"foolish wise man, or wise foolish man," sounded We hate to be everlastingly bewailing the follies ch, and vices of mankind; and gladly turn to the pleasanter side of the picture, to contemplate something that we can love and emulate. We know 3 Then for Christmas-box, Sweet plum-cake and money; Kisses sweet as honey. Hey for Christmas ball, Kate, Dick, Ralph, and Molly. To the hop we go, Where we'll jig and caper; Will shall pay the scraper. Tom must dance with Sue, Keeping time with kisses; We'll have a jolly crew Of sweet smirking Misses!"-Old Song. there are such things as opaque wits and perverse minds, as there are squinting eyes and crooked legs; but we desire not to entertain such guests either as companions or foils. We come not to the conclusion that the world is split into two classes, viz. those who are and those who ought to be hanged; that we should believe every man to be a rogue till we find him honest. There is quite virtue enough in human life to make our journey moderately happy. We are of the hopeful order of beings, and think this world a very beautiful world, if man would not mar it with his pride, selfishness, and gloom. It has been a maxim among all great and wise nations to encourage public sports and diversions. The advantages that arise from them to a state; the benefit they are to all degrees of the people; the right purposes they may be made to serve in troublesome times, have generally been so well understood by the ruling powers, that they have seldom permitted them to suffer from the assaults of narrow-minded and ignorant reformers. Our ancestors were wise when they appointed. amusements for the people. And as religious services (which are the means, not the end-the road to London is not London) were never intended for a painful duty, the "drum ecclesiastic," which in latter times called its recruits to pillage and bloodshed, often summoned Punch, Robin Hood, and their merry crew, to close the motley ceremonies of a holy-appointed day! Then was the calendar Devotion's diary and Mirth's manual ! Rational pleasure is heightened by participation; solitary enjoyment is always selfish. Who ever inquires after a sour recluse, except his creditors and next heir? Nobody misses him when there are so many more agreeable people to supply his place. Of what use is such a negative, “crawling betwixt earth and heaven?" If he hint that Diogenes, dying of the dumps, may be found at home in his tub, who cares to disinter him? Oh, the deep solitude of a great city to a morose and selfish spirit! The Hall of Eblis is not more Away, then, with supercilious exclusiveness! 'Tis the grave of the affections! the charnel-house of the heart! What to us is the world, if to the world we are nothing? terrible. We delight to see a fool2 administer to his brethren. If merriment sometimes ran riot, it 1 Diogenes, when he trod with his dirty cobbled shoes on the beautiful carpets of Plato, exclaimed triumphantly, “I tread upon the pride of Plato!"—"Yes," replied Plato, "but with a greater pride!" 2 "A material fool," as Jacques describes Touchstone. Such was Dr. Andrew Borde, the well-known progenitor of Merry Andrews; and the presumed author of the "Merry Tales of the Wise Men of Gotham," composed in the early part never exhibited itself in those deep-laid villanies so rife among the pretenders to sanctity and mortification. An appeal to "clubs" among the London apprentices; the pulling down of certain mansions of iniquity, of which Mrs. Cole,' in after days, was the devout proprietress; a few broken heads at the Bear Garden; the somewhat opposite sounds of the "belles tolling for the lectorer, and the trumpets sounding to the stages," and sundry minor enormities, were the only terrible results of this national licence. Mark what followed, when masking, morris-dancing,3 May 2 of the sixteenth century. "In the time of Henry VIII. and after," (says Anthony à Wood,) "it was accounted a book full of wit and mirth by the scholars and gentlemen." It is thus referred to in an old play of 1560 : "Ha! ha ha! ha! ha! I must needs laughe in my slefe. The wise men of Gotum are risen againe." 1 Foote's "Minor." Act i. scene 1. 2 Harleian MSS. No. 286. > The morris-dance was one of the most applauded merriments of Old England. Robin Hood, Little John, Friar Tuck, Maid Marian, the Queen or Lady of the May, the fool, the piper, to which were afterwards added a dragon, and a hobbyhorse, were the characters that figured away in that truly ancient and grotesque movement. Will Kempe, "the comical and conceited jest-monger, and vicegerent to the ghost of Dicke Tarleton," who "raised many a roar by making faces and mouths of all sorts," danced the morris with his men of Gotham, in his “Nine daies' wonder from London to Norwich." Kempe's "new jigg," rivalled in popularity his Peter in Romeo and Juliet; Dogberry, in "Much ado about nothing ;" and games, stage-plays,' fairs, and the various pastimes that delighted the commonalty, were sternly prohibited. The heart sickens at the cant and cruelty of these monstrous times, when fanaticism, Justice Shallow, of which he was the original performer. In "Jacke Drum's Entertainment," 4to. 1601, is the following song: ON THE INTRODUCTION OF A WHITSUN MORRIS-DANCE. "Skip it and trip it nimbly, nimbly, Tickle it, tickle it lustily, Strike up the tabour for the wenches' favour, Tickle it, tickle it, lustily. Let us be seene on Hygate Greene, To dance for the honour of Holloway. Sing we are come hither, let us spare for no leather, Plays were suppressed by the Puritans in 1633. The actors were driven off the stage by the soldiers; and the only pleasantry that Messrs. "Praise-God-Barebones” and “Fightthe-good-fight," indulged in, was " Enter red coat, exit hat and cloak;" a cant phrase in reference to this devout tyranny. Randolph, in "The Muses' Looking-glass," makes a fanatic utter this charitable prayer : "That the Globe, Wherein (quoth he) reigns a whole world of vice, I' the time of Reformation: lastly, he wished The Bull might cross the Thames to the Bear Gardens, In 1599 was published "The overthrow of Stage Playes, by way of controversie betwixt D. Gager and D. Rainolde, where |