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Maid Marian was sole sovereign, or queen of the May.

Mr. Douce observes, in a dissertation on the ancient English morris dance, at the end of his "Illustrations of Shakspeare, and of Ancient Manners," that both English and foreign glossaries uniformly ascribe the origin of this dance to the Moors; although the genuine Moorish, or Morisco dance, was, no doubt, very different from the European morris. Strutt cites a passage from the play of "Variety, 1649," in which the Spanish morisco is mentioned and this, Mr. Douce adds, not only shows the legitimacy of the term morris, but that the real and uncorrupted Moorish dance was to be found in Spain, where it still continues to delight both natives and foreigners under the name of the Fandango. The Spanish morrice was also danced at puppet-shows, by a person habited like a Moor, with castagnets; and Junius has informed us that the morris dancers usually blackened their faces with soot, that they might the better pass for Moors. Having noticed the corruption of the "Pyrrhica Saltatio" of the ancients, and the uncorrupted morris dance, as practised in France about the beginning of the thirteenth century, Mr. Douce says, "It has been supposed that the morris dance was first brought into England in the time of Edward III., when John of Gaunt returned from Spain, but it is much more probable that we had it from our Gallic neighbours, or even from the Flemings. Few if any vestiges of it can be traced beyond the reign of Henry VII., about which time, and particularly in that of Henry VIII., the churchwardens' accounts in several parishes afford materials that throw much light on the subject, and show that the morris dance made a very considerable figure in the parochial festivals. We find also," Mr. Douce continues," that other festivals and ceremonies had their morris; as, holy Thursday; the Whitsun ales; the bride ales, or weddings; and a sort of play, or pageant, called the lord of misrule. Sheriffs, too, had their morris dance. It is by no means clear that, at any time, Robin Hood and his companions were constituent characters in the morris."

Shakspeare makes mention of an English whitsun morrice dance, in the following speech of the dauphin in Henry V.

"No, with no more, than if we heard that England

Were busied with a whitsun morrice daunce."

The following description of a morris dance occurs in "Cobbe's Prophecies, his Signes and Tokens, his Madrigalls, Questions and Answers, 1614."

It was my hap of late, by chance,
To meet a country morris dance,
When, cheefest of them all, the foole
Plaied with a ladle-

When every younger shak't his bells-
And fine maid Marian, with her smoile,
Shew'd how a rascall plaid the roile
But, when the hobby-horse did wihy,
Then all the wenches gave a tihy:
But when they gan to shake their boxe,
And not a goose could catch a foxe,
The piper then put up his pipes,
And all the woodcocks look't like snipes, &c.

In Cotgrave's "English Treasury of
Wit and Language, 1655," we read,-
How they become the morris, with whose
bells

They ring all in to Whitson ales, and sweat
Through twenty scarfs and napkins, till the
hobby-horse

Tire, and the maid Marian, resolv'd to jelly,
Be kept for spoon-meat.

In relating particulars concerning morris dancing, reference must be had to a circumstantial and mirthful tract, printed in 1609, entitled "OLD MEG OF HEREFORDSHIRE, for a MAYD MARIAN, and Hereford Towne for a MORRIS DAUNCE; or, TWELVE MORRIS DAUNCERS in Herefordshire of TWELVE HUNDRED YEARS

OLD."

To proceed orderly,-after the titlepage comes the following dedication.— "To that renowned Ox-leach, OLD HALL, Taborer of Herefordshire, and to his most invincible, weather-beaten, NUTBROWNE TABER, being alreadie old and sound, threescore yeares and upward.-To thee (old Hall), that for thy Age and Art mightest haue cured an Oxe that was eaten at Saint Quintins, that for thy warlike musicke mightest haue strucke up at Bullen, when great Drummes wore broken heades, thy little continuall Taber, had beene enough to haue put spirit into all the Souldiers: Now Tweire-pipe that famous Southren Taberer with the Cowleyan windpipe, who for whuling hath beene famous through the Globe of the world, did neuer gain such renowne and credite by his pipe and Taber, as thou (old Hall) by striking up to these twelue hundred yeares Moris-dauncers: Nor art thou alone (sweet Hall) a most exquisite Taber-man, but an excellent Oxe-leach,

and canst pleasure thy neighbours. The people of Herefordshire are beholding to thee, thou giuest the men light hearts by thy Pype, and the women light heeles by thy Taber: O wonderful Pyper, O admirable Taber-man, make use of thy worth, euen after death, that art so famously worthy in thy life, both for thy age, skill, and thy vnbruized Taber, who these threescore yeares has kept-sound and vncrackt-neither lost her first voyce, or her fashion: once for the Countryes pleasure imitate that Bohemian Zisca, who at his death gaue his Souldiers a strict command, to flea his skin off, and couer a Drum with it, that alive and dead, he might sound like a terror in the eares of his enemies: so thou, sweete Hereford Hall, bequeath in thy last will thy Velom-spotted skin, to couer Tabors: at the sound of which to set all the shires a dauncing."

After this merry dedication, the account begins thus jocundly :-"The courts of kings for stately measures: the city for light heels, and nimble footing: the country for shuffling dances: western men for gambols: Middlesex men for tricks aboue ground: Essex men for the hay: Lancashire for hornpipes: Worcestershire for bagpipes: but Herefordshire for a morris dance, puts down, not only all Kent, but very near (if one had line enough to measure it) three quarters of Christendom. Neuer had Saint Sepulchres a truer ring of bells: neuer did any silk-weauer keep brauer time with the knocke of the heel: neuer had the dauncing horse a better tread of the toe: neuer could Beuerley fair giue money to a more sound taborer, nor euer had Robin Hood a more deft Mayd-Marian."

Thus much for the honor of Herefordshire. The preceding paragraphs afford a specimen of the orthography, and the succeeding extracts, duly abbreviated, or with the spelling modernized, will give a fair notion of this remarkable performance" Understand therefore-that in the merriest month of the year, which last did take his leave of us, and in that month, as some report, lords went a Maying, the spring brought forth, just about that time, a number of knights, esquires, and gallants, of the best sort, from many parts of the land, to meet at a horse-race near Hereford, in Herefordshire.

The

horses having, for that year, run themselves well nigh ot ouf breath, wagers of great sums, according to the fashion of such

pastimes, being won and lost, and the sports growing to the end, and shutting up, some wit, riper than the rest, fed the stomachs of all men, then and there present, with desire and expectation of a more fresh and lively meeting in the same place, to be performed this year of 1609. The ceremonies which their meeting was to stand upon were these, that every man should engage himself, under his hand, to bring, this present year, to the place appointed, running horses for the race, cocks of the game, to maintain battles, &c., with good store of money, to fly up and down between those that were to lay wagers. He that first gave fire to this sociable motion, undertook to bring a hobby-horse to the race, that should outrun all the nags which were to come thither, and hold out in a longer race."

When the time arrived-" Expectation did within few days make Hereford town show like the best peopled city. Inns were lodgings for lords: Baucis and Philæmon's house (had it stood there) would have been taken up for a knight. The streets swarmed with people-staring and joyfully welcoming whole bravies of gallants, who came bravely flocking on horseback, like so many lusty adventurers. Bath made her waters to boil up, and swell like a spring-tide, with the overflowing of her own tears, to see her dearest guests leave her for the love of a horserace at Hereford,-the number of them being at least two or three hundred. Amongst many of the better ranks, these marched with the foremost ;-lord Herbert, of Ragland, sir Thomas Somerset, Charles Somerset, count Arundel's two sons, sir Edward Swift, sir Thomas Mildemay, sir Robert Yaxley, sir Robert Carey, sir John Philpot, sir Ed. Lewes, sir Francis Lacon, sir James Scudamore, sir Thomas Cornwall, sir Robert Boderham, sir Thomas Russell, sir Bascarvile, sir Thomas Conisby, sir George Chute.These were but a small handful to those rich heaps that there were gathered together. But by these, that had the honor to be the leaders, you may guess what numbers were the followers."

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At the appointed day "there was as much talking, and as much preparation, for the hobby-horse promised the last year, as about dietting the fairest gelding this year upon whose head the heaviest wagers were laid.--To perform a race of greater length, of greater labor, and yet in shorter time, and by feeble, unexercised, and

unapt creatures, that would be an honor to him that undertook it, that would be to Herefordshire a glory, albeit it might seem an impossibility.-Age is nobody, in trials of the body, when youth is in place; it gives the other the bucklers: it stands and gives aim, and is content to see youth act, while age sits but as a spectator, because the one does but study and play over the parts, which the other hath discharged in this great and troublesome theatre. It was therefore now plotted to lay the scene in age, to have the old comedy presented, fathers to be the actors, and beardless boys the spectators. So phocles, because he was accused of imbecility and dotage, should rehearse his Edipus Coloneus, while the senate, and his own wild-brain sons, stood by, and were the audience: and, to set out this scene with mirth as well as with wonder, the state of the whole act was put into a morris-dance."

Now, then, to set forth these performers and their show-as nearly as may be in the language of the old narrator

The Morris and its officers.

Two musicians were appointed to strike up, and to give the alarm: the one of them (Squire of Hereford) was a squire born, and all his sons squires in their cradles. His instrument, a treble violin, upon which he played any old lesson that could be called for: the division he made on the strings being more pleasing than the diapason. "In skill he outshines blind Moone, of London, and hath outplayed more fiddlers than now sneak up and down into all the taverns there. They may all call him their father, or, if you reckon the years rightly which are scored upon his head, the musicians grandsire, for this tuneable squire is 108 years old." Next to him went old Harrie Rudge, the taborer. "This was old Hall of Hereford; the waits of three metropolitan cities make not more music than he can with his pipe and tabor, if, at least, his head be hard-braced with nappie ale. This noble old Hall, seeing that Apollo was both a fidler and a quack-salver, being able to cure diseases, as well as to harp upon one string, would needs be free of two companies as well (that is to say), the sweet company of musicians, and that other, which deals in salves and plasters; for he both beats a tabor with good judgment, and (with better) can help an ox if he find himself ill at ease. The wood of this old

Hall's tabor should have been made a pail to carry water in, at the beginning of king Edward the sixth's reign: but Hall, being wise, because he was even then reasonably well stricken in years, saved it from going to the water, and converted it, in those days, to a tabor. So that his tabor hath made bachelors and lasses dance round about the May pole threescore summers, one after another in order, and is yet not worm-eaten. And noble Hall himself hath stood (like an oak) in all storms, by the space of fourscore and seventeen winters, and is not yet falling to the ground."

:

Whifflers.-The marshals of the field were four these had no great stomach to dance in the morris, but took upon them the office of whifflers. 1. Thomas Price of Clodacke, a subsidy man, and one upon whose cheeks age had written 105 years. 2. Thomas Andros of Begger Weston, a subsidy man; for he carried upon his back the weighty burden of 108 years, and went away with them lightly. 3. William Edwards of Bodenham (his name is in the king's books likewise), and unto him had time also given the use of 108 years and, besides the blessings of so many years, the comfort of a young wife, and, by that wife, a child of six years old.

4. John Sanders of Wolford,

an ironworker; the hardness of which labor carried him safely over the high hill of old age, where she bestowed upon him 102 years. These four whifflers, casting up what all their days which they had spent in the world could make, found that they amounted to 423 years; so that if the rest of their dancing brother-hood had come short of their account, and could not (every man) make up one hundred years, these offered were able to lend them three and twenty years; but the others had enough of their own, and needed not to borrow of any man.

See how the morris-dancers bestir their legs. Lift up your eyes, leap up behind their heads that stand before you, or else get upon stalls, for I hear their bells, and behold, here they come.

1. Of twelve in the whole team, the foreman was James Tomkins, of Lengerren, a gentleman by birth, neither loved of fortune, nor hated of her; for he was never so poor as to be pitied, nor ever so rich as to be envied; when fourscore and eighteen years old he married a wife of two and fifty years old; “she brought him a child that is now eight years old (living),

the father himself having now the glass of his life running to fill up the full number of 106 yeares.'

2. After him comes, lustily dancing, John Willis, of Dormington, a bonesetter, his dancing fit to his weight of ninety-seven years. "His purpose in being one of the Morris was both honest and charitable; for he bestowed his person upon them, with intent to be ready at hand if any dislocation should be wrought upon any joynt in his old companions by fetching lofty tricks-which by all means possible they were sworn to avoid."

3. Room for little Dick Phillips, of Middleton-how nimbly he shakes his heels! Well danced old heart of oak; and yet, as little as he seems, his courage is as big as the hobby-horses, for the fruits of his youth, gathered long agon, are not yet withered. His eldest son is at this present four score years of age, and his second son may now reckon three score; at our lady-day last he made up the years of his life just 102.

4. Now falls into his right place William Waiton, of Marden, with 102 years at his heels. "He was an old fisher; and of a clean man, an excellent fowler."

5. Here slips in William Mosse, who, contrary to his name, had no moss at his heels. He bears the age of 106.

"He

6. Now cast your eyes upon Thomas Winney, of Holmer, an honest subsidy man, dwelling close by the town. dances with 100 years about him, wheresoever he goes, if the church yard and eramp take him not."

7. But how like you John Lace, of Madley, a tailor, and an excellent name for it? "In his youth he was a hosierborn before the dissension between cloth breeches and velvet breeches, he carries four score and seventeen summers about him, and faine would borrow three years of James Tomkins [the foreman] to make him an hundred; and James may very well spare them, and yet leave three toward the interest."

8. But what say you to John Careless? "You let him passe by you, and seem as careless as he, a man of four score and sixteen at Midsummer next, he hath been a dweller in Homlacie three score years and two, and known to be a tall man, till now he begins to be crooked, but for a body and a beard he becomes any Morris in Christendom."

9. At the heels of him follows his fellow William Maio, of Egelton, an old

soldier, and now a lusty laborer and a tall man. "Forty years since, being grievously wounded, he carried his liver and his lights home half a mile, and you may still put your finger into them but for a thin skin over them; and for all these. storms he arrives at four score and seventeen, and dances merrily."

10. But look you who comes-“ John Hunt, the HOBBY-HORSE, wanting but three of an hundred, 'twere time for him to forget himself, and sing but O, nothing but O, the hobby-horse is forgotten; the Maidmarian, following him, offers to lend him seven years more, but if he would take up ten in the hundred his company are able to lend them."

11. But now give way for the MAID MARIAN, old " Meg Goodwin, the famous wench of Erdistand, of whom Master Weaver, of Burton, that was four score and ten years old, was wont to say, she was twenty years older than he, and he died ten years since. This old Meg was at Prince Arthur's death, at Ludlow, and had her part in the dole; she was three score years (she saith) a maid, and twenty years otherwise, that's what you will, and since hath been thought fit to be a Maidmarian-at the age of 120.

12. Welcome John Mando-he was born at Cradly, a very good two hand sword man, of the age of 100, on black Monday last, and serves in place of Morgan Deede, who climbs to that age within four years, here present dwelling in the town, but, he has a great desire to keep his bed and be spared.

These eighteen persons, the fidler, the taborer, the four whifflers, and the twelve dancers in this morris, carried about them 1837 years. "And for a good wager it were easy to find, in Herefordshire, four hundred persons more, within three years over or under an hundred years; yet the shire is no way four and twenty miles over."

For the fashion observed amongst the musicians, and the habit of the dancers, take a view of both. "The musicians and the twelve dancers, had long coats of the old fashion, high sleeves gathered at the elbows, and hanging sleeves behind; the stuff, red buffin, striped with white, girdles with white, stockings white, and red roses to their shoes; the one six, a white jews cap with a jewel, and a long red feather; the other, a scarlet jews cap, with a jewel and a white feather; so the hobby-horse, and so the maid-marian was

attired in colours; the whifflers had long staves, white and red.-After the dance was ended, diverse courtiers that won wagers at the race, took those colours and wore them in their hats."

The Speech before the Morris.

Ye servants of our mighty king,

That came from court one hundred mile
To see our race, and sport this spring;
Ye are welcome, that is our country stile,
And much good do you, we are sorry
That Hereford hath no better for you.

A horse, a cock, trainsents, a bull,
Primero, gleek, hazard, mumchance;
These sports through time are grown so dull,
As good to see a Morris dance;
Which sport was promised in jest,
But paid as truly as the rest.

A race (quoth you) behold a race,
No race of horses but of men,

Men born not ten miles from this place,
Whose courses outrun hundreds ten.
A thousand years on ten men's backs,
And one supplies what other lacks.

Lenvoy.

This is the Lenvoy (you may gather)
Gentlemen, yeomen, grooms, and
pages,
Lets pray, Prince Henry and his father
May outlive all these ten men's ages.
And he that mocks this application,
Is but a knave past reformation.

After this speech, "old Hall struck up, and the Morris-dancers fell to footing, whilst the whifflers in their office made room for the hobby-horse."

The narrative concludes, by inquiring -"And how do you like this Morrisdance of Herefordshire? Are they not brave old youths? Have they not the right footing, the true tread, comely lifting up one leg, and active bestowing of the other. Kemp's morris to Norwich* was no more to this than a gaillaird, on a common stage, at the end of an old dead comedy, is to a coranto danced on the ropes. Here is a dozen of younkers, that have hearts of oak at four score years, backs of steel at four score and ten, ribs of iron at a hundred, bodies sound as bells, and healthful (according to the Russian proverb) as an ox, when they are travelling down the hill, to make that 120. These shewed in their dancing, and moving up and down, as if Mawlborne hills, in the very depth of winter-all their heads covered with snow-shook and danced at some earthquake. Shall any

Another Morris-dance of ancient celebrity.

man lay blame on these good old fathers, because at such years they had not spent all their wild oats? No, we commend (as Tully saith) a young man, that smells somewhat of the old signior, and can but counterfeit gravity in his cheeks; and shall we not heave up with praises an old man, that at 108 years end, can rake his dead embers abroad, and show some coals of the Justy Juventus glowing in him even then? Such an old mad cap deserves better to be the stuffing of a chronicle, than Charing Cross does for loosing his rotten head, which (through age being wind shaken) fell off, and was trod upon in contempt. Were old Stowe alive, here were taboring work enough for his pen; but, howsoever, so memorable a monument of man shall not wither in oblivion, if the sweet April showers, which drop from the Muses' water, can make it grow up and flourish. -A dishonor were it to poets and all pen-men, if acts of this worth should not encomiastically be celebrated and recorded.-Oh! if all the people in the kingdom sl.ould have their days stretched out to the length of these men, clerks and sextons might go and hang themselves in the bell ropes; they would have cold doings: prodigal heirs might beg, they should hardly find an almanac that would tell them when their lands should come

to their hands by the death of their fathers, for they themselves would have white beards before they could arrive at their full age. It were no hoping after dead men's shoes, for both upper leather and soles would be worn out to nothing. As great pity it were (O old Margaret, or rather new Mayd- Marion) that all men's wives (especially those that like dutch-watches have alarums in their mouths) should last so long as thou hast done: how would the world be plagued?-Alas! what do I see? Hold Taborer! stand Hobby-horse! Morris-dancers lend us your hands! Behold one of the nimble-legged old gallants is by chance fallen down, and is either so heavy, so weary, so inactive of himself, or else five of his fellows are of such little strength, that all their arms are put under him, as levers, to lift him up, yet the good old boys cannot set him on his feet. Let him not lie for shame, you that have, all this while, seen him dance, and though he be a little out of his part, in the very last act of all, yet hiss at nothing but rather-Summi Jovis causa plaudite."

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