"J. SLIME.—I come to dance, not to quarrel. Come, what shall it be? Rogero?
JEM.—Rogero! no! we will dance the Beginning of the World.
SISLY.—I love no dance so well as John, Come Kiss Me Now.
NICH.—I that have ere now defer'd a cushion, call for the Cushion-dance.
R. BRICK.—For my part, I like nothing so well as Tom Tyler.
JEM.—No; we'll have the Hunting of the Fox.
J. SLIME.—The Hay; The Hay! there's nothing like The Hay!
NICH.—I have said, do say, and will say again—
JEM.—Every man agree to have it as Nick says.
ALL.—Content.
NICH.—It hath been, it is now, and it shall be—
SISLY.—What, Master Nicholas? What?
NICH.—Put on your Smock o' Monday.
JEM.—So the dance will come cleanly off. Come, for God's sake agree on something; if you like not that, put it to the musicians; or let me speak for all, and we'll have Sellengers Round."
The nuptial usages of the age included some curious customs. Thus, we are told by Howe in his Additions to Stowe's Chronicle that, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, "It was the custome for maydes and gentlewomen to give their favourites, as tokens of their love, little Handkerchiefs, of about three or four inches square, wrought round about, and with a button or a tassel at each corner, and a little one in the middle, with silke and thread; the best edged with a small gold lace, or twist, which being foulded up in foure crosse foldes, so as the middle might be seene, gentlemen and other did usually weare them in their hattes, as favours of their loves and mistresses. Some cost six pence a piece, some twelve pence, and the richest sixteen pence." Handkerchiefs were the customary messengers of Cupid; the present of a handkerchief with love devices worked in the corners was a delicate expression of the tender sentiment. Thus, in Haywood's Fayre Mayde of the Exchange, Phyllis brings a handkerchief to the Cripple of Fanchurch to be embroidered, and says:
"Only this hankercher; a young gentlewoman
Wish'd me to acquaint you with her mind herein:
In one corner of the same, place wanton Love,
Drawing his bow, shooting an amorous dart—
Opposit against him an arrow in an heart;
In a third corner picture forth Disdain,
A cruel fate unto a loving vein;
In the fourth, draw a springing laurel-tree,