When the prince (his sovereign) was present, he manifested profound awe-putting on a grave and respectful counte

nance.

When his prince appointed him to receive a person come from a distant country, he did it, composing his countenance; and walking slowly.

He with joined hands bowed respectfully to those standing either on the left or the right hand; his robes before and behind adjusting.

Even when hastily entering (any part of the palace) he lifted up his joined hands, by way of salutation, as a bird moves his wings.

The guest having departed, the sage would repeat his last commands, saying, "the guest is not in sight."

Entering the door of his prince's palace, he, bowing himself, contracted his stature.

When standing, he did not place himself in the midst of the door: in walking in, he did not tread on the threshold. [To tread on the threshold discovers want of respect.]

Passing by the (empty) seat of the prince, he formed his His words he suppressed, countenance, and adjusted his feet.

as though unable to speak.

Gathering up his robe he entered the palace, bowing himself; he also restrained his breath, so as not to breathe hard.

Going out, he, after descending one step, relaxed the gravity of his countenance; appearing at ease. Having descended to the bottom of the steps, he, expanding his arms, appeared like a bird set free.

In receiving the royal seal the sage bent his body, as though unable to sustain the weight: he held it as high as the hands are raised in salutation, and as low as though delivering it to another; expressing fear in his countenance, and moving his feet slowly, as though near to stumbling.

The honourable man (in time of mourning) did not adorn himself with light green or deep red.

Red and flesh colour he did not wear on any occasion.

Black robes he trimmed with the skin of the black antelope; plain robes with that of a white fawn: yellow robes with the skin of the Hoo. [The Hoo is a small animal in the mountains, of a yellow or dun colour.]

His robes for common occasions were long, but short was the right sleeve.

The time of mourning being over, he neglected not to wear the usual ornaments.

With black furred clothes, and a deep red hat, he went not to the house of mourning.

On the first day of the month, he chose to put on his court apparel, and repair to the palace.

When fasting, the sage chose to dress himself in clean apparel.

In religious fasting the sage changed his diet; he also chose to change his place of sitting. [His fasting, like that of the Chinese in common, also that of many sects of christians, was not complete abstinence, but recourse to a diet esteemed inferior.] Relative to food, he was not regardless of its goodness. Raw meat he did not neglect to have cut into fine shreds.

Rice spoiled, or its taste changed; putrified fish; and meat spoiled, he did not eat. Meat of a bad colour, or a bad smell, he ate not. Food not properly dressed, he did not eat. Untimely fruit he ate not.

Meat not cut rightly, he did not eat. Not having the proper sauce, he ate not.

Flesh, although abundant, he did not suffer to exceed a due proportion in his food: wine he did not refuse: but suffered it not to affect his reason.

Purchased wine, or dried provisions purchased, he did not cat, [lest they might have been prepared in an improper manner; by which they were rendered unclean.]

In eating he did not omit ginger.

An undue quantity he did not eat.

After worshipping with the prince, he did not reserve the offerings for himself alone. [Their value did not induce him to keep them; but reserving little to himself, he cheerfully distributed them among his friends.] The meat offered. by himself in worship he kept no more than three days; if it remained three days he ate it not.

In eating he conversed not: while reposing he spoke not.

Though it were the lowest food, vegetables or broth, he chose to pour out a part of it by way of libation. He chose thus to mani-. fest his devout veneration (for his deceased ancestors.) The commentary says, "Men formerly, in every thing of which they partook, first poured a little on the ground, in honour of him [the man] who first taught men to eat and drink.

The table not being right, the sage did not sit down.

The men of his village drinking wine together, when the men with a staff in their hand, [the old men; men sixty years of age] went out, he also went out.

At the [exhibition termed] No, made by the men of the. village, the sage put on his court robes, and stood without his door to receive it. [The No is a kind of procession that goes from house to house at a certain time of the year, under the view of preserving it from the pestilence, &c. The custom is

ancient, and even antiquated; but the sage would not treat this rustic pageant with disrespect.]

When a friend died without relatives, the sage said, “On me be the care of interring him."

In time of loud thunder, or strong wind, the sage would alter his countenance, [by way of reverence for the displeasure of heaven.] The Khee says in time of strong wind, loud thunder, or rain, let a man manifest a change of countenance: if it be night, let him rise, put on his clothes and his hat, and sit down.

MAY DAY.

[From Moser's Vestiges Revived.]

For thee, sweet May, the groves green liveries wear,

If not the first, the fairest of the year:

For thee the graces lead the dancing hours,
And Nature's ready pencil paints the flowers.

DRYDEN.

THE custom of dancing round the Maypole was, we believe, în former times, as common in other countries as in England. In Switzerland, tradition has informed us, that in one of the smaller cities, under the shade of venerable boughs, stood a large conduit of white stone. Previous to the first of May, a deputation of the younger burghers used to be sent to the Black Forest, where a tall pine was chosen; and in this selection, great attention was paid first to its shapely branches, and next to its top, which was extremely valued, if, leaving its collateral shoots, it ascended in the form of a candle. This tree was felled, placed upon a carriage drawn by a number of oxen and horses, decorated for the occasion, and with great ceremony, shouts of joy, and songs of triumph, conveyed to the city. As the cavalcade approached the gate, it was met by the maidens; a circumstance which increased, of course, the exultations, and in this manner attended to the conduit; where, when it was raised, the female part of the assembly took the charge of its decorations: these consisted of a vast variety of ribands, festoons of egg-shells died of a variety of colours, flowers, flags, &c. &c. The celebration of the first of May was in the morning conducted with great solemnity; a kind of dramatic representations occupied the afternoon; and the evening concluded with music and dancing.

It is stated by Stow, that "in the moneth of MAY, the citizens of LONDON of all estates, lightly in every parish, and

sometimes two or three parishes joining together, had their several mayings; and did fetch in maypoles, with divers warlike shewes, with good archers, morrice-dauncers, and other devices for pastime, all the day long; and towards the evening, they had stage-playes and bonfiers in the streetes: these great mayings and maygames were made by the Governors or Maisters of the City, who, as well as the monarch and the nobility, used themselves to go generally to Greenwich, Charlton Woods, and Blackheath.",

Chaucer, and, indeed, most of our ancient poets, have had as strong an impression of the beauties, of MAY as the Romans, who deified this month under the appellation of Maia, the mother of Mercury. Dryden's allusion to this subject is as beautiful as the nymph he paints:

"Thus year by year they pass, and day by day,
'Till once ('twas on the morn of cheerful May)
The young Emilia, fairer to be seen
Than the fair lily on the flow'ry green,
More fresh than May herself in blossoms new
(For with the rosy colour strove her hue,)
Wak'd, as her custom was, before the day,
To do th' observance due to sprightly May:

For sprightly May commands our youth to keep

The vigils of her night, and breaks their sluggard sleep."
Palamon and Arcite, DRYDEN'S FABLES.

The first of MAY used to be called Robin Hood's day; an appellation derived from that celebrated outlaw, who was, at all the mayings, may-games, and sports at the conduits, considered as Lord of the May. The Lady of the May, or Maid Marian, used to be represented by one of the most beautiful girls of the neighbourhood,

"Who had on her holiday kirtle and gown,
Which were of light Lincoln green."

The attendants were Little John, Will Scarlet, Midge the miller's son, and other outlaws. The Pindar of Wakefield, the Bishop of Hereford, and Friar Tuck, had also parts to perform in these interludes, which not only obtained so much celebrity in the metropolis, but spread over a very great part of England and of Wales, in both of which countries we have seen the May-morris danced, and heard the songs and recitations in praise of Robin Hood. These celebrations, although rendered imperfect, by descending through the medium of oral tradition, were, like the other stage plays of

ancient times, most unquestionably exhibited first in a dramatic form; of which, indeed, there are, from the time of "Robin Hood's Garland,"* "George a Green,† the Pindar of Wakefield," "the Sad Shepherd," a fragment by Ben Jonson, and many other specimens remaining.

On May morning, it was the custom of the inhabitants of London to adorn the outside of their houses with branches of the white thorn bushes, which thence acquired the appellation of MAY, and which it was the business of the apprentices and servants, for some days before, to procure. This, like the sacred misletoe, it is scarcely necessary to state, was, in its application, a practice derived from the Druids, and adopted by the Saxons, whose passion for trees of every description induced them to place them, or their branches, in every situation in which they could with any propriety be placed, to imitate them in their architecture, and to make compositions of flowers and foliage the ornamental appendages of every part of their churches, &c. that would admit of decoration.

The custom of decorating the fronts of the houses, the market-crosses, and conduits, with branches of trees and garlands of flowers, during the first week in May; the pageant of Robin Hood, and the dancing Maid Marian's morris, are customs ancient as the introduction of MAY-POLES, which, in many parts of England and Wales, we have known to prevail within these forty years: perhaps some traces of them still remain: they were, it appears, both from record and tradition, once as prevalent in the metropolis, where the conduits were the scenes of dramatic pageantry, and the Maypole the centre of gestic hilarity.

*The hut in Sherwood Forest, of old the head-quarters of the celebrated outlaw, still remains it is now a public-house the forest itself has, in a course of centuries, been, as Dr. Johnson would have said, denuded of its timber. In the fourteen miles from Nottingham to Mansfield, the paucity of trees is extremely conspicuous, Yet this part of the country, though now a world, was once a wood impervious to the solar ray.

†This celebrated character is the hero of an ancient drama,(a) which bears his name and appellation. In this he displays his loyalty to KING EDWARD, which is, by-the-by, an anachronism of at least seventy-two years: the monarch in question should have been RICHARD I. in order to have brought the Pindar of Wakefield and Robin Hood together; however, they appear in the scene, fight, are reconciled, and favoured. It is a curious traditional trait, which shows how popular, some years ago, this circumstance was in Yorkshire, that not only Wakefield, but the Ridings, Nottinghamshire, &c. rung with the fame of George a Green; and to doubt that he fought Robin Hood would have been deemed little less than heresy. The description of the combat is in the collection of ballads before mentioned, called Robin Hood's Garland. It is also mentioned by Drayton, in his PolyOlbion, Song 28; and adverted to by Richard Brathwaite, in "The Strappado for the Devil," 1615, p. 203.