[652] Garrick's Collection of Old Plays.
[653] "Un tabourin d'argent semé de plaques aussi d'argent." Origine de la Langue et Poësie Françoise, lib. i. cap. viii. fol. 72
[654] Supplement to Du Cange.
[655] Chaucer, House of Fame, book iii.
[656] No. 1315.
[657] Frankeleyn's Tale.
[658] House of Fame, book iii.
[659] The original runs thus: "And they runnen togidre a great randoum; and they frunchen togidre full fiercely, and they breken thare speres so rudely, that the tronchouns flen in sprotes and peces alle about the halle." Mandevile's Travels, p. 285. I have modernized the English in many places, for sometimes it is hardly intelligible.
[660] Ibid.
[661] That is, they were frighted, expecting to be drowned by the rising of the water.
[662] Froissart's Chronicle by lord Berners, vol. iii. chap. 392, fol. 272.
[663] Dæmonologie.
[664] See "The Conjuror Unveiled," a small pamphlet translated from the French; which gives a full account of these curious pieces of mechanism, and of several others equally surprising.
[665] Mr. Tyrwhitt, in his excellent edition of Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales," vol. iii. p. 299.
[666] "The Daunce of Macabre," translated, or rather paraphrased, from the French. In this Daunce, Death is represented addressing himself to persons of all ranks and ages. John Lydgate was a monk of St. Edmondsbury Abbey. MS. Harl. No. 116.
[667] The meaning is, that Death will come shortly, and not be deceived by any false appearances.
[668] Schevid, for achieved, that is to say, performed.
[669] Or any astrological judgment derived from the stars or their influence; for the jugglers usually pretended to be astrologers and soothsayers. See the Essay on Ancient Minstrels, prefixed to the Reliques of Ancient Poetry, by the bishop of Dromore.
[670] Legerdemain; a corrupted word, derived from the French, signifying properly slights of hand, such as are usually performed by the modern jugglers.
[671] More cunning tricks.
[672] Garrick's Collection of Old Plays, K. vol. ii.
[673] "Janino le tregettor, facienti ministralsiam suam coram rege," &c.; that is, to Janino the tregetour, for performing his minstrelsy before the king, in his chamber near the priory of Swineshead, twenty shillings. Lib. Comput. Garderobæ, an. 4 Edw. II. fol. 86. MS. Cott. Nero, C. viii.
[674] The same as the modern hurdy-gurdy.
[675] Their performances are thus described by a French poet who wrote in the year 1230:
See also sir John Hawkins's History of Music, vol ii. 44.
[676] Essais Hist. sur Paris, vol. ii. p. 39.