agreed to mark the annual coming of this season with peculiar homage.

The Druids-the first priests of our own land-celebrated it by a rural sacrifice, (called beltein from the fires which were used in the ceremonial) to propitiate divine protection for their flocks. Some few remains of this rite may even yet be traced in the wilds of Scotland, among the Cheviots, and in some parts of our own border land-the beautiful Cumberland.*

The Romans marked this season by games in honor of Flora, the goddess of flowers-hence termed Floralia-which continued during the last four days of April and on the first of May; thus going forth to a distance, as it were, to meet the beautiful Maia, and conduct her to her place among the months with the warmth of young hearts rejoicing. It is from these Floralia that our old May Day ceremonies descended; and it is not without regret that we witness them, year by

* Pennant's "Tour in Scotland " vol. i. p. 111. contains a particular description of the ceremony.

year, giving way to the cold tyranny of those business habits which are creeping over every thing, and blighting all the simple and gentle feelings bequeathed us by our more rustic and more happy forefathers.

"The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away-a sordid boon!"

In former days all ranks of Englishmen went "a-maying" early on the first morn of the month, but now, the maying-where it is not wholly extinct-is chiefly confined to the mechanics and artisans of large towns (honoured be they for it!) who are glad to retain the privilege of throwing off for one day the shackles of occupation-of turning their backs on their confined and too often cheerless abodes-and of going forth, with free and bounding thoughts, into the garden of nature.

"Farewell, cities who could bear
All their smoke, and all their care,
All their pomp, when wooed away
By the azure hours of May?"

Monarchs went a-maying. The sensual tyrant Henry the Eighth, we are told, rode a-maying with his Queen Katharine, accompanied by many lords and ladies, going from his favorite palace at Greenwich to Shooter's Hill, then as in after times a chosen resort of the citizens of London. The poets were all votaries of the gay and perfumed Maia. Chaucer, our earliest English poet, has delightfully celebrated the beauteous freshness of the season, and pictured the roaming of the Mayers in the grove in search of boughs; and our own sweet Shakspere, in that rich storehouse of poetic beauties, "Midsummer Night's Dream," speaks of doing "observance to a morn of May." Even old chroniclers-plodders in musty records, and matter-of-fact philosophers-in those days yielded to the influence of the "laughing season, "-left their studies-brushed off the dust of antiquity, and sought in early morn those simple flowers which have obtained their name from the month with whose birth their own is contemporaneous. Honest, kind-hearted, hard-working John Stowe tells us that "EVERY MAN, except impediment, would walk into the sweet meadows and green woods, there to rejoice their spirits with the beauty and savour of sweet flowers, and with the harmony of birds praising God in their kind." Herrick, whose muse sings of many of our national customs, confirms-if such confirmation can be needed-the universality of the "observance of a morn of May" in a beautiful little poem, "Corinna's going a-maying." Alas! Corinna was a laggard, and her swain enforces his invitation to "go a-maying" by declaring "There's not a budding boy or girl, this day

But Is got up, and gone to bring in May."

So desirous were they in some parts of our country-in the north and in the west, to catch the first delicious breath of May-" like the sweet South, that breathes upon a bank of violets, stealing and giving odour"-that the younger part of both sexes were wont to arise at midnight, and in procession, with music, go to the woods, gather branches of trees and deck them with coronals of flowers and nosegays; and on their return to the village bedeck the pillars of the church, the doors and windows of their houses, and their may-pole, with the arbour by for the Lady of the May, with the flowery spoil.

"Come, my Corinna, come, and coming mark
How each field turns a street, each street a park,
Made green and trimmed with trees; see how
Devotion gives each house a bough,

Or branch; each porch, each door, ere this,
An ark, a tabernacle is,

Made up of white-thorne, neatly interwove."

Alas! where now shall we find the merry making MAY-POLE that used to stand in every city, town, and village, year after year, a thing sacred to every heart,

young or old, gentle or simple-never suffering violation or pollution; but on every anniversary receiving its new adorning, and giving the glow of health and happiness to all who

and who round it

"Hither, from village sweet and hamlet fair,
From bordering cot and distant glen, repair;"

"With heel so nimble wear the springing grass
To shrilling bagpipe, or to tinkling brass;
Or foot it to the reed.

In places where the May-pole was not a fixture, the ceremony of "bringing it home," as it was termed, was an important feature in the morning's occupation. It has been thus described by the puritan Stubbes, a bitter hater of all pastimes and sports: "They have twentie or fourtie yoke of oxen, every oxe having a sweete nosegay of flowers tyed on the tippe of his hornes, and these oxen drawe home this Maie-pole, which is covered all over with flowers and hearbes, bounde rounde aboute with stringes, from the top to the bottome, and sometyme painted with variable colours, with twoo or three hundred men, women, and children following it with greate devotion. And thus beyng reared up, with handkerchiefes and flagges streamyng on the toppe, they strawe the grounde aboute, binde greene boughes about it, sett up sommer haules, bowers, and arbours hard by it. And then fall they to banquet and feast, to leape and daunce aboute it as the heathen people did at the dedication of their idolles, whereof this is a perfect patterne, or rather the thyng itself."

The prevalence of this feeling against the innocent May-pole led to its disuse; but it required the authority and power of a special ordinance of "Lords and Commons" to pull down so universal a favourite of the people. A fine of "5s. weekly till the said May-pole be taken down," to which all churchwardens and constables were subject, effectually removed the "gay tree" from the land; but the restoration of Charles the Second was the signal for its revival. On the very first May-day afterwards, one was raised in the Strand of such wondrous height, being 134 feet, and size as to require the superintendence of the royal Lord High Admiral (afterwards James the Second), and the exertions of a portion of his chosen crew to plant in its place. A rare tract, entitled "Cities Loyalty Displayed," gives an interestingly minute account of the raising.

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"The May-pole" says the writer, "being joyned together, and hoopt about with "bands of iron, the crown and cane with the King's arms richly gilded, was placed on the head of it a large top, like a balcony, was about the middle of it. This "being done, the trumpets did sound, and, in four hours' space it was advanced "upright, after which, being established fast in the ground, six drums did beat, "and the trumpets did sound; again great shouts and acclamations the people give, "that it did ring throughout all the Strand. After that came a morice dance, finely "deckt, with purple scarfs in their half-shirts, with a tabor and pipe, the ancient musick, and danced round about the May-pole, and after that danced the rounds of "their liberty. Upon the top of this famous standard is likewise set up a royal purple streamer, about the middle of it is placed four crowns more, with the King's arms likewise, there is also a garland set upon it of various colours of delicate rich "favours, under which is to be placed three great lanthorns. It is far more glorious, "bigger, and higher than ever any one that stood before it, and the seamen themselves "doe confess that it could not be built higher, nor is there not such a one in Europe "beside, which highly doth please his Majesty and the illustriaus Prince Duke of "York; little children did much rejoice, and ancient people did clap their "hands, saying golden days begin to appear. I question not but 'twill ring like me"lodious musick throughout every county in England when they read this story." This glory of May-poles afterwards came to be used to support the then largest telescope in the world, that of the illustrious Newton, at Wanstead, in Essex.

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Among the latest used May-poles was that at Kennington, a suburb of the Metropolis, which remained till near the beginning of the present century, and was an especial favourite with the Milk-maids; and among the latest patrons of the sports