* “The Lamentable Complaints of Nick Froth the Tapster, and Ruleroast the Cook,” 4to. 1641.
* The magical properties of the mistletoe are mentioned both by Virgil and Ovid; and Apuleius has preserved some verses of the poet Lelius, in which he mentions the mistletoe as one of the things necessary to make a magician. In the dark ages a similar belief prevailed, and even to the present day the peasants of Holstein, and some other countries, call the mistletoe the “Spectre's Wand,” from a supposition that holding a branch of mistletoe in the hand will not only enable a man to see ghosts, but to force them to speak to him! The mistletoe is peculiar to Christmas.
Rampant were those times, when crop-ear'd Jack Presbyter was as blythe as shepherd at a wake. * Down tumbled the Maypoles **--no more music
* “We'll break the windows which the whore Of Babylon hath planted, And when the Popish saints are down, Then Burges shall be sainted; We'll burn the fathers' learned books, And make the schoolmen flee; We'll down with all that smells of wit, And hey, then, up go we!”
** The downfall of May-games, 4to. 1660. By Thomas Hall, the canting parson of King's-Norton.--Hear the caitiff,
“There's not a knave in all the town, Nor swearing courtier, nor base clown, Nor dancing lob, nor mincing quean, Nor popish clerk, be't priest or dean, Nor Knight debauch'd nor gentleman, That follows drab, or cup, or can, That will give thee a friendly look, If thou a May-pole canst not brook.”
On May 1, 1517, the unfortunate shaft, or May-pole, gave rise to the insurrection of that turbulent body, the London apprentices, and the plundering of the foreigners in the city, whence it got the name of Evil May-day. From that time the offending pole was hung on a range of hooks over the doors of a long row of neighbouring houses. In the 3rd of Edward VI. an over-zealous fanatic called Sir Stephen began to preach against this May-pole, which inflamed his audience so greatly, that the owner of every house over which it hung sawed off as much as depended over his premises, and committed piecemeal to the flames this terrible idol!
The “tall May-pole” that “onee o'erlooked the Strand,” (about the year 1717,) Sir Isaac Newton begged of the parish, and it was carried to Wanstead in Essex, where it was erected in the park, and had the honour of raising the greatest telescope then known. The New Church occupies its site.