I CONFESS a great, perhaps an extreme partiality in many things to the Old Style; and in this spirit, whilst other people fancy with Murphy and Co. that on the first of June, New Style, they have just bade farewell to May, I feel that we have yet a fortnight of "the merry month" to get over. Whether being of this opinion lengthens by so much the road to the grave, as well as renders it more flowery and pleasant, I leave it to the metaphysicians to determine; but I know this much, that I never wish to part with good company until I can't help myself. I should not, however, wish you to fancy that I am one of those untiring, past-midnight wassailers who, when you remind them that some two or three of "the small hours" have floated by on their way to eternity, will say to you, "we are only beginning to spend the evening."

Who is there in these latitudes that forgets the First of May N.S., eighteen hundred and forty-four? Surely you would not have called that the first day of even a hyperborean summer? One shudders at the recollection of its dreary, joyless morning, ushered in by a keenshaving, cold-blooded north-easter, which, later in the day, and throughout the evening, blew men's hats off in all directions, and most tiresomely, most unblushingly, disconcerted the ladies' dresses. The breaking-up of the seasons last year, some politically weatherwise people said, was indicative of the breaking-up of parties and the links of old opinions which had bound men and their fathers before them for centuries together. Parties have been breaking-up ever since; indeed, a wonderful revolution has taken place in our political world whilst at the same time the seasons, so far, of the year eighteen hundred and forty-five, considering the slight "backwardness in coming forward" on the part of Spring, and this wretched rainy month of May, have been by no means as pleasant as might have been expected. The same persons who connect human events with signs in the heavens, may attribute the complete bouleversement of old party opinions on all sides to the appearance of so many comets lately. To explore to its fullest extent this doctrine of concurrent eccentricities would require the powers of Maynooth Grant* and Lord Ross's monster telescope combined together.

Independently of such apropos-de-bottes considerations, the season which has just commenced to reign is in no respect worthy of the rich numbers of the highly favoured shepherd of the Doric reed:

* I don't mean the anti-six-in-a-bed Grant, but the Grant who, par excellence, ought to be called "Maynooth Grant," for his wonderful account of that far-famed institution. Everybody recollects Mr. Fox Maule's quotations in Parliament from his philosophic and eloquent countryman, and Serjeant Murphy's witty rejoinder.

"From brightening fields of ether fair disclosed,
Child of the sun, refulgent Summer, comes

In pride of youth, and felt through Nature's depths:
He comes, attended by the sultry hours
And ever-fanning breezes on his way;

While from his ardent look the turning Spring
Averts her blushful face, and earth and skies
All smiling to his hot dominion leaves."

Alas! and if the first morning of Summer, New or Old Style, had been bright, and beautiful, and glowing,-if it had been as glorious as ever blessed the May-day worshippers in the golden age of simplicity, who amongst us would have saluted it as of old? We have no gathering of the May-dew now. No maiden leaves her soft couch at early dawn to bathe her face in the elixir of beauty. The young men of the village no more go forth with the lark "a-maying," singing the while

"Come, lads, with your bills,

To the wood we 'll away, We'll gather the boughs,

And we 'll celebrate May;

We'll bring our load home,

As we 've oft done before,
And leave a green bough
At each pretty maid's door."

The Queen of the May, her garlands of the rose and hawthorn, her merry rustic train, the May-pole, the pipe and tabor, the morrisdancers, all are gone. The May-day comes to a money age and utilitarian generation without welcome, and departs without regret. To be sure, they fling garlands into the hill-streams in some remote parts of Wales to this day; and in some very primitive spots in Ireland the poor peasant gives a grim smile at the cowslips and daffodils which his three-quarters starved little ones, clad in " rags-Irish rags," have flung over the May-bush at his cabin-door. The railroads will penetrate Wales and Ireland too, and is such a prospect to be lamented? Quite the reverse. If it is to be, it must be, and the sooner the better. Let us hope, at the same time, that this cutting-up of the country in all directions will not cut up the good old feelings of the people also; that sordid selfishness may not assume the appearance and attributes of civilization, and the steam-engine be looked upon as by far the best poem of the age.

There is nothing, I firmly believe, in this world as bad as it is said to be, or as it might be, and that is a comfort after all for the pilgrims after the humane and beautiful. The times are not altogether so unsympathizing as they are painted by some morbid moralists, nor has the poetry of the human heart fled back as yet to heaven.

There are plenty of those yet amongst us who can mingle in the memories of by-gone days, and the scenes which they call up, singing out with ourselves in the heart-stirring lines of old Chaucer's Arcite,

"May, with all thy flowers and thy green,
Right welcome be thou, fairè freshè May!
I hope that I some green here getten may."

And having lit upon the "green" in some sequestered spot, let us, sympathizing spirits together, two or three, or half a dozen, throw ourselves on the grass, and lounge and listen to the birds as they carol in praise of May, or emulate them with the fresh sparkling songs of the old fathers of poetry.

* Thomson.

"It fell once in a morrow of May,
That Emilie, that fayrer was to seen
Than is the lillie upon the stalke green,
And fresher than May with floures new,
For with the rose colour strofe her hew.
I not (wot?) which was the fayrer of them two.
Ere it was day, as was her wont to do,
She was arisen, and all redy dight;
For May will have no slogards a night.
The season pricketh every gentill hert,
And maketh it out of their slepe to stert,
And saith, Arise, and do May observaunce.
This maketh Emely to have remembraunce
To done honour to May, and for to rise.
Iclothed was she fresh for to devise;
Her yellow hair was braided in a tresse,
Behind her back a yard long, 1 gesse ;
And in the garden at sun uprist,

She walketh up and down, as her list.
She gathereth flowers, party white and reed,
To make a subtell garland at her heed,
And as an angell hevenly she song.”

There is one fair being above all others whom I should most particularly wish to be my Emilie on the first morning in May. It is unnecessary to mention her name; nay more, it would be unkind, as to do so would cause vain regrets, as well as excite jealousies. This much, however, I may say, that although she has a pretty fancy of her own, and a cultivated mind, she is, alas! a little fonder of Morpheus than the Muses. I have no doubt, notwithstanding, that unless she wishes herself to be called "the eighth sleeper," she will “open her eyes, and her heart likewise," to the following invocation slung together for her especial benefit and entertainment:

"Farewell winds and wintry weather!
Mistress, let us go together
Forth into the fields, and pay
Due observance unto May.
On the breezy hills we go;

For once no daily care shall find us ;
Where the city sleeps below,
Wear and tear we leave behind us.

Stretch'd upon the springing grass,
Lazily the day we'll pass,
And, with half-shut, dreamy eye,
Look upon the cloudless sky;
Or along the river side,
Through its silent meadows strolling,
Moralize till eventide,

As we mark its waters rolling.

If beneath a bank they flow,
Where the lowly spring-flowers blow,
While o'er head the eglantine
And the clustering maythorn twine,

On whose sprays the wind doth breathe,
Lover-like, with soft caresses,
There we'll linger while I wreathe
Garlands for thy sunny tresses.

And I'll sing thee many a rhyme,
Framed in honour of the time;
Or in thought I'll Arcite be;
Thou a fairer Emilie.

Or I'll crown thee Queen of May,
Though no village maids, advancing,
Greet thee with their joyous lay,
Or are round the May-pole dancing.

Thus in olden time they paid
Homage to the bounteous Spring,
And reviving Nature made
The object of their worshipping;
Thus they met her earliest smile,
Glad and thankful welcome giving,
And forgot life's load awhile,
In the mere delight of living."

I have sent a present of May-day flowers to another of my fair friends. If it speak the language of good advice, and have a good effect, I shall be well rewarded indeed. No matter about the little "compunctious visitings." That 's the lady's affair, not mine. Beauty, wealth, station, hosts of admirers, all that sort of thing,-and heigho! she's a confounded flirt, and particularly delights in smashing Irish

men.

There is one consolation, however, for the afflicted, i. e. she is

not growing younger.

AD NEERAM.*

"Quas bona Flora rosas Paphiis collexit in hortis,
Excoluit tenerâ quas Cytherea manu,

Has tibi jam lacrymis roratas mittit Alexis,
Atque inopem his animam floribus implicitam.
Accipe! sic fas est niveas ornare papillas;

Sic fas est comptam nectere crinitiem.

Floris honos brevis est, brevis est et gloria formæ ;
Et formam et vernam carpe Neæra diem!"

TO NEERA.

"A rosy gift I send to thee; within the Paphian grove

Sweet Flora cull'd these choicest flowers, nursed by the Queen of Love.
Their leaves are dewy with my tears, and round their stems, for thee,
I've bound the cords of my poor heart, my heart of misery.
Take them, and wear them in thy pride upon thy breast of snow,
And wreathe them carelessly among thy tresses' golden flow.
The flow'ret's pride, the grace of form, they bloom but to decay;
Enjoy thy gifts, proud beauty, whilst thy life is in its May."

But what an irresistible invitation is that of Herrick to Corinna! She must, indeed, have been a sweet slug-a-bed," if she resisted it and hugged her pillow till the bell grew tired of ringing for breakfast. Although very beautiful, and one of the fairest productions of the Hesperides, it is, perhaps, a little too long; but this may perhaps be indicative of the fact, that the poet's mistress was not a quick dresser, and I believe there are very few young ladies who are.

66 'CORINNA'S GOING A-MAYING.

"Get up, get up, for shame! the blooming morne
Upon her wings presents the god unshorne.

See how Aurora throwes her faire
Fresh-quilted colours through the aire.
Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see

The dew bespangling herb and tree.

Each flower has wept, and bowed towards the east

Above an hour since, yet you are not drest,—

Nay; not so much as out of bed,

When all the birds have matens seyd,

And sung their thankful hymnes; 'tis sin,

Nay, profanation, to keep in,

When as a thousand virgins on this day

Spring, sooner than the lark, to fetch in May.

"Rise and put on your foliage, and be seene

To come forth, like the spring-time, fresh and greene,

And sweet as Flora. Take no care

For jewels for your gowne or haire ;
Fear not, the leaves will strew

Gemms in abundance upon you;

Besides, the childhood of the day has kept,

Against you came, some orient pearls unwept.

* These not inelegant lines, I have reason to suspect, were written by the renowned Peter Dens in his younger days, and before he contemplated celibacy. I would not, however, advise any of the Anti-Maynooth orators to bring this bit of Latinity also too seriously against him; as an acquaintance of mine, a classical archæologist of high reputation, attributes them to the Bishop of Donnybrook, who, before the Dean of St. Patrick's time, reigned over the world of Irish wit.

Come and receive them while the light
Hangs on the dew-locks of the night,
And Titan on the eastern hill

Retires himselfe, or else stands still

Till you come forth. Wash, dresse, be briefe in praying;
Few heads are best, when once we goe a-maying!

"Come, my Corinna, come; and coming, marke
How each field turns a street, each street a parke,
Made green, and trimm'd with trees; see how
Devotion gives each house a bough,

Or branch; each porch, each doore, ere this,
An arke, a tabernacle is,

Made up of white-thorn neatly interwove,
As if here were those cooler shades of love.
Can such delights be in the street
And open fields, and we not see 't?
Come, we 'll abroad, and let 's obay
The proclamation made for May,

And sin no more, as we have done, by staying:
Come, my Corinna, come, let 's goe a-maying!

"There's not a budding boy or girle, this day,
But is got up, and gone to bring in May.

A deale of youth, ere this, is come
Back, and with white-thorn laden home.
Some have dispatcht their cakes and creame

Before that we have left to dreame;

And some have wept, and woo'd, and plighted troth,
And chose their priest, ere we can cast off sloth;

Many a green-gown has been given ;

Many a kiss both odd and even;
Many a glance, too, has been sent

From out the eye, love's firmament;

Many a jest told of the keye's betraying

This night, and locks pickt, yet w' are not a-maying.

"Come, let us goe, while we are in our prime,

And take the harmlesse follie of the time.

We shall grow old apace, and die
Before we know our liberty.
Our life is short, and our dayes run
As fast away as do's the sunne;
And as a vapour or a drop of raine,

Once lost, can ne'er be found againe,
So when or you or I are made

A fable, song, or fleeting shade,

All love, all liking, all delight

Lies drown'd with us in endlesse night;

Then, while time serves, and we are but decaying,
Come, my Corinna, come, let 's goe a-maying!"

But if you want something short and sweet in the way of an invocation, I'll give you one, such as might be sung in Tempe by the banks of the Peneus. It is an unpublished fragment-quite unpublished, I can assure you, so you need not go to the British Museum to hunt it

up.

̓Ανστὰ, καὶ θαλαμὸν λίπ ̓, ἐπίχρονιος πέλει ὥρα,
Καὶ πάλαι ἔκρωσεν περὶ δῶ λακέρυζα κορώνη,
Βομβοῦσιν δὲ μελισσαι ἐπ' ἄνθεσιν ἡδ ἐπὶ δενδροῖς,
Αγρότεροι δ' έριφοι σκιρτώσιν γηθοσυνοὶ κῆρ.
Ως γλυκερὸν, ὡς λάμπρον ἴδ' εὔδιον ἦμαρ ἴδεσθαι!
Η ῥ' ἀγαθὴ Τύχη ἔγγυς, ἔπει ἀγαθὸν πέλει ἦμαρ !
̓Ανστὰ, καὶ πλοκάμους ρύθμιζε, γυναὶ περικάλλες !