set up their targets on the lower end of the green, where a close
contest ensues, and after many shots the victor is crowned with a
laurel wreath.

Such were some of the sights and sounds of May Day in olden times.
But the Puritans, who slew their king, Charles I., were very much
opposed to all joyousness and mirth, and one of their first acts
when they came into power was to put down the May-pole. They ordered
that all May-poles (which they called "a heathenish vanity,
generally abused to superstition and wickedness") shall be taken
down by the constables and churchwardens, and that the said officers
be fined five shillings till the said May-poles be taken down. So
the merry May songs were hushed for many a long year, until Charles
II. was restored to his throne, and then the stately pole was reared
once more, and Robin Hood and his merry crew began their sports
again. But times change, and we change with them: customs pass away,
and with them have long vanished the May-pole and its bright group
of light-hearted rustics. An American writer who visited this
country thus describes his feeling when he saw an old May-pole still
standing at Chester--"I shall never forget my delight. My fancy
adorned it with wreaths of flowers, and peopled the green bank with
all the dancing revelry of May Day. I value every custom that tends
to infuse poetical feeling into the common people, and to sweeten
and soften the rudeness of rustic manners without destroying their
simplicity. Indeed, it is to the decline of this happy simplicity
that the decline of this custom may be traced, and the rural dance
on the green, and the homely May-day pageant, have gradually
disappeared in proportion as the peasantry have become expensive and
artificial in their pleasures, and too knowing for simple enjoyment.
Some attempts, indeed, have been made by men of both taste and