Now as astronomy was connected with all the ceremonies of the ancients, the sun’s entrance into Taurus, which in itself bespeaks the vigour of reanimated productiveness at the vernal equinox, was the symbol in the heavens associated by the worshippers with this allegorical gaiety. But this event takes place a little earlier every year than the preceding one, by reason of what astronomers call the _precession_, so that at present it occurs at a season far more advanced than it did at first. Theory and observation both concur in establishing that 72 years is the period which the equinox will take to precede 1 degree of the 360 into which the heavens are divided,--2160 years 30 degrees, that is, one sign,--and 25,920, 360 degrees, or the twelve signs of the Zodiac. If, therefore, we compute at this rate the precise year at which the vernal equinox must have coincided with the 1st of May,--which must certainly have been the fact at the origin of the institution,--it will prove to have been about the four thousandth before the Christian era, which exactly corresponds with the time of Cain, and irrefutably confirms the origin which I have assigned to the worship of the Budh, Tower, Phallus, or Maypole. Mr. Maurice’s position deserves to be remarked. “_I have little doubt, therefore_,” says he, “_that May-day, or at least the day on which the sun entered Taurus, has been immemorially kept as a sacred festival from the creation of the earth and man, originally intended as a memorial of that auspicious period and that momentous event_.” It is with extreme reluctance that I would dissent from a writer who has contributed so largely as the gentleman before us towards the restoration of literature; but since we agree as to the _era_ of the origin of the festival, and _substantially_ as to its _design_, I have the less hesitation in recording my belief that _it was not the creation of the earth or of man_ that was intended to be commemorated, but the commencement of a _new dispensation_, consequent upon _man’s defection_.[253]