Generally speaking, these must be regarded as the fixed and regular performers and accompaniments of the Morris.  But, according to time and place, the additions to and varieties of these were innumerable.  When the dance was popular, it may almost be said that every village sporting a troupe had its own peculiar variation in dress or character or other particular of its programme and personnel, by which it was known; and by these singularities each set of Morris-men and their backers held resolutely.  There was competition, once, amongst the Morris-folk as there is to-day amongst football teams and their adherents.  Many a bout, begun in friendly rivalry, ended in a scrimmage, in which the staves brought for use and ornament in the dance were used to break heads with.  We are grown vastly more delicate and refined since then, it is supposed.

Before we go on to note some leading features in the dress and paraphernalia of the Morris-men, one more memory of the days that are gone—­maybe in some fashion to return, maybe not—­tempts to quotation.  It is from the church-wardens’ accounts of the parish of Kingston-upon-Thames, and in our prejudiced eyes has a dignity, and somehow a promise, all its own.  It is from Lysons’ “Environs of London,” vol. i., 1792, p. 226, and runs:—­

For paynting of the mores garments and      L   s.  d.
for sarten gret leveres                0   2    4

For 4 plyts and 1/2 of lawn for the mores
garments 0 2 11

For orseden for the same 0 0 10

For bellys for the dawnsars 0 0 12

For silver paper for the mores dawnsars 0 0 7

Shoes for the mores dawnsars, the frere and
mayde Maryan at 7d. the payre 0 5 4

8 yerds of fustyan for the mores dawnsars
coats 0 6 0

A dosyn of gold skynnes for the morres 0 0 10

5 hats and 4 porses for the dawnsars 0 0 41/2

As a conclusion to this imperfect sketch we would point once more to the warranty of its imperfections and sketchiness offered in the beginning.  We hope for it no more than that it may serve to direct those inclined to bestow upon the Morris a closer study, to at least the beginnings of an enthralling subject.  So much for the origin and history of the art.  As for its living practitioners:  of the men, for instance, of Gloucestershire, Norfolk, Lancashire, Northumberland—­the last-named of whom danced the other day before the King at Alnwick Castle under the name of Guisards—­and elsewhere, we offer no precise information.  It may be that one day we shall be privileged to do so.  But for the tunes we have set down, and for the dances belonging thereto we have attempted to describe, we do claim that in these we have tried most faithfully to pass on to others what the Morris-men gave to us.