made themselves all men of hair; they call them

2

all men of hair ;] Men of hair, are hairy men, or Satyrs. A dance of fatyrs was no unusual entertainment in the middle ages. At a great festival celebrated in France, the king and fome of the nobles perfonated fatyrs dreffed in close habits, tufted or fhagged all over, to imitate hair. They began a wild dance, and in the tumult of their merriment one of them went too near a candle and set fire to his fatyr's garb, the flame ran inftantly over the loose tufts, and spread itself to the dress of those that were next him; a great number of the dancers were cruelly fcorched, being neither able to throw off their coats nor extinguish them. The king had fet himself in the lap of the dutchefs of Burgundy, who threw her robe over him and faved him. JOHNSON.

The curious reader, who wishes for more exact information relative to the foregoing occurrence in the year 1392, may confult the tranflation of Froiffart's Chronicle, by Johan Bourchier knyght, lorde Berners, &c. 1525, Vol. II. cap. C.xcii. fo. CCxliii: "Of the aduenture of a daunce that was made at Parys in lykeneffe of wodehowses, wherein the Frenche kynge was in parell of dethe." STEEVENS.

Melvil's Memoirs, p. 152, edit. 1735, bear additional testimony to the prevalence of this fpecies of mummery:

"During their abode, [that of the embaffadors who affembled to congratulate Mary Queen of Scots on the birth of her fon,] at Stirling, there was daily banqueting, dancing, and triumph. And at the principal banquet there fell out a great grudge among the Englishmen: for a Frenchman called Bastian devised a number of men formed like fatyrs, with long tails, and whips in their hands, running before the meat, which was brought through the great hall upon a machine or engine, marching as appeared alone, with muficians clothed like maids, finging, and playing upon all forts of inftruments. But the fatyrs were not content only to make way or room, but put their hands behind them to their tails, which they wagged with their hands in fuch fort, as the Englishmen fuppofed it had been devised and done in derifion. of them; weakly apprehending that which they should not have appeared to understand. For Mr. Hatton, Mr. Lignifh, and the moft part of the gentlemen defired to fup before the queen and great banquet, that they might fee the better the order and ceremonies of the triumph but fo foon as they perceived the fatyrs wagging their tails, they all fat down upon the bare floor behind the back of the table, that they might not fee themselves derided, as they thought. Mr. Hatton faid unto me, if it were not in the queen's prefence, he would put a dagger to the heart of that French knave Bastian, who he alledged had done it out of defpight that the queen made more of them than of the Frenchmen."

REED.

The following copy of an illumination in a fine MS. of Froiffart's Chronicle, preferved in the British Museum, will Lerve to illuftrate Dr. Johnfon's note, and to convey fome idea, not only of the manner in which thefe hairy men were habited, but alfo of the rude fimplicity of an ancient Ball-room and Mafquerade. See the ftory at large in Froiffart, B. IV. chap. lii. edit. 1559. DOUCE.

felves faltiers :3 and they have a dance which the wenches fay is a gallimaufry gallimaufry 4 of gambols, because they are not in't; but they themselves are o'the mind, (if it be not too rough for fome, that know little but bowling,5) it will please plentifully.

SHEP. Away! we'll none on't; here has been too much humble foolery already :-I know, fir, we weary you.

POL. You weary those that refresh us: Pray, let's fee these four threes of herdsmen.

SERV. One three of them, by their own report, fir, hath danced before the king; and not the worst of the three, but jumps twelve foot and a half by the fquire.

SHEP. Leave your prating; fince these good men are pleased, let them come in; but quickly now.

3

they call themselves faltiers:] He means Satyrs. Their drefs was perhaps made of goat's skin. Cervantes mentions in the preface to his plays that in the time of an early Spanish writer, Lopè de Rueda, "All the furniture and utenfils of the actors confifted of four fhepherds' jerkins, made of the skins of fheep with the wool on, and adorned with gilt leather trimming : four beards and periwigs, and four paftoral crooks ;-little more or lefs." Probably a fimilar fhepherd's jerkin was used in our author's theatre. MALONE.

4-gallimaufry-] Cockeram, in his Dictionarie of hard Words, 12mo. 1622, fays, a gallimaufry is " a confused heape of things together." STEEVENS.

bowling,] Bowling, I believe, is here a term for a dance of smooth motion, without great exertion of agility.

JOHNSON.

The allufion is not to a smooth dance, as Johnfon supposes, but to the smoothnefs of a bowling green. M. MASON.

6

by the fquire.] i. e. by the foot-rule: Efquierre, Fr. See Love's Labour's Loft, Vol. VII. p. 177, n. 2. MALONE.

SERV. Why, they stay at door, fir.

[Exit.

Re-enter Servant, with Twelve Rufticks habited like Satyrs. They dance, and then exeunt.

POL. O, father, you'll know more of that hereafter.7

Is it not too far gone?-Tis time to part them.— He's fimple, and tells much. [Afide.]-How now, fair fhepherd?

Your heart is full of fomething, that does take
Your mind from feafting. Sooth, when I was young,
And handed love, as you do, I was wont

To load my fhe with knacks: I would have ranfack'd
The pedler's filken treasury, and have pour'd it
To her acceptance; you have let him

go,

And nothing marted with him: If your lafs
Interpretation fhould abufe; and call this,
Your lack of love, or bounty; you were ftraited
For a reply, at least, if you make a care
Of happy holding her.

FLO.

Old fir, I know

7 Pol. O, father, you'll know more of that hereafter.] This is replied by the King in anfwer to the Shepherd's faying, fince thefe good men are pleafed. WARBURTON.

The dance which has intervened would take up too much time to preserve any connection between the two speeches. The line Spoken by the King feems to be in reply to fome unexpressed question from the old Shepherd. RITSON.

This is an answer to fomething which the Shepherd is fuppofed to have faid to Polixenes during the dance.

M. MASON.

STEEVENS.

She prizes not fuch trifles as these are:

The gifts, the looks from me, are pack'd and lock'd
Up in my heart; which I have given already,
But not deliver'd.-O, hear me breathe my life
Before this ancient fir, who, it should feem,
Hath fometime lov'd: I take thy hand; this hand,
As foft as dove's down, and as white as it;
Or Ethiopian's tooth, or the fann'd snow,'
That's bolted by the northern blafts twice o'er.

POL. What follows this?

How prettily the young

fwain feems to wash

The hand, was fair before!-I have put you out :But, to your protestation; let me hear

What you profess.

FLO.

Do, and be witness to't.

And he, and more

POL. And this my neighbour too?

FLO. Than he, and men; the earth, the heavens, and all : That, were I crown'd the most imperial monarch, Thereof moft worthy; were I the fairest youth That ever made eye fwerve; had force, and know

ledge,

More than was ever man's,-I would not prize them, Without her love: for her, employ them all;

who, it should feem,]

by the editor of the second folio. MALONE.

Ior the fann'd fnow,]

Dream:

Old copy-whom. Corrected

So, in A Midfummer-Night's

"That pure congealed white, high Taurus' now,
"Fann'd by the eastern wind, turns to a crow,
"When thou hold'it up thy hand." STEEVENS.

or the fann'd fnow,

That's bolted &c.] The fine fieve used by millers to separate flour from bran is called a bolting cloth. HARRIS.