Marbles. It has been suggested that there is an allusion to this pastime in “Measure for Measure” (i. 3):
“Believe not that the dribbling dart of love
Can pierce a complete bosom.”
—dribbling being a term used in the game of marbles for shooting slowly along the ground, in contradistinction to plumping, which is elevating the hand so that the marble does not touch the ground till it reaches the object of its aim.[802] According to others, a dribbler was a term in archery expressive of contempt.[803]
Muss. This was a phrase for a scramble, when any small objects were thrown down, to be taken by those who could seize them. In “Antony and Cleopatra” (iii. 13), Antony says:
“Like boys unto a muss, kings would start forth.”
The word is used by Dryden, in the Prologue to the “Widow Ranter:”
“Bauble and cap no sooner are thrown down
But there’s a muss of more than half the town.”
Nine-Men’s-Morris. This rustic game, which is still extant in some parts of England, was sometimes called “the nine men’s merrils,” from merelles, or mereaux, an ancient French word for the jettons or counters with which it was played.[804] The other term, morris, is probably a corruption suggested by the sort of dance which, in the progress of the game, the counters performed. Some consider[805] that it was identical with the game known as “Nine-holes,”[806] mentioned by Herrick in his “Hesperides:”
“Raspe playes at nine-holes, and ’tis known he gets
Many a tester by his game, and bets.”
Cotgrave speaks of “Le jeu des merelles,” the boyish game called “merills,” or “five pennie morris,” played here most commonly with stones, but in France with pawns or men made on purpose, and termed “merelles.” It was also called “peg morris,” as is evidenced by Clare, who, in his “Rural Muse,” speaking of the shepherd boy, says: