Perhaps it has been too lightly assumed that England being a nation of shopkeepers has never been a nation of dancers. But shopkeeping is merely a habit, the product of circumstance, and in its nature a temporary makeshift. Dancing is a need of the spirit, a daughter of the high moods, and if, as Lucian said, it is as old as love, it is surely also as everlasting. The shopkeeping spirit may be, and probably is, antagonistic to dancing; but by the shopkeeping spirit I do not mean the modern spirit, for that is an incalculable, energetic and mobile thing, which is going to bear I know not what strange fruit in life and art. I mean that austere, unsmiling, level and practical temper which began to overshadow Western Europe some time in the sixteenth century; which set its face against ecstasy, and art which is the expression of ecstasy; which regarded poverty and vagabondage and unrestrained laughter as disreputable; which worshipped respectability, common-sense, such success as could be expressed in terms of cash, and all things that were materially substantial and enduring; which created Puritanism, the eighteenth century and the industrial revolution. To this temper, which found a secure lodgment in the Anglo-Saxon mind, dancing was naturally unsympathetic. But though it long held Britain, and America too, in its grip, it was not strong enough to strangle the free and joyous spirit which had created “Merrie England.” That spirit found its typical expression in the dance, and particularly in the Morris Dance. Not until the improbable event of the antiquarians arriving at unanimity will it be determined whether or no the Morris was originally danced by the Moors or “Moriscos” of Spain and imported by John of Gaunt into England in the fourteenth century; but if so, it was “diablement changé en route.” It mixed with the native dances and was incorporated with a mass of Catholic and even pre-Christian tradition. In some English villages there are memories of a dance on the 21st of June, the longest day of the year, of a slaughtered ox, a procession in which one of the dancers carried a sword and a large wooden cup. To surmise what dim forgotten rites of a pagan sun-worship linger in this ritual would take us far into the labyrinth of archæology. But whatever its origin the Morris gathered unto itself the joy and holiday spirit of the countryside. It had its roots deep in the soil. It was inspired by the rhythm of an ancient, simple and full-blooded life, if not by the very rhythm of the woods and rivers themselves.