ACT II. SCENE I. The Country; before PUNTARVOLO'S House. Enter FASTIDIOUS BRISK, CINEDO, CARLO BUFFONE, and SOGLIARDO. Fast. INEDO, watch when the knight comes, and give us word. Cin. I will, sir. [Exit. Fast. How lik'st thou my boy, Carlo? 5 Car. O, well, well. He looks like a colonel of the Pigmies horse, or one of these motions in a great antique clock; he would shew well upon a haberdasher's stall, at a corner shop, rarely. Fast. 'Sheart, what a damn'd witty rogue's this! How he confounds with his similes! Car. Better with similes than smiles: and whither were you riding now, signior? 5 or one of these motions in a great antique clock.] A puppet, in this age, was called a motion: it here means one of those small figures in the face of a large clock, which was moved by the vibration of the pendulum. We have them in clocks of the present day. WHAL There is an allusion to these figures in the Ordinary: "For my good toothless countess, let us try To win that old emerit thing, that like An image in a German clock, doth move, Not walk; I mean that rotten antiquary." Fast. Who, I? What a silly jest's that! Whither should I ride but to the court? Car. O, pardon me, sir, twenty places more; your hot-house, or your whore-house 6 Fast. By the virtue of my soul, this knight dwells in Elisium here. Car. He's gone now, I thought he would fly out presently. These be our nimble-spirited catsos, that have their evasions at pleasure, will run over a bog like your wild Irish; no sooner started, but they'll leap from one thing to another, like a squirrel, heigh! dance and do tricks in their discourse, from fire to water, from water to air, from air to earth, as if their tongues did but e'en lick the four elements over, and away. Fast. Sirrah, Carlo, thou never saw'st my gray hobby yet, didst thou? Car. No; have you such a one? Fast. The best in Europe, my good villain, thou❜lt say when thou seest him. Car. But when shall I see him? Fast. There was a nobleman in the court offered me a hundred pound for him, by this light: a fine little fiery slave, he runs like a—oh, excellent, excellent!-with the very sound of the spur. 6 your hot-house, or your whore-house.] An unusual fit of reserve has visited the quarto, which omits the last word; little, however, is gained by it, on the score of decorum, for, as Jonson observes in his epigrams, the terms were "synonima.” 7 1 These be our nimble-spirited catsos, &c.] Carlo applies this opprobrious term to the travelled and affected coxcombs of the day, whose vapid follies he ridicules with great pleasantry. With respect to the word itself, on which the commentators on our old plays dilate with a gravity truly laughable, it is a petty oath, a cant exclamation, generally expressive, among the Italian populace, who have it constantly in their mouth, of defiance, or contempt. Jonson points his satire at the use of it, which was very prevalent when he wrote. Car. How! the sound of the spur? Fast. O, it's your only humour now extant, sir; a good gingle, a good gingle. Car. 'Sblood! you shall see him turn morricedancer, he has got him bells, a good suit, and a hobby-horse. 8 Cor. How! the sound of the spur? Fast. O, it's your only humour now extant, sir; a good gingle, a good gingle.] There has been a great deal written on this "humour," but very little to the purpose. Whalley observes that the gallants of this age had small rings (Theobald and others say, bells) fixed to their spurs, which made a noise when they rode or walked. But they had neither the one nor the other; the gingling was produced by the large loose rowels then worn, which were commonly of silver, and which every motion of the foot set in play. Thus Shirley: "I perceive 'tis an advantage for a man to wear spurs ; the rowel of knighthood does so gingle in the ear of their understanding." Love in a Maze. Love in a Maze. We may learn something of the offensive nature of this fashion from a passage in Chapman's Monsieur d'Olive: "You may hear them (the gallants) half a mile ere they come at you-sixe or seaven make a perfect morrice-daunce; they need no bells, their spurs serve their turne." A. iii. But a yet more convincing proof of it may be found in some of our parish records. It is well known that our cathedrals (and above all, St. Pauls) were, in Jonson's time, frequented by people of all descriptions, who, with a levity scarcely credible, walked up and down the aisles, and transacted business of every kind, during divine service. To expel them was not possible; such, however, was the noise occasioned by the incessant gingling of their spur-rowels, that it was found expedient to punish those who approached the body of the church, thus indecently equipped, by a small fine, under the name of spur-money, the exaction of which was committed to the beadles and singing-boys, who seem to have exerted their authority with sufficient vigour, and sometimes even to the neglect of their more important duties. About the time when this play was written, I find the following "Presentment to the Visitor, 1598: Wee think it a very necessarye thinge that every quoirister sholde bringe with him to church a Testament, in Englishe, and torne to every chapter, as it is daily read, or som other good and godly prayer-booke, rather than spend their tyme in talk and hunting after spurr-money, whereon they set their whole mindes, and do often abuse dyvers if they doe not bestowe somewhat on them." 9 Car. 'Sblood! you shall see him turn morrice-dancer, he has got him bells, a good suit, and a hobby-horse.] Of morrice-dancers, Sog. Signior, now you talk of a hobby-horse, I know where one is will not be given for a brace of angels. Fast. How is that, sir? 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 serving-man; 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? Silvio. I hear there are some a-foot. Soto. Where are your bells then, Your rings, your ribbands, friend, and your clean napkins; 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, "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 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, 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. 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 whigh-hie, and the daggers in the nose, and the travels of the where Bomby, now converted to Puritanism, renounces the hobbyhorse, in which he had just been dancing: "This beast of Babylon I'll ne'er back again, His pace is sure profane, and his lewd wi-hees, 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. "But 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. |