Figure 11. has upon his head a filver coronet, a purple cap with a red feather, and with a golden knop. In my opinion he perfonates a nobleman, for I incline to think that various ranks of life were meant to be reprefented upon my window. He has a post of honour, or, 66 * a ftation in the valued file, which here feems to be the middle row, and which according to my conjecture comprehends the queen, the king, the May-pole, and the nobleman. The golden crown upon the head of the mafter of the hobby-horse, denotes pre-eminence of rank over figure 11. not only by the greater value of the metal, but by the fuperior number of points raifed upon it. The fhoes are blackish, the hose red, ftriped acrofs or rayed with brown or with a darker red, his codpiece yellow, his doublet yellow, with yellow fide-fleeves, and red arming fleeves, or down-fleeves. The form of his doublet is remarkable. There is great variety in the dreffes and attitudes of the Morris dancers on the window, but an ocular obfervation will give a more accurate idea of this and of other particulars than a verbal description. Figure 12. is the counterfeit fool, that was kept in the royal palace, and in all great houses, to make sport for the family. He appears with all the badges of his office; the bauble in his hand, and a coxcomb hood with affes ears on his head. The top of the hood rifes into the form of a cock's neck and head, with a bell at the latter; and Minfheu's Dictionary, 1627, under the word cock's comb, obferves, that "natural idiots and fools have [accustomed] and still do accuftome themfelves to weare in their cappes cocke's feathers or a hat with a necke and a head of a cocke on the top, and a bell thereon," &c. His hood is blue, guarded or edged with yellow at its fcalloped bottom, his doublet is red, ftriped acrofs or rayed with a deeper red, and edged with yellow, his girdle yellow, his left fide hofe yellow, with a red fhoe, and his right fide hofe blue, foled with red leather. Stowe's Chronicle, 1614, p. 899, mentions a pair of cloth-ftockings foled with white. leather called " cafhambles," that is, "Chauffes femelles de cuir," as Mr. Anftis, on the Knighthood of the Bath, obferves. The fool's bauble and the carved head with affes ears upon it are all yellow. There is in Olaus Magnus, 1555, p. 524, a delineation of a fool, or jefter, with feveral bells upon his habit, with a bauble in his hand, and he has on his head a hood with asses ears, a feather, and the resemblance of the comb of a cock. Such jefters seem to have been formerly much caressed by the northern nations, The right hand file is the firft in dignity and account, or in degree of value, according to Count Mansfield's Directions of War, 1624. The ancient kings of France wore gilded helmets, the dukes and counts wore filvered ones. See Selden's Titles of Honour for the raised points of Coronets. efpecially in the court of Denmark; and perhaps our ancient joculator regis might mean fuch a perfon. A gentleman of the higheft clafs in hiftorical literature, apprehends, that the representation upon my window is that of a Morris dance proceffion about a May-pole; and he inclines to think, yet with many doubts of its propriety in a modern painting, that the perfonages in it rank in the bouftrophedon form. By this arrangement (fays he) the piece feems to form a regular whole, and the train is begun and ended by a fool in the following manner: Figure 12. is the well-known fool. Figure 11. is a Morifco, and figure 10. a Spaniard, perfons peculiarly pertinent to the Morris dance; and he remarks that the Spaniard obviously forms a fort of middle term betwixt the Moorish and the English characters, having the great fantastical fleeve of the one, and the laced ftomacher of the other. Figure 9. is Tom the Piper. Figure 8. the May-pole. Then follow the English characters, representing as he apprehends, the five great ranks of civil life. Figure 7. is the franklin, or private gentleman. Figure 6. is a plain churl or villane. He takes figure 5. the man within the hobby-horse, to be perhaps a Moorish king, and from many circumftances of fuperior grandeur plainly pointed out as the greatest perfonage of the piece, the monarch of the May, and the intended confort of our English Maid Marian. Figure 4. is a nobleman. Figure 3. the friar, the reprefentative of all the clergy. Figure 2. is Maid Marian, queen of May. Figure 1. the leffer fool closes the rear. My defcription commences where this concludes, or I have reverfed this gentleman's arrangement, by which in either way the train begins and ends with a fool; but I will not affert that such a difpofition was defignedly obferved by the painter. With regard to the antiquity of the painted glafs there is no memorial or traditional account tranfmitted to us; nor is there any date in the room but this, 1621, which is over a door, and which indicates in my opinion the year of building the house. The book of Sports or lawful Recreations upon Sunday after Evening-prayers, and upon Holy-days, published by King James in 1618, allowed May-games, Morris dances, and the fetting up of May-poles; and, as Ben Jonfon's Mafque of The Metamorphofed Gypfies, intimates, that Maid Marian, and the friar, together with the often forgotten hobby-horse, were fometimes continued in the Morris dance as late as the year 1621, I once thought that the glafs might be ftained about that time; but my prefent objections to this are the following ones. It feems from the prologue to the play of King Henry VIII. that Shakspeare's fools fhould be dreffed "in a long motley coat guarded with yellow;" but the fool upon my window is not fo habited; and he has upon his head a hood, which I apprehend might be the coverture of the fool's head before the days of Shakspeare, when it was a cap with a comb like a cock's, as both Dr. Warburton and Dr. Johnfon affert, and they feem juftified in doing fo from King Lear's fool giving Kent his cap, and calling it his coxcomb. I am uncertain, whether any judgement can be formed from the manner of fpelling the inferolled infcription upon the May-pole, upon which is difplayed the old banner of England, and not the union flag of Great Britain, or St. George's red erofs and St. Andrew's white cross joined together, which was ordered by King James in 1606, as Stowe's Chronicle certifies. Only one of the doublets has buttons, which I conceive were common in Queen Elizabeth's reign; nor have any of the figures ruffs, which fashion commenced in the latter days of Henry VIII. and from their want of beards also I am inclined to fuppofe they were delineated before the year 1535, when "King Henry VIII. commanded all about his court to poll their heads, and caufed his own to be polled, and his beard to be notted, and no more fhaven." Probably the glafs was painted in his youthful days, when he delighted in Maygames, unless it may be judged to be of much higher antiquity by almost two centuries. Such are my conjectures upon a fubject of so much obfcurity; but it is high time to refign it to one more converfant with the hiftory of our ancient dreffes. TOLLST. THE END OF THE EIGHTH VOLUME, |