4 SCENE II.- -"Sings psalms to hornpipes."

In the early days of psalmody it was not unusual to adapt the popular secular tunes to versions of the psalms, the rage for which originated in France. (See Warton's History of Poetry,' sec. xlv.)

5 SCENE II." Trol-my-dames."

Farmer quotes an old treatise on Buxton baths, in which, describing the amusements of the place, the writer says, "The ladies, gentlewomen, wives, maids, if the weather be not agreeable, may have in the end of a bench eleven holes made, into the which to troule pummits, either violent or soft, after their own discretion: the pastime troule in madame is termed." This is evidently the same game as our bagatelle, with the only difference that there are eleven holes instead of nine. In the bagatelle-board the balls are sometimes driven through the arches of a bridge which crosses it; and for this reason the game was anciently called Pigeon-holes, as well as Trou-madame. In Rowley's 'New Wonder' we have

"I am sure you cannot but hear what quicksands he finds out; as dice, cards, pigeon.

This personage was always a favourite with the English. We have representations of him in manuscripts as old as the thirteenth century; and in Shakspere's time he had lost none of his popularity. Jonson, in his Induction to Bartholo mew Fair,' says, "He has ne'er a sword-and-buckler man in his fair; nor a juggler with a well-educated ape to come over the chain for the king of England, and back again for the prince."

7 SCENE II." A motion of the prodigal son."

The puppet-show was anciently called a motion; and the subjects which were chosen for these exhibitions were mostly scriptural. In Jonson's humorous play which we have just quoted, the puppet-show professor says, "O the motions that I, Lanthorn Leatherhead, have given light to, in my time, since my master

VOL. IV.

H

Pod died! Jerusalem was a stately thing, and so was Nineveh, and the City of Norwich." The 'Spectator,' No. 14, speaking of Powell the puppet-show man, says, "There cannot be too great encouragement given to his skill in motions, provided he is under proper restrictions." Even in the days of Anne, these successors of the old Mysteries still presented scriptural subjects. Strutt, in his Sports and Pastimes,' has printed a Bartholomew Fair bill of that time, from which the following is an extract :

6

"At Crawley's booth, over against the Crown tavern in Smithfield, during the time of Bartholomew Fair, will be presented a little opera, called The Old Creation of the World,' yet newly revived; with the addition of Noah's Flood; also several fountains playing water during the time of the play. The last scene does present Noah and his family coming out of the ark, with all the beasts two and two, and all the fowls of the air seen in a prospect sitting upon trees; likewise over the ark is seen the sun rising in a most glorious manner: moreover, a multitude of angels will be seen in a double rank, which presents a double prospect, one for the sun, the other for a palace, where will be seen six angels ringing of bells."

8 SCENE II." Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way."

This is the first of three stanzas of a song which we do not meet with in print till 1661, when it appeared in The Antidote against Melancholy,' a collection of ballads, &c. We are told that it was set as a round for three voices by John Hilton, and so published in the first edition of his Catch that catch can,' an edition so rare that we have never been able to obtain a sight of it. The melody, however, is given in The Dancing-Master' of 1650, under the title of and is as follows, a base and accompaniment being now added to it, and the measure changed from six-crotchet time to six-quaver :---

6

Jog on, my honey,'

all

the

day, Your sad tires in a mile,

9 SCENE III.- -“ 0, Proserpina.”

The passage in the Fifth Book of Ovid's Metamorphoses' is thus translated by Golding, 1587 :

"While in this garden Proserpine was taking her pastime,

In gathering either violets blue, or lilies white as lime;

Dis spied her, lov'd her, caught her up, and all at once well near.

The lady with a wailing voice affright did often call

Her mother

And as she from the upper part her garment would have rent,

By chance she let her lap slip down, and out her flowers went.”

The fadings was a dance.

10 SCENE III." Fadings."

Malone quotes a song from 'Sportive Wit,' 1666,

which implies that it was a rustic dance:—

"The courtiers scorn us country clowns,

We country clowns do scorn the court;

We can be as merry upon the downs

It would appear also, from a letter appended to Boswell's edition of Malone, that it was an Irish dance, and that it was practised upon rejoicing occasions as recently as 1803, the date of the letter.

"The dance is called Rinca Fada, and means, literally, the long dance.' Though faed is a reed, the name of the dance is not borrowed from it; 'fada is the adjective, long, and rinca the substantive, dance.' In Irish the adjective follows the substantive, differing from the English construction; hence rinca fada: faeden is the diminutive, and means little reed; faeden is the first person of the verb to whistle, either with the lips or with a reed; i. e. I whistle.

"This dance is still practised on rejoicing occasions in many parts of Ireland. A king and queen are chosen from amongst the young persons who are the best dancers; the queen carries a garland composed of two hoops placed at right angles, and fastened to a handle; the hoops are covered with flowers and ribbons; you have seen it, I dare say, with the May-maids. Frequently in the course of the dance the king and queen lift up their joined hands as high as they can, she still holding the garland in the other. The most remote couple from the king and queen first pass under; all the rest of the line linked together follow in succession: when the last has passed, the king and queen suddenly face about and front their companions; this is often repeated during the dance, and the various undulations are pretty enough, resembling the movements of a serpent. The dancers on the first

of May visit such newly wedded pairs of a certain rank as have been married since last May-day in the neighbourhood, who commonly bestow on them a stuffed ball richly decked with gold and silver lace, (this I never heard of before,) and accompanied with a present in money, to regale themselves after the dance. This dance is practised when the bonfires are lighted up, the queen hailing the return of summer in a popular Irish song, beginning,

'Thuga mair sein lu souré ving.'

'We lead on summer-see! she follows in our train.'”

11 SCENE III." Poking-sticks of steel."

Stow tells us that "about the sixteenth year of the queen (Elizabeth) began the making of steel poking-sticks, and until that time all laundresses used setting-sticks made of wood or bone." The ruff itself, in the setting of which the poking-stick was used, (that of steel having the advantage of being heated,) is thus described by Stubbes, with his accustomed bitterness against the luxuries of his time :—

"The women use great ruffs, and neckerchers of holland, lawn, cambric, and such cloth as the greatest thread shall not be so big as the least hair that is; and lest they should fall down, they are smeared and starched in the devil's liquor, I mean starch; after that dried with great diligence, streaked, patted, and rubbed very nicely, and so applied to their goodly necks, and, withal, under-propped, with supporters (as I told you before), the stately arches of pride; beyond all this, they have a further fetch, nothing inferior to the rest, as namely, three or four degrees of minor ruffs, placed gradatim, one beneath another, and all under the master-devil ruff: the skirts then of these great ruffs are long and side every way plaited, and crested full curiously, God wot. Then, last of all, they are either clogged with gold, silver, or silk lace of stately price, wrought all over with needlework, speckled and sparkled here and there with the sun, the moon, the stars, and many other antiques, strange to behold. Some are wrought with open work down to the midst of the ruff and further; some with close work, some with purled lace so clogged, and other gewgaws so pestered, as the ruff is the least part of itself. Sometimes they are pinned up to their ears, sometimes they are suffered to hang over their shoulders, like windmill-sails fluttering in the wind, and thus every one pleaseth herself in her own foolish devices."

12 SCENE III." A pair of sweet gloves."

Autolycus has offered for sale

"Gloves as sweet as damask roses."

Howes, who continues Stow's Chronicle, thus describes the introduction of perfumed gloves in the early part of the reign of Elizabeth :

Milliners or haberdashers had not then any gloves embroidered, or trimmed with gold or silk, neither gold nor embroidered girdles and hangers; neither could they make any costly wash or perfume until, about the fourteenth or fifteenth year of the queen, the right honourable Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, came from Italy, and brought with him gloves, sweet bags, a perfumed leather jerkin, and other pleasant things; and that year the queen had a pair of perfumed gloves trimmed only with four tufts or roses of coloured silk. The queen took such pleasure in those gloves, that she was pictured with those gloves upon her hands, and for many years after it was called the Earl of Oxford's perfume."

13 SCENE III," Made themselves all men of hair."

The original stage-direction sufficiently explains this: "Here a dance of twelve satyrs." We find, from a book of songs composed by Thomas Ravenscroft and

others, in the time of Shakspere, that in this popular entertainment the satyrs had an appropriate roundel :

The satyrs' dance was not confined to England; and it has been rendered memorable by the fearful accident with which it was accompanied at the court of France in 1392. The description by Froissart of this calamity is so graphic that we are sure our readers will not regret the space which it occupies. We give it from Lord Berners' fine old translation:

"It fortuned that, soon after the retaining of the foresaid knight, a marriage was made in the king's house between a young knight of Vermandois and one of the queen's gentlewomen; and because they were both of the king's house, the king's uncles and other lords, ladies, and damoiselles, made great triumph: there was the Dukes of Orléans, Berry, and Bourgogne, and their wives, dancing and making great joy. The king made a great supper to the lords and ladies, and the queen kept her estate, desiring every man to be merry and there was a squire of Normandy, called Hogreymen Gensay, he advised to make some pastime. The day of the marriage, which was on a Tuesday before Candlemas, he provided for a mummery against night: he devised six coats made of linen cloth, covered with pitch, and thereon flax-like hair, and had them ready in a chamber. The king put on one of them, and the Earl of Jouy, a young lusty knight, another, and Sir Charles of Poitiers the third, who was son to the Earl of Valentenois, and Sir Juan of Foix another, and the son of the Lord Nanthorillet had on the fifth, and the squire himself had on the sixth; and when they were thus arrayed in these sad coats, and sewed fast in them, they seemed like wild woodhouses,* full of hair from the top of the head to the sole of the foot. This device pleased well the French king, and was well content with the squire for it. They were apparelled in these coats secretly in a chamber that no man knew thereof but such as helped them. When Sir Juan of Foix had well devised these coats, he said to the king,- Sir, command straightly that no man approach near us with any torch or fire, for if the fire fasten in any of these coats, we shall all be burnt without remedy.' The king answered and said,— 'Juan, ye speak well and wisely; it shall be done as ye have devised;' and incontinent sent for an usher of his chamber, commanding him to go into the chamber where the ladies danced, and to command all the varlets holding torches to stand up by the walls, and none of them to approach near to the woodhouses that should come thither to dance. The usher did the king's commandment, which was fulfilled. Soon after the Duke of Orléans entered into the hall, accompanied with four knights and six torches, and knew nothing of the king's commandment for the torches, nor of the mummery that was coming thither, but thought to behold the dancing, and began himself to dance. Therewith the king with the five other came in; they were so disguised in flax that no man knew them: five of them were fastened one to another; the king was loose, and went before and led the device.

"When they entered into the hall every man took so great heed to them that they forgot the torches: the king departed from his company and went to the ladies

* Savages.