<Tr> <Th> Publisher </Th> <Td> Tinsley Brothers </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Publication date </Th> <Td> 1872 </Td> </Tr> <P> Under the Greenwood Tree: A Rural Painting of the Dutch School is a novel by Thomas Hardy, published anonymously in 1872 . It was Hardy's second published novel, the last to be printed without his name, and the first of his great series of Wessex novels . Whilst Hardy originally thought of simply calling it The Mellstock Quire, he settled on a title taken from a song in Shakespeare's As You Like It (Act II, Scene V). </P> <P> The plot concerns the activities of a group of church musicians, the Mellstock parish choir, one of whom, Dick Dewy, becomes romantically entangled with a comely new schoolmistress, Fancy Day . The novel opens with the fiddlers and singers of the choir--including Dick, his father Reuben Dewy, and grandfather William Dewy--making the rounds in Mellstock village on Christmas Eve . When the little band plays at the schoolhouse, young Dick falls for Fancy at first sight . Dick, smitten, seeks to insinuate himself into her life and affections, but Fancy's beauty has gained her other suitors, including a rich farmer and the new vicar at the parish church . </P>

From which play is the song under the green wood tree extracted