Dr. Reginald Peacock, Bishop of Chichester, in his Repressor, written about 1449, combats "this opinioun, that a man which stale sumtyme a birthan of thornis was sett in to the moone, there for to abide for euere."
Thomas Dekker, a British dramatist, wrote in 1630: "A starre? Nay, thou art more than the moone, for thou hast neither changing quarters, nor a man standing in thy circle with a bush of thornes." [28]
And last, but not least, amid the tuneful train, William Shakespeare, without whom no review of English literature or of poetic lore could be complete, twice mentions the man in the moon. First, in the Midsummer Night's Dream, Act iii. Scene 1, Quince the carpenter gives directions for the performance of Pyramus and Thisby, who "meet by moonlight," and says, "One must come in with a bush of thorns and a lanthorn, and say he comes to disfigure, or to present, the person of Moonshine." Then in Act v. the player of that part says, "All that I have to say is, to tell you that the lanthorn is the moon; I, the man in the moon; this thorn-bush, my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog." And, secondly, in the Tempest, Act ii., Scene 2, Caliban and Stephano in dialogue:
"Cal. Hast thou not dropp'd from heaven?
Ste. Out o' the moon, I do assure thee. I was the man i' the moon, when time was.
Cal. I have seen thee in her, and I do adore thee: my mistress show'd me thee, thy dog, and bush."
Robert Chambers refers the following singular lines to the man in the moon: adding, "The allusion to Jerusalem pipes is curious; Jerusalem is often applied, in Scottish popular fiction, to things of a nature above this world":
"I sat upon my houtie croutie (hams),
I lookit owre my rumple routie (haunch),
And saw John Heezlum Peezlum
Playing on Jerusalem pipes." [29]
Here is an old-fashioned couplet belonging probably to our northern borders:
"The man in the moon
Sups his sowins with a cutty spoon."
Halliwell explains sowins to be a Northumberland dish of coarse oatmeal and milk, and a cutty spoon to be a very small spoon. [30]
Wales is not without a memorial of this myth, for Mr. Baring-Gould tells us that "there is an ancient pictorial representation of our friend the Sabbath-breaker in Gyffyn Church, near Conway. The roof of the chancel is divided into compartments, in four of which are the evangelistic symbols, rudely, yet effectively painted. Besides these symbols is delineated in each compartment an orb of heaven. The sun, the moon, and two stars, are placed at the feet of the Angel, the Bull, the Lion, and the Eagle. The representation of the moon is as follows: in the disk is the conventional man with his bundle of sticks, but without the dog." [31] Mr. Gould says, "our friend the Sabbath-breaker" perhaps the artist would have said "the thief," for stealing appears to be more antique.