Popular Music Of The Olden Time Vol 1

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	KEIGN OF ELIZABETH. 135

	to cover tabors; at the sound of. which to set all the shires a dancing. . . . The court of kings is for stately measures; the city for light heels and nimble footing; western men for gambols; Middlesex men for tricks above ground; Essex men for the Hey; Lancashire for Hornpipes; Worcestershire for bagpipes; but Herefordshire for a Morris-dance, puts down not only all Kent, but very near (if one had line enough to measure it) three quarters of Christendom. Never had Saint Sepulchre's a truer ring of bells; never did any silk-weaver keep braver time; never could Beverley Fair give money to a more sound taborer; nor ever had Robin Hood a more deft'Maid Marian." Full particulars of the Morris-dance and May-games may be found by referring to Strutt's Sports and Pastimes; to Ritson's Robin Hood; to an account of a painted window, appended to part of Henry IV., in Steevens' Shakespeare, the xv. vol. edition ; to Gifford's Ben Jonson, vol. i., pages 50, 51, 52, vol. iv.,p. 405, and vol. vii., p. 397; to The British Bibliographer, vol. iv., p. 326; Brand's Popular Antiquities; Douce's Illustrations of Shakespeare; and Dr. Drake's Shakespeare and his Times, vol. L, &c, &c.