puppet-plays, hobby-horses, tabors, crowds, bagpipes, &c., play at ball and barleybreaks, and what sports and recreations they like best!"* 66 From sunrise, then, upon a bright summer morning, are the country people in their holiday dresses hastening to Welford. It is the Baptist's day. There were some amongst them who had lighted the accustomed bonfires upon the hills on the vigil of the saint; and perhaps a maiden or two, clinging to the ancient superstitions, had tremblingly sat in the church-porch in the solemn twilight, or more daringly had attempted at midnight to gather the fern-seed which should make mortals 'walk invisible." Over the bridges at Binton come the hill people from Temple Grafton and Billesley. Arden pours out its scanty population from the woodland hamlets. Bidford and Barton send in their tribes through the flat pastures on either bank of the river. From Stratford there is a pleasant and not circuitous walk by the Avon's side, now leading through low meadows, now ascending some gentle knoll, where a long reach of the stream may be traced, and now close upon the sedges and alders, with a glimpse of the river sparkling through the green. "Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way, And merrily hent the stile-a: There is cordial welcome in The church-bells of Welford send forth a merry peal. every house. The tables of the Manor Hall are set out with a substantial English breakfast; and the farmer's kitchen emulates the same bounteous hospitality. In a little while the church-tower sends forth another note. A single bell tolls for matins. The church soon fills with a zealous congregation; not a seat is empty. The service for this particular feast is attended to with pious reverence; and when the people are invited to assist in its choral parts, they still show that, however the national taste for music may have been injured by the suppression of the chauntries, they are familiar with the fine old chaunts of their fathers, and can perform them with spirit and exactness, each according to his ability, but the most with some knowledge of musical science. The homily is ended. The sun shines glaringly through the white glass of this new church; and some of the Stratford people may think it fortunate that their old painted windows are not yet all removed. The dew is off the green that skirts the churchyard; the pipers and crowders are ready; the first dance is to be chosen. Thomas Heywood, one of Shakspere's pleasant contemporaries, has left us a dialogue which shows how embarrassing was such a choice: * 66 "Jack. Come, what shall it be? Rogero?' Jenkin. Rogero?' no; we will dance 'The beginning of the world.' Sisly. I love no dance so well as 'John, come kiss me now.' Nicholas. I have ere now deserv'd a cushion; call for the 'Cushion-dance.' Roger. For my part, like nothing so well as 'Tom Tyler.' Jenkin. No; we'll have 'The hunting of the fox.' Jack. The hay, The hay;' there's nothing like 'The hay.' Jenkin. Let me speak for all, and we'll have 'Sellenger's round.' "§ Anatomy of Melancholy," Part II., Sec. 2. "Winter's Tale," Act IV., Scene II. The music of this song is given in the "Pictorial Shakspere," and in Mr. Chappell's admirable collection of "English National Airs." We are indebted to Mr. Chappell for many of the facts connected with our ancient music noticed in the present chapter. "All images, shrines, tabernacles, roodlofts, and monuments of idolatry are removed, taken down, and defaced; only the stories in glass windows excepted, which for want of sufficient store of new stuff, and by reason of extreme charge that should grow by the alteration of the same into white panes throughout the realm, are not altogether abolished in most places at once, but by little and little suffered to decay, that white glass may be provided and set up in their rooms."-Harrison's "Description of England :" 1586. § "A Woman Killed with Kindness." 1600. Jenkin, who rejects "Rogero," is strenuous for "The Beginning of the World," and he carries his proposal by giving it the more modern name of "Sellenger's Round." The tune was as old as Henry VIII.; for it is mentioned in "The History of Jack of Newbury," by Thomas Deloney, whom Kemp called the great ballad-maker:"In comes a noise of musicians in tawny coats, who, taking off their caps, asked if they would have any music? The widow answered, 'No; they were merry enough.' 'Tut!' said the old man; ‘let us hear, good fellows, what you can do; and play me 'The Beginning of the World."" A quaint tune is this, by whatever name it be known-an air not boisterous in its character, but calm and graceful ;—a round dance "for as many as will;" who "take hands and go round twice, and back again,” with a succession of figures varying the circular movement, and allowing the display of individual grace and nimbleness :— "Each one tripping on his toe, Will be here with mop and mowe." The countryfolks of Shakspere's time put their hearts into the dance; and, as their ears were musical by education, their energy was at once joyous and elegant. Glad hearts are there even amongst those who are merely lookers-on upon this scene. The sight of happiness is in itself happiness; and there was real happiness in the "unreproved pleasures" of the youths and maidens 66 "Tripping the comely country-round With daffodils and daisies crown'd."† If Jenkin carried the voices for "Sellenger's Round," Sisly must next be gratified with "John, come kiss me now." Let it not be thought that Sisly called for a vulgar tune. This was one of the most favourite airs of Queen Elizabeth's "Virginal Book," and after being long popular in England it transmigrated into a "godly song" of Scotland. The tune is in two parts, of which the first part only is in the Virginal Book," and this is a sweet little melody full of grace and tenderness. The more joyous revellers may now desire something more stirring, and call for “Packington's Pound," as old perhaps as the days of Henry VIII., and which survived for a couple of centuries in the songs of Ben Jonson and Gay.‡ The controversy about players, pipers, and dancers has fixed the date of some of these old tunes, showing us to what melodies the young Shakspere might have moved joyously in a round or a galliard. Stephen Gosson, for example, sneers at "Trenchmore." But we know that "Trenchmore" was of an earlier date than Gosson's book. A writer who came twenty years after Gosson shows us that the "Trenchmore" was scarcely to be reckoned amongst the graceful dances: "In this case, like one dancing the 'Trenchmore,' he stamped up and down the yard, holding his hips in his hands."§ It was the leaping, romping dance, in which the exuberance of animal spirits delights. Burton says "We must dance Trenchmore' over tables, chairs, and stools." Selden has a capital passage upon "Trenchmore," showing us how the sports of the country were adopted by the Court, until the most boisterous of the dancing delights of the people fairly drove out "state and ancientry." He says, in his "Table Talk,” -"The Court of England is much altered. At a solemn dancing, first you had the grave measures, then the corantoes and the galliards, and this kept up with ceremony; and at length to Trenchmore' and the 'Cushion-dance:' then all the company dances, lord and groom, lady and kitchen-maid, no distinction. So in our † Herrick's "Hesperides." * "Tempest," Act IV., Scene II. See Ben Jonson's song in "Bartholomew Fair," beginning- Court in Queen Elizabeth's time, gravity and state were kept up; in King James's time things were pretty well; but in King Charles's time there has been nothing but 'Trenchmore,' and the 'Cushion-dance,' omnium gatherum, tolly polly, hoite come toite." It was in this spirit that Charles II. at a court ball called for "Cuckolds all arow," which he said was "the old dance of England.”* From its name, and its jerking melody, this would seem to be one of the country dances of parallel lines. They were each danced by the people; but the round dance must unquestionably have been the most graceful. Old Burton writes of it with a fine enthusiasm "Joan's Placket," the delightful old tune that we yet beat time to, when the inspiriting song of "When I followed a lass" comes across our memories,† would be a favourite upon the green at Welford; and surely he who in after-times said, "I did think by the excellent constitution of thy leg it was formed under the star of a galliard," might strive not to resist the attraction of the air of "Sweet Margaret,” and willingly surrender himself to the inspiration of its gentle and its buoyant movements. One dance he must take part in; for even the squire and the squire's lady cannot resist its charms,—the dance which has been in and out of fashion for two centuries and a half, and has again asserted its rights in England, in despite of waltz and quadrille. We all know, upon the most undoubted testimony, that the Sir Roger de Coverley who to the lasting regret of all mankind caught a cold at the County Sessions, and died in 1712, was the great-grandson of the worthy knight of Coverley, or Cowley, who " was inventor of that famous country-dance which is called after him,"§ with its graceful advancings and retirings, its bows and curtsies, its chain figures, its pretty knots unravelled in simultaneous movement. In vain for the young blood of 1580, might old Stubbes denounce peril to body and mind in his outcry against the "horrible vice of pestiferous dancing." The manner in which the first Puritans set about making people better, after the fashion of a harsh nurse to a froward child, was very remarkable. Stubbes threatens the dancers with lameness and broken legs, as well as with severer penalties; but, being constrained to acknowledge that dancing "is both ancient and general, having been used ever in all ages as well of the godly as of the wicked," he reconciles the matter upon the following principle :-" If it be used for man's comfort, recreation and godly pleasure, privately (every sex distinct by themselves), whether with music or otherwise, it cannot be but a very tolerable exercise." We doubt if this arrangement would have been altogether satisfactory to the young men and maidens at the Welford Wake, even if Philip Stubbes had himself appeared amongst them, with his unpublished manuscript in his pocket, to take the place of the pipers, crying out to them-" Give over, therefore, your occupations, you pipers, you fiddlers, you minstrels, and you musicians, you drummers, you tabretters, you fluters, and all other of that wicked brood."|| Neither, when the flowing cup was going round among the elders to song and story, would he have been much heeded, had he himself lifted up his voice, exclaiming, "Wherefore should the whole town, parish, village, and country, keep one and the same day, and make such gluttonous feasts as they do ?" ¶ One young man might have answered, "Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale ?"** CHARLCOTE: the name is familiar to every reader of Shakspere; but it is not presented to the world under the influence of pleasant associations with the world's poet. The story, which was first told by Rowe, must be here repeated: "An extravagance that he was guilty of forced him both out of his country, and that way of living which he had taken up; and though it seemed at first to be a blemish upon his good manners, and a misfortune to him, yet it afterwards happily proved the occasion of exerting one of the greatest geniuses that ever was known in dramatic poetry. He had, by a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill company, and, amongst them, some that made a frequent practice of deer-stealing engaged him more than once in robbing a park that belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlcote, near Stratford. For this he was prosecuted by that gentleman, as he thought, somewhat too severely; and, in order to revenge that ill usage, he made a ballad upon him. And though this, probably the first essay of his poetry, be lost, yet it is said to have been so very bitter, that it redoubled the prosecution against him to that degree, that he was obliged to leave his business and family in Warwick shire for some time, and shelter himself in London." * The good old gossip Aubrey is wholly silent about the deer-stealing and the flight to London, merely saying, "This William, being inclined naturally to poetry and acting, came to London, I guess about eighteen." But there were other antiquarian gossips of Aubrey's age, who have left us their testimony upon this subject. The Reverend William Fulman, a fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, who died in 1688, bequeathed his papers to the Reverend Richard Davies of Sandford, Oxfordshire; and on the death of Mr. Davies, in 1708, these papers were deposited in the library of Corpus Christi. Fulman appears to have made some collections for the biography of our English poets, and under the name Shakspere he gives the dates of his birth and death. But Davies, who added notes to his friend's manuscripts, affords us the following piece of information: "Much given to all unluckiness, in stealing venison and rabbits; particularly from Sir Lucy, who had him oft whipped, and sometimes imprisoned, and at last made him fly his native country, to his great advancement. But his revenge was so great, that he is his Justice Clodpate and calls him a great man, and that, in allusion to his name, bore three louses rampant for his arms.” The accuracy of this chronicler, as to events supposed to have happened a hundred years before he wrote, may be inferred from his correctness in what was accessible to him. Justice Clodpate is a new character; and the three louses rampant have diminished strangely from the "dozen white luces" of Master Slender. In Mr. Davies's account we have no mention of the ballad-through which, according to Rowe, the young poet revenged his "ill usage." But Capell, the editor of Shakspere, found a new testimony to that fact: "The writer of his 'Life,' the first modern, [Rowe] speaks of a 'lost ballad,' which added fuel, he says, to the knight's beforeconceived anger, and 'redoubled the prosecution;' and calls the ballad 'the first essay of Shakespeare's poetry:' one stanza of it, which has the appearance of genuine, was put into the editor's hands many years ago by an ingenious gentleman (grandson of its preserver), with this account of the way in which it descended to him: Mr. Thomas Jones, who dwelt at Tarbick, a village in Worcestershire, a few miles from Stratford-on-Avon, and died in the year 1703, aged upwards of ninety, remembered to have heard from several old people at Stratford the story of Shakespeare's robbing Sir Thomas Lucy's park; and their account of it agreed with Mr. Rowe's, with this addition—that the ballad written against Sir Thomas by Shakespeare was stuck upon his park-gate, which exasperated the knight to apply to a lawyer at Warwick to proceed against him. Mr. Jones had put down in writing the first stanza of the ballad, which was all he remembered of it, and Mr. Thomas Wilkes (my grandfather) transmitted it to my father by memory, who also took it in writing." The first stanza of the ballad which Mr. Jones put down in writing as all he remembered of it, has been so often reprinted, that we can scarcely be justified in omitting it. It is as follows: But the tradition sprang up in another quarter. Mr. Oldys, the respectable anti * " Some Account of the Life of William Shakespear, written by Mr. Rowe." |