the fifth month in the year, reckoning from our first, or January; and the third, counting the year to begin with March, as the Romans anciently did. It was called Maius by Romulus, in respect to the senators and nobles of his city, who were named magores; as the following month was called Junius, in honour of the youth of Rome, in honorem juniorum, who served him in the war; though some will have it to have been thus called from Maia, the mother of Mercury, to whom they offered sacrifice on the first day of it; and Papias derives it from Madius, eo quod tunc terra medeat. In this month the sun enters Gemini, and the plants of the earth in general begin to flower.—The month of May has ever been deemed favourable to love; and yet the ancients, as well as many of the moderns, look on it as an unhappy month for marriage. The original reason may perhaps be referred to the feast of the Lemures, which was held in it. Ovid alludes to this in the fifth of his Fasti, when he says,

Nec vidua taddis eadem, nec virginis apta Tempora; quae nupstis, non diuturna fuit; Hac quoque de causa, si te proverbia tangunt, Menfe malum Maio nubere vulgus ait.

May-dew. See Dew.

May-duke, a species of cherry. See Prunus.

May (Isle of), a small island at the mouth of the Firth of Forth, in Scotland, about a mile and a half in circumference, and seven miles from the coast of Fife, almost opposite to the rock called the Bass. It formerly belonged to the priory of Pittenweem; and was dedicated to St Adrian, supposed to have been martyred in this place by the Danes; and latterly, in times of Popish superstition, barren women used to come and worship at his shrine, in hopes of being cured of their sterility. Here is a tower and lighthouse built by Mr Cunningham of Barns, to whom king Charles I. granted the island in fee, with power to exact two-pence per ton from every ship that passes, for the maintenance of a lighthouse. In the middle of it there is a fresh-water spring, and a small lake. The soil produces pasturage for 100 sheep and 20 black cattle. On the west side the steep rocks render it inaccessible; but to the east there are four landing-places and good riding. It was here that the French squadron, having the chevalier de St George on board, anchored in the year 1708, when the vigilance of Sir George Byng obliged him to relinquish his design, and bear away for Dunkirk. The shores all round the island abound with fish, and the cliffs with water-fowl.

(Thomas), an eminent English poet and historian in the 17th century, was born of an ancient but decayed family in Sussex, educated at Cambridge, and afterwards removed to London, where he contracted a friendship with several eminent persons, and particularly with Endymion Porter, Esq; one of the gentlemen of the bed-chamber to king Charles I. While he resided at court, he wrote the five plays now extant under his name. In 1622, he published a translation of Virgil's Georgics, with annotations; and in 1635 a poem on king Edward III. and a translation of Lucan's Pharsalia, which poem he continued down to the death of Julius Caesar, both in Latin and English verse. Upon the breaking out of the civil wars he adhered to the parliament; and in 1647, he published, "The history of the parliament of England, which began November the third MDCXL. With a short and necessary view of some precedent years." In 1649, he published, Historia parlamenti Anglici Breviarium, in three parts; which he afterwards translated into English. He wrote the History of Henry II. in English verse. He died in 1652. He went well to rest over-night, after a cheerful bottle as usual, and died in his sleep before morning; upon which his death was imputed to his tying his night-cap too close under his fat cheeks and chin, which caused his suffocation; but the facetious Andrew Marvel has written a poem of 100 lines, to make him a martyr of Bacchus, and die by the force of good wine. He was interred near Camden, in Westminster Abbey; which caused Dr Fuller to say, that "if he were a biased and partial writer, yet he lieth buried near a good and true historian indeed." Soon after the restoration, his body, with those of several others, was dug up, and buried in a pit in St Margaret's church-yard; and his monument, which was erected by the appointment of Parliament, was taken down and thrown aside.