Car. 'Sblood! you shall see him turn morricedancer, he has got him bells, a good suit, and a hobby-horse.' Sog. Signior, now you talk of a hobby-horse, I know where one is will not be given for a brace of angels. 9 Car. 'Sblood! you shall see him turn morrice-dancer, he has got him bells, a good suit, and a hobby-horse.] Of morricedancers, enough, and more than enough has been already written. When the sports of our ancestors were rude and few, they formed a very favourite part of their merry meetings. They were at first undoubtedly a company of people that represented the military dances of the Moors (once the most lively and refined people in Europe) in their proper habits and arms, and must have been sufficiently amusing to an untravelled nation like the English; but, by degrees, they seem to have adopted into their body all the prominent characters of the other rustic May-games and sports, which were now probably declining, and to have become the most anomalous collection of performers that ever appeared, at once, upon the stage of the world. Besides the hobby-horse, there were the fool (not the driveller, as Tollet supposes, but the buffoon of the party); may, or maid, Marian, and her paramour, a friar; a servingman; a piper, and two moriscoes. These, with their bells, rings, streamers, &c. all in motion at one time, must have, as Rabelais says, made a tintamarre de diable! Their dress is prettily described by Fletcher: Soto. Do you know what sports are in season? Soto. Where are your bells then, Your rings, your ribbands, friend, and your clean napkins ; Your nosegay in your hat, pinn'd up? &c. Women Pleased. When the right good-will with which these worthy persons capered is taken into consideration, the clean napkin, which was never omitted, will not appear the least necessary part of the apparatus. Thus Clod, in the masque of Gipseys, observes, 66 They should be morris-dancers by their gingle, but they have no napkins." The hobby-horse (Sogliardo's choice) who once performed the principal character in the dance, and whose banishment from it is lamented with such ludicrous pathos by our old dramatists, was a light frame of wicker-work, furnished with a pasteboard head and neck of a horse. This was buckled round Fast. How is that, sir? Sog. Marry, sir, I am telling this gentleman of a hobby-horse, it was my father's indeed, and, though I say it Car. That should not say it-on, on. Sog. He did dance in it, with as good humour, and as good regard as any man of his degree whatsoever, being no gentleman: I have danc'd in it myself too. Car. Not since the humour of gentility was upon you, did you? Sog Yes, once; marry, that was but to shew what a gentleman might do in a humour. Car. O, very good. Mit. Why, this fellow's discourse were nothing but for the word humour. Cor. O bear with him; an he should lack matter and words too, 'twere pitiful. the waist, and covered with a foot-cloth which reached to the ground, and concealed at once the legs of the performer and his juggling apparatus. Thus equipped, he pranced and curvetted in all directions (probably to keep the ring clear), neighing, or whigh-hie-ing, as the author calls it, and exhibiting specimens of boisterous and burlesque horsemanship. The whig-hies are mentioned by Fletcher, in Women Pleased, where Bomby, now converted to Puritanism, renounces the hobby-horse, in which he had just been dancing: "This beast of Babylon I'll ne'er back again, "The songs of Hymyn and Gymyn in the wilderness." The feats of leigerity (legerdemain), such as threading the needle, conveying an egg from hand to hand, which Jonson terms the travels of the egg; running daggers through the nose, and other humours incident to the quality, which Sogliardo exhibited in his career, may yet be seen at country fairs. O! the hobby-horse is forgot" We have now Pizarro, and the Castle Spectre, in our holiday booths. We are certainly more genteel, in our rural amusements, than our fathers; but I doubt whether we are quite as merry, or even as wise. "But Sog. Nay, look you, sir, there's ne'er a gentleman in the country has the like humours, for the hobby-horse, as I have; I have the method for the threading of the needle and all, the Car. How, the method! Sog. Ay, the leigerity for that, and the whighhie, and the daggers in the nose, and the travels of the egg from finger to finger, and all the humours incident to the quality. The horse hangs at home in my parlour. I'll keep it for a monument as long as I live, sure. Car. Do so; and when you die, 'twill be an excellent trophy to hang over your tomb. Sog. Mass, and I'll have a tomb, now I think on't; 'tis but so much charges. Car. Best build it in your lifetime then, your heirs may hap to forget it else. Sog. Nay, I mean so, I'll not trust to them. Car. No, for heirs and executors are grown damnable careless, 'specially since the ghosts of testators left walking.-How like you him, signior? Fast. 'Fore heavens, his humour arrides me exceedingly. Car. Arrides you! Fast. Ay, pleases me: a pox on't! I am so haunted at the court, and at my lodging, with your refined choice spirits, that it makes me clean of another garb, another sheaf, I know not how! I cannot frame me to your harsh vulgar phrase, 'tis against my genius. Fast. 'Fore heavens, his humour arrides me exceedingly.] This Latinism is copied by Marmion: "Her form answers my expectation; it arrides (pleases) me exceedingly!" The Antiquary. Shirley, too, has it in his Love Tricks. It is a most affected piece of pedantry, but it does not misbecome the characters who employ it. In the next speech there is more of it. Sog. Signior Carlo! [Takes him aside. Cor. This is right to that of Horace, Dum vitant stulti vitia, in contraria currunt; so this gallant, labouring to avoid popularity, falls into a habit of affectation, ten thousand times hatefuller than the former. Car. [pointing to Fastidious.] Who, he? a gull, a fool, no salt in him i' the earth, man; he looks like a fresh salmon kept in a tub; he'll be spent shortly. His brain's lighter than his feather already, and his tongue more subject to lye, than that is to wag; he sleeps with a musk-cat every night, and walks all day hang'd in pomander chains for penance; he has his skin tann'd in civet, to make his complexion strong, and the sweetness of his youth lasting in the sense of his sweet lady; a good empty puff, he loves you well, signior. Sog. There shall be no love lost, sir, I'll assure you. Fast. [advancing to them.] Nay, Carlo, I am not happy in thy love, I see: pray thee suffer me to enjoy thy company a little, sweet mischief: by this air, I shall envy this gentleman's place in thy affections, if you be thus private, i'faith. 2 and walks all day hang'd in pomander chains, &c.] Pomanders were little balls of perfumed paste, worn in the pocket, or strung round the neck, as amulets, to prevent infec tion in times of the plague: they were also an article of luxury among people of rank and fashion, or who aspired to be thought such. Directions for making them frequently occur in our old poets, books of huswifery, &c. "A good pomander, a little de cayed in the scent; but six grains of musk, ground with rose water, and tempered with a little civet, shall fetch her again presently." Malecontent, A. V. S. 1. Another receipt, more complicated, and therefore more in the taste of the times, occurs in Lingua, A. IV. S. 3. This kind of amulet has lately been revived with great parade of novelty; such is our credălity, or our ignorance! VOL. II. F Enter CINEDO. How now! Is the knight arrived? Cin. No, sir, but 'tis guess'd he will arrive presently, by his fore-runners. Fast. His hounds! by Minerva, an excellent figure; a good boy. Car. You should give him a French crown' for it; the boy would find two better figures in that, and a good figure of your bounty beside. Fast. Tut, the boy wants no crowns. Car. No crown; speak in the singular number, and we'll believe you. Fast. Nay, thou art so capriciously conceited now. Sirrah damnation, I have heard this knight Puntarvolo reported to be a gentleman of exceeding good humour, thou know'st him; prithee, how is his disposition? I never was so favoured of my stars, as to see him yet. Boy, do you look to the hobby? Cin. Ay, sir, the groom has set him up. [As Cinedo is going out Sogliardo takes him aside. Fast. 'Tis well: I rid out of my way of intent to visit him, and take knowledge of hisNay, good Wickedness, his humour, his hu mour. Car. Why, he loves dogs, and hawks, and his wife well; he has a good riding face, and he can sit a great horse; he will taint a staff well at 3 Car. You should give him a French crown for it ;] French crown, like the miserable word do, is almost sure to draw from the commentators a profusion of filth and obscenity wherever it occurs. Whalley says that it means a corona veneris, a caries in the head, &c. ; though how Fastidious was to give this, is not very apparent. A French crown here means neither more nor less than a piece of money so called. |