Toby's musical gifts asserting themselves, confused recollections reeling across his brain, of that old rule in Morley about the right number of semibreves in a strain, 'fewer then eight I have not seen in any Pavan.' 'Also in this you must cast your musicke by foure: … no matter how manie foures you put in your straine.' Bull's Pavan, 'St Thomas Wake,' has two strains of sixteen bars each—i.e., two 'eights.' [ Appendix. ]
The last passage given here shows clearly that the Lavolta and Coranto were considered exotic in England in Shakespeare's time.
The French ladies here recommend their runaway husbands and brothers to cross the Channel and try to earn a living by teaching French dances to the stately English. Probably the "English dancing-schools" in those days would think the solemn walk of the Pavan quite as lively an amusement as good society could allow. There are other passages too which show that Shakespeare (or his characters) had a fine 'insular' feeling against these 'newfangled' fashions from France.
H. 5. 35, 32.
| Bourbon | (Speaks of the mocking French ladies). They bid us to the English dancing-schools, |
