It seemed appropriate to this verdant and pastoral country,
and calculated to light up the too pervading gravity of the nation. 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, the Squire informs me, have been made of late years, by
men of both taste and learning, to rally back the popular feeling to
these standards of primitive simplicity; but the time has gone by, the
feeling has become chilled by habits of gain and traffic, the country
apes the manners and amusements of the town, and little is heard of
May-day at present, except from the lamentations of authors, who sigh
after it from among the brick walls of the city:
"For O, for O, the Hobby-Horse is forgot."
VILLAGE WORTHIES.
Nay, I tell you, I am so well beloved in our town, that not
the worst dog in the street will hurt my little finger.
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