[1752] Tarlton and Kempe (cf. ch. xv) are spoken of as acting in ‘merriments’. I doubt whether anything more technical is meant than a farcical episode in a play, perhaps helped out with such ‘gags’ as Hamlet, III. ii. 42, deprecates.
[1753] Arber, ii. 297, 298, 571, 600, 601, 669, 670, 671; iii. 49, 50, ‘a newe Northerne Jigge’ (5 Jan. 1591), ‘the seconde parte of the gigge betwene Rowland and the Sexton’ (16 Dec. 1591), ‘the thirde and last parte of Kempes Jigge’ (28 Dec. 1591), ‘a merrie newe Jigge betwene Jenkin the Collier and Nansie’ (14 Jan. 1592), ‘a plesant newe Jigge of the broome-man’, ascribed in the margin to Kempe (16 Jan. 1595), ‘a pleasant Jigge betwene a tincker and a Clowne’ (4 Feb. 1595), ‘a ballad of Cuttinge George and his hostis beinge a Jigge’ (17 Feb. 1595), ‘Master Kempes Newe Jigge of the kitchen stuffe woman’ (2 May 1595), ‘Phillips his gigg of the slyppers’ (26 May 1595), ‘a pretie newe Jigge betwene Ffrancis the gentleman Richard the farmer and theire wyves’ (14 Oct. 1595), and ‘Kemps newe Jygge betwixt a Souldiour and a Miser and Sym the clown’ (21 Oct. 1595); cf. ch. xv (Tarlton). Creizenach, 312, cites a list of jig titles by Hoenig in Anzeiger für deutsches Altertum, xxii. 304.
[1754] Have With You to Saffron Walden (Works, iii. 114).
[1755] Henslowe, i. 70, 82.
[1756] E. Guilpin, Skialetheia, Sat. v.
[1757] App. D, No. cl; cf. the quotation from Dekker, supra; Hamlet, II. ii. 522, of Polonius, ‘He ’s for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps’; Wither, Abuses Stript and Whipt (1613), ii. 3, ‘a Curtaine Iigge, a Libell, or a Ballet’. Possibly the Middlesex order has a bearing on the curious variant in the Epistle to Jonson’s Alchemist (1612), where some copies lament ‘the concupiscence of jigges and daunces’, others of ‘daunces and antikes’.
[1758] The Black Man is in Kirkman’s The Wits (1672), and Singing Simpkin is ascribed in undated texts to the Caroline Robert Cox, but a tune of this name was known in Basle in 1592, and a German jig of 1620 seems to be a translation; cf. Herz, 132; F. Bolte, Die Singspiele der englischen Komödianten und ihrer Nachfolger (1893, Theatergeschichtliche Forschungen, vii); W. J. Lawrence (T. L. S. 3 July 1919).
[1759] A. Clark, Shirburn Ballads, 244 (cf. S. R. list, supra, s. a. 1595), ‘Mr Attowel’s Jigge: betweene Francis, a Gentleman; Richard, a farmer; and their wives’. It is in four scenes, sung respectively to the tunes of ‘Walsingham’, ‘The Jewishe Dance’, ‘Buggle-boe’, and ‘Goe from my windo’. In Roxburghe Ballads, i. 201; ii. 101, are ‘Clod’s Carroll, a proper new jigg’, and ‘A mery new Jigge’. Collier’s ‘Jigge of a Horse Loade of Fooles’ (New Facts, 18; cf. Halliwell, Tarlton, xx) is probably a fake.
[1760] Clark, 354, from Bodl. Rawlinson Poet. MS. 185 (c. 1590), ‘A proper new ballett, intituled Rowland’s god-sonne’. It is to the tune of ‘Loth to departe’. Nashe, Summer’s Last Will and Testament, 76, mentions this jig. Two parts of a ‘Rowlandes godson moralised’ were entered in S. R. on 18 and 29 April 1592. Rowland is not a character, and numerous German allusions to and adaptations of a jig beginning ‘Oh neighbour Rowland’ (Herz, 134) have probably some other original. A ‘Roland and the Sexton’ is in the S. R. list, supra. A verse dialogue in Alleyn Papers, 8, mentions ‘bonny Rowland’ and is probably a jig of his cycle; another (p. 29) does not read to me like a jig.
[1761] Cf. ch. xv (Tarlton, Wilson) and Nashe, Pierce Penilesse (Works, i. 244), ‘the queint Comaedians of our time, That when their Play is doone, do fal to ryme’. Armin’s (q.v.) Quips Upon Questions (1600) are probably themes, or based upon the conception of themes. A theme is introduced in Histriomastix, ii. 293. The Lord sets it: