Нов.

I do defie thee and thy foot-cloth too,

And tell thee to thy face, this prophane riding

I feel it in my conscience, and I dare speak it,

This unedified ambling hath brought a scourge upon us.

Shall the Hobby-horse be forgot then?

The hopeful Hobby-horse, shall he lye founder'd?

I cry out on 't,

Нов.

"Twas the forerunning sin brought in those tilt-staves,

They brandish 'gainst the church, the Devil calls May poles.

SOTO.

Take up your horse again, and girth him to ye,

And girth him handsomely, good neighbour Bomby.

I spit at him.

Нов.

SOTO.

Spit in the horse-face, cobler?

Thou out-of-tune psalm-singing slave; spit in his visnomy?

Spit such another spit, by this hand cobler,

I'll make ye set a new piece o' your nose there;

Take't up I say, and dance without more bidding,

And dance as you were wont; you have been excellent,
And are still but for this new nicety,

And your wife's learned lectures; take up the Hobby-horse,
Come, 'tis a thing thou hast lov'd with all thy heart, Bomby,
And wouldst do still, but for the round-breech'd brothers.
You were not thus in the morning; take't up I say,
Do not delay, but do it: you know I am officer,

And I know 'tis unfit all these good fellows
Should wait the cooling of your zealous porridge;
Chuse whether you will dance, or have me execute;
I'll clap your neck i'th' stocks, and there I'll make ye
Dance a whole day, and dance with these at night too.
You mend old shoes well, mend your old manners better,
And suddenly see you leave off this sincereness,
This new hot batch, borrowed from some brown baker,
Some learned brother, or I'll so bait ye for 't,

And thus I am forc'd a by-word to my brethren.

The Hobby-horse was represented by a man equipped with as much pasteboard as was sufficient to form the head and hinder parts of a horse, the quadrupedal defects being concealed by a long mantle or footcloth that nearly touched the ground. The performer on this occasion exerted all his skill in burlesque horsemanship. In Sampson's play of The vowbreaker, 1636, a miller personates the hobby-horse; and being angry that the mayor of the city is put in competition with him, exclaims, "Let the major play the hobby-horse among his brethren, and 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 major put me besides the hobby-horse? Have I borrowed the forehorse bells, his plumes and braveries, nay had his mane new shorne and frizl❜d, and shall the major put me besides the hobby-horse?" Whoever happens to recollect the manner in which Mr. Bayes's troops in the Rehearsal are exhibited on the stage, will have a tolerably correct notion of a morris hobby-horse. Additional remains of the Pyrrhic or sword dance are preserved in the daggers stuck in the man's cheeks, which constituted one of the hocus-pocus or legerdemain tricks practised by this character, among which were the threading of a needle, and the transferring of an egg from one hand to the

other, called by Ben Jonson the travels of the egg. To the horse's mouth was suspended a ladle for the purpose of gathering money from the spectators. In later times the fool appears to have performed this office, as may be collected from Nashe's play of Summer's last will and testament, where this stage direction occurs, "Ver goes in and fetcheth out the Hobby-horse and the morris daunce who daunce about." Ver then says, "About, about, lively, put your horse to it, reyne him harder, jerke him with your wand, sit fast, sit fast, man; foole, holde up your ladle there." Will Summers is made to say, "You friend with the hobby-horse, goe not too fast, for feare of wearing out my lord's tyle-stones with your hob-nayles." Afterwards there enter three clowns and three maids, who dance the morris, and at the same time sing the following song:

"Trip and goe, heave and hoe,

Up and downe, to and fro,
From the towne, to the grove,
Two and two, let us rove,
A maying, a playing;
Love hath no gainsaying:

So merrily trip and goe."

Lord Orford in his catalogue of English engravers, under the article of Peter Stent, has described two paintings at Lord Fitzwilliam's on Richmond green which came out of the old neighbouring palace. They were executed by Vinckenboom, about the end of the reign of James I., and exhibit views of the above palace; in one of these pictures a morris dance is introduced, consisting of seven figures, viz. a fool, a hobby-horse, a piper, a Maid Marian, and three other dancers, the rest of the figures being spectators. Of these the first four and one of the dancers are reduced in the annexed plate from a tracing made by the late Captain Grose. The fool has an inflated bladder or eel-skin with a ladle at the

* Every man out of his humour, Act II. Scene 1.