Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/99

 n s. vii. FEB. i, 1913.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

91

ARMOBIAL. Can any one give the arms of a family named Stevenson, originally settled near Glasgow, and afterwards near Fort William ? Their crest is a rose-bush bearing three full-blown roses.

AMICTJS.

EDWABD OAKLEY (FL. 1730), ARCHITECT. Date and place of birth and death, with details of professional career, supplemental to the account in the ' Dictionary of National Biography,' would be acceptable.

J. T. T.

NOVALIS'S ' HEINRICH VON OFTERDINGEN.' Can any of your readers tell me if there is a good English translation of this work to be had, and where it may be obtained ?

T. P.

MORRIS DANCERS IN HEREFORD

SHIRE. (US. vi. 106, 356.)

THE first of these references contained a question concerning a pamphlet on Morris- dancing in Herefordshire ; the second gave its name, but said that it apparently was not contained in the library of the British Museum. Nevertheless a copy is there.

The pamphlet in question was entered at Stationers' Hall on 20 June, 1609. The entry is printed in Arber's transcript of the Registers, iii. 414, as follows :

" .John Budge : Richard Bonion. Entred for their Copy vnder th[e h]andes of Master Wilson and master warden Ixnynes a booke called ' The Megge of Hereforde sheire ; or, a mayde Marria and Hereforde towne for a Morris daunce . . vj' 1 ." The press-mark of the copy at the British Museum is C 39 g 9, and it is entered in the Catalogue under the words " Meg of Here- fordshire." It was bought on 15 Nov., 1873. The full title is

" Old Meg of Hereford -shire for a Mayd- Marian : And Hereford Towne for a Morris- daunce. Or Twelve Moms-Dancers in Hereford- shire of twelue hundred yeares old. Grata Scnectus hotnini -paralis luuentce. London. Printed for John Budge and are to be sold at his shop, at the great South doore of Paules. 1609."

The copy is perfect, but the leaves of sheet B have been misprinted in turning it At the press. John Allen, jun., in his that a perfect copy has been sold for 10 guineas. Its value now would be much more. The tract was reprinted (250 issues
 * Bibliotheca Herefordiensis ' (1821) says

only), from a copy in the Go ugh collection at Bodley, for Robert Triphook, of 23, Old Bond Street, in ' Miscellanea Antiqua Angli- cana,' vol. i., 1816.

The names of the various characters in the dance are given in the tract. There were two musicians, one 108, the other 97 years old; four whiflers, aged respectively 105, 108, 108, and 102; twelve morris -dancers , aged 106, 97, 102, 102, 106, 100, 97, 96, 97. 97, 120 (this was old Meg Goodwin of Erdis- land, the Mayd-Marian), and 100. The tract is evidently the composition of a whimsical writer, but a man of learning and some literary skill.

According to Brayley and Britton, the scene of the dancing was in the grounds of Ingeston House, on the Wye below Fawley, " where Sergeant Hoskyns entertained James the First by causing the Morrice Dance to be exhibited before him by ten old people " aged more than 1,000 years. But this statement is inaccurate as regards the presence of the King and the number and ages of the performers (' Beauties, VI. [Here- fordshire],' 507}.

Mr. W. H. Cooke, Q.C., in his continuation oC Duncumb's ' Herefordshire,' puts the incident on Widemarsh Moor, in the parish of Holmer, and gives the essential points of the pamphlet (' Grimsworth Hundred,' pp. 101-2). The authors of the 'Beauties ' were probably misled by the lively but inaccurate Fuller, who referred to the inci- dent in the prelude to his account of Here- fordshire in the * Worthies,' saying that " the ingenious Serjeant Hoskin gave an enter- tainment to King James and provided ten aged people to dance the Morish before him ; all of them making up more than a thousand yeares, so that what was wanting in one was sxipplied in another ; a nest of Nestors not to be found in another place."

The ages of the dancers are beyond belief. Even if such a dance took place, the years of the performers must have been grossly exaggerated. Hoskins (see the ' D.N.B.') Was a leading member of the Middle Temple, and one of the legal wits of the day. He probably invented the occurrence, and was responsible for, if he did not write, the tract. The men of Herefordshire were proud of their longevity. A feast to the old men dwelling in the parish of Bromyard was given in 1670. Their names and ages are set out by Duncumb (pt. i. of vol. ii., 1812, p. 75). The oldest was 91, an age not beyond the bounds of probability.

This dancing feat has been referred to in James Ho well's ' Party of Beasts,' 1660, p. 122, and by Sir William Temple. A long