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. “But now (so Anne and piety ordain), A church collects the saints of Drury Lane.” and dancing! * For the disciples of _Stubbes_ and _Prynne_ having discovered by their sage oracles, that _May-games_ were derived from the Floralian Feasts and interludes of the pagan Romans, which were solemnised on the first of May; and that dancing round a May-pole, adorned with garlands of flowers, ribbons, and other ornaments, was idolatry, after the fashion of Baal's worshippers, who capered about the altar in honour of their idol; resolved that the Goddess Flora should no longer receive the gratulations of Maid Marian, Friar Tuck, and Robin Hood's merry men, on a fine May morning; a superstition derived from the Sibyl's books, horribly papistical and pagan. * “Good fellowes must go learne to daunce The brydeal is full near a: There is a brail come out of Fraunce, The fyrst ye harde this yeare a. For I must leape, and thou must hoppe, And we must turne all three a; The fourth must bounce it like a toppe, And so we shall agree a. praye the mynstrell make no stoppe, For we wyll merye be a.” From an unique black letter ballad, printed in 1569, “Intytuled, 'Good Fellowes must go learne to Daunce.'” Nor was the “precise villain” less industrious in confiscation and sacrilege. * Painted windows--Lucifer's Missal drawings!--he took infinite pains to destroy; and with his long pike did the devil's work diligently. He could endure no cross ** but that on silver; hence the demolition of those beautiful edifices that once adorned Cheapside, and other remarkable sites in ancient times.