Part 1 — CHAPTER VI.

A VIEW OF COUNTRY LIFE DURING THE AGE OF SHAKSPEARE; ITS MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.—RURAL HOLYDAYS, AND FESTIVALS.

The record of rural festivity and amusement, must, as far as it is unaccompanied by any detail of riot or intemperance, be a subject of pleasing contemplation to every good and cheerful mind. Labour, the destined portion of by far the greater part of human beings, requires frequent intervals of relaxation; and the encouragement of innocent diversion at stated periods, may be considered, therefore, both in a moral and political point of view, as essentially useful. The sports and amusements of our ancestors on their holydays and festivals, while they had little tendency to promote either luxury or dissipation, contributed very powerfully to preserve some of the best and most striking features of our national manners and character, and were frequently mingled with that cheerful piety which forms the most heart-felt species of devotion, where religion, mixing with the social rite, offers up the homage of a happy and contented heart.

It may be necessary here to mention, that in enumerating the various ceremonial and feast days of rural life, we have purposely omitted those which are peculiarly occupied by superstitious observances, as they will with more propriety be included under a subsequent chapter, appropriated to the consideration of popular superstitions.

The ushering in of the New Year, or New Years tide, with rejoicings, presents, and good wishes, was a custom observed, during the sixteenth century, with great regularity and parade, and was as cordially celebrated in the court of the prince as in the cottage of the peasant.

To end the old year merrily and begin the new one well, and in friendship with their neighbours, were the objects which the common people had in view in the celebration of this tide or festival. New-Years Eve, therefore, was spent in festivity and frolic by the men; and the young women of the village carried about, from door to door, a bowl of spiced ale, which they offered to the inhabitants of every house where they stopped, singing at the same time some rude congratulatory verses, and expecting some small present in return. This practice, however, which originated in pure kindness and benevolence, soon degenerated into a mere pecuniary traffic, for Selden, in his Table Talk, thus alludes to the subject, while drawing the following curious comparison: "The pope in sending relicks to princes, does as wenches do by their wassails at New Years Tide.—They present you with a cup, and you must drink of a slabby stuff; but the meaning is, you must give them money ten times more than it is worth."[124:A]

It was customary also, on this eve, for the young men and women to exchange their clothes, which was termed Mumming or Disguising; and when thus dressed in each other's garments, they would go from one neighbour's cottage to another, singing, dancing, and partaking of their good cheer; a species of masquerading which, as may be imagined, was often productive of the most licentious freedoms.

On the succeeding morning, the first of the New Year, presents, called new-year's gifts, were given and received, with the mutual expression of good wishes, and particularly that of a happy New Year. The compliment was sometimes paid at each other's doors in the form of a song; but more generally, especially in the north of England and in Scotland, the house was entered very early in the morning, by some young men and maidens selected for the purpose, who presented the spiced bowl, and hailed you with the gratulations of the season.

The custom of interchanging gifts on this day, though now nearly obsolete, was, in the days of Shakspeare, observed most scrupulously; and not merely in the country, but, as hath been just before hinted, even in the palace of the monarch. In fact the wardrobe and jewelry of Elizabeth appear to have been supported principally by these annual contributions.

As a brief summary of these presents, though given not in the country, but at court, will yet, as including almost every rank in life, from the peer to the dustman, place in a strong light the prevalence of this custom, and point out of what these gifts usually consisted in a town, and therefore, by inference, of what they must have included in the country, its introduction will not, we should hope, be considered as altogether digressive from the nature of our subject.

To Mr. Nichols, who, in his work entitled "Queen Elizabeth's Progresses," has printed, from the original rolls in vellum, some very copious lists of New Year's gifts annually presented to this popular monarch, are we indebted for the following curious enumeration.

"From all these rolls," says he, "and more of them perhaps are still existing, it appears that the greatest part, if not all the peers and peeresses of the realm, all the bishops, the chief officers of state, and several of the Queen's houshold servants, even down to her apothecaries, master cook, serjeant of the pastry, &c. gave New Year's gifts to Her Majesty; consisting, in general, either of a sum of money, or jewels, trinkets, wearing apparel, &c. The largest sum given by any of the temporal lords was 20l.; but the Archbishop of Canterbury gave 40l., the Archbishop of York 30l., and the other spiritual lords 20l. and 10l.; many of the temporal lords and great officers, and most of the peeresses, gave rich gowns, petticoats, smocks, kirtles, silk stockings, cypres garters, sweet-bags, doblets, mantles, some embroidered with pearles, garnets, &c. looking-glasses, fans, bracelets, caskets studded with precious stones, jewels ornamented with sparks of diamonds in various devices, and other costly trinkets. Sir Gilbert Dethick, Garter King of Arms, gave a book of the states in King William the Conqueror's time, and a book of the arms of the noblemen in Henry the Fifth's time; Absolon, the master of the Savoy, a Bible covered with cloth of gold, garnished with silver, and gilt, and two plates with the royal arms; Petruchio Ubaldino, a book covered with vellum of Italian; Lambarde, the antiquary, his Pandecta of all the Rolls, &c. in the Tower of London. The Queen's physician presented her with a box of foreign sweetmeats; another physician with two pots, one of green ginger, the other of orange flowers; two other physicians gave each a pot of green ginger, and a pot of the rinds of lemons; her apothecaries a box of lozenges, a box of ginger candy, a box of grene ginger, a box of orange candit, a pot of conserves, a pot of wardyns condite, a box of wood with prunolyn, and two boxes of manus Christi; Mrs. Blanch a Parry, a little box of gold to put in cumphetts, and a little spoon of gold; Mrs. Morgan a box of cherryes, and one of aberycocks; her master cook a fayre marchepayne; her serjeant of the pastry a fayre pie of quinces oringed; a box of peaches of Jenneway (Genoa); a great pie of quynses and wardyns guilte; Putrino, an Italian, presented her with two pictures; Innocent Corry with a box of lutestrings; Ambrose Lupo with another box of lutestrings, and a glass of sweet water; Petro Lupo, Josepho Lupo, and Cæsar Caliardo, each with a pair of sweet gloves; a cutler with a meat knyfe with a fan haft of bone, a conceit in it; Jaromy with twenty-four drinking-glasses; Jeromy Bassano two drinking-glasses; Smyth, dustman, two boltes of cambrick."[126:A]

The Queen, though she made returns in plate and other articles, took sufficient care that the balance should be in her own favour; hence, as the custom was found to be lucrative, and had indeed been practised with success by her predecessors on the throne, it was encouraged and rendered fashionable to an extent hitherto unprecedented in this kingdom. In the country, however, with the exception of the extensive households of the nobility, this interchange was conducted on the pure basis of reciprocal kindness and good will, and without any view of securing patronage or support; it was, indeed, frequently the channel through which charity delighted to exert her holy influence, and though originating in the heathen world, became sanctified by the Christian virtues.

To the rejoicings on New Year's tide succeeded, after a short interval, the observance of the Twelfth Day, so called from its being the twelfth after the Nativity of our Saviour, and the day on which the Eastern Magi, guided by the star, arrived at Bethlehem to worship the infant Jesus.

This festive day, the most celebrated of the twelve for the peculiar conviviality of its rites, has been observed in this kingdom ever since the reign of Alfred, in whose days, says Collier, "a Law was made with relation to Holidays, by virtue of which the twelve days after the Nativity of our Saviour were made Festivals."[127:A]

In consequence of an idea, which seems generally to have prevailed, that the Eastern Magi were kings, this day has been frequently termed the Feast of the Three Kings; and many of the rites with which it is attended, are founded on this conception; for it was customary to elect, from the company assembled on this occasion, a king or queen, who was usually elevated to this rank by the fortuitous division of a cake containing a bean or piece of coin, and he or she to whom this symbol of distinction fell, in dividing the cake, was immediately chosen king or queen, and then forming their ministers and court from the company around, maintained their state and character until midnight.

The Twelfth Cake was almost always accompanied by the Wassail Bowl, a composition of spiced wine or ale, or mead, or metheglin, into which was thrown roasted apples, sugar, &c. The term Wassail, which in our elder poets is connected with much interesting imagery, and many curious rites, appears to have been first used in this island during the well-known interview between Vortigern and Rowena. Geoffrey of Monmouth relates, on the authority of Walter Calenius, that this lady, the daughter of Hengist, knelt down, on the approach of the king, and presenting him with a cup of wine, exclaimed "Lord king wæs heil," that is, literally "Health be to you." Vortigern being ignorant of the Saxon language, was informed by an interpreter, that the purport of these words was to wish him health, and that he should reply by the expression drinc-heil, or "Drink the health;" accordingly, on his so doing, Rowena drank, and the king receiving the cup from her hand, kissed and pledged her.[128:A] Since this period, observes the historian, the custom has prevailed in Britain of using these words whilst drinking; the person who drank to another saying was-heil, and he who received the cup answering drinc-heil.

It soon afterwards became a custom in villages, on Christmas-Eve, New Year's Eve, and Twelfth Night, for itinerant minstrels to carry to the houses of the gentry, and others, where they were generally very hospitably received, a bowl of spiced wine, which being presented with the Saxon words just mentioned, was therefore called a Wassail-bowl. A bowl or cup of this description was likewise to be found in almost every nobleman's and gentleman's house, (and frequently of massy silver,) until the middle of the seventeenth century, and which was in perpetual requisition during the revels of Christmas. In "The Antiquarian Repertory, vol. i. p. 217," relates Mr. Douce, "there is an account, accompanied with an engraving, of an oaken chimney-piece in a very old house at Berlen, near Snodland in Kent, on which is carved a wassel-bowl resting on the branches of an apple-tree, alluding, probably, to part of the materials of which the liquor was composed. On one side is the word wassheil, and on the other drincheile."[129:A] "This is certainly," he adds, "a very great curiosity of its kind, and at least as old as the fourteenth century. Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, in his will gave to Sir John Briddlewood a silver cup called wassail: and it appears that John Duke of Bedford, the regent, by his first will bequeathed to John Barton, his maitre d'hotel, a silver cup and cover, on which was inscribed Washayl."[129:B]

In consequence of the Wassail-bowl being peculiar to scenes of revelry and festivity, the term wassail in time became synonymous with feasting and carousing, and has been used, therefore, by many of our poets either to imply drinking and merriment, or the place where such joviality was expected to occur. Thus Shakspeare makes Hamlet say of the king "draining his draughts of Rhenish down," that he

and in Macbeth, the heroine of that play declares that she will convince the two chamberlains of Duncan

In Anthony and Cleopatra also, Cæsar, advising Anthony to live more temperately, tells him to leave his

And lastly, in Love's Labour's Lost, Biron, describing the character of Boyet, says,

Ben Jonson has given us two curious personifications of the Wassal; the first in his Forest, No. 3. whilst giving an account of a rural feast in the hall of Sir Robert Wroth; he says,

and the second in "Christmas, His Masque, as it was presented at Court 1616," where Wassall, as one of the ten children of Christmas, is represented in the following quaint manner. Like a neat Sempster, and Songster; her Page bearing a browne bowle, drest with Ribbands, and Rosemarie before her.[130:C]

Fletcher, in his Faithful Shepherdess, has given a striking description of the festivity attendant on the Wassal bowl:

The persons thus accompanying the Wassal bowl, especially those who danced and played, were called Wassailers, an appellation which it was afterwards customary to bestow on all who indulged, at any season, in intemperate mirth. Hence Milton introduces his Lady in Comus making use of the term in the following beautiful passage:

During the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. the celebration of Twelfth Night was, equally with Christmas-Day, a festival through the land, and was observed with great ostentation and ceremony in both the Universities, at Court, at the Temple, and at Lincoln's and Gray's-Inn. Many of the Masques of Ben Jonson were written for the amusement of the royal family on this night, and Dugdale in his Origines Juridicales, has given us a long and particular account of the revelry at the Temple on each of the twelve days of Christmas, in the year 1562. It appears from this document that the hospitable rites of St. Stephen's Day, St. John's Day, and Twelfth Day, were ordered to be exactly alike, and as many of them are, in their nature, perfectly rural, and were, there is every reason to suppose, observed, to a certain extent, in the halls of the country-gentry and substantial yeomanry, a short record here, of those that fall under this description, cannot be deemed inapposite.

The breakfast on Twelfth Day is directed to be of brawn, mustard, and malmsey; the dinner of two courses, to be served in the hall, and after the first course "cometh in the Master of the Game, apparalled in green velvet: and the Ranger of the Forest also, in a green suit of satten; bearing in his hand a green bow and divers arrows, with either of them a hunting horn about their necks: blowing together three blasts of venery, they pace round about the fire three times. Then the Master of the Game maketh three curtesies," kneels down, and petitions to be admitted into the service of the Lord of the Feast.

"This ceremony performed, a huntsman cometh into the hall, with a fox and a purse-net; with a cat, both bound at the end of a staff; and with them nine or ten couple of hounds, with the blowing of hunting-horns. And the fox and cat are by the hounds set upon, and killed beneath the fire. This sport finished, the Marshal (an officer so called, who, with many others under different appellations, were created for the purpose of conducting the revels) placeth them in their several appointed places."

After the second course, the "antientest of the Masters of the Revels singeth a song, with the assistance of others there present;" and after some repose and revels, supper, consisting of two courses, is then served in the hall, and, being ended, "the Marshall presenteth himself with drums afore him, mounted upon a scaffold, born by four men; and goeth three times round about the harthe, crying out, aloud, 'A Lord, a Lord,' &c., then he descendeth, and goeth to dance."

"This done, the Lord of Misrule (an officer whose functions will be afterwards noticed) addresseth himself to the Banquet; which ended with some minstralsye, mirth and dancing, every man departeth to rest."[133:A]

Herrick, who was the contemporary of Shakspeare for the first twenty-five years of his life, that is, from the year 1591 to 1616, has given us the following curious and pleasing account of the ceremonies of Twelfth Night, as we may suppose them to have been observed in almost every private family:

"TWELFTH-NIGHT,

Or King and Queen.

Herrick's Hesperides, p. 376, 377.

The Twelfth Day was the usual termination of the festivities of Christmas with the higher ranks; but with the vulgar they were frequently prolonged until Candlemas, to which period it was thought a point of much importance to retain a portion of their Christmas cheer.

It should not be forgotten here, that Shakspeare has given the appellation of Twelfth Night to one of his best and most finished plays. No reason for this choice is discoverable in the drama itself, and from its adjunctive title of What You Will, it is probable, that the name was meant to be no otherwise appropriate than as designating an evening on which dramatic mirth and recreation were, by custom, peculiarly expected and always acceptable.[134:A]

It appears from a passage from Warner's Albion's England, that between Twelfth Day and Plough-Monday, a period was customarily fixed upon for the celebration of games in honour of the Distaff, and which was termed Rock-Day.[135:A] The notice in question is to be found in the lamentations of the Northerne-man over the decline of festivity, where he exclaims,

That this festival was observed not only during the immediate days of Warner and Shakspeare, but for some time afterwards, we learn from a little poem by Robert Herrick, which was probably written between the years 1630 and 1640. Herrick was born in 1591, and published his collection of poems, entitled Hesperides, in 1648. He gives us in his title the additional information that Rock, or Saint Distaff's Day, was the morrow after Twelfth Day; and he advises that it should terminate the sports of Christmas.

"SAINT DISTAFF'S OR THE MORROW AFTER TWELFTH-DAY.

The first Monday after Twelfth Day used to be celebrated by the ploughmen as a Holiday, being the season at which the labours of the plough commenced, and hence the day has been denominated Plough-Monday. Tusser, in his poem on husbandry, after observing that the "old guise must be kept," recommends the ploughmen on this day to the hospitality of the good huswife:

He then adds,

These lines allude to a custom prevalent in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and which Mr. Hilman, in a note on the passage, has thus explained: "After Christmas, (which formerly, during the twelve days, was a time of very little work,) every gentleman feasted the farmers, and every farmer their servants and task-men. Plough-monday puts them in mind of their business. In the morning the men and maid-servants strive who shall shew their diligence in rising earliest; if the ploughman can get his whip, his plough-staff, hatchet, or any thing that he wants in the field, by the fire-side, before the maid hath got her kettle on, then the maid loseth her Shrovetide cock, and it wholly belongs to the men. Thus did our forefathers strive to allure youth to their duty, and provided them innocent mirth, as well as labour. On this Plough-Monday they have a good supper and some strong drink, that they might not go immediately out of one extreme into another."[137:A]

In the northern and north-western parts of England, the entire day was usually consumed in parading the streets, and the night was devoted to festivity. The ploughmen, apparently habited only in their shirts, but in fact with flannel jackets underneath, to keep out the cold, and these shirts decorated with rose-knots of various coloured riband, went about collecting what they called "plough-money for drink." They were accompanied by a plough, which they dragged along, and by music, and not unfrequently two of the party were dressed to personate an old woman, whom they called Bessy, and a Fool, the latter of these characters being covered with skins, with a hairy cap on his head, and the tail of some animal pendent from his back. On one of these antics was devolved the office of collecting money from the spectators by rattling a box, into which their contributions were dropped, while the rest of the ploughmen were engaged in performing a sword-dance, a piece of pageantry derived from our northern ancestors, and of which Olaus Magnus has left us an accurate description in his history of the Gothic nations.[137:B] It consisted, for the most part, in forming various figures with the swords, sheathed and unsheathed, commencing in slow time, and terminating in very rapid movements, which required great agility and address to be conducted with safety and effect.[137:C]

It was the opinion of Dr. Johnson that Shakspeare alluded to the sword-dance, where, in Anthony and Cleopatra, he makes his hero observe of Augustus, that

But Mr. Malone has remarked, with more probability, that the allusion is to the English custom of dancing with a sword worn by the side; in confirmation of which idea, he quotes a passage from All's Well That Ends Well, where Bertram, lamenting that he is kept from the wars, says,

It has been observed in a preceding page, that, among the common people, the festivities of Christmas were frequently protracted to Candlemas-Day. This was done under the idea of doing honour to the Virgin Mary, whose purification is commemorated by the church at this period. It was generally, remarks Bourne, "a day of festivity, and more than ordinary observation among women, and is therefore called the Wives Feast-Day."[138:C] The term Candlemas, however, seems to have arisen from a custom among the Roman Catholics, of consecrating tapers on this day, and bearing them about lighted in procession, to which they were enjoined by an edict of Pope Sergius, A. D. 684; but on what foundation is not accurately ascertained. At the Reformation, among the rites and ceremonies which were ordered to be retained in a convocation of Henry VIII., this is one, and expressedly because it was considered as symbolical of the spiritual illumination of the Gospel.[138:D]

From Candlemas to Hallowmas, the tapers which had been lighted all the winter in Cathedral and Conventual Churches ceased to be used; and so prevalent, indeed, was the relinquishment of candles on this day in domestic life, that it has laid the foundation of one of the proverbs in the collection of Mr. Ray:

On this day likewise the Christmas greens were removed from churches and private houses. Herrick, who may be considered as the contemporary of Shakspeare, being five-and-twenty at the period of the poet's death, has given us a pleasing description of this observance; he abounds, indeed, in the history of local rites, and, though surviving beyond the middle of the seventeenth century, paints with great accuracy the manners and superstitions of the Shakspearean era. He has paid particular attention to the festival that we are describing, and enumerates the various greens and flowers appropriated to different seasons in a little poem entitled

"CEREMONIES FOR CANDLEMASSE EVE.

The usage which we have alluded to, of preserving the Christmas cheer and hospitality to Candlemas, is immediately afterwards recorded and connected with a singular superstition, in the following poems under the titles of

"CEREMONIES FOR CANDLEMASSE DAY.

To the exorcising power of the Christmas Brand is added, in the subsequent effusion, a most alarming denunciation against those who heedlessly leave in the Hall on Candlemas Eve, any the smallest portion of the Christmas greens.

"CEREMONY UPON CANDLEMAS EVE

The next important period of feasting in the country occurred at Shrove-tide, which among the Roman Catholics was the time appointed for shriving or confession of sins, and was also observed as a carnival before the commencement of Lent. The former of these ceremonies was dispensed with at the Reformation; but the rites attending the latter were for a long time supported with a rival spirit of hilarity. The Monday and Tuesday succeeding Shrove Sunday, called Collop Monday and Pancake Tuesday, were peculiarly devoted to Shrovetide Amusement; the first having been, in papal times, the period at which they took leave of flesh, or slices of meat, termed collops in the north, which had been preserved through the winter by salting and drying, and the second was a relic of the feast preceding Lent; eggs and collops therefore on the Monday, and pancakes, as a delicacy, on the Tuesday, were duly if not religiously served up.

Tusser, in his very curious and entertaining poem on agriculture, thus notices some of the old observances at Shrovetide:—

For an explanation of the obsolete custom of "threshing the fat hen," we are indebted to Mr. Hilman. "The hen," says he, "is hung at a fellow's back, who has also some horse-bells about him; the rest of the fellows are blinded, and have boughs in their hands, with which they chase this fellow and his hen about some large court or small enclosure. The fellow with his hen and bells shifting as well as he can, they follow the sound, and sometimes hit him and his hen; at other times, if he can get behind one of them, they thresh one another well favour'dly; but the jest is, the maids are to blind the fellows, which they do with their aprons, and the cunning baggages will endear their sweet-hearts with a peeping hole, whilst the others look out as sharp to hinder it. After this the hen is boil'd with bacon, and store of pancakes and fritters are made. She that is noted for lying in bed long, or any other miscarriage, hath the first pancake presented to her, which most commonly falls to the dogs share at last, for no one will own it their due." Mr. Hilman concludes his comment on the text with a singular remark; "the loss of the above laudable custom, is one of the benefits we have got by smoaking tobacco."[142:A]

Shakspeare has twice noticed this season of feasting and amusement; first, in All's Well That Ends Well, where he makes the Clown tell the Countess (among a string of other similes), that his answer is "as fit as a pancake for Shrove-tuesday[143:A];" and in the Second Part of King Henry IV. he has introduced Silence singing the following song:—

The third line of this song appears to have been proverbial, and of considerable antiquity; for Adam Davie, who flourished about 1312, has the same imagery with the same rhyme, in his Life of Alexander:

And the subsequent passage, quoted by Mr. Reed from a writer contemporary with Shakspeare, proves, that it was a common burden or under song in the halls of our gentry at that period:—"which done, grace said, and the table taken up, the plate presently conveyed into the pantrie, the hall summons this consort of companions (upon payne to dyne with Duke Humphfrie, or to kisse the hare's foot,) to appear at the first call: where a song is to be sung, the under song or holding whereof is, It is merrie in haul where beards wag all." The Serving-man's Comfort, 1598, sign. C.[144:A]

The evening of Shrove-Tuesday was usually appropriated, as well in the country as in town, to the exhibition of dramatic pieces. Not only at Court, where Jonson was occasionally employed to write Masques on this night[144:B], but at both the Universities, in the provincial schools, and in the halls of the gentry and nobility, were these the amusements of Shrovetide, during the days of Elizabeth and James. Warton, speaking of these ephemeral plays, adds, in a note, "I have seen an anonymous comedy, Apollo Shroving, composed by the Master of Hadleigh-school, in Suffolk[144:C], and acted by his scholars, on Shrove-tuesday, Feb. 7, 1626, printed 1627. 8vo. published, as it seems, by E. W. Shrove-tuesday, as the day immediately preceding Lent, was always a day of extraordinary sport and feasting."—"Some of these festivities," he proceeds to say, "still remain in our universities. In the Percy Houshold-Book, 1512, it appears, that the clergy and officers of Lord Percy's chapel performed a play before his lordship upon Shrowftewesday at night." Pag. 345.[144:D]

The cruel custom of Cock-throwing, which, until lately, was a diversion peculiar to this day, seems to have originated from the barbarous, yet less savage, amusement of Cock-fighting. "Every yeare on Shrove-Tuesday," says Fitzstephen, who wrote in the reign of Henry II., "the schoole-boyes doe bring cockes of the game to their master, and all the forenoone they delight themselves in Cock-fighting."[145:A] At what period this degenerated into Cock-throwing cannot now be ascertained; Chaucer seems to allude to it in his Nonnes Priests' Tale, where the Cock revenges himself on the Priest's son, because he

and that it was common in the sixteenth century, we have the testimony of Sir Thomas More, who, describing the state of childhood, speaks of his skill in casting a cok-stele, that is, a stick or cudgel to throw at a cock.[145:B]

The first effective blow directed against this infamous sport, was given by the moral pencil of Hogarth, who in one of his prints called The Four Stages of Cruelty, has represented, among other puerile diversions, a groupe of boys throwing at a Cock, and, as Trusler remarks, "beating the harmless feathered animal to jelly."[145:C] The benevolent satire of this great artist gradually produced the necessary reform, and for some time past, the magistrates have so generally interdicted the practice, that the pastime may happily be considered as extinct.[145:D]

Easter-tide, or the week succeeding Easter-Sunday, afforded another opportunity for rejoicing, and was formerly a season of great festivity. Not only, as bound by every tie of gratitude to do, did man rejoice on this occasion, but it was the belief of the vulgar that the sun himself partook of the exhilaration, and regularly danced on Easter-Day. To see this glorious spectacle, therefore, it was customary for the common people to rise before the sun on Easter-morning, and though, as we may conclude, they were constantly disappointed, yet might the habit occasionally lead to serious thought and useful contemplation; metaphorically considered, indeed, the idea may be termed both just and beautiful, "for as the earth and her valleys standing thick with corn, are said to laugh and sing; so, on account of the Resurrection, the heavens and the sun may be said to dance for joy; or, as the Psalmist words it, the heavens may rejoice and the earth may be glad."[146:A]

The great amusement of the Easter-holidays consisted in playing at hand-ball, a game at which, say the ritualists Belithus and Durandus, bishops and archbishops used, upon the continent at this period, to recreate themselves with their inferior clergy[147:A]; nor was it uncommon for corporate bodies on this occasion in England to amuse themselves in a similar way with their burgesses and young people; antiently this was the custom, says Mr. Brand, at Newcastle, at the feasts of Easter and Whitsuntide, when the mayor, aldermen, and sheriff, accompanied by great numbers of the burgesses, used to go yearly at these seasons to the Forth, or little mall of the town, with the mace, sword, and cap of maintenance carried before them, and not only countenance, but frequently join in the diversions of hand-ball, dancing, &c.[147:B]

The constant prize at hand-ball, during Easter, was a tansy-cake, supposed to be allusive to the bitter herbs used by the Jews on this festival. Selden, the contemporary of Shakspeare, speaking of our chief holidays, remarks, that "our Meats and Sports have much of them relation to Church-Works. The coffin of our Christmas Pies, in shape long, is in imitation of the Cratch[147:C]: our chusing Kings and Queens on Twelfth Night, hath reference to the three kings. So likewise our eating of fritters, whipping of tops, roasting of herrings, Jack of Lents, &c. they are all in imitation of Church-Works, emblems of martyrdom. Our Tansies at Easter have reference to the bitter Herbs; though at the same time 'twas always the fashion for a man to have a Gammon of Bacon, to shew himself to be no Jew."[147:D] Fuller has noticed this Easter game under his Cheshire, where, explaining the origin of the proverb "When the daughter is stolen shut Pepper Gate," he says, "The mayor of the city had his daughter, as she was playing at ball with other maidens in Pepper-street, stolen away by a young man through the same gate, whereupon he caused it to be shut up."[148:A]

Another custom which prevailed in this country, during the sixteenth century, at Easter, and is still kept up in some parts of the north, was that of presenting children with eggs stained with various colours in boiling, termed Paste or more properly Pasche Eggs, which the young people considered in the light of fairings. This observance appears to have arisen from a superstition, prevalent among the Roman Catholics, that eggs were an emblem of the resurrection, and, indeed, in the Ritual of Pope Paul the Fifth, which was composed for the use of England, Ireland, and Scotland, there is a prayer for the consecration of eggs, in which the faithful servants of the Lord are directed to eat this his creature of eggs on account of the resurrection. On this custom Mr. Brand has well observed, that "the antient Egyptians, if the resurrection of the body had been a tenet of their faith, would perhaps have thought an Egg no improper hieroglyphical representation of it. The exclusion of a living creature by incubation, after the vital principle has lain a long while dormant or extinct, is a process so truly marvellous, that if it could be disbelieved, would be thought by some a thing as incredible, as that the Author of Life should be able to re-animate the dead."[148:B] So prevalent indeed was this custom of egg-giving at Easter, that it forms the basis of an old English proverb, which, in the collection of Mr. Ray, runs thus:

"I'll warrant you for an egg at Easter."[148:C]

A popular holiday, called Hoke-Day, or Hock-Day, which used to be celebrated with much festivity in Shakspeare's native county, was usually observed on the Tuesday following the second Sunday after Easter-day. Its origin is doubtful, some antiquaries supposing it was commemorative of the massacre of the Danes in the reign of Ethelred the Unready, which took place on the 13th of November 1002; and others that it was meant to perpetuate the deliverance of the English from the tyrannical government of the Danes, by the death of Hardicanute on Tuesday the 8th of June 1041. At Coventry in Warwickshire, however, it was celebrated in memory of the former event, though the commemoration was held on a day wide apart from that on which the catastrophe occurred, a circumstance which originated in an ordinance of Ethelred himself, who transferred the sports of this day to the Monday and Tuesday in the third week after Easter. John Rouse, or Ross, the Warwickshire historian, says, that this day was distinguished by various sports, in which the people, divided into parties, used to draw each other by ropes[149:A]; a species of diversion of which Spelman has given us a more intelligible account by telling us that it "consisted in the men and women binding each other, and especially the women the men," and that the day, in consequence of this pastime, was called Binding-Tuesday.[149:B]

The term hock, by which this day is designated, is thus accounted for by Henry of Huntingdon. "The secret letters of Ethelred, directed to all parts of his kingdom from this city (Winchester), ordered that all the Danes indiscriminately should be put to death; and this was executed, as we learn from the chronicle of Wallingford, with circumstances of the greatest cruelty, even upon women and children, in many parts: but in other places, it seems that the English, instead of killing their guests, satisfied themselves with what was called hock-shining, or houghing them, by cutting their ham-strings, so as to render them incapable of serving in war. Hence the sports which were afterwards instituted in our city, and from thence propagated throughout the whole kingdom, obtained the name of Hocktide merriments."

It appears from the following passage in Laneham's Account of Queen Elizabeth's Entertainment at Kenelworth Castle, A. D. 1575, that the citizens of Coventry had lately been compelled to give up their annual amusements on Hock Tuesday, and took the opportunity of the queen's visit to the Earl of Leicester to petition her for a renewal of the same. "Hereto followed," says Laneham, "as good a sport (methought), presented in an historical cue, by certain good-hearted men of Coventry, my Lord's neighbours there; who understanding among them the thing that could not be hidden from any, how careful and studious his Honour was that by all pleasant recreations her Highness might best find herself welcome, and be made gladsome and merry (the groundwork indeed and foundation of his Lordship's mirth and gladness of us all), made petition that they mought renew now their old storial shew: Of argument how the Danes, whylome here in a troublous season were for quietness borne withal and suffered in peace; that anon, by outrage and importable insolency, abusing both Ethelred the King, then, and all Estates every where beside; at the grievous complaint and counsel of Huna the King's chieftain in wars on a Saint Brice's night, A. D. 1012 (as the book says, that falleth yearly on the thirteenth of November) were all dispatched, and the realm rid. And for because the matter mentioneth how valiantly our English women for love of their country behaved themselves, expressed in actions and rymes after their manner, they thought it mought move some mirth to her Majesty the rather. The thing, said they, is grounded on story, and for pastime wont to be played in our city yearly; without ill example of manners, papistry, or any superstition; and else did so occupy the heads of a number, that likely enough would have had worse meditations; had an ancient beginning and a long continuance; till now of late laid down, they knew no cause why, unless it were by the zeal of certain their preachers, men very commendable for their behaviour and learning, and sweet in their sermons, but somewhat too sour in preaching away their pastime: Wished therefore, that as they should continue their good doctrine in pulpit, so, for matters of policy and governance of the city, they would permit them to the Mayor and Magistrates; and said, by my faith, Master Martyn, they would make their humble petition unto her Highness, that they might have their Plays up again."[151:A]

As it is subsequently stated that their play was very graciously received by the queen, who commanded it to be represented again on the following Tuesday, and gave the performers two bucks, and five marks in money, we must suppose, that their petition was not rejected, and that they were allowed to renew yearly at Coventry, their favourite diversions on Hock-Tuesday. The observance of this day, indeed, was still partially retained in the time of Spelman, who died A. D. 1641[151:B], and even Plott, who lived until 1696, mentions it then as not totally discontinued; but the eighteenth century, we believe, never witnessed its celebration.

We have now reached that period of the year which was formerly dedicated to one of the most splendid and pleasing of our festal rites. The observance of May-Day was a custom which, until the close of the reign of James the First, alike attracted the attention of the royal and the noble, as of the vulgar class. Henry the Eighth, Elizabeth, and James, patronized and partook of its ceremonies; and, during this extended era, there was scarcely a village in the kingdom but what had a May-pole, with its appropriate games and dances.

The origin of these festivities has been attributed to three different sources, Classic, Celtic, and Gothic. The first appears to us to establish the best claim to the parentage of our May-day rites, as a relique of the Roman Floralia, which were celebrated on the last four days of April, and on the first of May, in honour of the goddess Flora, and were accompanied with dancing, music, the wearing of garlands, strewing of flowers, &c. The Beltein, or rural sacrifice of the Highlanders on this day, as described by Mr. Pennant and Dr. Jamieson[152:A], seems to have arisen from a different motive, and to have been instituted for the purpose of propitiating the various noxious animals which might injure or destroy their flocks and herds. The Gothic anniversary on May-day makes a nearer approach to the general purpose of the Floralia, and was intended as a thanksgiving to the sun, if not for the return of flowers, fruit, and grain, yet for the introduction of a better season for fishing and hunting.[152:B]

The modes of conducting the ceremonies and rejoicings on May-day, may be best drawn from the writers of the Elizabethan period, in which this festival appears to have maintained a very high degree of celebrity, though not accompanied with that splendour of exhibition which took place at an earlier period in the reign of Henry the Eighth. It may be traced, indeed, from the era of Chaucer, who, in the conclusion of his Court of Love, has described the Feast of May, when

And, it should be observed, that this, the simplest mode of celebrating May-day, was as much in vogue, in the days of Shakspeare, as the more complex one, accompanied by the morris-dance, and the games of Robin Hood. The following descriptions, by Bourne and Borlase, manifestly allude to the costume of this age, and to the simpler mode of commemorating the 1st of May: "On the Calends, or the 1st day of May," says the former, "commonly called May-day, the juvenile part of both sexes were wont to rise a little after midnight, and walk to some neighbouring wood, accompany'd with music, and the blowing of horns, where they break down branches from the trees, and adorn them with nosegays and crowns of flowers. When this is done, they return with their booty homewards, about the rising of the sun, and make their doors and windows to triumph in the flowery spoil. The after part of the day, is chiefly spent in dancing round a tall poll, which is called a May Poll; which being placed in a convenient part of the village, stands there, as it were consecrated to the Goddess of Flowers, without the least violence offered it, in the whole circle of the year."[153:B] "An antient custom," says the latter, "still retained by the Cornish, is that of decking their doors and porches on the first of May with green sycamore and hawthorn boughs, and of planting trees, or rather stumps of trees, before their houses: and on May-eve, they from towns make excursions into the country, and having cut down a tall elm, brought it into town, fitted a straight and taper pole to the end of it, and painted the same, erect it in the most public places, and on holidays and festivals adorn it with flower garlands, or insigns and streamers."[154:A]

Now both these passages are little more than a less extended account of what Philip Stubbes was a witness of, and described, in the year 1595, in his puritanical work, entitled The Anatomie of Abuses. "Against Maie-day," relates this vehement declaimer, "every parish, towne, or village, assemble themselves, both men, women, and children; and either all together, or dividing themselves into companies, they goe some to the woods and groves, some to the hills and mountaines, some to one place, some to another, where they spend all the night in pleasant pastimes, and in the morning they return bringing with them, birche boughes and branches of trees to deck their assemblies withal. But their chiefest jewel they bring from thence is the maie-pole, which they bring home with great veneration, as thus—they have twentie or fortie yoake of oxen, every oxe having a sweete nosegaie of flowers tied to the tip of his hornes, and these oxen drawe home the maie-poale, their stinking idol rather, which they covered all over with flowers and hearbes, bound round with strings from the top to the bottome, and sometimes it was painted with variable colours, having two or three hundred men, women, and children following it with great devotion. And thus equipp'd it was reared with handkerchiefes and flagges streaming on the top, they strawe the ground round about it, they bind green boughs about it, they set up summer halles, bowers, and arbours, hard by it, and then fall they to banquetting and feasting, to leaping and dauncing about it, as the heathen people did at the dedication of their idolls.—I have heard it crediblie reported," he sarcastically adds, "by men of great gravity, credite, and reputation, that of fourtie, three score, or an hundred maides going to the wood, there have scarcely the third part of them returned home againe as they went."[154:B]

Browne also has given a similar description of the May-day rites in his Britannia's Pastorals:—

The custom of rising early on a May-morning to enjoy the season, and honour the day, is thus noticed by Stow:—"In the month of May," he says, "namely, on May-day in the morning, every man, except impediment, would walke into the sweete meddowes and green woods, there to rejoice their spirits, with the beauty and savour of sweet flowers, and with the harmony of birds, praysing God in their kind[155:B];" and Shakspeare has repeated references to the same observance; in Midsummer-Night's Dream, Lysander tells Hermia,

and again, in the same play, Theseus says,—

So generally prevalent was this habit of early rising on May-day, that Shakspeare makes one of his inferior characters in King Henry the Eighth exclaim,—

Herrick, the minute describer of the customs and superstitions of his times, which were those of Shakspeare, and the immediately succeeding period, has a poem called Corinna's Going A Maying, which includes most of the circumstances hitherto mentioned; he thus addresses his mistress:—

With this, the simplest mode of celebrating the rites of May-day, was frequently united, in the days of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, a groupe of Morris Dancers, consisting of several characters, which were often varied both in number, appellation, and dress. The Morris Dance appears to have been introduced into this kingdom about the reign of Edward the Fourth, and is, without doubt, derived from the Morisco, a dance peculiar to the Moors, and generally termed the Spanish Morisco, from its notoriety in Spain, during the dynasty of that people in the peninsula. The Morris Dance in this country, when performed on a May-day, and not connected with the Games of Robin Hood, usually consisted of the Lady of the May, the Fool, or domestic buffoon of the 15th and 16th centuries, a Piper, and two, four, or more, Morris Dancers. The dress of these last personages, who designated the amusement, was of a very peculiar kind; they had their faces blackened to resemble the native Moors, and "in the reign of Henry the Eighth," says Mr. Douce, "they were dressed in gilt leather and silver paper, and sometimes in coats of white spangled fustian. They had purses at their girdles, and garters to which bells were attached[158:A];" but according to Stubbes, who wrote in 1595, the costume had been altered, for he tells us that they were clothed in "greene, yellow, or some other light wanton collour. And as though that were not gawdy ynough," he continues, "they bedeeke themselves with scarffes, ribbons, and laces hanged all over with golde ringes, precious stones, and other jewels: this done, they tie about either legge twentie or fourtie belles, with rich handkerchiefe in their handes, and sometimes laide a crosse over their shoulders and neckes borrowed for the most part of their pretie Mopsies and loving Bessies for bussing them in the darke."[158:B] Feathers, too, were usually worn in their hats, and they had occasionally bells fixed on their arms or wrists, as well as on their legs. That these jingling ornaments were characteristic of, and derived from, the genuine Moorish Dance, appears from a plate copied by Mr. Douce from the habits of various nations, published by Hans Weigel at Nuremberg, in 1577, and which represents the figure of an African lady of the kingdom of Fez in the act of dancing, with bells at her feet.[158:C]

It was the business of these motley figures to dance round the May-pole, which was painted of various colours; thus in Mr. Tollett's painted glass window, at Betley in Staffordshire, which represents an English May-game and morris-dance, the May-pole is stained yellow and black, in spiral lines[158:D]; and Shakspeare, in allusion to this custom, makes Hermia tell Helena, whilst ridiculing the tallness of her form, that she is a "painted May-pole[158:E];" so Stubbes, likewise, in a passage previously quoted, says, that the Maie-pole was "painted with variable colours."

That the morris-dance was an almost constant attendant on the May-day festivities, may be drawn from our usual authority, the works of Shakspeare; for, in All's Well That Ends Well, the Clown affirms, that his answer will serve all questions

But, about the commencement of the sixteenth century, or somewhat sooner, probably towards the middle of the fifteenth century, a very material addition was made to the celebration of the rites of May-day, by the introduction of the characters of Robin Hood and some of his associates. This was done with a view towards the encouragement of archery, and the custom was continued even beyond the close of the reign of James I. It is true, that the May-games in their rudest form, the mere dance of lads and lasses round a May-pole, or the simple morris with the Lady of the May, were occasionally seen during the days of Elizabeth; but the general exhibition was the more complicated ceremony which we are about to describe.

The personages who now became the chief performers in the morris-dance, were four of the most popular outlaws of Sherwood forest; that Robin Hood, of whom Drayton says,—

characters which Warner, the contemporary of Drayton and Shakspeare, has exclusively recorded as celebrating the rites of May; for, speaking of the periods of some of our festivals, and remarking that "ere penticost begun our May," he adds,

These four characters, therefore, Robin Hood, Little John, Friar Tuck, and Maid Marian, although no constituent parts of the original English morris, became at length so blended with it, especially on the festival of May-day, that until the practice of archery was nearly laid aside, they continued to be the most essential part of the pageantry.

In consequence of this arrangement, "the old Robin Hood of England," as Shakspeare calls him[160:B], was created the King or Lord of the May, and sometimes carried in his hand, during the May-game, a painted standard.[160:C] It was no uncommon circumstance, likewise, for metrical interludes, of a comic species, and founded on the achievements of this outlaw, to be performed after the morris, on the May-pole green. In Garrick's Collection of Old Plays, occurs one, entitled "A mery Geste of Robyn Hoode, and of hys Lyfe, wyth a newe Playe for to be played in Maye-Games, very pleasaunte and full of pastyme;" it is printed at London, in the black letter, for William Copland, and has figures in the title page of Robin Hood and Lytel John.[160:D] Shakspeare appears to allude to these interludes when he represents Fabian, in the Twelfth Night, exclaiming on the approach of Sir Andrew Ague-Cheek with his challenge, "More matter for May-morning."[160:E]

Upon this introduction of Robin Hood and his companions into the celebration of May-day, his paramour Maid Marian, assumed the office of the former Queen of May. This far-famed lady has, according to Mr. Ritson, no part in the original and more authentic history of Robin Hood; but seems to have been first brought forward when the story of this hero became dramatised, which was at a very early period in this country; and Mr. Douce is of opinion that the name, which is a stranger to English history, has been taken from "a pretty French pastoral drama of the eleventh or twelfth century, entitled Le jeu du berger et de la bergere, in which the principal characters are Robin and Marian, a shepherd and shepherdess."[161:A] This appears the more probable, as the piece was not only very popular in France, but performed at the season when the May-games took place in England.

Maid Marian, in the days of Shakspeare, was usually represented by a delicate, smooth-faced youth, who was dressed in all the fashionable finery of the times; and this assumption of the female garb gave, not without some reason, great offence to the puritanical dissenters, one of whom, exclaiming against the amusements of May-day, notices this, amongst some other abuses, in the following very curious passage:—"The abuses which are committed in your May-games are infinite. The first whereof is this, that you doe use to attyre in woman's apparrell whom you doe most commonly call may-marrions, whereby you infringe that straight commandment whiche is given in Deut. xxii. 5., that men must not put on women's apparrell for feare of enormities. Nay I myself have seene in a may game a troupe, the greater part whereof hath been men, and yet have they been attyred so like into women, that their faces being hidde (as they were indeede) a man coulde not discerne them from women. The second abuse, which of all other is the greatest, is this, that it hath been toulde that your morice dauncers have dannced naked in nettes: what greater enticement unto naughtiness could have been devised? The third abuse is, that you (because you will loose no tyme) doe use commonly to runne into woodes in the night time, amongst maidens, to fet bowes, in so muche as I have hearde of tenne maidens which went to fet May, and nine of them came home with childe."[162:A]

That, in consequence of this custom, effeminate and coxcomical men were sarcastically compared to Maid Marian, appears from a passage in a pamphlet by Barnaby Rich, who, satirising the male attire, as worn by the fops of the reigns of Elizabeth and James I., cries out,—"From whence commeth this wearing, and this embroidering of long locks, this curiosity that is used amongst men, in frizeling and curling of their haire, this gentlewoman-like starcht bands, so be-edged and be-laced, fitter for Maid Marian in a Moris dance, than for him that hath either that spirit or courage that shold be in a gentleman."[162:B]

It will not seem surprising that the converse of this was occasionally applicable to the female sex; and that those women who adopted masculine airs and habits should be branded with a similarity to the clown who, though personating the lady of the May, never failed, however nice or affected he might be, to disclose by the boldness and awkwardness of his gesture and manner, both his rank and sex. Thus Falstaff is represented as telling the hostess, when he means to upbraid her for her masculine appearance and conduct, that "for woman hood Maid Marian may be the Deputy's wife of the ward to thee."[162:C] A fancy coronet of gilt metal, or interwoven with flowers, and a watchet coloured tunic, a kirtle or petticoat of green, as the livery of Robin Hood, were customary articles of decoration in the dress of the May-Queen.

Friar Tuck, the next of the four characters which we have mentioned as introduced into the May-games, was the chaplain of Robin Hood, and is noticed by Shakspeare, who makes one of the outlaws, in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, swear

He is represented in the engraving of Mr. Tollet's window as a Franciscan friar in the full clerical tonsure; for, as Mr. T. observes in giving an account of his window, "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;" he adds that "most of Shakspeare's friars are Franciscans," and that in Sir David Dalrymple's extracts from the book of the Universal Kirk, in the year 1576, he is styled "chaplain to Robin Huid, king of May."[163:B]

The last of this groupe was the boon companion of Robin, the "brave Little John," as he is termed in one of the ballads on this popular outlaw, and who "is first mentioned," remarks Mr. Douce, "together with Robin Hood, by Fordun the Scotish historian, who wrote in the fourteenth century, and who speaks of the celebration of the story of these persons in the theatrical performances of his time, and of the minstrel's songs relating to them, which he says the common people preferred to all other romances."[163:C]

With these four personages therefore, who were deemed so inseparable, that a character in Peele's Edward I. says, "We will live and die together, like Robin Hood, Little John, Friar Tucke, and Maide Marian[163:D]," the performers in the simple English Morris, the fool, Tom the Piper, and the Morris Dancers, peculiarly so called from their dress and function, were, for a time, generally connected. Tom the Piper is thus mentioned by Drayton:

And Shakspeare, alluding to the violent gesticulations and music of the Morris dancers says, speaking of Cade the rebel,

The music accompanying the Morris and the May-games, was either the simple pipe, or the pipe and tabor, or the bag-pipe. In the following passage from a curious controversial pamphlet, published towards the close of the sixteenth century, the morris and the pipe and tabor are thus noticed: "If Menippus, or the man in the moone, be so quick sighted, that he beholds these bitter sweete jests, these railing outcries; this shouting at prelates to cast them downe, and heaving at Martin to hang him up for Martilmas biefe; what would he imagine otherwise, then as that stranger, which seeing a Quintessence (beside the foole and the Maid Marian) of all the picked youth, strained out of an whole Endship, footing the morris about a may pole, and he, not hearing the crie of the hounds, for the barking of dogs, (that is to say) the minstrelsie for the fidling, the tune for the sound, nor the pipe for the noise of the tabor, bluntly demanded if they were not all beside themselves, that they so lip'd and skip'd whithout an occasion."[164:C] To this quotation Mr. Haslewood has annexed the subsequent ludicrous story from a tract entitled, Hay any worke for Cooper. It is a striking proof of the singular attraction and popularity of the May-games at this period:—"There is a neighbour of ours, an honest priest, who was sometimes (simple as he now stands) a vice in a play, for want of a better; his name is Gliberie of Hawstead in Essex, hee goes much to the pulpit. On a time, I thinke it was the last May, he went up with a full resolution to doe his businesse with great commendations. But, see the fortune of it. A boy in the church, hearing either the summer lord with his May-game, or Robin Hood with his morice daunce, going by the church, out goes the boye. Good Glibery, though he were in the pulpit, yet had a mind to his old companions abroad, (a company of merry grigs you must thinke them to be, as merry as a vice on a stage), seeing the boy going out, finished his matter presently with John of London's amen, saying, ha ye faith, boy! are they there? Then ha with thee, and so came downe and among them he goes."[165:A]

That the music of the bag-pipe was highly esteemed in the days of Shakspeare, and even preferred to the tabor and pipe, we have a strong instance in his Winter's Tale, where a servant enters announcing Autolicus in the following terms: "If you did but hear the pedlar at the door, you would never dance again after a tabor and pipe; no, the bag-pipe could not move you[165:B];" and that especially in the country, it was a frequent accompaniment to the morris bells, the numerous collections of madrigals, published in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, afford many proofs. Thus, from a collection printed in 1600:

and from another, allusive to the May-games, edited by Thomas Morley:

The Morris and the May-game of Robin Hood attained their most perfect form when united with the Hobby-Horse and the Dragon. Of these the former was the resemblance of the head and tail of a horse, manufactured in pasteboard, and attached to a person whose business it was, whilst he seemed to ride gracefully on its back, to imitate the prancings and curvettings of that noble animal, whose supposed feet were concealed by a foot-cloth reaching to the ground; and the latter, constructed of the same materials, was made to hiss and vibrate his wings, and was frequently attacked by the man on the hobby-horse, who then personated the character of St. George.[166:B]

In the reigns therefore of Elizabeth and James I. these eight masqueraders, consisting of Robin Hood, Maid Marian, Friar Tuck, Little John, the Fool, Tom the Piper, the Hobby-Horse, and the Dragon, with from two to ten morris-dancers, or, in lieu of them, the same number of Robin Hood's men, in coats, hoods, and hose of green, with a painted pole in the centre, represented the most complete establishment of the May-game.[167:A]

All these characters may be traced, indeed, so far back as the middle of the fifteenth century; and, accordingly, Mr. Strutt, in his interesting romance, entitled "Queen-hoo Hall," has introduced a very pleasing and accurate description of the May-games and Morris of Robin Hood, which, as written in a lively and dramatic style, and not in the least differing from what they continued to be in the youthful days of Shakspeare, and before they were broken in upon by the fanaticism of the puritans, we shall copy in this place for the entertainment of our readers.

"In the front of the pavilion, a large square was staked out, and fenced with ropes, to prevent the crowd from pressing upon the performers, and interrupting the diversion; there were also two bars at the bottom of the inclosure, through which the actors might pass and repass, as occasion required.

"Six young men first entered the square, clothed in jerkins of leather, with axes upon their shoulders like woodmen, and their heads bound with large garlands of ivy-leaves intertwined with sprigs of hawthorn. Then followed,

"Six young maidens of the village, dressed in blue kirtles, with garlands of primroses on their heads, leading a fine sleek cow, decorated with ribbons of various colours, interspersed with flowers; and the horns of the animal were tipped with gold. These were succeeded by

"Six foresters, equipped in green tunics, with hoods and hosen of the same colour; each of them carried a bugle-horn attached to a baldrick of silk, which he sounded as he passed the barrier. After them came

"Peter Lanaret, the baron's chief falconer, who personified Robin Hood; he was attired in a bright grass-green tunic, fringed with gold; his hood and his hosen were parti-coloured, blue and white; he had a large garland of rose-buds on his head, a bow bent in his hand, a sheaf of arrows at his girdle, and a bugle-horn depending from a baldrick of light blue tarantine, embroidered with silver; he had also a sword and a dagger, the hilts of both being richly embossed with gold.

"Fabian a page, as Little John, walked at his right hand; and Cecil Cellerman the butler, as Will Stukely, at his left. These, with ten others of the jolly outlaw's attendants who followed, were habited in green garments, bearing their bows bent in their hands, and their arrows in their girdles. Then came

"Two maidens, in orange-coloured kirtles with white[168:A] courtpies; strewing flowers; followed immediately by

"The maid Marian, elegantly habited in a watchet-coloured[168:B] tunic reaching to the ground; over which she wore a white linen[168:C] rochet with loose sleeves, fringed with silver, and very neatly plaited; her girdle was of silver baudekin[168:D], fastened with a double bow on the left side; her long flaxen hair was divided into many ringlets, and flowed upon her shoulders; the top part of her head was covered with a net-work cawl of gold, upon which was placed a garland of silver, ornamented with blue violets. She was supported by

"Two bride-maidens, in sky-coloured rochets girt with crimsom girdles, wearing garlands upon their heads of blue and white violets. After them, came

"Four other females in green courtpies, and garlands of violets and cowslips: Then

"Sampson the smith, as Friar Tuck, carrying a huge quarter-staff on his shoulder; and Morris the mole-taker, who represented Much the miller's son, having a long pole with an inflated bladder attached to one end[169:A]: And after them

"The May-pole, drawn by eight fine oxen, decorated with scarfs, ribbons, and flowers of divers colours; and the tips of their horns were embellished with gold. The rear was closed by

"The Hobby-horse and the Dragon.

"When the May-pole was drawn into the square, the foresters sounded their horns, and the populace expressed their pleasure by shouting incessantly untill it reached the place assigned for its elevation:—and during the time the ground was preparing for its reception, the barriers of the bottom of the inclosure were opened for the villagers to approach, and adorn it with ribbons, garlands, and flowers, as their inclination prompted them.

"The pole being sufficiently onerated with finery, the square was cleared from such as had no part to perform in the pageant; and then it was elevated amidst the reiterated acclamations of the spectators. The woodmen and the milk-maidens danced around it according to the rustic fashion; the measure was played by Peretto Cheveritte, the baron's chief minstrel, on the bagpipes accompanied with the pipe and labour, performed by one of his associates. When the dance was finished, Gregory the jester, who undertook to play the hobby-horse, came forward with his appropriate equipment, and, frisking up and down the square without restriction, imitated the galloping, curvetting, ambling, trotting, and other paces of a horse, to the infinite satisfaction of the lower classes of the [170:A]spectators. He was followed by Peter Parker, the baron's ranger, who personated a dragon, hissing, yelling, and shaking his wings with wonderful ingenuity; and to complete the mirth, Morris, in the character of Much, having small bells attached to his knees and elbows, capered here and there between the two monsters in the form of a dance; and as often as he came near to the sides of the inclosure, he cast slily a handful of meal into the faces of the gaping rustics, or rapped them about their heads with the bladder tied at the end of his [170:B]pole. In the mean time, Sampson, representing Friar Tuck, walked with much gravity around the square, and occasionally let fall his heavy staff upon the toes of such of the crowd as he thought were approaching more forward than they ought to do; and if the sufferers cried out from the sense of pain, he addressed them in a solemn tone of voice, advising them to count their beads, say a paternoster or two, and to beware of purgatory. These vagaries were highly palatable to the populace, who announced their delight by repeated plaudits and loud bursts of laughter; for this reason they were continued for a considerable length of time: but Gregory, beginning at last to faulter in his paces, ordered the dragon to fall back: the well-nurtured beast, being out of breath, readily obeyed, and their two companions followed their example; which concluded this part of the pastime.

"Then the archers set up a target at the lower part of the Green, and made trial of their skill in a regular succession. Robin Hood and Will Stukely excelled their comrades: and both of them lodged an arrow in the centre circle of gold, so near to each other that the difference could not readily be decided, which occasioned them to shoot again; when Robin struck the gold a second time, and Stukely's arrow was affixed upon the edge of it. Robin was therefore adjudged the conqueror; and the prize of honour, a garland of laurel embellished with variegated ribbons, was put upon his head; and to Stukely was given a garland of ivy, because he was the second best performer in that contest.

"The pageant was finished with the archery; and the procession began to move away, to make room for the villagers, who afterwards assembled in the square, and amused themselves by dancing round the May-pole in promiscuous companies, according to the ancient custom."[171:A]

In consequence of the opposition, however, of the puritans, during the close of Elizabeth's reign, who considered the rights of May-day as relics of paganism, much havoc was made among the Dramatis Personæ of this festivity. Sometimes instead of Robin and Marian, only a Lord or Lady of the day was adopted; frequently the friar was not suffered to appear, and still more frequently was the hobby-horse interdicted. This zealous interference of the sectarists was ridiculed by the poets of the day, and among the rest by Shakspeare, who quotes a line from a satirical ballad on this subject, and represents Hamlet as terming it an epitaph; "Else shall he suffer not thinking on," says he, "with the hobby-horse; whose epitaph is, For, O, for, O, the hobby horse is forgot."[171:B] He has the same allusion in Love's Labour's Lost[171:C]; and Ben Jonson has still more explicitly noticed the neglect into which this character in the May-games had fallen in his days.

and again, still more pointedly,—

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

Coc. No, nor a hobby-horse.

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.

Coc. Nor a Foole that I see."[172:B]

In Beaumont and Fletcher's Tragi-comedy called Women Pleased, the aversion of the puritans to this festive beast is strikingly depicted; where the person who was destined to perform the hobby-horse, being converted by his wife, exclaims vehemently against the task imposed upon him.

From one of these puritans, named Stephen Gosson, we learn, likewise, that Morrice-dancers and Hobby-horses had been introduced even upon the stage during the early part of the reign of Elizabeth; for this writer, in a tract published about 1579, and entitled Plays Confuted, says, that "the Devil beeside the beautie of the houses, and the stages, sendeth in gearish apparell, maskes, ranting, tumbling, dauncing of gigges, galiardes, morisces, hobbi-horses, &c."[173:B] By the continued railings and invectives, however, of these fanatics, the May-games were, at length, so broken in upon, that had it not been for the Book of Sports, or lawful Recreations upon Sunday after Evening-prayers, and upon Holy-days, issued by King James in 1618, they would have been totally extinct. This curious volume permitted May-games, Morris-dances, Whitsun-ales, the setting up of May-poles, &c.[173:C]; and had it not allowed church-ales, and dancing on the Sabbath, would have been unexceptionable in its tendency; for as honest Burton observes, in allusion to this very Declaration of King James, "Dancing, Singing, Masking, Mumming, Stage-playes, howsoever they be heavily censured by some severe Catoes, yet if opportunely and soberly used, may justly be approved. Melius est fodere, quam saltare, saith Augustin: but what is that if they delight in it? Nemo saltat sobrius. But in what kind of dance? I know these sports have many oppugners, whole volumes writ against them; when as all they say (if duly considered) is but ignoratio Elenchi; and some again, because they are now cold and wayward, past themselves, cavil at all such youthful sports in others, as he did in the Comedy; they think them, illico nasci senes, &c. Some out of preposterous zeal object many times trivial arguments, and because of some abuse, will quite take away the good use, as if they should forbid wine, because it makes men drunk; but in my judgment they are too stern: there is a time for all things, a time to mourn, a time to dance. Eccles. 3. 4. a time to embrace, a time not to embrace, (ver. 5.) and nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his own works, ver. 22. For my part, I will subscribe to the King's Declaration, and was ever of that mind, those May-games, Wakes, and Whitsun-ales, &c. if they be not at unseasonable hours, may justly be permitted. Let them freely feast, sing and dance, have their poppet-playes, hobby-horses, tabers, crouds, bag-pipes, &c., play at ball, and barley-brakes, and what sports and recreations they like best."[174:A] All these festivities, however, on May-day, were again set aside, by still greater enthusiasts, during the period of the Commonwealth, and were once more revived at the Restoration; at present, few vestiges remain either of those ancient rites, or of those attendant on other popular periodical festivals.[174:B]

Several of the amusements, and some of the characters attendant on the celebration of May-day, were again introduced at Whitsuntide, especially the morris-dance, which was as customary on this period of festivity as on the one immediately preceding it. Thus Shakspeare, in King Henry V., makes the Dauphin say, alluding to the youthful follies of the English monarch,

The rural sports and feasting at Whitsuntide were usually designated by the term Whitsun-ales; ale being in the time of Shakspeare, and for a century or two, indeed, before him, synonymous with festival or merry-making. Chaucer and the author of Pierce Plowman use the word repeatedly in this sense, and the following passages from our great poet, from Jonson, and from Ascham, prove that it was familiar, in their time, in the sense of simple carousing, church-feasting, and Whitsuntide recreation. Launcelot, in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, exclaims to Speed, "Thou hast not so much charity in thee, as to go to the ale with a Christian[175:B];" and Ascham, speaking of the conduct of husbandmen, in his Toxophilus, observes that those which have their dinner and drink in the field, "have fatter barnes in the harvest, than they which will either sleape at noonetyme of the day, or els make merye with theyr neighbours at the ale."[175:C] In the chorus to the first act of Pericles, it is recorded of an old song, that

And Jonson says,

It will be necessary, in this place, therefore, to notice briefly, as being periods of festivity, the various Ales which were observed by our ancestors in the sixteenth century. They may be enumerated under the heads of Leet-ale, Lamb-ale, Bride-ale, Clerk-ale, Church-ale and Whitsun-ale. We shall confine our attention at present, however, principally to the two latter; for of the Lamb-ale and Bride-ale, an occasion will occur to speak more at large in a subsequent part of this chapter, and a very few words will suffice with regard to the Leet-ale and the Clerk-ale; the former being merely the dinner provided for the jury and customary tenants at the court-leet of a manor, or View of frank pledge, formerly held once or twice a year, before the steward of the leet[176:C]; to this court Shakspeare alludes, in his Taming of the Shrew, where the servant tells Sly, that in his dream he would "rail upon the hostess of the house," and threaten to

and the latter, which usually took place at Easter, is thus mentioned by Aubrey in his manuscript History of Wiltshire. "In the Easter holidays was the Clarkes-Ale, for his private benefit and the solace of the neighbourhood."[176:E]

The Church-ale was a festival instituted sometimes in honour of the church-saint, but more frequently for the purpose of contributing towards the repair or decoration of the church. On this occasion it was the business of the churchwardens to brew a considerable quantity of strong ale, which was sold to the populace in the church-yard, and to the better sort in the church itself, a practice which, independent of the profit arising from the sale of the liquor, led to great pecuniary advantages; for the rich thought it a meritorious duty, beside paying for their ale, to offer largely to the holy fund. It was no uncommon thing indeed to have four, six, or eight of these ales yearly, and sometimes one or more parishes agreed to hold annually a certain number of these meetings, and to contribute individually a certain sum. Of this a very curious proof may be drawn from the following stipulation, preserved in Dodsworth's Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library:—"The parishioners of Elveston and Okebrook, in Derbyshire, agree jointly, to brew four Ales, and every Ale of one quarter of malt, betwixt this (the time of contract) and the feast of saint John Baptist next coming. And that every inhabitant of the said town of Okebrook shall be at the several Ales. And every husband and his wife shall pay two pence, and every cottager one penny, and all the inhabitants of Elveston shall have and receive all the profits and advantages coming of the said Ales, to the use and behoof of the said church of Elveston. And the inhabitants of Elveston shall brew eight Ales betwixt this and the feast of saint John Baptist, at the which Ales the inhabitants of Okebrook shall come and pay as before rehersed. And if he be away at one Ale, to pay at the toder Ale for both, &c."[177:A]

The date of this document is anterior to the Reformation, but that church-ales were equally popular and frequent in the days of Shakspeare will be evident from the subsequent passages in Carew and Philip Stubbes. The historian of Cornwall, whose work was first printed in 1602, says that "for the church-ale, two young men of the parish are yerely chosen by their last foregoers, to be wardens; who, dividing the task, make collection among the parishioners, of what soever provision it pleaseth them voluntarily to bestow. This they imploy in brewing, baking, and other acates, against Whitsontide; upon which holy-dayes the neighbours meet at the church-house, and there merily feede on their owne victuals, contributing some petty portion to the stock; which, by many smalls, groweth to a meetley greatness: for there is entertayned a kinde of emulation betweene these wardens, who by his graciousness in gathering, and good husbandry in expending, can best advance the churches profit. Besides, the neighbour parishes at those times lovingly visit one another, and this way frankely spend their money together. The afternoones are consumed in such exercises as olde and yong folke (having leysure) doe accustomably weare out the time withall."[178:A] Stubbes in his violent philippic declares that, "in certaine townes, where drunken Bacchus bears swaie against Christmas and Easter, Whitsunday, or some other time, the churchwardens, for so they call them, of every parish, with the consent of the whole parish, provide half a score or twentie quarters of mault, whereof some they buy of the church stocke, and some is given to them of the parishioners themselves, every one conferring somewhat, according to his ability; which mault being made into very strong ale, or beer, is set to sale, either in the church or in some other place assigned to that purpose. Then, when this nippitatum, this huffe-cappe, as they call it, this nectar of life, is set abroach, well is he that can get the soonest to it, and spends the most at it, for he is counted the godliest man of all the rest, and most in God's favour, because it is spent upon his church forsooth."[178:B]

There is but too much reason to suppose that the satire of this bitter writer was not, in this instance, ill directed, and that meetings of this description, though avowedly for the express benefit of the church, were often productive of licentiousness, and consequently highly injurious both to morals and religion. A few lines from Ben Jonson will probably place this beyond doubt. In his Masque of Queens, performed at Whitehall, 1609, he represents one of his witches as exclaiming

Returning to the consideration of the Whitsuntide amusements, it may be observed, that not only was the morris a constituent part in their celebration, but that the Maid Marian of the May-games was frequently introduced: thus Shirley represents one of his characters exclaiming against rural diversions in the following manner:

The festivities, indeed, on this occasion, as at those on May-day, were often regulated by a Lord and Lady of the Whitsun-ales.[179:C] Very frequently, however, there was elected only a Lord of Misrule, and as the church or holy ales were not unfrequently combined with the merriments of this season, the church-yard, especially on the sabbath-day, was too generally the scene of rejoicing. The severity of Stubbes, when censuring this profanation of consecrated ground, will scarcely be deemed too keen: "First," says he, "all the wilde heads of the parish, flocking together, chuse them a graund captaine (of mischiefe) whom they inrolle 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 himselfe to wait upon his lordly majesty, and to guarde his noble person.—(Here he describes the dress of the morris dancers, as quoted in a former page, and proceeds as follows.) Thus all things set in order, then have they their hobby-horses, their dragons and other antiques, together with their baudie pipers, and thundering drummers, to strike up the Devils Daunce withall: then martch this heathen company towards the church and church-yarde, their pypers pypyng, their drummers thundering, their stumpes dauncing, their belles jyngling, their handkercheefes fluttering about their heads like madde men, their hobbie horses, and other monsters skirmishing amongst the throng: and in this sorte they goe to the church like Devils incarnate, with such a confused noise, that no man can heare his owne voyce. Then the foolish people they looke, they stare, they laugh, they fleere, and mount upon formes and pewes, to see these goodly pageants solemnized in this sort. Then after this about the church they goe againe and againe, and so foorth into the church yard, where they have commonly their summer haules, their bowers, arbours, and banqetting houses set up, wherein they feast, banquet, and daunce all that day, and (peradventure) all that night too. And thus these terrestrial furies spend the Sabboth day. Another sort of fantastical fooles bring to these helhoundes (the Lord of misrule and his complices) some bread, some good ale, some new cheese, some old cheese, some custardes, some cracknels, some cakes, some flaunes, some tartes, some creame, some meat, some one thing, some another; but if they knewe that as often as they bringe anye to the maintenance of these execrable pastimes, they offer sacrifice to the Devill and Sathanas, they would repente and with drawe their handes, which God graunt they may."[180:A]

Dramatic exhibitions, called Whitsun plays, were common, at this season, both in town and country, and in the latter they were chiefly of a pastoral character. Shakspeare has an allusion to them in his Winter's Tale, where Perdita, addressing Florizel, says,

Soon after Whitsuntide began the season of sheep-shearing, which was generally terminated about midsummer, and either at its commencement or close, was distinguished by the Lamb-ale or Sheep-shearing Feast. At Kidlington in Oxfordshire, it seems to have been ushered in by ceremonies of a peculiar kind, for, according to Blount, "the Monday after the Whitsun week, a fat lamb was provided, and the maidens of the town, having their thumbs tied behind them, were permitted to run after it, and she who with her mouth took hold of the lamb was declared the Lady of the Lamb, which, being killed and cleaned, but with the skin hanging upon it, was carried on a long pole before the lady and her companions to the green, attended with music, and a morisco dance of men, and another of women. The rest of the day was spent in mirth and merry glee. Next day the lamb, partly baked, partly boiled, and partly roasted, was served up for the lady's feast, where she sat, majestically at the upper end of the table, and her companions with her, the music playing during the repast, which, being finished, the solemnity ended."[181:B]