NOTES.

A Mourning-Song for the Death of Sir Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke.Whereshall a sorrow great enough be soughtFor this sad ruin which the Fates have wrought,Unless the Fates themselves should weep and wishTheir curbless power had been controlled in this?For thy loss, worthiest Lord, no mourning eyeHas flood enough; no muse nor elegyEnough expression to thy worth can lend;No, though thy Sidney had survived his friend.Dead, noble Brooke shall be to us a nameOf grief and honour still, whose deathless fameSuch Virtue purchased as makes us to beUnjust to Nature in lamenting thee;Wailing an old man’s fate as if in prideAnd heat of Youth he had untimely died.

A Mourning-Song for the Death of Sir Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke.

Whereshall a sorrow great enough be sought

FromCampionandRosseter’sBook of Airs, 1601.

σκηνὴ πᾶς ὁ βίος, καὶ παίγνιον.Pallad.

Whethermen do laugh or weep,Whether they do wake or sleep,Whether they die young or old,Whether they feel heat or cold;There is underneath the sunNothing in true earnest done.All our pride is but a jest,None are worst and none are best;Grief and joy and hope and fearPlay their pageants everywhere:Vain Opinion all doth sway,And the world is but a play.Powers above in clouds do sit,Mocking our poor apish wit,That so lamely with such stateTheir high glory imitate.No ill can be felt but pain,And that happy men disdain.

Whethermen do laugh or weep,Whether they do wake or sleep,Whether they die young or old,Whether they feel heat or cold;There is underneath the sunNothing in true earnest done.

Whethermen do laugh or weep,

All our pride is but a jest,None are worst and none are best;Grief and joy and hope and fearPlay their pageants everywhere:Vain Opinion all doth sway,And the world is but a play.

Powers above in clouds do sit,Mocking our poor apish wit,That so lamely with such stateTheir high glory imitate.No ill can be felt but pain,And that happy men disdain.

FromWilliam Byrd’sSongs of Sundry Natures, 1589.

Whilethat the sun with his beams hotScorchèd the fruits in vale and mountain,Philon, the shepherd, late forgotSitting beside a chrystal fountainIn shadow of a green oak-tree,Upon his pipe this song play’d he:Adieu, Love! adieu, Love! untrue Love!Untrue Love, untrue Love! adieu, Love!Your mind is light, soon lost for new love.So long as I was in your sight,I was your heart, your soul, your treasure;And evermore you sobb’d and sigh’d,Burning in flames beyond all measure.Three days endured your love for me,And it was lost in other three.Adieu, Love! adieu, Love! untrue Love!Untrue Love, untrue Love! adieu, Love!Your mind is light, soon lost for new love.Another shepherd you did see,To whom your heart was soon enchainèd;Full soon your love was leapt from me,Full soon my place he had obtainèd:Soon came a third your love to win;And we were out, and he was in.Adieu, Love! adieu, Love! untrue Love!Untrue Love, untrue Love! adieu, Love!Your mind is light, soon lost for new Love.Sure, you have made me passing gladThat you your mind so soon removèd,Before that I the leisure hadTo choose you for my best belovèd:For all my love was past and doneTwo days, before it was begun.Adieu, Love! adieu, Love! untrue Love!Untrue Love, untrue Love! adieu, Love!Your mind is light, soon lost for new love.

Whilethat the sun with his beams hot

So long as I was in your sight,I was your heart, your soul, your treasure;And evermore you sobb’d and sigh’d,Burning in flames beyond all measure.Three days endured your love for me,And it was lost in other three.Adieu, Love! adieu, Love! untrue Love!Untrue Love, untrue Love! adieu, Love!Your mind is light, soon lost for new love.

Another shepherd you did see,To whom your heart was soon enchainèd;Full soon your love was leapt from me,Full soon my place he had obtainèd:Soon came a third your love to win;And we were out, and he was in.Adieu, Love! adieu, Love! untrue Love!Untrue Love, untrue Love! adieu, Love!Your mind is light, soon lost for new Love.

Sure, you have made me passing gladThat you your mind so soon removèd,Before that I the leisure hadTo choose you for my best belovèd:For all my love was past and doneTwo days, before it was begun.Adieu, Love! adieu, Love! untrue Love!Untrue Love, untrue Love! adieu, Love!Your mind is light, soon lost for new love.

FromThomas Weelkes’Ballets and Madrigals, 1598.

Whilstyouthful sports are lasting,To feasting turn our fasting.Fa la la!With revels and with wassailsMake grief and care our vassals.Fa la la!For youth it well beseemethThat pleasure he esteemeth.Fa la la!And sullen age is hatedThat mirth would have abated.Fa la la!

Whilstyouthful sports are lasting,To feasting turn our fasting.Fa la la!

Whilstyouthful sports are lasting,

With revels and with wassailsMake grief and care our vassals.Fa la la!

For youth it well beseemethThat pleasure he esteemeth.Fa la la!

And sullen age is hatedThat mirth would have abated.Fa la la!

FromJohn Dowland’sSecond Book of Songs or Airs, 1600.

Whiteas lilies was her face:When she smilèdShe beguilèd,Quitting faith with foul disgrace.Virtue’s service thus neglected.Heart with sorrows hath infected.When I swore my heart her own,She disdainèd;I complainèd,Yet she left me overthrown:Careless of my bitter grieving,Ruthless, bent to no relieving.Vows and oaths and faith assured,Constant ever,Changing never,—Yet she could not be procuredTo believe my pains exceedingFrom her scant respect proceeding.O that love should have the art,By surmises,And disguises,To destroy a faithful heart;Or that wanton-looking womenShould reward their friends as foemen.All in vain is ladies’ love—Quickly choosèd.Shortly loosèd;For their pride is to remove.Out, alas! their looks first won us,And their pride hath straight undone us.To thyself, the sweetest Fair!Thou hast wounded,And confoundedChangeless faith with foul despair;And my service hast envièdAnd my succours hast denièd.By thine error thou hast lostHeart unfeignèd,Truth unstainèd.And the swain that lovèd most,More assured in love than many,Move despised in love than any.For my heart, though set at nought,Since you will it,Spoil and kill it!I will never change my thought:But grieve that beauty e’er was bornThus to answer love with scorn.

Whiteas lilies was her face:When she smilèdShe beguilèd,Quitting faith with foul disgrace.Virtue’s service thus neglected.Heart with sorrows hath infected.

Whiteas lilies was her face:

When I swore my heart her own,She disdainèd;I complainèd,Yet she left me overthrown:Careless of my bitter grieving,Ruthless, bent to no relieving.

Vows and oaths and faith assured,Constant ever,Changing never,—Yet she could not be procuredTo believe my pains exceedingFrom her scant respect proceeding.

O that love should have the art,By surmises,And disguises,To destroy a faithful heart;Or that wanton-looking womenShould reward their friends as foemen.

All in vain is ladies’ love—Quickly choosèd.Shortly loosèd;For their pride is to remove.Out, alas! their looks first won us,And their pride hath straight undone us.

To thyself, the sweetest Fair!Thou hast wounded,And confoundedChangeless faith with foul despair;And my service hast envièdAnd my succours hast denièd.

By thine error thou hast lostHeart unfeignèd,Truth unstainèd.And the swain that lovèd most,More assured in love than many,Move despised in love than any.

For my heart, though set at nought,Since you will it,Spoil and kill it!I will never change my thought:But grieve that beauty e’er was bornThus to answer love with scorn.

FromFrancis Pilkington’sFirst Book of Songs or Airs, 1605.

Whitherso fast? see how the kindly flowersPerfume the air, and all to make thee stay:The climbing wood-bine, clipping all these bowers,Clips thee likewise for fear thou pass away;Fortune our friend, our foe will not gainsay.Stay but awhile, Phœbe no tell-tale is;She her Endymion, I’ll my Phœbe kiss.Fear not, the ground seeks but to kiss thy feet;Hark, hark, how Philomela sweetly sings!Whilst water-wanton fishes as they meetStrike crotchet time amidst these crystal springs,And Zephyrus amongst the leaves sweet murmur rings.Stay but awhile, Phœbe no tell-tale is;She her Endymion, I’ll my Phœbe kiss.See how the helitrope, herb of the sun,Though he himself long since be gone to bed,Is not of force thine eye’s bright beams to shun,But with their warmth his goldy leaves unspread,And on my knee invites thee rest thy head.Stay but awhile, Phœbe no tell-tale is;She her Endymion, I’ll my Phœbe kiss.

Whitherso fast? see how the kindly flowers

Fear not, the ground seeks but to kiss thy feet;Hark, hark, how Philomela sweetly sings!Whilst water-wanton fishes as they meetStrike crotchet time amidst these crystal springs,And Zephyrus amongst the leaves sweet murmur rings.Stay but awhile, Phœbe no tell-tale is;She her Endymion, I’ll my Phœbe kiss.

See how the helitrope, herb of the sun,Though he himself long since be gone to bed,Is not of force thine eye’s bright beams to shun,But with their warmth his goldy leaves unspread,And on my knee invites thee rest thy head.Stay but awhile, Phœbe no tell-tale is;She her Endymion, I’ll my Phœbe kiss.

FromWilliam Byrd’sPsalms, Sonnets, and Songs, 1588.

Wholikes to love, let him take heed!And wot you why?Among the gods it is decreedThat Love shall die;And every wight that takes his partShall forfeit each a mourning heart.The cause is this, as I have heard:A sort of dames,Whose beauty he did not regardNor secret flames,Complained before the gods aboveThat gold corrupts the god of love.The gods did storm to hear this news,And there they swore,That sith he did such dames abuseHe should no moreBe god of love, but that he shouldBoth die and forfeit all his gold.His bow and shafts they took awayBefore his eyes,And gave these dames a longer dayFor to deviseWho should them keep, and they be boundThat love for gold should not be found.These ladies striving long, at lastThey did agreeTo give them to a maiden chaste,Whom I did see,Who with the same did pierce my breast:Her beauty’s rare, and so I rest.

Wholikes to love, let him take heed!And wot you why?Among the gods it is decreedThat Love shall die;And every wight that takes his partShall forfeit each a mourning heart.

Wholikes to love, let him take heed!

The cause is this, as I have heard:A sort of dames,Whose beauty he did not regardNor secret flames,Complained before the gods aboveThat gold corrupts the god of love.

The gods did storm to hear this news,And there they swore,That sith he did such dames abuseHe should no moreBe god of love, but that he shouldBoth die and forfeit all his gold.

His bow and shafts they took awayBefore his eyes,And gave these dames a longer dayFor to deviseWho should them keep, and they be boundThat love for gold should not be found.

These ladies striving long, at lastThey did agreeTo give them to a maiden chaste,Whom I did see,Who with the same did pierce my breast:Her beauty’s rare, and so I rest.

FromWilliam Byrd’sSongs of Sundry Natures, 1589.

1.Whomade thee, Hob, forsake the ploughAnd fall in love?2.Sweet beauty, which hath power to bowThe gods above.1.What dost thou serve? 2. A shepherdess;One such as hath no peer, I guess.1.What is her name who bears thy heartWithin her breast?2.Silvana fair, of high desert,Whom I love best.1.O, Hob, I fear she looks too high.2.Yet love I must, or else I die.

Whomade thee, Hob, forsake the plough

FromThomas Bateson’sFirst Set of English Madrigals, 1604.

Whoprostrate lies at women’s feet.And calls them darlings dear and sweet;Protesting love, and craving grace,And praising oft a foolish face;Are oftentimes deceived at last,Then catch at nought and hold it fast.

Whoprostrate lies at women’s feet.

FromJohn Farmer’sFirst Set of English Madrigals, 1599.

Whowould have thought that face of thineHad been so full of doubleness,Or that within those crystal eynHad been so much unstableness?Thy face so fair, thy look so strange!Who would have thought of such a change?

Whowould have thought that face of thine

FromThomas Weelkes’Madrigals of Five and Six Parts, 1600.

Whyare you Ladies staying,And your Lords gone a-maying?Run apace and meet themAnd with your garlands greet them.’Twere pity they should miss you,For they will sweetly kiss you.

Whyare you Ladies staying,

FromJohn Dowland’sFirst Book of Songs or Airs, 1597.

Wiltthou, Unkind! thus ’reave meOf my heart and so leave me?Farewell!But yet, or ere I part, O Cruel,Kiss me, Sweet, my Jewel!Farewell!Hope by disdain grows cheerless,Fear doth love, love doth fear;Beauty peerless,Farewell!If no delays can move thee,Life shall die, death shall liveStill to love thee.Farewell!Yet be thou mindful ever!Heat from fire, fire from heat,None can sever.Farewell!True love cannot be changèd,Though delight from desertBe estrangèd.Farewell!

Wiltthou, Unkind! thus ’reave meOf my heart and so leave me?Farewell!But yet, or ere I part, O Cruel,Kiss me, Sweet, my Jewel!Farewell!

Wiltthou, Unkind! thus ’reave me

Hope by disdain grows cheerless,Fear doth love, love doth fear;Beauty peerless,Farewell!

If no delays can move thee,Life shall die, death shall liveStill to love thee.Farewell!

Yet be thou mindful ever!Heat from fire, fire from heat,None can sever.Farewell!

True love cannot be changèd,Though delight from desertBe estrangèd.Farewell!

FromThomas Campion’sTwo Books of Airs(circ. 1613).

Wisemen patience never want,Good men pity cannot hide;Feeble spirits only vauntOf revenge, the poorest pride:He alone forgive that canBears the true soul of a man.Some there are debate that seek,Making trouble their content;Happy if they wrong the meek,Vex them that to peace are bent:Such undo the common tieOf mankind, Society.Kindness grown is lately cold,Conscience hath forgot her part;Blessèd times were known of oldLong ere Law became an art:Shame deterred, not statutes then;Honest love was law to men.Deeds from love, and words, that flow,Foster like kind April showers;In the warm sun all things grow,Wholesome fruits and pleasant flowers:All so thrives his gentle raysWhereon human love displays.

Wisemen patience never want,Good men pity cannot hide;Feeble spirits only vauntOf revenge, the poorest pride:He alone forgive that canBears the true soul of a man.

Wisemen patience never want,

Some there are debate that seek,Making trouble their content;Happy if they wrong the meek,Vex them that to peace are bent:Such undo the common tieOf mankind, Society.

Kindness grown is lately cold,Conscience hath forgot her part;Blessèd times were known of oldLong ere Law became an art:Shame deterred, not statutes then;Honest love was law to men.

Deeds from love, and words, that flow,Foster like kind April showers;In the warm sun all things grow,Wholesome fruits and pleasant flowers:All so thrives his gentle raysWhereon human love displays.

FromJohn Dowland’sSecond Book of Songs or Airs, 1600.

WoefulHeart, with grief oppressèd!Since my fortunes most distressèdFrom my joys hath me removèd,Follow those sweet eyes adorèd!Those sweet eyes wherein are storèdAll my pleasures best belovèd.Fly my breast—leave me forsaken—Wherein Grief his seat hath taken,All his arrows through me darting!Thou mayst live by her sunshining:I shall suffer no more piningBy thy loss than by her parting.

WoefulHeart, with grief oppressèd!Since my fortunes most distressèdFrom my joys hath me removèd,Follow those sweet eyes adorèd!Those sweet eyes wherein are storèdAll my pleasures best belovèd.

WoefulHeart, with grief oppressèd!

Fly my breast—leave me forsaken—Wherein Grief his seat hath taken,All his arrows through me darting!Thou mayst live by her sunshining:I shall suffer no more piningBy thy loss than by her parting.

FromThomas Greaves’Songs of Sundry Kinds, 1604.

Yebubbling springs that gentle music makesTo lovers’ plaints with heart-sore throbs immixed,When as my dear this way her pleasure takes,Tell her with tears how firm my love is fixed;And, Philomel, report my timerous fears,And, echo, sound my heigh-ho’s in her ears:But if she asks if I for love will die,Tell her, Good faith, good faith, good faith,—not I.

Yebubbling springs that gentle music makes

FromFarmer’sFirst Set of English Madrigals, 1599.

Youblessèd bowers whose green leaves now are spreading,Shadow the sunshine from my mistress’ face,And you, sweet roses, only for her beddingWhen weary she doth take her resting-place;You fair white lilies and pretty flowers all,Give your attendance at my mistress’ call.

Youblessèd bowers whose green leaves now are spreading,

FromThomas Morley’sFirst Book of Ballets, 1595.

Youthat wont to my pipe’s soundDaintily to tread your ground,Jolly shepherds and nymphs sweet,(Lirum, lirum.)Here met togetherUnder the weather,Hand in hand uniting,The lovely god come greet.(Lirum, lirum)Lo, triumphing, brave comes he,All in pomp and majesty,Monarch of the world and king.(Lirum, lirum.)Let whoso list himDare to resist him,We our voices uniting,Of his high acts will sing.(Lirum, lirum.)

Youthat wont to my pipe’s soundDaintily to tread your ground,Jolly shepherds and nymphs sweet,(Lirum, lirum.)

Youthat wont to my pipe’s sound

Here met togetherUnder the weather,Hand in hand uniting,The lovely god come greet.(Lirum, lirum)

Lo, triumphing, brave comes he,All in pomp and majesty,Monarch of the world and king.(Lirum, lirum.)

Let whoso list himDare to resist him,We our voices uniting,Of his high acts will sing.(Lirum, lirum.)

FromThomas Bateson’sFirst Set of English Madrigals, 1604.

Yourshining eyes and golden hair,Your lily-rosèd lips so fair;Your various beauties which excel,Men cannot choose but like them well:Yet when for them they say they’ll die,Believe them not,—they do but lie.

Yourshining eyes and golden hair,

NOTES.Page3.Thomas Weelkeswas organist of Winchester College in 1600, and of Chichester Cathedral in 1608. His first collection, “Madrigals to three, four, five, or six voices,” was published in 1597. Here first appeared the verses (fraudulently ascribed, in “The Passionate Pilgrim,” 1599, to Shakespeare), “My flocks feed not.” In 1598 Weelkes published “Ballets and Madrigals to five voices,” which was followed in 1600 by “Madrigals of five and six parts.” Prefixed to the last-named work is the following dedicatory epistle:—“To the truly noble, virtuous, and honorable, my very good Lord Henry, Lord Winsor, Baron of Bradenham.My Lord, in the College at Winchester, where I live, I have heard learned men say that some philosophers have mistaken the soul of man for an harmony: let the precedent of their error be a privilege for mine. I see not, if souls do not partly consist of music, how it should come to pass that so noble a spirit as your’s, so perfectly tuned to so perpetual atenorof excellence as it is, should descend to the notice of a quality lying single in so low a personage as myself. But in music thebasepart is no disgrace to the best ears’ attendancy. I confess my conscience is untoucht with any other arts, and I hope my confession is unsuspected; many of us musicians think it as much praise to be somewhat more than musicians as it is for gold to be somewhat more than gold, and ifJack Cadewere alive, yet some of us might live, unless we should think, as the artisans in the Universities of Poland and Germany think, that the Latin tongue comes by reflection. I hope your Lordship will pardon this presumption of mine; the rather, because I know before Nobility I am to deal sincerely; and this small faculty of mine, because it is alone in me, and without the assistance of other more confident sciences, is the more to be favoured and the rather to be received into your honour’s protection; so shall Iobserve you with as humble and as true an heart, as he whose knowledge is as large as the world’s creation, and as earnestly pray for you to the world’s Creator.Your Honor’s in all humble service,Thomas Weelkes.”In 1608 appeared Weelkes’ last work, “Airs or Fantastic Spirits for three voices,” a collection of lively and humorous ditties. Oliphant writes:—“For originality of ideas, and ingenuity of construction in part writing, (I allude more especially to his ballets,) Weelkes in my opinion leaves all other composers of his time far behind.” The verses in Weelkes’ song-books are never heavy or laboured; they are always bright, cheerful, and arch.Page3.Robert Jones was a famous performer on the lute. He had a share in the management of the theatre in the Whitefriars (Collier’s “Annals of the Stage,” i. 395). His works are of the highest rarity. The delightful lyrics in Jones’ song-books have escaped the notice of all the editors of anthologies.Page4.Thomas Morley, who was a pupil of William Byrd, was the author of the first systematic treatise on music published in this country—“A plain and easy Introduction to practical Music,” 1597, quaintly set down in form of a dialogue. The verses in his collections are mere airy trifles, and hardly bear to be separated from the music.“About the maypole new,” &c., is a translation of some Italian lines, beginning—“Al suon d’una sampogn’ e d’una citera,Sopra l’herbette florideDansava Tirsi con l’amata Cloride,” &c.In Morley’s “Canzonets to three Voices,” 1593, we have the following pleasant description of the preparations for a country wedding:—“Arise, get up, my dear, make haste, begone thee:Lo! where the bride, fair Daphne, tarries on thee.Hark! O hark! yon merry maidens squealingSpice-cakes, sops-in-wine are a-dealing.Run, then run apaceAnd get a bride-laceAnd gilt rosemary branch the while there yet is catchingAnd then hold fast for fear of old snatching.Alas! my dear, why weep ye?O fear not that, dear love, the next day keep we.List, yon minstrels! hark how fine they firk it,And how the maidens jerk it!With Kate and Will,Tom and Gill,Now a skip,Then a trip,Finely fet aloft,There again as oft;Hey ho! blessed holiday!All for Daphne’s wedding day!”Page9.John Wilbye is styled by Oliphant “the first of madrigal writers.” He published his “First Set of English Madrigals” in 1598, and his “Second Set” in 1609. The Second Set was dedicated to the unfortunate Lady Arabella Stuart. The composer concludes his dedicatory epistle with the prayer, “I beseech the Almighty to make you in all the passages of your life truly happy, as you are in the world’s true opinion, virtuous.” In the very year when the epistle was written the gifted patroness of art and learning was accused before the Privy Council and ordered to be kept in close confinement. She made her escape, but after a few hours was captured at sea in her flight to Dunkirk, brought back to London, and committed to the Tower, where she died of a broken heart in 1615. It is pleasant to think that the song-book dedicated to her honour may have cheered her in the long hours of solitude. The collection consists chiefly of love-lyrics; but such verses as “Happy, O happy he,” &c. (p. 37) and “Draw on, sweet Night” (p. 21), must have been carefully cherished by the poor captive.Page9.“April is in my mistress’ face.”—Compare Robert Greene’s verses in “Perimedes, the Blacksmith,” 1588:—“Fair is my love, for April in her face,Her lovely breasts September claims his part,And lordly July in her eyes takes place:But cold December dwelleth in her heart:Blest be the months that set my thoughts on fire,Accurs’d that month that hindereth my desire!”Page11.“The Urchins’ Dance” is from the anonymous play “The Maid’s Metamorphosis,” 1600. In the same play are the following dainty verses;—“1 Fairy.I do come about the copseLeaping upon flowers’ tops;Then I get upon a fly,She carries me above the sky,And trip and go!2 Fairy.When a dew-drop falleth downAnd doth light upon my crown,Then I shake my head and skipAnd about I trip.3 Fairy.When I feel a girl a-sleep,Underneath her frock I peep,There to sport, and there I play;Then I bite her like a flea,And about I skip.”Thomas Ravenscroft, compiler of the “Brief Discourse,” won his spurs at a very early age. He took his degree of Bachelor of Music before he had reached his fifteenth year, as we learn from some commendatory verses prefixed to the “Brief Discourse;”—“Non vidit tria lustra puer, quin arte probatus,Vita laudatus, sumpsit in arte gradum.”He was twenty-two when he published the “Brief Discourse” in 1614: but in 1611 be had published “Melismata, musical fancies fitting the court, city, and country humours,” and he edited two collections that appeared in 1609—“Pammelia” and “Deuteromelia.” “Pammelia” is the earliest English printed collection of Catches, Rounds, and Canons; both words and music were for the most part older than the date of publication. “Deuteromelia” was intended as a continuation of “Pammelia.”Page12.Robert Dowland, editor of “A Musical Banquet,” was a son of John Dowland; he succeeded his father as one of the Court musicians in 1626, and was alive in 1641.Page16.Thomas Ford, when he published his “Music of sundry kinds,” 1607, was a musician in the suite of Prince Henry. At the accession of Charles I. he was appointed one ofhis musicians, and he died in 1648—the year before his royal patron was beheaded.Page23.“Little lawn then serve[d] the Pawn.”—The Pawn was a corridor, serving as a bazaar, in the Royal Exchange (Gresham’s).Page24.“Farewell, false Love, the oracle of lies.”—“J. C.” in “Alcilia,” 1595, writes:—“Love is honey mixed with gall,A thraldom free, a freedom thrall;A bitter sweet, a pleasant sour,Got in a year, lost in an hour;A peaceful war, a warlike peace,Whose wealth brings want, whose want increase;Full long pursuit and little gain,Uncertain pleasure, certain pain;Regard of neither right nor wrong,For short delights repentance long.Love is the sickness of the thought,Conceit of pleasure dearly bought;A restless passion of the mind,A labyrinth of arrows blind:A sugared poison, fair deceit,A bait for fools, a furious heat;A chilling cold, a wondrous passion,Exceeding man’s imagination;Which none can tell in whole or part,But only he that feels the smart.”Robert Greene has a somewhat similar description of Love (“What thing is Love? it is a power divine,” &c.) in “Menaphon,” 1589.Page28.“Fond wanton youths.”—This piece is also printed in “The Golden Garland of Princely Delights,” 1620, where it is headed “Of the Inconveniences by Marriage,” and is directed to be sung to the tune of “When Troy town.”Page29, l. 22.“Theirlongingsmust not be beguiled.”—The original gives “Theirlaughings” (which is unintelligible).Page31.It was at Wanstead House, a seat of the Earl of Leicester, that Sidney wrote his masque the “Lady of the May” in honour of Queen Elizabeth’s visit in 1578. “Was Raleighretired there,” writes Mr. W. J. Linton (Rare Poems, p. 257), “during some season of her displeasure? There is a look of him about this song, not unlike the lines to Cynthia; and what mistress but Majesty should appoint his place of retirement?‘Wanstead, my Mistress saith this is the doom.’”The two lines that close each stanza are from a song in Sidney’s “Arcadia.”Page37.“Who, known to all, unknown to himself dies.” From Seneca’s “Thyestes:”—“qui notus nimis omnibusIgnotus moritur sibi.”Page39.“How many things.”—I have given four of John Maynard’s “Twelve Wonders of the World” (cf. pp. 44-5, 69); and, if I am not mistaken, the reader will like to see the remaining eight. There is much freshness and piquancy in these quaint old rhymes, which were written by no less a poet than Sir John Davies.“The Divine.My calling is Divine,And I from God am sent;I will no chop-church be,Nor pay my patron rent,Nor yield to sacrilege;But like the kind true mother,Rather will lose all the childThan part it with another.Much wealth I will not seek,Nor worldly masters serve,So to grow rich and fatWhile my poor flock doth starve.The Soldier.My occupation isThe noble trade of kingsThe trial that decidesThe highest right of things.Though Mars my master be,I do not Venus love,Nor honour Bacchus oft,Nor often swear by Jove.Of speaking of myselfI all occasion shun,And rather love to do,Than boast what I have done.The Lawyer.The law my calling is;My robe, my tongue, my penWealth and opinion gainAnd make me judge of men.The known dishonest cause,I never did defendNor spun out suits in length,But wish’d and sought an end;Nor counsel did bewray,Nor of both parties take,Nor ever took I feeFor which I never spake.The Physician.I study to upholdThe slippery state of man,Who dies when we have doneThe best and all we can.From practice and from booksI draw my learned skill,Not from the known receiptOr ’pothecary’s bill.The earth my faults doth hide,The world my cures doth see,What youth and time effectsIs oft ascribed to me.The Merchant.My trade doth everythingTo every land supply,Discovers unknown coasts,Strange countries doth ally.I never did forestall,I never did engross,Nor custom did withdrawThough I return’d with loss.I thrive by fair exchange,By selling and by buying,And not by Jewish use,Reprisal, fraud, or lying.The Country Gentleman.Though strange outlandish spiritsPraise towns and countries scorn,The country is my home,I dwell where I was born.There profit and commandWith pleasure I partake,Yet do not hawks and dogsMy sole companions make.I rule, but not oppress;End quarrels, not maintain;See towns, but dwell not thereTo abridge my charge or train.The Wife.The first of all our sexCame from the side of man,I thither am return’dFrom whence our sex began.I do not visit oft,Nor many when I do,I tell my mind to fewAnd that in counsel too.I seem not sick in health,Nor sullen but in sorrow;I care for somewhat elseThan what to wear to-morrow.The Widow.My dying husband knewHow much his death would grieve me,And therefore left me wealthTo comfort and relieve me.Though I no more will have,I must not love disdain;Penelope her selfDid suitors entertain.And yet to draw on suchAs are of best esteem,Nor younger than I amNor richer will I seem.”Page41.“I have house and land in Kent.”—This admirable song has been frequently reprinted. Miss De Vaynes, in her very valuable “Kentish Garland” (i., 142), observes:—“We have met with no other song in the Kentish dialect except Jan Ploughshare’s” (printed on p. 372, vol. i., of the “Garland”). Rimbault in his “Little Book of Songs and Ballads” (1851), gives the following lines from an old MS. (temp. Henry VIII.):—“Joan, quoth John, when will this be?Tell me when wilt thou marry me,My corn and eke my calf and rents,My lands and all my tenements?Say, Joan, quoth John, what wilt thou do?I cannot come every day to woo?”David Herd printed a fragment of a Scotch song that was founded on the English song:—“I hae layen three herring a’ sa’t,Bonny lass, gin ze’ll take me, tell me now,And I hae brew’n three pickles o’ ma’tAnd I cannae cum ilka day to woo.To woo, to woo, to lilt and to woo,And I cannae cum ilka day to woo.I hae a wee ca’f that wad fain be a cow,Bonny lassie, gin ye’ll take me, tell me now,I hae a wee gryce that wad fain be a sow,And I cannae cum ilka day to woo.To woo, to woo, to lilt and to woo,And I cannae cum ilka day to woo.”Page43.“I joy not in no earthly bliss.”—These stanzas are usually printed with “My mind to me a kingdom is” (p. 78), and the whole poem has been attributed to Sir Edward Dyer.Page47.“I weigh not Fortune’s frown nor smile.”—These lines (which seem to have been modelled on “I joy not in no earthly bliss”) are by Joshua Sylvester.In the second stanza, “I sound not at the news of wreck,”soundis an old form ofswoon.Page52.“If women could be fair.”—This poem is ascribed to Edward, Earl of Oxford, in Rawlinson, MS. 85, fol. 16.Page53.“In darkness let me dwell.”—These lines are also found in Robert Dowland’s “Musical Banquet,” 1610, set to music by John Dowland.Page57.“In the merry month of May.”—First printed in “The Honorable Entertainment given to the Queen’s Majesty in Progress at Elvetham in Hampshire, by the Right Honorable the Earl of Hertford,” 1591, under the title of “The Ploughman’s Song.”Page60.“It was the frog in the well.”—There are several versions of this old ditty: the following is from Kirkpatrick Sharpe’s “Ballad Book,” 1824:—“There lived a puddy in a well,And a merry mouse in a mill.Puddy he’d a wooin ride,Sword and pistol by his side.Puddy came to the mouse’s wonne,‘Mistress mouse, are you within?’‘Yes, kind sir, I am within;Saftly do I sit and spin.’‘Madam, I am come to woo;Marriage I must have of you.’‘Marriage I will grant you nane,Until uncle Rotten he comes hame.’‘Uncle Rotten’s now come hame;Fy! gar busk the bride alang.’Lord Rotten sat at the head o’ the table,Because he was baith stout and able.Wha is’t that sits next the wa’,But Lady Mouse, baith jimp and sma’?What is’t that sits next the bride,But the sola puddy wi’ his yellow side?Syne came the deuk, but and the drake;The deuk took puddy, and garred him squaik.Then cam in the carl cat,Wi’ a fiddle on his back.‘Want ye ony music here?’The puddy he swam doun the brook;The drake he catched him in his fluke.The cat he pu’d Lord Rotten doun;The kittens they did claw his croun.But Lady Mouse, baith jimp and sma’,Crept into a hole beneath the wa’;‘Squeak!’ quoth she, ‘I’m weel awa.’”Doubtless Ravenscroft’s version is more ancient. A ballad entitled “A most strange weddinge of the frogge and the mouse” was licensed for printing in 1580.Page65.“Lady, when I behold.”—Gracefully Paraphrased from an Italian original:—“Quand’ io miro le rose,Ch’in voi natura pose;E quelle che v’ ha l’arteNel vago seno sparte;Non so conoscer poiSe voi le rose, o sian le rose in voi.”Page66.John Danyel is supposed to have been a brother of Samuel Daniel, the poet. He took his degree of Bachelor of Music in 1604. “At the commencement of the reign of Charles the First he was one of the Court Musicians, and his name occurs among the ‘Musicians for the Lutes and Voices’ in a privy seal, dated December 20th, 1625, exempting the musicians belonging to the Court from the payment of subsidies” (Rimbault).Page68.“Then all at oncefor our towncries.”—“I should imagine,” says Oliphant, “that there was occasionally a sort of friendly contention in the sports between neighbouring villages; which idea is rather corroborated by a passage from an old play called the ‘Vow-breaker’ by Samson, 1636: ‘Let the major play the hobby-horse an’ he will; I hopeour Town ladscannot want a hobby-horse.’” In an old play. “The Country Girl,” (first printed in 1647), attributed to that shadowy personage Antony Brewer, we have an allusion to this pleasant form of rivalry:—“Abraham.Sister Gillian,—I have the rarest news for you.Gillian.For me? ’tis well. And what news have you got, sir?Abr.Skipping news, lipping news, tripping news.Gil.How! dancing, brother Abram, dancing?Abr.Prancing, advancing, dancing. Nay, ’tis a match, a match upon a wager.Gil.A match. Who be they?Abr.Why all the wenches ofour townEdmonton, and all the mad wenches of Waltham.Gil.A match, and leave me out! When, when is’t, brother?Abr.Marry, e’en this morning:—they are now going to’t helter-skelter. [A treble plays within.Gil.And leave me out! where, brother, where?Abr.Why there, Sister Gillian; there, at our own door almost,—on the green there, close by the may-pole. Hark! you may hear them hither.” (Sig. D.)The stage-direction at the entrance of the dancers runs thus:—“Enter six country wenches, all red petticoats, white stitch’d bodies, in their smock-sleeves, the fiddler before them, and Gillian with her tippet up in the midst of them dancing.”Page73.“It was the purest light of heaven” &c.—I am reminded of a fine passage in Drayton’s “Barons’ Wars,” canto VI.:—“Looking upon proud Phaeton wrapped in fire,The gentle queen did much bewail his fall;But Mortimer commended his desireTo lose one poor life or to govern all.‘What though,’ quoth he, ‘he madly did aspireAnd his great mind made him proud Fortune’s thrall?Yet, in despight when she her worst had done,He perish’d in the chariot of the sun.’”Page74.“The Bellman’s Song.”—In “Robin Goodfellow; his mad pranks and merry jests,” 1628, we have another specimen of a Bellman’s Song:—“Sometimes would he go like a bellman in the night, and with many pretty verses delight the ears of those that waked at his bell-ringing: his verses were these:—Maids in your smocks,Look well to your locks,And your tinder-box,Your wheels and your rocks,Your hens and your cocks,Your cows and your ox,And beware of the fox.When the bellman knocksPut out your fire and candle-light,So they shall not you affright.May you dream of your delights,In your sleeps see pleasing sights!Good rest to all, both old and young:The bellman now hath done his song.Then would he go laughingHo ho ho!as his use was.”Page77.“That kisses were theseals of love.”—Every reader will recall“But my kisses bring again, bring again.Seals of lovebut sealed in vain, sealed in vain.”(The first stanza is found among the poems of Sir Philip Sidney.)Page80.“My prime of youth.”—This song is also set to music in Richard Alison’s “Hour’s Recreation,” 1606, and Michael Este’s “Madrigals of three, four, and five parts,” 1604. It is printed in “Reliquiæ: Wottonianæ” as “By Chidick Tychborn, being young and then in the tower, the night before his execution.” Chidiock Tychbourne of Southampton was executed with Ballard and Babington in 1586.Page80.“My sweetest Lesbia.”—The first stanza is an elegant paraphrase from Catullus, though the last line fails to render the rhythmical sweetness long-drawn-out of “Nox est perpetua una dormienda.”Page81.“My Thoughts are winged with Hopes.”—This piece is also found in “England’s Helicon.” A MS. copy, in a commonplace book found at Hamburg, is signed “W. S.” I have frequently met with these initials in volumes of MS. poetry of the early part of the seventeenth century. The following pretty verses in Add. MS. 21, 433, fol. 158, are subscribed “W. S.”:—“O when will Cupid show such artTo strike two lovers with one dart?I’m ice to him or he to me;Two hearts alike there seldom be.If ten thousand meet together,Scarce one face is like another:If scarce two faces can agree,Two hearts alike there seldom be.”There is not the slightest ground for identifying “W. S.” with Shakespeare. Mr. Linton (“Rare Poems,” p. 255) conjectures that “My Thoughts are winged with Hopes”—which has the heading “To Cynthia” in “England’s Helicon”—may be by Raleigh.Page83.“Now each creature.”—The first stanza of “An Ode” by Samuel Daniel, originally printed in the 1592 edition of “Delia.”“Now God be with old Simeon.”—Here is another round from “Pammelia”:—“Come drink to me,And I to thee.And then shall weFull well agree.I’ve loved the jolly tankard,Full seven winters and more;I loved it so longThat I went upon the score.Who loveth not the tankard,He is no honest man;And he is no right soldier,That loveth not the can.Tap the cannikin, troll the cannikin,Toss the cannikin, turn the cannikin!Hold now, good son, and fill us a fresh can,That we may quaff it round from man to man.”Good honest verse, but ill-suited to these degenerate, tea-drinking days.Page85.“Now I see thy looks were feignèd.”—First printed in “The Phœnix Nest,” 1593, subscribed “T. L. Gent,”i.e.Thomas Lodge, one of the most brilliant of Elizabethan lyrists.Page87.“Shall we play barley-break.”—The fullest description of the rustic game of barley-break is to be found in the first book of Sidney’s “Arcadia.”Page87.“Now let her change.” This song is also set to Music in Robert Jones’ “Ultimum Vale” (1608).Page89.“Now what is love” &c.—This poem originally appeared in “The Phœnix Nest,” 1593; it is also printed (in form of a dialogue) in “England’s Helicon,” 1600, and Davison’s “Poetical Rhapsody,” 1602. It is ascribed to Raleigh in a MS. list of Davison’s. See Canon Hannah’s edition of Raleigh’s poems.Page93.“Oft have I mused.”—This poem was printed in Davison’s “Poetical Rhapsody,” 1602.Page96.“Our country-swains in the morris-dance.”—In Morley’s “Madrigals to Four Voices,” 1594, there is a lively description of the morris-dance:—“Ho! who comes here with bag-piping and drumming?O, ’tis I see the morris-dance a coming.Come, ladies, out, O come, come quickly,And see about how trim they dance and trickly:Hey! there again: hark! how the bells they shake it!Nowfor our town! once there, now for our town and take it:Soft awhile, not away so fast, they melt them!Piper be hang’d, knave! look, the dancers swelt them.Out, there, stand out!—you come too far (I say) in—There give the hobby-horse more room to play in!”“I woo with tears andne’er the near.”—Ne’er the near(a proverbial expression) = Never the nigher.Page107.“When they came home Sisflotedcream.”—I suppose the meaning is that Sis skimmed the cream from the milk. Halliwell (Arch. Dict.) gives “Flotten-milk. Same as Flet-mitte” and “flet-mitte” is a north-country term for skimmed milk.“Since first I saw.”—This exquisite song is also found in “The Golden Garland of Princely Delights,” 1620.Page114.“Sweet Love, my only treasure.”—Printed in Davison’s “Poetical Rhapsody,” 1602, where it is subscribed with the mysterious initials “A. W.”Page115.“Sweet, stay awhile.”—I suspect that this stanza does not really belong to Donne’s “Break of day;” it is not found in MS. copies of Donne’s poems, nor in any edition prior to that of 1669. Probably Donne’s verses were written as a companion-piece to the present poem.Page120.“Yet merrily sings little Robin.”—The loveliest of all verses in praise of Robin Redbreast are in Chapman’s “Tears of Peace,” 1609:—“Whose facethe birdhidthat loves humans best,That hath the bugle eyes and rosy breast,And is the yellow autumn’s nightingale.”Page120.“The love of change.”—This is the first stanza ofa poem which is printed entire (in six stanzas) in Davison’s “Poetical Rhapsody,” 1602.Page121.“The lowest trees have tops.”—Printed in Davison’s “Poetical Rhapsody” with the signature “Incerto.”Page121.“The man of life upright.”—In some old MS. copies this poem is ascribed to Francis Bacon: see Hannah’s “Poems of Raleigh and Wotton,” p. 119. Canon Hannah makes no mention of Campion’s claim. Campion distinctly tells us that he wrote both the verses and the music of his songs: and I have no doubt that he was the author of the present lyric, which has more merit than any of Bacon’s poems. In an epigram printed in his “Observations in the Art of English Poetry,” 1602, there is a striking image that reappears in the present poem:—“A wise man wary lives yet most secure,Sorrows move not him greatly, nor delights,Fortune and death he scorning only makesTh’ earth his sober inn, but still heaven his home.”(Sig.C2).Henceforward let nobody claim “The man of life upright” for Bacon.Page124.“The Nightingale so pleasant and so gay.”—“According to Peacham,” says Oliphant (“Musa Madrigalesca,” p. 45), “there was a virtuous contention between W. Byrd and Ferrabosco who of the two should best set these words; in which according to his (Peacham’s) opinion, Ferrabosco succeeded so well that ‘it could not be bettered for sweetness of ayre and depth of judgment.’”Page124.“The Nightingale so soon as April bringeth.”—From the first stanza of a poem printed in the third edition of Sidney’s “Arcadia,” 1598.Page126.“There is a garden in her face.”—This poem is also set to music in Alison’s “Hour’s Recreation,” 1606, and Robert Jones’ “Ultimum Vale” (1608). Herrick’s dainty verses “Cherry-Ripe” are well-known:—“Cherry-ripe, ripe, ripe! I cry:Full and fair ones, come and buy.If so be you ask me whereThey do grow, I answer,—There,Where my Julia’s lips do smile,There’s the land or cherry-isle,Whose plantations fully showAll the year where cherries grow.”Page127.“There is a lady sweet and kind.”—Printed also in “The Golden Garland of Princely Delights,” 1620.Page128.“There were three Ravens.”—The north-country version of this noble dirge contains some verses of appalling intensity:—“His horse is to the huntin ganeHis hounds to bring the wild deer hame;His lady’s ta’en another mate,So we may mak our dinner sweet.“O we’ll sit on his bonny breast-bane,And we’ll pyke out his bonny gray een;Wi’ ae lock o’ his gowden hair,We’ll theek our nest when it blaws bare.“Mony a ane for him makes mane,But none sall ken where he is gane:Ower his banes when they are bare,The wind sall blaw for evermair.”Page130.“Think’st thou to seduce me,” &c.—In William Corkine’s “Airs,” 1610, this song is found with considerable variations. Corkine gives only three stanzas. The first stanza agrees closely with Campion’s text; the second and third stanzas run thus:—“Learn to speak first, then to woo, to wooing much pertaineth;He that hath not art to hide, soon falters when he feigneth,And, as one that wants his wits, he smiles when he complaineth.“If with wit we be deceived our faults may be excusèd,Seeming good with flattery graced is but of few refusèd,But of all accursed are they that are by fools abusèd.”Page131.“Thou art not fair for all thy red and white.”—These lines are printed in Dr. Grosart’s edition of Donne’spoems, vol. ii. p. 259. They are ascribed to Donne in an early MS.; but I see no reason for depriving Campion of them. (The first stanza is also set to music in Thomas Vautor’s “Airs,” 1619.)Page132.“Though Amaryllis dance in green.”—Also printed in “England’s Helicon,” 1600.Page148.“We must not part as others do.”—These lines are very much in Donne’s manner. The MS. from which they are taken (Egerton MS. 2013) contains some undoubted poems of Donne.Page151.“Were I a king.”—Canon Hannah prints these verses (in his “Poems of Raleigh and Wotton,” p. 147) from a MS. copy, in which they are assigned to Edward Earl of Oxford. Appended in the MS. are the following answers:—“Answered thus by Sir P. S.Wert thou a king, yet not command content,Sith empire none thy mind could yet suffice;Wert thou obscure, still cares would thee torment;But wert thou dead all care and sorrow dies.An easy choice, of these three which to crave:No kingdom, nor a cottage, but a grave.“Another of another mind.A king? oh, boon for my aspiring mind,A cottage makes a country swad rejoice:And as for death, I like him in his kindBut God forbid that he should be my choice!A kingdom or a cottage or a grave,—Nor last, nor next, but first and best I crave;The rest I can, whenas I list, enjoy,Till then salute me thus—Vive le roy!“Another of another mind.The greatest kings do least command content;The greatest cares do still attend a crown;A grave all happy fortunes doth preventMaking the noble equal with the clown:A quiet country life to lead I crave;A cottage then; no kingdom nor a grave.”Page152.“What is our life?”—A MS. copy of these verses is subscribed “SrW. R.”,i.e., Sir Walter Raleigh. See Hannah’s “Poems of Raleigh and Wotton,” p. 27.Compare the sombre verses, signed “Ignoto,” in “Reliquiæ Wottonianæ”:—“Man’s life’s a tragedy; his mother’s womb,From which he enters, is the tiring-room;This spacious earth the theatre, and the stageThat country which he lives in: passions, rage,Folly and vice are actors; the first cryThe prologue to the ensuing tragedy;The former act consisteth of dumb shows;The second, he to more perfection grows;I’ the third he is a man and doth beginTo nurture vice and act the deeds of sin;I’ the fourth declines; i’ the fifth diseases clogAnd trouble him; then death’s his epilogue.”Page153.“What needeth all this travail and turmoiling?”—Suggested by Spenser’s fifteenth sonnet:—“Ye tradefull Merchants that with weary toyleDo seeke most pretious things to make your gain,And both the Indias of their treasure spoile,What needeth you to seeke so farre in vaine?For loe! my Love doth in her selfe containeAll this worlds riches that may farre be found.If Saphyres, loe! her eies be Saphyres plaine;If Rubies, loe! hir lips be Rubies sound;If Pearles, hir teeth be pearles, both pure and round;If Yvorie, her forehead yvory weene;If Gold, her locks are finest gold on ground;If Silver, her faire hands are silver sheene:But that which fairest is but few behold,Her mind, adornd with vertues manifold.”Page154, l. 1.“And fortune’s fate not fearing.”—Oliphant boldly reads, for the sake of the rhyme, “Andfickle fortune scorning.”—in “England’s Helicon” the text is the same as in the song-book.Page158, l. 5.“And when she saw that I was in herdanger.”—Within one’s danger= to be in a person’s power or control.L. 16.“WhiteIope.”—Campion must have had in his mind a passage of Propertius (ii. 28);—“Sunt apud infernos tot millia formosarum:Pulchra sit in superis, si licet, una locis.Vobiscum estIope, vobiscum candida Tyro,Vobiscum Europe, nec proba Pasiphae.”See Hertzberg’s note on that passage.Page162.“While that the sun.”—Also printed in “England’s Helicon,” 1600.

Page3.

Thomas Weelkeswas organist of Winchester College in 1600, and of Chichester Cathedral in 1608. His first collection, “Madrigals to three, four, five, or six voices,” was published in 1597. Here first appeared the verses (fraudulently ascribed, in “The Passionate Pilgrim,” 1599, to Shakespeare), “My flocks feed not.” In 1598 Weelkes published “Ballets and Madrigals to five voices,” which was followed in 1600 by “Madrigals of five and six parts.” Prefixed to the last-named work is the following dedicatory epistle:—

“To the truly noble, virtuous, and honorable, my very good Lord Henry, Lord Winsor, Baron of Bradenham.My Lord, in the College at Winchester, where I live, I have heard learned men say that some philosophers have mistaken the soul of man for an harmony: let the precedent of their error be a privilege for mine. I see not, if souls do not partly consist of music, how it should come to pass that so noble a spirit as your’s, so perfectly tuned to so perpetual atenorof excellence as it is, should descend to the notice of a quality lying single in so low a personage as myself. But in music thebasepart is no disgrace to the best ears’ attendancy. I confess my conscience is untoucht with any other arts, and I hope my confession is unsuspected; many of us musicians think it as much praise to be somewhat more than musicians as it is for gold to be somewhat more than gold, and ifJack Cadewere alive, yet some of us might live, unless we should think, as the artisans in the Universities of Poland and Germany think, that the Latin tongue comes by reflection. I hope your Lordship will pardon this presumption of mine; the rather, because I know before Nobility I am to deal sincerely; and this small faculty of mine, because it is alone in me, and without the assistance of other more confident sciences, is the more to be favoured and the rather to be received into your honour’s protection; so shall Iobserve you with as humble and as true an heart, as he whose knowledge is as large as the world’s creation, and as earnestly pray for you to the world’s Creator.

Your Honor’s in all humble service,Thomas Weelkes.”

In 1608 appeared Weelkes’ last work, “Airs or Fantastic Spirits for three voices,” a collection of lively and humorous ditties. Oliphant writes:—“For originality of ideas, and ingenuity of construction in part writing, (I allude more especially to his ballets,) Weelkes in my opinion leaves all other composers of his time far behind.” The verses in Weelkes’ song-books are never heavy or laboured; they are always bright, cheerful, and arch.

Page3.Robert Jones was a famous performer on the lute. He had a share in the management of the theatre in the Whitefriars (Collier’s “Annals of the Stage,” i. 395). His works are of the highest rarity. The delightful lyrics in Jones’ song-books have escaped the notice of all the editors of anthologies.

Page4.Thomas Morley, who was a pupil of William Byrd, was the author of the first systematic treatise on music published in this country—“A plain and easy Introduction to practical Music,” 1597, quaintly set down in form of a dialogue. The verses in his collections are mere airy trifles, and hardly bear to be separated from the music.

“About the maypole new,” &c., is a translation of some Italian lines, beginning—

“Al suon d’una sampogn’ e d’una citera,Sopra l’herbette florideDansava Tirsi con l’amata Cloride,” &c.

In Morley’s “Canzonets to three Voices,” 1593, we have the following pleasant description of the preparations for a country wedding:—

“Arise, get up, my dear, make haste, begone thee:Lo! where the bride, fair Daphne, tarries on thee.Hark! O hark! yon merry maidens squealingSpice-cakes, sops-in-wine are a-dealing.Run, then run apaceAnd get a bride-laceAnd gilt rosemary branch the while there yet is catchingAnd then hold fast for fear of old snatching.Alas! my dear, why weep ye?O fear not that, dear love, the next day keep we.List, yon minstrels! hark how fine they firk it,And how the maidens jerk it!With Kate and Will,Tom and Gill,Now a skip,Then a trip,Finely fet aloft,There again as oft;Hey ho! blessed holiday!All for Daphne’s wedding day!”

Page9.John Wilbye is styled by Oliphant “the first of madrigal writers.” He published his “First Set of English Madrigals” in 1598, and his “Second Set” in 1609. The Second Set was dedicated to the unfortunate Lady Arabella Stuart. The composer concludes his dedicatory epistle with the prayer, “I beseech the Almighty to make you in all the passages of your life truly happy, as you are in the world’s true opinion, virtuous.” In the very year when the epistle was written the gifted patroness of art and learning was accused before the Privy Council and ordered to be kept in close confinement. She made her escape, but after a few hours was captured at sea in her flight to Dunkirk, brought back to London, and committed to the Tower, where she died of a broken heart in 1615. It is pleasant to think that the song-book dedicated to her honour may have cheered her in the long hours of solitude. The collection consists chiefly of love-lyrics; but such verses as “Happy, O happy he,” &c. (p. 37) and “Draw on, sweet Night” (p. 21), must have been carefully cherished by the poor captive.

Page9.“April is in my mistress’ face.”—Compare Robert Greene’s verses in “Perimedes, the Blacksmith,” 1588:—

“Fair is my love, for April in her face,Her lovely breasts September claims his part,And lordly July in her eyes takes place:But cold December dwelleth in her heart:Blest be the months that set my thoughts on fire,Accurs’d that month that hindereth my desire!”

Page11.“The Urchins’ Dance” is from the anonymous play “The Maid’s Metamorphosis,” 1600. In the same play are the following dainty verses;—

“1 Fairy.I do come about the copseLeaping upon flowers’ tops;Then I get upon a fly,She carries me above the sky,And trip and go!2 Fairy.When a dew-drop falleth downAnd doth light upon my crown,Then I shake my head and skipAnd about I trip.3 Fairy.When I feel a girl a-sleep,Underneath her frock I peep,There to sport, and there I play;Then I bite her like a flea,And about I skip.”

“1 Fairy.

2 Fairy.

3 Fairy.

Thomas Ravenscroft, compiler of the “Brief Discourse,” won his spurs at a very early age. He took his degree of Bachelor of Music before he had reached his fifteenth year, as we learn from some commendatory verses prefixed to the “Brief Discourse;”—

“Non vidit tria lustra puer, quin arte probatus,Vita laudatus, sumpsit in arte gradum.”

He was twenty-two when he published the “Brief Discourse” in 1614: but in 1611 be had published “Melismata, musical fancies fitting the court, city, and country humours,” and he edited two collections that appeared in 1609—“Pammelia” and “Deuteromelia.” “Pammelia” is the earliest English printed collection of Catches, Rounds, and Canons; both words and music were for the most part older than the date of publication. “Deuteromelia” was intended as a continuation of “Pammelia.”

Page12.Robert Dowland, editor of “A Musical Banquet,” was a son of John Dowland; he succeeded his father as one of the Court musicians in 1626, and was alive in 1641.

Page16.Thomas Ford, when he published his “Music of sundry kinds,” 1607, was a musician in the suite of Prince Henry. At the accession of Charles I. he was appointed one ofhis musicians, and he died in 1648—the year before his royal patron was beheaded.

Page23.“Little lawn then serve[d] the Pawn.”—The Pawn was a corridor, serving as a bazaar, in the Royal Exchange (Gresham’s).

Page24.“Farewell, false Love, the oracle of lies.”—“J. C.” in “Alcilia,” 1595, writes:—

“Love is honey mixed with gall,A thraldom free, a freedom thrall;A bitter sweet, a pleasant sour,Got in a year, lost in an hour;A peaceful war, a warlike peace,Whose wealth brings want, whose want increase;Full long pursuit and little gain,Uncertain pleasure, certain pain;Regard of neither right nor wrong,For short delights repentance long.Love is the sickness of the thought,Conceit of pleasure dearly bought;A restless passion of the mind,A labyrinth of arrows blind:A sugared poison, fair deceit,A bait for fools, a furious heat;A chilling cold, a wondrous passion,Exceeding man’s imagination;Which none can tell in whole or part,But only he that feels the smart.”

Love is the sickness of the thought,Conceit of pleasure dearly bought;A restless passion of the mind,A labyrinth of arrows blind:A sugared poison, fair deceit,A bait for fools, a furious heat;A chilling cold, a wondrous passion,Exceeding man’s imagination;Which none can tell in whole or part,But only he that feels the smart.”

Robert Greene has a somewhat similar description of Love (“What thing is Love? it is a power divine,” &c.) in “Menaphon,” 1589.

Page28.“Fond wanton youths.”—This piece is also printed in “The Golden Garland of Princely Delights,” 1620, where it is headed “Of the Inconveniences by Marriage,” and is directed to be sung to the tune of “When Troy town.”

Page29, l. 22.“Theirlongingsmust not be beguiled.”—The original gives “Theirlaughings” (which is unintelligible).

Page31.It was at Wanstead House, a seat of the Earl of Leicester, that Sidney wrote his masque the “Lady of the May” in honour of Queen Elizabeth’s visit in 1578. “Was Raleighretired there,” writes Mr. W. J. Linton (Rare Poems, p. 257), “during some season of her displeasure? There is a look of him about this song, not unlike the lines to Cynthia; and what mistress but Majesty should appoint his place of retirement?

‘Wanstead, my Mistress saith this is the doom.’”

The two lines that close each stanza are from a song in Sidney’s “Arcadia.”

Page37.“Who, known to all, unknown to himself dies.” From Seneca’s “Thyestes:”—

“qui notus nimis omnibusIgnotus moritur sibi.”

Page39.“How many things.”—I have given four of John Maynard’s “Twelve Wonders of the World” (cf. pp. 44-5, 69); and, if I am not mistaken, the reader will like to see the remaining eight. There is much freshness and piquancy in these quaint old rhymes, which were written by no less a poet than Sir John Davies.

“The Divine.My calling is Divine,And I from God am sent;I will no chop-church be,Nor pay my patron rent,Nor yield to sacrilege;But like the kind true mother,Rather will lose all the childThan part it with another.Much wealth I will not seek,Nor worldly masters serve,So to grow rich and fatWhile my poor flock doth starve.

“The Divine.My calling is Divine,And I from God am sent;I will no chop-church be,Nor pay my patron rent,

“The Divine.

Nor yield to sacrilege;But like the kind true mother,Rather will lose all the childThan part it with another.

Much wealth I will not seek,Nor worldly masters serve,So to grow rich and fatWhile my poor flock doth starve.

The Soldier.My occupation isThe noble trade of kingsThe trial that decidesThe highest right of things.Though Mars my master be,I do not Venus love,Nor honour Bacchus oft,Nor often swear by Jove.Of speaking of myselfI all occasion shun,And rather love to do,Than boast what I have done.

The Soldier.My occupation isThe noble trade of kingsThe trial that decidesThe highest right of things.

The Soldier.

Though Mars my master be,I do not Venus love,Nor honour Bacchus oft,Nor often swear by Jove.

Of speaking of myselfI all occasion shun,And rather love to do,Than boast what I have done.

The Lawyer.The law my calling is;My robe, my tongue, my penWealth and opinion gainAnd make me judge of men.The known dishonest cause,I never did defendNor spun out suits in length,But wish’d and sought an end;Nor counsel did bewray,Nor of both parties take,Nor ever took I feeFor which I never spake.

The Lawyer.The law my calling is;My robe, my tongue, my penWealth and opinion gainAnd make me judge of men.

The Lawyer.

The known dishonest cause,I never did defendNor spun out suits in length,But wish’d and sought an end;

Nor counsel did bewray,Nor of both parties take,Nor ever took I feeFor which I never spake.

The Physician.I study to upholdThe slippery state of man,Who dies when we have doneThe best and all we can.From practice and from booksI draw my learned skill,Not from the known receiptOr ’pothecary’s bill.The earth my faults doth hide,The world my cures doth see,What youth and time effectsIs oft ascribed to me.

The Physician.I study to upholdThe slippery state of man,Who dies when we have doneThe best and all we can.

The Physician.

From practice and from booksI draw my learned skill,Not from the known receiptOr ’pothecary’s bill.

The earth my faults doth hide,The world my cures doth see,What youth and time effectsIs oft ascribed to me.

The Merchant.My trade doth everythingTo every land supply,Discovers unknown coasts,Strange countries doth ally.I never did forestall,I never did engross,Nor custom did withdrawThough I return’d with loss.I thrive by fair exchange,By selling and by buying,And not by Jewish use,Reprisal, fraud, or lying.

The Merchant.My trade doth everythingTo every land supply,Discovers unknown coasts,Strange countries doth ally.

The Merchant.

I never did forestall,I never did engross,Nor custom did withdrawThough I return’d with loss.

I thrive by fair exchange,By selling and by buying,And not by Jewish use,Reprisal, fraud, or lying.

The Country Gentleman.Though strange outlandish spiritsPraise towns and countries scorn,The country is my home,I dwell where I was born.There profit and commandWith pleasure I partake,Yet do not hawks and dogsMy sole companions make.I rule, but not oppress;End quarrels, not maintain;See towns, but dwell not thereTo abridge my charge or train.

The Country Gentleman.Though strange outlandish spiritsPraise towns and countries scorn,The country is my home,I dwell where I was born.

The Country Gentleman.

There profit and commandWith pleasure I partake,Yet do not hawks and dogsMy sole companions make.

I rule, but not oppress;End quarrels, not maintain;See towns, but dwell not thereTo abridge my charge or train.

The Wife.The first of all our sexCame from the side of man,I thither am return’dFrom whence our sex began.I do not visit oft,Nor many when I do,I tell my mind to fewAnd that in counsel too.I seem not sick in health,Nor sullen but in sorrow;I care for somewhat elseThan what to wear to-morrow.

The Wife.The first of all our sexCame from the side of man,I thither am return’dFrom whence our sex began.

The Wife.

I do not visit oft,Nor many when I do,I tell my mind to fewAnd that in counsel too.

I seem not sick in health,Nor sullen but in sorrow;I care for somewhat elseThan what to wear to-morrow.

The Widow.My dying husband knewHow much his death would grieve me,And therefore left me wealthTo comfort and relieve me.Though I no more will have,I must not love disdain;Penelope her selfDid suitors entertain.And yet to draw on suchAs are of best esteem,Nor younger than I amNor richer will I seem.”

The Widow.My dying husband knewHow much his death would grieve me,And therefore left me wealthTo comfort and relieve me.

The Widow.

Though I no more will have,I must not love disdain;Penelope her selfDid suitors entertain.

And yet to draw on suchAs are of best esteem,Nor younger than I amNor richer will I seem.”

Page41.“I have house and land in Kent.”—This admirable song has been frequently reprinted. Miss De Vaynes, in her very valuable “Kentish Garland” (i., 142), observes:—“We have met with no other song in the Kentish dialect except Jan Ploughshare’s” (printed on p. 372, vol. i., of the “Garland”). Rimbault in his “Little Book of Songs and Ballads” (1851), gives the following lines from an old MS. (temp. Henry VIII.):—

“Joan, quoth John, when will this be?Tell me when wilt thou marry me,My corn and eke my calf and rents,My lands and all my tenements?Say, Joan, quoth John, what wilt thou do?I cannot come every day to woo?”

David Herd printed a fragment of a Scotch song that was founded on the English song:—

“I hae layen three herring a’ sa’t,Bonny lass, gin ze’ll take me, tell me now,And I hae brew’n three pickles o’ ma’tAnd I cannae cum ilka day to woo.To woo, to woo, to lilt and to woo,And I cannae cum ilka day to woo.I hae a wee ca’f that wad fain be a cow,Bonny lassie, gin ye’ll take me, tell me now,I hae a wee gryce that wad fain be a sow,And I cannae cum ilka day to woo.To woo, to woo, to lilt and to woo,And I cannae cum ilka day to woo.”

I hae a wee ca’f that wad fain be a cow,Bonny lassie, gin ye’ll take me, tell me now,I hae a wee gryce that wad fain be a sow,And I cannae cum ilka day to woo.To woo, to woo, to lilt and to woo,And I cannae cum ilka day to woo.”

Page43.“I joy not in no earthly bliss.”—These stanzas are usually printed with “My mind to me a kingdom is” (p. 78), and the whole poem has been attributed to Sir Edward Dyer.

Page47.“I weigh not Fortune’s frown nor smile.”—These lines (which seem to have been modelled on “I joy not in no earthly bliss”) are by Joshua Sylvester.

In the second stanza, “I sound not at the news of wreck,”soundis an old form ofswoon.

Page52.“If women could be fair.”—This poem is ascribed to Edward, Earl of Oxford, in Rawlinson, MS. 85, fol. 16.

Page53.“In darkness let me dwell.”—These lines are also found in Robert Dowland’s “Musical Banquet,” 1610, set to music by John Dowland.

Page57.“In the merry month of May.”—First printed in “The Honorable Entertainment given to the Queen’s Majesty in Progress at Elvetham in Hampshire, by the Right Honorable the Earl of Hertford,” 1591, under the title of “The Ploughman’s Song.”

Page60.“It was the frog in the well.”—There are several versions of this old ditty: the following is from Kirkpatrick Sharpe’s “Ballad Book,” 1824:—

“There lived a puddy in a well,And a merry mouse in a mill.Puddy he’d a wooin ride,Sword and pistol by his side.Puddy came to the mouse’s wonne,‘Mistress mouse, are you within?’‘Yes, kind sir, I am within;Saftly do I sit and spin.’‘Madam, I am come to woo;Marriage I must have of you.’‘Marriage I will grant you nane,Until uncle Rotten he comes hame.’‘Uncle Rotten’s now come hame;Fy! gar busk the bride alang.’Lord Rotten sat at the head o’ the table,Because he was baith stout and able.Wha is’t that sits next the wa’,But Lady Mouse, baith jimp and sma’?What is’t that sits next the bride,But the sola puddy wi’ his yellow side?Syne came the deuk, but and the drake;The deuk took puddy, and garred him squaik.Then cam in the carl cat,Wi’ a fiddle on his back.‘Want ye ony music here?’The puddy he swam doun the brook;The drake he catched him in his fluke.The cat he pu’d Lord Rotten doun;The kittens they did claw his croun.But Lady Mouse, baith jimp and sma’,Crept into a hole beneath the wa’;‘Squeak!’ quoth she, ‘I’m weel awa.’”

“There lived a puddy in a well,And a merry mouse in a mill.

Puddy he’d a wooin ride,Sword and pistol by his side.

Puddy came to the mouse’s wonne,‘Mistress mouse, are you within?’

‘Yes, kind sir, I am within;Saftly do I sit and spin.’

‘Madam, I am come to woo;Marriage I must have of you.’

‘Marriage I will grant you nane,Until uncle Rotten he comes hame.’

‘Uncle Rotten’s now come hame;Fy! gar busk the bride alang.’

Lord Rotten sat at the head o’ the table,Because he was baith stout and able.

Wha is’t that sits next the wa’,But Lady Mouse, baith jimp and sma’?

What is’t that sits next the bride,But the sola puddy wi’ his yellow side?

Syne came the deuk, but and the drake;The deuk took puddy, and garred him squaik.

Then cam in the carl cat,Wi’ a fiddle on his back.‘Want ye ony music here?’

The puddy he swam doun the brook;The drake he catched him in his fluke.

The cat he pu’d Lord Rotten doun;The kittens they did claw his croun.

But Lady Mouse, baith jimp and sma’,Crept into a hole beneath the wa’;‘Squeak!’ quoth she, ‘I’m weel awa.’”

Doubtless Ravenscroft’s version is more ancient. A ballad entitled “A most strange weddinge of the frogge and the mouse” was licensed for printing in 1580.

Page65.“Lady, when I behold.”—Gracefully Paraphrased from an Italian original:—

“Quand’ io miro le rose,Ch’in voi natura pose;E quelle che v’ ha l’arteNel vago seno sparte;Non so conoscer poiSe voi le rose, o sian le rose in voi.”

Page66.John Danyel is supposed to have been a brother of Samuel Daniel, the poet. He took his degree of Bachelor of Music in 1604. “At the commencement of the reign of Charles the First he was one of the Court Musicians, and his name occurs among the ‘Musicians for the Lutes and Voices’ in a privy seal, dated December 20th, 1625, exempting the musicians belonging to the Court from the payment of subsidies” (Rimbault).

Page68.“Then all at oncefor our towncries.”—“I should imagine,” says Oliphant, “that there was occasionally a sort of friendly contention in the sports between neighbouring villages; which idea is rather corroborated by a passage from an old play called the ‘Vow-breaker’ by Samson, 1636: ‘Let the major play the hobby-horse an’ he will; I hopeour Town ladscannot want a hobby-horse.’” In an old play. “The Country Girl,” (first printed in 1647), attributed to that shadowy personage Antony Brewer, we have an allusion to this pleasant form of rivalry:—

“Abraham.Sister Gillian,—I have the rarest news for you.Gillian.For me? ’tis well. And what news have you got, sir?Abr.Skipping news, lipping news, tripping news.Gil.How! dancing, brother Abram, dancing?Abr.Prancing, advancing, dancing. Nay, ’tis a match, a match upon a wager.Gil.A match. Who be they?Abr.Why all the wenches ofour townEdmonton, and all the mad wenches of Waltham.Gil.A match, and leave me out! When, when is’t, brother?Abr.Marry, e’en this morning:—they are now going to’t helter-skelter. [A treble plays within.Gil.And leave me out! where, brother, where?Abr.Why there, Sister Gillian; there, at our own door almost,—on the green there, close by the may-pole. Hark! you may hear them hither.” (Sig. D.)

The stage-direction at the entrance of the dancers runs thus:—“Enter six country wenches, all red petticoats, white stitch’d bodies, in their smock-sleeves, the fiddler before them, and Gillian with her tippet up in the midst of them dancing.”

Page73.“It was the purest light of heaven” &c.—I am reminded of a fine passage in Drayton’s “Barons’ Wars,” canto VI.:—

“Looking upon proud Phaeton wrapped in fire,The gentle queen did much bewail his fall;But Mortimer commended his desireTo lose one poor life or to govern all.‘What though,’ quoth he, ‘he madly did aspireAnd his great mind made him proud Fortune’s thrall?Yet, in despight when she her worst had done,He perish’d in the chariot of the sun.’”

Page74.“The Bellman’s Song.”—In “Robin Goodfellow; his mad pranks and merry jests,” 1628, we have another specimen of a Bellman’s Song:—

“Sometimes would he go like a bellman in the night, and with many pretty verses delight the ears of those that waked at his bell-ringing: his verses were these:—

Maids in your smocks,Look well to your locks,And your tinder-box,Your wheels and your rocks,Your hens and your cocks,Your cows and your ox,And beware of the fox.When the bellman knocksPut out your fire and candle-light,So they shall not you affright.May you dream of your delights,In your sleeps see pleasing sights!Good rest to all, both old and young:The bellman now hath done his song.

Then would he go laughingHo ho ho!as his use was.”

Page77.“That kisses were theseals of love.”—Every reader will recall

“But my kisses bring again, bring again.Seals of lovebut sealed in vain, sealed in vain.”

(The first stanza is found among the poems of Sir Philip Sidney.)

Page80.“My prime of youth.”—This song is also set to music in Richard Alison’s “Hour’s Recreation,” 1606, and Michael Este’s “Madrigals of three, four, and five parts,” 1604. It is printed in “Reliquiæ: Wottonianæ” as “By Chidick Tychborn, being young and then in the tower, the night before his execution.” Chidiock Tychbourne of Southampton was executed with Ballard and Babington in 1586.

Page80.“My sweetest Lesbia.”—The first stanza is an elegant paraphrase from Catullus, though the last line fails to render the rhythmical sweetness long-drawn-out of “Nox est perpetua una dormienda.”

Page81.“My Thoughts are winged with Hopes.”—This piece is also found in “England’s Helicon.” A MS. copy, in a commonplace book found at Hamburg, is signed “W. S.” I have frequently met with these initials in volumes of MS. poetry of the early part of the seventeenth century. The following pretty verses in Add. MS. 21, 433, fol. 158, are subscribed “W. S.”:—

“O when will Cupid show such artTo strike two lovers with one dart?I’m ice to him or he to me;Two hearts alike there seldom be.If ten thousand meet together,Scarce one face is like another:If scarce two faces can agree,Two hearts alike there seldom be.”

“O when will Cupid show such artTo strike two lovers with one dart?I’m ice to him or he to me;Two hearts alike there seldom be.

If ten thousand meet together,Scarce one face is like another:If scarce two faces can agree,Two hearts alike there seldom be.”

There is not the slightest ground for identifying “W. S.” with Shakespeare. Mr. Linton (“Rare Poems,” p. 255) conjectures that “My Thoughts are winged with Hopes”—which has the heading “To Cynthia” in “England’s Helicon”—may be by Raleigh.

Page83.“Now each creature.”—The first stanza of “An Ode” by Samuel Daniel, originally printed in the 1592 edition of “Delia.”

“Now God be with old Simeon.”—Here is another round from “Pammelia”:—

“Come drink to me,And I to thee.And then shall weFull well agree.I’ve loved the jolly tankard,Full seven winters and more;I loved it so longThat I went upon the score.Who loveth not the tankard,He is no honest man;And he is no right soldier,That loveth not the can.Tap the cannikin, troll the cannikin,Toss the cannikin, turn the cannikin!Hold now, good son, and fill us a fresh can,That we may quaff it round from man to man.”

“Come drink to me,And I to thee.And then shall weFull well agree.

I’ve loved the jolly tankard,Full seven winters and more;I loved it so longThat I went upon the score.

Who loveth not the tankard,He is no honest man;And he is no right soldier,That loveth not the can.

Tap the cannikin, troll the cannikin,Toss the cannikin, turn the cannikin!Hold now, good son, and fill us a fresh can,That we may quaff it round from man to man.”

Good honest verse, but ill-suited to these degenerate, tea-drinking days.

Page85.“Now I see thy looks were feignèd.”—First printed in “The Phœnix Nest,” 1593, subscribed “T. L. Gent,”i.e.Thomas Lodge, one of the most brilliant of Elizabethan lyrists.

Page87.“Shall we play barley-break.”—The fullest description of the rustic game of barley-break is to be found in the first book of Sidney’s “Arcadia.”

Page87.“Now let her change.” This song is also set to Music in Robert Jones’ “Ultimum Vale” (1608).

Page89.“Now what is love” &c.—This poem originally appeared in “The Phœnix Nest,” 1593; it is also printed (in form of a dialogue) in “England’s Helicon,” 1600, and Davison’s “Poetical Rhapsody,” 1602. It is ascribed to Raleigh in a MS. list of Davison’s. See Canon Hannah’s edition of Raleigh’s poems.

Page93.“Oft have I mused.”—This poem was printed in Davison’s “Poetical Rhapsody,” 1602.

Page96.“Our country-swains in the morris-dance.”—In Morley’s “Madrigals to Four Voices,” 1594, there is a lively description of the morris-dance:—

“Ho! who comes here with bag-piping and drumming?O, ’tis I see the morris-dance a coming.Come, ladies, out, O come, come quickly,And see about how trim they dance and trickly:Hey! there again: hark! how the bells they shake it!Nowfor our town! once there, now for our town and take it:Soft awhile, not away so fast, they melt them!Piper be hang’d, knave! look, the dancers swelt them.Out, there, stand out!—you come too far (I say) in—There give the hobby-horse more room to play in!”

“I woo with tears andne’er the near.”—Ne’er the near(a proverbial expression) = Never the nigher.

Page107.“When they came home Sisflotedcream.”—I suppose the meaning is that Sis skimmed the cream from the milk. Halliwell (Arch. Dict.) gives “Flotten-milk. Same as Flet-mitte” and “flet-mitte” is a north-country term for skimmed milk.

“Since first I saw.”—This exquisite song is also found in “The Golden Garland of Princely Delights,” 1620.

Page114.“Sweet Love, my only treasure.”—Printed in Davison’s “Poetical Rhapsody,” 1602, where it is subscribed with the mysterious initials “A. W.”

Page115.“Sweet, stay awhile.”—I suspect that this stanza does not really belong to Donne’s “Break of day;” it is not found in MS. copies of Donne’s poems, nor in any edition prior to that of 1669. Probably Donne’s verses were written as a companion-piece to the present poem.

Page120.“Yet merrily sings little Robin.”—The loveliest of all verses in praise of Robin Redbreast are in Chapman’s “Tears of Peace,” 1609:—

“Whose facethe birdhidthat loves humans best,That hath the bugle eyes and rosy breast,And is the yellow autumn’s nightingale.”

Page120.“The love of change.”—This is the first stanza ofa poem which is printed entire (in six stanzas) in Davison’s “Poetical Rhapsody,” 1602.

Page121.“The lowest trees have tops.”—Printed in Davison’s “Poetical Rhapsody” with the signature “Incerto.”

Page121.“The man of life upright.”—In some old MS. copies this poem is ascribed to Francis Bacon: see Hannah’s “Poems of Raleigh and Wotton,” p. 119. Canon Hannah makes no mention of Campion’s claim. Campion distinctly tells us that he wrote both the verses and the music of his songs: and I have no doubt that he was the author of the present lyric, which has more merit than any of Bacon’s poems. In an epigram printed in his “Observations in the Art of English Poetry,” 1602, there is a striking image that reappears in the present poem:—

“A wise man wary lives yet most secure,Sorrows move not him greatly, nor delights,Fortune and death he scorning only makesTh’ earth his sober inn, but still heaven his home.”(Sig.C2).

Henceforward let nobody claim “The man of life upright” for Bacon.

Page124.“The Nightingale so pleasant and so gay.”—“According to Peacham,” says Oliphant (“Musa Madrigalesca,” p. 45), “there was a virtuous contention between W. Byrd and Ferrabosco who of the two should best set these words; in which according to his (Peacham’s) opinion, Ferrabosco succeeded so well that ‘it could not be bettered for sweetness of ayre and depth of judgment.’”

Page124.“The Nightingale so soon as April bringeth.”—From the first stanza of a poem printed in the third edition of Sidney’s “Arcadia,” 1598.

Page126.“There is a garden in her face.”—This poem is also set to music in Alison’s “Hour’s Recreation,” 1606, and Robert Jones’ “Ultimum Vale” (1608). Herrick’s dainty verses “Cherry-Ripe” are well-known:—

“Cherry-ripe, ripe, ripe! I cry:Full and fair ones, come and buy.If so be you ask me whereThey do grow, I answer,—There,Where my Julia’s lips do smile,There’s the land or cherry-isle,Whose plantations fully showAll the year where cherries grow.”

Page127.“There is a lady sweet and kind.”—Printed also in “The Golden Garland of Princely Delights,” 1620.

Page128.“There were three Ravens.”—The north-country version of this noble dirge contains some verses of appalling intensity:—

“His horse is to the huntin ganeHis hounds to bring the wild deer hame;His lady’s ta’en another mate,So we may mak our dinner sweet.“O we’ll sit on his bonny breast-bane,And we’ll pyke out his bonny gray een;Wi’ ae lock o’ his gowden hair,We’ll theek our nest when it blaws bare.“Mony a ane for him makes mane,But none sall ken where he is gane:Ower his banes when they are bare,The wind sall blaw for evermair.”

“His horse is to the huntin ganeHis hounds to bring the wild deer hame;His lady’s ta’en another mate,So we may mak our dinner sweet.

“O we’ll sit on his bonny breast-bane,And we’ll pyke out his bonny gray een;Wi’ ae lock o’ his gowden hair,We’ll theek our nest when it blaws bare.

“Mony a ane for him makes mane,But none sall ken where he is gane:Ower his banes when they are bare,The wind sall blaw for evermair.”

Page130.“Think’st thou to seduce me,” &c.—In William Corkine’s “Airs,” 1610, this song is found with considerable variations. Corkine gives only three stanzas. The first stanza agrees closely with Campion’s text; the second and third stanzas run thus:—

“Learn to speak first, then to woo, to wooing much pertaineth;He that hath not art to hide, soon falters when he feigneth,And, as one that wants his wits, he smiles when he complaineth.“If with wit we be deceived our faults may be excusèd,Seeming good with flattery graced is but of few refusèd,But of all accursed are they that are by fools abusèd.”

“Learn to speak first, then to woo, to wooing much pertaineth;He that hath not art to hide, soon falters when he feigneth,And, as one that wants his wits, he smiles when he complaineth.

“If with wit we be deceived our faults may be excusèd,Seeming good with flattery graced is but of few refusèd,But of all accursed are they that are by fools abusèd.”

Page131.“Thou art not fair for all thy red and white.”—These lines are printed in Dr. Grosart’s edition of Donne’spoems, vol. ii. p. 259. They are ascribed to Donne in an early MS.; but I see no reason for depriving Campion of them. (The first stanza is also set to music in Thomas Vautor’s “Airs,” 1619.)

Page132.“Though Amaryllis dance in green.”—Also printed in “England’s Helicon,” 1600.

Page148.“We must not part as others do.”—These lines are very much in Donne’s manner. The MS. from which they are taken (Egerton MS. 2013) contains some undoubted poems of Donne.

Page151.“Were I a king.”—Canon Hannah prints these verses (in his “Poems of Raleigh and Wotton,” p. 147) from a MS. copy, in which they are assigned to Edward Earl of Oxford. Appended in the MS. are the following answers:—

“Answered thus by Sir P. S.Wert thou a king, yet not command content,Sith empire none thy mind could yet suffice;Wert thou obscure, still cares would thee torment;But wert thou dead all care and sorrow dies.An easy choice, of these three which to crave:No kingdom, nor a cottage, but a grave.“Another of another mind.A king? oh, boon for my aspiring mind,A cottage makes a country swad rejoice:And as for death, I like him in his kindBut God forbid that he should be my choice!A kingdom or a cottage or a grave,—Nor last, nor next, but first and best I crave;The rest I can, whenas I list, enjoy,Till then salute me thus—Vive le roy!“Another of another mind.The greatest kings do least command content;The greatest cares do still attend a crown;A grave all happy fortunes doth preventMaking the noble equal with the clown:A quiet country life to lead I crave;A cottage then; no kingdom nor a grave.”

“Another of another mind.A king? oh, boon for my aspiring mind,A cottage makes a country swad rejoice:And as for death, I like him in his kindBut God forbid that he should be my choice!A kingdom or a cottage or a grave,—Nor last, nor next, but first and best I crave;The rest I can, whenas I list, enjoy,Till then salute me thus—Vive le roy!

“Another of another mind.The greatest kings do least command content;The greatest cares do still attend a crown;A grave all happy fortunes doth preventMaking the noble equal with the clown:A quiet country life to lead I crave;A cottage then; no kingdom nor a grave.”

Page152.“What is our life?”—A MS. copy of these verses is subscribed “SrW. R.”,i.e., Sir Walter Raleigh. See Hannah’s “Poems of Raleigh and Wotton,” p. 27.

Compare the sombre verses, signed “Ignoto,” in “Reliquiæ Wottonianæ”:—

“Man’s life’s a tragedy; his mother’s womb,From which he enters, is the tiring-room;This spacious earth the theatre, and the stageThat country which he lives in: passions, rage,Folly and vice are actors; the first cryThe prologue to the ensuing tragedy;The former act consisteth of dumb shows;The second, he to more perfection grows;I’ the third he is a man and doth beginTo nurture vice and act the deeds of sin;I’ the fourth declines; i’ the fifth diseases clogAnd trouble him; then death’s his epilogue.”

Page153.“What needeth all this travail and turmoiling?”—Suggested by Spenser’s fifteenth sonnet:—

“Ye tradefull Merchants that with weary toyleDo seeke most pretious things to make your gain,And both the Indias of their treasure spoile,What needeth you to seeke so farre in vaine?For loe! my Love doth in her selfe containeAll this worlds riches that may farre be found.If Saphyres, loe! her eies be Saphyres plaine;If Rubies, loe! hir lips be Rubies sound;If Pearles, hir teeth be pearles, both pure and round;If Yvorie, her forehead yvory weene;If Gold, her locks are finest gold on ground;If Silver, her faire hands are silver sheene:But that which fairest is but few behold,Her mind, adornd with vertues manifold.”

Page154, l. 1.“And fortune’s fate not fearing.”—Oliphant boldly reads, for the sake of the rhyme, “Andfickle fortune scorning.”—in “England’s Helicon” the text is the same as in the song-book.

Page158, l. 5.“And when she saw that I was in herdanger.”—Within one’s danger= to be in a person’s power or control.

L. 16.“WhiteIope.”—Campion must have had in his mind a passage of Propertius (ii. 28);—

“Sunt apud infernos tot millia formosarum:Pulchra sit in superis, si licet, una locis.Vobiscum estIope, vobiscum candida Tyro,Vobiscum Europe, nec proba Pasiphae.”

See Hertzberg’s note on that passage.

Page162.“While that the sun.”—Also printed in “England’s Helicon,” 1600.

Back to Index Next