Mr. Ritson has taken notice of an old wooden cut "preserved on the title of a penny-history, (Adam Bell, &c.) printed at Newcastle in 1772," and which represents, in his opinion, a morris dance consisting of the following personages: 1. A bishop. 2. Robin Hood. 3. The potter or beggar. 4. Little John. 5. Friar Tuck. 6. Maid Marian. He remarks that the execution of the whole is too rude to merit a copy, a position that is not meant to be controverted; but it is necessary to introduce the cut in this place for the purpose of correcting an error into which the above ingenious writer has inadvertently fallen. It is proper to mention that it originally appeared on the title page to the first known edition of Robin Hood's garland, printed in 1670, 18mo. Now this cut is certainly not the representation of a morris within three miles compasse ten men that were a thousand years between them, one supplying what the other wanted of a hundred years apiece, and they danc'd the morris divers hours together in the market place with a taborer before them 103 years old, and a maid Mariam 105."-p. 122. This seems to allude to the same event. dance, but merely of the principal characters belonging to the garland. These are, Robin Hood, Little John, queen Catherine, the bishop, the curtal frier, (not Tuck,) and the beggar. Even though it were admitted that Maid Marian and Friar Tuck were intended to be given, it could not be maintained that either the bishop or the beggar made part of a morris. There still remains some characters in Mr. Tollett's window, of which no description can be here attempted, viz. Nos. 1, 4, 6, and 7. As these are also found in the Flemish print,* they cannot possibly belong to Robin Hood's company; and therefore their learned proprietor would, doubtless, have seen the necessity of re-considering his explanations. The resemblance between the two ancient representations is sufficiently remarkable to warrant a conjecture that the window has been originally executed by some foreign artist; and that the panes with the English friar, the hobbyhorse, and the may-pole have been since added. Mr. Waldron has informed us that he saw in the summer of 1783, at Richmond in Surrey, a troop of morris dancers from Abingdon, accompanied by a fool in a motley jacket, who carried in his hand a staff about two feet long, with a blown bladder at the end of it, with which he either buffeted the crowd to keep them at a proper distance from the dancers, or played tricks for the diversion of the spectators. The dancers and the fool were Berkshire husbandmen taking an annual circuit to collect money.§ Mr. Ritson too has noticed Compare No. 1, with the left hand figure at bottom in the print; No. 4, with the left hand figure at top; No. 6, with the right hand figure at bottom; and No. 7, with the right hand figure at top. This last character in the Flemish print has a flower in his hat as well as No. 4. Query if that ornament have been accidentally omitted by the English engraver? + This gentleman's death is recorded to have happened Oct. 22nd, 1779. Gough's Brit. topogr. ii. 239. See his continuation to Ben Jonson's sad shepherd, 1782, 8vo, p. 255, a work of very considerable merit, and which will materially diminish the regret of all readers of taste that the original was left unfinished. that morris dancers are yet annually seen in Norfolk, and make their constant appearance in Lancashire. He has also preserved a newspaper article respecting some morris dancers of Pendleton, who paid their annual visit to Salford, in 1792;* and a very few years since, another company of this kind was seen at Usk in Monmouthshire, which was attended by a boy Maid Marian, a hobby-horse, and a fool. They professed to have kept up the ceremony at that place for the last three hundred years. It has been thought worth while to record these modern instances, because it is extremely probable that from the present rage for refinement and innovation, there will remain, in the course of a short time, but few vestiges of our popular customs and antiquities. Robin Hood, I. cviii. INDEX. "Commoditas homines studiosos invitavit librorum Indices comparare, A. ESOP'S FABLES, a ludicrous cut in some editions of them middle ages moralized Affiancing, some account of this ancient ceremony Ages of man, prints of them Alexander the great, his good savour his arms as one of the nine worthies Althea's firebrand, inaccurately alluded to by Shakspeare PAGE . 12 . 361 . 523 67, 248 . 185 . 150 . 150 . 278 436 Alliterative and anapæstic lines, in Love's labour 's lost, not Shakspeare's 133 Amaimon, the name of a Devil Ambrose, Saint, a hymn by him against nocturnal illusions Apollonius Tyaneus, account of this romance April and May, to smell Appeal for treason, the ceremony observed in the combats on that . 460 . 447 .356 . 398 45 317, 487 Arbeau Thoinot, his Orchesographie, a curious treatise on dancing 135, 301 Armin, Robert, an imitator of Shakspeare in his play of The Valiant . 476 |