I. Dancing, Tumbling, and Balancing, part of the Joculator's
Profession.--II. Performed by Women.--III. Dancing connected
with Tumbling.--IV. Antiquity of Tumbling--much encouraged.--V.
Various Dances described.--VI. The Gleemen's Dances.--VII.
Exemplification of Gleemen's Dances.--VIII. The Sword
Dance--IX. Rope-Dancing and wonderful Performances on the
Rope.--X. Rope-Dancing from the Battlements of St. Paul's.--XI.
Rope-Dancing from St. Paul's Steeple.--XII. Rope-Dancing from
All Saints' Church, Hertford.--XIII. A Dutchman's Feats on St.
Paul's Weathercock.--XIV. Jacob Hall the Rope-Dancer.--XV.
Modern celebrated Rope-Dancing.--XVI. Rope-Dancing at Sadler's
Wells.--XVII. Fool's Dance.--XVIII. Morris Dance.--XIX.
Egg Dance.--XX. Ladder Dance.--XXI. Jocular Dances.--XXII.
Wire-Dancing.--XXIII. Ballette Dances.--XXIV. Leaping and
Vaulting.--XXV. Balancing.--XXVI. Remarkable Feats.--XXVII. The
Posture-Master's Tricks.--XXVIII. The Mountebank.--XXIX. The
Tinker.--XXX. The Fire-Eater.
I.--JOCULATORS' DANCING.
Dancing, tumbling, and balancing, with variety of other exercises
requiring skill and agility, were originally included in the
performances exhibited by the gleemen and the minstrels; and they
remained attached to the profession of the joculator after he was
separated from those who only retained the first branches of the
minstrel's art, that is to say, poetry and music.
II.--WOMEN DANCERS AND TUMBLERS.
The joculators were sometimes excellent tumblers; yet, generally
speaking, I believe that vaulting, tumbling, and balancing, were not
executed by the chieftain of the gleeman's company, but by some of his
confederates; and very often this part of the show was performed by
females, who were called glee-maidens, Maꝺen-ᵹlẏƿıenꝺ, by the Saxons;
and tumbling women, tomblesteres, and tombesteres, in Chaucer, derived
from the Saxon word ꞇomban, to dance, vault, or tumble. The same poet,
in the Romance of the Rose, calls them saylours, or dancers, from the
Latin word salio. They are also denominated sauters, from saut in
French, to leap. Hence, in Pierce Ploughman, one says, "I can neither
saylen ne saute." They are likewise in modern language called balancing
women, or tymbesteres, players upon the tymbrel, which they also
balanced occasionally, as we shall find a little farther on. It is
almost needless to add, that the ancient usage of introducing females
for the performances of these difficult specimens of art and agility,
has been successively continued to the present day.
III.--DANCING CONNECTED WITH TUMBLING.
Dancing, in former times, was closely connected with those feats
of activity now called vaulting and tumbling; and such exertions
often formed part of the dances that were publicly exhibited by the
gleemen and the minstrels; for which reason, the Anglo-Saxon writers
frequently used the terms of leaping and tumbling for dancing. Both
the phrases occur in the Saxon versions of St. Mark's Gospel; where
it is said of the daughter of Herodias, that she vaulted or tumbled,
instead of danced, before king Herod.[685] In a translation of the
seventh century, in the Cotton Library,[686] it says she plæᵹeꝺe, ⁊
ᵹelıcaꝺe Heꞃoꝺe; she jumped, or leaped, and pleased Herod. In another
Saxon version of the eleventh century, in the Royal Library,[687] she
ꞇumbeꝺe, ⁊ hıꞇ lıcoꝺe Heꞃoꝺe; she tumbled, and it pleased Herod. A
third reads, Herodias' daughter ꞇumboꝺe þæꞃe, tumbled there, &c.[4]
These interpretations of the sacred text might easily arise from a
misconception of the translators, who, supposing that no common dancing
could have attracted the attention of the monarch so potently, or
extorted from him the promise of a reward so extensive as that they
found stated in the record; therefore referred the performance to some
wonderful displayments of activity, resembling those themselves might
have seen exhibited by the glee-maidens, on occasions of solemnity,
in the courts of Saxon potentates. We may also observe, that the like
explication of the passage was not only received in the Saxon versions
of the Gospel, but continued in those of much more modern date; and,
agreeably to the same idea, many of the illuminators, in depicting this
part of the holy history, have represented the damsel in the action of
tumbling, or, at least, of walking upon her hands. Mr. Brand, in his
edition of Bourne's Vulgar Antiquities, has quoted one in old English
that reads thus: "When the daughter of Herodyas was in comyn, and had
tomblyde and pleside Harowde." I have before me a MS. of the Harleian
Collection,[688] in French, in the thirteenth century, written by some
ecclesiastic, which relates to the church fasts and festivals. Speaking
of the death of John Baptist, and finding this tumbling damsel to have
been the cause, the pious author treats her with much contempt, as
though she had been one of the dancing girls belonging to a company of
jugglers, who in his time, it seems, were not considered as paragons
of virtue any more than they are in the present day. He says of her,
"Bien saveit treschier e tumber;" which may be rendered, "She was well
skilled in tumbling and cheating tricks." And accordingly we find the
following representation.
[Illustration: 53. HERODIAS TUMBLING.]
Herodias is so drawn in a book of Prayers in the Royal Library.[689]
There is the subjoined representation a century and a half earlier.
[Illustration: 54. HERODIAS TUMBLING WITH HER SERVANT.]
Her servant stands by her side. The drawing occurs in a series of
Scripture histories in the Harleian Collection,[690] written and
illuminated at the commencement of the thirteenth century.
IV.--ANTIQUITY OF TUMBLING.
The exhibition of dancing, connected with leaping and tumbling, for
the entertainment of princes and noblemen on occasions of festivity,
is of high antiquity. Homer mentions two dancing tumblers, who stood
upon their heads,[691] and moved about to the measure of a song,
for the diversion of Menelaüs and his courtiers, at the celebration
of his daughter's nuptials. It seems that the astonishment excited
by the difficulty of such performances, obviated the absurdity, and
rendered them agreeable to persons of rank and affluence. The Saxon
princes encouraged the dancers and tumblers; and the courts of the
Norman monarchs were crowded with them: we have, indeed, but few of
their exertions particularised; for the monks, through whose medium
the histories of the middle ages have generally been conveyed to us,
were their professed enemies: it is certain, however, notwithstanding
the censure promulgated in their disfavour, that they stood their
ground, and were not only well received, but even retained, in the
houses of the opulent. No doubt, they were then, as in the present day,
an immoral and dissolute set of beings, who, to promote merriment,
frequently descended to the lowest kinds of buffoonery. We read, for
instance, of a tumbler in the reign of Edward II. who rode before
his majesty, and frequently fell from his horse in such a manner,
that the king was highly diverted, and laughed exceedingly,[692] and
rewarded the performer with the sum of twenty shillings, which at
that period was a very considerable donation. A like reward of twenty
shillings was given, by order of Henry VIII., to a strange tumbler,
that is, I suppose, an itinerant who had no particular establishment;
a like sum to a tumbler who performed before him at lord Bath's; and
a similar reward to the "tabouretts and a tumbler," probably of the
household.[693] It should seem that these artists were really famous
mirth-makers; for, one of them had the address to excite the merriment
of that solemn bigot queen Mary. "After her majesty," observes Strype,
"had reviewed the royal pensioners in Greenwich Park, there came a
tumbler, and played many pretty feats, the queen and cardinal Pole
looking on; whereat she was observed to laugh heartily."[694]
V.--VARIOUS DANCES.
Among the pastimes exhibited for the amusement of queen Elizabeth
at Kenilworth castle, there were shown, as Laneham says, before her
highness, surprising feats of agility, by an Italian, "in goings,
turnings, tumblings, castings, hops, jumps, leaps, skips, springs,
gambauds, somersaults, caprettings, and flights, forward, backward,
sideways, downward, upward, and with sundry windings, gyrings, and
circumflections," which he performed with so much ease and lightness,
that words are not adequate to the description; "insomuch that I,"
says Laneham, "began to doubt whether he was a man or a spirit;" and
afterwards, "As for this fellow, I cannot tell what to make of him;
save that I may guess his back to be metalled like a lamprey, that has
no bone, but a line like a lute-string."[695] So lately as the reign of
queen Anne, this species of performance continued to be fashionable;
and in one of the Tatlers we meet with the following passage: "I went
on Friday last to the Opera; and was surprised to find a thin house at
so noble an entertainment, 'till I heard that the tumbler was not to
make his appearance that night."[696]
Three ancient specimens of the tumbler's art are subjoined.
[Illustration: 55. TUMBLING.--XIII. CENTURY.]
This engraving represents a woman bending herself backwards, from a MS.
of the thirteenth century, in the Cotton Library.[697]
[Illustration: 56. TUMBLING--XIV. CENTURY.]
In this second representation a man is performing the same feat, but in
a more extraordinary manner. The original is contained in a MS. in the
library of sir Hans Sloane.[698]
[Illustration: 57. TUMBLING.--XIV. CENTURY.]
This representation of a girl turning over upon her hands, is from a
MS. in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.[699] Both these MSS. are of the
fourteenth century. Feats of activity by tumblers were then, as at
present, enlivened with music.
VI.--THE GLEEMEN'S DANCES.
It is not by any means my intention to insinuate, from what has been
said in the foregoing pages, that there were no dances performed by the
Saxon gleemen and their assistants, but such as consisted of vaulting
and tumbling: on the contrary, I trust it may be proved, that their
dances were varied and accommodated to the taste of those for whom the
performance was appropriated; being calculated, as occasion required,
to excite the admiration and procure the applause of the wealthy or the
vulgar.
VII.--EXEMPLIFICATION OF GLEEMEN'S DANCES.
We have already noticed a dance, represented by the engraving No. 50,
from a painting of the tenth century, the most ancient of the kind
that I have met with.[700] The crouching attitudes of the two dancers,
point out great difficulty in the part they are performing, but do not
convey the least indication of vaulting or tumbling. Attitudes somewhat
similar I have seen occur in some of the steps of a modern hornpipe.
[Illustration: 58. GLEEMEN'S DANCE.--IX. CENTURY.]
Here, also, we find a young man dancing singly to the music of two
flutes and a lyre; and the action attempted to be expressed by the
artist is rather that of ease and elegancy of motion, than of leaping,
or contorting of the body in a violent manner. It is evident that this
delineation, which is from a Latin and Saxon MS. of the ninth century,
in the Cotton Library,[701] was intended for the representation of
part of the gleeman's exhibition; for the designer has crowded into the
margin a number of heads and parts of figures, necessarily incomplete
from want of room, who appear as spectators; but these are much
confused, and in some places obliterated, so that they could not have
been copied with any tolerable effect. The dance represented by the
engraving No. 51, from a MS. of the ninth century,[702] in which the
musician bears a part, I take to be of the burlesque kind, and intended
to excite laughter by the absurdity of the gestures practised by the
performers; but that in the following engraving, from a MS. of the
fourteenth century, in the Royal Library,[703] has more appearance of
elegance.
[Illustration: 59. DANCING TO A BEAR.]
This dance is executed by a female; and probably the perfection of the
dance consisted in approaching and receding from the bear with great
agility, so as to prevent his seizing upon her, and occasioning any
interruption to the performance, which the animal, on the other hand,
appears to be exceedingly desirous of effecting, being unmuzzled for
the purpose, and irritated by the scourge of the juggler.
VIII.--THE SWORD-DANCE.
There is a dance which was probably in great repute among the
Anglo-Saxons, because it was derived from their ancestors the ancient
Germans; it is called the sword-dance; and the performance is thus
described by Tacitus:[704] "One public diversion was constantly
exhibited at all their meetings; young men, who, by frequent exercise,
have attained to great perfection in that pastime, strip themselves,
and dance among the points of swords and spears with most wonderful
agility, and even with the most elegant and graceful motions. They
do not perform this dance for hire, but for the entertainment of the
spectators, esteeming their applause a sufficient reward."[705] This
dance continues to be practised in the northern parts of England about
Christmas time, when, says Mr. Brand, "the fool-plough goes about; a
pageant that consists of a number of sword-dancers dragging a plough,
with music." The writer then tells us that he had seen this dance
performed very frequently, with little or no variation from the ancient
method, excepting only that the dancers of the present day, when they
have formed their swords into a figure, lay them upon the ground, and
dance round them.
I have not been fortunate enough to meet with any delineation that
accords with the foregoing descriptions of the sword-dance; but in a
Latin manuscript of Prudentius with Saxon notes, written in the ninth
century, and now in the Cotton Library,[706] a military dance of a
different kind occurs. It is exceedingly curious, and has not, that I
recollect, been mentioned by any of our writers. The drawing is copied
below.
[Illustration: 60. SWORD-DANCE.]
This drawing represents two men, equipped in martial habits, and each
of them armed with a sword and a shield, engaged in a combat; the
performance is enlivened by the sound of a horn; the musician acts in
a double capacity, and is, together with a female assistant, dancing
round them to the cadence of the music; and probably the actions of the
combatants were also regulated by the same measure.
Early in the last century, and, I doubt not, long before that period, a
species of sword-dance, usually performed by young women, constituted a
part of the juggler's exhibition at Bartholomew fair. I have before me
two bills of the shows there presented some time in the reign of queen
Anne. The one speaks of "dancing with several naked swords, performed
by a child of eight years of age;" which, the showman assures us, had
given "satisfaction to all persons." The other, put forth, it seems,
by one who belonged to Sadler's Wells, promises the company, that they
shall see "a young woman dance with the swords, and upon a ladder,
surpassing all her sex." Both these bills were printed in the reign
of queen Anne; the first belonged to a showman named Crawley;[707]
and the second to James Miles, from Sadler's Wells, who calls his
theatre a music booth, and the exhibition consisted chiefly of dancing.
The originals are in the Harleian Library.[708] About thirty years
back,[709] I remember to have seen at Flockton's, a much noted but
very clumsy juggler, a girl about eighteen or twenty years of age, who
came upon the stage with four naked swords, two in each hand; when the
music played, she turned round with great swiftness, and formed a great
variety of figures with the swords, holding them over her head, down by
her sides, behind her, and occasionally she thrust them in her bosom.
The dance generally continued about ten or twelve minutes; and, when
it was finished, she stopped suddenly, without appearing to be in the
least giddy from the constant reiteration of the same motion.
IX.--THE ROPE-DANCE.
This species of amusement is certainly very ancient. Terence, in the
prologue to Hecyra, complains that the attention of the public was
drawn from his play, by the exhibitions of a rope-dancer:
Ita populus studio stupidus in funambulo
Animum occupârat.
We are well assured, that dancing upon the rope constituted a part
of the entertainment presented to the public by the minstrels and
joculators; and we can trace it as far back as the thirteenth century:
but whether the dancers at that time exhibited upon the slack or tight
rope, or upon both, cannot easily be ascertained; and we are equally in
the dark respecting the extent of their abilities: but, if we may judge
from the existing specimens of other feats of agility performed by them
or their companions, we may fairly conclude that they were by no means
contemptible artists.
When Isabel of Bavaria, queen to Charles VI. of France, made her public
entry into Paris, among other extraordinary exhibitions prepared for
her reception was the following, recorded by Froissart, who was himself
a witness to the fact: "There was a mayster[710] came out of Geane; he
had tied a corde upon the hyghest house on the brydge of Saynt Michell
over all the houses, and the other ende was tyed to the hyghest tower
of our Ladye's churche; and, as the quene passed by, and was in the
great streat called Our Ladye's strete; bycause it was late, this sayd
mayster, wyth two brinnynge[711] candelles in hys handes, issued out
of a littel stage that he had made on the heyght of our Lady's tower,
synginge[712] as he went upon the cord all alonge the great strete,
so that all that sawe him hadde marvayle how it might be; and he bore
still in hys handes the two brinnynge candelles, so that he myght be
well sene all over Parys, and two myles without the city. He was such
a tombler, that his lightnesse was greatly praised." In the French,
"Molt fist d'appertices tant que la legierete de lui, et toutes ses
œuvres furent molt prisées;" "He gave them many proofs of his skill,
so that his agility and all his performances were highly esteemed."
The manner in which this extraordinary feat was carried into execution
is not so clear as might be wished. The translation justifies the idea
of his walking down the rope; but the words of Froissart are, "S'asbit
sur cel corde, et il vint tout au long de la rue;" that is, literally,
he seated himself upon the cord, and he came all along the street;
which indicates his sliding down, and then the trick will bear a close
resemblance to those that follow. But St. Foix, on the authority of
another historian, says, he descended dancing upon the cord; and,
passing between the curtains of blue taffety, ornamented with large
fleurs-de-lis of gold, which covered the bridge, he placed a crown upon
the head of Isabel, and then remounted upon the cord.[713]
X.--ROPE-DANCING FROM THE BATTLEMENTS OF ST. PAUL'S.
A performance much resembling the foregoing was exhibited before king
Edward VI. at the time he passed in procession through the city of
London, on Friday, the nineteenth of February, 1546, previous to his
coronation. "When the king," says the author, "was advanced almost to
St. George's church,[714] in Paul's church-yard, there was a rope as
great as the cable of a ship, stretched in length from the battlements
of Paul's steeple, with a great anchor at one end, fastened a little
before the dean of Paul's house-gate; and, when his majesty approached
near the same, there came a man, a stranger, being a native of Arragon,
lying on the rope with his head forward, casting his arms and legs
abroad, running on his breast on the rope from the battlements to the
ground, as if it had been an arrow out of a bow, and stayed on the
ground. Then he came to his majesty, and kissed his foot; and so, after
certain words to his highness, he departed from him again, and went
upwards upon the rope till he came over the midst of the church-yard;
where he, having a rope about him, played certain mysteries on the
rope, as tumbling, and casting one leg from another. Then took he the
rope, and tied it to the cable, and tied himself by the right leg a
little space beneath the wrist of the foot, and hung by one leg a
certain space, and after recovered himself again with the said rope and
unknit the knot, and came down again. Which stayed his majesty, with
all the train, a good space of time."[715]
XI.--ROPE-DANCING FROM ST. PAUL'S STEEPLE.
This trick was repeated, though probably by another performer, in the
reign of queen Mary; for, according to Holinshed, among the various
shows prepared for the reception of Philip king of Spain, was one of
a man who "came downe upon a rope, tied to the battlement of Saint
Paule's church, with his head before, neither staieing himself with
hand or foot; which," adds the author, "shortlie after cost him his
life."[716]
XII.--ROPE-DANCING FROM ALL SAINTS' CHURCH, HERTFORD.
A similar exploit was put in practice, about fifty years back,[717]
in different parts of this kingdom; I received the following account
of the manner in which it was carried into execution at Hertford from
a friend of mine,[718] who assisted the exhibitor in adjusting his
apparatus, and saw his performance several times: A rope was stretched
from the top of the tower of All Saints' church, and brought obliquely
to the ground about fourscore yards from the bottom of the tower,
where, being drawn over two strong pieces of wood nailed across each
other, it was made fast to a stake driven into the earth; two or three
feather beds were then placed upon the cross timbers, to receive
the performer when he descended, and to break his fall. He was also
provided with a flat board having a groove in the midst of it, which
he attached to his breast; and when he intended to exhibit, he laid
himself upon the top of the rope, with his head downwards, and adjusted
the groove to the rope, his legs being held by a person appointed for
that purpose, until such time as he had properly balanced himself. He
was then liberated, and descended with incredible swiftness from the
top of the tower to the feather-beds, which prevented his reaching
the ground. This man had lost one of his legs, and its place was
supplied by a wooden leg, which was furnished on this occasion with a
quantity of lead sufficient to counterpoise the weight of the other.
He performed this three times in the same day; the first time, he
descended without holding any thing in his hands; the second time, he
blew a trumpet; and the third, he held a pistol in each hand, which he
discharged as he came down.
XIII.--A DUTCHMAN'S FEATS ON ST. PAUL'S WEATHERCOCK.
To the foregoing extraordinary exhibitions we may add another equally
dangerous, but executed without the assistance of a rope. It was
performed in the presence of queen Mary in her passage through London
to Westminster, the day before her coronation, in 1553, and is thus
described by Holinshed:[719]
"When she came to Saint Paule's church-yard against the school master
Heywood sat in a pageant under a vine, and made to her an oration in
Latin; and then there was one Peter, a Dutchman, that stoode upon the
weathercocke of Saint Paul's steeple, holding a streamer in his hands
of five yards long, and waving thereof. He sometimes stood on one foot,
and shook the other, and then he kneeled on his knees, to the great
marvell of all the people. He had made two scaffolds under him; one
above the cross, having torches and streamers set upon it, and another
over the ball of the cross, likewise set with streamers and torches,
which could not burn, the wind was so great." The historian informs us,
that "Peter had sixteene pounds, thirteene shillings, and foure pence,
given to him by the citie for his costs and paines, and for all his
stuffe."
XIV.--JACOB HALL THE ROPE-DANCER.
In the reign of Charles II. there was a famous rope-dancer named Jacob
Hall, whose portrait is still in existence.[720] The open-hearted
duchess of Cleveland is said to have been so partial to this man, that
he rivalled the king himself in her affections, and received a salary
from her grace.
XV.--MODERN CELEBRATED ROPE-DANCING.
Soon after the accession of James II. to the throne, a Dutch woman
made her appearance in this country; and "when," says a modern author,
"she first danced and vaulted upon the rope in London, the spectators
beheld her with a pleasure mixed with pain, as she seemed every moment
in danger of breaking her neck." This woman was afterwards exceeded
by Signora Violante, who not only exhibited many feats which required
more strength and agility of body than she was mistress of, but had
also a stronger head, as she performed at a much greater distance from
the ground than any of her predecessors. Signor Violante was no less
excellent as a rope-dancer. The spectators were astonished, in the
reign of George II., at seeing the famous Turk dance upon the rope,
balance himself on a slack wire without a poise, and toss up oranges
alternately with his hands: but this admiration was considerably abated
when one of the oranges happened to fall, and appeared by the sound to
be a ball of painted lead. Signor and Signora Spinacuta were not
inferior to the Turk. "The former danced on the rope (in 1768) at the
Little Theatre in the Haymarket, with two boys tied to his feet. But
what is still more extraordinary, a monkey has lately performed there,
both as a rope-dancer and an equilibrist, such tricks as no man was
thought equal to before the Turk appeared in England."[721]
XVI.--ROPE-DANCING AT SADLER'S WELLS, &c.
During the last century, Sadler's Wells was a famous nursery for
tumblers, balance-masters, and dancers upon the rope and upon the wire.
These exhibitions have of late years lost much of their popularity: the
tight-rope dancing, indeed, is still continued there[722] by Richer, a
justly celebrated performer. This man certainly displays more ease and
elegance of action, and much greater agility, upon the rope, than any
other dancer that I ever saw: his exertions at all times excite the
astonishment, while they command the applause of the spectators.
I shall only observe, that the earliest representation of rope-dancing
which I have met with occurs in a little print affixed to one of the
chapters of the vocabulary of Commenius, translated by Hoole;[723]
where a woman is depicted dancing upon the tight-rope, and holding
a balance charged with lead at both ends, according to the common
usage of the present day;[724] and behind her we see a man, with his
hand downwards, and hanging upon the same rope by one of his legs.
This feat, with others of a similar kind, are more usually performed
upon the slack rope, which at the same time is put into motion; the
performer frequently hanging by one foot, or by both his hands, or in a
variety of different manners and attitudes; or by laying himself along
upon the rope, holding it with his hands and feet, the latter being
crossed, and turning round with incredible swiftness, which is called
roasting the pig.
XVII.--FOOL'S DANCE.
The fool's dance, or a dance performed by persons equipped in the
dresses appropriated to the fools, is very ancient, and originally, I
apprehend, formed a part of the pageant belonging to the festival of
fools. This festival was a religious mummery, usually held at Christmas
time; and consisted of various ceremonials and mockeries, not only
exceedingly ridiculous, but shameful and impious.[725] A vestige of the
fool's dance, preserved in a MS. in the Bodleian Library,[726] written
and illuminated in the reign of king Edward III. and completed in 1344,
is copied below.
[Illustration: 61. A FOOL'S DANCE.--XIV. CENTURY.]
In this representation of the dance, it seems conducted with some
degree of regularity; and is assisted by the music of the regals and
the bagpipes.[727] The dress of the musicians resembles that of the
dancers, and corresponds exactly with the habit of the court fool at
that period.[728] I make no doubt, the morris-dance, which afterwards
became exceedingly popular in this country, originated from the
fool's dance; and thence we trace the bells which characterised the
morris-dancers. The word morris applied to the dance is usually derived
from Morisco, which in the Spanish language signifies a Moor, as if
the dance had been taken from the Moors; but I cannot help considering
this as a mistake, for it appears to me that the Morisco or Moor dance
is exceedingly different from the morris-dance formerly practised in
this country; it being performed by the castanets, or rattles, at the
end of the fingers, and not with bells attached to various parts of
the dress. In a comedy called Variety, printed in 1649, we meet with
this passage: "like a Bacchanalian, dancing the Spanish Morisco, with
knackers at his fingers." This dance was usually, I believe, performed
by a single person, which by no means agrees with the morris-dance.
Sir John Hawkins[729] observes that, within the memory of persons
living, a saraband danced by a Moor constantly formed part of the
entertainment at a puppet-show; and this dance was always performed
with the castanets. I shall not pretend to investigate the derivation
of the word morris; though probably it might be found at home: it
seems, however, to have been applied to the dance in modern times, and,
I trust, long after the festival to which it originally belonged was
done away and had nearly sunk into oblivion.
XVIII.--MORRIS-DANCE.
The morris-dance was sometimes performed by itself, but was much more
frequently joined to processions and pageants, and especially to those
appropriated for the celebration of the May-games. On these occasions,
the Hobby-horse, or a Dragon, with Robin Hood, the maid Marian, and
other characters, supposed to have been the companions of that famous
outlaw, made a part of the dance. In latter times, the morris was
frequently introduced upon the stage. Stephen Gosson, who wrote about
1579, in a little tract entitled Playes Confuted, speaks of "dauncing
of gigges, galiardes, and morisces, with hobbi-horses," as stage
performances.
The garments of the morris-dancers, as we observed before, were
adorned with bells, which were not placed there merely for the sake of
ornament, but were to be sounded as they danced. These bells were of
unequal sizes, and differently denominated, as the fore bell, the
second bell, the treble, the tenor or great bell, and mention is also
made of double bells. In the third year of queen Elizabeth, two dozen
of morris-bells were estimated at one shilling.[730] The principal
dancer in the morris was more superbly habited than his companions,
as appears from a passage in an old play, The Blind Beggar of Bednal
Green, by John Day, 1659, wherein it is said of one of the characters,
"He wants no cloths, for he hath a cloak laid on with gold lace, and an
embroidered jerkin; and thus he is marching hither like the foreman of
a morris."
I do not find that the morris-dancers were confined to any particular
number: in the ancient representation of this dance given by the
engraving No. 61, there are five, exclusive of the two musicians. A
modern writer speaks of a set of morris-dancers who went about the
country, consisting of ten men who danced, besides the maid Marian, and
one who played upon the pipe and tabor.[731]
The hobby-horse, which seems latterly to have been almost inseparable
from the morris-dance, was a compound figure; the resemblance of the
head and tail of a horse, with a light wooden frame for the body, was
attached to the person who was to perform the double character, covered
with trappings reaching to the ground, so as to conceal the feet of
the actor, and prevent its being seen that the supposed horse had
none. Thus equipped, he was to prance about, imitating the curvetings
and motions of a horse, as we may gather from the following speech in
an old tragedy called the Vow-breaker, or Fair Maid of Clifton, by
William Sampson, 1636. "Have I not practised my reines, my carreeres,
my prankers, my ambles, my false trotts, my smooth ambles, and
Canterbury paces--and shall the mayor put me, besides, the hobby-horse?
I have borrowed the fore-horse bells, his plumes, and braveries;
nay, I have had the mane new shorn and frizelled.--Am I not going to
buy ribbons and toys of sweet Ursula for the Marian--and shall I not
play the hobby-horse? Provide thou the dragon, and let me alone for
the hobby-horse." And afterwards: "Alas, Sir! I come only to borrow
a few ribbandes, bracelets, ear-rings, wyertyers, and silk girdles,
and handkerchers, for a morris and a show before the queen--I come to
furnish the hobby-horse."
XIX.--THE EGG-DANCE.
I am not able to ascertain the antiquity of this dance. The indication
of such a performance occurs in an old comedy, entitled The longer thou
livest, the more Foole thou art, by William Wager,[732] in the reign of
queen Elizabeth, where we meet with these lines:
Upon my one foote pretely I can hoppe,
And daunce it trimley about an egge.
Dancing upon one foot was exhibited by the Saxon gleemen, and probably
by the Norman minstrels, but more especially by the women-dancers,
who might thence acquire the name of hoppesteres, which is given
by Chaucer. A vestige of this denomination is still retained, and
applied to dancing, though somewhat contemptuously; for an inferior
dancing-meeting is generally called a hop. A representation of the
dance on one foot, taken from a manuscript of the tenth century,
appears by the engraving No. 52,[733] where the gleeman is performing
to the sound of the harp.
Hopping matches for prizes were occasionally made in the sixteenth
century, as we learn from John Heywoode the epigrammatist. In his
Proverbs, printed in 1566, are the following lines:
Where wooers hoppe in and out, long time may bring
Him that hoppeth best at last to have the ring--
--I hoppyng without for a ringe of a rushe.
And again, in the Four P's, a play by the same author, one of the
characters is directed "to hop upon one foot;" and another says,
Here were a hopper to hop for the ring.
Hence it appears a ring was usually the prize, and given to him who
could hop best, and continue to do so the longest.
But to return to the egg-dance. This performance was common enough
about thirty years back,[734] and was well received at Sadler's Wells;
where I saw it exhibited, not by simply hopping round a single egg,
but in a manner that much increased the difficulty. A number of eggs,
I do not precisely recollect how many, but I believe about twelve or
fourteen, were placed at certain distances marked upon the stage; the
dancer, taking his stand, was blindfolded, and a hornpipe being played
in the orchestra, he went through all the paces and figures of the
dance, passing backwards and forwards between the eggs without touching
one of them.
XX.--THE LADDER-DANCE.
So called, because the performer stands upon a ladder, which he shifts
from place to place, and ascends or descends without losing the
equilibrium, or permitting it to fall. This dance was practised at
Sadler's Wells at the commencement of the last century, and revived
about thirty years back. It is still continued there[735] by Dubois,
who calls himself the clown of the Wells, and is a very useful actor,
as well as an excellent performer upon the tight-rope. In the reign
of queen Anne, James Miles, who declared himself to be a performer
from Sadler's Wells, kept a music-booth in Bartholomew Fair, where
he exhibited nineteen different kinds of dances; among them were a
wrestler's dance, vaulting upon the slack rope, and dancing upon the
ladder; the latter, he tells us, as well as the sword-dance, was
performed by "a young woman surpassing all her sex."[736]--An Inventory
of Playhouse Furniture, quoted in the Tatler[737] under the article,
Materials for Dancing, specifies masques, castanets, and a ladder of
ten rounds. I apprehend the ladder-dance originated from the ancient
pastime of walking or dancing upon very high stilts. A specimen of
such an exhibition is here given from a MS. roll in the Royal Library,
written and illuminated in the reign of Henry III.[738] The actor is
exercising a double function, that is, of a musician, and of a dancer.
[Illustration: 62. STILT DANCING.--XIII. CENTURY.]
XXI.--JOCULAR DANCES.
In the Roman de la Rose, we read of a dance, the name of which is not
recorded, performed by two young women lightly clothed. The original
reads, "Qui estoient en pure cottes, et tresses a menu tresse;" which
Chaucer renders, "In kyrtels, and none other wede, and fayre ytressed
every tresse." The French intimates that their hair was platted, or
braided in small braids. The thin clothing, I suppose, was used then,
as it is now upon like occasions, to show their persons to greater
advantage. In their dancing they displayed a variety of singular
attitudes; the one coming as it were privately to the other, and, when
they were near together, in a playsome manner they turned their faces
about, so that they seemed continually to kiss each other
--------They threw yfere
Ther mouthes, so that, through ther play,
It semed as they kyste alway.--_Chaucer's translation_.
A dance, the merit of which, if I mistake not, consisted in the agility
and adroitness of the performer, has been noticed already, and is
represented by the engraving No. 51;[739] and likewise in No. 59,[740]
where a woman is dancing, and eluding the pursuit of a bear made angry
by the scourge of his master. The various situations of the actress and
the disappointment of the animal excited, no doubt, the mirth as well
as the applause of the spectators.
Many of the ancient dances were of a jocular kind, and sometimes
executed by one person: we have, for instance, an account of a man
who danced upon a table before king Edward II. The particulars of the
dance are not specified; but it is said, that his majesty laughed
very heartily at the performance: "Et lui fist tres grandement
rire."[741] It probably consisted of quaint attitudes and ridiculous
gesticulations. The king, however, was so delighted, that he gave a
reward of fifty shillings to the dancer, which was a great sum in those
days. A few years ago,[742] there was a fellow that used to frequent
the different public-houses in the metropolis, who, mounting a table,
would stand upon his head with his feet towards the ceiling, and make
all the different steps of a hornpipe upon it for the diversion of the
company. His method of performing was to place a porter-pot upon the
table, raised high enough for his feet to touch the ceiling, when his
head was upon the pot. I have been told that many publicans would not
permit him to come into their houses, because he had damaged their
ceiling, and in some places danced part of it down. An exhibition
nearly as ridiculous is here represented from a MS. in the Royal
Library.
[Illustration: 63. REMARKABLE DANCE.--XIII. CENTURY.]
Here we perceive a girl dancing upon the shoulders of the joculator,
who at the same time is playing upon the bagpipes, and appears to be in
the action of walking forwards.[743]
XXII.--WIRE-DANCING.
Wire-dancing, at least so much of it as I have seen exhibited, appears
to me to be misnamed: it consists rather of various feats of balancing,
the actor sitting, standing, lying, or walking, upon the wire, which
at the same time is usually swung backwards and forwards; and this, I
am told, is a mere trick, to give the greater air of difficulty to the
performance. Instead of dancing, I would call it balancing upon the
wire.
XXIII.--BALLETTE-DANCES.
The grand figure-dances, and ballettes of action, as they are called,
of the modern times, most probably surpass in splendour the ancient
exhibitions of dancing. They first appeared, I believe, at the
Opera-house; but have since been adopted by the two royal theatres, and
imitated with less splendour upon the summer stages. These spectacles
are too extensive by far in their operations, and too multifarious
to be described in a general work like this: suffice it to say, they
are pantomimical representations of historical and poetical subjects,
expressed by fantastical gestures, aided by superb dresses, elegant
music, and beautiful scenery; and sorry am I to add, they have nearly
eclipsed the sober portraitures of real nature, and superseded in the
public estimation the less attractive lessons of good sense.
XXIV.-LEAPING AND VAULTING.
There are certain feats of tumbling and vaulting that have no connexion
with dancing, such as leaping and turning with the heels over the head
in the air, termed the somersault, corruptly called a somerset. Mrs.
Piozzi, speaking of Robert Carr, earl of Somerset, and favourite of
James I., says, "and the sommerset, still used by tumblers, taken from
him."[744] The word, however, was in use, and applied by the tumblers
to the feat above mentioned, before the birth of Carr. There was also
the feat of turning round with great rapidity, alternately bearing upon
the hands and feet, denominated the fly-flap. In a satirical pamphlet,
entitled The Character of a Quack Doctor, published at London, 1676,
the empiric, boasting of his cures, says, "The Sultan Gilgal, being
violently afflicted with a spasmus, came six hundred leagues to meet me
in a go-cart: I gave him so speedy an acquittance from his dolor, that
the next night he danced a saraband with fly-flaps and somersets," &c.:
but this is evidently conjoining the three for the sake of ridicule.
The performance of leaping through barrels without heads, and through
hoops, especially the latter, is an exploit of long standing: we find
it represented in the annexed engraving from a drawing in an ancient
manuscript.
[Illustration: 64. A FEAT IN THE XIV. CENTURY.]
Two boys are depicted holding the hoop, and the third preparing to leap
through it, having deposited his cloak upon the ground to receive him.
William Stokes, a vaulting master of the seventeenth century, boasted,
in a publication called The Vaulting Master, &c. printed at Oxford
in 1652, that he had reduced "vaulting to a method." In his book are
several plates containing different specimens of his practice, which
consisted chiefly in leaping over one or more horses, or upon them,
sometimes seating himself in the saddle and sometimes standing upon
the same. All these feats are now[745] performed at Astley's, and at
the circus in St. George's Fields, with many additional acquirements;
and the horses gallop round the ride while the actor is going through
his manœuvres: on the contrary, the horses belonging to our vaulter
remained at rest during the whole time of his exhibition.
A show-bill for Bartholomew Fair, during the reign of queen Anne[746]
announces "the wonderful performances of that most celebrated master
Simpson, the famous vaulter, who, being lately arrived from Italy,
will show the world what vaulting is!" The bill speaks pompously: how
far his abilities coincided with the promise, I cannot determine, for
none of his exertions are specified. But the most extraordinary vaulter
that has appeared within my memory was brought forward in 1799, at
the Circus. He was a native of Yorkshire, named Ireland, then about
eighteen years of age, exceedingly well made, and upwards of six feet
high. He leaped over nine horses standing side by side and a man seated
upon the mid-horse; he jumped over a garter held fourteen feet high;
and at another jump kicked a bladder hanging sixteen feet at least
from the ground; and, for his own benefit, he leaped over a temporary
machine representing a broad-wheeled waggon with the tilt. These
astonishing specimens of strength and agility were performed, without
any trick or deception, by a fair jump, and not with the somersault,
which is usually practised on such occasions. After a run of ten or
twelve yards, he ascended an inclined plane, constructed with thick
boards, and about three feet in height at one end; from the upper
part of this plane he made his spring, and having performed the leap,
was received into a carpet held by six or eight men. I examined this
apparatus very minutely, and am well persuaded that he received no
assistance from any elasticity in the boards, they being too thick
to afford him any, and especially at the top, where they were made
fast to the frame that supported them; nor from any other kind of
artificial spring. It may readily be supposed that exertions of such
an extraordinary nature could not be long continued without some
disastrous accident; and accordingly, in the first season of his
engagement, he sprained the tendon of his heel so violently, that he
could not perform for nearly two years afterwards.
XXV.--BALANCING.
Under this head perhaps may be included several of the performances
mentioned in the preceding pages, and especially the throwing of three
balls and three knives alternately into the air, and catching them as
they fall, as represented by the engraving No 50, from a MS. of the
eighth century. This trick, in my memory, commonly constituted a part
of the puppet-showman's exhibition; but I do not recollect to have seen
it extended beyond four articles; for instance, two oranges and two
forks; and the performer, by way of conclusion, caught the oranges upon
the forks.
In the Romance of the Rose, we read of tymbesteres, or
balance-mistresses, who, according to the description there given,
played upon the tymbres, or timbrels, and occasionally tossing them
into the air, caught them again upon one finger. The passage translated
by Chaucer, stands thus:
There was manye a tymbestere--
--Couthe her crafte full parfytly:
The tymbres up full subtelly
They cast, and hent full ofte
Upon a fynger fayre and softe,
That they fayled never mo.[747]
Towards the close of last summer (1799) I saw three itinerant musicians
parading the streets of London; one of them turned the winch of an
organ which he carried at his back, another blew a reed-pipe, and the
third played on a tambourine; the latter imitated the timbesters above
mentioned, and frequently during the performance of a tune cast up
the instrument into the air three or four feet higher than his head,
and caught it, as it returned, upon a single finger; he then whirled
it round with an air of triumph, and proceeded in the accompaniment
without losing time, or occasioning the least interruption.
XXVI.--REMARKABLE FEATS OF BALANCING.
Subjoined are a few specimens of the ancient balance-master's art.
[Illustration: 65. BALANCING.--XIV. CENTURY.]
This engraving, from a MS. in the Bodleian Library,[748] represents a
girl, as the length of the hair seems to indicate, habited like a boy,
and kneeling on a large broad board, supported horizontally by two men;
before her are three swords, the points inclined to each other, and
placed in a triangular form; she is pointing to them with her right
hand, and holds in her left a small instrument somewhat resembling a
trowel, but I neither know its name nor its use.
[Illustration: 66. BALANCING.--XIV. CENTURY.]
The man in this engraving, from a drawing in a MS. book of prayers
possessed by Francis Douce, esq., is performing a very difficult
operation: he has placed one sword upright upon the hilt, and is
attempting to do the like with the second; at the same time his
attitude is altogether as surprising as the trick itself. Feats similar
to
[Illustration: 67. BALANCING.--XIV. CENTURY.]
I have seen carried into execution, and especially that of balancing a
wheel.
[Illustration: 68. XIV. CENTURY.]
This was exhibited about the year 1799, at Sadler's Wells, by a
Dutchman, who not only supported a wheel upon his shoulder, but
also upon his forehead and his chin: and he afterwards extended the
performance to two wheels tied together, with a boy standing upon
one of them. The latter engravings are from the MS. in the Bodleian
Library just referred to. The following is from a MS. Psalter formerly
belonging to J. Ives, esq. of Yarmouth.
[Illustration: 69. BALANCING.--XIV. CENTURY.]
In the middle of the eighteenth century, there was a very celebrated
balance-master, named Mattocks, who made his appearance also at the
Wells; among other tricks, he used to balance a straw with great
adroitness, sometimes on one hand, sometimes on the other; and
sometimes he would kick it with his foot to a considerable height,
and catch it upon his nose, his chin, or his forehead. His fame was
celebrated by a song set to music, entitled Balance a Straw, which
became exceedingly popular. The Dutchman mentioned above performed the
same sort of feat with a small peacock's feather, which he blew into
the air, and caught it as it fell on different parts of his face in a
very surprising manner.
XXVII.--THE POSTURE-MASTER.
The display of his abilities consisted in twisting and contorting his
body into strange and unnatural attitudes. This art was, in doubt,
practised by the jugglers in former ages; and a singular specimen of
it, delineated on the last mentioned Bodleian MS., in the reign of
Edward III., is here represented.
[Illustration: 70. A POSTURE-MASTER.--XIV. CENTURY.]
The performer bends himself backwards, with his head turned up between
his hands, so as nearly to touch his feet; and in this situation he
hangs by his hams upon a pole, supported by two of his confederates.
The posture-master is frequently mentioned by the writers of the
two last centuries; but his tricks are not particularised. The most
extraordinary artist of this kind that ever existed, it is said was
Joseph Clark, who, "though a well-made man, and rather gross than
thin, exhibited in the most natural manner almost every species of
deformity and dislocation; he could dislocate his vertebræ so as to
render himself a shocking spectacle; he could also assume all the
uncouth faces that he had seen at a Quaker's meeting, at the theatre,
or any other public place." To this man a paper in the Guardian
evidently alludes, wherein it is said: "I remember a very whimsical
fellow, commonly known by the name of the posture-master, in Charles
the Second's reign, who was the plague of all the tailors about town.
He would send for one of them to take measure of him; but would
so contrive it as to have a most immoderate rising in one of his
shoulders; when his clothes were brought home and tried upon him, the
deformity was removed into the other shoulder; upon which the taylor
begged pardon for the mistake, and mended it as fast as he could; but,
on another trial, found him as straight-shouldered a man as one would
desire to see, but a little unfortunate in a hump back. In short, this
wandering tumour puzzled all the workmen about town, who found it
impossible to accommodate so changeable a customer."[749] He resided
in Pall Mall, and died about the beginning of king William's reign.
Granger tells us he was dead in the year 1697.[750] There was also a
celebrated posture-master, by the name of Higgins, in the reign of
queen Anne, who performed between the acts at the theatre royal in
the Haymarket, and exhibited "many wonderful postures," as his own
bill declares:[751] I know no farther of him. In the present day, the
unnatural performances of the posture-masters are not fashionable, but
seem to excite disgust rather than admiration in the public mind, and
for this reason they are rarely exhibited.
XXVIII.--THE MOUNTEBANK.
I may here mention a stage-performer whose show is usually enlivened
with mimicry, music, and tumbling; I mean the mountebank. It is
uncertain at what period this vagrant dealer in physic made his
appearance in England: it is clear, however, that he figured away with
much success in this country during the two last centuries; he called
to his assistance some of the performances practised by the jugglers;
and the bourdour, or merry-andrew, seems to have been his inseparable
companion: hence it is said in an old ballad, entitled Sundry Trades
and Callings,
A mountebank without his fool
Is in a sorrowful case.
The mountebanks usually preface the vending of their medicines with
pompous orations, in which they pay as little regard to truth as to
propriety. Shakspeare speaks of these wandering empirics in very
disrespectful terms:
As nimble jugglers that deceive the eye,
Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,
And many such like libertines of sin.
In the reign of James II. "Hans Buling, a Dutchman, was well known in
London as a mountebank. He was," says Granger,[752] "an odd figure of
a man, and extremely fantastical in his dress; he was attended by a
monkey, which he had trained to act the part of a jack-pudding, a part
which he had formerly acted himself, and which was more natural to him
than that of a professor of physic." The ignorance and the impudence
of the mountebanks are ridiculed in the Spectator, and especially in
that paper which concludes with an anecdote of one who exhibited at
Hammersmith.[753] He told his audience that he had been "born and bred
there, and, having a special regard for the place of his nativity, he
was determined to make a present of five shillings to as many as would
accept it: the whole crowd stood agape, and ready to take the doctor
at his word; when, putting his hand into a long bag, as every one was
expecting his crown-piece, he drew out a handful of little packets,
each of which, he informed the spectators, was constantly sold for five
shillings and sixpence, but that he would bate the odd five shillings
to every inhabitant of that place. The whole assembly immediately
closed with this generous offer, and took off all his physic, after the
doctor had made them vouch that there were no foreigners among them,
but that they were all Hammersmith men."
XXIX.--THE TINKER.
Another itinerant, who seems in some degree to have rivalled the
lower classes of the jugglers, was the tinker; and accordingly he is
included, with them and the minstrels, in the act against vagrants
established by the authority of queen Elizabeth.[754] His performances
were usually exhibited at fairs, wakes, and other places of public
resort: they consisted in low buffoonery and ludicrous tricks to engage
the attention and move the laughter of the populace. Some of them are
specified in the following speech from The Two Maides of Moreclacke, an
old dramatic performance, printed in 1609: "This, madame, is the tinker
of Twitnam. I have seene him licke out burning firebrands with his
tongue, drink two-pence from the bottome of a full pottle of ale, fight
with a masty,[755] and stroke his mustachoes with his bloody-bitten
fist, and sing as merrily as the soberest querester."
XXX.--THE FIRE-EATER.
The first article in the foregoing quotation brings to my recollection
the extraordinary performances of a professed fire-eater, whose name
was Powel, well known in different parts of the kingdom about forty
years ago. Among other wonderful feats, I saw him do the following:--He
ate the burning coals from the fire; he put a large bunch of matches
lighted into his mouth, and blew the smoke of the sulphur through his
nostrils; he carried a red-hot heater round the room in his teeth; and
broiled a piece of beef-steak upon his tongue. To perform this, he
lighted a piece of charcoal, which he put into his mouth beneath his
tongue, the beef was laid upon the top; and one of the spectators blew
upon the charcoal, to prevent the heat decreasing, till the meat was
sufficiently broiled. By way of conclusion, he made a composition of
pitch, brimstone, and other combustibles, to which he added several
pieces of lead; the whole was melted in an iron ladle, and then set on
fire; this he called his soup; and, taking it out of the ladle with
a spoon of the same metal, he ate it in its state of liquefaction,
and blazing furiously, without appearing to sustain the least injury.
And here we may add the whimsical trickery of a contemporary artist,
equal to the above in celebrity, who amused the public, and filled his
pockets, by eating stones, which, it is, said he absolutely cracked
between his teeth, and afterwards swallowed.