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 learning to rally back the popular feeling to their 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.”

The name of the parish of St. Andrew Undershaft records the place where the city May-pole, or shaft, was erected, and Shaft Alley the place where it lay when it was not required for use.

The proclamation of James I., called the “Book of Sports,” which was renewed by King Charles I., throws some light upon the sports in vogue during his reign.  It was enacted “for his good people’s lawful recreation, after the end of Divine service, that his good people be not disturbed, or discouraged, from any lawful recreation, such as dancing for men and women, archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or any such harmless recreations; nor from having May games, Whitsun ales, and morris dances, and the setting up of May-poles, and other sports therewith used, so as the same be had in due and convenient time, without impediment or neglect of Divine service.  And that women shall have leave to carry rushes to the church for the decorating of it, according to their old custom.  But withal his Majesty doth hereby account still as prohibited all unlawful games to be used on Sundays only, as bear and bull-baiting, interludes, and at all times in the meaner sort of people by law prohibited, bowling.”

Why his Majesty should have been so very severe on the game of bowls, which is a very ancient pastime, and innocent enough, is not at first quite clear; but it appears that the numerous bowling-alleys in London were, in the sixteenth century, the resorts of very bad company, and the nests of gambling and vice.  Hence the severity of King James’ strictures on bowling.