Part 45
What Mr. Tollett has termed a _bib_ was in fact no uncommon part of the male dress in the fifteenth century. Some of the contemporary figures of the Beverley minstrels are so habited, as well as others in the representation of the Whitsun ale at Cirencester.[188] Whatever character the supposed Bavian of the window was, he is also found in the print by Israel on the left hand of the fool, not only in the same habit, but with his hands and feet precisely in similar attitudes. There is no doubt that the morris dance was in some respects a sort of _chironomy_; and Higgins, the English editor of Junius's _Nomenclator_, has actually translated the word _chironomia_ by "the morrise dance."[189] In the absence of some of the other characters of the morris dance, the exertions of the fool appear to have been increased, as we learn from Ben Jonson's _Entertainment at Althrope_:
"But see the hobby-horse is forgot. Foole, it must be your lot, To supply his want with faces And some other buffon graces. You know how."--
Coryat relates that near Montreuil he saw "_a Whitsuntide foole_ disguised like a foole, wearing a long coate, wherein there were many severall peeces of cloth of divers colours, at the corners whereof there hanged the tailes of squirrels: he bestowed a little peece of plate, wherein was expressed the effigies of the Virgin Mary, upon every one that gave him money: for he begged money of all travellers for the benefite of the parish church."[190] The romance of _The spiritual Quixote_ has a morris fool with a fox's tail depending from his cap, and a sheep bell attached to his hinder parts. In the modern morris dance the fool is continued, but his real character and dress appear to have been long since forgotten. In some places he is called _the Squire_.
VI. THE PIPER. Sometimes called Tom Piper, an obvious and necessary attendant on a morris, and who requires very little illustration. Mr. Steevens has already referred to Drayton for the mention of him; and Spenser, in his third eclogue, speaking of the rimes of bad poets, observes that
"_Tom Piper_ makes as little melodie;"
whence we are to infer that his music was not usually of the very best kind. The resemblance, as to attitude and dress, between the figures of this character in Mr. Tollett's painting and the Flemish print, is remarkable. In both we have the sword and feather. What Mr. Tollett has termed his _silver shield_ seems a mistake for the lower part or flap of his stomacher.
VII. THE HOBBY-HORSE; of which the earliest vestige now remaining is in the painted window at Betley. It has been already observed that he was often omitted in the morris. During the reign of Elizabeth the Puritans made considerable havoc among the May-games, by their preachings and invectives. Poor Maid Marian was assimilated to the whore of Babylon; friar Tuck was deemed a remnant of Popery, and the Hobby-horse an impious and Pagan superstition; and they were at length most completely put to the rout as the bitterest enemies of religion. King James's book of sports restored the lady and the hobby-horse: but during the commonwealth they were again attacked by a new set of fanatics; and, together with the whole of the May festivities, the Whitsun-ales, &c., in many parts of England degraded. At the restoration they were once more revived.[191] The allusions to the omission of the Hobby-horse are frequent in the old plays, and the line
"For O, for O, the hobby-horse is forgot,"
is termed by Hamlet _an epitaph_, which Mr. Theobald supposed, with great probability, to have been satirical. The following extract from a scene in Beaumont and Fletcher's _Women pleased_, Act IV., will best show the sentiments of the puritans on this occasion, and which the author has deservedly ridiculed:
HOB.
Surely I will dance no more, 'tis most ridiculous, I find my wife's instructions now mere verities, My learned wife's, she often hath pronounc'd to me My safety; _Bomby_, defie these sports, thou art damn'd else. This beast of Babylon I will never back again, His pace is sure prophane, and his lewd wi-hees, The sons of Hymyn and Gymyn, in the wilderness.
FAR.
Fie neighbour _Bomby_, in your fits again? Your zeal sweats, this is not careful, neighbour, The _Hobby-horse_ is a seemly _Hobby-horse_.
HOB.
The beast is an unseemly, and a lewd beast, And got at Rome by the Pope's coach-horses, His mother was the mare of ignorance.
SOTO.
Cobler thou ly'st, and thou wert a thousand coblers His mother was an honest mare, and a mare of good credit, Scorn'd any coach-horse the Pope had; thou art foolish, And thy blind zeal makes thee abuse the beast.
HOB.
I do defie thee and thy foot-cloth too, And tell thee to thy face, this prophane riding I feel it in my conscience, and I dare speak it, This unedified ambling hath brought a scourge upon us.
FAR.
Will you dance no more, neighbour?
HOB.
Surely no, Carry the beast to his crib: I have renounc'd him And all his works.
SOTO.
_Shall the Hobby-horse be forgot then?_ The hopeful Hobby-horse, shall he lye founder'd?
HOB.
I cry out on't, 'Twas the forerunning sin brought in those tilt-staves, They brandish 'gainst the church, the Devil calls _May poles_.
SOTO.
Take up your horse again, and girth him to ye, And girth him handsomely, good neighbour _Bomby_.
HOB.
I spit at him.
SOTO.
Spit in the horse-face, cobler? Thou out-of-tune psalm-singing slave; spit in his visnomy?
HOB.
I spit again, and thus I rise against him: Against this beast, that signify'd destruction, Foreshew'd i'th' falls of monarchies.
SOTO.
I'th' face of him? Spit such another spit, by this hand cobler, I'll make ye set a new piece o' your nose there; Take't up I say, and dance without more bidding, And dance as you were wont; you have been excellent, And are still but for this new nicety, And your wife's learned lectures; take up the Hobby-horse, Come, 'tis a thing thou hast lov'd with all thy heart, Bomby, And wouldst do still, but for the round-breech'd brothers. You were not thus in the morning; take't up I say, Do not delay, but do it: you know I am officer, And I know 'tis unfit all these good fellows Should wait the cooling of your zealous porridge; Chuse whether you will dance, or have me execute; I'll clap your neck i'th' stocks, and there I'll make ye Dance a whole day, and dance with these at night too. You mend old shoes well, mend your old manners better, And suddenly see you leave off this sincereness, This new hot batch, borrowed from some brown baker, Some learned brother, or I'll so bait ye for 't, Take it quickly up.
HOB.
I take my persecution, And thus I am forc'd a by-word to my brethren.
The Hobby-horse was represented by a man equipped with as much pasteboard as was sufficient to form the head and hinder parts of a horse, the quadrupedal defects being concealed by a long mantle or foot-cloth that nearly touched the ground. The performer on this occasion exerted all his skill in burlesque horsemanship. In Sampson's play of _The vow-breaker_, 1636, a miller personates the hobby-horse; and being angry that the mayor of the city is put in competition with him, exclaims, "Let the major play the hobby-horse among his brethren, and he will, I hope our towne-lads cannot want a hobby-horse. Have I practic'd my reines, my careeres, my pranckers, my ambles, my false trotts, my smooth ambles and Canterbury paces, and shall master major put me besides the hobby-horse? Have I borrowed the forehorse bells, his plumes and braveries, nay had his mane new shorne and frizl'd, and shall the major put me besides the hobby-horse?"
Whoever happens to recollect the manner in which Mr. Bayes's troops in the _Rehearsal_ are exhibited on the stage, will have a tolerably correct notion of a morris hobby-horse. Additional remains of the Pyrrhic or sword dance are preserved in the daggers stuck in the man's cheeks, which constituted one of the hocus-pocus or legerdemain tricks practised by this character, among which were the threading of a needle, and the transferring of an egg from one hand to the other, called by Ben Jonson _the travels of the egg_.[192] To the horse's mouth was suspended a ladle for the purpose of gathering money from the spectators. In later times the fool appears to have performed this office, as may be collected from Nashe's play of _Summer's last will and testament_, where this stage direction occurs, "Ver goes in and fetcheth out the Hobby-horse and the morris daunce who daunce about." Ver then says, "About, about, lively, put your horse to it, reyne him harder, jerke him with your wand, sit fast, sit fast, man; _foole, holde up your ladle there_." Will Summers is made to say, "You friend with the hobby-horse, goe not too fast, for feare of wearing out my lord's tyle-stones with your hob-nayles." Afterwards there enter three clowns and three maids, who dance the morris, and at the same time sing the following song:
"Trip and goe, heave and hoe, Up and downe, to and fro, From the towne, to the grove, Two and two, let us rove, A maying, a playing; Love hath no gainsaying: So merrily trip and goe."
Lord Orford in his catalogue of English engravers, under the article of Peter Stent, has described two paintings at Lord Fitzwilliam's on Richmond green which came out of the old neighbouring palace. They were executed by Vinckenboom, about the end of the reign of James I., and exhibit views of the above palace; in one of these pictures a morris dance is introduced, consisting of seven figures, viz. a fool, a hobby-horse, a piper, a Maid Marian, and three other dancers, the rest of the figures being spectators. Of these the first four and one of the dancers are reduced in the annexed plate from a tracing made by the late Captain Grose. The fool has an inflated bladder or eel-skin with a _ladle_ at the end of it, and with this he is collecting money. The piper is pretty much in his original state; but the hobby-horse wants the legerdemain apparatus, and Maid Marian is not remarkable for the elegance of her person.
Dr. Plott, in his _History of Staffordshire_, p. 434, mentions that within memory, at Abbot's or Paget's Bromley, they had a sort of sport which they celebrated at Christmas, or on new year and twelfth days, called the _Hobby-horse dance_, from a person who carried the image of a horse between his legs made of thin boards, and in his hand a bow and arrow. The latter passing through a hole in the bow, and stopping on a shoulder, made a snapping noise when drawn to and fro, keeping time with the music. With this man danced six others, carrying on their shoulders as many rein-deer heads, with the arms of the chief families to whom the revenues of the town belonged. They danced the heys and other country dances. To the above hobby-horse dance there belonged a pot, which was kept by turns by the reeves of the town, who provided cakes and ale to put into this pot; all people who had any kindness for the good intent of the institution of the sport giving pence apiece for themselves and families. Foreigners also that came to see it contributed; and the money, after defraying the expense of the cakes and ale, went to repair the church and support the poor; which charges, adds the doctor, are not now perhaps so cheerfully borne.
A short time before the revolution in France, the May games and morris dance were celebrated in many parts of that country, accompanied by a fool and a _hobby-horse_. The latter was termed _un chevalet_; and, if the authority of Minsheu be not questionable, the Spaniards had the same character under the name of _tarasca_.[193]
VIII. THE DRAGON. The earliest mention of him as a part of the morris dance we have already seen in the extract from Stubbes's _Anatomie of abuses_; and he is likewise introduced in a morris, in Sampson's play of the _Vowbreaker, or fayre maid of Clifton_, 1633, where a fellow says, "I'll be a _fiery dragon_:" on which, another, who had undertaken the hobby-horse, observes that he will be "a thund'ring _Saint George_ as ever rode on horseback." This seems to afford a clue to the use of this dragon, who was probably attacked in some ludicrous manner by the hobby-horse saint, and may perhaps be the _Devil_ alluded to in the extract already given from Fetherstone's _Dialogue against dancing_.
IX. THE MORRIS DANCERS. By these are meant the common dancers in the late morrises, and who were not distinguished by any particular appellation, though in earlier times it is probable that each individual had his separate title. If there were any reason for a contrary opinion, it might depend on the costume of numbers 10 and 11 in Mr. Tollett's window, which may perhaps belong to the present class. There are likewise two similar figures in the Flemish print; and the coincidence in their attitudes is no less remarkable than it is in those of some of the other characters. The circumstance too of one only wearing a feather in his hat is deserving of notice, as it is the same in both the representations. The streamers which proceed from their sleeves and flutter in the wind, though continued in very modern times, were anciently not peculiar to morris dancers, examples of them occurring in many old prints.[194] In the reign of Henry the Eighth the morris dancers were dressed in gilt leather and silver paper, and sometimes in coats of white spangled fustian. They had purses at their girdles, and garters to which bells were attached.[195] The latter have been always a part of the furniture of the more active characters in the morris, and the use of them is of great antiquity. The _tinkling ornaments of the feet_ among the Jewish women are reprobated in _Isaiah_ iii, 16, 18. Gratius Faliscus, who wrote his poem on hunting in the time of Augustus, has alluded to the practice of dancing with bells on the feet among the Egyptian priests of Canopus, in the following lines:
"Vix operata suo sacra ad Bubastia lino Velatur _sonipes æstivi turba Canopi_."
_Cynegeticon_, lib. i. 42.
There is good reason for believing that the morris bells were borrowed from the genuine _Moorish dance_; a circumstance that tends to corroborate the opinion that has been already offered with respect to the etymology of the _morris_. Among the beautiful habits of various nations, published by Hans Weigel at Nuremberg, in 1577, there is the figure of an African lady of the kingdom of Fez in the act of dancing, with bells at her feet. A copy of it is here exhibited:
The number of bells round each leg of the morris dancers amounted from twenty to forty.[196] They had various appellations, as the fore-bell, the second bell, the treble, the tenor, the base, and the double bell. Sometimes they used trebles only; but these refinements were of later times.[197] The bells were occasionally jingled by the hands, or placed on the arms or wrists of the parties. Scarves, ribbands, and laces hung all over with gold rings, and even precious stones, are also mentioned in the time of Elizabeth.[198] The miller, in the play of the _Vowbreaker_, says he is come to borrow "a few ribbandes, bracelets, eare-rings, wyertyers, and silke girdles and handkerchers for a morice and a show before the queene." The handkerchiefs, or napkins[199] as they are sometimes called, were held in the hand, or tied to the shoulders.[200] In Shirley's _Lady of pleasure_, 1637, Act I., Aretina thus inveighs against the amusements of the country:
"... to observe with what solemnity They keep their wakes, and throw for pewter candlestickes, How they become the morris, with whose bells They ring all into Whitson ales, and sweate Through twenty scarffes and napkins, till the Hobby horse Tire, and the maide Marrian dissolv'd to a gelly, Be kept for spoone meate."
The early use of the feather in the hat appears both in Mr. Tollett's window and the Flemish print; a fashion that was continued a long time afterwards.[201] Sometimes the hat was decorated with a nosegay,[202] or with the herb _thrift_, formerly called _our lady's cushion_.[203]
Enough has been said to show that the collective number of the morris dancers has continually varied according to circumstances, in the same manner as did their habits. In Israel's print they are nine: in Mr. Tollett's window, eleven. Mr. Strutt has observed that on his sixteenth plate there are only five, exclusive of the two musicians: but it is conceived that what he refers to is not a morris, but a dance of fools. There is a pamphlet entitled _Old Meg of Herefordshire for a Mayd Marian and Hereford town for a morris dance, or 12 morris dancers in Herefordshire of 1200 years old_, 1609, 4to.[204] In the painting by Vinckenboom, at Richmond, there are seven figures. In Blount's _Glossographia_, 1656, the _Morisco_ is defined, "a dance wherein there were usually five men and a boy dressed in a girles habit, whom they call Maid Marrian." The morris in Fletcher's _Two noble kinsmen_ contains some characters, which, as they are nowhere else to be found, might have been the poet's own invention, and designed for stage effect:
"The chambermaid, and serving man by night That seek out silent hanging: Then mine host And his fat spouse, that welcomes to their cost The gauled traveller, and with a beckning Informs the tapster to inflame the reck'ning. Then the beast-eating clown, and next the fool, The _Bavian_, with long tail and eke long tool, _Cum multis aliis_, that make a dance."
Mr. Ritson has taken notice of an old wooden cut "preserved on the title of a penny-history, (_Adam Bell, &c._) printed at Newcastle in 1772," and which represents, in his opinion, a morris dance consisting of the following personages: 1. A bishop. 2. Robin Hood. 3. The potter or beggar. 4. Little John. 5. Friar Tuck. 6. Maid Marian. He remarks that the execution of the whole is too rude to merit a copy, a position that is not meant to be controverted; but it is necessary to introduce the cut in this place for the purpose of correcting an error into which the above ingenious writer has inadvertently fallen. It is proper to mention that it originally appeared on the title page to the first _known_ edition of _Robin Hood's garland_, printed in 1670, 18mo.
Now this cut is certainly _not_ the representation of a morris dance, but merely of the principal characters belonging to the garland. These are, Robin Hood, Little John, _queen Catherine_, the bishop, the _curtal frier_, (not Tuck,) and the beggar. Even though it were admitted that Maid Marian and Friar Tuck were intended to be given, it could not be maintained that either the bishop or the beggar made part of a morris.
There still remains some characters in Mr. Tollett's window, of which no description can be here attempted, viz. Nos. 1, 4, 6, and 7. As these are also found in the Flemish print,[205] they cannot possibly belong to Robin Hood's company; and therefore their learned proprietor would, doubtless, have seen the necessity of re-considering his explanations.[206] The resemblance between the two ancient representations is sufficiently remarkable to warrant a conjecture that the window has been originally executed by some foreign artist; and that the panes with the English friar, the hobby-horse, and the may-pole have been since added.
Mr. Waldron has informed us that he saw in the summer of 1783, at Richmond in Surrey, a troop of morris dancers from Abingdon, accompanied by a fool in a motley jacket, who carried in his hand a staff about two feet long, with a blown bladder at the end of it, with which he either buffeted the crowd to keep them at a proper distance from the dancers, or played tricks for the diversion of the spectators. The dancers and the fool were Berkshire husbandmen taking an annual circuit to collect money.[207] Mr. Ritson too has noticed that morris dancers are yet annually seen in Norfolk, and make their constant appearance in Lancashire. He has also preserved a newspaper article respecting some morris dancers of Pendleton, who paid their annual visit to Salford, in 1792;[208] and a very few years since, another company of this kind was seen at Usk in Monmouthshire, which was attended by a boy Maid Marian, a hobby-horse, and a fool. They professed to have kept up the ceremony at that place for the last three hundred years. It has been thought worth while to record these modern instances, because it is extremely probable that from the present rage for refinement and innovation, there will remain, in the course of a short time, but few vestiges of our popular customs and antiquities.
FOOTNOTES:
[156] This will hereafter appear to be a mistake.
[157] Strutt's _Sports and pastimes of the people of England_, p. 171.
[158] Hist. of Musick, vol. iv. 388, by Sir John Hawkins, who was clearly of opinion that the morris dance was derived from the Moors.
[159] Etymologicum Anglicanum. In further corroboration of this deduction of the morris dance, the following words may be adduced; MORESQUE a kind of grotesque painting, sometimes called Arabesque, and used in embroidery and damasking. MORISCLE, and MOURICLE, a gold coin used in Spain by the Moors, and called in the barbarous Latin of the fourteenth century _morikinus_. See Carpentier, _Suppl. ad glossar._ _Ducangian._ v. _Morikinus._ MORRIS WAX, called likewise _mores wax_, in the _Garbelling of spices_, 1594, 4to. To these the _morris-pike_ may perhaps be added. It is probable that the English terms _morris_ and _morice_ have been corrupted from _mores_, the older and more genuine orthography.
[160] Tabourot _Orchesographie_, 1589, 4to, p. 97, where the several postures of this dance are described and represented. The Pyrrhic dance appears to have travelled from Greece into the north. See Olaus Magnus, _De gentibus septentrionalibus_, lib. xv. c. 23, 24, 25, 26, 27.
[161] It is remarkable that the same practice should be found in the island of Ceylon. Knox tells us that "A woman takes two naked swords, under each arm one, and another she holds in her mouth, then fetcheth a run and turns clean over, and never touches the ground till she lights on her feet again holding all her swords fast."--_Hist. of Ceylon_, p. 99.
[162] Wise's _Enquiries concerning the first inhabitants, language, &c. of Europe_, p. 51.
[163] Jean Tabourot, canon and official of the cathedral of Lengres, published his _Orchesographie et traicté en forme de dialogue par lequel toutes personnes peuvent facilement apprendre et practiquer l'honneste exercice des dances_, 1589, 4to, under the anagrammatized name of _Thoinot Arbeau_. He died in 1595, at the age of 66. His work is equally curious and uncommon.
[164] But the French morris can be traced to a much earlier period. Among other instances of the prodigality of Messire Gilles de Raiz, in 1440, _morris dancers_ are specified. Lobineau, _Hist. de Bretagne_, ii. 1069. In the accounts of Olivier le Roux, treasurer to Arthur III. duke of Bretagne in 1457, is this article: "à certains compaignons qui avoient fait plusieurs esbatemens de _morisques_ et autres jeux devant le due à Tours, vi. escus."--Id. 1205. At a splendid feast given by Gaston de Foix at Vendôme in 1458, "foure yong laddes and a damosell attired like savages daunced (by good direction) an excellent _Morisco_, before the assembly."--Favines _Theater of honour_, p. 345; and see Carpentier, _Suppl. ad glossar._ _Ducangian._ v. _Morikinus._ Coquillart, a French poet, who wrote about 1470, says that the Swiss danced the _Morisco_ to the beat of the drum. _Œuvres_, p. 127.