from all that giddy tribe whose whole life is like the festal
days of soberer men. In their train were minstrels, not unknown
in London streets; wandering players, whose theatres had been the
halls of noblemen; mummers, rope-dancers, and mountebanks, who
would long be missed at wakes, church ales, and fairs; in a word,
mirth makers of every sort, such as abounded in that age, but now
began to be discountenanced by the rapid growth of Puritanism.
Light had their footsteps been on land, and as lightly they came
across the sea. Many had been maddened by their previous troubles
into a gay despair; others were as madly gay in the flush of
youth, like the May Lord and his Lady; but whatever might be the
quality of their mirth, old and young were gay at Merry Mount.
The young deemed themselves happy. The elder spirits, if they
knew that mirth was but the counterfeit of happiness, yet
followed the false shadow wilfully, because at least her garments
glittered brightest. Sworn triflers of a lifetime, they would not
venture among the sober truths of life not even to be truly
blest.

All the hereditary pastimes of Old England were transplanted
hither. The King of Christmas was duly crowned, and the Lord of
Misrule bore potent sway. On the Eve of St. John, they felled
whole acres of the forest to make bonfires, and danced by the
blaze all night, crowned with garlands, and throwing flowers into
the flame. At harvest time, though their crop was of the
smallest, they made an image with the sheaves of Indian corn, and
wreathed it with autumnal garlands, and bore it home
triumphantly. But what chiefly characterized the colonists of
Merry Mount was their veneration for the Maypole. It has made
their true history a poet's tale. Spring decked the hallowed