So it continues for two centuries more, with all varieties of costume and feature. Certain are we that plump Sir Richard Steele whistled the tune, and Dean Swift gave the Dublin ballad-singer a couple of thirteens for singing it. Dr. Johnson grunted an accompaniment whenever he heard the melody, and James Boswell insisted on dancing to it, though a little “overtaken,” and got his sword entangled betwixt his legs, which cost him a fall and a plastered head-piece, by no means for the only time on record. It is reported that good old George the Third was seen endeavouring to persuade Queen Charlotte to accompany him on the Spinnet, while he set their numerous olive-branches jigging it delightedly “_for the honour of ~Arthur~ o’ ~Bradley~_.” But whenever Dr. John Wolcot was reported to be prowling near at hand, with Peter Pindaresque eyes, the motion ceased. Well was it loved by honest Joseph Ritson, _impiger, iracundus inexorabilis, acer_—better than vegetable diet and eccentric spelling, or the flagellation of inexact antiquarian Bishops. We ourselves may have beheld him in high glee perusing the black-letter ballad, and rectifying its corrupt text by the _Antidote against Melancholy’s_. How lustily he skipped, shouting meanwhile the burden of “_brave ~Arthur~ o’ ~Bradley~!_” so that unconsciously he joined the ten-mile train of dancers. They are still winding around us, some in a Nineteenth-Century garb (a little tattered, but it adds to the picturesqueness), blithe Hop-pickers of West-Bridge Deanery. There are a few New Zealanders, we understand, waiting to join the throng, (including Macaulay’s own particular circumnavigating meditator, yet unborn); so that as long as the world wags no welcome may be lacking to the mirth and melody, jigging and joustling, “_For the honour of ~Arthur~ o’ ~Bradley~,_ _O rare ~Arthur~ o’ ~Bradley~,_ _O brave ~Arthur~ o’ ~Bradley~,_ _~Arthur~ o’ ~Bradley~. O!_” Having relieved our feelings, for once, we resume the sober duties of Annotation in a chastened spirit:— In _Merry Drollery Compleat_, Reprint (Appendix, p. 401), we gave the full quotation from a Sixteenth Century Interlude, _The Contract of Marriage between Wit and Wisdom_, the point being this:— “_For the honour of ~Artrebradley~,_ _This age would make me swear madly_!” Arthur o’ Bradley is mentioned by Thomas Dekker, near the end of the first part of his _Honest Whore_, 1604; when Bellafront, assuming to be mad, hears that Mattheo is to marry her, she exclaims— “_Shall he? O brave ~Arthur~ of ~Bradley~, then?_”