I have been surprised, from the facility with which the author of "Drunken
Barnaby" seems to pour out his Leonine verse, that no other productions of
a similar character are known to have issued from his pen. I am not aware
that the following drinking song, which may fairly be attributed to him,
has ever appeared in print. It was evidently unknown to the worthy
Haslewood, the crowning glory of whose literary career was the happy
discovery of the author, Richard Braithwait. I transcribe it from the MS.
volume from which James Boswell first gave to the world Shakspeare's verses
"On the King." Southey has somewhere said that "the best serious piece of
Latin in modern metre is Sir Francis Kinaston's _Amores Troili et
Cressidæ_, a translation of the two first books of Chaucer's Poem[1]; but
it was reserved for _famous_ BARNABY to employ the barbarous ornament of
rhyme, so as to give thereby point and character to good Latinity."
Southey does not seem to have known those remarkable productions of the
middle ages, which have been made accessible to us by the researches of
Docen, of Grimm, of Schmeller, and of Mr. Wright; and, above all, of that
exquisite gem, "De Phyllide et Flora," first printed by Docen[2], and since
given by Mr. Wright in his collection of _Poems attributed to Walter de
Mapes_. We have, however, a much better text from the hand of Jacob Grimm,
in the _Memoirs of the Academy of Berlin for 1843_, p. 239. Of this poem it
is perhaps not exaggeration to say, that it is an Idyll which would have
done honour to the literature of any age or country; and if it is the
production of Walter de Mapes, we have reason to be proud of it. It is a
dispute between two maidens on the qualities of their lovers, the one being
a soldier, the other a priest. It breathes of the spring, of nature, and of
love:
"Erant ambæ virgines et ambæ reginæ
Phyllis coma libera Flora comto crine,
Non sunt formæ virginum sed formæ divinæ,
Et respondent facies luci matutinæ.
Nec stirpe, nec facie, nec ornatu viles,
Et annos et animos habent juveniles
Sed sunt parum inpares, et parum hostiles
Nam hinc placet clericus illi vero miles."
{298} Love is called in to decide the dispute, and it causes no surprise to
find, after due ventilation of the cause, the judgment of the court to be:
"Secundum scientiam et secundum morem,
AD AMOREM CLERICUM DICUNT APTIOREM."
Your readers who are not already acquainted with this interesting picture
of ancient manners will, I think, be pleased with having it pointed out to
their notice.
Should the following song not be already in print, I can also furnish from
the same source a version of the ballad on "Robin Goodfellow" by the same
hand, should it be acceptable.[3]