1 Choyce Drollery, 1656
Note, on the Address to the Reader, &c.
The subscribed initials, “R. P.” are those of Robert Pollard; whose name appears on the title-page (which we reproduce), preceding his address. Excepting that he was a bookseller, dwelling and trading at the “Ben Jonson’s Head, behind the Exchange,” in business-connection with John Sweeting, of the Angel, in Pope’s Head Alley, in 1656; and that he had previously issued a somewhat similar Collection of Poems to the Choyce Drollery (successful, but not yet identified), we know nothing more of Robert Pollard. The books of that date, and of that special class, are extremely rare, and the few existing copies are so difficult of access (for the most part in private possession, almost totally inaccessible except to those who know not how to use them), that information can only be acquired piecemeal and laboriously. Five years hence, if the Editor be still alive, he may be able to tell much more concerning the authors and the compilers of the Restoration Drolleries.
We are told that there is an extra leaf to Choyce Drollery, “only found in a few copies, containing ten lines of verse, beginning Fame’s windy trump, &c. This leaf occurs in one or two extant copies of England’s Parnassus, 1600. Many of the pieces found here are much older than the date of the book [viz., 1656]. It contains notices of many of our early poets, and, unlike some of its successors, is of intrinsic value. Only two or three copies have occurred.” (W. C. H.’s Handb. Pop. Lit. G. B., 1867, p. 168.) “Cromwell’s Government ordered this book to be burned.” (Ibid.) On this last item see our Introduction, section first. J. P. Collier, who prepared the Catalogue of Richard Heber’s Collection, Bibliotheca Heberiana, Pt. iv., 1834 (a rich storehouse for bibliographical students, but not often gratefully acknowledged by them), thus writes of Choyce Drollery:—“This is one of the most intrinsically valuable of the Drolleries, if only for the sake of the very interesting poem in which characters are given of all the following Poets: Shakespeare, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Chapman, Daborne, Sylvester, Quarles, May, Sands, Digges, Daniel, Drayton, Withers, Brown, Shirley, Ford, Middleton, Heywood, Churchyard, Dekker, Brome, Chaucer, Spencer, Basse, and finally John Shank, the Actor, who is said to have been famous for a jig. Other pieces are much older, and are here reprinted from previous collections” [mostly lost]. P. 90.
It is also known to J. O. Halliwell-Phillips; (but, truly, what is not known to him?) See Shakespeare Society’s Papers, iii. 172, 1847.
In our copy of England’s Parnassus (unindexed, save subjects), 1600, we sought to find “Fame’s windy trump.” [We hear that the leaf was in E. P. at Tite’s sale, 1874.]
As we have never seen a copy of Choyce Drollery containing the passage of “ten lines,” described as beginning “Fame’s Windy Trump,” we cannot be quite certain of the following, from England’s Parnassus, 1600, being the one in question, but believe that it is so. Perhaps it ran, “Fame’s Windy Trump, whatever sound out-flies,” &c. There are twenty-seven lines in all. We distinguish the probable portion of “ten lines” by enclosing the other two parts in brackets:—
FAME.
[A Monster swifter none is under sunne;
Encreasing, as in waters we descrie
The circles small, of nothing that begun,
Which, at the length, unto such breadth do come,
That of a drop, which from the skies doth fall,
The circles spread, and hide the waters all:
So Fame, in flight encreasing more and more;
For, at the first, she is not scarcely knowne,
But by and by she fleets from shore to shore,
To clouds from th’ earth her stature straight is growne.
There whatsoever by her trumpe is blowne,]
The sound, that both by sea and land out-flies,
Rebounds againe, and verberates the skies.
They say, the earth that first the giants bred,
For anger that the gods did them dispatch,
Brought forth this sister of those monsters dead,
Full light of foote, swift wings the winds to catch:
Such monsters erst did nature never hatch.
As many plumes she hath from top to toe,
So many eyes them underwatch or moe;
And tongues do speake: so many eares do harke.
[By night ’tweene heaven she flies and earthly shade,
And, shreaking, takes no quiet sleepe by darke:
On houses roofes, on towers, as keeper made,
She sits by day, and cities threates t’ invade;
And as she tells what things she sees by view,
She rather shewes that’s fained false, then true.]
[Legend of Albanact.] I. H., Mirror of Magist.
Page 1. Deare Love, Let Me This Evening Dye
This beautiful little love-poem re-appears, as Song 77, in Windsor Drollery, 1672, p. 63. (There had been a previous edition of that work, in 1671, which we have examined: it is not noted by bibliographers, and is quite distinct.) A few variations occur. Verse 2. are wrack’d; 3. In love is not commended; only sweet, All praise, no pity; who fondly; 4. Shall shortly by dead Lovers lie; hallow’d; 5. He which all others els excels, That are; 6. Will, though thou; 7. the Bells shall ring; While all to black is; (last line but two in parenthesis;) Making, like Flowers, &c.
Page 4. nor Love nor Fate Dare I Accuse
By Richard Brome, in his “Northerne Lasse,” 1632, Act ii., sc. 6. It is also given in Westminster-Drollery, 1671, i. 83 (the only song in common). But compare with it the less musical and tender, “Nor Love, nor Fate can I accuse of hate,” in same vol. ii. 90, with Appendix Note thereunto, p. lxiii.
Page 5. One Night the Great Apollo, Pleased With Ben
This remarkable and little-known account of “The Time-Poets” is doubly interesting, as being a contemporary document, full of life-like portraiture of men whom no lapse of years can banish from us; welcome friends, whom we grow increasingly desirous of beholding intimately. Glad are we to give it back thus to the world; our chief gem, in its rough Drollery-setting: lifted once more into the light of day, from out the cobwebbed nooks where it so long-time had lain hidden. Our joy would have been greater, could we have restored authoritatively the lost sixteenth-line, by any genuine discovery among early manuscripts; or told something conclusive about the author of the poem, who has laid us under obligation for these vivid portraits of John Ford, Thomas Heywood, poor old Thomas Churchyard, and Ben’s courageous foeman, worthy of his steel, that Thomas Dekker who “followed after in a dream.”
In deep humility we must confess that nothing is yet learnt as to the authorship. Here, in the year 1656, almost at fore-front of Choyce Drollery, the very strength of its van-guard, appeared the memorable poem. Whether it were then and there for the first time in print, or borrowed from some still more rare and now-lost volume, none of us can prove. Even at this hour, a possibility remains that our resuscitation of Choyce Drollery may help to bring the unearthing of explanatory facts from zealous students. We scarcely dare to cherish hope of this. Certainly we may not trust to it. For Gerard Langbaine knew the poem well, and quoted oft and largely from it in his 1691 Account of the English Dramatick Poets. But he met with it nowhere save in Choyce Drollery, and writes of it continually in language that proves how ignorant he was of whom we are to deem the author. Yet he wrote within five-and-thirty years behind the date of its appearance; and might easily have learnt, from men still far from aged, who had read the Drollery on its first publication, whatever they could tell of “The Time-Poets:” if, indeed, they could tell anything. Five years earlier, William Winstanley had given forth his Lives of the most famous English Poets, in June, 1686; but he quotes not from it, and leaves us without an Open Sesame. Even Oldys could not tell; or Thomas Hearne, who often had remembered whatever Time forgot.
As to the date: we believe it was certainly written between 1620 (inclusive) and 1636; nearer the former year.
We reconcile ourselves for the failure, by turning to such other and similar poetic groupings as survive. We listen unto Richard Barnfield, when he sings sweetly his “Remembrance of some English Poets,” in 1598. We cling delightedly to the words of our noble Michael Drayton—whose descriptive map of native England, Polyolbion, glitters with varie-coloured light, as though it were a mediæval missal: to whom, enditing his Epistle to friend Henry Reynolds—“A Censure of the Poets”—the Muses brought each bard by turn, so that the picture might be faithful: even as William Blake, idealist and spiritual Seer, believed of spirit-likenesses in his own experience. And, not without deep feeling (marvelling, meanwhile, that still the task of printing them with Editorial care is unattempted), we peruse the folio manuscripts of that fair-haired minstrel of the Cavaliers, George Daniel of Beswick, while he also, in his “Vindication of Poesie,” sings in praise of those whose earlier lays are echoing now and always “through the corridors of Time:”—
Truth speaks of old, the power of Poesie;
Amphion, Orpheus, stones and trees could move;
Men, first by verse, were taught Civilitie;
’Tis known and granted; yet would it behove
Mee, with the Ancient Singers, here to crowne
Some later Quills, some Makers of our owne.
Nor should we fail to thank the younger Evelyn, for such graphic sketches as he gives of Restoration-Dramatists, of Cowley, Dryden, Wycherley, “Sedley and easy Etherege;” a new world of wits, all of whose works we prize, without neglecting for their sakes the older Masters who “so did take Eliza, and our James.”
Something that we could gladly say, will come in befittingly on after-pages of this volume, in the “Additional Note on Sir John Suckling’s ‘Sessions of the Poets,’” as printed in our Merry Drollery, Compleat, page 72.
Are we stumbling at the threshold, absit omen! even amid our delight in perusing “the Time-Poets,” when we wonder at the precise meaning of the statement in our opening couplet?
One night the great Apollo, pleas’d with Ben,
Made the odd number of the Muses ten.
By whom additional? Who is the lady, thus elevated? We see only one solution: namely, that furnished by the conclusion of the poem. It was the Faerie Queene herself whom the God lifted thus, in honour of her English Poets, to rank as the Tenth Muse, an equal with Urania, Clio, Euterpe, and their sisterhood. Yet something seems wanting, next to it; for we never reach a full-stop until the end of the 39th (or query, the 40th) line; and all the confluent nominatives lack a common verbal-action. Our mind, it is true, accepts intelligibly the onward rush of each and all (but later, “with equal pace each of them softly creeps”). It may be only grammatical pedantry which craves some such phrase, absent from the text, as—
[While throng’d around his comrades and his peers,
To list the ’sounding Music of the Spheres:]
But, since a momentary rashness prompts us here to dare so much, as to imagine the hiatus filled, let us suppose that the lost sixteenth-line ran someway thus (each reader being free to try experiments himself, with chance of more success):—
Divine-composing Quarles, whose lines aspire
[And glow, as doth with like etherial fire] 16th.
The April of all Poesy in May,
Who makes our English speak Pharsalia;
It is with some timidity we let this stand: but, as the text is left intact, our friends will pardon us; and foes we never quail to meet. As to Ben Jonson, see our “Sessions,” in Part iv. Of Beaumont and Fletcher, we write in the note on final page of Choyce Drollery, p. 100. Of “Ingenious Shakespeare” we need say no more than give the lines of Richard Barnfield in his honour, from the Poems in diuers humors, 1598:—
A Remembrance of some English Poets.
Liue Spenser euer, in thy Fairy Queene:
Whose like (for deepe Conceit) was neuer seene.
Crownd mayst thou bee, vnto thy more renowne,
(As King of Poets) with a Lawrell Crowne.
And Daniell, praised for thy sweet-chast Verse:
Whose Fame is grav’d in Rosamonds blacke Herse.
Still mayst thou liue: and still be honored,
For that rare Worke, The White Rose and the Red.
And Drayton, whose wel-written Tragedies
And sweet Epistles, soare thy fame to skies.
Thy learned Name, is æquall with the rest;
Whose stately Numbers are so well addrest.
And Shakespeare thou, whose hony-flowing Vaine,
(Pleasing the World) thy Praises doth obtaine.
Whose Venus, and whose Lucrece (sweete and chaste)
Thy Name in fames immortall Booke hath plac’t.
Liue euer you, at least in Fame liue euer:
Well may the Bodye dye, but Fame dies neuer.
The praise of Massinger will not seem overstrained; although he never affects us with the sense of supreme genius, as does Marlowe. The recognition of George Chapman’s grandeur, and the power with which this recognition is expressed, show how tame is the influence of Massinger in comparison. There need be little question that it was to Dekker’s mind and pen we owe the nobler portion of the Virgin Martyr. Massinger, when alongside of Marlow, Webster, and Dekker, is like Euripides contrasted with Æschylus and Sophocles. We think of him as a Playwright, and successful; but these others were Poets of Apollo’s own body-guard. Drayton sings:
Next Marlow, bathed in the Thespian springs,
Had in him those brave translunary things
That the first poets had, his raptures were
All air and fire, which made his verses clear;
For that fine madness still he did retain,
Which rightly should possess a poet’s brain.
Robert Daborne is chiefly interesting to us from his connection in misfortunes and dramatic labours with Massinger and Nat Field; and as joining them in the supplication for advance of money from Philip Henslow, while they lay in prison. The reference to Daborne’s clerical, as well as to his dramatic vocation, and to his having died (in Ireland, we believe, leaving behind him sermons,) “Amphibion by the Ministry,” confirms the general belief.
Jo: Sylvester’s translation of Du Bartas, 1621; Thomas May’s of Lucan’s Pharsalia, George Sandys’ of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, need little comment here; some being referred to, near the end of our volume.
Dudley Digges (1612-43), born at Chilham Castle, near Canterbury (now the seat of Charles S. Hardy, Esq.); son of Sir Dudley Digges, Master of the Rolls, wrote a reverent Elegy for Jonsonus Virbius, 1638. L[eonard] Digges had, fifteen years earlier, written the memorial lines beginning “Shake-speare, at length thy pious fellows give || The World thy Workes:” which appear at beginning of the first folio Shakespeare, 1623.
To Samuel Daniel’s high merits we have only lately awakened: his “Complaint of Rosamond” has a sustained dignity and pathos that deserve all Barnfield’s praise; the “Sonnets to Delia” are graceful and impressive in their purity; his “Civil Wars” may seem heavy, but the fault lies in ourselves, if unsteady readers, not the poet: thus we suspect, when we remember the true poetic fervour of his Pastoral,
O happy Golden Age!
and his Description of Beauty, from Marino.
Of “Heroick Drayton” we write more hereafter: He grows dearer to us with every year. His “Dowsabell” is on p. 73. Was his being coupled as a “Poet-Beadle,” in allusion to his numerous verse-epistles, showing an acquaintance with all the worthies of his day, even as his Polyolbion gives a roll-call of the men, and a gazetteer of the England they made illustrious? For, as shown in the Apophthegmmes of Erasmus, 1564, Booke 2nd, (p. 296 of the Boston Reprint,) it is “the proper office and dutie of soche biddelles (who were called in latin Nomenclators) to have perfecte knowlege and remembrance of the names, of the surnames, and of the titles of dignitees of all persones, to the ende that thei maie helpe the remembraunce of their maisters in the same when neede is.” To our day the office of an Esquire Beddell is esteemed in Cambridge University. But, we imagine, George Wither is styled a “Poets Beadle” with a very different significance. It was the Bridewell-Beadles’ whip which he wielded vigorously, in flagellation of offenders, that may have earned him the title. See his “Abuses Stript and Whipt,” 1613, and turn to the rough wood-cut of cart’s-tail punishment shown in the frontispiece to A Caueat or Warening for Common Cursetors, vulgarly called Vagabones, set forth by Thomas Harman, Esquier for the utilitie and profit of his naturall country, &c., 1566, and later (Reprinted by E. E. Text Soc., and in O. B. Coll. Misc., i. No. 4, 1871).
George Wither was his own worst foe, when he descended to satiric invective and pious verbiage. True poet was he; as his description of the Muse in her visit to him while imprisoned in the Marshalsea, with almost the whole of his “Shepherd’s Hunting” and “Mistress of Phil’arete,” prove incontestibly. He is to be loved and pitied: although perversely he will argue as a schismatick, always wrong-headed and in trouble, whichever party reigns. To him, in his sectarian zeal or sermonizing platitudes—all for our good, alas!—we can but answer with the melancholy Jacques: “I do not desire you to please me. I do desire you to sing!”
“Pan’s Pastoral Brown” is, of course, Wm. Browne, author of “Britannia’s Pastorals.” Like James Shirley, last in the group of early Dramatists, his precocious genius is remembered in the text. Regretting that no painted or sculptured portrait of John Forde survives, we are thankful for this striking picture of him in his sombre meditation. We could part, willingly, with half of our dramatic possessions since the nineteenth century began, to recover one of the lost plays by Ford. No writer holds us more entirely captive to the tenderness of sorrow; no one’s hand more lightly, yet more powerfully, stirs the affections, while admitting the sadness, than he who gave us “The Broken Heart,” and “’Tis pity she’s a whore.”
Not unhappily chosen is the epithet “The Squibbing Middleton,” for he almost always fails to impress us fully by his great powers. He warms not, he enlightens not, with steady glow, but gives us fireworks instead of stars or altar-burnings. We except from this rebuke his “Faire Quarrel,” 1622, which shows a much firmer grasp and purpose, fascinating us the while we read. Perhaps, with added knowledge of him will come higher esteem.
Of Thomas Heywood the portrait is complete, every word developing a feature: his fertility, his choice of subjects, and rubicund appearance.
Nor is the humourous sadness, of the figure shewn by the aged Thomas Churchyard, less touching because it is dashed in with burlesque. “Poverty and Poetry his Tomb doth enclose” (Camden’s Remains). His writings extend from the time of Edward VI. to early in the reign of James I. (he died in 1604); some of the poems in Tottel’s Miscellany, 1557, were claimed by him, but are not identified, and J. P. Collier thought him not unlikely to have partly edited the work, His “Tragedie of Shore’s Wife,” (best edit. 1698), in the Mirror for Magistrates, surpasses most of his other poems; yet are there biographical details in Churchyard’s Chips, 1575, that reward our perusal. Gascoigne and several other poets added Tam Marti quàm Mercurio after their names; but Churchyard could boast thus with more truth as a Soldier. He says:—
Full thirty yeers, both Court and Warres I tryed,
And still I sought acquaintaunce with the best,
And served the Staet, and did such hap abyed
As might befall, and Fortune sent the rest:
When drom did sound, a souldier was I prest,
To sea or lande, as Princes quarrell stoed,
And for the saem, full oft I lost my blood.
But, throughout, misfortune dogged him:—
... To serve my torn [i.e., turn] in service of the Queen:
But God he knoes, my gayn was small, I ween,
For though I did my credit still encreace,
I got no welth, by warres, ne yet by peace.
(C.’s Chips: A Tragicall Discourse of the unhappy man’s Life; verses 9, 26.)
Of Thomas Dekker, or Decker (about 1575-1638), “A priest in Apollo’s Temple, many yeares,” with his “Old Fortunatus,” both parts of his “Honest Whore,” his “Satiromastix,” and “Gull’s Hornbook,” &c.,—which take us back to all the mirth and squabbling of the day—we need add no word but praise. We believe that a valuable clue is afforded by the allusion in our text to the pamphlet “Dekker his Dreame,” 1620, (reprinted by J. O. Halliwell, 1860.) We may be certain that “The Time-Poets” was not written earlier than 1620, or any later than 1636 (or probably than 1632), and before Jonson’s death.
Page 7. “Rounce, Robble, Hobble, He That Writ So Big”
In this 50th line the word “high” is evidently redundant (probably an error in printer’s MS., not erased when the true word “big” was added): we retain it, of course, though in smaller type; as in similar cases of excess. But who was “Rounce, Robble, Hobble?” Most certainly it was no other than Richard Stanyhurst (1547-1618), whose varied adventures, erudition, and eccentricities of verse combined to make him memorable. His Hexameter translation of the Æneis Books i-iv, appeared in 1583; not followed by any more during the thirty-five years succeeding. Gabriel Harvey praised him, in his “Foure Letters,” &c., although Thomas Nashe, in 1592, declares that “Master Stanyhurst (though otherwise learned) trod a foule, lumbring, boystrous, wallowing measure in his translation of Virgil. He had never been praised by Gabriel [Harvey] for his labour, if therein he had not been so famously absurd.” (Strange Newes.) This Æneid had a limited reprint in 1839. Warton in Hist. Eng. Poetry gives examples (misnaming him Robert) but Camden says “Eruditissimus ille nobilis Richardus Stanihurstus.” In his preface to Greene’s Arcadia, Nash quotes Stanyhurst’s description of a Tempest:—
Then did he make heauens vault to rebound
With rounce robble bobble, [N.B.]
Of ruffe raffe roaring,
With thicke thwacke thurly bouncing:
and indicates his opinion of the poet, “as of some thrasonical huffe-snuffe,” indulging in “that quarrelling kind of verse.” One more specimen, to justify our text, regarding “he that writ so big:” in the address to the winds, Æn., Bk. i., Neptune thus rails:—
Dare ye, lo, curst baretours, in this my Seignorie regal,
Too raise such racks iacks on seas and danger unorder’d?
The recent death of Stanyhurst, 1618, strengthens our belief that the Time-Poets was not later than 1620-32.
To William Basse we owe the beautiful epitaph on Shakespeare, printed in 1633, “Renowned Spencer, lye a thought more nigh To learned Chaucer,” etc., and at least two songs (beside “Great Brittaine’s Sunnes-set,” 1613), viz., the Hunter in his Career, beginning “Long ere the Morn,” and one of the best Tom o’ Bedlam’s; probably, “Forth from my sad and darksome cell.”
The name of John Shanke, here suggestively famous “for a jigg,” occurs in divers lists of players (see J. P. C.’s Annals of the Stage, passim), he having been one of Prince Henry’s Company in 1603. That he was also a singer, we have this verse in proof, written in the reign of James I. (Bibliog. Acc. i. 163):—
That’s the fat foole of the Curtin,
And the lean fool of the Bull:
Since Shanke did leave to sing his rimes
He is counted but a gull.
The Players on the Banckeside,
The round Globe and the Swan,
Will teach you idle tricks of love,
But the Bull will play the man.
(W. Turner’s Common Cries of London Town, 1662.)
“Broom” is Richard Brome (died 1652), whose racy comedies have been, like Dekker’s, lately reprinted. The insinuation that Ben Jonson had “sent him before to sweep the way,” alludes, no doubt, to the fact of Brome having earlier been Jonson’s servant, and learning from his personal discourse much of dramatic art. Neither was it meant nor accepted as an insult, when, (printed 1632,) Jonson wrote (“according to Ben’s own nature and custom, magisterial enough,” as their true friend Alexander Brome admits),
I had you for a Servant once, Dick Brome;
And you perform’d a Servant’s faithful parts:
Now, you are got into a nearer room
Of Fellowship, professing my old Arts.
And you do doe them well, with good applause,
Which you have justly gained from the Stage, &c.
It is amusing to mark the survival of the old joke in our text, about sweeping (it came often enough, in Figaro in London, &c., at the time of the 1832 Reform Bill, as to Henry Brougham and Vaux); when we see it repeated, almost literally, in reference to Alexander Pope’s fellow-labourer on the Odyssey translation, the Rev. William Broome, of our St. John’s College, Cambridge:—
Pope came off clean with Homer, but they say,
Broome went before, and kindly swept the way.
Leaving a few words on the matchless Ben himself for the “Sessions of the Poets” Additional Note, we end this commentary on our book’s chief poem with a few more stanzas from the Beswick Manuscript, by George Daniel, (written in great part before, part after, 1647,) in honour of Ben Jonson, but preceded by others relating to Sir Philip Sidney, Spenser, Daniel, Drayton, Shakespeare, Beaumont, and Donne:—
I am not bound to honour antique names, [8th verse]
Nor am I led by other men to chuse
Any thing worthy, which my judgment blames;
Heare better straines, though by a later Muse;
The sweet Arcadian singer first did raise
Our Language current, and deserv’d his Baies.
That Lord of Penhurst, Penhurst whose sad walls
Yet mourne their master, in the Belgicke fray
Untimely lost; to whose dear funeralls
The Medwaie doth its constant tribute paye;
But glorious Penhurst, Medwaies waters once
With Mincius shall, and Mergeline advance;
The Shepherds Boy; best knowen by that name
Colin: upon his homely Oaten Reed.
With Roman Tityrus may share in ffame;
But when a higher path hee strains to tread,
This is my wonder: for who yet has seene
Soe cleare a Poeme as his Faierie Queene?
The sweetest Swan of Avon; to the faire
And cruel Delia, passionatelie sings:
Other mens weaknesses and follies are
Honour and Wit in him; each Accent brings
A sprig to crowne him Poet; and contrive
A Monument, in his owne worke to live.
Draiton is sweet and smooth: though not exact,
Perhaps to stricter Eyes; yet he shall live
Beyond their Malice: to the Scene and Act,
Read Comicke Shakespeare; or if you would give
Praise to a just Desert, crowning the Stage,
See Beaumont, once the honour of his Age.
The reverent Donne; whose quill God purely fil’d,
Liveth to his Character: so though he claim’d
A greater glory, may not be exil’d
This Commonwealth, &c.
Here pause a little; for I would not cloy [verse 15]
The curious Eare, with recitations;
And meerily looke at names; attend with joy,
Unto an English Quill, who rivall’d once
Rome, not to make her blush; and knowne of late
Unenvied (’cause unequall’d) Laureate.
This, this was Jonson; who in his own name
Carries his praise; and may he shine alone;
I am not tyed to any generall ffame,
Nor fixed by the Approbation
Of great ones: But I speake without pretence
Hee was of English Dramatiskes, the Prince.
Page 10. Come, My White-head, Let Our Muses
This was written by Sir Simeon Steward, or Stewart. The numbers 1 and 2 of our text are twice incorrect in original, viz. the 10th and 14th verses, each assigned to 1 (Red-head), whereas they certainly belong to 2 (White-head). From third verse the figure “1” has unfortunately dropt in printing. By aid of Addit. MS. No. 11, 811, p. 36, we are enabled to correct a few other errors, some being gross corruptions of sense; although, as a general rule, regarding poems that had appeared in print, the private MS. versions abound with blunders of the transcriber, additional to those of the original printer. It is, in the MS., entitled “A Dialogue between Pyrrotrichus and Leucothrix,” the latter taking verses 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and the final verse, 14 (marked Leuc). His earliest verse reads, in the MS., “And higher, Rufus, who would pass; were some; 3rd. v. ’Tis this that; 6th. The Roman King who; be lopt; Ruddy pates; 8th v. Red like unto; colour; 9th. Nay if; doth beare no; side looks as fair; other doth my; bear my [?]; 10th. Therefore, methinks; Besides, of all the; 12th. N.B.—Yet what thy head must buy with yeares, Crosses; That hath nature giv’n; 13th, be two friendly peeres; let us joyn; make one beauteous; 14th, [Leucothrix.] We joyn’d our heads; beat them to heart [i.e. to boot]; Was just but; of our head.” In the Reresby Memoirs, we believe, is mention of an ancestress, who, about 1619, married this (?) “Sir Simeon Steward.”
Page 15. A Stranger Coming to the Town
In Wm. Hickes his Oxford Drollery, 1671, in Part 3rd, (“Poems made at Oxford, long since”), p. 157, this Epigram appears, with variations. The second verse reads: But being there a little while, || He met with one so right || That upon the French Disease || It was his chance to light. The final couplet is:—The French-man’s Arms are the sign without, || But the French-man’s harms are within.
Throughout the first half of the Seventeenth century the abundance of Epigrams produced is enormous; whole volumes of them, divided into Books, like J. Heywood’s, being issued by poets of whom nothing else is known, except the name, unless Anthony à Wood has fortunately preserved some record. These have not been systematically examined, as they deserve to be. Amid much rubbish good things lie hid. Perhaps the Editor may have more to say on them hereafter. Meanwhile, take this, by Robert Hayman, as alike a specimen and a summary:—
To the Reader:
Sermons and Epigrams have a like end,
To improve, to reprove, and to amend:
Some passe without this vse, ’cause they are witty;
And so doe many Sermons, more’s the pitty.
(Quodlibets, 1628, Book iv., p. 59.)
Page 20. List, Your Nobles, and Attend
This was (perhaps, by John Eliot,) certainly written in anticipatory celebration of the event described, the Reception of Queen Henrietta Maria by the citizens of London, 1625. The full title is this:—“The Author intending to write upon the Duke of Buckingham, when he went to fetch the Queen, prepared a new Ballad for the Fidlers, as might hold them to sing between Dover and Callice.” It is thus the poem reappears, with some variations (beginning “Now list, you Lordlings, and attend, || Unto a Ballad newly penned,” &c.,) among the “Choyce Poems, being Songs, Sonnets, Satyrs, and Elegies. By the Wits of both Universities, London,” &c., 1661, p. 83. This was merely the earlier edition (of June, 1658), reissued with an irregular extra sheet at beginning. The original title-page (two issued in 1658) was “Poems or Epigrams, Satyrs, Elegies, Songs and Sonnets, upon several persons and occasions. By no body must know whom, to be had every body knows where, and for any body knows what. [MS. The Author John Eliot.] London, Printed for Henry Brome, at the Gun in Ivie Lane, 1658.” It is mentioned that “These poems were given me neer sixteen years since [therefore about 1642] by a Friend of the Authors, with a desire they might be printed, but I conceived the Age then too squeemish to endure the freedom which the Author useth, and therefore I have hitherto smothered them, but being desirous they should not perish, and the world be deprived of so much clean Wit and Fancy, I have adventured to expose them to thy view;... The Author writes not pedantically, but like a gentleman; and if thou art a gentleman of thy own making thou wilt not mislike it.”
Verse 9th. Gondomar was the Spanish Ambassador at the Court of James I., to whom, with his “one word” of “Pyrates, Pyrates, Pyrates,” we in great part owe the slaughter of Raleigh. Of course, the date ’526, four lines lower, is a blunder. The rash visit to Madrid was in March, 1623.
Title, and verse 8th. A Jack-a-Lent was a stuffed puppet, set up to be thrown at, during Lent. Perhaps it was a substitute for a live Cock; or else the Cock-throwing may have been a later “improvement:” See Hone’s Every Day Book, for an illustrated account, i. 249. Trace of the habit survives in our modern “Old Aunt Sally,” by which yokels lose money at Races (although Dorset Rectors try to abolish Country Fairs, while encouragement is given to gambling at Chapel Bazaars with raffles for pious purposes). In the Merry Wives of Windsor, Act iii. sc. 3, Mrs. Page says to the boy, “You little Jack-a-Lent, have you been true to us?” Quarles alludes to the practice:—
How like a Jack-a-Lent
He stands, for boys to spend their Shrove-tide throws,
Or like a puppet made to frighten crows.
(J. O. Halliwell’s M. W. of W., Tallis ed., p. 127.)
John Taylor (the Water-Poet) wrote a whim-wham entitled “Jack a Lent: his Beginning and Entertainment,” about 1619, printed 1630; as “of the Jack of Jacks, great Jack a Lent.” And Cleveland devoted thus a Cavalier’s worn suit: “Thou shalt make Jack-a-Lents and Babies first.” (Poems, 1662, p. 56.)
Martin Llewellyn’s Song on Cock-throwing begins “Cock a doodle doe, ’tis the bravest game;” in his Men-Miracles, &c., 1646, p. 61.
Page 31. A Story Strange I Will You Tell
As to the burden (since some folks are inquisitive about the etymology of Down derry down, or Ran-dan, &c.), we may note that in a queer book, The Loves of Hero and Leander, 1651, p. 3, is a six-line verse ending thus:
“Oh, Hero, Hero, pitty me,
With a dildo, dildo, dildo dee.”
By which we may guess that the Rope-dancer’s Song, in our text, was probably written about, or even before, 1651. Some among us (the Editor for one) saw Madame Sacchi in 1855 mount the rope, although she was seventy years old, as nimbly as when the first Napoleon had been her chief spectator. During the Commonwealth, rope-dancing and tumbling were tolerated at the Red-Bull Theatre, while plays were prohibited. See (Note to p. 210) our Introduction to Westminster Drollery, pp. xv.-xx, and the Frontispiece reproduced from Kirkman’s “Wits,” 1673, representing sundry characters from different “Drolls,” grouped together, viz.: Falstaff and Dame Quickly, from “the Bouncing Knight;” the French Dancing-Master, from the Duke of Newcastle’s “Variety,” Clause, from Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Beggar’s Bush,” Tom Greene as Bubble the Clown uttering “Tu Quoque” from John Cooke’s “City Gallant” (peeping through the chief-entrance, reserved for dignitaries); also Simpleton the Smith, and the Changeling, from two of Robert Cox’s favourite Drolls. We add now, illustrative of practical suppression under the Commonwealth, a contemporary record:—
A Song.
1.
The fourteenth of September
I very well remember,
When people had eaten and fed well,
Many men, they say,
Would needs go see a Play,
But they saw a great rout at the red Bull.
2.
The Soldiers they came,
(The blind and the lame)
To visit and undo the Players;
And women without Gowns,
They said they would have Crowns;
But they were no good Sooth-sayers.
3.
Then Jo: Wright they met,
Yet nothing could get,
And Tom Jay i’ th’ same condition:
The fire men they
Would ha’ made ’em a prey,
But they scorn’d to make a petition.
4. [p. 89.]
The Minstrills they
Had the hap that day,
(Well fare a very good token)
To keep (from the chase)
The fiddle and the case,
For the instruments scap’d unbroken.
5.
The poor and the rich,
The wh... and the b...,
Were every one at a losse,
But the Players were all
Turn’d (as weakest) to the wall,
And ’tis thought had the greatest losse. [? cross.]
(Wit’s Merriment, or Lusty Drollery, 1656, p. 88.)
One such raid on the poor actors (and probably at this very theatre, the Red Bull, St. John’s Street, Clerkenwell) is recorded, as of 20th December, 1649:—“Some Stage-players in St. John’s-Street were apprehended by troopers, their clothes taken away, and themselves carried to prison” (Whitelocke’s Memorials, 435, edit. 1733, cited by J. P. C., Annals, ii. 118). It was a serious business, as we see from the Ordinance of 11 Feb., 1647-8; the demolishing of seats and boxes, the actors “to be apprehended and openly and publicly whipt in some market town... to enter into recognizances with two sufficient sureties, never to act or play any Play or Interlude any more,” &c.
As for the Light-skirts, so elegantly referred to in the Song now reprinted (as far as we are aware, for the first time), they were certainly not actresses, but courtezans frequenting the place to ensnare visitors. Although English women did not publicly perform until after the Restoration, except on one occasion (of course, at Court Masques and private mansions, the Queen herself and her ladies had impersonated characters), yet so early as 8th November, 1629, some French professional actresses vainly attempted to get a hearing at Blackfriars Theatre, and a fortnight later at the Red Bull itself, as three weeks afterwards at the Fortune. Evidently, they were unsuccessful throughout. We hear a good deal about the far-more objectionable “Ladies of Pleasure,” who beset all places of amusement. Thomas Cranley, addressing one such, in his Amanda, 1635, describes her several alluring disguises and habits:—
The places thou dost usually frequent
Is to some playhouse in an afternoon,
And for no other meaning and intent
But to get company to sup with soon;
More changeable and wavering than the moon.
And with thy wanton looks attracting to thee
The amorous spectators for to woo thee.
Thither thou com’st in several forms and shapes
To make thee still a stranger to the place,
And train new lovers, like young birds, to scrapes,
And by thy habit so to change thy face;
At this time plain, to-morrow all in lace:
Now in the richest colours to be had;
The next day all in mourning, black and sad. &c.
Page 33. Oh Fire, Fire, Fire, Where?
Despite our repugnance to mutilate a text (see Introduction to Westminster Drollery, p. 6; ditto to Merry Drollery Compleat, pp. 38, 39, 40; and that to our present volume, foot-note in section third), a few letters have been necessarily suppressed in this piece of coarse humour. Verse fourth, on p. 33, refers to Ben Jonson’s loss of valuable manuscripts by fire, and his consequent “Execration upon Vulcan,” before June, 1629; an event deeply to be regretted: also to the whimsical account of the fire on London Bridge (see Merry Drollery, Compleat, pp. 87, 369, and Additional Note in present volume, tracing the poem to 1651, and the event to 1633).
An amusing poem was written, by Thomas Randolph, on the destruction of the Mitre Tavern at Cambridge, about 1630; it begins, “Lament, lament, you scholars all.” (See A Crew of kind London Gossips, 1663, p. 72).
Page 38. In Eighty Eight, Ere I Was Born
Also given later, in Merry Drollery, 1661, p. 77, and Ditto, Compleat, p. 82 and 369. Compare the Harleian MS. version, No. 791, fol. 59, given in our Appendix to Westminster Drollery, p. 38, with note. The romance of the Knight of the Sun is mentioned by Sir Tho. Overbury in his Characters, as fascinating a Chambermaid, and tempting her to turn lady-errant. “The book is better known under the title of The Mirror of Princely Deedes and Knighthood, wherein is shewed the worthinesse of The Knight of the Sunne, &c. It consists of nine parts, which appear to have been published at intervals between 1585, and 1601.” (Lucasta, &c., edit. 1864, p. 13.)
Page 40. And Will This Wicked World, &c.
We never met this elsewhere: it was probably written either in 1605, or almost immediately afterwards. Among Robert Hayman’s Quodlibets, 1628, in Book Second, No. 49, is an Epigram (p. 27):—
Of the Gunpowder Holly-day, the 5th of November.
The Powder-Traytors, Guy Vaux, and his mates,
Who by a Hellish plot sought Saints estates,
Haue in our Kalendar vnto their shame,
A ioyful Holy-day cald by their Name.
Jeremiah Wells has among his Poems on Several Occasions, 1667, one, at p. 9, “On Gunpowder Treason,” beginning “Hence dull pretenders unto villany,” which solemnly conjures up a picture of what might have ensued if (what even Baillie Nicol Jarvie would call) the “awfu’ bleeze” had taken place. [The same rare volume is interesting, as containing a Poem on the Rebuilding of London, after the fire of 1666, p. 112, beginning “What a Devouring Fire but t’other day!”]
With Charles Lamb, we have always regretted the failure of the Gunpowder Plot. It would have been a magnificent event, fully equal to Firmillian’s blowing up the Cathedral of St. Nicholas, at Badajoz; and the loss of life to all the Parliament Members would have been a cheap price, if paid, for such a remembrance. The worst of all is, that, having been attempted, there is no likelihood of any subsequent repetition meeting with better success. Hinc illæ lachrymæ! Faux, Vaux, or Fawkes must have been a noble, though slightly misguided, enthusiast; for he had intended to perish, like Samson, with his victims. All good Protestants now admire the Nazarite, although they bon-fire-raise poor Guido. But then he failed in his work, while the other slayer of Philistines attained success: which perhaps accounts for the different apotheosis. As Lady Macbeth puts it: “The attempt, and not the deed, confounds us!”
Page 44. A Maiden of the Pure Society
A version of this epigram is among the MSS. at end of a volume of “Various Poems,” in the British Museum: Press-mark, Case 39. a. These have been printed by Fred. J. Furnival, Esq., for the Ballad Society, as “Love Poems and Humorous Ones,” 1874. “A Puritane with one of hir societie,” is No. 26, p. 22.
Page 52. He That a Tinker, &c.
This re-appears in the Antidote against Melancholy, 1661 p. 65; and, with music, in the 1719 Pills to p. Mel., iii. 52
Page 55. Idol of Our Sex! &c.
This Lady Carnarvon was the wife of Robert Dormer, second Baron Dormer, created Visc. Ascott, or Herld, and Earl of Carnarvon, 2d Aug., 1628. Obiit 1643. He fell at the Battle of Newbury, 20th Sept. (See Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion, Book vii. p. 350, edit. 1720, where his merits are recognized.) Her name was Anna-Sophia, daughter of Philip, Earl of Pembroke. The child mentioned in the poem was their son, Charles Dormer, who died in 1709, when the Viscounty and Earldom became extinct. The poem was written at his birth, on January 1st.
Page 57. Uds Bodykins! Chill Work No More
We find this, a year earlier, (an inferior version, lacking third verse, but longer,) as Cockbodykins, chill, &c., in Wit’s Interpreter, p. 143, 1655; and p. 247, 1671. It is a valuable, because trustworthy and graphic, record of the troubles falling upon those who tried to labour on, despite the stir of civil war. 4th verse, “that a vet,” seems corruption of that is fetched; horses in a hole (W. Int.); vange thy note, is take thy note. (do). Prob. date, 1647.
The Second Part.
Then straight came ruffling to my dore,
Some dozens of these rogues, or more;
So zausie they be grown.
Facks[,] if they come, down they sit,
They’l never ask me leave one whit,
They’l take all for their own.
Then ich provision straight must make,
And from my Chymney needs must take,
And vlitch both pure and good. [a flitch]
Oh! ’twould melt a Christians heart to see,
That such good Bacon spoil’d should be,
’Twas as red as any blood.
But in it would, whether chud or not,
Together with Beans into the pot,
As sweet as any viggs.
And when chave done all that I am able,
They’l slat it down all under table,
And zwear they be no Pigs.
Then Ize did intreat their worships to be quiet,
And ich would strive to mend their diet,
And they shall have finer feeding,
They zwear goddam thee for a boor,
Wee’l gick thee raskal out a door,
And teach thee better breeding.
Then on the fire they [do] put on
A piece of beef, or else good mutton,
No, no, this is no meat.
Forsooth they must have finer food,
A good vat hen with all her brood;
And then perhaps they’l eat.
But of late ich had a crew together,
They were meer devils, ich ask’d them whether
That they were not of our nation.
Good Lord defend us from all zuch,
They zaid they were wild Irish, or else Dutch,
They were of the Devils generation.
And when these raskals went away,
What e’re you thing they did me repay
Ich will not you deceive.
Facks[,] just as folks go to a vaire,
They vaidled up my goods and ware,
And so they took their leave.
O what a clutter they did make
Our house for Babel they did take,
We could not understand a jot.
Yet they did know what did belong
To drink and zwear in our own tongue,
Such language they had a got.
Nor home ich any zafe aboad,
If that Ise chance to go abroad,
These rogues will come to spy me;
Then zurrah, zurrah, quoth they, tarry,
We know false letters you do carry,
And so they come to try me.
For as swift as any lightning goes
Straight all their hand into my hose,
There out they pull my purse.
O zurrah, zurrah, this is it,
Your Letters are in silver writ;
You may go take your course.
A Trouper t’other day did greet me,
[... Lost line.]
But could you guesse the reason,
Thou art, quoth he, a rebel, Knave,
And zo thou dost thy zelf behave,
For thou doest whistle treason.
Nor was this raskal much to blame,
For all his mates zwore just the zame,
That ich was fain to do.
Ich humble pardon of him sought,
And gave him money for my fault,
And glad I could scape so too.
(Wits Interpreter, 250, 1671 ed.)
This is, veritably, a “document in madness” of such civil wars and military licence. It reads like the genuine narratives of Prussian brutality and outrage during the occupation of Alsace and Lorraine: which is hereafter to be bitterly avenged.
Page 60. I Keep My Horse, I Keep, &c.
This lively ditty is sung by Latrocinio in the comedy of “The Widow,” Act iii. sc. 1, produced about 1616, and written by John Fletcher, Ben Jonson, and Thomas Middleton. The song bears trace of Fletcher’s hand (more, we believe, than of Jonson’s). It has a rollicking freedom that made it a favourite. We meet it in Wit’s Interpreter, 1655, p. 69; 1671, p. 175; and elsewhere. See Dyce’s Middleton, iii. 383, and Dodsley’s Old Plays, 1744, vi. 34.
Page 61. There Is Not Halfe So Warm a Fire
This re-appears, with variations and twelve additional lines (inferior), in Westminster-Drollery, 1671, i. 102; where is the corrupt text “and daily pays us with what is.” Our present text gives us the true word, “dully.”
Page 62. Fuller of Wish, Than Hope, &c.
Fuller’s book, “A Pisgah sight of Palestine,” was published about 1649. The epitaph “Here lies Fuller’s earth,” is well known. He died in 1661.
Page 63. Cloris, Now Thou Art Fled Away
The author of this song was Dr. Henry Hughes. Henry Lawes gives the music to it, in his “Ayres,” 1669, Bk. iii. p. 10. It is also in J. P.’s Sportive Wit, 1656, p. 15; the Loyal Garland (Percy Soc. Reprint of 1686 edit, xxix. 67); Pills to p. Mel., 1719, iii. 331. Sometimes attributed to Sir R[obert] A[ytoun].
In Sportive Wit there are variations as well as an Answer, which we here give. The different title seems consequent on the Answer presupposing that Amintas has not died, merely disappeared. It is “A Shepherd fallen in Love: A Pastoral.” The readings are: Lambkins follow; They’re gone, they’re; Dog howling lyes, While he laments with woful cryes; Oh Cloris, Cloris, I decay, And forced am to cry well, &c. Sixth verse there omitted. It has, however, on p. 16:—
The Answer.
[1656.]
Cloris, since thou art gone astray,
Amyntas Shepherd’s fled away;
And all the joys he wont to spye
I’ th’ pretty babies of thine eye,
Are gone; and she hath none to say
But who can help what will away, will away?
The Green on which it was her [? his] chance
To have her hand first in a dance,
Among the merry Maiden-crue,
Now making her nought but sigh and rue
The time she ere had cause to say [p. 17.]
Ah, who can help what will away, will away?
The Lawn with which she wont to deck
And circle in her whiter neck;
Her Apron lies behinde the door;
The strings won’t reach now as before:
Which makes her oft cry well-a-day:
But who can help what will away?
He often swore that he would leave me,
Ere of my heart he could bereave me:
But when the Signe was in the tail,
He knew poor Maiden-flesh was frail;
And laughs now I have nought to say,
But who can help what will away.
But let the blame upon me lie,
I had no heart him to denie:
Had I another Maidenhead,
I’d lose it ere I went to bed:
For what can all the world more say,
Than who can help what will away?
(Sportive Wit; or, The Muses’ Merriment.)
Page 68. I Tell You All, Both Great and Small
Also in Captain William Hickes’ London Drollery, 1673, p. 179, where it is entitled “Queen Elizabeth’s Song.” The dance tune Sallanger’s (or more commonly Sellenger’s) Round is given in Chappell’s Pop. Music, O. T., p. 69. The name is corrupted from St. Leger’s Round; as in Yorkshire the Doncaster race is called the Sillinger, or Sellenger, to this day.
Page 70. When James in Scotland First Began
Not yet found elsewhere, in MS. or print. The sixth verse refers to King James the First making so many Knights, on insufficient ground, that he incurred ridicule. Allusions are not infrequent in dramas and ballads. Here is the most noteworthy of the latter. It is in Additional MS. No. 5,832, fol. 205, British Museum.
Verses upon the order for making Knights of such persons
who had £46 per annum in King James I.’s time.
Come all you farmers out of the country,
Carters, plowmen, hedgers and all,
Tom, Dick and Will, Ralph, Roger and Humfrey,
Leave off your gestures rusticall.
Bidd all your home-sponne russetts adue,
And sute your selves in fashions new;
Honour invites you to delights:
Come all to Court and be made Knights.
2.
He that hath fortie pounds per annum
Shalbe promoted from the plowe:
His wife shall take the wall of her grannum,
Honour is sould soe dog-cheap now.
Though thow hast neither good birth nor breeding,
If thou hast money, thow art sure of speeding.
3.
Knighthood in old time was counted an honour,
Which the best spiritts did not disdayne;
But now it is us’d in so base a manner,
That it’s noe creditt, but rather a staine:
Tush, it’s noe matter what people doe say,
The name of a Knight a whole village will sway.
4.
Shepheards, leave singing your pastorall sonnetts,
And to learne complements shew your endeavours:
Cast of[f] for ever your two shillinge bonnetts,
Cover your coxcombs with three pound beavers.
Sell carte and tarrboxe new coaches to buy,
Then, “Good your Worship,” the vulgar will cry.
5.
And thus unto worshipp being advanced,
Keepe all your tenants in awe with your frownes;
And let your rents be yearly inhaunced,
To buy your new-moulded maddams new gowns.
Joan, Sisse, and Nell shalbe all ladified,
Instead of hay-carts, in coaches shall ryde.
6.
Whatever you doe, have a care of expenses,
In hospitality doe not exceed:
Greatnes of followers belongeth to princes:
A Coachman and footmen are all that you need:
And still observe this, let your servants meate lacke,
To keep brave apparel upon your wives backe.
[Additional stanza from Mr. Hunter’s MS.]
7.
Now to conclude, and shutt up my sonnett,
Leave of the Cart-whip, hedge-bill and flaile,
This is my counsell, think well upon it,
Knighthood and honour are now put to saile.
Then make haste quickly, and lett out your farmes,
And take my advice in blazing your armes.
Honor invites, &c.
(Shakespeare Soc., 1846, pp. 145-6, J. O. Halliwell’s Commentary on Merry Wives of Windsor, Act. ii. sc. 1, “These Knights will hack.” Also his notes in Tallis’s edit., of the same, n. d., pp. 122-3. William Chappell, in Pop. Music O. T., p. 327, gives the tune.)
Page 72. The Chandler Drew Near His End
Another tolerable Epigram on a Chandler meets us, beginning “How might his days end that made weeks [wicks]?” among the Epitaphs of Wits Recreations, 1640-5 (Reprint, p. 271).
Page 73. Farre in the Forrest of Arden
This is one of Michael Drayton’s Pastorals, printed in 1593, in the Third Eclogue, and entitled Dowsabell. See Percy’s Reliques, vol. i. bk. 3, No. 8, 2nd edit. 1767, for remarks on variations, amounting to a remodelling, of this charming poem. We are glad to know that Mr. James Russell Smith is preparing a new edition of Michael Drayton’s voluminous works, to be included in the Library of Old Authors. Drayton suppressed his couplet poem of “Endimion and Phœbe:” Ideas Latmvs. It has no date, but was cited by Lodge in 1595, and has been reprinted by J. P. Collier; one of his handsome and carefully printed quartos, a welcome boon.
Page 78. On the Twelfth Day of December
This ballad, a very early example of the Down down derry burden, is not yet found elsewhere. It refers to the expedition against Scotland (then in alliance with Henry II. of France) made by the Protector, Edward, Duke of Somerset, in 1547, the first (not “fourth”) year of Edward VIth’s reign. The battle was fought on the “Black Saturday,” as it was long remembered, the tenth day of September (not of “December,” as the ballad mis-states it to have been). Terrible and remorseless was the slaughter of the ill-armed Scots, after they had imprudently abandoned their excellent hilly position, by the well-appointed English horsemen. The prisoners taken amounted to about fifteen hundred (“we found above twenty of their villains to one of their gentlemen,” says Patten), among whom was the Earl of Huntley, Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who on the previous day had sent a personal challenge to Somerset, asking to decide the contest by single combat: an offer which was not unreasonably declined, the Protector declaring that he desired no peace but such as he might win by his sword. “And thou, trumpet,” he told Huntley’s herald, “say to thy master, he seemeth to lack wit to make this challenge to me, being of such estate by the sufferance of God as to have so weighty a charge of so precious a jewel, the government of a King’s person, and then the protection of all his realms.” We learn that the Scots slain were tenfold the number of the prisoners taken. This battle of “Muskleburgh Field” (nearly the same locality as the battle of Prestonpans, wherein Prince Charles Edward in 1745 defeated Colonel Gardiner and his English troops), known also as of Fawside Brae, or of Pinkie, is described with unusual precision by an eye-witness: See The Expedition into Scotland of the most worthily-fortunate Prince Edward Duke of Somerset, uncle to our most noble Sovereign Lord the King’s Majesty Edward the VI., &c., made in the first year of his Majesty’s most prosperous reign, and set out by way of Diary, by W. Patten, Londoner. First published in 1548, this was reprinted in Dalyell’s Fragments of Scottish History, Edinburgh, 1798. This old ballad is not included by Dalyell, who probably knew not of its existence.
Page 80. In Celia[’s Face] a Question Did Arise
By Thomas Carew, written before 1638. In Addit. MSS. No. 11,811, fol. 10; No. 22,118, fol. 43; also in Wits Recreations (Repr., p. 19); Roxb. Libr. Carew, p. 6, &c.
Page 81. Blacke Eyes, in Your Dark Orbs Doe Lye
By James Howell, Historiographer to Charles II., and author of the celebrated Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ, 1645, 1647, 1650, and 1655. He died in November, 1666; according to Anthony à Wood, (whose account of him in the Athenæ Oxonienses, iii. 744, edit. 1817, is given by Edward Arber in his excellent English Reprints, vol. viii, 1869, with a welcome promise of editing the said Epistolæ). This poem of “Black eyes,” &c., occurs among Howell’s poems collected by Sergeant-Major Peter Fisher, p. 68, 1663; again re-issued (the same sheets) as Mr. Howell’s Poems upon divers Emergent Occasions; Printed by James Cottrel, and dated 1664.” It is also found in C. F.’s “Wit at a Venture; or, Clio’s Privy Garden, containing Songs and Poems on Several Occasions, Never before in Print” (which statement is incorrect, as usual). Our text is the earliest we know in type. The only variations, in Howell’s Poems, are: 1st line, doth lie; 4th verse, And by those spells I am possest.
Page 83. We Read of Kings, and Gods, &c.
This is another of the charming poems by Thomas Carew, always a favourite with his own generation (few MS. or printed Collections being without many of them), and deserving of far more affectionate perusal in our own time than he generally meets. It is in Addit. MS. No. 11, 811, fol. 6b., entitled there “His Love Neglected.” Elsewhere, as “A Cruel Mistress.”
Page 84. What Ill Luck Had I, Silly Maid, &c.
Although closely resembling the Catch “What Fortune had I, poor Maid as I am,” of 1661 Antidote ag. Melancholy, p, 74, and Merry Drollery ii. 152 (equal to p. 341 of editions 1670 and 1691), this song is virtually distinct, and probably was the earlier version in date. One has been evidently borrowed or adapted from the other.
Page 85. I Never Did Hold All That Glisters, &c.
This vigorous expression of opinion from a robust nature, uncorrupted amid a conventionalized, treacherous, and selfishly-cruel community, is a valuable record of the true Cavalier “all of the olden time.” We have never met it elsewhere. He has no half-likings, no undefined suspicions, and admits of no paltering with the truth, or shirking of one’s duty. As we read we behold the honest man before us, and remember that it was such as he who made our England what she is:—
Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
I see the Lords of human kind pass by.
The contemplation of such brave spirits may help to nerve fresh readers to emulate their virtues, despite the sickly fancies or grovelling politics and social theories of degenerate days. The singer may be somewhat overbearing in announcement of his preferences:
——Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark,—
But, if he errs at all, it is on the safe side.
Page 88. No Gypsie nor No Blackamore
Composers and arrangers of such collections as this Drollery seem to have often chosen pieces simply for contrast. Thus, after the manly directness of “The Doctor’s Touchstone,” we find the vilely mercenary husband here exhibited, and followed by the truthful description (justifiable, although coarsely outspoken) of “The baseness of Whores.” Such were they of old: such are they ever.
Page 92. Let Not Sweet Saint, &c.
Like the three preceding poems, not yet found elsewhere, but worthy of preservation.
Page 93. How Happy’s That Prisoner
Written “by a Person of Quality:” whom we suspect to have been Sir Francis Wortley, but without evidence to substantiate the guess. This is the earliest appearance in print, known to us, of this characteristic outburst of Cavalier vivacity, which re-appears as the Musician’s Song, in “Cromwell’s Conspiracy,” 1660, Act iii. sc. 2; and Merry Drollery, 1661, p. 101. (See also M. D. C., pp. 107, 373). As to the introduction of the several ancient philosophers (referred to in former Appendix, p. 373), compare the delightful Chanson a Boire,
Je cherche en vin la vérité,
Si le vin n’aide à ma foiblesse,
Toute la docte antiquité
Dans le vin puisa la sagesse,
Oui c’est par le bon vin que le bon sens éclate,
J’en atteste Hypocrate,
Qui dit qu’il fait a chaque mois
Du moins s’enivrer une fois, &c.
(The other twelve verses are given complete in “Brallaghan; or, the Deipnosophists,” 1845, pp. 198-203, with a clever verse-translation, by the foremost of linguistic scholars now alive—the friend of Talfourd and of Dr. W. Maginn—at whom many nowadays presume to scoff, and whom Benchers defame and banish themselves from.)
Page 97. Fire! Fire! O How I Burn, &c.
Also in Windsor Drollery, 1672, p. 126, as “Fire! Fire! lo here I burn in my desire,” &c. And in Henry Bold’s Latine Songs, 1685, p. 139, where it is inserted, to be alongside of this parody on it by him, song xlvii., or a
MOCK.
1.
Fire, Fire,
Is there no help for thy desire?
Are tears all spent? Is Humber low?
Doth Trent stand still? Doth Thames not flow?
Though all these can’t thy Feaver cure,
Yet Tyburn is a Cooler lure,
And since thou can’st not quench thy Fire,
Go hang thy self, and thy desire!
2.
Fire, fire,
Here’s one [still] left for thy desire,
Since that the Rainbow in the skye,
Is bent a deluge to deny,
As loth for thee a God should Lye.
Let gentle Rope come dangling down,
One born to hang shall never drown,
And since thou can’st not quench the Fire,
Go hang thy self, and thy desire!
(Latine Songs, 1685, p. 140.)
Page 98. ’Tis Not How Witty, nor How Free
A year earlier, this had appeared in Wit’s Interpreter, 1655, p. 4 (1671, p. 108), entitled “What is most to be liked in a Mistress.” Robt. Jamieson quotes it, from Choyce Drollery, in his Pop. Bds., 1806, ii. 309. We believe it to be by the same author as the poem next following, and regret that they remain anonymous. Both are of a stately beauty, and recall to us those Cavalier Ladies with whose portraits Vandyck adorned many family mansions.
Page 99. She’s Not the Fairest of Her Name
One clue, that may hereafter guide us to the authorship, we know the lady’s name. It was Freeman. This poem also had appeared a year earlier, at least, in Wit’s Interpreter, 1655, p. 55 (; 1671 ed., p. 161). Also in Wit and Drollery, 1661, p. 162; in Oxford Drollery, part ii. 1671, p. 87; and in Loyal Garland, 1686, as “The Platonick Lover” (reprinted by Percy Soc., xxix. 64). There should be a comma in fifth line, after the word Constancy. Various readings:—Verse 2, meanest wit; and yet a; 3, His dear addresses; walls be brick or stone.
Page 100. ’Tis Late and Cold, Stir Up the Fire
This Song, by John Fletcher, in his Lover’s Progress, Act iii. sc. 1., before 1625. The music is found in Additional MS. No. 11,608 (written about 1656), fol. 20; there called “Myne Ost’s Song, sung in ye Mad Lover [wrong: a different play], set by Robt. Johnson.” It re-appears in Wit and Drollery 1661, p. 212; in the Academy of Complements, 1670, p. 175, &c. It is the Song of the Dead Host, whose return to wait upon his guests and ask their aid to have his body laid in consecrated ground, is so humorously described. His forewarnings of death to Cleander are, to our mind, of thrilling interest. These scenes were Sir Walter Scott’s favourites; but Leigh Hunt, perversely, could see no merit in them. We believe that the tinge of sepulchral dullness in Mine Host enhances the vividness of the incidents, like the taciturnity of Don Guzman’s stony statue in Shadwell’s “Libertine.”
Thus the hundred-paged volume of Choyce Drollery, 1656,—“Delicates served up by frugall Messes, as aiming at thy satisfaction not saciety,”—comes to an end, with Beaumont and Fletcher. On them remembrance loves to rest, as the fitting representatives of that class of courtly gentlemen, poets, wits, and scholars, who were, to a great extent, even then, fading away from English society. To them had been visible no phase of the Rebellion, and they probably never conceived that it was near. Beaumont, with his statelier reserve, and his tendency to quiet musing, fostered “under the shade of melancholy boughs” at Grace-Dieu, had early passed away, honoured and lamented; a month before his friend Shakespeare went to rest: Shakespeare, who, having known half a century of busy life, felt contented, doubtless, to fulfil the wish that he had long before expressed, himself, almost prophetically:—
“Let me not live,”—
Thus his good melancholy oft began,...
“After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff
Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses
All but new things disdain; whose judgments are
Mere fathers of their garments; whose constancies
Expire before their fashions:”—this he wished.
Fletcher survived nine years, and battled on with somewhat of spasmodic action; at once widowed and orphaned by the death of his close friend and work-fellow; winning fresh triumphs, it is true, and leaving many a trace of his bright genius like a gleam of heaven’s own light across the sadness and corruption of an imaginary world, that was not at all unreal in heroism or in wickedness. He also passed away while young; a few months later than the time when Charles the First came to the throne, suddenly elevated by the death of his father James, bringing abruptly to a consummation that marriage with the French Princess which did so much to lead him and his country into ruin. The year 1625 was the separating date between the autumnal ripeness and the chill of fruitless winter. A sunny glow remains on Fletcher to the last. With him it fades, and the world that he had known is changed.
[End of Notes to Choyce Drollery.]