in both the representations. The streamers which proceed from their sleeves and flutter in the wind, though continued in very modern times, were anciently not peculiar to morris dancers, examples of them occurring in many old prints®. In the reign of Henry the Eighth the morris dancers 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. The latter have been always a part of the furniture of the more active characters in the morris, and the use of them is of great antiquity. The tinkling ornaments of the feet among the Jewish women are reprobated in Isaiah iii. 16. 18. Gratius Faliscus, who wrote his poem on hunting in the time of Augustus, has alluded to the practice of dancing with bells on the feet among the Egyptian priests of Canopus, in the following lines: "Vix operata suo sacra ad Bubastia lino Velatur sonipes estivi turba Canopi."

Cynegeticon, lib. i. 42,

There is good reason for believing that the

See the plate of ancient cards, xxxi. in Strutt's Sports and pastimes, where a knave or attendant is dressed in this

manner.

Churchwardens' accounts at Kingston, in Lysons's Environs of London, i. p. 227, 228.

morris bells were borrowed from the genuine Moorish dance; a circumstance that tends to corroborate the opinion that has been already offered with respect to the etymology of the orris. Among the beautiful habits of various nations, published by Hans Weigel at Nurem berg, in 1577, there is the figure of an African lady of the kingdom of Fez in the act of dancing, with bells at her feet. A copy of it is here exhibited. 29moja 2017. пve bas egni blog

legd The number of bells" found each leg of the morris dancers amounted from twenty to forty. They had various appellations, as the fore-bell, berato the second bell, the treble, the tenor, the base, and the double bell. Sometimes they used trebles nly, but these refinements were of later times The bells were occasionally jingled by the hands, or placed on the arms or wrists of the parties. Scarves, ribbands, and laces hung all over with gold rings, and even precious stones, are mentioned in the time of Elizabeth'. The miller, in the play of the Vowbreaker, says he is come to borrow "a few ribbandes, bracelets, earerings, wyertyers, and silke girdles and handkerchers for a morice and a show before the queene." The handkerchiefs, or napkins" as they

are sometimes called, were held in the hand, or tied to the shoulders". In Shirley's Lady of pleasure, 1637, Act i. Aretina thus inveighs against the amusements of the country;

to observe with what solemnity!!

They keep their wakes, and throw for pewter candle.

stickes,

How they become the morris, with whose bells

They ring all into Whitson ales, and sweate

Through twenty scarffes and napkins, till the Hobby horse

Tire, and the maide Marrian dissolv'd to a gelly,

Be kept for spoone meate."

The early use of the feather in the hat appears both in Mr. Tollett's window and the Flemish print; a fashion that was continued a long time afterwards. Sometimes the hat was decorated with a nosegay, or with the herb thrift, formerly called our lady's cushion".

Enough has been said to show that the collec tive number of the morris dancers has continually varied according to circumstances, in the same manner as did their habits. In Israel's print

y Fletcher's Women pleased, Act iv.

* Greene's Quip for an upstart courtier, sign. B. 2..

they are nine; in Mr. Tollett's window, eleven. Mr. Strutt has observed that on his sixteenth plate there are only five, exclusive of the two musicians; but it is conceived that what he refers to is not a morris, but a dance of fools. There is a pamphlet entitled, Old Meg of Herefordshire for a Mayd Marian and Hereford town for a morris dance, or 12 morris dancers in Herefordshire of 1200 years old, 1609, 4to.a In the painting by Vinckenboom, at Richmond, there are seven figures. In Blount's Glossographia, 1656, the Morisco is defined, "a dance wherein there were usually five men and a boy dressed in a girles habit, whom they call Maid Marrian." The morris in Fletcher's Two noble kinsmen contains some characters, which, as

• This tract is mentioned by Sir William Temple, in his Essay on health and long life, from the communication of Lord Leicester. Howel, in his Parly of beasts, 1660, has recorded that " of late years ther were call'd out 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.