[166:A] Censura Literaria, vol. ix. p. 34.

[166:B] It is probable indeed from the subsequent Madrigal, that the Hobby-horse was frequently attached to, and provided for, by the town or village.

[166:C] Vide Cantus primo. Madrigals to 3, 4, 5, and 6 voyces. Made and newly published by Thomas Weelkes at London, printed by Thomas Este, 1597, 4to. Censura Literaria, vol. ix. p. 9-10.

[167:A] "The English were famed," observes Dr. Grey, "for these and such like diversions; and even the old, as well as young persons, formerly followed them: a remarkable instance of which is given by Sir William Temple, (Miscellanea, Part 3. Essay of Health and Long Life,) who makes mention of a Morrice Dance in Herefordshire, from a noble person, who told him he had a pamphlet in his library written by a very ingenious gentleman of that county, which gave an account how, in such a year of King James's reign, there went about the country a sett of Morrice Dancers, composed of ten men, who danced a Maid Marian, and a taber and pipe: and how these ten, one with another, made up twelve hundred years. 'Tis not so much, says he, that so many in one county should live to that age, as that they should be in vigour and humour to travel and dance." Grey's Notes on Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 382.

[168:A] Courtpie, in women's dress, a short vest. Strutt.

[168:B] Watchet-coloured, pale blue. Strutt.

[168:C] Rochet, a lawn garment resembling a surplice gathered at the wrists. Strutt.

[168:D] Baudekin, a cloth of gold tissue, with figures in silk, for female dress. Strutt.

[169:A] The mole-taker, in this place, personates the character of the fool or domestic buffoon.

[170:A] The management of the hobby-horse appears to have been the most difficult part of the May-day festivities, and from the following passage in an old play, to have required some preparatory discipline. A character personating this piece of pageantry, and angry with the mayor of the town as being his rival, calls out, "Let the mayor play the hobby-horse among his brethren, an he will, I hope our towne-lads cannot want a hobby-horse. Have I practic'd my reines, my careeres, my pranckers, my ambles, my false trotts, my smooth ambles and Canterbury paces, and shall master mayor put me besides the hobby-horse? Have I borrowed the fore horse bells, his plumes and braveries, nay had his mane new shorne and frizl'd, and shall the mayor put me besides the hobby-horse?" The Vow breaker, by Sampson.

[170:B] The morris-dance in this description of the May-game seems to have been performed chiefly by the fool, with the occasional assistance of the hobby-horse, which was always decorated with bells, and the dragon.

[171:A] Strutt's Queenhoo-Hall, a romance, vol. i. p. 13. et seq.

[171:B] Act iii. sc. 2. Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xviii. p. 198.

[171:C] Act iii. sc. 1. Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vii. p. 53, 54.

[172:A] Entertainment of the Queen and Prince at Althorpe. 1603. fol. edit. vol. i. p. 99.

[172:B] The Metamorphosed Gipsies, fol. edit. vol. 2. p. 65.—This folio edition of Jonson's works, in two volumes, dated 1640, is not regularly paged to the close of each volume; for instance, in vol. i. the Dramas terminate at p. 668, and then the Epigrammes, Forest, Masques, &c. commence with p. 1.

[173:A] Act iv. sc. 1.—Jonson in his Bartholmew Fayre, acted in the year 1614, has a character of this kind, a Baker, who has undergone a similar conversion, and is thus introduced:—

Jonson's Works, fol. edit. vol. ii. p. vi. act i. sc. 3.

[173:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xviii. p. 198, note, Steevens.

[173:C] Wilson, censuring these indulgences, places the era of the publication of the Book of Sports under 1617, and says of it, that "some of the Bishops, pretending Recreations, and liberty to servants and the common people (of which they carved to themselves too much already) procured the King to put out a Book to permit dancing about May-poles, Church-ales, and such debauched exercises upon the Sabbath-Day after Evening-Prayer (being a specious way to make the King, and them, acceptable to the Rout): which Book came out with a command, injoyning all Ministers to read it to their parishioners, and to approve of it; and those that did not, were brought into the high Commission, imprisoned and suspended." The History of Great Britain, being the Life and Reign of King James the First, relating to what passed from his first access to the Crown, till his death. Folio, London 1653. p. 105.

[174:A] Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, 8th edit. fol. p. 174.

[174:B] "The last May-pole in London was taken down in 1717, and conveyed to Wanstead in Essex, where it was fixed in the Park for the support of an immensely large telescope. Its original height was upwards of one hundred feet above the surface of the ground, and its station on the East side of Somerset-House, where the new church now stands.—Pope thus perpetuates its remembrance:

Clavis Calendaria, vol. i. p. 318.

[175:A] Act ii. sc. 4. Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xii. p. 354.

[175:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 231. act ii. sc. 6.

[175:C] Ascham's Works apud Bennet, p. 62, 63.

[176:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xxi. p. 155.

[176:B] Jonson's Works, fol. edit.

[176:C] "A leet," observes Bullokar, in his English Expositor, 1616, "is a court, or law-day, holden commonly every half year."

[176:D] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ix. p. 33. act i. sc. 2.

[176:E] Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. iii. p. 129, note.

[177:A] MSS. Bibl. Bod., vol. cxlviii. fol. 97.

[178:A] Carew's Survey of Cornwall, edit. of 1769. p. 68.

[178:B] Anatomie of Abuses, A. D. 1595.

[179:A] Jonson's Works, fol. edit. vol. i. p. 166.

[179:B] The Lady of Pleasure, act i.

[179:C] The former of which is thus noticed by Sir Philip Sidney:—

The Countesse of Pembroke's Arcadie, 7th edit. fol. 1629. p. 84.

[180:A] Anatomie of Abuses, 1595. p. 107.

[181:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ix. p. 341. Act iv. sc. 3.—Whitsun playes or mysteries, which at first were exclusively drawn from the sacred page, may be traced to the fourteenth century; those which were performed at Chester have been attributed to Ranulph Higden, the chronicler, who died 1363.

[181:B] Blount's Ancient Tenures, p. 49, and Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, p. 316.

[182:A] Tusser apud Hilton, p. 80.

[183:A] Chalmers's Poets, vol. iv. p. 443.

[183:B] Singers of catches in three parts.

[183:C] By means are meant tenors.

[183:D] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ix. p. 323, 324. Act iv. sc. 2.

[183:E] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ix. p. 323. note 5.

[184:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ix. p. 334. Act iv. sc. 3.—I believe the custom of choosing a king and queen at the sheep-shearing feast, is still continued in several of our counties; that it was commonly observed, at least, in the time of Thomson, is evident from the following lines, taken from his description of this festival:—

Summer.

[185:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ix. p. 334, 335. 337, 338. 340.

[185:B] Dyer's Fleece, book i. sub finem.

[186:A] Tusser Redivivus, p. 104. In the first edition of Tusser, 1557, this stanza is as follows:—

Reprint by Sir Egerton Brydges, p. 19.

[186:B] Bloomfield's Farmer's Boy, Summer, l. 299.

[187:A] Paul Hentzner's Travels in England, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, translated by Horace, late Earl of Orford. Edit. of 1797. p. 55.

[187:B] "Anglos vidi spiceam ferre domum in Rheda Imaginem circum cantantibus promiscuê viris et fœminis, præcedente tibicine aut tympano." Deprav. Rel. Orig. in verbo Vacina.

[187:C] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vii. p. 376. Act v. sc. 1.

[188:A] Tusser Redivivus, p. 104.

[188:B] Hock-cart,—by this word is meant the high or rejoicing-cart, and was applied to the last load of corn, as typical of the close of harvest. Thus Hock-tide is derived from the Saxon Hoah-Saxon word for tide, or high tide, and is expressive of the height of festivity.

[189:A] Hesperides, p. 113-115.

[190:A] Tusser Redivivus, p. 81.

[190:B] Ibid. p. 147.

[190:C] Ibid. p. 77.

[191:A] Brand on Bourne's Antiquities, p. 392. note edit. 1810.

[191:B] Ibid. p. 393, 394.

[192:A] The magnificent reception of Queen Elizabeth at Norwich in 1578, has been recorded with great minuteness, in two tracts, by Bernard Goldingham and Thomas Churchyard the poet, which are reprinted in Mr. Nichols's Progresses; these accounts are likewise incorporated by Abraham Fleming as a supplement to Holinshed, and will be found in the last edition of this chronicler, in vol. iv. p. 375. The pomp and pageantry which were exhibited during this regal visit were equally gorgeous, quaint, and operose; "order was taken there," says Churchyard, "that every day, for sixe dayes together, a shew of some strange device should be seene; and the maior and aldermen appointed among themselves and their breethren, that no person reteyning to the Queene, shoulde be unfeasted, or unbidden to dinner and supper, during the space of those sixe dayes: which order was well and wisely observed, and gained their citie more fame and credite, than they wot of: for that courtesie of theirs shall remayne in perpetuall memorie, whiles the walles of their citie standeth."—Nichols's Progresses of Q. Elizabeth, vol. ii. p. 56.

[192:B] The wise policy of Elizabeth in establishing the Flemings in this country gave birth to our vast superiority in the woollen trade; and the first pageant which met the eyes of Elizabeth on her entrance into Norwich was the artizan-strangers pageant, illustrative of the whole process of the manufactory, "a shewe which pleased her Majestie so greatly, as she particularly viewed the knitting and spinning of the children, perused the loombes, and noted the several workes and commodities which were made by these meanes."—Nichols's Progresses, vol. ii. p. 13.

[192:C] Gerguntum, a fabulous kind of Briton, who is supposed to have built Norwich Castle; in the procession which went out of Norwich to meet the Queen, on the 16th of August, 1578, was "one whiche represented King Gurgunt, some tyme king of Englande, whiche buylded the castle of Norwich, called Blanch Flowre, and layde the foundation of the citie. He was mounted uppon a brave courser, and was thus furnished: his body armed, his bases of greene and white silke; on his head a black velvet hat, with a plume of white feathers. There attended upon him three henchmen in white and greene: one of them did beare his helmet, the seconde his tergat, the thirde his staffe."—Nichols's Progresses, vol. ii. p. 5, 6.

[193:A] The Cabinet, vol. ii. p. 75, 76.

[193:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xii. p. 66.

[194:A] Bourne's Antiquities, p. 172.

[194:B] A great display of literature on the etymon of the word Yule will be found in the Allegories Orientales of M. Count de Gebelin, Paris, 1773.

[195:A] Teending, a word derived from the Saxon, means kindling.

[195:B] White-loafe, sometimes called at this period wastel-bread or cake, from the French wastiaux, pastry; implied white bread well or twice baked, and was considered as a delicacy.

[195:C] Hesperides, p. 309, 310.

[196:A] Stowe's Survey of London, 4to. edit., 1618, p. 149, 150.

[196:B] Vide Gentleman's Magazine for 1765.

[197:A] Brand on Bourne's Antiquities, p. 193.

[197:B] Ibid. p. 200, 201.

[198:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xviii. p. 143. Act ii. sc. 2.

[198:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 361. Act ii. sc. 2.

[198:C] Chap. xxx. fol. 57. edit. 1586.

[199:A] Douce's Illustrations, vol. ii. p. 214.

[199:B] Vide Blount's Ancient Tenures of Land, and Jocular Customs of some Manors. Beckwith's edit. 8vo. 1784.

[200:A] Douce's Illustrations, vol. ii. p. 215-217. 219.

[201:A] Act v. sc. 1. Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xii. p. 213.

[201:B] English House-Wife, p. 99. The pies which he recommends immediately subsequent to this enumeration are somewhat curious, and rather of a more substantial nature than those of modern days; for instance, red-deer pye, gammon of bacon pye, wild-bore pye, and roe-pye.

[202:A] Vide Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. iii. p. 143.

[202:B] A hundreth good poyntes of husbandry, 1557. p. 10.

[203:A] Christmas, His Masque; as it was presented at Court 1616. Jonson's Works, folio edit. 1640. vol. ii.

[204:A] Holinshed's Chronicles, vol. iii. p. 1032. edit. 1808.

[204:B] Stowe's Survey of London, p. 149. edit. 1618.

[205:A] Nichols's Progresses and Processions of Queen Elizabeth, vol. i. p. 20, 21. Anno 1562.

[205:B] Hesperides, p. 145.

[205:C] Provincial Glossary, Preface, p. 8. 8vo. 1787.

[206:A] Liber Pater, Bacchus.

[206:B] Hesperides, p. 146. The following passages place in a strong and interesting point of view, the hospitality of our ancestors during this season of the year, and will add not a little to the impression derived from the text.

"Heretofore, noblemen and gentlemen of fair estates had their heralds who wore their coate of armes at Christmas, and at other solemne times, and cryed largesse thrice. They lived in the country like petty kings. They always eat in Gothic Halls where the Mummings and Loaf-stealing, and other Christmas sports, were performed. The hearth was commonly in the middle; whence the saying, round about our coal-fire." Antiquarian Repertory, No. xxvi. from the MS. Collections of Aubrey, dated 1678.

"An English Gentleman at the opening of the great day, i. e. on Christmas Day in the morning, had all his tenants and neighbours entered his Hall by day-break. The strong beer was broached, and the black jacks went plentifully about with toast, sugar, nutmegg, and good Cheshire cheese. The Hackin, (the great sausage) must be boiled by day-break, or else two young men must take the maiden (i. e. the cook,) by the arms and run her round the market place till she is ashamed of her laziness.

"In Christmass Holidays, the tables were all spread from the first to the last; the sirloins of beef, the minced pies, the plumb-porridge, the capons, turkeys, geese, and plumb-puddings, were all brought upon the board: every one eat heartily, and was welcome, which gave rise to the proverb, 'Merry in the hall when beards wag all.'" From a Tract entitled "Round about our Coal-Fire, or Christmas Entertainments;" of which the first edition was published, I believe, about the close of the seventeenth century.

"Our ancestors considered Christmas in the double light of a holy commemoration and a cheerful festival; and accordingly distinguished it by devotion, by vacation from business, by merriment and hospitality. They seemed eagerly bent to make themselves and every body about them happy.—The great hall resounded with the tumultuous joys of servants and tenants, and the gambols they played served as amusement to the lord of the mansion and his family, who, by encouraging every art conducive to mirth and entertainment, endeavoured to soften the rigour of the season, and mitigate the influence of winter."—The World, No. 104.

[208:A] Scott's Marmion. Introduction to Canto Sixth. 8vo. edit. p. 300-303.

"At present, Christmas meetings," remarks Mr. Brady, "are chiefly confined to family parties, happy, it must be confessed, though less jovial in their nature; perhaps, too, less beneficial to society, because they can be enjoyed on other days not, as originally was the case, set apart for more general conviviality and sociability; not such as our old ballads proclaim, and history confirms, in which the most frigid tempers gave way to relaxation, and all in eager joy were ready to exclaim, in honour of the festivity,—

Clavis Calendaria, vol. ii. p. 319.