Here is a most entertaining quotation from Selden,[19] dealing with fashionable court dances in Elizabeth's reign, and shewing how things had gone from bad to worse in respect of dignity and state in dancing, under the Stuarts.
[Footnote 19: Selden's Table Talk, article 'King of England,' § 7.]
'The court of England is much alter'd. At a solemn dancing, _first_ you had the _grave measures_, _then_ the _Corantoes_ and the _Galliards_, and _this_ kept up _with ceremony_; and _at length_ to Trenchmore, and the Cushion dance: _Then_ all the company dances, lord and groom, lady and kitchen-maid, _no distinction_. So in our court in queen _Elizabeth's_ time, _gravity and state_ were kept up. In king _James's_ time things were _pretty well_. But _in king Charles's time_, there has been nothing but Trenchmore and the Cushion-dance, _omnium gatherum, tolly polly, hoite cum toite_.'
There are very many passages of interest, containing references to Dances. The first one here given is an instance (in Shakespeare's very text) of singing a dance and dancing to it at the same time. Here the _Brawl_, and _Canary_, the first in alphabetical order, are coupled together.
_Moth._ Master, will you win your love with a _French brawl_?
_Arm._ How meanest thou? _brawling in French_?
_Moth._ No, my complete master; but to _jig off a tune_ at the tongue's end, _canary to it_ with your feet, ... _sigh a note_, and _sing a note_.'
Two other examples of dancing to one's own singing are, _Mids._ V, ii, 25 and _Wiv._ V, v, 93.
The _Brawl_ was written in quick four-in-a-bar time. There are several well-known tunes to it. [See Note on Arbeau's 'Orchésographie.' 1588.] The derivation of the name is from the French, _bransle_, a totter, swing, shake, etc., or perhaps from Old French _Brandeler_, to wag, shake, swing. Skeat thinks the original dance may have been a _sword_ dance, and with this he connects the word Brandish.[20] It was danced, sometimes in a ring, holding hands, and sometimes 'at length.'
[Footnote 20: This hardly seems a necessary theory. See the Note on 'Orchésographie,' where the 'swinging' movement is fully accounted for.]
The _Canary_ (or Canaries) was in 6/8 time, and was a lively dance. [Stainer and Barrett's Dict. gives one by Delaborde in 4/4 time.] There are many examples by Lully and other Frenchmen of the 17th century. One of Lully's, in Lajarte's 'Airs à Danser,' dates 1666. There is no history of the name. Skeat says it is so called from the Canary Islands. Hawkins does not attempt to account for the title, but cunningly infers that it is of English origin because it has _not_ got a foreign name. Also he mentions that Purcell wrote a Canaries for his Opera of Dioclesian, 1690. [See Note on 'Orchésographie.']