June 15.
Summer Merriment.
To the Editor of the Every-day Book.
Sir,—You have inserted in vol. i. p. 559, an interesting account of the Morris Dance in the “olden times,” and I was rather disappointed on a perusal of your extensive Index, by not finding a “few more words” respecting the Morris Dancers of our day and generation. I think this custom is of Moorish origin, and might have been introduced into this country in the middle ages. Bailey says, “the Morris Dance is an antic dance performed by five men and a boy, dressed in girl’s clothes.” The girlish part of it is, however, more honoured in “the breach than the observance.”
In June, 1826, I observed a company of these “bold peasantry, the country’s pride,” in Rosoman-street, Clerkenwell. They consisted of eight young men, six of whom were dancers; the seventh played the pipe and tabor; and the eighth, the head of them, collected the pence in his hat, and put the precious metal into the slit of a tin painted box, under lock and key, suspended before him. The tune the little rural-noted pipe played to the gentle pulsations of the tabor, is called
“Moll in the wad and I fell out,
And what d’ye think it was about”
This may be remembered as one of the once popular street songs of the late Charles Dibdin’s composition. The dancers wore party-coloured ribands round their hats, arms, and knees, to which a row of small latten bells were appended, somewhat like those which are given to amuse infants in teeth-cutting, that tinkled with the motion of the wearers. These rustic adventurers “upon the many-headed town,” came from a village in Hertfordshire. Truly natural and simple in appearance, their features, complexion, dress, and attitude, perfectly corresponded. Here was no disguise, no blandishment, no superhuman effort. Their shape was not compressed by fashion, nor did their hearts flutter in an artificial prison. Nature represented them about twenty-five years of age, as her seasoned sons, handing down to posterity, by their exercises before the present race, the enjoyment of their forefathers, and the tradition of happy tenantry “ere power grew high, and times grew bad.” The “set-to,” as they termed it, expressed a vis-à-vis address; they then turned, returned, clapped their hands before and behind, and made a jerk with the knee and foot alternately,
“Till toe and heel no longer moved.”
Though the streets were dirty and the rain fell reluctantly, yet they heeded not the elemental warfare, but
“Danced and smiled, and danced and smiled again:”
hence their ornaments, like themselves, looked weather-beaten. Crowds collected round them. At 12 o’clock at noon, this was a rare opportunity for the schoolboys let out of their seats of learning and confinement. The occasional huzza, like Handel’s “Occasional Overture,” so pleasing to the ear of liberty, almost drowned the “Morris.” But at intervals the little pretty pipe drew the fancy, as it were, piping to a flock in the valley by the shade of sweet trees and the bosom of the silver brook. O! methought, what difference is here by comparison with the agile-limbed aërials of St. James’s and these untutored clowns! Yet something delightful comes home to the breast, and speaks to the memory of a rural-born creature, and recals a thousand dear recollections of hours gone down the voyage of life into eternity! To a Londoner, too, the novelty does not weary by its voluntary offering to their taste, and apposition to the season.
Lubin Brown, the piper, was an arch dark-featured person; his ear was alive to Doric melody; and he merrily played and tickled the time to his note. When he stopped to take breath, his provincial dialect scattered his wit among the gapers, and his companions were well pleased with their sprightly leader. Spagnioletti, nor Cramer, could do no more by sound nor Liston, nor Yates, by grimace. I observed his eye ever alert to the movement and weariness of his six choice youths. He was a chivalrous fellow: he had won the prize for “grinning through a horse collar” at the revel, thrown his antagonist in the “wrestling ring,” and “jumped twenty yards in a sack” to the mortification of his rivals, who lay vanquished on the green. The box-keeper, though less dignified than Mr. Spring, of Drury-lane, informed me that “he and his companions in sport” had charmed the village lasses round the maypole, and they intended sojourning in town a week or two, after which the box would be opened, and an equitable division take place, previously to the commencement of mowing and hay-harvest. He said it was the third year of their pilgrimage; that they had never disputed on the road, and were welcomed home by their sweethearts and friends, to whom they never omit the carrying a seasonable gift in a very humble “Forget me not!” or “Friendship’s Offering.”
Mr. Editor, I subscribe myself,
Yours, very sincerely.
J. R. P.