precation, that it was as he had said; Sir William then replied, 'Thou art a perjured knave; for give me a sixpence, and if there be a four upon the dice, I will return you a thousand pounds;' at which the other was presently abashed, for indeed the dice were false, and of a high cut, without a four." *

Dancing was an almost daily amusement in the court of Elizabeth; the Queen was peculiarly fond of this exercise, as had been her father Henry the Eighth, and the taste for it became so general, during her reign, that a great part of the leisure of almost every class of society was spent, and especially on days of festivity, in dancing.

To dance elegantly was one of the strongest recommendations to the favour of Her Majesty; and her courtiers, therefore, strove to rival each other in this pleasing accomplishment; nor were their efforts, in many instances, unrewarded. Sir Christopher Hatton, we are told, owed his promotion, in a great measure, to his skill in dancing; and in accordance with this anecdote, Gray opens his “ Long Story" with an admirable description of his merit in this department, which, as containing a most just and excellent picture, both of the architecture and manners of "the days of good Queen Bess," as well as of the dress and agility of the knight, we with pleasure transcribe. StokePogeis, the scene of the narrative, was formerly in the possession of

the Hattons:

"In Britain's isle, no matter where,

An ancient pile of building stands;
The Huntingdons and Hattons there
Employ'd the pow'r of Fairy hands

To raise the cieling's fretted height,
Each pannel in achievements clothing,
Rich windows that exclude the light,
And passages that lead to nothing.

Full oft within the spacious walls,
When he had fifty winters o'er him,

* Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, p. 272.

My grave Lord-Keeper led the brawls;
The seal and maces danc'd before him.

His bushy beard and shoe-strings green,
His high-crown'd hat and sattin doublet,
Mov'd the stout heart of England's Queen,

Tho' Pope and Spaniard could not trouble it."

The Brawl, a species of dance, here alluded to, is derived from the French word braule, "indicating," observes Mr. Douce, "a shaking or swinging motion. It was performed by several persons uniting hands in a circle, and giving each other continual shakes, the steps changing with the tune. It usually consisted of three pas and a piedjoint, to the time of four strokes of the bow; which, being repeated, was termed a double brawl. With this dance, balls were usually opened." *

Shakspeare seems to have entertained as high an idea of the efficacy of a French brawl, as probably did Sir Christopher Hatton, when he exhibited before Queen Elizabeth; for he makes Moth in Love's Labour's Lost ask Armado, -"Master, will you win your love with a French brawl ?" and he then exclaims, "These betray nice wenches."+ That several dances were included under the term brawls, appears from a pas

sage in Shelton's Don Quixote:-"After this there came in another artificial dance, of those called Brawles ;" and Mr. Douce informs us, that amidst a great variety of brawls, noticed in Thoinot Arbeau's treatise in dancing, entitled Orchesographie, occurs a Scotish brawl; and he adds that this dance continued in fashion to the close of the seventeenth century. §

Another dance of much celebrity at this period, was the Pavin or Pavan, which, from the solemnity of its measure, seems to have been held in utter aversion by Sir Toby Belch, who, in reference to his intoxicated surgeon, "Then he's a rogue. surgeon, exclaims,After a passy

This is the text of

e's a rogue, and reet; for the pavan a of the passamezzo veral steps round the cinque pace. This so to be prefixed to passamezzo galliard, by applying the latter not only a rogue, but a " a peacock," observes dance. The method of sed with a cap and sword, ܸ ¬ ¬ princes in their mantles, the motion whereof in the This dance is supposed to And its figure is given with the graphia of Thoinot Arbeau. except that it was a favourite Ligon, in his History of BarAward, which, in the year 1647, a on the lute; the very same, he in Shakspeare's play of Henry the Sir John Falstaff and Doll Tearsheet, No named."†

doleful pavin," as Sir W. D'Avenant to tread which was the relaxation of the the state, and formed a part of the where the gravest lawyers were often Shakspeare puns upon the name of this with the Scotch jig, in Much Ado about Nothing,

ww vol w p. 406,

+ Ibid. vol. v. p. 407. note.

where he introduces Beatrice telling her cousin Hero, "The fault will be in the musick, cousin, if you be not woo'd in good time: if the prince be too important, tell him, there is measure in every thing, and so dance out the answer. For hear me, Hero: Wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinquepace: the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical: the wedding, mannerly-modest, as a measure full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance, and, with his bad legs, falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave." *

A more brisk and lively step accompanied the Canary dance, which was, likewise, very fashionable: -" I have seen a medicine," says Lafeu in All's Well that Ends Well, alluding to the influence of female charms,

"That's able to breathe life into a stone;
Quicken a rock, and make you dance canary,
With spritely fire and motion;" +

and Moth advises Armado, when dancing the brawl, to Canary it with his feet.

The mode of performing this dance, is thus given by Mr. Douce, from the treatise of Thoinot Arbeau:-" A lady is taken out by a "A gentleman, and after dancing together to the cadences of the proper air, he leads her to the end of the hall; this done he retreats back to the original spot, always looking at the lady. Then he makes up to her again, with certain steps, and retreats as before. His partner performs the same ceremony, which is several times repeated by both parties, with various strange fantastic steps, very much in the savage style." S

Beside the brawl, the pavan, the measure, and the canary, several other dances were in vogue, under the general titles of corantoes,

* Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vi. pp. 38, 39. Ibid. vol. vii. p. 52.

+ Ibid. vol. viii. p. 260, 261. § Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 221.

; be

ad been

to the same

measure, or a pavin, I hate a drunken rogue. This is
Mr. Tyrwhitt; but the old copy reads, -"Then he's
a passy measure's pavyn," which is probably correct ;
was rendered still more grave by the introduction of
air, which obliged the dancers, after making sever
room, to cross it in the middle in a slow step or
alteration of time occasioned the term passam
the name of several dances; thus we read of t
as well as the passamezzo pavan; and Sir Tob
appellation to his surgeon, meant to call hi
solemn coxcomb. "The pavan, from
Sir J. Hawkins, "is a grave and majes
dancing it was anciently by gentlemen
by those of the long robe in their go
and by ladies in gowns with long t
dance resembled that of a peaco
have been invented by the Spar
characters for the step, in the
Of the passamezzo little is t
air in the days of Queen
badoes, mentions a passa
Padre in that island pla
says, with an air of the
Fourth was originally
by Sneak, the musi
Of equal gravi
calls it, was The
most dignified
revelry of the
found tread
dance, and

* R

y reprobating the that on "all other do use to recite their e game of bear-baiting, and Majesty's pleasure.” *

pleasure was thus gratified at inued to be so to the close of her a house, she, and her sister, Queen "with and exhibition of bear-baiting,

cell content." Soon after she had rtained the French ambassadors with da spectatress of the amusement until exhibition took place the next day at party; and even twenty-seven years ld not devise a more welcome gratification , than the display of such a spectacle at

at tasiger, p. 380.

Sir Tho. Pope, sect. iii. p. 85.