revived. The hobby-horse was represented by a man equipped with as much pasteboard as was sufficient to form the head and hinder parts of a horse, the quadrupedal deficiencies being concealed by a long footcloth that nearly touched the ground. On this occasion the performer exerted all his skill in burlesque horsemanship. In Sampson's play of the Vowbreaker, 1636, a miller, being angry that the major of the city is put in competition with him in enacting this character, says, "Have I practised my reines, my careeres, my pranckers, my ambles, my false trots, my Canterbury paces, and shall master major put me beside the hobby-horse? Have I borrowed the fore-horse bells, his plumes, and braveries, nay, had his mane new shorn and frizzled, and shall the major put me beside the hobby-horse?" To the horse's mouth was suspended a ladle for the purpose of gathering money from the spectators, an office which in later times was performed by the fool. In Nashe's play of Summer's Last Will and Testament, there enter three clowns and three maids who dance the morris, and at the same time sing the following song: Trip and goe, heave and hoe, A short time before the Revolution in France, the Maygames and morris-dance were celebrated in many parts of that country, accompanied by a fool and a hobby-horse, termed a chevalet; and, if the authority of Minsheu be not questionable, the Spaniards had the same character, under the name of the Tarasca. The Dragon is introduced in Sampson's play of the Vowbreaker, as early as 1633, where a fellow says, "I'll be a fiery dragon;" and another observes, that he will be "a thundering St. George as ever rode on horseback." This seems to afford a clew to the use of the dragon, who was probably attacked in some ludicrous manner by the hobbyhorse saint. In the reign of Henry VIII. the morris-dancers were dressed, in gilt leather and silver paper, and sometimes in coats of white and spangled fustian. They had purses in their girdles, and garters to which bells were attached, varying in number from twenty to forty, and distinguished by different appellations, as the fore bell, the second bell, the treble, the tenor, the bass, and the double bell. Sometimes the hat was decorated with a nosegay, or with the herb thrift, formerly called our lady's cushion. A very few years since a company of morris-dancers, attended by a boy, Maid Marian, a hobby-horse, and a fool, was seen at Usk, in Monmouthshire, where they profess to have kept up this ceremony for the last three hundred years. This, and one or two other modern instances, Mr. Douce has thought it proper to record in the dissertation to which we have been so largely indebted, because he thinks it extremely probable "that from the present rage for refinement and innovation, there will remain in the course of a short time but few vestiges of our popular customs and antiquities." CHAPTER XIX. Jugglers. "Gardener.-Prythee, John, what sort of a creature is a conjurer? Butler.-Why, he's made much as other men are, if it was not for his long gray beard. His beard is at least half a yard long; he's dressed in a strange dark cloak, as black as a coal. He has a long white wand in his hand. Coachman.-I fancy it is made out of witch elm. Butler.-No; the wand, look you, is to make a circle. A circle, you must know, is a conjurer's trap. The Drummer. SHOULD any utilitarian reader blame us for wasting our time and his upon a class of people not often deemed either respectable or useful, we beg to refer him to the third volume of the History of Inventions, by Professor Beckmann, who vindicates their cause, including in his defence, under the general denomination of Jugglers, the ropedancers, and such as exhibit feats of uncommon strength. At a moment like the present, when from the effects of a redundant population every useful employment is full, and even overstocked, his arguments ought to be considered cogent, at least by the political economists. These arts, he observes, are not unprofitable, for they afford a comfortable subsistence to those who practise them, which they usually spend upon the spot, and this he considers a good reason why their stay in a place ought to be encouraged. He is also of opinion, that if the arts of juggling served no other end than to amuse the most ignorant of our citizens, it is proper that they should be patronised for the sake of those who cannot enjoy the more expensive deceptions of an opera, especially as they often convey instruction in the most acceptable manner, and serve as an antidote to superstition. In these observations we fully concur, holding that it is wise on every account to preserve the few harmless amusements still left to the poor; and as to the trite objection that it is cajoling them of their hardearned pittance by useless deceptions, we reply that their money is much better thus expended than in the gin-shop or the ale-house, to which they are already too much driven by the curtailment of their appropriate recreations. Juggling is certainly of very great antiquity. Pharaoh's magicians may be deemed the earliest practitioners of the art. Some of the slaves in Sicily performed the deception of breathing out flames about 150 years before the Christian era; and according to Plutarch, Alexander the Great was astonished and delighted with the secret effects of naphtha, exhibited to him at Ecbatana. Wonder has been excited in modern times by persons who could walk over burning coals or hot iron, which is easily done by rendering the skin of the feet callous and insensible. Beckmann asserts that the Hirpi who dwelt near Rome jumped through burning coals; that women were accustomed to perform a similar exploit at Castabala, near the temple of Diana; that the exhibition of cups and balls is often mentioned in the works of the ancients; and that the various feats of horsemanship exhibited in our circuses passed, in the thirteenth century, from Egypt to the Byzantine court, and thence over all Europe. The joculator or jongleur of the Normans, whence was derived the juggler of more modern times, received about the fourteenth century the name of tragetour, a term more especially applied to those performers who, by sleight of hand, with the assistance of various machines and confederates, deceived the eyes of the spectators and produced illusions that were usually attributed to enchantment. According to the descriptions transmitted to us, the wonders they performed prove them to have been no mean practitioners in the art, and excite the less surprise that in a credulous age they should have been ranked with magicians. Chaucer, who had no doubt frequently seen the tricks he describes, thus speaks of them: "There are," says he, "sciences by which men can delude the eye with divers appearances, such as the subtle tragetours- perform at feasts. In a large hall they will produce water, with boats rowed up and down upon it. Sometimes they will bring in the similitude of a grim lion, or make flowers spring up as in a meadow; sometimes they cause a vine to flourish bearing white and red grapes, or show a castle built with stone; and, when they please, they cause the whole to disappear." He then speaks of a learned clerk, who, for the amusement of his friend, showed to him forests full of wild deer, where he saw a hundred of them slain, some with hands and some with arrows: the hunting being finished, a company of falconers appeared upon the banks of a fair river, where the birds pursued the herons and slew them. He then saw knights jousting upon a plain; and, by way of conclusion, the resemblance of his beloved lady dancing. But when the master who had wrought this magic thought fit, he clapped his hands, and all was gone in an instant. If these illusions were not produced by means of a magic lantern or some similar device, they must be confessed to equal all that is recorded of the ancient Eleusinian mysteries. Chaucer attributes such deceptions to natural magic; meaning probably some occult combination of natural powers: a solution which would hardly pass cur rent with the vulgar in those days, when the properties of matter and of the elements were very little understood. -Froissart records a scarcely less marvellous instance of a juggler, who possessed not, however, the art of saving his own head from the block. "When the Duke of Anjou and the Earl of Savoy," says that author, "were lying with their army before the city of Naples, there was an en chanter, a cunning man in necromancy, who promised the duke that he would put him in possession of the castle of Leufe, at that time besieged by him. The duke was desirous of knowing by what means this could be effected, and the magician said, 'I shall, by enchantment, make the air so thick that they within the castle will think there is a great bridge over the sea, large enough for ten men abreast to come to them; and when they see this bridge they will readily yield themselves to your mercy, lest they should be taken perforce.' And may not my men,' said the duke, 'pass over this bridge in reality? To this question the juggler artfully replied, "I dare not, sir, assure you that; for if any one of the men that passeth over the bridge shall make the sign of the cross upon him, all shall go to naught, and they that be upon it shall fall into the sea.' The Earl of Savoy, being made acquainted with this conference, said to the duke, 'I know well it is the same enchanter who caused by his craft the sea to seem so high, that they within this castle were sore abashed, and feared all to have died. The earl then commanded the enchanter to be brought before him, when he boasted that by the power of his art he had caused the castle to be delivered to Sir Charles de la Paye, who was then in possession of it. By my faith,' said the Earl of Savoy, ye shall never do more enchant ments to deceive him, nor yet any other.' So saying he ordered him to be beheaded; and the sentence was instantly put into execution before the door of the earl's tent." · In England the king's juggler continued to have an es tablishment in the royal household till the time of Henry VIII., in whose reign the office and title seem to have been discontinued. Our learned monarch James I. imagined that the feats exhibited by these people could only be per formed by the agency of the Devil, who, he says, "will learne them many juglarie trickes at cardes and dice, to deceive men's senses thereby, and such innumerable false practicques, which are proved by over many in this age." His majesty proceeds to inform us, in explanation of the mystery they employ, that "the art of sorcery consists in diverse forms of circles and conjurations rightly joined together, few or more in number, according to the number of the persons conjurers and the form of the apparition. All things being ready and prepared, the circles are made, triangular, quadrangular, round, double, or single." |