note him to be a fquire minftrel, or a minfirel of the fuperior order. Chaucer, 1721, p. 181, fays: "Minstrels used a red hat." Tom Piper's bonnet is red, faced or turned up with yellow, his doublet blue, the fleeves blue, turned up with yellow, fomething like red muffettees at his wrifts, over his doublet is a red garment, like a short cloak with arm-holes, and with a yellow cape, his hose red, and garnished across and perpendicularly on the thighs, with a narrow yellow lace. This ornamental trimming feems to be called gimp-thigh'd in Grey's edition of Butler's Hudibras; and fomething almoft fimilar occurs in Love's Labour's Loft, A&t IV. fc. ii. where the poet mentions, "Rhimes are guards on wanton Cupid's hofe." His shoes are brown.

Figures 10. and 11. have been thought to be Flemings or Spaniards, and the latter a Morisco. The bonnet of figure 10. is red, turned up with blue, his jacket red with red fleeves down the arms, his ftomacher white with a red lace, his hofe yellow, flriped across or rayed with blue, and spotted blue, the under part of his hose blue, his shoes are pinked, and they are of a light colour. I am at a loss to name the pennant-like flips waving from his shoulders, but I will venture to call them fide-fleeves or long fleeves, flit into two or three parts. The poet Hocclive or Occleve, about the reign of Richard the Second, or of Henry the Fourth, mentions fide-sleeves of pennyless grooms, which swept the ground ; and do not the two following quotations infer the ufe or fashion of two pair of fleeves upon one gown or doublet? It is afked in the appendix to Bulwer's Artificial Changeling: "What use is there of any other than arming fleeves, which aufwer the proportion of the arm?" In Much Ado about Nothing, Act III. fc. iv. a lady's gown is described with down-fleeves, and fide-fleeves, that is, as I conceive it, with fleeves down the arms, and with another pair, of fleeves, flit open before from the shoulder to the bottom or almoft to the bottom, and by this means unfuftained by the arms and hanging down by her fides to the ground or as low as her gown. If fuch fleeves were flit downwards into four parts, they would be quartered; and Holinshed fays: "that at a royal mummery, Henry VIII. and fifteen others appeared in Almain jackets, with long quartered fleeves;" and I confider the bipartite or tripartite fleeves of figures 10. and 11. as only a small variation of that fashion. Mr. Steevens thinks the winged fleeves of figures 10. and 11. are alluded to in Beaumont and Fletcher in The Pilgrim :

66

That fairy rogue that haunted me

"He has fleeves like dragon's wings."

And he thinks that from these perhaps the fluttering ftreamers of the present Morris dancers in Suffex may be derived. Markham's Art of Angling, 1635, orders the angler's apparel to be "without hanging fleeves, waving loose, like fails.”

VOL. XII.

E e

Figure 11. has upon his head a filver coronet, a purple cap with a red feather, and with a golden knop. In my opinion he perfonates a nobleman, for I incline to think that various ranks of life were meant to be reprefented upon my window. He has a post of honour, or, 66 a ftation in the valued file, which here seems to be the middle row, and which according to my conjecture comprehends the queen, the king, the May-pole, and the nobleman. The golden crown upon the head of the master of the hobby-horse, denotes pre-eminence of rank over figure 11. not only by the greater value of the metal, but by the superior number of points raifed upon it. The shoes are blackish, the hofe red, ftriped acrofs or rayed with brown or with a darker red, his codpiece yellow, his doublet yellow, with yellowde fleeves, and red arming fleeves, or down-fleeves. The form of his doublet is remarkable. There is great variety in the dreffes and attitudes of the Morris dancers on the window, but an ocular obfervation will give a more accurate idea of this and of other particulars than a verbal defcription.

Figure 12. is the counterfeit fool, that was kept in the royal palace, and in all great houses, to make sport for the family. He appears with all the badges of his office; the bauble in his hand, and a coxcomb hood with affes ears on his head. The top of the hood rifes into the form of a cock's neck and head, with a bell at the latter; and Minsheu's Dictionary, 1627, under the word cock's comb, obferves, that "natural idiots and fools have (accuftomed) and ftill do accuftome themselves to weare in their cappes cocke's feathers or a hat with a necke and a head of a cocke on the top, and a bell thereon," &c. His hood is blue, guarded or edged with yellow at its fcalloped bottom, his doublet is red, striped across or rayed with a deeper red, and edged with yellow, his girdle yellow, his left fide hofe yellow, with a red shoe, and his right fide hose blue, foled with red leather. Stowe's Chronicle, 1614, p. 899, mentions a pair of cloth-ftockings foled with white leather called "cashambles, that is, "Chauffes femelles de cuir," as Mr. Anftis, on the Knighthood of the Bath, obferves. The fool's bauble and the carved head with affes ears upon it are all yellow. There is in Olaus Magnus, 1555, p. 524, a delineation of a fool, or jefter, with feveral bells upon his habit, with a bauble in his hand, and he has on his head a hood with affes ears, a feather, and the resemblance of the comb of a cock. Such jefters feem to have been formerly much careffed by the northern nations,

The right hand file is the firft in dignity and account, or in degree of value, according to Count Mansfield's Directions of War, 1624. The ancient kings of France wore gilded helmets, the dukes and Counts wore filvered ones. See Selden's Titles of Honour for the raifed points of Coronets.

especially in the court of Denmark; and perhaps our ancient jocu lator regis might mean fuch a person.

A gentleman of the highest class in hiftorical literature, apprehends, that the representation upon my window is that of a Morris dance proceffion about a May-pole; and he inclines to think, yet with many doubts of its propriety in a modern painting, that the perfonages in it rank in the bouftrophedon form. By this arrangement (fays he) the piece feems to form a regular whole, and the train is begun and ended by a fool in the following manner: Figure 12. is the well-known fool. Figure 11. is a Morifco, and figure 10. a Spaniard, perfons peculiarly pertinent to the Morris dance; and he remarks that the Spaniard obviously forms a fort of middle term betwixt the Moorish and the English characters, having the great fantaftical fleeve of the one, and the laced ftomacher of the other. Figure 9. is Tom the Piper. Figure 8. the May pole. Then follow the English characters, representing as he apprehends, the five great ranks of civil life. Figure 7. is the franklin, or private gentleman. Figure 6. is a plain churl or villane. He takes figure 5. the man within the hobby-horfe, to be perhaps a Moorish king, and from many circumftances of fuperior, grandeur plainly pointed out as the greatest perfonage of the piece, the monarch of the May, and the intended confort of our English Maid Marian. Figure 4. is a nobleman. Figure 5. the friar, the representative of all the clergy. Figure 2. is Maid Marian, queen of May. Figure 1. the leffer fool clofes the rear.

My defcription commences where this concludes, or I have reverfed this gentleman's arrangement, by which in either way the train begins and ends with a fool; but I will not affert that fuch a difpofition was defignedly obferved by the painter.

With regard to the antiquity of the painted glass there is no memorial or traditional account tranfmitted to us; nor is there any date in the room but this, 1621, which is over a door, and which indicates in my opinion the year of building the houfe. The book of Sports or lawful Recreations upon Sunday after Evening-prayers, and upon Holy-days, published by King James in 1618, allowed May-games, Morris dances, and the setting up of May-poles; and, as Ben Jonfon's Mafque of The Metamorphofed Gypfies, intimates, that Maid Marian, and the friar, together with the often forgotten hobby-horse, were fometimes continued in the Morris dance as late as the year 1621, I once thought that the glafs might be ftained about that time; but my present objections to this are the following ones. It seems from the prologue to the play of King Henry VIII. that Shakspeare's fools should be dreffed" in a long motley coat guarded with yellow;" but the fool upon my window is not fo habited; and he has upon his head a hood, which I apprehend might be the coverture of the fool's head before the days of Shakspeare, when it was a cap with a comb like a cock's, as

both Dr. Warburton and Dr. Johnfon affert, and they feem justified in doing fo from King Lear's fool giving Kent his cap, and calling it his coxcomb. I am uncertain, whether any judgement can be formed from the manner of spelling the infcrolled inscription upon the May-pole, upon which is displayed the old banner of England, and not the union flag of Great Britain, or St. George's red cross and St. Andrew's white crofs joined together, which was ordered by King James in 1606, as Stowe's Chronicle certifies. Only one of the doublets has buttons, which I conceive were common in Queen Elizabeth's reign; nor have any of the figures ruffs, which fashion commenced in the latter days of Henry VIII. and from their want of beards alfo I am inclined to fuppofe they were delineated before the year 1535, when "King Henry VIII. commanded all about, his court to poll their heads, and caufed his own to be polled, and his beard to be notted, and no more shaven." Probably the glass was painted in his youthful days, when he delighted in Maygames, unless it may be judged to be of much higher antiquity by almoft two centuries.

Such are my conjectures upon a subject of fo much obfcurity; but it is high time to resign it to one more converfant with the history of our ancient dreffes. FOLLET.