skill on the boards of the Parisian opera, which is thus described.

Hark! hark! what prodigy their transports hushes,
Ajax again across the welkin rushes;-

So fluent spins, so voluble he wheels,

Th' unconscious floor his touch no longer feels;
With nice precision and with just command,

Through air he steers, and scarcely deigns to land;—
Terpsichore exults, nay, all the nine

Lean from their boxes and exclaim "divine!"
Apollo, bending from the lofty dome,

Prepares to snatch him to the heavenly home,
With silver fingers sweeps the golden lyre,
And breathes o'er all his frame ethereal fire.-
Now both the heroes, with extended toe,
On the loose air their weight corporeal throw,
Together wind the whirling pirouette,
Like tiptoe Mercuries on an old gazette,
Full three times ten revolving on one knee,
Then on the other axis ten times three,
With simultaneous heat and concrete graces,
Their backs alternately eclipse their faces.
Ajax at length his cyclick labour ends,
And his firm person on one leg extends.-
His rival, to secure his tottering frame,
Leans for support towards the Paphian dame;
But from distraction, or some secret cause,
Her proffer'd aid she fatally withdraws.
Still with one entrechat he tempts his fate,
But the last struggle comes, alas! too late.
No more his sole aspires the sky to reach,
His treacherous heels his failing skill impeach,
By one false movement all his strength betray'd,
He and his towering hopes are prostrate laid.

Here ends the dancer, demigod, and sage,
Europe's delight-the wonder of the age!
On the cold ground his beauteous figure lies,
No more to rise and dance before our eyes:
He whose proud boast enlarged the bounds of art,
And taught the feet to climb above the heart,
Whose radiant track with emanations bright,

Mark'd a new era in this age of light.

Canto v. p. 215, 221.

CHAPTER XVIII.

The Morris-dancers.

"It was my hap of late, by chance,
To meet a country morris-dance,
When cheefest of them all, the foole,
Play'd with a ladle and a toole;
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 lookt like snipes."

Cobbe's Prophecies, 4to. London, 1614.

BOTH English and foreign glossaries, observes Mr. Douce,* 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, in his Sports and Pastimes, has cited a passage in the Play of Variety, 1649, in which the Spanish morisco is mentioned; and this, Mr. Douce adds, not only shows the legiti macy 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 morris was also danced at puppet-shows, by a person habited like a Moor, with castanets; and Junius has informed us that the dancers usually blackened their faces with soot, that they might the better pass for Moors. We have already shown that both cards and chess, in their progress to us from the east, underwent considerable changes and modifications, and it will be seen that the dance of which we are writing received, in like

* In a Dissertation on the ancient English morris-dance, at the end of the second volume of his Illustrations of Shakspeare; whence we have largely borrowed. Brand's Popular Antiquities, vol. i. p. 208.

T

manner, various alterations from the original form. At one period it was mixed with the Pyrrhic, or sword dance, which by some means or other got introduced into England, where it was generally exhibited by women. A performance of this nature seems to be alluded to in the second part of King Henry VI., act iii. scene 1:

-I have seen him

Caper upright like a wild Morisco,

Shaking the bloody darts, as he his bells.

Tabourot, the oldest and most curious writer on the art of dancing, says, that in his youthful days, about the beginning of the sixteenth century, it was the custom in good societies for a boy to come into the hall when supper was finished, with his face blackened, his forehead bound with white or yellow taffeta, and bells tied to his legs. He then proceeded to dance the morisco, the whole length of the hall, backward and forward, to the great amusement of the company. This was the ancient and uncorrupted morrisdance, the more modern sort of which he afterward describes, and gives the following as the air to which it was performed:

It has been supposed that the morris-dance was first brought into England in the reign of Edward III., and when John of Gaunt returned from Spain; but it is much more probable that we had it from our Gallic neighbours, or the Flemings. About the time of Henry VII. and VIII., we have abundant materials for showing that the morris-dance made a very considerable figure in the parochial festivals. The May-games of Robin Hood, which appear to have been principally instituted for the encouragement of archery,

were generally accompanied by morris-dancers, who formed nevertheless but a subordinate part of the ceremony. 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. Of the latter an account has been handed down to us by a puritanical writer of Queen Elizabeth's time, who thus describes the pastime: "First, all the wilde heads of the parish, flocking together, chuse them a graund captaine (of mischief), whome they innoble with the title of My Lord of Misrule, and him they crowne with great solemnitie, and adopt for their king. This king annoynted, chooseth foorth twentie, fourtie, threescore, or a hundred lustie guttes like to himself, to wait upon his lordly majestie, and to guarde his noble person. Then every one of these his men he investeth with his liveries of greene, yellow, or some other light wanton collour. And as though that were not gawdy ynough, they bedecke themselves with scarffes, ribands, and laces, hanged all over with golde ringes, precious stones, and other jewels. This done, they tie about their legge twentie or fourtie belles, with rich handkerchiefe in their hands, and sometimes laide across over their shoulders and neckes, borrowed for the most part of their pretie mopsies and loving Bessies, for bussing them in the darke. Thus all things set in order, then have they their hobby-horses, their dragons, and other antiques, together with ther bandie pipers and thundering drummers, to strike up the devil's daunce withall. Then march this heathen company towards the church and church-yarde, their pypers pyping, their drummers thundering, their stumpes dauncing, their belles iyngling, their handkerchiefes fluttering about their heades like madde men, their hobbie-horses and other monsters skirmishing among the throng; and in this sorte they goe to the church (though the minister be at prayer or preaching), dauncing and swinging their handkerchiefes over their heades in the church, like devils incarnate, with such a confused noyse that no man can heare his owne voyce. Then the foolish people they looke, they stere, they laugh, they fleere, and mount upon forms and pewes to see these goodly pageants solemnised in this sort. Then after this, about the church they goe againe and againe, and so fourth into the church-yard, where they have commonly their summer

haules, their bowers, arbours, and banquetting houses set up, wherein they feaste, banquet, and daunce all that day, and peradventure, all that night too. And thus these terrestrial furies spend the sabboth day. Another sort of fantasticall fooles bring to these hellhounds (the Lord of Misrule and his accomplices), some bread, some good ale, some new cheese, some old cheese, some custard, some cracknels, some cakes, some flaues, some tarts, some cream, some meat, some one thing, some another; but if they knewe that as often as they bring anye to the maintenance of these execrable pastimes, they offer sacrifice to the devill and sathanas, they would repent and withdraw their hands, which God graunt they may."* It is probable that when the practice of archery declined, the May-games of Robin Hood were discontinued, and that the morris-dance was transferred to the celebration of Whitsuntide, either as connected with the Whitsun-ales or as a separate amusement. In the latter instance it appears to have retained one or two of the characters in the May-pageants, but the arrangement doubtless varied in different places according to the humour or convenience of the parties.

The painted-glass window at Betley, in Staffordshire, exhibits in all probability the oldest as well as most curious representation of an English May-game and morris-dance that is any where to be found. It has been assigned to the time of Edward IV., and enables us to ascertain some of the personages of which the May-games and morris consisted at the period of its execution. To trace, with any accuracy, their original forms and numbers, or the progressive changes they have undergone, would be impossible. Sometimes we have a lady of the May, simply with a Friar Tuck; and in later times a Maid Marian remained without even a Robin Hood or a Friar. The more ancient Maygame and morris consisted of the following characters: Robin Hood, Little John, Friar Tuck, Maid Marian, the queen or lady of the May, the fool, the piper, and several morris-dancers, habited, as it appears, in various modes. Afterward a hobby-horse and a dragon were added.

Robin Hood is too well known to need any description. Little John, his faithful companion, is first mentioned by

* Stubbes's Anatomie of Abuses.