These leaves present you with some few drops of that Ocean

of Wit, which flowed from those two brests of this Nation,

the _Universities_; and doth now (the sluces being puld up)

overflow the whole Land: or rather like those Springs of

Paradice, doth water and enrich the whole world; whilst the

Fountains themselues are dryed up, and that Twin-Paradise

become desart. For then were these Verses Composed, when

_Oxford_ and _Camebridge_ were Universities, and a Colledge [A

2, _reverso_] more learned then a Town-Hall, when the Buttery

and Kitchin could speak Latine, though not Preach; and the very

irrational Turnspits had so much knowing modesty, as not to

dare to come into a Chappel, or to mount any Pulpits but their

own. Then were these Poems writ, when peace and plenty were

the best Patriots and Mæcenasses to great Wits; when we could

sit and make Verses under our own Figtrees, and be inspired

from the juice of our own Vines: then, when it was held no

sin for the same man to be both a Poet, and a Prophet; and to

draw predictions no lesse from his Verse then his Text. Thus

you shall meet here St. _Pauls_ Rapture in a Poem, and the

fancy as high and as clear as the third Heaven, into which

[A. 3] that Apostle was caught up: and this not onely in the

ravishing expressions and extasies of amorous Composures and

Love Songs; but in the more grave Dorick strains of sollid

Divinity: Anthems that might have become _Davids_ Harpe, and

_Asaphs_ Quire, to be sung, as they were made, with the Spirit

of that chief Musitian. Againe, In this small Glasse you may

behold your owne face, fit your own humors, however wound up

and tuned; whether to the sad note, and melancholy look of a

disconsolate Elegy, or those more sprightly jovial Aires of an

Epithalamium, or Epinichion. Further, would you see a Mistresse

of any age, or face, in her created, or uncreated complexion:

this mirrour presents you with more shapes then a Conjurers

[_verso_] Glasse, or a Limner’s Pencil. It will also teach

you how to court that Mistresse, when her very washings and

pargettings cannot flatter her; how to raise a beauty out of

wrinkles fourscore years old, and to fall in love even with

deformity and uglinesse. From your Mistresse it brings you to

your God; and (as it were some new Master of the Ceremonies)

instructs you how to woe, and court him likewise; but with

approaches and distances, with gestures and expressions

suitable to a Diety [Deity]; addresses clothed with such a

sacred filial horror and reverence, as may invite and embolden

the most despairing condition of the saddest gloomy Sinner;

and withall dash out of countenance the greatest confidence

of the most glorious Saint: and not with that blasphemous

familiarity [A. 4] of our new enlightened and inspired men,

who are as bold with the Majesty and glory of that Light

that is unapproachable, as with their own _ignes fatui_; and

account of the third Person in the blessed Trinity for no more

then their Fellow-Ghost; thinking him as much bound to them

for their vertiginous blasts and whi[r]le-winds, as they to

him for his own most holy Spirit. Your Authors then of these

few sheets are Priests, as well as Poets; who can teach you

to pray in verse, and (if there were not already too much

phantasticknes in that Trade) to Preach likewise: while they

turn Scripture-chapters into Odes, and both the Testaments

into one book of Psalmes: making _Parnassus_ as sacred as

Mount _Olivet_, and the nine Muses no lesse religious then a

Cloyster of Nuns. [_verso_.] But yet for all this I would not

have thee, _Courteous Reader_, pass thy censure upon those

two Fountains of Religion and Learning, the _Universities_,

from these few small drops of wit, as hardly as some have done

upon the late _Assemblies_ three-half-penny Catechisme: as if

all their publick and private Libraries, all their morning

and evening watchings, all those pangs and throwes of their

Studies, were now at length delivered but of a Verse, and

brought to bed onely of five feet, and a Conceit. For although

the judicious modesty of these men dares not look the world

in the face with any of _Theorau Johns_ Revelations, or those

glaring New-lights that have muffled the Times and Nation with

a greater confusion and darknes, then ever benighted [A. 5]

the world since the first Chaos: yet would they please but to

instruct this ignorant Age with those exact elaborate Pieces,

which might reform Philosophy without a Civil War, and new

modell even Divinity its selfe without the ruine of either

Church, or State; probably that most prudent and learned Order

of the Church of _Rome_, the _Jesuite_, should not boast

more sollid, though more numerous Volum[e]s in this kind.

And of this truth that Order was very sensible, when it felt

the rational Divinity of one single _Chillingworth_ to be an

unanswerable twelve-years-task for all their English Colledges

in Chrisendome. And therefore that _Society_ did like its

selfe, when it sent us over a War instead of an Answer, and

proved us Hereticks by the Sword: which [_verso_] in the first

place was to Rout the _Universities_, and to teach our two

Fountains of Learning better manners, then for ever heareafter

to bubble and swell against the _Apostolick Sea_. And yet I

know not whether the depth of their Politicks might not have

advised to have kept those Fountains within their own banks,

and there to have dammd them and choakd them up with the mud

of the Times, rather then to have let those Protestant Streams

run, which perchance may effect that now by the spreading

Riverets, which they could never have done through the inclosed

Spring: as it had been a deeper State-piece and Reach in that

Sanedrim, the great Councell of the Jewish Nation, to have

confined the Apostles to _Jerusalem_, and there to have muzzeld

them [A 6] with Oaths, and Orders; rather then by a fruitful

Persecution to scatter a few Gospel Seeds, that would spring

up the Religion of the whole world: which had it been Coopd

within the walls of that City, might (for all they knew) in

few years have expired and given up the ghost upon the same

_Golgotha_ with its Master. And as then every Pair of Fishermen

made a Church and caught the sixt part of the world in their

Nets; so now every Pair of Ce[o]lledge-fellows make as many

several Universityes; which are truly so call’d, in that they

are Catholick, and spread over the face of the whole earth;

which stand amazed, to see not onely Religion, but Learning

also to come from beyond the _Alpes_; and that a poor despised

Canton and nook of the world should contain as much of each

[_verso_] as all the other Parts besides. But then, as when our

single Jesus was made an universall Saviour, and his particular

Gospel the Catholick Religion; though that Jesus and this

Gospel did both take their rise from the holy City; yet now no

City is more unholy and infidel then that; insomuch that there

is at this day scarce any thing to be heard of a Christ at

_Jerusalem_, more then that such a one was sometimes there, nor

any thing to be seen of his Gospel, more then a Sepulcher: just

so it is here with us; where though both Religion and Learning

do owe their growth, as well as birth, to those Nurseryes of

both, the Universityes; yet, since the Siens of those Nurseryes

have been transplanted, there’s little remaines in them now

(if they are not belyed) either of the old [A 7] Religion

and Divinity, more then its empty Chair & Pulpit, or of the

antient Learning & Arts, except bare Schools, and their gilded

Superscriptions: so far have we beggard our selves to enrich

the whole world. And thus, _Ingenuous Sir_, have I given you

the State and Condition of this _Poetick Miscellany_, as also

of the _Authors_; it being no more then some few slips of the

best Florists made up into a slender Garland, to crown them

in their Pilgrimage, and refresh thee in thine: if yet their

very Pilgrimage be not its selfe a Crown equall to that of

Confessors, and their Academicall Dissolution a Resurrection to

the greatest temporall glory: when they shall be approved of by

men and Angels for a chosen Generation, a Royal Priesthood, a

peculiar People. In the interim let this [_verso_] comfort be

held out to you, _our secluded University members_, by him that

is none; (and therefore what hath been here spoken must not be

interpreted as out of passion to my self, but meer zeal to my

Mother) that according to the generally received Principles

and Axioms of Policy, and the soundest Judgment of the most

prudential Statesmen upon those Principles, the date of your

sad Ostracisme is expiring, and at an end; but yet such an end,

as some of you will not embrace when it shall be offered; but

will chuse rather to continue Peripateticks through the whole

world, then to return, and be so in your own Colledges. For

as that great Councell of _Trent_ had a Form and Conclusion

altogether contrary to the expectation and desires of them that

procured it; so our great Councels of _England_ [A 8] (our

late Parliament) will have such a result, and Catastrophe, as

shall no ways answer the Fasts and Prayers, the Humiliations,

and Thanksgivings of their Plotters and Contrivers: such a

result I say, that will strike a palsie through Mr. _Pims_

ashes, make his cold Marble sweat; and put all those several

Partyes, and Actors, that have as yet appeard upon our tragical

bloudy Stage, to an amazed stand and gaze: when they shall

confess themselves (but too late) to be those improvident axes

and hammers in the hand of a subtle _Workman_; whereby he was

enabled to beat down, and square out our Church and State

into a Conformity with his own. And then it will appeare that

the great Worke, and the holy Cause, and the naked Arme, so

much talked of for [_verso_] these fifteen years, were but

the work, and the cause, and the arme of that _Hand_, which

hath all this while reached us over the _Alpes_; dividing,

and composing, winding us up, and letting us down, untill our

very discords have set and tuned us to such notes, both in our

Ecclesiastical, and Civill Government; as may soonest conduce

to that most necessary Catholick Unison and Harmony, which

is an essential part of Christs Church here upon Earth, and

the very Church its selfe in Heaven. And thus far, _Ingenuous

Reader_, suffer him to be a Poet in his Prediction, though not

in his Verse; who desires to be known so far to thee, as that

he is a friend to persecuted Truth and Peace; and thy most

affectionate Christian Servant,

_Ab: Wright_.”

(From _Parnassus Biceps: or, Severall Choice Pieces of POETRY,

composed by the best WITS that were in both the Universities

before their DISSOLUTION_. London: Printed for _George

Eversden_ at the Signe of the _Maidenhead_ in St. _Pauls_

Church-yard, 1656.)

1.—CHOYCE DROLLERY, 1656.

Note, on _The Address to the Reader_, &c.

The subscribed initials, “R. P.” are those of Robert Pollard; whose name

appears on the title-page (which we reproduce), preceding his address.

Excepting that he was a bookseller, dwelling and trading at the “Ben

Jonson’s Head, behind the Exchange,” in business-connection with John

Sweeting, of the Angel, in Pope’s Head Alley, in 1656; and that he had

previously issued a somewhat similar Collection of Poems to the _Choyce

Drollery_ (successful, but not yet identified), we know nothing more of

Robert Pollard. The books of that date, and of that special class, are

extremely rare, and the few existing copies are so difficult of access

(for the most part in private possession, almost totally inaccessible

except to those who know not how to use them), that information can only

be acquired piecemeal and laboriously. Five years hence, if the Editor

be still alive, he may be able to tell much more concerning the authors

and the compilers of the _Restoration Drolleries_.

We are told that there is an extra leaf to _Choyce Drollery_, “only found

in a few copies, containing ten lines of verse, beginning _Fame’s windy

trump_, &c. This leaf occurs in one or two extant copies of _England’s

Parnassus_, 1600. Many of the pieces found here are much older than

the date of the book [viz., 1656]. It contains notices of many of our

early poets, and, unlike some of its successors, is of intrinsic value.

Only two or three copies have occurred.” (_W. C. H.’s Handb. Pop. Lit.

G. B._, 1867, p. 168.) “Cromwell’s Government ordered this book to be

burned.” (_Ibid._) On this last item see our Introduction, section

first. J. P. Collier, who prepared the Catalogue of Richard Heber’s

Collection, _Bibliotheca Heberiana_, Pt. iv., 1834 (a rich storehouse

for bibliographical students, but not often gratefully acknowledged

by them), thus writes of _Choyce Drollery_:—“This is one of the most

intrinsically valuable of the _Drolleries_, if only for the sake of the

very interesting poem in which characters are given of all the following

Poets: Shakespeare, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Chapman,

Daborne, Sylvester, Quarles, May, Sands, Digges, Daniel, Drayton,

Withers, Brown, Shirley, Ford, Middleton, Heywood, Churchyard, Dekker,

Brome, Chaucer, Spencer, Basse, and finally John Shank, the Actor, who is

said to have been famous for a jig. Other pieces are much older, and are

here reprinted from previous collections” [mostly lost]. P. 90.

It is also known to J. O. Halliwell-Phillips; (but, truly, what is _not_

known to him?) See _Shakespeare Society’s Papers_, iii. 172, 1847.

In our copy of _England’s Parnassus_ (unindexed, save subjects), 1600, we

sought to find “_Fame’s windy trump_.” [We hear that the leaf was in _E.

P._ at Tite’s sale, 1874.]

As we have never seen a copy of _Choyce Drollery_ containing the passage

of “ten lines,” described as beginning “Fame’s Windy Trump,” we cannot be

quite certain of the following, from _England’s Parnassus_, 1600, being

the one in question, but believe that it is so. Perhaps it ran, “_Fame’s

Windy Trump, whatever sound out-flies_,” &c. There are twenty-seven lines

in all. We distinguish the probable portion of “ten lines” by enclosing

the other two parts in brackets:—

FAME.

[_A Monster swifter none is under sunne;_

_Encreasing, as in waters we descrie_

_The circles small, of nothing that begun,_

_Which, at the length, unto such breadth do come,_

_That of a drop, which from the skies doth fall,_

_The circles spread, and hide the waters all:_

_So Fame, in flight encreasing more and more;_

_For, at the first, she is not scarcely knowne,_

_But by and by she fleets from shore to shore,_

_To clouds from th’ earth her stature straight is growne._

_There whatsoever by her trumpe is blowne,_]

_The sound, that both by sea and land out-flies,_

_Rebounds againe, and verberates the skies._

_They say, the earth that first the giants bred,_

_For anger that the gods did them dispatch,_

_Brought forth this sister of those monsters dead,_

_Full light of foote, swift wings the winds to catch:_

_Such monsters erst did nature never hatch._

_As many plumes she hath from top to toe,_

_So many eyes them underwatch or moe;_

_And tongues do speake: so many eares do harke._

[_By night ’tweene heaven she flies and earthly shade,_

_And, shreaking, takes no quiet sleepe by darke:_

_On houses roofes, on towers, as keeper made,_

_She sits by day, and cities threates t’ invade;_

_And as she tells what things she sees by view,_

_She rather shewes that’s fained false, then true._]

[Legend of Albanact.] I. H., _Mirror of Magist_.

Page 1. _Deare Love, let me this evening dye._

This beautiful little love-poem re-appears, as Song 77, in _Windsor

Drollery_, 1672, p. 63. (There had been a previous edition of that work,

in 1671, which we have examined: it is not noted by bibliographers, and

is quite distinct.) A few variations occur. Verse 2. are _wrack’d_; 3.

In _love_ is not commended; _only_ sweet, All praise, _no_ pity; who

_fondly_; 4. _Shall shortly_ by dead Lovers lie; _hallow’d_; 5. _He_

which _all others_ els excels, That _are_; 6. _Will_, though thou; 7.

_the_ Bells _shall_ ring; _While_ all to _black is_; (last line but two

in parenthesis;) Making, like Flowers, &c.

Page 4. _Nor Love nor Fate dare I accuse._

By RICHARD BROME, in his “_Northerne Lasse_,” 1632, Act ii., sc. 6. It

is also given in _Westminster-Drollery_, 1671, i. 83 (the only song in

common). But compare with it the less musical and tender, “_Nor Love,

nor Fate can I accuse of hate_,” in same vol. ii. 90, with Appendix Note

thereunto, p. lxiii.

Page 5. _One night the great ~Apollo~, pleased with ~Ben~._

This remarkable and little-known account of “THE TIME-POETS” is doubly

interesting, as being a contemporary document, full of life-like

portraiture of men whom no lapse of years can banish from us; welcome

friends, whom we grow increasingly desirous of beholding intimately.

Glad are we to give it back thus to the world; our chief gem, in its

rough Drollery-setting: lifted once more into the light of day, from

out the cobwebbed nooks where it so long-time had lain hidden. Our joy

would have been greater, could we have restored authoritatively the lost

sixteenth-line, by any genuine discovery among early manuscripts; or told

something conclusive about the author of the poem, who has laid us under

obligation for these vivid portraits of John Ford, Thomas Heywood, poor

old Thomas Churchyard, and Ben’s courageous foeman, worthy of his steel,

that Thomas Dekker who “followed after in a dream.”

In deep humility we must confess that nothing is yet learnt as to the

authorship. Here, in the year 1656, almost at fore-front of _Choyce

Drollery_, the very strength of its van-guard, appeared the memorable

poem. Whether it were then and there for the first time in print, or

borrowed from some still more rare and now-lost volume, none of us can

prove. Even at this hour, a possibility remains that our resuscitation

of _Choyce Drollery_ may help to bring the unearthing of explanatory

facts from zealous students. We scarcely dare to cherish hope of this.

Certainly we may not trust to it. For Gerard Langbaine knew the poem

well, and quoted oft and largely from it in his 1691 _Account of the

English Dramatick Poets_. But he met with it nowhere save in _Choyce

Drollery_, and writes of it continually in language that proves how

ignorant he was of whom we are to deem the author. Yet he wrote within

five-and-thirty years behind the date of its appearance; and might easily

have learnt, from men still far from aged, who had read the _Drollery_ on

its first publication, whatever they could tell of “The Time-Poets:” if,

indeed, they could tell anything. Five years earlier, William Winstanley

had given forth his _Lives of the most famous English Poets_, in June,

1686; but he quotes not from it, and leaves us without an _Open Sesame_.

Even Oldys could not tell; or Thomas Hearne, who often had remembered

whatever Time forgot.

As to the date: we believe it was certainly written between 1620

(inclusive) and 1636; nearer the former year.

We reconcile ourselves for the failure, by turning to such other

and similar poetic groupings as survive. We listen unto Richard

Barnfield, when he sings sweetly his “Remembrance of some English

Poets,” in 1598. We cling delightedly to the words of our noble Michael

Drayton—whose descriptive map of native England, _Polyolbion_, glitters

with varie-coloured light, as though it were a mediæval missal: to

whom, enditing his Epistle to friend Henry Reynolds—“A Censure of the

Poets”—the Muses brought each bard by turn, so that the picture might be

faithful: even as William Blake, idealist and spiritual Seer, believed of

spirit-likenesses in his own experience. And, not without deep feeling

(marvelling, meanwhile, that still the task of printing them with

Editorial care is unattempted), we peruse the folio manuscripts of that

fair-haired minstrel of the Cavaliers, George Daniel of Beswick, while

he also, in his “Vindication of Poesie,” sings in praise of those whose

earlier lays are echoing now and always “through the corridors of Time:”—

_Truth speaks of old, the power of Poesie;_

_~Amphion~, ~Orpheus~, stones and trees could move;_

_Men, first by verse, were taught Civilitie;_

_’Tis known and granted; yet would it behove_

_Mee, with the Ancient Singers, here to crowne_

_Some later Quills, some Makers of our owne._

Nor should we fail to thank the younger Evelyn, for such graphic sketches

as he gives of Restoration-Dramatists, of Cowley, Dryden, Wycherley,

“Sedley and easy Etherege;” a new world of wits, all of whose works we

prize, without neglecting for their sakes the older Masters who “so did

take Eliza, and our James.”

Something that we could gladly say, will come in befittingly on

after-pages of this volume, in the “Additional Note on Sir John

Suckling’s ‘Sessions of the Poets,’” as printed in our _Merry Drollery,

Compleat_, page 72.

* * * * *

Are we stumbling at the threshold, _absit omen!_ even amid our delight in

perusing “the Time-Poets,” when we wonder at the precise meaning of the

statement in our opening couplet?

_One night the great ~Apollo~, pleas’d with ~Ben~,_

_Made the odd number of the Muses ten._

By whom additional? Who is the lady, thus elevated? We see only one

solution: namely, that furnished by the conclusion of the poem. It was

the _Faerie Queene_ herself whom the God lifted thus, in honour of her

English Poets, to rank as the Tenth Muse, an equal with Urania, Clio,

Euterpe, and their sisterhood. Yet something seems wanting, next

to it; for we never reach a full-stop until the end of the 39th (or

_query_, the 40th) line; and all the confluent nominatives lack a common

verbal-action. Our mind, it is true, accepts intelligibly the onward

rush of each and all (but later, “with equal pace each of them softly

creeps”). It may be only grammatical pedantry which craves some such

phrase, absent from the text, as—

[_While throng’d around his comrades and his peers,_

_To list the ’sounding Music of the Spheres_:]

But, since a momentary rashness prompts us here to dare so much, as to

imagine the _hiatus_ filled, let us suppose that the lost sixteenth-line

ran someway thus (each reader being free to try experiments himself, with

chance of more success):—

_Divine-composing ~Quarles~, whose lines aspire_

[_And glow, as doth with like etherial fire_] 16th.

_The April of all Poesy in ~May~,_

_Who makes our English speak ~Pharsalia~;_

It is with some timidity we let this stand: but, as the text is left

intact, our friends will pardon us; and foes we never quail to meet. As

to BEN JONSON, see our “Sessions,” in Part iv. Of BEAUMONT and FLETCHER,

we write in the note on final page of _Choyce Drollery_, p. 100. Of

“Ingenious SHAKESPEARE” we need say no more than give the lines of

Richard Barnfield in his honour, from the _Poems in diuers humors_, 1598:—

A REMEMBRANCE OF SOME ENGLISH POETS.

_Liue ~Spenser~ euer, in thy ~Fairy Queene~:_

_Whose like (for deepe Conceit) was neuer seene._

_Crownd mayst thou bee, vnto thy more renowne,_

_(As King of Poets) with a Lawrell Crowne._

_And ~Daniell~, praised for thy sweet-chast Verse:_

_Whose Fame is grav’d in ~Rosamonds~ blacke Herse._

_Still mayst thou liue: and still be honored,_

_For that rare Worke, ~The White Rose and the Red~._

_And ~Drayton~, whose wel-written Tragedies_

_And sweet Epistles, soare thy fame to skies._

_Thy learned Name, is æquall with the rest;_

_Whose stately Numbers are so well addrest._

_And ~Shakespeare~ thou, whose hony-flowing Vaine,_

_(Pleasing the World) thy Praises doth obtaine._

_Whose ~Venus~, and whose ~Lucrece~ (sweete and chaste)_

_Thy Name in fames immortall Booke hath plac’t._

_Liue euer you, at least in Fame liue euer:_

_Well may the Bodye dye, but Fame dies neuer._

The praise of MASSINGER will not seem overstrained; although he never

affects us with the sense of supreme genius, as does Marlowe. The

recognition of GEORGE CHAPMAN’S grandeur, and the power with which this

recognition is expressed, show how tame is the influence of Massinger in

comparison. There need be little question that it was to Dekker’s mind

and pen we owe the nobler portion of the Virgin Martyr. Massinger, when

alongside of Marlow, Webster, and Dekker, is like Euripides contrasted

with Æschylus and Sophocles. We think of him as a Playwright, and

successful; but these others were Poets of Apollo’s own body-guard.

Drayton sings:

_Next MARLOW, bathed in the ~Thespian~ springs,_

_Had in him those brave translunary things_

_That the first poets had, his raptures were_

_All air and fire, which made his verses clear;_

_For that fine madness still he did retain,_

_Which rightly should possess a poet’s brain._

ROBERT DABORNE is chiefly interesting to us from his connection in

misfortunes and dramatic labours with Massinger and Nat Field; and

as joining them in the supplication for advance of money from Philip

Henslow, while they lay in prison. The reference to Daborne’s clerical,

as well as to his dramatic vocation, and to his having died (in Ireland,

we believe, leaving behind him sermons,) “Amphibion by the Ministry,”

confirms the general belief.

JO: SYLVESTER’S translation of Du Bartas, 1621; THOMAS MAY’S of Lucan’s

Pharsalia, GEORGE SANDYS’ of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, need little comment

here; some being referred to, near the end of our volume.

DUDLEY DIGGES (1612-43), born at Chilham Castle, near Canterbury (now the

seat of Charles S. Hardy, Esq.); son of Sir Dudley Digges, Master of the

Rolls, wrote a reverent Elegy for _Jonsonus Virbius_, 1638. L[eonard]

Digges had, fifteen years earlier, written the memorial lines beginning

“Shake-speare, at length thy pious fellows give || The World thy Workes:”

which appear at beginning of the first folio _Shakespeare_, 1623.

To SAMUEL DANIEL’S high merits we have only lately awakened: his

“Complaint of Rosamond” has a sustained dignity and pathos that deserve

all Barnfield’s praise; the “Sonnets to Delia” are graceful and

impressive in their purity; his “Civil Wars” may seem heavy, but the

fault lies in ourselves, if unsteady readers, not the poet: thus we

suspect, when we remember the true poetic fervour of his Pastoral,

_O happy Golden Age!_

and his Description of Beauty, from Marino.

Of “Heroick DRAYTON” we write more hereafter: He grows dearer to us

with every year. His “Dowsabell” is on p. 73. Was his being coupled as

a “Poet-Beadle,” in allusion to his numerous verse-epistles, showing an

acquaintance with all the worthies of his day, even as his _Polyolbion_

gives a roll-call of the men, and a gazetteer of the England they made

illustrious? For, as shown in the _Apophthegmmes of Erasmus_, 1564, Booke

2nd, (p. 296 of the Boston Reprint,) it is “the proper office and dutie

of soche biddelles (who were called in latin _Nomenclators_) to have

perfecte knowlege and remembrance of the names, of the surnames, and of

the titles of dignitees of all persones, to the ende that thei maie helpe

the remembraunce of their maisters in the same when neede is.” To our day

the office of an Esquire Beddell is esteemed in Cambridge University.

But, we imagine, George Wither is styled a “Poets Beadle” with a very

different significance. It was the Bridewell-Beadles’ whip which he

wielded vigorously, in flagellation of offenders, that may have earned

him the title. See his “_Abuses Stript and Whipt_,” 1613, and turn to the

rough wood-cut of cart’s-tail punishment shown in the frontispiece to

_A Caueat or Warening for Common Cursetors, vulgarly called Vagabones_,

set forth by Thomas Harman, Esquier for the utilitie and profit of his

naturall country, &c., 1566, and later (Reprinted by E. E. Text Soc., and

in _O. B. Coll. Misc._, i. No. 4, 1871).

GEORGE WITHER was his own worst foe, when he descended to satiric

invective and pious verbiage. True poet was he; as his description of the

Muse in her visit to him while imprisoned in the Marshalsea, with almost

the whole of his “Shepherd’s Hunting” and “Mistress of Phil’arete,” prove

incontestibly. He is to be loved and pitied: although perversely he will

argue as a schismatick, always wrong-headed and in trouble, whichever

party reigns. To him, in his sectarian zeal or sermonizing platitudes—all

for our good, alas!—we can but answer with the melancholy Jacques: “I do

not desire you to please me. I do desire you to _sing_!”

“Pan’s Pastoral _Brown_” is, of course, WM. BROWNE, author of

“Britannia’s Pastorals.” Like JAMES SHIRLEY, last in the group of early

Dramatists, his precocious genius is remembered in the text. Regretting

that no painted or sculptured portrait of JOHN FORDE survives, we are

thankful for this striking picture of him in his sombre meditation. We

could part, willingly, with half of our dramatic possessions since the

nineteenth century began, to recover one of the lost plays by Ford. No

writer holds us more entirely captive to the tenderness of sorrow; no

one’s hand more lightly, yet more powerfully, stirs the affections, while

admitting the sadness, than he who gave us “The Broken Heart,” and “’Tis

pity she’s a whore.”

Not unhappily chosen is the epithet “The Squibbing MIDDLETON,” for he

almost always fails to impress us fully by his great powers. He warms

not, he enlightens not, with steady glow, but gives us fireworks instead

of stars or altar-burnings. We except from this rebuke his “Faire

Quarrel,” 1622, which shows a much firmer grasp and purpose, fascinating

us the while we read. Perhaps, with added knowledge of him will come

higher esteem.

Of THOMAS HEYWOOD the portrait is complete, every word developing a

feature: his fertility, his choice of subjects, and rubicund appearance.

Nor is the humourous sadness, of the figure shewn by the aged THOMAS

CHURCHYARD, less touching because it is dashed in with burlesque.

“Poverty and Poetry his Tomb doth enclose” (_Camden’s Remains_). His

writings extend from the time of Edward VI. to early in the reign of

James I. (he died in 1604); some of the poems in _Tottel’s Miscellany_,

1557, were claimed by him, but are not identified, and J. P. Collier

thought him not unlikely to have partly edited the work, His “Tragedie

of Shore’s Wife,” (best edit. 1698), in the _Mirror for Magistrates_,

surpasses most of his other poems; yet are there biographical details

in _Churchyard’s Chips_, 1575, that reward our perusal. Gascoigne and

several other poets added _Tam Marti quàm Mercurio_ after their names;

but Churchyard could boast thus with more truth as a Soldier. He says:—

_Full thirty yeers, both Court and Warres I tryed,_

_And still I sought acquaintaunce with the best,_

_And served the Staet, and did such hap abyed_

_As might befall, and Fortune sent the rest:_

_When drom did sound, a souldier was I prest,_

_To sea or lande, as Princes quarrell stoed,_

_And for the saem, full oft I lost my blood._

But, throughout, misfortune dogged him:—

_... To serve my torn [~i.e., turn~] in service of the Queen:_

_But God he knoes, my gayn was small, I ween,_

_For though I did my credit still encreace,_

_I got no welth, by warres, ne yet by peace._

(C.’s Chips: _A Tragicall Discourse of the

unhappy man’s Life_; verses 9, 26.)

Of THOMAS DEKKER, or Decker (about 1575-1638), “_A priest in Apollo’s

Temple, many yeares_,” with his “Old Fortunatus,” both parts of his

“Honest Whore,” his “Satiromastix,” and “Gull’s Hornbook,” &c.,—which

take us back to all the mirth and squabbling of the day—we need add

no word but praise. We believe that a valuable clue is afforded by

the allusion in our text to the pamphlet “Dekker his Dreame,” 1620,

(reprinted by J. O. Halliwell, 1860.) We may be certain that “The

Time-Poets” was not written earlier than 1620, or any later than 1636 (or

probably than 1632), and before Jonson’s death.

Page 7. “_Rounce, Robble, Hobble, he that writ so big._”

In this 50th line the word “high” is evidently redundant (probably an

error in printer’s MS., not erased when the true word “big” was added):

we retain it, of course, though in smaller type; as in similar cases of

excess. But who was “_Rounce, Robble, Hobble_?” Most certainly it was

no other than RICHARD STANYHURST (1547-1618), whose varied adventures,

erudition, and eccentricities of verse combined to make him memorable.

His Hexameter translation of the _Æneis_ Books i-iv, appeared in 1583;

not followed by any more during the thirty-five years succeeding. Gabriel

Harvey praised him, in his “_Foure Letters_,” &c., although Thomas Nashe,

in 1592, declares that “Master Stanyhurst (though otherwise learned)

trod a foule, lumbring, boystrous, wallowing measure in his translation

of Virgil. He had never been praised by Gabriel [Harvey] for his labour,

if therein he had not been so famously absurd.” (_Strange Newes._) This

_Æneid_ had a limited reprint in 1839. Warton in _Hist. Eng. Poetry_

gives examples (misnaming him Robert) but Camden says “_Eruditissimus

ille nobilis Richardus Stanihurstus_.” In his preface to Greene’s

_Arcadia_, Nash quotes Stanyhurst’s description of a Tempest:—

_Then did he make heauens vault to rebound_

_With rounce robble bobble,_ [N.B.]

_Of ruffe raffe roaring,_

_With thicke thwacke thurly bouncing_:

and indicates his opinion of the poet, “as of some thrasonical

huffe-snuffe,” indulging in “that quarrelling kind of verse.” One more

specimen, to justify our text, regarding “he that writ so big:” in the

address to the winds, _Æn._, Bk. i., Neptune thus rails:—

_Dare ye, lo, curst baretours, in this my Seignorie regal,_

_Too raise such racks iacks on seas and danger unorder’d?_

The recent death of Stanyhurst, 1618, strengthens our belief that _the

Time-Poets_ was not later than 1620-32.

To WILLIAM BASSE we owe the beautiful epitaph on Shakespeare, printed

in 1633, “_Renowned ~Spencer~, lye a thought more nigh To learned

~Chaucer~_,” _etc._, and at least two songs (beside “Great Brittaine’s

Sunnes-set,” 1613), viz., the Hunter in his Career, beginning “Long ere

the Morn,” and one of the best Tom o’ Bedlam’s; probably, “Forth from my

sad and darksome cell.”

The name of JOHN SHANKE, here suggestively famous “for a jigg,” occurs in

divers lists of players (see J. P. C.’s _Annals of the Stage_, _passim_),

he having been one of Prince Henry’s Company in 1603. That he was also

a singer, we have this verse in proof, written in the reign of James I.

(_Bibliog. Acc._ i. 163):—

_That’s the fat foole of the ~Curtin~,_

_And the lean fool of the ~Bull~:_

_Since ~Shanke~ did leave to sing his rimes_

_He is counted but a gull._

_The Players on the ~Banckeside~,_

_The round ~Globe~ and the ~Swan~,_

_Will teach you idle tricks of love,_

_But the ~Bull~ will play the man._

(W. Turner’s _Common Cries of London Town_, 1662.)

“Broom” is RICHARD BROME (died 1652), whose racy comedies have been, like

Dekker’s, lately reprinted. The insinuation that Ben Jonson had “sent him

before to sweep the way,” alludes, no doubt, to the fact of Brome having

earlier been Jonson’s servant, and learning from his personal discourse

much of dramatic art. Neither was it meant nor accepted as an insult,

when, (printed 1632,) Jonson wrote (“according to Ben’s own nature and

custom, magisterial enough,” as their true friend Alexander Brome admits),

_I had you for a Servant once, ~Dick Brome~;_

_And you perform’d a Servant’s faithful parts:_

_Now, you are got into a nearer room_

_Of ~Fellowship~, professing my old Arts._

_And you do doe them well, with good applause,_

_Which you have justly gained from the Stage_, &c.

It is amusing to mark the survival of the old joke in our text, about

sweeping (it came often enough, in _Figaro in London_, &c., at the

time of the 1832 Reform Bill, as to Henry Brougham and Vaux); when we

see it repeated, almost literally, in reference to Alexander Pope’s

fellow-labourer on the Odyssey translation, the Rev. William Broome, of

our St. John’s College, Cambridge:—

_~Pope~ came off clean with ~Homer~, but they say,_

_~Broome~ went before, and kindly swept the way._

Leaving a few words on the matchless BEN himself for the “Sessions of the

Poets” Additional Note, we end this commentary on our book’s chief poem

with a few more stanzas from the Beswick Manuscript, by George Daniel,

(written in great part before, part after, 1647,) in honour of Ben

Jonson, but preceded by others relating to Sir Philip Sidney, Spenser,

Daniel, Drayton, Shakespeare, Beaumont, and Donne:—

_I am not bound to honour antique names,_ [8th verse]

_Nor am I led by other men to chuse_

_Any thing worthy, which my judgment blames;_

_Heare better straines, though by a later Muse;_

_The sweet ~Arcadian~ singer first did raise_

_Our Language current, and deserv’d his Baies._

_That Lord of ~Penhurst~, ~Penhurst~ whose sad walls_

_Yet mourne their master, in the ~Belgicke~ fray_

_Untimely lost; to whose dear funeralls_

_The ~Medwaie~ doth its constant tribute paye;_

_But glorious ~Penhurst~, ~Medwaies~ waters once_

_With ~Mincius~ shall, and ~Mergeline~ advance;_

_The ~Shepherds Boy~; best knowen by that name_

_~Colin~: upon his homely Oaten Reed._

_With ~Roman Tityrus~ may share in ffame;_

_But when a higher path hee strains to tread,_

_This is my wonder: for who yet has seene_

_Soe cleare a Poeme as his ~Faierie Queene~?_

_The sweetest ~Swan of Avon~; to the faire_

_And cruel ~Delia~, passionatelie sings:_

_Other mens weaknesses and follies are_

_Honour and Wit in him; each Accent brings_

_A sprig to crowne him Poet; and contrive_

_A Monument, in his owne worke to live._

_~Draiton~ is sweet and smooth: though not exact,_

_Perhaps to stricter Eyes; yet he shall live_

_Beyond their Malice: to the Scene and Act,_

_Read Comicke ~Shakespeare~; or if you would give_

_Praise to a just Desert, crowning the Stage,_

_See ~Beaumont~, once the honour of his Age._

_The reverent ~Donne~; whose quill God purely fil’d,_

_Liveth to his Character: so though he claim’d_

_A greater glory, may not be exil’d_

_This Commonwealth_, &c.

_Here pause a little; for I would not cloy_ [verse 15]

_The curious Eare, with recitations;_

_And meerily looke at names; attend with joy,_

_Unto an ~English~ Quill, who rivall’d once_

_~Rome~, not to make her blush; and knowne of late_

_Unenvied (’cause unequall’d) Laureate._

_This, this was JONSON; who in his own name_

_Carries his praise; and may he shine alone;_

_I am not tyed to any generall ffame,_

_Nor fixed by the Approbation_

_Of great ones: But I speake without pretence_

_Hee was of ~English~ Dramatiskes, the Prince._

Page 10. _Come, my White-head, let our Muses._

This was written by SIR SIMEON STEWARD, or Stewart. The numbers 1 and

2 of our text are twice incorrect in original, viz. the 10th and 14th

verses, each assigned to 1 (Red-head), whereas they certainly belong

to 2 (White-head). From third verse the figure “1” has unfortunately

dropt in printing. By aid of Addit. MS. No. 11, 811, p. 36, we are

enabled to correct a few other errors, some being gross corruptions of

sense; although, as a general rule, regarding poems that had appeared in

print, the private MS. versions abound with blunders of the transcriber,

additional to those of the original printer. It is, in the MS., entitled

“A Dialogue between _Pyrrotrichus_ and _Leucothrix_,” the latter taking

verses 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and the final verse, 14 (marked _Leuc_). His

earliest verse reads, in the MS., “_And higher, Rufus_, who would pass;

were _some_; 3rd. v. ’Tis _this_ that; 6th. The Roman _King who_; be

_lopt_; Ruddy _pates_; 8th v. Red like _unto_; _colour_; 9th. _Nay_ if;

doth _beare_ no; side _looks_ as fair; other _doth_ my; bear _my_ [?];

10th. _Therefore_, methinks; Besides, _of_ all the; 12th. N.B.—Yet _what

thy head must buy with_ yeares, Crosses; That _hath_ nature _giv’n_;

13th, be _two_ friendly peeres; let us _joyn_; make _one_ beauteous;

14th, [_Leucothrix_.] We _joyn’d_ our heads; beat them _to heart_ [i.e.

to boot]; Was _just_ but; _of_ our head.” In the Reresby Memoirs, we

believe, is mention of an ancestress, who, about 1619, married this (?)

“Sir Simeon Steward.”

Page 15. _A Stranger coming to the town._

In Wm. Hickes his _Oxford Drollery_, 1671, in Part 3rd, (“Poems made at

Oxford, long since”), p. 157, this Epigram appears, with variations. The

second verse reads: _But being there a little while,_ || _He met with

one so right_ || _That upon the ~French~ Disease_ || _It was his chance

to light._ The final couplet is:—_The ~French-man’s~ Arms are the sign

without,_ || _But the ~French-man’s~ harms are within._

Throughout the first half of the Seventeenth century the abundance of

Epigrams produced is enormous; whole volumes of them, divided into Books,

like J. Heywood’s, being issued by poets of whom nothing else is known,

except the name, unless Anthony à Wood has fortunately preserved some

record. These have not been systematically examined, as they deserve to

be. Amid much rubbish good things lie hid. Perhaps the Editor may have

more to say on them hereafter. Meanwhile, take this, by Robert Hayman, as

alike a specimen and a summary:—

To the Reader:

Sermons and Epigrams have a like end,

To improve, to reprove, and to amend:

Some passe without this vse, ’cause they are witty;

And so doe many Sermons, more’s the pitty.

(_Quodlibets_, 1628, Book IV., p. 59.)

Page 20. _List, your Nobles, and attend._

This was (perhaps, by JOHN ELIOT,) certainly written in anticipatory

celebration of the event described, the Reception of Queen Henrietta

Maria by the citizens of London, 1625. The full title is this:—“The

Author intending to write upon the Duke of _Buckingham_, when he went

to fetch the Queen, prepared a new Ballad for the Fidlers, as might

hold them to sing between _Dover_ and _Callice_.” It is thus the poem

reappears, with some variations (beginning “_Now list, you Lordlings,

and attend_, || _Unto a Ballad newly penned_,” &c.,) among the “_Choyce

Poems, being Songs, Sonnets, Satyrs, and Elegies_. By the Wits of both

Universities, London,” &c., 1661, p. 83. This was merely the earlier

edition (of June, 1658), reissued with an irregular extra sheet at

beginning. The original title-page (two issued in 1658) was “_Poems or

Epigrams, Satyrs, Elegies, Songs and Sonnets, upon several persons and

occasions_. By no body must know whom, to be had every body knows where,

and for any body knows what. [MS. The Author John Eliot.] London, Printed

for Henry Brome, at the _Gun_ in Ivie Lane, 1658.” It is mentioned that

“These poems were given me neer sixteen years since [therefore about

1642] by a Friend of the Authors, with a desire they might be printed,

but I conceived the Age then too squeemish to endure the freedom which

the Author useth, and therefore I have hitherto smothered them, but being

desirous they should not perish, and the world be deprived of so much

clean Wit and Fancy, I have adventured to expose them to thy view; ...

The Author writes not pedantically, but like a gentleman; and if thou art

a gentleman of thy own making thou wilt not mislike it.”

Verse 9th. _Gondomar_ was the Spanish Ambassador at the Court of James

I., to whom, with his “one word” of “Pyrates, Pyrates, Pyrates,” we in

great part owe the slaughter of Raleigh. Of course, the date ’526, four

lines lower, is a blunder. The rash visit to Madrid was in March, 1623.

Title, and verse 8th. A _Jack-a-Lent_ was a stuffed puppet, set up to be

thrown at, during Lent. Perhaps it was a substitute for a live Cock; or

else the Cock-throwing may have been a later “improvement:” See Hone’s

_Every Day Book_, for an illustrated account, i. 249. Trace of the habit

survives in our modern “Old Aunt Sally,” by which yokels lose money

at Races (although Dorset Rectors try to abolish Country Fairs, while

encouragement is given to gambling at Chapel Bazaars with raffles for

pious purposes). In the _Merry Wives of Windsor_, Act iii. sc. 3, Mrs.

Page says to the boy, “You little _Jack-a-Lent_, have you been true to

us?” Quarles alludes to the practice:—

_How like a ~Jack-a-Lent~_

_He stands, for boys to spend their Shrove-tide throws,_

_Or like a puppet made to frighten crows._

(J. O. Halliwell’s _M. W. of W._, Tallis ed., p. 127.)

John Taylor (the Water-Poet) wrote a whim-wham entitled “_Jack a Lent:

his Beginning and Entertainment_,” about 1619, printed 1630; as “of

the Jack of Jacks, great Jack a Lent.” And Cleveland devoted thus a

Cavalier’s worn suit: “Thou shalt make _Jack-a-Lents_ and Babies first.”

(_Poems_, 1662, p. 56.)

Martin Llewellyn’s Song on Cock-throwing begins “Cock a doodle doe, ’tis

the bravest game;” in his _Men-Miracles_, &c., 1646, p. 61.

Page 31. _A Story strange I will you tell._

As to the burden (since some folks are inquisitive about the etymology of

Down derry down, or Ran-dan, &c.), we may note that in a queer book, _The

Loves of Hero and Leander_, 1651, p. 3, is a six-line verse ending thus:

“_Oh, ~Hero~, ~Hero~, pitty me,_

_With a dildo, dildo, dildo dee._”

By which we may guess that the Rope-dancer’s Song, in our text, was

probably written about, or even before, 1651. Some among us (the Editor

for one) saw Madame Sacchi in 1855 mount the rope, although she was

seventy years old, as nimbly as when the first Napoleon had been her

chief spectator. During the Commonwealth, rope-dancing and tumbling

were tolerated at the Red-Bull Theatre, while plays were prohibited.

See (Note to p. 210) our Introduction to _Westminster Drollery_, pp.

xv.-xx, and the Frontispiece reproduced from Kirkman’s “_Wits_,” 1673,

representing sundry characters from different “Drolls,” grouped together,

viz.: Falstaff and Dame Quickly, from “the Bouncing Knight;” the French

Dancing-Master, from the Duke of Newcastle’s “Variety,” Clause, from

Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Beggar’s Bush,” Tom Greene as Bubble the Clown

uttering “Tu Quoque” from John Cooke’s “City Gallant” (peeping through

the chief-entrance, reserved for dignitaries); also Simpleton the Smith,

and the Changeling, from two of Robert Cox’s favourite Drolls. We add

now, illustrative of practical suppression under the Commonwealth, a

contemporary record:—

A SONG.

1.

_The fourteenth of ~September~_

_I very well remember,_

_When people had eaten and fed well,_

_Many men, they say,_

_Would needs go see a Play,_

_But they saw a great rout at the ~red Bull~._

2.

_The Soldiers they came,_

_(The blind and the lame)_

_To visit and undo the Players;_

_And women without Gowns,_

_They said they would have Crowns;_

_But they were no good Sooth-sayers._

3.

_Then ~Jo: Wright~ they met,_

_Yet nothing could get,_

_And ~Tom Jay~ i’ th’ same condition:_

_The fire men they_

_Would ha’ made ’em a prey,_

_But they scorn’d to make a petition._

4. [p. 89.]

_The Minstrills they_

_Had the hap that day,_

_(Well fare a very good token)_

_To keep (from the chase)_

_The fiddle and the case,_

_For the instruments scap’d unbroken._

5.

_The poor and the rich,_

_The wh... and the b...,_

_Were every one at a losse,_

_But the Players were all_

_Turn’d (as weakest) to the wall,_

_And ’tis thought had the greatest losse._ [? _cross._]

(_Wit’s Merriment, or Lusty Drollery_, 1656, p. 88.)

One such raid on the poor actors (and probably at this very theatre,

the Red Bull, St. John’s Street, Clerkenwell) is recorded, as of 20th

December, 1649:—“Some Stage-players in St. John’s-Street were apprehended

by troopers, their clothes taken away, and themselves carried to prison”

(Whitelocke’s _Memorials_, 435, edit. 1733, cited by J. P. C., _Annals_,

ii. 118). It was a serious business, as we see from the Ordinance of

11 Feb., 1647-8; the demolishing of seats and boxes, the actors “to be

apprehended and openly and publicly whipt in some market town ... to

enter into recognizances with two sufficient sureties, never to act or

play any Play or Interlude any more,” &c.

As for the Light-skirts, so elegantly referred to in the Song now

reprinted (as far as we are aware, for the first time), they were

certainly not actresses, but courtezans frequenting the place to ensnare

visitors. Although English women did not _publicly_ perform until after

the Restoration, except on one occasion (of course, at Court Masques

and private mansions, the Queen herself and her ladies had impersonated

characters), yet so early as 8th November, 1629, some French professional

actresses vainly attempted to get a hearing at Blackfriars Theatre, and

a fortnight later at the Red Bull itself, as three weeks afterwards at

the Fortune. Evidently, they were unsuccessful throughout. We hear a good

deal about the far-more objectionable “Ladies of Pleasure,” who beset

all places of amusement. Thomas Cranley, addressing one such, in his

_Amanda_, 1635, describes her several alluring disguises and habits:—

_The places thou dost usually frequent_

_Is to some playhouse in an afternoon,_

_And for no other meaning and intent_

_But to get company to sup with soon;_

_More changeable and wavering than the moon._

_And with thy wanton looks attracting to thee_

_The amorous spectators for to woo thee._

_Thither thou com’st in several forms and shapes_

_To make thee still a stranger to the place,_

_And train new lovers, like young birds, to scrapes,_

_And by thy habit so to change thy face;_

_At this time plain, to-morrow all in lace:_

_Now in the richest colours to be had;_

_The next day all in mourning, black and sad._ &c.

Page 33. _Oh fire, fire, fire, where?_

Despite our repugnance to mutilate a text (see Introduction to

_Westminster Drollery_, p. 6; ditto to _Merry Drollery Compleat_, pp.

38, 39, 40; and that to our present volume, foot-note in section third),

a few letters have been necessarily suppressed in this piece of coarse

humour. Verse fourth, on p. 33, refers to Ben Jonson’s loss of valuable

manuscripts by fire, and his consequent “Execration upon Vulcan,” before

June, 1629; an event deeply to be regretted: also to the whimsical

account of the fire on London Bridge (see _Merry Drollery, Compleat_, pp.

87, 369, and Additional Note in present volume, tracing the poem to 1651,

and the event to 1633).

An amusing poem was written, by Thomas Randolph, on the destruction of

the Mitre Tavern at Cambridge, about 1630; it begins, “Lament, lament,

you scholars all.” (See _A Crew of kind London Gossips_, 1663, p. 72).

Page 38. _In Eighty Eight, ere I was born._

Also given later, in _Merry Drollery_, 1661, p. 77, and _Ditto,

Compleat_, p. 82 and 369. Compare the Harleian MS. version, No. 791,

fol. 59, given in our Appendix to _Westminster Drollery_, p. 38, with

note. The romance of _the Knight of the Sun_ is mentioned by Sir Tho.

Overbury in his _Characters_, as fascinating a Chambermaid, and tempting

her to turn lady-errant. “The book is better known under the title of

_The Mirror of Princely Deedes and Knighthood_, wherein is shewed the

worthinesse of The Knight of the Sunne, &c. It consists of nine parts,

which appear to have been published at intervals between 1585, and 1601.”

(_Lucasta_, &c., edit. 1864, p. 13.)

Page 40. _And will this Wicked World_, &c.

We never met this elsewhere: it was probably written either in 1605, or

almost immediately afterwards. Among Robert Hayman’s _Quodlibets_, 1628,

in Book Second, No. 49, is an Epigram (p. 27):—

Of the Gunpowder Holly-day, the 5th of November.

_The ~Powder-Traytors~, ~Guy Vaux~, and his mates,_

_Who by a Hellish plot sought Saints estates,_

_Haue in our Kalendar vnto their shame,_

_A ioyful ~Holy-day~ cald by their Name._

Jeremiah Wells has among his _Poems on Several Occasions_, 1667, one,

at p. 9, “On Gunpowder Treason,” beginning “_Hence dull pretenders unto

villany_,” which solemnly conjures up a picture of what might have ensued

if (what even Baillie Nicol Jarvie would call) the “awfu’ bleeze” had

taken place. [The same rare volume is interesting, as containing a Poem

on the Rebuilding of London, after the fire of 1666, p. 112, beginning

“What a Devouring Fire but t’other day!”]

With Charles Lamb, we have always regretted the failure of the Gunpowder

Plot. It would have been a magnificent event, fully equal to Firmillian’s

blowing up the Cathedral of St. Nicholas, at Badajoz; and the loss of

life to all the Parliament Members would have been a cheap price, if

paid, for such a remembrance. The worst of all is, that, having been

attempted, there is no likelihood of any subsequent repetition meeting

with better success. _Hinc illæ lachrymæ!_ Faux, Vaux, or Fawkes must

have been a noble, though slightly misguided, enthusiast; for he had

intended to perish, like Samson, with his victims. All good Protestants

now admire the Nazarite, although they bon-fire-raise poor Guido. But

then he failed in his work, while the other slayer of Philistines

attained success: which perhaps accounts for the different apotheosis. As

Lady Macbeth puts it: “The attempt, _and not the deed_, confounds us!”

Page 44. _A Maiden of the Pure Society._

A version of this epigram is among the MSS. at end of a volume of

“Various Poems,” in the British Museum: Press-mark, Case 39. a. These

have been printed by Fred. J. Furnival, Esq., for the Ballad Society,

as “Love Poems and Humorous Ones,” 1874. “A Puritane with one of hir

societie,” is No. 26, p. 22.

Page 52. _He that a Tinker_, &c.

This re-appears in the _Antidote against Melancholy_, 1661 p. 65; and,

with music, in the 1719 _Pills to p. Mel._, iii. 52

Page 55. _Idol of our Sex!_ &c.

This Lady Carnarvon was the wife of Robert Dormer, second Baron Dormer,

created Visc. Ascott, or Herld, and Earl of Carnarvon, 2d Aug., 1628.

Obiit 1643. He fell at the Battle of Newbury, 20th Sept. (See Clarendon’s

_History of the Rebellion_, Book vii. p. 350, edit. 1720, where his

merits are recognized.) Her name was Anna-Sophia, daughter of Philip,

Earl of Pembroke. The child mentioned in the poem was their son, Charles

Dormer, who died in 1709, when the Viscounty and Earldom became extinct.

The poem was written at his birth, on January 1st.

Page 57. _Uds bodykins! Chill work no more._

We find this, a year earlier, (an inferior version, lacking third verse,

but longer,) as _Cockbodykins, chill_, &c., in _Wit’s Interpreter_,

p. 143, 1655; and p. 247, 1671. It is a valuable, because trustworthy

and graphic, record of the troubles falling upon those who tried to

labour on, despite the stir of civil war. 4th verse, “that a vet,” seems

corruption of that is fetched; horses _in a hole_ (_W. Int._); vange thy

note, is _take thy note_. (_do_). Prob. date, 1647.

THE SECOND PART.

_Then straight came ruffling to my dore,_

_Some dozens of these rogues, or more;_

_So zausie they be grown._

_Facks[,] if they come, down they sit,_

_They’l never ask me leave one whit,_

_They’l take all for their own._

_Then ich provision straight must make,_

_And from my Chymney needs must take,_

_And vlitch both pure and good._ [a flitch]

_Oh! ’twould melt a Christians heart to see,_

_That such good Bacon spoil’d should be,_

_’Twas as red as any blood._

_But in it would, whether chud or not,_

_Together with Beans into the pot,_

_As sweet as any viggs._

_And when chave done all that I am able,_

_They’l slat it down all under table,_

_And zwear they be no Pigs._

_Then Ize did intreat their worships to be quiet,_

_And ich would strive to mend their diet,_

_And they shall have finer feeding,_

_They zwear goddam thee for a boor,_

_Wee’l gick thee raskal out a door,_

_And teach thee better breeding._

_Then on the fire they [do] put on_

_A piece of beef, or else good mutton,_

_No, no, this is no meat._

_Forsooth they must have finer food,_

_A good vat hen with all her brood;_

_And then perhaps they’l eat._

_But of late ich had a crew together,_

_They were meer devils, ich ask’d them whether_

_That they were not of our nation._

_Good Lord defend us from all zuch,_

_They zaid they were wild ~Irish~, or else ~Dutch~,_

_They were of the Devils generation._

_And when these raskals went away,_

_What e’re you thing they did me repay_

_Ich will not you deceive._

_Facks[,] just as folks go to a vaire,_

_They vaidled up my goods and ware,_

_And so they took their leave._

_O what a clutter they did make_

_Our house for ~Babel~ they did take,_

_We could not understand a jot._

_Yet they did know what did belong_

_To drink and zwear in our own tongue,_

_Such language they had a got._

_Nor home ich any zafe aboad,_

_If that Ise chance to go abroad,_

_These rogues will come to spy me;_

_Then zurrah, zurrah, quoth they, tarry,_

_We know false letters you do carry,_

_And so they come to try me._

_For as swift as any lightning goes_

_Straight all their hand into my hose,_

_There out they pull my purse._

_O zurrah, zurrah, this is it,_

_Your Letters are in silver writ;_

_You may go take your course._

_A Trouper t’other day did greet me,_

[ ... Lost line.]

_But could you guesse the reason,_

_Thou art, quoth he, a rebel, Knave,_

_And zo thou dost thy zelf behave,_

_For thou doest whistle treason._

_Nor was this raskal much to blame,_

_For all his mates zwore just the zame,_

_That ich was fain to do._

_Ich humble pardon of him sought,_

_And gave him money for my fault,_

_And glad I could scape so too._

(_Wits Interpreter_, 250, 1671 ed.)

This is, veritably, a “document in madness” of such civil wars and

military licence. It reads like the genuine narratives of Prussian

brutality and outrage during the occupation of Alsace and Lorraine: which

is hereafter to be bitterly avenged.

Page 60. _I keep my horse, I keep_, &c.

This lively ditty is sung by Latrocinio in the comedy of “The Widow,”

Act iii. sc. 1, produced about 1616, and written by JOHN FLETCHER, Ben

Jonson, and Thomas Middleton. The song bears trace of Fletcher’s hand

(more, we believe, than of Jonson’s). It has a rollicking freedom that

made it a favourite. We meet it in _Wit’s Interpreter_, 1655, p. 69;

1671, p. 175; and elsewhere. See Dyce’s _Middleton_, iii. 383, and

_Dodsley’s Old Plays_, 1744, vi. 34.

Page 61. _There is not halfe so warm a fire._

This re-appears, with variations and twelve additional lines (inferior),

in _Westminster-Drollery_, 1671, i. 102; where is the corrupt text “_and

~daily~ pays us with what is_.” Our present text gives us the true word,

“_dully_.”

Page 62. Fuller _of wish, than hope_, &c.

Fuller’s book, “A _Pisgah sight of Palestine_,” was published about 1649.

The epitaph “Here lies Fuller’s earth,” is well known. He died in 1661.

Page 63. Cloris, _now thou art fled away_.

The author of this song was DR. HENRY HUGHES. Henry Lawes gives the music

to it, in his “_Ayres_,” 1669, Bk. iii. p. 10. It is also in J. P.’s

_Sportive Wit_, 1656, p. 15; the _Loyal Garland_ (Percy Soc. Reprint

of 1686 edit, xxix. 67); _Pills to p. Mel._, 1719, iii. 331. Sometimes

attributed to Sir R[obert] A[ytoun].

In _Sportive Wit_ there are variations as well as an Answer, which

we here give. The different title seems consequent on the Answer

presupposing that _Amintas_ has not died, merely disappeared. It is

“A Shepherd fallen in Love: A Pastoral.” The readings are: _Lambkins

follow_; _They’re gone, they’re_; Dog _howling_ lyes, _While_ he _laments

with woful_ cryes; Oh _Cloris, Cloris, I decay_, And _forced am to cry

well_, _&c._ Sixth verse there omitted. It has, however, on p. 16:—

_The Answer._

[1656.]

_~Cloris~, since thou art gone astray,_

_~Amyntas~ Shepherd’s fled away;_

_And all the joys he wont to spye_

_I’ th’ pretty babies of thine eye,_

_Are gone; and she hath none to say_

_But who can help what ~will away, will away~?_

_The Green on which it was her [? his] chance_

_To have her hand first in a dance,_

_Among the merry Maiden-crue,_

_Now making her nought but sigh and rue_

_The time she ere had cause to say_ [p. 17.]

_Ah, who can help what ~will away, will away~?_

_The Lawn with which she wont to deck_

_And circle in her whiter neck;_

_Her Apron lies behinde the door;_

_The strings won’t reach now as before:_

_Which makes her oft cry ~well-a-day~:_

_But who can help what ~will away~?_

_He often swore that he would leave me,_

_Ere of my heart he could bereave me:_

_But when the Signe was in the tail,_

_He knew poor Maiden-flesh was frail;_

_And laughs now I have nought to say,_

_But who can help what ~will away~._

_But let the blame upon me lie,_

_I had no heart him to denie:_

_Had I another Maidenhead,_

_I’d lose it ere I went to bed:_

_For what can all the world more say,_

_Than who can help what ~will away~?_

(_Sportive Wit_; or, _The Muses’ Merriment_.)

Page 68. _I tell you all, both great and small._

Also in Captain William Hickes’ _London Drollery_, 1673, p. 179, where

it is entitled “Queen Elizabeth’s Song.” The dance tune _Sallanger’s_

(or more commonly _Sellenger’s_) _Round_ is given in Chappell’s Pop.

Music, O. T., p. 69. The name is corrupted from _St. Leger’s Round_; as

in Yorkshire the Doncaster race is called the Sillinger, or Sellenger, to

this day.

Page 70. _When ~James~ in ~Scotland~ first began._

Not yet found elsewhere, in MS. or print. The sixth verse refers to King

James the First making so many Knights, on insufficient ground, that he

incurred ridicule. Allusions are not infrequent in dramas and ballads.

Here is the most noteworthy of the latter. It is in Additional MS. No.

5,832, fol. 205, British Museum.

Verses upon the order for making Knights of such persons who

had £46 _per annum_ in King _James_ I.’s time.

_Come all you farmers out of the country,_

_Carters, plowmen, hedgers and all,_

_~Tom~, ~Dick~ and ~Will~, ~Ralph~, ~Roger~ and ~Humfrey~,_

_Leave off your gestures rusticall._

_Bidd all your home-sponne russetts adue,_

_And sute your selves in fashions new;_

_Honour invites you to delights:_

_Come all to Court and be made Knights_.

2.

_He that hath fortie pounds ~per annum~_

_Shalbe promoted from the plowe:_

_His wife shall take the wall of her grannum,_

_Honour is sould soe dog-cheap now._

_Though thow hast neither good birth nor breeding,_

_If thou hast money, thow art sure of speeding._

3.

_Knighthood in old time was counted an honour,_

_Which the best spiritts did not disdayne;_

_But now it is us’d in so base a manner,_

_That it’s noe creditt, but rather a staine:_

_Tush, it’s noe matter what people doe say,_

_The name of a Knight a whole village will sway._

4.

_Shepheards, leave singing your pastorall sonnetts,_

_And to learne complements shew your endeavours:_

_Cast of[f] for ever your two shillinge bonnetts,_

_Cover your coxcombs with three pound beavers._

_Sell carte and tarrboxe new coaches to buy,_

_Then, “Good your Worship,” the vulgar will cry._

5.

_And thus unto worshipp being advanced,_

_Keepe all your tenants in awe with your frownes;_

_And let your rents be yearly inhaunced,_

_To buy your new-moulded maddams new gowns._

_~Joan~, ~Sisse~, and ~Nell~ shalbe all ladified,_

_Instead of hay-carts, in coaches shall ryde._

6.

_Whatever you doe, have a care of expenses,_

_In hospitality doe not exceed:_

_Greatnes of followers belongeth to princes:_

_A Coachman and footmen are all that you need:_

_And still observe this, let your servants meate lacke,_

_To keep brave apparel upon your wives backe._

[Additional stanza from Mr. Hunter’s MS.]

7.

_Now to conclude, and shutt up my sonnett,_

_Leave of the Cart-whip, hedge-bill and flaile,_

_This is my counsell, think well upon it,_

_Knighthood and honour are now put to saile._

_Then make haste quickly, and lett out your farmes,_

_And take my advice in blazing your armes._

_Honor invites, &c._

(Shakespeare Soc., 1846, pp. 145-6, J. O. Halliwell’s Commentary on Merry

Wives of Windsor, Act. ii. sc. 1, “These Knights will hack.” Also his

notes in Tallis’s edit., of the same, n. d., pp. 122-3. William Chappell,

in _Pop. Music O. T._, p. 327, gives the tune.)

Page 72. _The Chandler drew near his end._

Another tolerable Epigram on a Chandler meets us, beginning “How might

his days end that made weeks [wicks]?” among the Epitaphs of _Wits

Recreations_, 1640-5 (Reprint, p. 271).

Page 73. _Farre in the Forrest of Arden._

This is one of MICHAEL DRAYTON’S Pastorals, printed in 1593, in the

Third Eclogue, and entitled _Dowsabell_. See _Percy’s Reliques_, vol. i.

bk. 3, No. 8, 2nd edit. 1767, for remarks on variations, amounting to a

remodelling, of this charming poem. We are glad to know that Mr. James

Russell Smith is preparing a new edition of Michael Drayton’s voluminous

works, to be included in the _Library of Old Authors_. Drayton suppressed

his couplet poem of “Endimion and Phœbe:” _Ideas Latmvs_. It has no date,

but was cited by Lodge in 1595, and has been reprinted by J. P. Collier;

one of his handsome and carefully printed quartos, a welcome boon.

Page 78. _On the twelfth day of ~December~._

This ballad, a very early example of the _Down down derry_ burden, is not

yet found elsewhere. It refers to the expedition against Scotland (then

in alliance with Henry II. of France) made by the Protector, Edward, Duke

of Somerset, in 1547, the first (not “fourth”) year of Edward VIth’s

reign. The battle was fought on the “Black Saturday,” as it was long

remembered, the tenth day of September (not of “December,” as the ballad

mis-states it to have been). Terrible and remorseless was the slaughter

of the ill-armed Scots, after they had imprudently abandoned their

excellent hilly position, by the well-appointed English horsemen. The

prisoners taken amounted to about fifteen hundred (“we found above twenty

of their villains to one of their gentlemen,” says Patten), among whom

was the Earl of Huntley, Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who on the previous

day had sent a personal challenge to Somerset, asking to decide the

contest by single combat: an offer which was not unreasonably declined,

the Protector declaring that he desired no peace but such as he might

win by his sword. “And thou, trumpet,” he told Huntley’s herald, “say to

thy master, he seemeth to lack wit to make this challenge to me, being

of such estate by the sufferance of God as to have so weighty a charge

of so precious a jewel, the government of a King’s person, and then the

protection of all his realms.” We learn that the Scots slain were tenfold

the number of the prisoners taken. This battle of “Muskleburgh Field”

(nearly the same locality as the battle of Prestonpans, wherein Prince

Charles Edward in 1745 defeated Colonel Gardiner and his English troops),

known also as of Fawside Brae, or of Pinkie, is described with unusual

precision by an eye-witness: See _The Expedition into Scotland of the

most worthily-fortunate Prince Edward Duke of Somerset_, uncle to our

most noble Sovereign Lord the King’s Majesty Edward the VI., &c., made

in the first year of his Majesty’s most prosperous reign, and set out by

way of Diary, by W. Patten, Londoner. First published in 1548, this was

reprinted in Dalyell’s _Fragments of Scottish History_, Edinburgh, 1798.

This old ballad is not included by Dalyell, who probably knew not of its

existence.

Page 80. _In ~Celia~[’s face] a question did arise._

By THOMAS CAREW, written before 1638. In Addit. MSS. No. 11,811, fol. 10;

No. 22,118, fol. 43; also in _Wits Recreations_ (Repr., p. 19); Roxb.

Libr. Carew, p. 6, &c.

Page 81. _Blacke Eyes, in your dark Orbs doe lye._

By JAMES HOWELL, Historiographer to Charles II., and author of the

celebrated _Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ_, 1645, 1647, 1650, and 1655. He died in

November, 1666; according to Anthony à Wood, (whose account of him in

the _Athenæ Oxonienses_, iii. 744, edit. 1817, is given by Edward Arber

in his excellent _English Reprints_, vol. viii, 1869, with a welcome

promise of editing the said _Epistolæ_). This poem of “Black eyes,” &c.,

occurs among Howell’s poems collected by Sergeant-Major Peter Fisher, p.

68, 1663; again re-issued (the same sheets) as _Mr. Howell’s Poems upon

divers Emergent Occasions_; Printed by James Cottrel, and dated 1664.” It

is also found in C. F.’s “_Wit at a Venture; or, ~Clio’s~ Privy Garden_,

containing Songs and Poems on Several Occasions, Never before in Print”

(which statement is incorrect, as usual). Our text is the earliest we

know in type. The only variations, in _Howell’s Poems_, are: 1st line,

_doth_ lie; 4th verse, And by _those spells I am_ possest.

Page 83. _We read of Kings, and Gods, &c._

This is another of the charming poems by THOMAS CAREW, always a favourite

with his own generation (few MS. or printed Collections being without

many of them), and deserving of far more affectionate perusal in our own

time than he generally meets. It is in Addit. MS. No. 11, 811, fol. 6b.,

entitled there “His Love Neglected.” Elsewhere, as “A Cruel Mistress.”

Page 84. _What ill luck had I, Silly Maid_, &c.

Although closely resembling the Catch “_What Fortune had I, poor Maid as

I am_,” of 1661 _Antidote ag. Melancholy_, p, 74, and _Merry Drollery_

ii. 152 (equal to p. 341 of editions 1670 and 1691), this song is

virtually distinct, and probably was the earlier version in date. One has

been evidently borrowed or adapted from the other.

Page 85. _I never did hold all that glisters_, &c.

This vigorous expression of opinion from a robust nature, uncorrupted

amid a conventionalized, treacherous, and selfishly-cruel community, is

a valuable record of the true Cavalier “all of the olden time.” We have

never met it elsewhere. He has no half-likings, no undefined suspicions,

and admits of no paltering with the truth, or shirking of one’s duty. As

we read we behold the honest man before us, and remember that it was such

as he who made our England what she is:—

_Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,_

_I see the Lords of human kind pass by._

The contemplation of such brave spirits may help to nerve fresh readers

to emulate their virtues, despite the sickly fancies or grovelling

politics and social theories of degenerate days. The singer may be

somewhat overbearing in announcement of his preferences:

——_Just this_

_Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,_

_Or there exceed the mark_,—

But, if he errs at all, it is on the safe side.

Page 88. _No Gypsie nor no Blackamore._

Composers and arrangers of such collections as this Drollery seem to have

often chosen pieces simply for contrast. Thus, after the manly directness

of “The Doctor’s Touchstone,” we find the vilely mercenary husband

here exhibited, and followed by the truthful description (justifiable,

although coarsely outspoken) of “The baseness of Whores.” Such were they

of old: such are they ever.

Page 92. _Let not Sweet Saint_, &c.

Like the three preceding poems, not yet found elsewhere, but worthy of

preservation.

Page 93. _How happy’s that Prisoner._

Written “by a Person of Quality:” whom we suspect to have been SIR

FRANCIS WORTLEY, but without evidence to substantiate the guess. This is

the earliest appearance in print, known to us, of this characteristic

outburst of Cavalier vivacity, which re-appears as the Musician’s Song,

in “_Cromwell’s Conspiracy_,” 1660, Act iii. sc. 2; and _Merry Drollery_,

1661, p. 101. (See also _M. D. C._, pp. 107, 373). As to the introduction

of the several ancient philosophers (referred to in former Appendix, p.

373), compare the delightful _Chanson a Boire_,

_Je cherche en vin la vérité,_

_Si le vin n’aide à ma foiblesse,_

_Toute la docte antiquité_

_Dans le vin puisa la sagesse,_

_Oui c’est par le bon vin que le bon sens éclate,_

_J’en atteste_ Hypocrate,

Qui dit qu’il fait a chaque mois

Du moins s’enivrer une fois, _&c._

(The other twelve verses are given complete in “_Brallaghan; or, the

Deipnosophists_,” 1845, pp. 198-203, with a clever verse-translation,

by the foremost of linguistic scholars now alive—the friend of Talfourd

and of Dr. W. Maginn—at whom many nowadays presume to scoff, and whom

Benchers defame and banish themselves from.)

Page 97. _Fire! Fire! O how I burn, &c._

Also in _Windsor Drollery_, 1672, p. 126, as “Fire! Fire! _lo here_ I

burn in my desire,” &c. And in Henry Bold’s _Latine Songs_, 1685, p. 139,

where it is inserted, to be alongside of this parody on it by him, song

xlvii., or a

MOCK.

1.

_Fire, Fire,_

_Is there no help for thy desire?_

_Are tears all spent? Is ~Humber~ low?_

_Doth ~Trent~ stand still? Doth ~Thames~ not flow?_

_Though all these can’t thy Feaver cure,_

_Yet ~Tyburn~ is a Cooler lure,_

_And since thou can’st not quench thy Fire,_

_Go hang thy self, and thy desire!_

2.

_Fire, fire,_

_Here’s one [still] left for thy desire,_

_Since that the Rainbow in the skye,_

_Is bent a deluge to deny,_

_As loth for thee a God should Lye._

_Let gentle Rope come dangling down,_

_One born to hang shall never drown,_

_And since thou can’st not quench the Fire,_

_Go hang thy self, and thy desire!_

(_Latine Songs_, 1685, p. 140.)

Page 98. _’Tis not how witty, nor how free._

A year earlier, this had appeared in _Wit’s Interpreter_, 1655, p. 4

(1671, p. 108), entitled “What is most to be liked in a Mistress.” Robt.

Jamieson quotes it, from _Choyce Drollery_, in his _Pop. Bds._, 1806, ii.

309. We believe it to be by the same author as the poem next following,

and regret that they remain anonymous. Both are of a stately beauty, and

recall to us those Cavalier Ladies with whose portraits Vandyck adorned

many family mansions.

Page 99. _She’s not the fairest of her name._

One clue, that may hereafter guide us to the authorship, we know the

lady’s name. It was FREEMAN. This poem also had appeared a year earlier,

at least, in _Wit’s Interpreter_, 1655, p. 55 (; 1671 ed., p. 161). Also

in _Wit and Drollery_, 1661, p. 162; in _Oxford Drollery_, part ii. 1671,

p. 87; and in _Loyal Garland_, 1686, as “The Platonick Lover” (reprinted

by Percy Soc., xxix. 64). There should be a comma in fifth line, after

the word Constancy. Various readings:—Verse 2, _meanest_ wit; and _yet_

a; 3, His _dear_ addresses; walls be _brick_ or stone.

Page 100. _’Tis late and cold, stir up the fire._

This Song, by JOHN FLETCHER, in his _Lover’s Progress_, Act iii. sc. 1.,

before 1625. The music is found in Additional MS. No. 11,608 (written

about 1656), fol. 20; there called “Myne Ost’s Song, sung in _ye Mad

Lover_ [wrong: a different play], set by Robt. Johnson.” It re-appears in

_Wit and Drollery_ 1661, p. 212; in the _Academy of Complements_, 1670,

p. 175, &c. It is the Song of the Dead Host, whose return to wait upon

his guests and ask their aid to have his body laid in consecrated ground,

is so humorously described. His forewarnings of death to Cleander are,

to our mind, of thrilling interest. These scenes were Sir Walter Scott’s

favourites; but Leigh Hunt, perversely, could see no merit in them. We

believe that the tinge of sepulchral dullness in Mine Host enhances the

vividness of the incidents, like the taciturnity of Don Guzman’s stony

statue in Shadwell’s “Libertine.”

Thus the hundred-paged volume of _Choyce Drollery_, 1656,—“Delicates

served up by frugall Messes, as aiming at thy satisfaction not

saciety,”—comes to an end, with Beaumont and Fletcher. On them

remembrance loves to rest, as the fitting representatives of that class

of courtly gentlemen, poets, wits, and scholars, who were, to a great

extent, even then, fading away from English society. To them had been

visible no phase of the Rebellion, and they probably never conceived

that it was near. Beaumont, with his statelier reserve, and his tendency

to quiet musing, fostered “under the shade of melancholy boughs” at

Grace-Dieu, had early passed away, honoured and lamented; a month before

his friend Shakespeare went to rest: Shakespeare, who, having known half

a century of busy life, felt contented, doubtless, to fulfil the wish

that he had long before expressed, himself, almost prophetically:—

_“Let me not live,”—_

_Thus his good melancholy oft began, ..._

_“After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff_

_Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses_

_All but new things disdain; whose judgments are_

_Mere fathers of their garments; whose constancies_

_Expire before their fashions:”—this he wished._

Fletcher survived nine years, and battled on with somewhat of spasmodic

action; at once widowed and orphaned by the death of his close friend

and work-fellow; winning fresh triumphs, it is true, and leaving many

a trace of his bright genius like a gleam of heaven’s own light across

the sadness and corruption of an imaginary world, that was not at all

unreal in heroism or in wickedness. He also passed away while young; a

few months later than the time when Charles the First came to the throne,

suddenly elevated by the death of his father James, bringing abruptly to

a consummation that marriage with the French Princess which did so much

to lead him and his country into ruin. The year 1625 was the separating

date between the autumnal ripeness and the chill of fruitless winter. A

sunny glow remains on Fletcher to the last. With him it fades, and the

world that he had known is changed.

[End of Notes to _Choyce Drollery_.]

APPENDIX. PART 2.

ANTIDOTE AGAINST MELANCHOLY. 1661.

_Gratiano._—“Why should a man, whose blood is warm within,

Sleep when he wakes, and creep into the jaundice

By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio,—

I love thee, and it is my love that speaks;—

There are a sort of men, whose visages

Do cream and mantle like a standing pond,

And do a wilful stillness entertain,

With purpose to be dress’d in an opinion

Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit;

As who should say, ‘I am Sir Oracle,

And, when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!’”

(_Merchant of Venice_, Act i. sc. 1.)

We have already, in a brief Introduction, (pp. 105-110), explained our

reason for adding all that was necessary to complete this work; a large

portion having been anticipated in _Merry Drollery_ of the same year,

1661. In the Postscript (pp. 161-165), we endeavoured to trace the

authorship of the entire collection; leaving to these following notes,

and those attached to _M. Drollery, Compleat_, the search for separate

poems or songs. Also, on pp. 166-175, we traced the history of “Arthur o’

Bradley,” delaying the important song of his Wedding (from an original of

the date 1656), unto Part IV. of our _Appendix_.

To no other living writer are we lovers of old literature more deeply

indebted than to the veteran John Payne Collier, who is now far

advanced in his eighty-seventh year, and whose intellect and industry

remain vigorously employed at this great age: one proof of the fact

being his new edition of Shakespeare (each play in a separate quarto,

issued to private subscribers), begun in January, 1875, and already

the Comedies are finished, in the third volume. Among his numerous

choice reprints of rare originals, his series of the more than “_Seven

Early Poetical Miscellanies_” was a work of greatest value. To these,

with his new “_Shakespeare_,” the interesting “_Old Man’s Diary_,” his

“_Bibliographical and Critical Account of the Rarest Books in the English

Language_,” his “_Annals of the Stage_,” “_The Poetical Decameron_,”

his charming “_Book of Roxburghe Ballads_,” 1847, his “_Broadside

Black-Letter-Ballads_,” 1868, and other labours, no less than to his

warmth of heart and friendly encouragement by letters, the present Editor

owes many happy hours, and for them makes grateful acknowledgment.

About the year 1870, J. P. Collier issued to private subscribers his

very limited and elegant Reprint, in quarto, of “_An Antidote against

Melancholy_,” 1661. This is already nearly as unattainable as the

original.

J. P. Collier gave no notes to his Reprint of the “Antidote,” but, in the

brief Introduction thereunto, he mentioned that:—“This poetical tract has

been selected for our reprint on account of its rarity, the excellence

of the greater part of its contents, the high antiquity of some of

them, and from the fact that many of the ballads and humorous pieces of

versification are either not met with elsewhere, or have been strangely

corrupted in repetition through the press. Two or three of them are used

by Shakespeare, and the word ‘incarnadine’ [see our p. 148] is only found

in ‘Macbeth’ (A. ii., sc. 2), in Carew’s poems, and in this tract: here

we have it as the name of a red wine; and nobody hitherto has noticed it

in that sense.

“When Ritson published his ‘Robin Hood’ in 1795, he relied chiefly upon

the text of the famous ballad of ‘Arthur o’ Bradley,’ as he discovered

it in the miscellany before us [See our _Merry Drollery, Compleat_, pp.

312, 399; also, in present volume, p. 166, and Additional Note]; but,

learned in such matters as he undoubtedly was, he was not aware of the

very early period at which ‘Arthur o’ Bradley’ was so popular as to be

quoted in one of our Old Moralities, which may have been in existence in

the reigns of Henry VI. or Henry VII., which was acted while Henry VIII.

or Edward VI. were on the throne, and which is contained in a manuscript

bearing the date of 1579.

“The few known copies of ‘An Antidote against Melancholy’ are dated 1661,

the year after the Restoration, when lawless licence was allowed both to

the press and in social intercourse; and, if we permitted ourselves to

mutilate our originals, we might not have reproduced such coarseness;

but still no words will be found which, even a century afterwards, were

not sometimes used in private conversation, and which did not even

make their appearance at full length in print. Mere words may be said

to be comparatively harmless; but when, as in the time of Charles II,

they were employed as incentives to vice and laxity of manners, they

become dangerous. The repetition of them in our day, in a small number

of reprints, can hardly be offensive to decorum, and unquestionably

cannot be injurious to public morals. We always address ourselves to the

students of our language and habits of life.”

Page 113 (original, p. 1). _Not drunken, nor sober, &c._

Joseph Ritson gave this Bacchanalian chant in the second volume of his

“English Songs,” p. 58, 1783. Forty-six verses, out of the seventy, had

been repeated in the “Collection of Old Ballads,” 1723-25, (which Ambrose

Philips and David Mallet may have edited,) “The Ex-Ale-tation of Ale” is

in vol. iii. p. 166. Part, if not all, must have been in existence fully

ten years before it appeared in the “Antidote,” as we find “O Ale _ab

alendo_, thou Liquor of life!” with music by John Hilton, in his “Catch

that Catch Can,” p. 5, 1652. It is also in _Wit’s Merriment; or, Lusty

Drollery_, 1656, p. 118; eight verses only. These are: 1. Not drunken;

2. But yet to commend it; 3. But yet, by your leave; 4. It makes a man

merry; 5. The old wife whose teeth; 6. The Ploughman, the Lab’rer; 7. The

man that hath a black blous to his wife; 8. With that my friend said,

&c. Still earlier, the poem had appeared, imperfectly, in a four-paged

quarto pamphlet, dated 1642 (along with “The Battle fought between the

Norfolk Cock and the Wisbeach Cock,” see _M. D. C._, p. 242) as by THOMAS

RANDALL, i.e. RANDOLPH. Accordingly, it has been included (34 verses

only) in the 1875 edition of his Works, p. 662. We personally attach

no weight to the pamphlet’s ascription of it to Randolph, (who died in

March, 1634-5). It is far more likely to have been the work of SAMUEL

ROWLANDS, in whose _Crew of Kind London Gossips_, 1663, we meet it, p.

129-141, and whose style it more closely resembles. Some poems duly

assigned to Randolph are in the same volume, but the “Exaltation of Ale”

is _not_ thus distinguished. There are seventy-two verses given, and the

motto is _Tempus edax rerum, &c._ We have not been able to consult an

earlier edition of S. Rowland’s “_Crew_,” &c., about 1650.

So long afterwards as 1788, we find an abbreviated copy of the song, six

verses, in Lackington’s “British Songster,” p. 202, entitled “A Tankard

of Ale.” The first verse runs thus:—

“_Not drunk, nor yet sober, but brother to both,_

_I met with a man upon Aylesbury Vale,_

_I saw in his face that he was in good case_

_To go and take part of a tankard of ale._”

Omitting all sequence of narrative, the other verses are adapted from the

_Antidote’s_ 21st, 19th, 10th, 26th, and 50th; concerning the hedger,

beggar, widow, clerk, and amicable conclusion over a tankard of ale. In a

_Convivial Songster_, of 1807, by Tegg, London, these six are given with

addition of another as fifth:—

_The old parish Vicar, when he’s in his liquor,_

_Will merrily at his parishioners rail,_

_“Come, pay all your tithes, or I’ll kiss all your wives,”_

_When once he shakes hands with a tankard of ale._

It had appeared in a Chap-book (circa 1794, according to Wm. Logan; see

his amusing “Pedlar’s Pack,” pp. 224-6), with other five verses inserted

before the Finale. We give them to complete the tale:—

_There’s the blacksmith by trade, a jolly brisk blade,_

_Cries, “Fill up the bumper, dear host, from the pail;”_

_So cheerful he’ll sing, and make the house ring,_

_When once he shakes hands with a tankard of ale._

_Laru la re, laru, &c. So cheerful, &c._

_There’s the tinker, ye ken, cries “old kettles to mend,”_

_With his budget and hammer to drive in the nail;_

_Will spend a whole crown, at one sitting down,_

_When once he shakes hands with a tankard of ale._

_Laru, &c._

_There’s the mason, brave ~John~, the carver of stone,_

_The Master’s grand secret he’ll never reveal;_

_Yet how merry is he with his lass on his knee,_

_When once he shakes hands with a tankard of ale._

_Laru, &c._

_You maids who feel shame, pray me do not blame,_

_Though your private ongoings in public I tell;_

_Young ~Bridget~ and ~Nell~ to kiss will not fail_

_When once they shake hands with a tankard of ale._

_Laru, &c._

_There’s some jolly wives, love drink as their lives,_

_Dear neighbours but mind the sad thread of my tale;_

_Their husbands they’ll scorn, as sure’s they were born,_

_If once they shake hands with a tankard of ale._

_Laru, &c._

_From wrangling or jangling, and ev’ry such strife,_

_Or anything else that may happen to fall;_

_From words come to blows, and sharp bloody nose,_

_But friends again over a tankard of ale._

_Laru, &c._

Notice the characteristic mention of William Elderton, the Ballad-writer

(who died before 1592), in the thirty-third verse (our p. 119):—

_For ballads Elderton never had peer;_

_How went his wit in them, with how merry a gale,_

_And with all the sails up, had he been at the cup,_

_And washed his beard with a pot of good ale._

William Elderton’s “New Yorkshire Song, intituled _Yorke, Yorke, for my

Monie_,” (entered at Stationers’ Hall, 16 November, 1582, and afterwards

“Imprinted at London by Richard Iones; dwelling neere Holbourne Bridge:

1584),” has the place of honour in the Roxburghe Collection, being the

first ballad in the first volume. It consequently takes the lead in the

valuable “Roxburghe Bds.” of the Ballad Society, 1869, so ably edited

by William Chappell, Esq., F.S.A. It also formed the commencement of

Ritson’s _Yorkshire Garland_: York, 1788. It is believed that Elderton

wrote the “excellent Ballad intituled The Constancy of Susanna” (Roxb.

Coll., i. 60; Bagford, ii. 6; Pepys, i. 33, 496). A list of others was

first given by Ritson; since, by W. C. Hazlitt, in his _Handbook_, p.

177. Elderton’s “Lenton Stuff ys come to the town” was reprinted by

J. O. Halliwell, for the Shakespeare Society, in 1846 (p. 105). He

gives Drayton’s allusion to Elderton in Notes to Mr. Hy. Huth’s “79

Black-Letter Ballads,” 1870, 274 (the “Praise of my Ladie Marquess,”

by W. E., being on pp. 14-16). Elderton had been an actor in 1552; his

earliest dated ballad is of 1559, and he had ceased to live by 1592.

Camden gives an epitaph, which corroborates our text, in regard to the

“thirst complaint” of the balladist:—

_Hic situs est sitiens, atque ebrius Eldertonus—_

_Quid dico—Hic situs est? his potius sitis est._

Thus freely rendered by Oldys:—

_Dead drunk here Elderton doth lie;_

_Dead as he is, he still is dry;_

_So of him it may well be said,_

_Here he, but not his thirst, is laid._

A MS., time of James I., possessed by J. P. Collier, mentions, in further

confirmation:

_~Will Elderton’s~ red nose is famous everywhere,_

_And many a ballet shows it cost him very dear;_

_In ale, and toast, and spice, he spent good store of coin,_

_You need not ask him twice to take a cup of wine._

_But though his nose was red, his hand was very white,_

_In work it never sped, nor took in it delight;_

_No marvel therefore ’tis, that white should be his hand,_

_That ballets writ a score, as you well understand._

(See Wm. Chappell’s Popular Music of the Olden Time, pp. 107, 815; and

J. P. Collier’s Extracts from Reg. Stat. Comp., _passim_, Indices, art.

Elderton; and his Bk. of Roxb. Bds., p. 139.)

Page 125 (orig. 14). _With an old Song, made by, &c._

The fashion of disparaging the present, by praising the customs and

people of days that have passed away, is almost as old as the Deluge, if

not older. Homer speaks of the degeneracy in his time, and aged Israel

had long earlier lamented the few and evil days to which his own life

extended, in comparison with those patriarchs who had gone before him.

Even as we know not the full value of the Mistress or the friend whose

affection had been given unto us, until separated from them, for ever, by

estrangement or the grave, so does it seem to be with many customs and

things. Robert Browning touchingly declares:—

_And she is gone; sweet human love is gone!_

_’Tis only when they spring to heaven that angels_

_Reveal themselves to you; they sit all day_

_Beside you, and lie down at night by you_

_Who care not for their presence, muse or sleep,_

_And all at once they leave you, and you know them!_

Modified in succeeding reigns, the ballad of “The Queen [Elizabeth]’s

Old Courtier, and A New Courtier of the King [James]” has already known

two hundred and fifty years’ popularity. The earliest printed copy was

probably issued by T. Symcocke, by or after 1626. We find it in several

books about the time of the Restoration, when parodies became frequent.

It is in _Le Prince d’Amour_, 1660, p. 161; _Wit and Drollery_, 1682

(not in 1656, 1661 edits.), p. 278, “With an old Song,” _&c._; _Wit

and Mirth_, 1684, p. 43; _Dryden’s Misc. Poems_ (ed. 1716, iv. 108);

with the Music, in _Pills_, iii. 271; in _Philomel_, 130, 1744; Percy’s

_Reliques_, ii. Bk. 3, No. 8, 1767; Ritson’s _English Sgs._, ii. 140, and

Chappell’s _Pop. Music_, p. 300, to which refer for a good introduction,

with extract from Pepys Diary of 16th June, 1668. Accompanying a Parody

by T. Howard, Gent. (beginning similarly, “An Old Song made of an old

aged pate”), it meets us in the Roxburghe Coll., iii. 72, printed for F.

Coles (1646-74).

Among other parodies may be mentioned one entitled “An Old Souldier

of the Queen’s” (in _Merry Drollery, Compleat_, 31, and in _Wit and

Drollery_, 248, 1661); another, “The New Souldier” (_Wit and Drollery_,

282, 1682), beginning:—

_With a new Beard but lately trimmed,_

_With a new love-lock neatly kemm’d,_

_With a new favour snatch’d or nimm’d,_

_With a new doublet, French-like trimm’d;_

_And a new gate, as if he swimm’d;_

Like a new Souldier of the King’s,

And the King’s new Souldier.

_With a new feather in his Cap;_

_With new white bootes, without a strap_; &c.

In the same edition of _Wit and Drollery_, p. 165, is yet another parody,

headed “_Old Souldiers_,” which runs thus (see _Westminster-Drollery_,

ii. 24, 1672,):—

_Of Old Souldiers the song you would hear,_

_And we old fiddlers have forgot who they were._

John Cleveland had a parody on the Queen’s Courtier, about 1648, entitled

The Puritan, beginning “With face and fashion to be known, For one

of sure election.” Another, called The Tub-Preacher, is doubtfully

attributed to Samuel Butler, and begins similarly, “With face and fashion

to be known: With eyes all white, and many a groan” (in his _Posthumous

Works_, p. 44, 3rd edit., 1730). The political parody, entitled “Saint

George and the Dragon, _anglicé Mercurius Poeticus_,” to the same tune

of “The Old Courtier,” is in the Kings Pamphlets, XVI., and has been

reprinted by T. Wright for the Percy Soc., iii. 205. It bears Thomason’s

date, 28 Feb., 1659-[60], and is on the overthrow of the Rump, by General

Monk. It begins thus:—

_News! news! here’s the occurrences and a new Mercurius,_

_A dialogue between Haselrigg the baffled and Arthur the furious;_

_With Ireton’s readings upon legitimate and spurious,_

_Proving that a Saint may be the Son of a Wh——, for the satisfaction

of the curious._

_From a Rump insatiate as the Sea,_

Libera nos, Domine, _&c._

Old songs have rarely, if ever, been modernized so successfully as “The

Queen’s Old Courtier,” of which “The Fine Old English Gentleman” is no

unworthy representative. Popular though it was, thirty or forty years

ago, it is not easily met with now; thus we may be excused for adding it

here:—

_THE FINE OLD ENGLISH GENTLEMAN._

_I’ll sing you a good old song, made by a good old pate,_

_Of a fine old English gentleman, who had an old estate,_

_And who kept up his old mansion, at a bountiful old rate;_

_With a good old porter to relieve the old poor at his gate._

_Like a fine old English gentleman, all of the olden time._

_His hall so old was hung around with pikes, and guns, and bows,_

_And swords, and good old bucklers, that had stood against old foes;_

_’Twas there “his worship” held his state in doublet and trunk hose,_

_And quaff’d his cup of good old Sack, to warm, his good old nose:_

_Like a fine old English gentleman, &c._

_When Winter’s cold brought frost and snow, he open’d house to all;_

_And though threescore and ten his years, he featly led the ball;_

_Nor was the houseless wanderer e’er driven from his hall,_

_For, while he feasted all the great, he ne’er forgot the small:_

_Like a fine old English gentleman, &c._

_But time, though sweet, is strong in flight, and years roll swiftly by;_

_And autum’s falling leaves proclaimed, the old man—he must die!_

_He laid him down right tranquilly, gave up life’s latest sigh;_

_While a heavy stillness reign’d around, and tears dimm’d every eye._

_For this good old English gentleman, &c._

_Now surely this is better far than all the new parade_

_Of theatres and fancy balls, “At Home,” and masquerade;_

_And much more economical, when all the bills are paid:_

_Then leave your new vagaries off, and take up the old trade_

_Of a fine old English gentleman, &c._

A series of eight Essays, each illustrated with a design by R. W. Buss,

was devoted to “The Old and Young Courtier” in the _Penny Magazine_ of

the Society for Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, in 1842.

Charles Matthews used to sing (was it in “Patter _versus_ Clatter”?) an

amusing version of “The Fine Young English Gentleman,” of whom it was

reported that,

_He kept up his vagaries at a most astounding rate,_

_And likewise his old Landlady,—by staying out so late,_

_Like a fine young English gentleman, one of the present time, &c._

T. R. Planché wrote a parody to the same tune, in his “Golden Fleece,” on

the “Fine Young Grecian Gentleman,” Iason, as described by his deserted

wife Medea: it begins, “I’ll tell you a sad tale of the life I’ve been

led of late.” In Dinny Blake’s “_Sprig of Shillelah_,” p. 3, is found

“The Rale Ould Irish Gintleman,” (5 verses) beginning, “I’ll sing you a

dacent song, that was made by a Paddy’s pate,” and ending thus:—

_Each Irish boy then took a pride to prove himself a man,_

_To serve a friend, and beat a foe it always was the plan_

_Of a rale ould Irish Gintleman, the boy of the olden time._

(Or, as Wm. Hy. Murray, of Edinburgh, used to say, in his unequalled “Old

Country Squire,” “A smile for a friend, a frown for a foe, and a full

front for every one!”)

At the beginning of the Crimean War appeared another parody, ridiculing

the Emperor Nicholas, as “The Fine Old Russian Gentleman” (it is in

Berger’s _Red, White, and Blue_, 467); and clever Robert B. Brough,

in one of his more bitter moods against “The Governing Classes,”

misrepresented the “Fine Old English Gentleman” (_Ibid._, p. 733), as

splenetically as Charles Dickens did in _Barnaby Rudge_, chapter 47.

Page 20 (original). Pan _leave piping, &c._

Given already, in our Appendix to the _Westminster Drollery_, p. liv.,

with note of tune and locality. See Additional Note in Part 3 of present

Appendix.

Page 129 (orig. 26). _Why should we boast of ~Arthur~, &c._

There are so many differences in the version printed in the _Antidote

agt. Melancholy_ from that already given in _Merry Drollery, Compleat_,

p. 309, (cp. Note, p. 399), that we give the former uncurtailed.

Along with the music in _Pills to p. Mel._, iii. 116, 1719, are the

extra verses (also in _Wit and Mirth_, 1684, p. 29?) agreeing with the

_Antidote_; as does the version in _Old Bds._, i. 24, 1723.

Another old ballad, in the last-named collection, p. 153, is upon “King

Edward and Jane Shore; in Imitation, and to the Tune of, St. _George_ and

the _Dragon_.” It begins (in better version):—

_Why should we boast of ~Lais~ and her knights,_

_Knowing such Champions entrapt by Whorish Lights?_

_Or why should we speak of ~Thais~ curled Locks,_

_Or ~Rhodope~, &c._

Roxb. Coll., iii. 258, printed in 1671. Also in _Pills_, with music, iv.

272. The authorship of it is ascribed to SAMUEL BUTLER, in the volume

assuming to be his “Posthumous Works” (p. iii., 3rd edition, 1730); but

this ascription is of no weight in general.

In Edm. Gayton’s _Festivous Notes upon Don Quixot_, 1654, p. 231, we

read:—“’Twas very proper for these Saints to alight at the sign of St.

_George_, who slew the Dragon which was to prey upon the Virgin: The

truth of which story hath been abus’d by his own country-men, who almost

deny all the particulars of it, as I have read in a scurrilous Epigram,

very much impairing the credit and Legend of St. _George_; As followeth,

_They say there is no ~Dragon~,_

_Nor no Saint ~George~ ’tis said._

_Saint ~George~ and ~Dragon~ lost,_

_Pray Heaven there be a Maid!_

But it was smartly return’d to, in this manner,

_Saint ~George~ indeed is dead,_

_And the fell ~Dragon~ slaine;_

_The ~Maid~ liv’d so and dyed,—_

_She’ll ne’r do so againe._”

Somewhat different is the earlier version, in _Wit’s Recreations_,

1640-45. (Reprint, p. 194, which see, “To save a maid,” &c.) The Answer

to it is probably Gayton’s own.

Page 133 (orig. 29). _Come hither, thou merriest, &c._

Issued as a popular broadsheet, printed at London for Thomas Lambert,

probably during the lifetime of Charles I., we find this lively ditty of

“Blew Cap for Me!” in the Roxburghe Coll., i. 20, and in the Bd. Soc.

Reprint, vol. i. pp. 74-9. Mr. Chappell mentions that the tune thus named

“is included in the various editions of _The Dancing Master_ from 1650

to 1690; and says, the reference to ‘when our good king was in Falkland

town,’ [in the _Antidote_ it reads “our good _knight_,” line 13] may

supply an approximate date to the composition.” We believe that it must

certainly have been before the Scots sold their king for the base bribe

of money from the Parliamentarians, in 1648, when “Blew caps” became

hateful to all true Cavaliers. The visit to Falkland was in 1633, so the

date is narrowed in compass. From the Black-letter ballad we gain a few

corrections: _drowne_, for dare, in 4th line; long _lock’d_, 26th line;

for _further_ exercises, 28th; _Mistris_ (so we should read _Maitresse_,

not _a metrel_), 29th; _Pe gar_ me do love you (not “Dear”), 30th; _she_

replide. The First Part ends with the Irishman. The Second Part begins

with two verses not in the _Antidote_:—

_A Dainty spruce Spanyard, with haire black as jett,_

_long cloak with round cape, a long Rapier and Ponyard;_

_Hee told her if that she could Scotland forget,_

_hee’d shew her the Vines as they grow in the Vineyard._

_“If thou wilt abandon_

_this Country so cold,_

_I’ll show thee faire Spaine,_

_and much Indian gold.”_

_But stil she replide, “Sir,_

_I pray let me be;_

Gif ever I have a man,

Blew-cap for me.”

_A haughty high German of Hamborough towne,_

_a proper tall gallant, with mighty mustachoes;_

_He weepes if the Lasse vpon him doe but frowne,_

_yet he’s a great Fencer that comes to ore-match vs._

_But yet all his fine fencing_

_Could not get the Lasse;_

_She deny’d him so oft,_

_that he wearyed was;_

_For still she replide, “Sir,_

_I pray let me be;_

Gif ever I have a man,

Blew-cap for me.”

In the Netherland Mariner’s Speech we find for the fifth line of verse,

“_Isk_ will make thee,” _said_ he, “sole Lady,” &c. Another verse follows

it, before the conclusion:—

_These sundry Sutors, of seuerall Lands,_ [4]

_did daily solicite this Lasse for her fauour;_

_And euery one of them alike vnderstands_

_that to win the prize they in vaine did endeauour:_

_For she had resolued_

_(as I before said)_

_To haue bonny Blew-cap,_

_or else bee a maid._

_Vnto all her suppliants_

_still replyde she,_

“Gif ever I have a man,

Blew-cap for me.”

_At last came a Scottish-man (with a blew-cap),_

_and he was the party for whom she had tarry’d;_

_To get this blithe bonny Lasse ’twas his gude hap,—_

_they gang’d to the Kirk, & were presently marry’d._

_I ken not weele whether_

_it were Lord or Leard;_ [Laird]

_They caude him some sike_

_a like name as I heard;_

_To chuse him from au_

_She did gladly agree,—_

_And still she cride_, “Blew-cap,

th’art welcome to mee.”

The song is also reprinted for the Percy Society, (Fairholt’s _Costume_),

xxvii. 130, as well as in Evans’ _O. Bds._, iii. 245. Compare John

Cleavland’s “Square Cap,”—“Come hither, _Apollo’s_ bouncing girl.”

Page 135 (orig. 30). _The Wit hath long beholden been._

In Harleian MS. No. 6931, where it is signed as by DR. W. STRODE.

The tune of this is “The Shaking of the Sheets,” according to a broadside

printed for John Trundle (1605-24, before 1628, as by that date we

believe his widow’s name would have been substituted). We find it

reprinted by J. P. Collier in his _Book of Roxburghe Ballads_, p. 172,

1847, as “The Song of the Caps.” In an introductory note, we gather that

“This spirited and humorous song seems to have been founded, in some of

its points, upon the ‘Pleasant Dialogue or Disputation between the Cap

and the Head,’ which prose satire went through two editions, in 1564

and 1565: (see the Bridgewater Catalogue, p. 46.) It is, however, more

modern, and certainly cannot be placed earlier than the end of the reign

of Elizabeth. It may be suspected that it underwent some changes, to

adapt it to the times, when it was afterwards reprinted; and we finally

meet with it, but in a rather corrupted state, in a work published in

1656, called ‘Sportive Wit: the Muses Merriment, a new Spring of Lusty

Drollery,’ &c.” [p. 23.] It appears, with the music, in _Pills_, iv. 157;

in Percy Society’s “Costume,” 1849, 115, with woodcuts of several of the

caps mentioned.

In _Sportive Wit_, 1656, p. 23, is a second verse (coming before “The

Monmouth Cap,” &c.):—

2.—_The Cap doth stand, each man can show,_

_Above a Crown, but Kings below:_

_The Cap is nearer heav’n than we;_

_A greater sign of Majestie:_

_When off the Cap we chance to take,_

_Both head and feet obeysance make;_

For any Cap, &c.

In our 3rd verse, it reads:—ever _brought_, The _quilted_, Furr’d;

_crewel_; 4th verse, line 6, of (_some say_) a horn. 5th verse, crooked

_cause aright; Which, being round and endless, knows_ || _To make as

endless any cause_ [A better version]. 6th, _findes_ a mouth; 7th, The

_Motley Man_ a Cap; [for lines 3, 4, compare Shakespeare, as to it taking

a wise man to play the fool,] like _the Gyant’s_ Crown. 8th, Sick-_mans_;

When _hats in Church_ drop off apace, _This_ Cap _ne’er leaves the_ head

_uncas’d_, Though he be _ill_; [two next verses are expanded into three,

in _Sp. Wit_.] 11th, none but _Graduats_ [N.B.]; _none_ covered are; _But

those that_ to; _go_ bare. _This_ Cap, _of all the Caps that be_, Is

_now_; _high_ degree.

Page 139 (orig. 37). _Once I a curious eye did fix._

This is in THOMAS WEAVER’S _Songs and Poems of Love and Drollery_, p.

16, 1654. Elsewhere attributed to JOHN CLEVELAND (who died in 1658),

and printed among his Poems “_J. Cleavland Revived_” (p. 106, 3rd edit.

1662), as “The Schismatick,” with a trashy fifth verse (not found

elsewhere):—

_I heard of one did touch,_

_He did tell as much,_

_Of one that would not crouch_

_At ~Communion~;_

_Who thrusting up his hand_

_Never made a stand_

_Till he came where her f—— had union;_

_She without all terrour,_

_Thought it no errour,_

_But did laugh till the tears down did trickle,_

_Ha, ha, ha, ~Rotundus~, ~Rotundus~, ’tis you that my spleen

doth tickle._

It is likewise in the _Rump_ collection, i. 223, 1662; _Loyal Sgs._, i.

131, 1731.

Page 139 (orig. 47). _I’s not come here to tauk of ~Prut~._

By BEN JONSON. This is the song of the Welshmen, Evan, Howell, and

Rheese, alternately, in Praise of Wales, sung in an Anti-Masque

“For the Honour of Wales,” performed before King James I. on Shrove

Tuesday, 1618-19. The final verse is omitted from the _Antidote against

Melancholy_. It is this (sung by Rheese):—

_Au, but what say yow should it shance too,_

_That we should leap it in a dance too,_

_And make it you as great a pleasure,_

_If but your eyes be now at leisure;_

_As in your ears s’all leave a laughter,_

_To last upon you six days after?_

_Ha! well-a-go to, let us try to do,_

_As your old ~Britton~, things to be writ on._

CHORUS.—_Come, put on other looks now,_

_And lay away your hooks now;_

_And though yet yow ha’ no pump, sirs,_

_Let ’em hear that yow can jump, sirs,_

_Still, still, we’ll toudge your ears,_

_With the praise of her thirteen s’eeres._

(See Col. F. Cunningham’s “Mermaid” Ben Jonson, iii. 130-2, for Gifford’s

Notes.) With a quaint old woodcut of a strutting Welshman, in cap and

feather, the song reappears in “_Recreations for Ingenious Head-pieces_,”

1645 (_Wits Recreations_, Reprint, p. 387).

Page 143. _Old Poets Hipocrin admire._

This is attributed to THOMAS RANDALL, or RANDOLPH (died 1634-5), in _Wit

and Mirth_, 1684. p. 101: But to N. N., along with music by Hy. Lawes,

in his _Ayres_, Book ii. p. 29, 1655. It is also in _Parnassus Biceps_,

1656, p. 158, “_All_ Poets,” &c., and in _Sportive Wit_, p. 60.

Page 144. _Hang the Presbyter’s Gill._

With music in _Pills_, vi. 182; title, “The Presbyter’s Gill:” where we

find three other verses, as 4th, 5th, and 7th:—

4.

_The stout-brested ~Lombard~, His brains ne’er incumbred,_

_With drinking of Gallons three;_

_~Trycongius~ was named, And by ~Cæsar~ famed,_

_Who dubb’d him Knight Cap-a-pee._

5.

_If then Honour be in’t, Why a Pox should we stint_

_Ourselves of the fulness it bears?_

_H’ has less Wit than an Ape, In the blood of a Grape,_

_Will not plunge himself o’er Head and Ears._

7.

_See the bold Foe appears, May he fall that him Fears,_

_Keep you but close order, and then_

_We will give him the Rout, Be he never so stout[,]_

_And prepare for his Rallying agen._

8 (Final).

_Let’s drain the whole Cellar, &c._

The accumulative progression, humourously exaggerated, is to be seen

employed in other Drinking Songs; notably in “Here’s a Health to the

Barley-Mow, my brave boys!” (still heard at rural festivals in East

Yorkshire, and printed in J. H. Dixon’s _Bds. & Sgs. of the Peasantry_,

Bell’s annotated edit., p. 159) and “Bacchus Overcome,” beginning “My

Friend and I, we drank,” &c. (in _Coll. Old Bds._, iii. 145, 1725.)

Page 145. _’Tis Wine that inspires._

With music by Henry Lawes, in his Select Ayres, i. 32, 1653, entitled

“The Excellency of Wine:” the author was “LORD BROUGHALL” [query,

Broghill?].

(Page, in original, 55.) _Let the bells ring._

See Introduction to our _Westminster-Drollery_ Reprint, pp. xxxvii-viii.

Although not printed in the first edition of his “Spanish Curate,” it is

so entirely in the spirit of JOHN FLETCHER that we need not hesitate to

assign it to him: and he died in 1625.

Page 146. _Bring out the [c]old Chyne._

With music, by Dr. John Wilson, in John Playford’s _Select Ayres_, 1659,

p. 86, entitled Glee to the Cook. A poem attributed to Thomas Flatman,

1655, begins, “A Chine of Beef, God save us all!”

Page 147. _In Love? away! you do me wrong._

Given, with music by Henry Lawes, in his _Select Ayres_, Book iii. p. 5,

1669. The author of the words was Dr. HENRY HUGHES. We do not find the

burden, “Come, fill’s a Cup,” along with the music.

(Page 65, orig.) _He that a Tinker, a Tinker &c._

See _Choyce Drollery_, 52, and note on p. 289.

Page 149, line 8th, _Now that the Spring, &c._

This was written by WILLM. BROWNE, author of “Britannia’s Pastorals,” and

therefore dates before 1645. See Additional Note, late in Part IV., on p.

296 of _M. D. C._

Page 149. _You Merry Poets, old boys._

Given, with music by John Hilton, in his _Catch that Catch Can_, 1652, p.

7. Also in Walsh’s _Catch-Club_, ii. 13, No. 24.

Page 150. _Come, come away, to the Tavern, I say._

By Sir JOHN SUCKLING, in his unfinished tragedy “The Sad One,” Act iv.

sc. 4, where it is sung by Signior Multecarni the Poet, and two of the

actors; but without the final couplet, which recalls to memory Francis’s

rejoinder in Henry IV., pt. i. Suckling was accustomed to introduce

Shakesperian phrases into his plays, and we believe these two lines are

genuine. We find the Catch, with music by John Hilton in that composer’s

_Catch that Catch Can_, 1652, p. 15. (Also in Playford’s _Musical

Companion_, 1673, p. 24.)

Captain William Hicks has a dialogue of Two Parliamentary Troopers,

beginning with the same first line, in _Oxford Drollery_, i. 21, 1671.

Written before 1659, thus:

_Come, come away, to the Tavern, I say,_

_Whilst we have time and leisure for to think;_

_I find our State lyes tottering of late,_

_And that e’re long we sha’n’t have time to drink._

Then here’s a health to thee, to thee and me,

To me and thee, to thee and me, _&c._

Page 151. _There was an Old Man at ~Walton~ Cross._

This should read “_Waltham_ Cross.” By RICHARD BROME, in his comedy

of “The Jovial Crew,” Act ii., 1641, wherein it is sung by Hearty, as

“t’other old song for that” [the uselessness of sighing for a lass]; to

the tune of “Taunton Dean,” (see Dodsley’s _Old Plays_, 1st edit., 1744,

vi. 333). With music by John Hilton, it is given in J. H.’s _Catch that

Catch Can_, 1652, p. 31. It is also in Walsh’s _Catch Club_ (about 1705)

ii. 17, No. 43.

Page 151. _Come, let us cast dice, who shall drink._

In J. Hilton’s _Catch that Catch Can_, 1652, p. 55, with music by William

Lawes; and in John Playford’s _Musical Companion_, 1673, p. 24.

Page 151. _Never let a man take heavily, &c._

With music by William Lawes, in Hilton’s _Catch that Catch Can_, 1652, p.

38.

Page 152. _Let’s cast away care, and merrily sing._

With music by William Lawes, in Hilton’s _Catch that Catch Can_, 1652,

p. 37. Wm. Chappell gives the words of four lines, omitting fifth and

sixth, to accompany the music of Ben Jonson’s “Cock Lorrell,” in _Pop.

Mus. of O. T._, 161 (where date of the _Antidote_ is accidentally

misprinted 1651, for 1661).

Page 152. _Hang sorrow, and cast away care._

With music by William Lawes, in Hilton’s _Catch that Catch Can_, 1652, p.

39. The words alone in _Windsor Drollery_, 140, 1672. Richard Climsall,

or Climsell, has a long ballad, entitled “Joy and Sorrow Mixt Together,”

which begins,

_Hang Sorrow! let’s cast away care,_

_for now I do mean to be merry;_

_Wee’l drink some good Ale and strong Beere,_

_With Sugar, and Clarret, and Sherry._

_Now Ile have a wife of mine own:_

_I shall have no need for to borrow;_

_I would have it for to be known_

_that I shall be married to morrow._

Here’s a health to my Bride that shall be!

come, pledge it, you coon merry blades;

The day I much long for to see,

we will be as merry as the Maides.

Poor fellow! he soon changes his tune, after marriage, although singing

to the music of “Such a Rogue would be hang’d,”—better known as “Old

Sir Simon the King.” Printed by John Wright the younger (1641-83), it

survives in the Roxburghe Collection, i. 172, and is reprinted for the

Bd. Soc., i. 515. As may be seen, it is totally different from the

Catch in Hilton’s volume and the _Antidote_; which is also in _Oxford

Drollery_, Pt. 3, p. 136, there entitled “A Cup of Sack:—“_Hang Sorrow,

cast_,” &c.

It there has two more verses:—

2.

_Come Ladd, here’s a health to thy Love,_ [p. 136.]

_Do thou drink another to mine,_

_I’le never be strange, for if thou wilt change_

_I’le barter my Lady for thine:_

_She is as free, and willing to be_

_To any thing I command,_

_I vow like a friend, I never intend_

_To put a bad thing in thy hand:_

_Then be as frollick and free_ [p. 137.]

_With her as thou woul’st with thine own,_

_But let her not lack good Claret and Sack,_

_To make her come off and come on._

3.

_Come drink, we cannot want Chink,_

_Observe how my pockets do gingle,_

_And he that takes his Liquor all off_

_I here do adopt him mine ningle:_

_Then range a health to our King,_

_I mean the King of ~October~,_

_For ~Bacchus~ is he that will not agree_

_A man should go to bed sober:_

_’Tis wine, both neat and fine,_

_That is the faces adorning,_

_No Doctor can cure, with his Physick more sure,_

_Than a Cup of small Beer in the morning._

This shows how a great man’s gifts are undervalued. Christopher Sly was

truly wise (yet accounted a Sot and even a Rogue, though “the Slys are

no rogues: look in the chronicles! We came in with Richard Conqueror!”)

when, with all the wealth and luxury of the Duke at command, he demanded

nothing so much as “a pot o’ the smallest ale.” He had good need of it.

Page 152. _My Lady and her Maid, upon a merry pin._

This meets us earlier, in Hilton’s _Catch that Catch Can_, 1651, p. 64,

with music by William Ellis. The missing first verse reappears (if,

indeed, not a later addition) in _Oxford Drollery_, 1674, Part iii. p.

163, as “made at Oxford many years since”:—

_My Lady and her Maid_

_Were late at Course-a-Park:_

_The wind blew out the candle, and_

_She went to bed in the dark,_

_My Lady, &c._ [as in _Antidote ag. Mel._]

It was popular before December, 1659; allusions to it are in the _Rump_,

1662, i. 369; ii. 62, 97.

Page 153. _An old house end._

Also in _Windsor Drollery_, 1672, p. 30.

Same p. 153. _Wilt thou lend me thy Mare._

With music by Edmund Nelham, in John Hilton’s _Catch that Catch can_,

1652, p. 78. The Answer, here beginning “Your Mare is lame,” &c., we

have not met elsewhere. The Catch itself has always been a favourite.

In a world wherein, amid much neighbourly kindness, there is more than

a little of imposition, the sly cynicism of the verse could not fail

to please. Folks do not object to doing a good turn, but dislike being

deemed silly enough to have been taken at a disadvantage. So we laugh

at the Catch, say something wise, and straightway let ourselves do

good-natured things again with a clear conscience.

Page 154. _Good ~Symon~, how comes it, &c._

With music by William Howes, in Hilton’s _Catch that Catch can_, 1652,

p. 84. Also in Walsh’s _Catch-Club_, ii. 77. We are told that the

_Symon_ here addressed, regarding his Bardolphian nose, was worthy Symon

Wadloe,—“Old _Sym_, the King of Skinkers,” or Drawers. Possibly some

jocular allusion to the same reveller animates the choice ditty (for

which see the _Percy Folio MS._, iv. 124, and _Pills_, iii. 143),

_Old Sir ~Simon~ the King!_

_With his ale-dropt hose,_

_And his malmesy nose,_

_Sing hey ding, ding a ding ding._

We scarcely believe the ascription to be correct, and that “Old Symon

the King” originally referred to Simon Wadloe, who kept the “Devil and

St. Dunstan” Tavern, whereat Ben Jonson and his comrades held their

meetings as The Apollo Club; for which the _Leges Conviviales_ were

written. Seeing that Wadloe died in 1626, or ’27, and there being a clear

trace of “Old Simon the King” in 1575, in Laneham’s _Kenilworth Letter_

(Reprinted for Ballad Society, 1871, p. cxxxi.), the song appears of too

early a date to suit the theory. _Tant pis pour les faits._ But consult

Chappell’s _Pop. Mus._, 263-5, 776-7.

Same p. 154. _Wilt thou be fatt? &c._

In 1865 (see his _Bibliog. Account_, i. 25), J. P. Collier drew attention

to the mention of Falstaff’s name in this Catch; also to the other

_Shakesperiana_, viz., the complete song of “Jog on, jog on the footpath

way,” (p. 156), and the burden of “Three merry boys,” to “The Wise-men

were but Seven” (_M. D. C._, p. 232), which is connected with Sir Toby

Belch’s joviality in _Twelfth Night_, Act ii. 3.

Page 155. _Of all the birds that ever I see._

With the music, in Chappell’s _Pop. Mus. O. T._, p. 75. This favourite of

our own day dates back so early, at least, as 1609, when it appeared in

(Thomas Ravenscroft’s?) _Deuteromelia; or, the Second Part of Musick’s

Melodie, &c._, p. 7. We therein find (what has dropped out, to the damage

of our _Antidote_ version), as the final couplet:—

_Sinamont and ginger, nutmegs and cloves,_

_And that gave me my jolly red nose._

Of course, it was the spice deserved blame, not the liquor (as Sam Weller

observed, on a similar occasion, “Somehow it always _is_ the salmon”).

Those who remember (at the Johnson in Fleet Street, or among the

Harmonist Society of Edinburgh) the suggestive lingering over the first

syllable of the word “gin-ger,” when “this song is well sung,” cannot

willingly relinquish the half-line. It is a genuine relic, for it also

occurs in Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Knight of the Burning Pestle,” about

1613, Act i. sc. 3; where chirping Old Merrythought, “who sings with

never a penny in his purse,” gives it thus, while “singing and hoiting”

[i.e., skipping]:—

_Nose, nose, jolly red nose,_

_And who gave thee this jolly red nose?_

Cinnamon and ginger, nutmegs and cloves,

_And they gave me this jolly red nose_.

And we know, by _A Booke of Merrie Riddles_, 1630, and 1631, that it was

much sung:

—_then Ale-Knights should_

_To sing this song not be so bold,_

Nutmegs, Ginger, Cinamon and Cloves,

They gave us this jolly red nose.

Same p. 155. _This Ale, my bonny lads, &c._

Like Nos. 4, 21, 24, 31, &c., not yet found elsewhere.

Page 156. _What! are we met? Come. &c._

With music by Thomas Holmes, in Hilton’s _Catch that Catch can_, 1652, p.

46.

Same p. 156. _Jog on, jog on the foot path-way._

The four earliest lines of this ditty are sung by Autolycus the Pedlar,

and “picker up of unconsidered trifles,” in Shakespeare’s _Winter’s Tale_

(about 1610), Act iv. sc. 2. Whether the latter portion of the song was

also by him (nay, more, whether he actually wrote, or merely quoted even

the four opening lines), cannot be determined. We prefer to believe

that from his hand alone came the fragment, at least—this lively snatch

of melody, with good philosophy, such as the Ascetics reject, to their

own damage. No wrong is done in accepting the remainder of the song as

genuine. The final verse is orthodox, according to the Autolycusian rule

of faith. It is in _Windsor Drollery_, p. 30; and our Introduction to

_Westminster-Drollery_, p. xxxv.

Page 157. _The parcht earth drinks_, &c.

Compare, with this lame paraphrase of Anacreon’s racy Ode, the more

poetic version by Abraham Cowley, printed in _Merry Drollery, Compleat_,

p. 22 (not in 1661 ed. _Merry D._) All of Cowley’s Anacreontiques are

graceful and melodious. He and Thomas Stanley fully entered into the

spirit of them, _arcades ambo_.

Same p. 157. _A Man of Wales_, &c.

We meet this, six years earlier, in _Wits Interpreter_, 1655 edit., p.

285; 1671, p. 290. Our text is the superior.

Page 158. _Drink, drink, all you that think._

Also found in _Wit and Mirth_, 1684, p. 113.

Page 159. _Welcome, welcome, again to thy wits._

By JAMES SHIRLEY, (1590-1666) in his comedy, “The Example,” 1637, Act v.

sc. 3, where it is the Song of Sir Solitary Plot and Lady Plot. Repeated

in the _Academy of Complements_, 1670, p. 209. Until after that date, for

nearly a century, almost all the best songs had been written for stage

plays. It forms an appropriate finale, from the last Dramatist of the old

school, to the Restoration merriment, the _Antidote against Melancholy_,

of 1661.

In one of the later “Sessions of the Poets” (_vide postea_ Part 4, §

2)—probably, of 1664-5,—Shirley is referred to, ungenerously. He was then

aged nearly seventy:—

_Old ~Shirley~ stood up, and made an Excuse,_

_Because many Men before him had got;_

_He vow’d he had switch’d and spur-gall’d his Muse,_

_But still the dull Jade kept to her old trot._

He is also mentioned, with more reverence implied, by George Daniel of

Beswick; and we may well conclude this second part of our Appendix with

the final verses from the Beswick MS. (1636-53); insomuch as many Poets

are therein mentioned, to whom we return in Section Fourth:—

_The noble ~Overburies~ Quill has left_ [verse 20]

_A better Wife then he could ever find:_

_I will not search too deep, lest I should lift_

_Dust from the dead: Strange power, of womankind,_

_To raise and ruine; for all he will claime,_

_As from that sex; his Birth, his Death, his Fame._

_But I spin out too long: let me draw up_

_My thred, to honour names, of my owne time_

_Without their Eulogies, for it may stop_

_With Circumstantiall Termes, a wearie Rhime:_

_Suffice it if I name ’em; that for me_

_Shall stand, not to refuse their Eulogie._

_The noble ~Falkland~, ~Digbie~, ~Carew~, ~Maine~,_

_~Beaumond~, ~Sands~, ~Randolph~, ~Allen~, ~Rutter~, ~May~,_[13]

_The devine ~Herbert~, and the ~Fletchers~ twaine_,

_~Habinton~, ~Shirley~, ~Stapilton~; I stay_ [N.B.]

_Too much on names; yet may I not forget_

_~Davenant~, and ~Suckling~, eminent in witt._

_~Waller~, not wants, the glory of his verse;_

_And meets, a noble praise in every line;_

_What should I adde in honour? to reherse,_

_Admired ~Cleveland~? by a verse of mine?_

_Or give ye glorious Muse of ~Denham~ praise?_

_Soe withering Brambles stand, to liveing Bayes._

_These may suffice; not only to advance_

_Our ~English~ honour, but for ever crowne_

_Poesie, ’bove the reach of Ignorance;_

_Our dull fooles unmov’d, admire their owne_

_Stupiditie; and all beyond their sphere_

_As Madnes, and but tingling in the Eare._

[Final Verse.]

_Great Flame! whose raies at once have power to peirce_

_The frosted skull of Ignorance, and close_

_The mouth of Envie; if I bring a verse_

_Unapt to move; my admiration flowes_

_With humble Love and Zeale in the intent_

_To a cleare Rapture, from the Argument._

(G. D.’s “_A Vindication of Poesie_.”)

End of Notes to _Antidote_.

APPENDIX. PART 3.

§ 1.—EXTRA SONGS IN THE WESTMINSTER-DROLLERY, 1674.

“A living Drollery!” (Shakespeare’s _Tempest_, Act iii. sc. 3.)

Before concluding our present series, _The Drolleries of the

Restoration_, we have gladly given in this volume the fourteen pages of

Extra Songs contained in the 1674 edition of _Westminster-Drollery_, Part

1st. Sometimes reported as amounting to “nearly forty” (but, perhaps,

this statement referred to the Second Part inclusive), it is satisfactory

to have joined these six to their predecessors; especially insomuch that

our readers do not, like the original purchasers, have to pay such a

heavy price as losing an equal number of pages filled with far superior

songs. For, the 1671 Part First contained exactly 124 pages, and the

1674 edition has precisely the same number, neither more nor less. The

omissions are not immediately consecutive, (as are the additions, which

are gathered in one group in the final sheet, pp. 111-124.) They were

selected, with unwise discrimination, throughout the volume. Not fourteen

pages of objectionable and relinquishable _facetiæ_; but ten songs, from

among the choicest of the poems. Our own readers are in better case,

therefore: they gain the additions, without yielding any treasures of

verse in exchange.

We add a list of what are thus relinquished from the 1674 edition, noting

the pages of our _Westm. D._ on which they are to be found:—

P. 5. Wm. Wycherley’s, _A Wife I do hate_ 1671

— 10. Dryden’s, _Phillis ~Unkind~: Wherever I am_ do.

— 15. Unknown, _O you powerful gods_, ? do.

— 28. T. Shadwell’s, _Thus all our life long_, 1669

— 30. Dryden’s, Cellamina, _of my heart_, 1671

— 31. Ditto, _Beneath a myrtle shade_, do.

— 116. Ditto, Ditto (almost duplicate), do.

— 47. Ditto, _Make ready, fair Lady_, 1668

— —. Etherege’s, _To little or no purpose_, do.

— 91. T. Carew’s, _O my dearest, I shall_, &c., bef. 1638

— 100. Ditto, or Cary’s, _Farewell, fair Saint_, bef. 1652

Thus we see that most of these were quite new when the

_Westminster-Drollery_ first printed them (in four cases, at least,

before the plays had appeared as books): they were rejected three years

later for fresh novelties. But the removal of Carew’s tender poems was a

worse offence against taste.

Except the odd Quakers’ Madrigall of “Wickham Wakened” (on p. 120; our

p. 188), which is not improbably by Joe Haynes, we believe the whole

of the other five new songs of 1674 came from one work. We are unable

at once to state the name and author of the drama in which they occur.

The five are given (severely mutilated, in two instances) in _Wit at a

Venture; or, ~Clio’s~ Privy-Garden_, of the same date, 1674. Here, also,

they form a group, pp. 33-42; with a few others that probably belong to

the same play, viz., “Too weak are human eyes to pry;” “Oh that I ne’er

had known the power of Love;” “Must I be silent? no, and yet forbear;”

“Cease, wandering thought, and let her brain” (this is Shirley’s, in the

“Triumph of Beauty,” 1645); “How the vain world ambitiously aspires;”

“Heaven guard my fair _Dorinda_:” and, perhaps, “Rise, golden Fame, and

give thy name or birth.” Titles are added to most of these.

Page 179. _So wretched are the sick of Love_, is, on p. 37 of _Wit at a

Venture_, entitled Distempered Love. The third verse is omitted.

Page 181. _To Arms! To Arms! &c._, on p. 39, entitled The Souldier’s

Song; 13th line reads “Where _we_ must try.”

Page 182. _Beauty that it self can kill_, on p. 35; reading, in 20th

line, “When the fame and virtue falls || Careless courage,” &c.

Page 183. _The young, the fair, &c._, on p. 33, is entitled _The Murdered

Enemy_; reading _Clarissa_ for _Camilla_; and giving lines 17th and 19th,

“Her beauties” and “Fierce Lions,” &c. Line 23rd is “And not to check it

in the least.”

Page 184. _How frailty makes us to our wrong._

Called A Moral Song in _Wit at a Venture_, p. 41, which rightly reads

“grovel,” not “gravel,” in line 6; but omits third verse, and all the

Chorus.

Page 188. _The Quaker and his Brats._

We have not seen this elsewhere. Attributed to “the famous actor, JOSEPH

HAINES,” or “Joe Haynes,”

_Who, while alive, in playing took great pains,_

_Performing all his acts with curious art,_

_Till Death appear’d, and smote him with his dart._

His portrait, as when riding on a Jack-ass, in 1697, is extant. He died

4th April, 1701, and was mourned by the Smithfield muses.

§ 2.—ADDITIONAL NOTES

To the 1671-72 Editions of

WESTMINSTER-DROLLERY.

Page 81. _Is she gone? let her go._

This is a parody or mock on a black-letter ballad in the Roxburghe

Collection, ii. 102, entitled “The Deluded Lasses Lamentation: or, the

False Youth’s Unkindness to his Beloved Mistress.” Its own tune. Printed

for P. Brooksby, J. Deacon, J. Blare, J. Black. In four-line verses,

beginning:—

_Is she gone? let her go, I do not care,_

_Though she has a dainty thing, I had my share:_

_She has more land than I by one whole Acre,_

_I have plowed in her field, who will may take her._