Ir forms part of the design of our work to notice the most remarkable pieces of antiquity which exist in various parts of England, and more particularly in and near to London; we therefore this week lav before our readers a correct view of the present appearance of that very celebrated relic of former days, London Stone, in Cannon Street.

The origin of this Stone, which has been carefully preserved for ages, is lost in the dimness of remote antiquity; and the conjectures of antiquaries respecting the purpose for which it was erected, have been equally numerous and discordant. Some have deemed it to be a Roman standard, from which distances were measured; others have conjectured that its site was the principal street of London while occupied by the Romans, and that, from the Stone, public notices and proclamations were promulgated. This opinion is combatted by a third party, who

maintain that it marked a spot dedieated to the tendering and making of payments by debtors to their creditors. Most, however, agree that it is a Roman fragment; and Malcolm asserts that Sir Christopher Wren, after carefully examining it, pronounced it to be the remains of some monument situated in a Roman Forum. Its antiquity indeed cannot be questioned. There is in existence a M.S. "Gospel-Book" presented to Christ-Church, Canterbury, by Ethelstan, King of the West Saxons, at the end of which occurs a notice of lands in London, belonging to the said church, lying near unto LONDON STONE." Certain writers, however, have claimed for it a still greater antiquity, dating its origin at a period prior to the arrival of the Romans in Britain, and insisting that it formed an object of heathen worship in a Druidical temple.

P

Tradition asserts that the present stone was originally fixed upon ano

Till the last century, the Stone stood on the South side of Cannon Street, opposite St. Swithin's Church, between the foot-path and the kennel, fixed in the ground, and protected against injury from carriages, &c., by stout iron bars. It appears among other purposes, to have been formerly considered a rallying-point for insurgents, for when Jack Cade entered London by way of Southwark, he marched immediately to Cannon Street, and striking his sword upon the Stone, exclaimed, Now is Mortimer lord of this city," an incident which Shakspeare has conferred immortality upon in the 2d part of Henry 6, act 4, scene 6. Some time in the last century, the relic, which is now but of small dimensions, was removed from its ancient site, inclosed in a case, hollowed out in a block of stone, and placed in a niche in the southern-wall of St. Swithin's Church, as shewn in our print. It is certainly somewhat singular that so much care should have been taken from age to age to preserve the stone, and so little known of its nature and origin.

Such of our readers as may take the trouble of paying a visit to Cannon Street, for the purpose of comparing our representation with the original, will find that the drawing has been executed with extreme fidelity. Exactly opposite St. Swithin's Church are the London Stone Dining Rooms, from the windows of which they may view the relic at their leisure, and thus

• Menaces.

gratify at once their palates and their antiquarian curiosity.

MAY DAY.

We are irresistibly tempted, by the influence of the season, to give ourselves up to the fascinations of this beauteous budding-time and its old recollections. We can now understand, while the blue vault is scarcely speckled with a cloud, and the foliage of the trees has put forth its freshest green, and the hawthorn is budding, and the thrush is singing over his sitting mate we can now understand the enthusiasm of one of our old rural poets:"Get up, get up, for shame! the blooming morn

Upon her wing presents the god unshorn:

See how Aurora throws her fair

Fresh-quilted colours through the air. Get up, sweet slug-a-bed! and see The dew bespargling herb and tree: Each flower has wept, and bow'd toward

the east

Above an hour since, yet you not drest;

Nay, not so much as out of bed,
When all the birds have matins said,
And sung their thankful hymns ;-'tis
sin,

When as a thousand virgins on this day
Nay, profanation, to keep in ;
Spring sooner than the lark, to fetch in
May."

Alas! the virgins in the towns and cities now rise when the sun is hastening to his meridan; and even the lasses of the village are too politely precise to wet their feet in the dewy hedges, or to risk their muslins in the hawthorn bush. If there are any of the fairer sex who think that May-day should not quite be forgotten, they cultivate the feeling with no poetical rapture, but with the singleness of

'pecuniary views." They are of the same species as the garland-seller, who sung her solitary song for an eleemosynary penny

"Rise up, maidens! fie for shame! I've been four long miles from hame; I've been gath'ring my garlands gay; Rise up, fair maids, and take in your May."

Even this relic of the "olden time" is worn out, and May-day is left in mockery to the chimney-sweepers.

Without rubbing up much of the pedantry of antiquarianism, it may be amusing just to look back upon the gladsome intoxication of happy spirits to which our ancestors surrendered themselves at this genial season. Wherever we can, we will let the old writers tell the story in their own terms.

The formal Mr. Bourne, who coquetted with ancient customs, by diligently recording them with a pious abuse of their Heathenish vanities, says "On the calends, or the first day of May, commonly called Mayday, the juvenile part of both sexes were wont to rise a little after midnight, and walk to some neighbouring wood, accompanied with music and the blowing of horns; where they broke down branches from the trees, and adorned them with nosegays and When this was crowns of flowers. done, they returned with their booty homewards, about the rising of the sun, and made their doors and windows to triumph in the flowery spoil. The after-part of the day was chiefly spent in dancing round a tall pole, called a May-pole; which, being placed in a convenient part of the village, stood there, as it were, consecrated to the goddess of flowers, without the least violation offered it in the whole circle of the year."

The Puritans waged war with these May-poles, and indeed with all the indications of a full-hearted simplicity which were the echo of the universal harmony of Nature. The May-poles never held up their heads after the civil wars. The strait-laced" exulted in their fall, but we believe the people were neither wiser nor happier for their removal:

But the sports of May were not confined to the villages. Even the gorgeous pomp of the old Courts did not disdain to borrow a fragrance and freshness from the joys of the people. Hall, the historian, gives us an account of "Henry the Eighth's riding a Maying from Greenwich to the high ground of Shooter's-hill, with Queen Katharine his wife, accompanied with many lords and ladies." The good people of London in those days were not ashamed to let in a little of the light their mercantile pursuits. Stow tells us, "In the month of May, the citizens (of all estates), in every parish, or sometimes two or three parishes joining together, had their several Mayings, and did fetch in May-poles with divers warlike shows, with good archers, morrice-dancers, and other devices for pastime all the day long: and towards the evening they had stage-plaies, and bone-fires in the streets."

of creation

upon

* See our 14th number, page 105.

and then fall they to banquetting and feasting, to leaping and dancing about it, as the heathen people did at the dedication of their idolls. I have heard it crediblie reported, by men of great gravity, credite, and reputation, that of fourtie, three-score, or an hundred maides going to the wood, there have scarcely third part of them returned home againe as they went."

We are not romantic enough to expect that the present age will revive any of these simple amusements of its predecessors that the "wassail bowl" of Christmas or the garland of May will again come amongst us with their hearty and inspiring recollections. Those who now love Nature and cheerfulness must confine their rapture to their own families to their fire-sides in winter, and their gardens in the sunny season. We would only hint that our ancestors, in proclaiming their enthusiasm for the freshness of a beautiful world, were paying a true and affecting homage to its Creator; and though their cheerfulness might be boisterous, and its origin Heathenish, it was far better than that apathy which passes by the wonders and beauties of the earth with indifference; or that precision, which, in deprecating the exercise of pure and simple enjoyments, shuts up the heart against the best feelings of kindness to man, or devotion to God.

GHOST STORIES-No. III. DR. JOHNSON's curiosity respecting ghosts has been ridiculed by those who do not consider that a man who had once seen the spirit of a departed being, could have no farther doubt of his own future existence. At present we have the strongest possible evidence of such existence, short of that of our senses; but, every man must allow that the re-appearance of a deceased person would be the most awful and interesting additional proof that could be submitted to him. They only can feel indifferent upon this subject who never speculate at all; or, whose speculations have led them to the dreary conclusion that death is an everlasting sleep. Impressed with such sentiments, we shall continue this series of Ghost

Stories so often as we meet with any relation that seems to be tolerably authenticated, and in which the supernatural agency appears to have been intended to effect some important end, beyond the power of man to produce. These narratives may be true, or they may be false; but, really sensible persons will not come to the latter con clusion, without carefully examining the evidence by which they are sup ported.

On the 5th of December, 1640, Dr. John Atherton, Bishop of Waterford, was executed at Dublin, for the com mission of various enormous crimes. A scarce old tract relating to this affair, published by Curll, 1711, contains the following singular statements, which will probably be quite new to the readers of Ghost-Stories, having hitherto escaped the notice of collec tors of such things. The writer's sta tion in life was so respectable, and his relation is so circumstantial, that it merits particular attention :—

"A True and amazing narration of the most apparent, undoubted, and prodigious apparition that was ever heard of: enough to convince the greatest atheist. Copied from a M.S. of the Rev. Mr. John Quick, Minister of the Gospel, lately deceased in September, 1706; the truth whereof is attested by him, under his own hand.

At Minehead in the county of Somerset, Anno Dom. 1636, or thereabouts, there lived an ancient gentlewoman, the widow of Mr. Leaky, whose only son, a merchant in that town, drove a considerable trade betwixt it and Waterford, and some other parts in Ireland, and was reputed worth about 8 or 10,0001. This gentleman (the son) had but one child by his wife, of both which we shall hear enough by and by.

Mrs. Leaky, the old gentlewoman, was of a very free, pleasant temper, and exceeding good company; insomuch, that people would say to her and to one another, that it was a thousand pities such an excellent gentlewoman should die. And in the midst of her mirth, she would tell her friends, "As pleasing as my company is now to you, you will not care to see and

converse with me when I am dead, though I believe you will do it "

However, die she did; and being buried, she was sometime after seen again by night; and at last at noonday, in her own house, in the town and fields, at sea and at shore, whereof I shall give you some eminent in

stances.

A doctor of physic that lived at Minehead, having been in the country to visit a patient, as he returned home, towards the evening, met with an ancient gentlewoman; he accosts her very civilly, falls into discourse with her, and coming to a stile, lends her his hand to help her over, but feels it to be prodigious cold, which makes him to eye this gentlewoman more attentively than he had done before; and he observed, that in speaking she never opened her lips; nor did she ever move her eyes or eye-lids. This, and some other circumstances, affrighted him, and suggested to his fearful mind, that it must be Mrs. Leaky, of whom there was a general talk in the town, that she walked again, and had been seen of many; whereupon when he came to to the next stile, he passed over, but never turned back to pay her the ceremony of his hand, which so incensed this old hag, that she grew as froward and as sullen as the doctor, and gave him no more mouth speech, since he was become as mute as a fish towards her; and when they came to the next stile, she got before him, and sat just in the middle of it; so that when he came to it, the way was stopt; hereupon he turns aside, and goes to a gate, thinking to cross over that, to go into the highway; but when he 'comes thither, she sat astride over that also; but some how or other he got over, and coming to town with the spectre, she gives him a kick, and bids him to be more civil next time to an ancient gentlewoman.

But this was nothing to the pranks she played in her son's house and elsewhere. She now at noon-day appeared upon the Quay at Minehead, and cries out "A boat, a boat, hoe!" If any boatman or seaman was in sight, and did not come, they were sure to be cast away; and if they did come, it

was all one, it was equally dangerous to please or to displease her. Her son had several ships sailing betwixt Ireland and England; no sooner did they come in the sight of England, and make land, but this ghost would appear, in the same garb and likeness as when she was alive; and standing at the main-mast, would blow with a whistle; and though it was never so great a calm, yet presently there would arise a most dreadful storm, that would wreck and drown the ship and goods, only the seamen escaped with their lives, as the devil had not power from God to take them away. Yet at this rate, by her frequent apparitions and disturbances, she made a poor merchant of her son; for his fair estate was all buried in the sea; and he that was once worth thousands, was reduced to a low condition in the world; for whether the ships were his own or hired, if he had but goods aboard to the value of twenty shillings, this troublesome ghost would come as before, and whistle at the main-mast, and then ship and goods went all to wreck out of hand; insomuch, that he could at last get no ship wherein to store his goods, nor any mariner to sail in them, for they, knowing what an uncomfortable and fatal voyage they should make of it, did refuse to

serve.

In her son's house she had constant haunts by night and day; but whether he did not or would not own it, he always professed he never saw her. Sometimes when he hath been a-bed with his wife, she would cry out, "Husband, look! there is your mother!" And when he turned on the right side to see her, she was got to the left, and when he turned to the left side, she was got to the right. One evening, their only child, a girl of about five or six years old, lying in a truckle bed beside them, cried out, "Oh! help me, father, help me, mother, for grand-mother will choak me!"' And before they could get to the child's assistance, she had actually murdered it; and they found the poor child dead, her throat having been pinched by two fingers, which stopped her breath and strangled her.

This was