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that Shakspeare changed the name of his character advance by this means one step ?-In addition to what I have suggested in a former note on this subject, I may add, that it appears from Camden's Remaines, 1614, p. 146, that celebrated actors were sometimes distinguished by the names of the persons they represented on the stage :-" that I may say nothing of such as for well acting on the stage have carried away the names of the personage which they acted, and have lost their names among the people."-If actors, then, were sometimes called by the names of the persons they represented, what is more probable than that Falstaff should have been called by the multitude, and by the players, Oldcastle, not only because there had been a popular character of that name in a former piece, whose immediate successor Falstaff was, and to whose cloaths and fictitious belly he succeeded, but because, as Shakspeare himself intimates in his epilogue to this play, a false idea had gone abroad, that his jolly knight was, like his predecessor, the theatrical representative of Sir John Oldcastle, the good Lord Cobham. MALONE.

Mr. Tollet's Opinion concerning the Morris Dancers upon his

Window.

The celebration of May-day, which is represented upon my window of painted glass, is a very ancient custom, that has been observed by noble and royal personages, as well as by the vulgar. It is mentioned in Chaucer's Court of Love, that early on Mayday "furth goth al the court, both most and lest, to fetche the flouris fresh, and braunch, and blome." Historians record, that in the beginning of his reign, Henry the Eighth with his courtiers "rose on May-day very early to fetch May or green boughs; and they went with their bows and arrows shooting to the wood." Stowe's Survey of London informs us, that " every parish there, or two or three parishes joining together, had their Mayings; and did fetch in May-poles, with diverse warlike shews, with good archers, Morrice Dancers, and other devices for pastime all the day long." Shakspeare says it was "impossible to make the people sleep on May morning; and that they rose early to observe the rite of May." The court of King James the First, and the populace, long preserved the observance of the day, as Spelman's Glossary remarks, under the word, Maiuma.

*

Better judges may decide, that the institution of this festivity originated from the Roman Floralia, or from the Celtic la Beltine, while I conceive it derived to us from our Gothic ancestors. Olaus Magnus de Gentibus Septentrionalibus, lib. xv. c. viii, says,

*King Henry VIII. Act V. Sc. III. and Midsummer Night's Dream, Act IV. Sc. I.

"that after their their long winter from the beginning of October to the end of April, the northern nations have a custom to welcome the returning splendor of the sun with dancing, and mutually to feast each other, rejoicing that a better season for fishing and hunting was approached." In honour of May-day the Goths and southern Swedes had a mock battle between summer and winter, which ceremony is retained in the Isle of Man, where the Danes and Norwegians had been for a long time masters. It appears from Holinshed's Chronicle, vol. iii. p. 314, or in the year 1306, that, before that time, in country towns the young folks chose a summer king and queen for sport to dance about Maypoles. There can be no doubt but their majesties had proper attendants, or such as would best divert the spectators; and we may presume, that some of the characters varied, as fashions and customs altered. About half a century afterwards, a great addition seems to have been made to the diversion by the introduction of the Morris or Moorish dance into it, which, as Mr. Peck, in his Memoirs of Milton, with great probability conjectures, was first brought into England in the time of Edward III. when John of Gaunt returned from Spain, where he had been to assist Peter, King of Castile, against Henry the Bastard. "This dance, (says Mr. Peck,) was usually performed abroad by an equal number of young men, who danced in their shirts with ribbands and little bells about their legs. But here in England they have always an odd person besides, being a boy dressed in a girl's habit, whom they call Maid Marian, an old favourite character in the sport."- Thus, (as he observes in the words of Shakspeare †,) they made more matter for a May morning: having as a pancake for ShroveTuesday, a Morris for May-day."

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We are authorized by the poets, Ben Jonson and Drayton, to call some of the representations on my window Morris Dancers, though I am uncertain whether it exhibits one Moorish personage; as none of them have black or tawny faces, nor do they brandish swords or staves in their hands ‡, nor are they in their shirts

* It is evident from several authors, that Maid Marian's part was frequently performed by a young woman, and often by one, as I think, of unsullied reputation. Our Marian's deportment is decent and graceful.

†Twelfth Night, Act III. Sc. IV. All's Well That Ends Well, Act II. Sc. II.

In the Morisco the dancers held swords in their hands with the points upward, says Dr. Johnson's note in Antony and Cleopatra, Act III. Sc. IX. The Goths did the same in their military dance, says Olaus Magnus, lib. xv. ch. xxiii. Haydocke's translation of Lomazzo on Painting, 1598, b. ii. p. 54, says: "There are other actions of dancing used, as of those who are represented

adorned with ribbons. We find in Olaus Magnus, that the northern nations danced with brass bells about their knees, and such we have upon several of these figures, who may perhaps be the original English performers in a May-game before the introduction of the real Morris dance. However this may be, the window exhibits a favourite diversion of our ancestors in all its principal parts. I shall endeavour to explain some of the characters, and in compliment to the lady I will begin the description with the front rank, in which she is stationed. I am fortunate enough to have Mr. Steevens think with me, that figure 1 may be designed for the Bavian fool, or the fool with the slabbering bib, as Bavon, in Cotgrave's French Dictionary, means a bib for a slabbering child; and this figure has such a bib, and a childish simplicity in his countenance. Mr. Steevens refers to a passage in Beaumont and Fletcher's play of The Two Noble Kinsmen, by which it appears that the Bavian in the Morris dance was a tumbler, and mimicked the barking of a dog. I apprehend that several of the Morris dancers on my window tumbled occasionally, and exerted the chief feat of their activity, when they were aside the May-pole; and I apprehend that jigs, hornpipes, and the hay, were their chief dances.

It will certainly be tedious to describe the colours of the dresses, but the task is attempted upon an intimation, that it might not be altogether unacceptable. The Bavian's cap is red, faced with yellow, his bib yellow, his doublet blue, his hose red, and his shoes black.

Figure 2 is the celebrated Maid Marian, who, as queen of May, has a golden crown on her head, and in her left hand a flower, as the emblem of summer. The flower seems designed for a red pink, but the pointals are omitted by the engraver, who copied from a drawing with the like mistake. Olaus Magnus mentions the artificial raising of flowers for the celebration of May-day; and the supposition of the like practice here will account for the queen of May having in her hand any particular flower before the season of its natural production in this climate. Her vesture was once fashionable in the highest degree. It was anciently the custom for maiden ladies to wear their hair † dishevelled at their co

with weapons in their hands going round in a ring, capering skilfully, shaking their weapons after the manner of the Morris, with divers actions of meeting," &c. "Others hanging Morris bells

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* Markham's translation of Heresbatch's Husbandry, 1631, observes, "that gilliflowers, set in pots and carried into vaults or cellars, have flowered all the winter long, through the warmness of the place."

+ Leland's Collectanea, 1770, vol. iv. p. 219, 293, vol, v.

ronations, their nuptials, and perhaps on all splendid solemnities. Margaret, the eldest daughter of Henry VII. was married to James, King of Scotland, with the crown upon her head: her hair hanging down. Betwixt the crown and the hair was a very rich coif hanging down behind the whole length of the body.-This single example sufficiently explains the dress of Marian's head. Her coif is purple, her surcoat blue, her cuffs white, the skirts of her robe yellow, the sleeves of a carnation colour, and her stomacher red with a yellow lace in cross bars. In Shakspeare's play of Henry VIII. Anne Bullen at her coronation is in her hair, or as Holinshed says, "her hair hanged down," but on her head she had a coif with a circlet about it full of rich stones.

Figure 3 is a friar in the full clerical tonsure, with the chaplet of white and red beads in his right hand; and, expressive of his professed humility, his eyes are cast upon the ground. His corded girdle, and his russet habit, denote him to be of the Franciscan order, or one of the grey friars, as they were commonly called from the colour of their apparel, which was a russet or a brown russet, as Holinshed, 1586, vol. iii. p. 789, observes. The mixture of colours in his habit may be resembled to a grey cloud, faintly tinged with red by the beams of the rising sun, and streaked with black; and such perhaps was Shakspeare's Aurora, or "the morn in russet mantle clad." Hamlet, Act I. Sc. I. The friar's stockings are red, his red girdle is ornamented with a golden twist, and with a golden tassel *. At his girdle hangs a wallet for the reception of provision, the only revenue of the mendicant orders of religious, who were named Walleteers or budget-bearers. It was customary † in former times for the priest and people in procession to go to some adjoining wood on Mayday morning, and return in a sort of triumph with a May-pole, boughs, flowers, garlands, and such like tokens of the spring; and as the grey friars were held in very great esteem, perhaps on this occasion their attendance was frequently requested. Most of Shakspeare's friars are Franciscans. Mr. Steevens ingeniously suggests, that as Marian was the name of Robin Hood's beloved p. 332, and Holinshed, vol. iii. p. 801, 931; and see Capilli in Spelman's Glossary.

* Splendid girdles appear to have been a great article of monastick finery. Wykeham, in his Visitatio Notabilis, prohibits the Canons of Selborne any longer wearing silken girdles ornamented with gold or silver: "Zonisve sericis auri vel argenti ornatum habentibus." See Natural History, and Antiquities of Selborne, p. 371, and Appendix, p. 459. HOLT WHITE.

† See Maii Inductio in Cowel's Law Dictionary. When the parish priests were inhibited by the diocesan to assist in the May games, the Franciscans might give attendance, as being exempted from episcopal jurisdiction.

mistress, and as she was the queen of May, the Morris friar was designed for friar Tuck, chaplain to Robin Huid, king of May, as Robin Hood is styled in Sir David Dalrymple's extracts from the book of the Universal Kirk, in the year 1576.

Figure 4 has been taken to be Marian's gentleman-usher. Mr. Steevens considers him as Marian's paramour, who in delicacy appears uncovered before her; and as it was a custom for betrothed persons to wear some mark for a token of their mutual engagement, he thinks that the cross-shaped flower on the head of this figure, and the flower in Marian's hand, denote their espousals or contract. Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar, April, specifies the flowers worn of paramours to be the pink, the purple columbine, gilliflowers, carnations, and sops in wine. I suppose the flower in Marian's hand to be a pink, and this to be a stock-gilliflower, or the Hesperis, dame's violet, or queen's gilliflower; but perhaps it may be designed for an ornamental ribbon. An eminent botanist apprehends the flower upon the man's head to be an Epimedium. Many particulars of this figure resemble Absolon, the parish clerk in Chaucer's Miller's Tale, such as his curled and golden hair, his kirtle of watchet, his red hose, and Paul's windows corvin on his shoes, that is, his shoes pinked and cut into holes, like the windows of St. Paul's ancient church. My window plainly exhibits upon his right thigh a yellow scrip or pouch, in which he might, as treasurer to the company, put the collected pence, which he might receive, though the cordelier must, by the rules of his order, carry no money about him. If this figure should not be allowed to be a parish clerk, I incline to call him Hocus Pocus, or some juggler attendant upon the master of the hobby-horse, as "faire de tours de (jouer de la) gibeciere," in Boyer's French Dictionary, signifies to play tricks by virtue of Hocus Pocus. His red stomacher has a yellow lace, and his shoes are yellow. Ben Jonson mentions "Hokos Pokos in a juggler's jerkin," which Skinner derives from kirtlekin; that is, a short kirtle, and such seems to be the coat of this figure.

Figure 5 is the famous hobby-horse, who was often forgotten or disused in the Morris dance, even after Maid Marian, the friar, and the fool, were continued in it, as is intimated in Ben Jonson's masque of The Metamorphosed Gypsies, and in his Entertainment of the Queen and Prince at Althorpe *. Our hobby is a spirited

* Vol. vi. p. 93, of Whalley's edition, 1756:

"Clo. They should be Morris dancers by their gingle, but they have no napkins.

"Coc. No, nor a hobby-horse.

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Clo. Oh, he's often forgotten, that's no rule; but there is no Maid Marian nor friar amongst them, which is the surer mark."

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