conjectural emendations.' At the suggestion of my friend,
the Rev. Mr. Hunt, I have restored the original readings,
as in truer consonancy with the vainglorious, insolent, and
swaggering ballad spirit. As for the hero, Peregrine Bertie,
Lord Willoughby of Eresby, described as 'one of the Queen's
best swordsmen' and 'a great master of the art military,' he
succeeded Leicester in the command in the Low Countries in 1587,
distinguished himself repeatedly in fight with the Spaniards,
and died in 1601. 'Both Norris and Turner were famous among the
military men of that age' (Percy). In the Roxburgh Ballads the
full title of the broadside--which is 'printed for S. Coles in
Vine St., near Hatton Garden,'--is as follows:--'_A true relation
of a famous and bloudy Battell fought in Flanders by the noble
and valiant Lord Willoughby with 1500 English against 40,000
Spaniards, wherein the English obtained a notable victory for
the glory and renown of our nation._ Tune: _Lord Willoughby_.'
XXVIII
First printed by Tom D'Urfey, _Wit and Mirth, etc._ (1720),
vi. 289-91; revised by Robert Burns for _The Scots Musical
Magazine_, and again by Allan Cunningham for _The Songs
of Scotland_; given with many differences, 'long current in
Selkirkshire,' in the _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_. The
present version is a _rifaccimento_ from Burns and Scott. It is
worth noting that GrÊme (pronounced 'Grime'), and Graham are both
forms of one name, which name was originally Grimm, and that,
according to some, the latter orthography is the privilege of
the chief of the clan.
XXIX
First printed in the _Minstrelsy_. This time the 'history'
is authentic enough. It happened early in 1596, when Salkeld,
the Deputy Warden of the Western Marches, seized under truce the
person of William Armstrong of Kinmont--elsewhere described as
'Will Kinmonde the common thieffe'--and haled him to Carlisle
Castle, whence he was rescued--'with shouting and crying and sound
of trumpet'--by the Laird of Buccleuch, Keeper of Liddesdale,
and a troop of two hundred horse. 'The Queen of England,'
says Spottiswoode, 'having notice sent her of what was done,
stormed not a little'; but see the excellent summary compiled
by Scott (who confesses to having touched up the ballad) for
the _Minstrelsy_.
Haribee = _the gallows hill at Carlisle_
reiver = _a border thief_, one of a class which lived sparely,
fought stoutly, entertained the strictest sense of
honour and justice, went ever on horseback, and
carried the art of cattle-lifting to the highest
possible point of perfection (_National Observer,
30th May, 1891_)
yett = _gate_
lawing = _reckoning_
basnet = _helmet_
curch = _coif or cap_
lightly = _to scorn_
in a lowe = _on fire_
slocken = _to slake_
splent = _shoulder-piece_
spauld = _shoulder_
broken men = _outlaws_
marshal men = _officers of law_
rank reiver = _common thief_
herry = _harry_
corbie = _crow_
lear = _learning_
row-footed = _rough-shod_
spait = _flood_
garred = _made_
slogan = _battle-cry_
stear = _stir_
saft = _light_
fleyed = _frightened_
bairns = _children_
spier = _ask_
hente = _lifted_, _haled_
maill = _rent_
furs = _furrows_
trew = _trust_
Christentie = _Christendom_
XXX
Communicated by Mr. Hunt,--who dates it about 1626--from
Seyer's _Memoirs, Historical and Topographical, of Bristol and
its Neighbourhood_ (1821-23). The full title is _The Honour of
Bristol: shewing how the Angel Gabriel of Bristol fought with
three ships, who boarded as many times, wherein we cleared our
decks and killed five hundred of their men, and wounded many more,
and made them fly into Cales, when we lost but three men, to the
Honour of the Angel Gabriel of Bristol_. To the tune _Our Noble
King in his Progress_. Cales (13), pronounced as a dissyllable,
is of course Cadiz. It is fair to add that this spirited and
amusing piece of doggerel has been severely edited.
XXXI
From the _Minstrelsy_, where it is 'given, without alteration
or improvement, from the most accurate copy that could be
recovered.' The story runs that Helen Irving (or Helen Bell),
of Kirkconnell in Dumfriesshire, was beloved by Adam Fleming,
and (as some say) Bell of Blacket House; that she favoured the
first but her people encouraged the second; that she was thus
constrained to tryst with Fleming by night in the churchyard,
'a romantic spot, almost surrounded by the river Kirtle'; that
they were here surprised by the rejected suitor, who fired at
his rival from the far bank of the stream; that Helen, seeking
to shield her lover, was shot in his stead; and that Fleming,
either there and then, or afterwards in Spain, avenged her
death on the body of her slayer. Wordsworth has told the story
in a copy of verses which shows, like so much more of his work,
how dreary a poetaster he could be.
XXXII
This epic-in-little, as tremendous an invention as exists in
verse, is from the _Minstrelsy_: 'as written down from tradition
by a lady' (C. Kirkpatrick Sharpe).
corbies = _crows_
fail-dyke = _wall of turf_
hause-bane = _breast-bone_
theek = _thatch_
XXXIII
Begun in 1755, and finished and printed (with _The Progress
of Poetry_) in 1757. 'Founded,' says the poet, 'on a tradition
current in Wales, that Edward the First, when he concluded the
conquest of that country, ordered all the bards that fell into
his hands to be put to death.' The 'agonising king' (line 56)
is Edward II.; the 'she-wolf of France' (57), Isabel his queen;
the 'scourge of heaven' (60), Edward III.; the 'sable warrior'
(67), Edward the Black Prince. Lines 75-82 commemorate the rise
and fall of Richard II.; lines 83-90, the Wars of the Roses, the
murders in the Tower, the 'faith' of Margaret of Anjou, the 'fame'
of Henry V., the 'holy head' of Henry VI. The 'bristled boar'
(93) is symbolical of Richard III.; 'half of thy heart' (99)
of Eleanor of Castile, 'who died a few years after the conquest
of Wales.' Line 110 celebrates the accession of the House of
Tudor in fulfilment of the prophecies of Merlin and Taliessin;
lines 115-20, Queen Elizabeth; lines 128-30, Shakespeare;
lines 131-32, Milton; and the 'distant warblings' of line 133,
'the succession of poets after Milton's time' (Gray).
XXXIV, XXXV
Written, the one in September 1782 (in the August of which year
the _Royal George_ (108 guns) was overset in Portsmouth Harbour
with the loss of close on a thousand souls), and the other
'after reading Hume's _History_ in 1780' (Benham).
XXXVI
It is worth recalling that at one time Walter Scott attributed
this gallant lyric, which he printed in the _Minstrelsy_, to a
'greater Graham'--the Marquis of Montrose.
XXXVII, XXXVIII
Of these, the first, _Blow High, Blow Low_, was sung in _The
Seraglio_ (1776), a forgotten opera; the second, said to have
been inspired by the death of the author's brother, a naval
officer, in _The Oddities_ (1778)--a 'table-entertainment,'
where Dibdin was author, actor, singer, musician, accompanist,
everything but audience and candle-snuffer. They are among the
first in time of his sea-ditties.
XXXIX
It is told (_Life_, W. H. Curran, 1819) that Curran met a
deserter, drank a bottle, and talked of his chances, with him,
and put his ideas and sentiments into this song.
XL
The _Arethusa_, Mr. Hannay tells me, being attached to Keppel's
fleet at the mouth of the Channel, was sent to order the
_Belle Poule_, which was cruising with some smaller craft in
search of Keppel's ships, to come under his stern. The _Belle
Poule_ (commanded by M. Chadeau de la Clocheterie) refusing,
the _Arethusa_ (Captain Marshall) opened fire. The ships were
fairly matched, and in the action which ensued the _Arethusa_
appears to have got the worst of it. In the end, after about
an hour's fighting, Keppel's liners came up, and the _Belle
Poule_ made off. She was afterwards driven ashore by a superior
English force, and it is an odd coincidence that in 1789 the
_Arethusa_ ran ashore off Brest during her action (10th March)
with _l'Aigrette_. As for the French captain, he lived to command
_l'Hercule_, De Grasse's leading ship in the great sea-fight
(12th April 1782) with Rodney off Dominica, where he was killed.
XLI
From the _Songs of Experience_ (1794).
XLII
_Scots Musical Museum_, 1788. Adapted from, or rather suggested
by, the _Farewell_, which Macpherson, a cateran 'of great personal
strength and musical accomplishment,' is said to have played and
sung at the gallows foot; thereafter breaking his violin across
his knee and submitting his neck to the hangman.
spring = _a melody in quick time_
sturt = _molestation_
XLIII
_Museum_, 1796. Burns told Thomson and Mrs. Dunlop that this
noble and most moving song was old; but nobody believed him then,
and nobody believes him now.
pint-stoup = _pint-mug_
braes = _hill-sides_
gowans = _daisies_
paidl't = _paddled_
burn = _brook_
fiere = _friend_, _companion_
guid-willie = _well-meant_, _full of good-will_
waught = _draught_
XLIV
The first four lines are old. The rest were written apparently in
1788, when the poet sent this song and _Auld Lang Syne_ to Mrs.
Dunlop. It appeared in the _Museum_, 1790.
tassie = _a cup_; _Fr._ 'tasse'
XLV
About 1777-80: printed 1801. 'One of my juvenile works,' says
Burns. 'I do not think it very remarkable, either for its merits
or demerits.' But Hazlitt thought the world of it, and now it
passes for one of Burns's masterpieces.
trysted = _appointed_
stoure = _dust and din_
XLVI
_Museum_, 1796. Attributed, in one shape or another, to a
certain Captain Ogilvie. Sharpe, too, printed a broadside in
which the third stanza (used more than once by Sir Walter)
is found as here. But Scott Douglas (_Burns_, iii. 173) has
'no doubt that this broadside was printed after 1796,' and as
it stands the thing is assuredly the work of Burns. The refrain
and the metrical structure have been used by Scott (_Rokeby_,
IV. 28), Carlyle, Charles Kingsley (_Dolcino to Margaret_),
and Mr. Swinburne (_A Reiver's Neck Verse_) among others.
XLVII-LII
Of the first four numbers, the high-water mark of Wordsworth's
achievement, all four were written in 1802; the second and third
were published in 1803; the first and fourth in 1807. The _Ode to
Duty_ was written in 1805, and published in 1807, to which year
belongs that _Song for the Feast of Brougham Castle_, from which
I have extracted the excellent verses here called _Two Victories_.
LIII-LXII
The first three numbers are from _Marmion_ (1808):
I. Introduction; V. 12; and VI. 18-20, 25-27, and 33-34. The
next is from _The Lady of the Lake_ (1810), I. 1-9: _The Outlaw_
is from _Rokeby_ (1813), III. 16; the _Pibroch_ was published
in 1816; _The Omnipotent_ and _The Red Harlaw_ are from
_The Antiquary_ (1816), and the _Farewell_ from _The Pirate_
(1821). As for _Bonny Dundee_, that incomparable ditty, it was
written as late as 1825. 'The air of Bonny Dundee running in
my head to-day,' he writes under date of 22d December (_Diary_,
1890, i. 61), 'I wrote a few verses to it before dinner, taking
the key-note from the story of Clavers leaving the Scottish
Convention of Estates in 1688-9. _I wonder if they are good._'
See _The Doom of Devorgoil_ (1830), Note A, Act II. sc. 2.
LXIII
This unsurpassed piece of art, in which a music the most exquisite
is used to body forth a set of suggestions that seem dictated by
the very Spirit of Romance, was produced, under the influence of
'an anodyne,' as early as 1797. Coleridge, who calls it _Kubla
Khan: A Vision within a Dream_, avers that, having fallen asleep
in his chair over a sentence from Purchas's Pilgrimage--'Here
the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built and a stately
garden thereto; and thus ten miles of ground were enclosed with
a wall,'--he remained unconscious for about three hours, 'during
which time he had the most vivid confidence that he could not
have composed less than three hundred lines'; 'if that,' he adds,
'can be called composition, in which all the images rose up before
him as things, with a parallel production of the correspondent
expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of effort.' On
awakening, he proceeded to write out his 'composition,' and
had set down as much of it as is printed here, when 'he was
unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock,'
whose departure, an hour after, left him wellnigh oblivious
of the rest. This confession, which is dated 1816, has been
generally accepted as true; but Coleridge had a trick of dreaming
dreams about himself which makes doubt permissible.
LXIV
From the _Hellenics_ (written in Latin, 1814-20, and translated
into English at the instance of Lady Blessington), 1846. See
Colvin, _Landor_ ('English Men of Letters'), pp. 189, 190.
LXV-LXVII
Of the first, 'Napoleon and the British Sailor' (_The Pilgrim
of Glencoe_, 1842), Campbell writes that the 'anecdote has
been published in several public journals, both French and
English.' 'My belief,' he continues, 'in its authenticity was
confirmed by an Englishman, long resident in Boulogne, lately
telling me that he remembered the circumstance to have been
generally talked of in the place.' Authentic or not, I have
preferred the story to _Hohenlinden_, as less hackneyed, for one
thing, and, for another, less pretentious and rhetorical. The
second (_Gertrude of Wyoming_, 1809) is truly one of 'the glories
of our birth and state.' The third (_idem_) I have ventured to
shorten by three stanzas: a proceeding which, however culpable it
seem, at least gets rid of the chief who gave a country's wounds
relief by stopping a battle, eliminates the mermaid and her song
(the song that 'condoles'), and ends the lyric on as sonorous
and romantic a word as even Shakespeare ever used.
LXVIII
_Corn Law Rhymes_, 1831.
LXIX
From that famous and successful forgery, Cromek's _Remains of
Nithsdale and Galloway Song_ (1810), written when Allan was
a working mason in Dumfriesshire. I have omitted a stanza as
inferior to the rest.
LXXI
_English Songs and other Small Poems_, 1834.
LXXII-LXXVIII
The first is from the _Hebrew Melodies_ (1815); the next is
selected from _The Siege of Corinth_ (1816), 22-33; _Alhama_
(_idem_) is a spirited yet faithful rendering of the _Romance
muy Doloroso del Sitio y Toma de Alhama_, which existed both in
Spanish and in Arabic, and whose effect was such that 'it was
forbidden to be sung by the Moors on the pain of death in Granada'
(Byron); No. LXXV., surely one of the bravest songs in the
language, was addressed (_idem_) to Thomas Moore; the tremendous
_Race with Death_ is lifted out of the _Ode in Venice_ (1819);
for the next number see _Don Juan_, III. (1821); the last of all,
'Stanzas inscribed _On this day I completed my Thirty-sixth year_'
(1824), is the last verse that Byron wrote.
LXXIX
Napier has described the terrific effect of Napoleon's pursuit;
but in the operations before Corunna he was distanced, if not
out-generalled, by Sir John Moore, and ere the first days of
1809 he gave his command to Soult, who pressed us vainly through
the hill-country between Leon and Gallicia, and got beaten
at Corunna for his pains. Wolfe, who was an Irish parson and
died of consumption, wrote some spirited verses on the flight
of Busaco, but this admirable elegy--'I will show you,' said
Byron to Shelley (Medwin, ii. 154) 'one you have never seen,
that I consider little if at all inferior to the best, the
present prolific age has brought forth'--remains his passport
to immortality. It was printed, not by the author, in an Irish
newspaper; was copied all over Britain; was claimed by liar after
liar in succession; and has been reprinted more often, perhaps,
than any poem of the century.
LXXX
From _Snarleyow, or the Dog Fiend_ (1837). Compare Nelson to
Collingwood: '_Victory_, 25th June, 1805,--May God bless you
and send you alongside the _Santissima Trinidad_.'
LXXXI, LXXXII
The story of Casabianca is, I believe, untrue; but the intention
of the singer, alike in this number and in the next, is excellent.
Each indeed is, in its way, a classic. The _Mayflower_ sailed
from Southampton in 1626.
LXXXIII
This magnificent sonnet, _On First Reading Chapman's Homer_,
was printed in 1817. The 'Cortez' of the eleventh verse is a
mistake; the discoverer of the Pacific being NuÒez de Balboa.
LXXXIV-LXXXVII
The _Lays_ are dated 1824; they have passed through edition
after edition; and if Matthew Arnold disliked and contemned them
(see Sir F. H. Doyle, _Reminiscences and Opinions_, pp. 178-87),
the general is wise enough to know them by heart. But a book that
is 'a catechism to fight' (in Jonson's phrase) would have sinned
against itself had it taken no account of them, and I have given
_Horatius_ in its integrity: if only, as Landor puts it,
To show the British youth, who ne'er
Will lag behind, what Romans were,
When all the Tuscans and their Lars
Shouted, and shook the towers of Mars.
As for _The Armada_, I have preferred it to _The Battle of
Naseby_, first, because it is neither vicious nor ugly, and
the other is both; and, second, because it is so brilliant an
outcome of that capacity for dealing with proper names which
Macaulay, whether poet or not, possesses in common with none
but certain among the greater poets. For _The Last Buccaneer_
(a curious anticipation of some effects of Mr. Rudyard Kipling),
and that noble thing, the _Jacobite's Epitaph_, they are dated
1839 and 1845 respectively.
LXXXVIII
_The Poetical Works of Robert Stephen Hawker_ (Kegan Paul,
1879). By permission of Mrs. R. S. Hawker. 'With the exception
of the choral lines--
And shall Trelawney die?
There's twenty thousand Cornishmen
Will know the reason why!--
and which have been, ever since the imprisonment by James II. of
the Seven Bishops--one of them Sir Jonathan Trelawney--a popular
proverb throughout Cornwall, the whole of this song was composed
by me in the year 1825. I wrote it under a stag-horned oak in Sir
Beville's Walk in Stowe Wood. It was sent by me anonymously to a
Plymouth paper, and there it attracted the notice of Mr. Davies
Gilbert, who reprinted it at his private press at Eastbourne under
the avowed impression that it was the original ballad. It had
the good fortune to win the eulogy of Sir Walter Scott, who also
deemed it to be the ancient song. It was praised under the same
persuasion by Lord Macaulay and Mr. Dickens.'--_Author's Note._
LXXXIX-XCII
From _The Sea Side and the Fire Side_, 1851; _Birds of Passage_,
_Flight the First_, and _Flight the Second_; and _Flower de
Luce_, 1866. Of these four examples of the picturesque and
taking art of Longfellow, I need say no more than that all are
printed in their integrity, with the exception of the first. This
I leave the lighter by a moral and an application, both of which,
superfluous or not, are remote from the general purpose of this
book: a confession in which I may include the following number,
Mr. Whittier's _Barbara Frietchie_ (_In War-Time_, 1863.)
XCIV
_Nineteenth Century_, March 1878; _Ballads and other Poems_,
1880. By permission of Messrs. Macmillan, to whom I am indebted
for some of my choicest numbers. For the story of Sir Richard
Grenville's heroic death, 'in the last of August,' 1591--after
the Revenge had endured the onset of 'fifteen several armadas,'
and received some 'eight hundred shot of great artillerie,'--see
Hakluyt (1598-1600), ii. 169-176, where you will find it told
with singular animation and directness by Sir Walter Raleigh,
who held a brief against the Spaniards in Sir Richard's case
as always. To Sir Richard's proposal to blow up the ship the
master gunner 'readily condescended,' as did 'divers others';
but the captain was of 'another opinion,' and in the end Sir
Richard was taken aboard the ship of the Spanish admiral, Don
Alfonso de Bazan, who used him well and honourably until he
died: leaving to his friends the 'comfort that being dead he
hath not outlived his own honour,' and that he had nobly shown
how false and vain, and therefore how contrary to God's will,
the 'ambitious and bloudie practices of the Spaniards' were.
XCV
_Tiresias and Other Poems_, 1885. By permission of Messrs.
Macmillan. Included at Lord Tennyson's own suggestion. For the
noble feat of arms (25th October 1854) thus nobly commemorated,
see Kinglake (v. i. 102-66). 'The three hundred of the Heavy
Brigade who made this famous charge were the Scots Greys and the
second squadron of Enniskillings, the remainder of the "Heavy
Brigade" subsequently dashing up to their support. The "three"
were Scarlett's aide-de-camp, Elliot, and the trumpeter, and
Shegog the orderly, who had been close behind him.'--_Author's
Note._
XCVI, XCVII
_The Return of the Guards, and other Poems_, 1866. By permission
of Messrs. Macmillan. As to the first, which deals with an
incident of the war with China, and is presumably referred
to in 1860, 'Some Seiks and a private of the Buffs (or East
Kent Regiment) having remained behind with the grog-carts,
fell into the hands of the Chinese. On the next morning they
were brought before the authorities and commanded to perform
the _Ko tou_. The Seiks obeyed; but Moyse, the English soldier,
declaring that he would not prostrate himself before any Chinaman
alive, was immediately knocked upon the head and his body thrown
upon a dunghill.'--Quoted by the author from _The Times_. The
Elgin of line 6 is Henry Bruce, eighth Lord Elgin (1811-1863),
then Ambassador to China, and afterwards Governor-General of
India. Compare _Theology in Extremis_ (_post_, p. 309). Of the
second, which Mr. Saintsbury describes 'as one of the most lofty,
insolent, and passionate things concerning this matter that our
time has produced,' Sir Francis notes that the incident--no doubt
a part of the conquest of Sindh--was told him by Sir Charles
Napier, and that 'Truckee' (line 12) = 'a stronghold in the
Desert, supposed to be unassailable and impregnable.'
XCVIII, XCIX
By permission of Messrs. Smith, Elder, and Co. _Dramatic Lyrics_,
1845; _Cornhill Magazine_, June 1871, and _Pacchiarotto_, 1876,
Works, iv. and xiv. I can find nothing about HervÈ Riel.
C-CIII
The two first are from the 'Song of Myself,' _Leaves of Grass_
(1855); the others from _Drum Taps_ (1865). See _Leaves of Grass_
(Philadelphia, 1884), pp. 60, 62-63, 222, and 246.
CIV, CV
By permission of Messrs. Macmillan. Dated severally 1857 and 1859.
CVI
_Edinburgh Courant_, 1852. Compare _The Loss of the 'Birkenhead'_
in _The Return of the Guards, and other Poems_ (Macmillan, 1883),
pp. 256-58. Of the troopship _Birkenhead_ I note that she sailed
from Queenstown on the 7th January 1852, with close on seven
hundred souls on board; that the most of these were soldiers--of
the Twelfth Lancers, the Sixtieth Rifles, the Second, Sixth,
Forty-third, Forty-fifth, Seventy-third, Seventy-fourth, and
Ninety-first Regiments; that she struck on a rock (26th February
1852) off Simon's Bay, South Africa; that the boats would hold
no more than a hundred and thirty-eight, and that, the women
and children being safe, the men that were left--four hundred
and fifty-four, all told--were formed on deck by their officers,
and went down with the ship, true to colours and discipline till
the end.
CVII-CIX
By permission of Messrs. Macmillan. From _Empedocles on Etna_
(1853). As regards the second number, it may be noted that Sohrab,
being in quest of his father Rustum, to whom he is unknown,
offers battle as one of the host of the Tartar King Afrasiab,
to any champion of the Persian Kai Khosroo. The challenge is
accepted by Rustum, who fights as a nameless knight (like Wilfrid
of Ivanhoe at the Gentle and Joyous Passage of Ashby), and so
becomes the unwitting slayer of his son. For the story of the
pair the poet refers his readers to Sir John Malcom's _History of
Persia_. See _Poems_, by Matthew Arnold (Macmillan), i. 268, 269.
CX, CXI
_Ionica_ (Allen, 1891). By permission of the Author. _School
Fencibles_ (1861) was 'printed, not published, in 1877.' _The
Ballad for a Boy_, Mr. Cory writes, 'was never printed till
this year.'
CXII