On this day, too, we had Jacks-in-the-Green. The chimney sweeps used to dress up in fancy costumes and in evergreens and flowers, and, accompanied by a fiddler or two, parade and dance all round the town and neighbourhood. There were two sets of Jacks-in-the-Green when I was a boy, the Potter and the Whiting parties, and considerable rivalry existed between them. Lady Shelley used to patronise them handsomely by giving them plenty to eat and drink, and a good round sum of money. She one year gave the Whiting party a new set of dresses, fitting them out in a very gay manner. The children, with their flowers and garlands, finished their part of the day's proceedings about noon, but the Merry-Andrew parties kept the game going all day, getting merrier and merrier as time went on, till the evening when, the fiddlers still scraping away, and now producing sounds so queer that it was comforting to reflect that they had no smell to them, they would all retire to old Whiting's beershop and finish up. << less