Appendix. Part 2 — Antidote Against Melancholy. 1661
Gratiano.—“Why should a man, whose blood is warm within,
Sleep when he wakes, and creep into the jaundice
By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio,—
I love thee, and it is my love that speaks;—
There are a sort of men, whose visages
Do cream and mantle like a standing pond,
And do a wilful stillness entertain,
With purpose to be dress’d in an opinion
Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit;
As who should say, ‘I am Sir Oracle,
And, when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!’”
(Merchant of Venice, Act i. sc. 1.)
We have already, in a brief Introduction, (pp. 105-110), explained our reason for adding all that was necessary to complete this work; a large portion having been anticipated in Merry Drollery of the same year, 1661. In the Postscript (pp. 161-165), we endeavoured to trace the authorship of the entire collection; leaving to these following notes, and those attached to M. Drollery, Compleat, the search for separate poems or songs. Also, on pp. 166-175, we traced the history of “Arthur o’ Bradley,” delaying the important song of his Wedding (from an original of the date 1656), unto Part IV. of our Appendix.
To no other living writer are we lovers of old literature more deeply indebted than to the veteran John Payne Collier, who is now far advanced in his eighty-seventh year, and whose intellect and industry remain vigorously employed at this great age: one proof of the fact being his new edition of Shakespeare (each play in a separate quarto, issued to private subscribers), begun in January, 1875, and already the Comedies are finished, in the third volume. Among his numerous choice reprints of rare originals, his series of the more than “Seven Early Poetical Miscellanies” was a work of greatest value. To these, with his new “Shakespeare,” the interesting “Old Man’s Diary,” his “Bibliographical and Critical Account of the Rarest Books in the English Language,” his “Annals of the Stage,” “The Poetical Decameron,” his charming “Book of Roxburghe Ballads,” 1847, his “Broadside Black-Letter-Ballads,” 1868, and other labours, no less than to his warmth of heart and friendly encouragement by letters, the present Editor owes many happy hours, and for them makes grateful acknowledgment.
About the year 1870, J. P. Collier issued to private subscribers his very limited and elegant Reprint, in quarto, of “An Antidote against Melancholy,” 1661. This is already nearly as unattainable as the original.
J. P. Collier gave no notes to his Reprint of the “Antidote,” but, in the brief Introduction thereunto, he mentioned that:—“This poetical tract has been selected for our reprint on account of its rarity, the excellence of the greater part of its contents, the high antiquity of some of them, and from the fact that many of the ballads and humorous pieces of versification are either not met with elsewhere, or have been strangely corrupted in repetition through the press. Two or three of them are used by Shakespeare, and the word ‘incarnadine’ [see our p. 148] is only found in ‘Macbeth’ (A. ii., sc. 2), in Carew’s poems, and in this tract: here we have it as the name of a red wine; and nobody hitherto has noticed it in that sense.
“When Ritson published his ‘Robin Hood’ in 1795, he relied chiefly upon the text of the famous ballad of ‘Arthur o’ Bradley,’ as he discovered it in the miscellany before us [See our Merry Drollery, Compleat, pp. 312, 399; also, in present volume, p. 166, and Additional Note]; but, learned in such matters as he undoubtedly was, he was not aware of the very early period at which ‘Arthur o’ Bradley’ was so popular as to be quoted in one of our Old Moralities, which may have been in existence in the reigns of Henry VI. or Henry VII., which was acted while Henry VIII. or Edward VI. were on the throne, and which is contained in a manuscript bearing the date of 1579.
“The few known copies of ‘An Antidote against Melancholy’ are dated 1661, the year after the Restoration, when lawless licence was allowed both to the press and in social intercourse; and, if we permitted ourselves to mutilate our originals, we might not have reproduced such coarseness; but still no words will be found which, even a century afterwards, were not sometimes used in private conversation, and which did not even make their appearance at full length in print. Mere words may be said to be comparatively harmless; but when, as in the time of Charles II, they were employed as incentives to vice and laxity of manners, they become dangerous. The repetition of them in our day, in a small number of reprints, can hardly be offensive to decorum, and unquestionably cannot be injurious to public morals. We always address ourselves to the students of our language and habits of life.”
Page 113 (Original, P. 1). Not Drunken, nor Sober, &c.
Joseph Ritson gave this Bacchanalian chant in the second volume of his “English Songs,” p. 58, 1783. Forty-six verses, out of the seventy, had been repeated in the “Collection of Old Ballads,” 1723-25, (which Ambrose Philips and David Mallet may have edited,) “The Ex-Ale-tation of Ale” is in vol. iii. p. 166. Part, if not all, must have been in existence fully ten years before it appeared in the “Antidote,” as we find “O Ale ab alendo, thou Liquor of life!” with music by John Hilton, in his “Catch that Catch Can,” p. 5, 1652. It is also in Wit’s Merriment; or, Lusty Drollery, 1656, p. 118; eight verses only. These are: 1. Not drunken; 2. But yet to commend it; 3. But yet, by your leave; 4. It makes a man merry; 5. The old wife whose teeth; 6. The Ploughman, the Lab’rer; 7. The man that hath a black blous to his wife; 8. With that my friend said, &c. Still earlier, the poem had appeared, imperfectly, in a four-paged quarto pamphlet, dated 1642 (along with “The Battle fought between the Norfolk Cock and the Wisbeach Cock,” see M. D. C., p. 242) as by Thomas Randall, i.e. Randolph. Accordingly, it has been included (34 verses only) in the 1875 edition of his Works, p. 662. We personally attach no weight to the pamphlet’s ascription of it to Randolph, (who died in March, 1634-5). It is far more likely to have been the work of Samuel Rowlands, in whose Crew of Kind London Gossips, 1663, we meet it, p. 129-141, and whose style it more closely resembles. Some poems duly assigned to Randolph are in the same volume, but the “Exaltation of Ale” is not thus distinguished. There are seventy-two verses given, and the motto is Tempus edax rerum, &c. We have not been able to consult an earlier edition of S. Rowland’s “Crew,” &c., about 1650.
So long afterwards as 1788, we find an abbreviated copy of the song, six verses, in Lackington’s “British Songster,” p. 202, entitled “A Tankard of Ale.” The first verse runs thus:—
“Not drunk, nor yet sober, but brother to both,
I met with a man upon Aylesbury Vale,
I saw in his face that he was in good case
To go and take part of a tankard of ale.”
Omitting all sequence of narrative, the other verses are adapted from the Antidote’s 21st, 19th, 10th, 26th, and 50th; concerning the hedger, beggar, widow, clerk, and amicable conclusion over a tankard of ale. In a Convivial Songster, of 1807, by Tegg, London, these six are given with addition of another as fifth:—
The old parish Vicar, when he’s in his liquor,
Will merrily at his parishioners rail,
“Come, pay all your tithes, or I’ll kiss all your wives,”
When once he shakes hands with a tankard of ale.
It had appeared in a Chap-book (circa 1794, according to Wm. Logan; see his amusing “Pedlar’s Pack,” pp. 224-6), with other five verses inserted before the Finale. We give them to complete the tale:—
There’s the blacksmith by trade, a jolly brisk blade,
Cries, “Fill up the bumper, dear host, from the pail;”
So cheerful he’ll sing, and make the house ring,
When once he shakes hands with a tankard of ale.
Laru la re, laru, &c. So cheerful, &c.
There’s the tinker, ye ken, cries “old kettles to mend,”
With his budget and hammer to drive in the nail;
Will spend a whole crown, at one sitting down,
When once he shakes hands with a tankard of ale.
Laru, &c.
There’s the mason, brave John, the carver of stone,
The Master’s grand secret he’ll never reveal;
Yet how merry is he with his lass on his knee,
When once he shakes hands with a tankard of ale.
Laru, &c.
You maids who feel shame, pray me do not blame,
Though your private ongoings in public I tell;
Young Bridget and Nell to kiss will not fail
When once they shake hands with a tankard of ale.
Laru, &c.
There’s some jolly wives, love drink as their lives,
Dear neighbours but mind the sad thread of my tale;
Their husbands they’ll scorn, as sure’s they were born,
If once they shake hands with a tankard of ale.
Laru, &c.
From wrangling or jangling, and ev’ry such strife,
Or anything else that may happen to fall;
From words come to blows, and sharp bloody nose,
But friends again over a tankard of ale.
Laru, &c.
Notice the characteristic mention of William Elderton, the Ballad-writer (who died before 1592), in the thirty-third verse (our p. 119):—
For ballads Elderton never had peer;
How went his wit in them, with how merry a gale,
And with all the sails up, had he been at the cup,
And washed his beard with a pot of good ale.
William Elderton’s “New Yorkshire Song, intituled Yorke, Yorke, for my Monie,” (entered at Stationers’ Hall, 16 November, 1582, and afterwards “Imprinted at London by Richard Iones; dwelling neere Holbourne Bridge: 1584),” has the place of honour in the Roxburghe Collection, being the first ballad in the first volume. It consequently takes the lead in the valuable “Roxburghe Bds.” of the Ballad Society, 1869, so ably edited by William Chappell, Esq., F.S.A. It also formed the commencement of Ritson’s Yorkshire Garland: York, 1788. It is believed that Elderton wrote the “excellent Ballad intituled The Constancy of Susanna” (Roxb. Coll., i. 60; Bagford, ii. 6; Pepys, i. 33, 496). A list of others was first given by Ritson; since, by W. C. Hazlitt, in his Handbook, p. 177. Elderton’s “Lenton Stuff ys come to the town” was reprinted by J. O. Halliwell, for the Shakespeare Society, in 1846 (p. 105). He gives Drayton’s allusion to Elderton in Notes to Mr. Hy. Huth’s “79 Black-Letter Ballads,” 1870, 274 (the “Praise of my Ladie Marquess,” by W. E., being on pp. 14-16). Elderton had been an actor in 1552; his earliest dated ballad is of 1559, and he had ceased to live by 1592. Camden gives an epitaph, which corroborates our text, in regard to the “thirst complaint” of the balladist:—
Hic situs est sitiens, atque ebrius Eldertonus—
Quid dico—Hic situs est? his potius sitis est.
Thus freely rendered by Oldys:—
Dead drunk here Elderton doth lie;
Dead as he is, he still is dry;
So of him it may well be said,
Here he, but not his thirst, is laid.
A MS., time of James I., possessed by J. P. Collier, mentions, in further confirmation:
Will Elderton’s red nose is famous everywhere,
And many a ballet shows it cost him very dear;
In ale, and toast, and spice, he spent good store of coin,
You need not ask him twice to take a cup of wine.
But though his nose was red, his hand was very white,
In work it never sped, nor took in it delight;
No marvel therefore ’tis, that white should be his hand,
That ballets writ a score, as you well understand.
(See Wm. Chappell’s Popular Music of the Olden Time, pp. 107, 815; and J. P. Collier’s Extracts from Reg. Stat. Comp., passim, Indices, art. Elderton; and his Bk. of Roxb. Bds., p. 139.)
Page 125 (Orig. 14). With an Old Song, Made by, &c.
The fashion of disparaging the present, by praising the customs and people of days that have passed away, is almost as old as the Deluge, if not older. Homer speaks of the degeneracy in his time, and aged Israel had long earlier lamented the few and evil days to which his own life extended, in comparison with those patriarchs who had gone before him. Even as we know not the full value of the Mistress or the friend whose affection had been given unto us, until separated from them, for ever, by estrangement or the grave, so does it seem to be with many customs and things. Robert Browning touchingly declares:—
And she is gone; sweet human love is gone!
’Tis only when they spring to heaven that angels
Reveal themselves to you; they sit all day
Beside you, and lie down at night by you
Who care not for their presence, muse or sleep,
And all at once they leave you, and you know them!
Modified in succeeding reigns, the ballad of “The Queen [Elizabeth]’s Old Courtier, and A New Courtier of the King [James]” has already known two hundred and fifty years’ popularity. The earliest printed copy was probably issued by T. Symcocke, by or after 1626. We find it in several books about the time of the Restoration, when parodies became frequent. It is in Le Prince d’Amour, 1660, p. 161; Wit and Drollery, 1682 (not in 1656, 1661 edits.), p. 278, “With an old Song,” &c.; Wit and Mirth, 1684, p. 43; Dryden’s Misc. Poems (ed. 1716, iv. 108); with the Music, in Pills, iii. 271; in Philomel, 130, 1744; Percy’s Reliques, ii. Bk. 3, No. 8, 1767; Ritson’s English Sgs., ii. 140, and Chappell’s Pop. Music, p. 300, to which refer for a good introduction, with extract from Pepys Diary of 16th June, 1668. Accompanying a Parody by T. Howard, Gent. (beginning similarly, “An Old Song made of an old aged pate”), it meets us in the Roxburghe Coll., iii. 72, printed for F. Coles (1646-74).
Among other parodies may be mentioned one entitled “An Old Souldier of the Queen’s” (in Merry Drollery, Compleat, 31, and in Wit and Drollery, 248, 1661); another, “The New Souldier” (Wit and Drollery, 282, 1682), beginning:—
With a new Beard but lately trimmed,
With a new love-lock neatly kemm’d,
With a new favour snatch’d or nimm’d,
With a new doublet, French-like trimm’d;
And a new gate, as if he swimm’d;
Like a new Souldier of the King’s,
And the King’s new Souldier.
With a new feather in his Cap;
With new white bootes, without a strap; &c.
In the same edition of Wit and Drollery, p. 165, is yet another parody, headed “Old Souldiers,” which runs thus (see Westminster-Drollery, ii. 24, 1672,):—
Of Old Souldiers the song you would hear,
And we old fiddlers have forgot who they were.
John Cleveland had a parody on the Queen’s Courtier, about 1648, entitled The Puritan, beginning “With face and fashion to be known, For one of sure election.” Another, called The Tub-Preacher, is doubtfully attributed to Samuel Butler, and begins similarly, “With face and fashion to be known: With eyes all white, and many a groan” (in his Posthumous Works, p. 44, 3rd edit., 1730). The political parody, entitled “Saint George and the Dragon, anglicé Mercurius Poeticus,” to the same tune of “The Old Courtier,” is in the Kings Pamphlets, XVI., and has been reprinted by T. Wright for the Percy Soc., iii. 205. It bears Thomason’s date, 28 Feb., 1659-[60], and is on the overthrow of the Rump, by General Monk. It begins thus:—
News! news! here’s the occurrences and a new Mercurius,
A dialogue between Haselrigg the baffled and Arthur the furious;
With Ireton’s readings upon legitimate and spurious,
Proving that a Saint may be the Son of a Wh——, for the satisfaction of the curious.
From a Rump insatiate as the Sea,
Libera nos, Domine, &c.
Old songs have rarely, if ever, been modernized so successfully as “The Queen’s Old Courtier,” of which “The Fine Old English Gentleman” is no unworthy representative. Popular though it was, thirty or forty years ago, it is not easily met with now; thus we may be excused for adding it here:—
THE FINE OLD ENGLISH GENTLEMAN.
I’ll sing you a good old song, made by a good old pate,
Of a fine old English gentleman, who had an old estate,
And who kept up his old mansion, at a bountiful old rate;
With a good old porter to relieve the old poor at his gate.
Like a fine old English gentleman, all of the olden time.
His hall so old was hung around with pikes, and guns, and bows,
And swords, and good old bucklers, that had stood against old foes;
’Twas there “his worship” held his state in doublet and trunk hose,
And quaff’d his cup of good old Sack, to warm, his good old nose:
Like a fine old English gentleman, &c.
When Winter’s cold brought frost and snow, he open’d house to all;
And though threescore and ten his years, he featly led the ball;
Nor was the houseless wanderer e’er driven from his hall,
For, while he feasted all the great, he ne’er forgot the small:
Like a fine old English gentleman, &c.
But time, though sweet, is strong in flight, and years roll swiftly by;
And autum’s falling leaves proclaimed, the old man—he must die!
He laid him down right tranquilly, gave up life’s latest sigh;
While a heavy stillness reign’d around, and tears dimm’d every eye.
For this good old English gentleman, &c.
Now surely this is better far than all the new parade
Of theatres and fancy balls, “At Home,” and masquerade;
And much more economical, when all the bills are paid:
Then leave your new vagaries off, and take up the old trade
Of a fine old English gentleman, &c.
A series of eight Essays, each illustrated with a design by R. W. Buss, was devoted to “The Old and Young Courtier” in the Penny Magazine of the Society for Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, in 1842.
Charles Matthews used to sing (was it in “Patter versus Clatter”?) an amusing version of “The Fine Young English Gentleman,” of whom it was reported that,
He kept up his vagaries at a most astounding rate,
And likewise his old Landlady,—by staying out so late,
Like a fine young English gentleman, one of the present time, &c.
T. R. Planché wrote a parody to the same tune, in his “Golden Fleece,” on the “Fine Young Grecian Gentleman,” Iason, as described by his deserted wife Medea: it begins, “I’ll tell you a sad tale of the life I’ve been led of late.” In Dinny Blake’s “Sprig of Shillelah,” p. 3, is found “The Rale Ould Irish Gintleman,” (5 verses) beginning, “I’ll sing you a dacent song, that was made by a Paddy’s pate,” and ending thus:—
Each Irish boy then took a pride to prove himself a man,
To serve a friend, and beat a foe it always was the plan
Of a rale ould Irish Gintleman, the boy of the olden time.
(Or, as Wm. Hy. Murray, of Edinburgh, used to say, in his unequalled “Old Country Squire,” “A smile for a friend, a frown for a foe, and a full front for every one!”)
At the beginning of the Crimean War appeared another parody, ridiculing the Emperor Nicholas, as “The Fine Old Russian Gentleman” (it is in Berger’s Red, White, and Blue, 467); and clever Robert B. Brough, in one of his more bitter moods against “The Governing Classes,” misrepresented the “Fine Old English Gentleman” (Ibid., p. 733), as splenetically as Charles Dickens did in Barnaby Rudge, chapter 47.
Page 20 (Original). Pan Leave Piping, &c.
Given already, in our Appendix to the Westminster Drollery, p. liv., with note of tune and locality. See Additional Note in Part 3 of present Appendix.
Page 129 (Orig. 26). Why Should We Boast of Arthur, &c.
There are so many differences in the version printed in the Antidote agt. Melancholy from that already given in Merry Drollery, Compleat, p. 309, (cp. Note, p. 399), that we give the former uncurtailed.
Along with the music in Pills to p. Mel., iii. 116, 1719, are the extra verses (also in Wit and Mirth, 1684, p. 29?) agreeing with the Antidote; as does the version in Old Bds., i. 24, 1723.
Another old ballad, in the last-named collection, p. 153, is upon “King Edward and Jane Shore; in Imitation, and to the Tune of, St. George and the Dragon.” It begins (in better version):—
Why should we boast of Lais and her knights,
Knowing such Champions entrapt by Whorish Lights?
Or why should we speak of Thais curled Locks,
Or Rhodope, &c.
Roxb. Coll., iii. 258, printed in 1671. Also in Pills, with music, iv. 272. The authorship of it is ascribed to Samuel Butler, in the volume assuming to be his “Posthumous Works” (p. iii., 3rd edition, 1730); but this ascription is of no weight in general.
In Edm. Gayton’s Festivous Notes upon Don Quixot, 1654, p. 231, we read:—“’Twas very proper for these Saints to alight at the sign of St. George, who slew the Dragon which was to prey upon the Virgin: The truth of which story hath been abus’d by his own country-men, who almost deny all the particulars of it, as I have read in a scurrilous Epigram, very much impairing the credit and Legend of St. George; As followeth,
They say there is no Dragon,
Nor no Saint George ’tis said.
Saint George and Dragon lost,
Pray Heaven there be a Maid!
But it was smartly return’d to, in this manner,
Saint George indeed is dead,
And the fell Dragon slaine;
The Maid liv’d so and dyed,—
She’ll ne’r do so againe.”
Somewhat different is the earlier version, in Wit’s Recreations, 1640-45. (Reprint, p. 194, which see, “To save a maid,” &c.) The Answer to it is probably Gayton’s own.
Page 133 (Orig. 29). Come Hither, Thou Merriest, &c.
Issued as a popular broadsheet, printed at London for Thomas Lambert, probably during the lifetime of Charles I., we find this lively ditty of “Blew Cap for Me!” in the Roxburghe Coll., i. 20, and in the Bd. Soc. Reprint, vol. i. pp. 74-9. Mr. Chappell mentions that the tune thus named “is included in the various editions of The Dancing Master from 1650 to 1690; and says, the reference to ‘when our good king was in Falkland town,’ [in the Antidote it reads “our good knight,” line 13] may supply an approximate date to the composition.” We believe that it must certainly have been before the Scots sold their king for the base bribe of money from the Parliamentarians, in 1648, when “Blew caps” became hateful to all true Cavaliers. The visit to Falkland was in 1633, so the date is narrowed in compass. From the Black-letter ballad we gain a few corrections: drowne, for dare, in 4th line; long lock’d, 26th line; for further exercises, 28th; Mistris (so we should read Maitresse, not a metrel), 29th; Pe gar me do love you (not “Dear”), 30th; she replide. The First Part ends with the Irishman. The Second Part begins with two verses not in the Antidote:—
A Dainty spruce Spanyard, with haire black as jett,
long cloak with round cape, a long Rapier and Ponyard;
Hee told her if that she could Scotland forget,
hee’d shew her the Vines as they grow in the Vineyard.
“If thou wilt abandon
this Country so cold,
I’ll show thee faire Spaine,
and much Indian gold.”
But stil she replide, “Sir,
I pray let me be;
Gif ever I have a man,
Blew-cap for me.”
A haughty high German of Hamborough towne,
a proper tall gallant, with mighty mustachoes;
He weepes if the Lasse vpon him doe but frowne,
yet he’s a great Fencer that comes to ore-match vs.
But yet all his fine fencing
Could not get the Lasse;
She deny’d him so oft,
that he wearyed was;
For still she replide, “Sir,
I pray let me be;
Gif ever I have a man,
Blew-cap for me.”
In the Netherland Mariner’s Speech we find for the fifth line of verse, “Isk will make thee,” said he, “sole Lady,” &c. Another verse follows it, before the conclusion:—
These sundry Sutors, of seuerall Lands, [4]
did daily solicite this Lasse for her fauour;
And euery one of them alike vnderstands
that to win the prize they in vaine did endeauour:
For she had resolued
(as I before said)
To haue bonny Blew-cap,
or else bee a maid.
Vnto all her suppliants
still replyde she,
“Gif ever I have a man,
Blew-cap for me.”
At last came a Scottish-man (with a blew-cap),
and he was the party for whom she had tarry’d;
To get this blithe bonny Lasse ’twas his gude hap,—
they gang’d to the Kirk, & were presently marry’d.
I ken not weele whether
it were Lord or Leard; [Laird]
They caude him some sike
a like name as I heard;
To chuse him from au
She did gladly agree,—
And still she cride, “Blew-cap,
th’art welcome to mee.”
The song is also reprinted for the Percy Society, (Fairholt’s Costume), xxvii. 130, as well as in Evans’ O. Bds., iii. 245. Compare John Cleavland’s “Square Cap,”—“Come hither, Apollo’s bouncing girl.”
Page 135 (Orig. 30). The Wit Hath Long Beholden Been
In Harleian MS. No. 6931, where it is signed as by Dr. W. Strode.
The tune of this is “The Shaking of the Sheets,” according to a broadside printed for John Trundle (1605-24, before 1628, as by that date we believe his widow’s name would have been substituted). We find it reprinted by J. P. Collier in his Book of Roxburghe Ballads, p. 172, 1847, as “The Song of the Caps.” In an introductory note, we gather that “This spirited and humorous song seems to have been founded, in some of its points, upon the ‘Pleasant Dialogue or Disputation between the Cap and the Head,’ which prose satire went through two editions, in 1564 and 1565: (see the Bridgewater Catalogue, p. 46.) It is, however, more modern, and certainly cannot be placed earlier than the end of the reign of Elizabeth. It may be suspected that it underwent some changes, to adapt it to the times, when it was afterwards reprinted; and we finally meet with it, but in a rather corrupted state, in a work published in 1656, called ‘Sportive Wit: the Muses Merriment, a new Spring of Lusty Drollery,’ &c.” [p. 23.] It appears, with the music, in Pills, iv. 157; in Percy Society’s “Costume,” 1849, 115, with woodcuts of several of the caps mentioned.
In Sportive Wit, 1656, p. 23, is a second verse (coming before “The Monmouth Cap,” &c.):—
2.—The Cap doth stand, each man can show,
Above a Crown, but Kings below:
The Cap is nearer heav’n than we;
A greater sign of Majestie:
When off the Cap we chance to take,
Both head and feet obeysance make;
For any Cap, &c.
In our 3rd verse, it reads:—ever brought, The quilted, Furr’d; crewel; 4th verse, line 6, of (some say) a horn. 5th verse, crooked cause aright; Which, being round and endless, knows || To make as endless any cause [A better version]. 6th, findes a mouth; 7th, The Motley Man a Cap; [for lines 3, 4, compare Shakespeare, as to it taking a wise man to play the fool,] like the Gyant’s Crown. 8th, Sick-mans; When hats in Church drop off apace, This Cap ne’er leaves the head uncas’d, Though he be ill; [two next verses are expanded into three, in Sp. Wit.] 11th, none but Graduats [N.B.]; none covered are; But those that to; go bare. This Cap, of all the Caps that be, Is now; high degree.
Page 139 (Orig. 37). Once I a Curious Eye Did Fix
This is in Thomas Weaver’s Songs and Poems of Love and Drollery, p. 16, 1654. Elsewhere attributed to John Cleveland (who died in 1658), and printed among his Poems “J. Cleavland Revived” (p. 106, 3rd edit. 1662), as “The Schismatick,” with a trashy fifth verse (not found elsewhere):—
I heard of one did touch,
He did tell as much,
Of one that would not crouch
At Communion;
Who thrusting up his hand
Never made a stand
Till he came where her f—— had union;
She without all terrour,
Thought it no errour,
But did laugh till the tears down did trickle,
Ha, ha, ha, Rotundus, Rotundus, ’tis you that my spleen doth tickle.
It is likewise in the Rump collection, i. 223, 1662; Loyal Sgs., i. 131, 1731.
Page 139 (Orig. 47). I’s Not Come Here to Tauk of Prut
By Ben Jonson. This is the song of the Welshmen, Evan, Howell, and Rheese, alternately, in Praise of Wales, sung in an Anti-Masque “For the Honour of Wales,” performed before King James I. on Shrove Tuesday, 1618-19. The final verse is omitted from the Antidote against Melancholy. It is this (sung by Rheese):—
Au, but what say yow should it shance too,
That we should leap it in a dance too,
And make it you as great a pleasure,
If but your eyes be now at leisure;
As in your ears s’all leave a laughter,
To last upon you six days after?
Ha! well-a-go to, let us try to do,
As your old Britton, things to be writ on.
Chorus.—Come, put on other looks now,
And lay away your hooks now;
And though yet yow ha’ no pump, sirs,
Let ’em hear that yow can jump, sirs,
Still, still, we’ll toudge your ears,
With the praise of her thirteen s’eeres.
(See Col. F. Cunningham’s “Mermaid” Ben Jonson, iii. 130-2, for Gifford’s Notes.) With a quaint old woodcut of a strutting Welshman, in cap and feather, the song reappears in “Recreations for Ingenious Head-pieces,” 1645 (Wits Recreations, Reprint, p. 387).
Page 143. Old Poets Hipocrin Admire
This is attributed to Thomas Randall, or Randolph (died 1634-5), in Wit and Mirth, 1684. p. 101: But to N. N., along with music by Hy. Lawes, in his Ayres, Book ii. p. 29, 1655. It is also in Parnassus Biceps, 1656, p. 158, “All Poets,” &c., and in Sportive Wit, p. 60.
Page 144. Hang the Presbyter’s Gill
With music in Pills, vi. 182; title, “The Presbyter’s Gill:” where we find three other verses, as 4th, 5th, and 7th:—
4.
The stout-brested Lombard, His brains ne’er incumbred,
With drinking of Gallons three;
Trycongius was named, And by Cæsar famed,
Who dubb’d him Knight Cap-a-pee.
5.
If then Honour be in’t, Why a Pox should we stint
Ourselves of the fulness it bears?
H’ has less Wit than an Ape, In the blood of a Grape,
Will not plunge himself o’er Head and Ears.
7.
See the bold Foe appears, May he fall that him Fears,
Keep you but close order, and then
We will give him the Rout, Be he never so stout[,]
And prepare for his Rallying agen.
8 (Final).
Let’s drain the whole Cellar, &c.
The accumulative progression, humourously exaggerated, is to be seen employed in other Drinking Songs; notably in “Here’s a Health to the Barley-Mow, my brave boys!” (still heard at rural festivals in East Yorkshire, and printed in J. H. Dixon’s Bds. & Sgs. of the Peasantry, Bell’s annotated edit., p. 159) and “Bacchus Overcome,” beginning “My Friend and I, we drank,” &c. (in Coll. Old Bds., iii. 145, 1725.)
Page 145. ’Tis Wine That Inspires
With music by Henry Lawes, in his Select Ayres, i. 32, 1653, entitled “The Excellency of Wine:” the author was “Lord Broughall” [query, Broghill?].
(Page, in Original, 55.) Let the Bells Ring
See Introduction to our Westminster-Drollery Reprint, pp. xxxvii-viii. Although not printed in the first edition of his “Spanish Curate,” it is so entirely in the spirit of John Fletcher that we need not hesitate to assign it to him: and he died in 1625.
Page 146. Bring Out the Old Chyne
With music, by Dr. John Wilson, in John Playford’s Select Ayres, 1659, p. 86, entitled Glee to the Cook. A poem attributed to Thomas Flatman, 1655, begins, “A Chine of Beef, God save us all!”
Page 147. In Love? Away! You Do Me Wrong
Given, with music by Henry Lawes, in his Select Ayres, Book iii. p. 5, 1669. The author of the words was Dr. Henry Hughes. We do not find the burden, “Come, fill’s a Cup,” along with the music.
(Page 65, Orig.) He That a Tinker, a Tinker &c.
See Choyce Drollery, 52, and note on p. 289.
Page 149, Line 8th, Now That the Spring, &c.
This was written by Willm. Browne, author of “Britannia’s Pastorals,” and therefore dates before 1645. See Additional Note, late in Part IV., on p. 296 of M. D. C.
Page 149. You Merry Poets, Old Boys
Given, with music by John Hilton, in his Catch that Catch Can, 1652, p. 7. Also in Walsh’s Catch-Club, ii. 13, No. 24.
Page 150. Come, Come Away, to the Tavern, I Say
By Sir John Suckling, in his unfinished tragedy “The Sad One,” Act iv. sc. 4, where it is sung by Signior Multecarni the Poet, and two of the actors; but without the final couplet, which recalls to memory Francis’s rejoinder in Henry IV., pt. i. Suckling was accustomed to introduce Shakesperian phrases into his plays, and we believe these two lines are genuine. We find the Catch, with music by John Hilton in that composer’s Catch that Catch Can, 1652, p. 15. (Also in Playford’s Musical Companion, 1673, p. 24.)
Captain William Hicks has a dialogue of Two Parliamentary Troopers, beginning with the same first line, in Oxford Drollery, i. 21, 1671. Written before 1659, thus:
Come, come away, to the Tavern, I say,
Whilst we have time and leisure for to think;
I find our State lyes tottering of late,
And that e’re long we sha’n’t have time to drink.
Then here’s a health to thee, to thee and me,
To me and thee, to thee and me, &c.
Page 151. There Was an Old Man at Walton Cross
This should read “Waltham Cross.” By Richard Brome, in his comedy of “The Jovial Crew,” Act ii., 1641, wherein it is sung by Hearty, as “t’other old song for that” [the uselessness of sighing for a lass]; to the tune of “Taunton Dean,” (see Dodsley’s Old Plays, 1st edit., 1744, vi. 333). With music by John Hilton, it is given in J. H.’s Catch that Catch Can, 1652, p. 31. It is also in Walsh’s Catch Club (about 1705) ii. 17, No. 43.
Page 151. Come, Let Us Cast Dice, Who Shall Drink
In J. Hilton’s Catch that Catch Can, 1652, p. 55, with music by William Lawes; and in John Playford’s Musical Companion, 1673, p. 24.
Page 151. Never Let a Man Take Heavily, &c.
With music by William Lawes, in Hilton’s Catch that Catch Can, 1652, p. 38.
Page 152. Let’s Cast Away Care, and Merrily Sing
With music by William Lawes, in Hilton’s Catch that Catch Can, 1652, p. 37. Wm. Chappell gives the words of four lines, omitting fifth and sixth, to accompany the music of Ben Jonson’s “Cock Lorrell,” in Pop. Mus. of O. T., 161 (where date of the Antidote is accidentally misprinted 1651, for 1661).
Page 152. Hang Sorrow, and Cast Away Care
With music by William Lawes, in Hilton’s Catch that Catch Can, 1652, p. 39. The words alone in Windsor Drollery, 140, 1672. Richard Climsall, or Climsell, has a long ballad, entitled “Joy and Sorrow Mixt Together,” which begins,
Hang Sorrow! let’s cast away care,
for now I do mean to be merry;
Wee’l drink some good Ale and strong Beere,
With Sugar, and Clarret, and Sherry.
Now Ile have a wife of mine own:
I shall have no need for to borrow;
I would have it for to be known
that I shall be married to morrow.
Here’s a health to my Bride that shall be!
come, pledge it, you coon merry blades;
The day I much long for to see,
we will be as merry as the Maides.
Poor fellow! he soon changes his tune, after marriage, although singing to the music of “Such a Rogue would be hang’d,”—better known as “Old Sir Simon the King.” Printed by John Wright the younger (1641-83), it survives in the Roxburghe Collection, i. 172, and is reprinted for the Bd. Soc., i. 515. As may be seen, it is totally different from the Catch in Hilton’s volume and the Antidote; which is also in Oxford Drollery, Pt. 3, p. 136, there entitled “A Cup of Sack:—“Hang Sorrow, cast,” &c.
It there has two more verses:—
2.
Come Ladd, here’s a health to thy Love, [p. 136.]
Do thou drink another to mine,
I’le never be strange, for if thou wilt change
I’le barter my Lady for thine:
She is as free, and willing to be
To any thing I command,
I vow like a friend, I never intend
To put a bad thing in thy hand:
Then be as frollick and free [p. 137.]
With her as thou woul’st with thine own,
But let her not lack good Claret and Sack,
To make her come off and come on.
3.
Come drink, we cannot want Chink,
Observe how my pockets do gingle,
And he that takes his Liquor all off
I here do adopt him mine ningle:
Then range a health to our King,
I mean the King of October,
For Bacchus is he that will not agree
A man should go to bed sober:
’Tis wine, both neat and fine,
That is the faces adorning,
No Doctor can cure, with his Physick more sure,
Than a Cup of small Beer in the morning.
This shows how a great man’s gifts are undervalued. Christopher Sly was truly wise (yet accounted a Sot and even a Rogue, though “the Slys are no rogues: look in the chronicles! We came in with Richard Conqueror!”) when, with all the wealth and luxury of the Duke at command, he demanded nothing so much as “a pot o’ the smallest ale.” He had good need of it.
Page 152. My Lady and Her Maid, Upon a Merry Pin
This meets us earlier, in Hilton’s Catch that Catch Can, 1651, p. 64, with music by William Ellis. The missing first verse reappears (if, indeed, not a later addition) in Oxford Drollery, 1674, Part iii. p. 163, as “made at Oxford many years since”:—
My Lady and her Maid
Were late at Course-a-Park:
The wind blew out the candle, and
She went to bed in the dark,
My Lady, &c. [as in Antidote ag. Mel.]
It was popular before December, 1659; allusions to it are in the Rump, 1662, i. 369; ii. 62, 97.
Page 153. An Old House End
Also in Windsor Drollery, 1672, p. 30.
Same P. 153. Wilt Thou Lend Me Thy Mare
With music by Edmund Nelham, in John Hilton’s Catch that Catch can, 1652, p. 78. The Answer, here beginning “Your Mare is lame,” &c., we have not met elsewhere. The Catch itself has always been a favourite. In a world wherein, amid much neighbourly kindness, there is more than a little of imposition, the sly cynicism of the verse could not fail to please. Folks do not object to doing a good turn, but dislike being deemed silly enough to have been taken at a disadvantage. So we laugh at the Catch, say something wise, and straightway let ourselves do good-natured things again with a clear conscience.
Page 154. Good Symon, How Comes It, &c.
With music by William Howes, in Hilton’s Catch that Catch can, 1652, p. 84. Also in Walsh’s Catch-Club, ii. 77. We are told that the Symon here addressed, regarding his Bardolphian nose, was worthy Symon Wadloe,—“Old Sym, the King of Skinkers,” or Drawers. Possibly some jocular allusion to the same reveller animates the choice ditty (for which see the Percy Folio MS., iv. 124, and Pills, iii. 143),
Old Sir Simon the King!
With his ale-dropt hose,
And his malmesy nose,
Sing hey ding, ding a ding ding.
We scarcely believe the ascription to be correct, and that “Old Symon the King” originally referred to Simon Wadloe, who kept the “Devil and St. Dunstan” Tavern, whereat Ben Jonson and his comrades held their meetings as The Apollo Club; for which the Leges Conviviales were written. Seeing that Wadloe died in 1626, or ’27, and there being a clear trace of “Old Simon the King” in 1575, in Laneham’s Kenilworth Letter (Reprinted for Ballad Society, 1871, p. cxxxi.), the song appears of too early a date to suit the theory. Tant pis pour les faits. But consult Chappell’s Pop. Mus., 263-5, 776-7.
Same P. 154. Wilt Thou Be Fatt? &c.
In 1865 (see his Bibliog. Account, i. 25), J. P. Collier drew attention to the mention of Falstaff’s name in this Catch; also to the other Shakesperiana, viz., the complete song of “Jog on, jog on the footpath way,” (p. 156), and the burden of “Three merry boys,” to “The Wise-men were but Seven” (M. D. C., p. 232), which is connected with Sir Toby Belch’s joviality in Twelfth Night, Act ii. 3.
Page 155. Of All the Birds That Ever I See
With the music, in Chappell’s Pop. Mus. O. T., p. 75. This favourite of our own day dates back so early, at least, as 1609, when it appeared in (Thomas Ravenscroft’s?) Deuteromelia; or, the Second Part of Musick’s Melodie, &c., p. 7. We therein find (what has dropped out, to the damage of our Antidote version), as the final couplet:—
Sinamont and ginger, nutmegs and cloves,
And that gave me my jolly red nose.
Of course, it was the spice deserved blame, not the liquor (as Sam Weller observed, on a similar occasion, “Somehow it always is the salmon”). Those who remember (at the Johnson in Fleet Street, or among the Harmonist Society of Edinburgh) the suggestive lingering over the first syllable of the word “gin-ger,” when “this song is well sung,” cannot willingly relinquish the half-line. It is a genuine relic, for it also occurs in Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Knight of the Burning Pestle,” about 1613, Act i. sc. 3; where chirping Old Merrythought, “who sings with never a penny in his purse,” gives it thus, while “singing and hoiting” [i.e., skipping]:—
Nose, nose, jolly red nose,
And who gave thee this jolly red nose?
Cinnamon and ginger, nutmegs and cloves,
And they gave me this jolly red nose.
And we know, by A Booke of Merrie Riddles, 1630, and 1631, that it was much sung:
—then Ale-Knights should
To sing this song not be so bold,
Nutmegs, Ginger, Cinamon and Cloves,
They gave us this jolly red nose.
Same P. 155. This Ale, My Bonny Lads, &c.
Like Nos. 4, 21, 24, 31, &c., not yet found elsewhere.
Page 156. What! Are We Met? Come. &c.
With music by Thomas Holmes, in Hilton’s Catch that Catch can, 1652, p. 46.
Same P. 156. Jog on, Jog on the Foot Path-Way
The four earliest lines of this ditty are sung by Autolycus the Pedlar, and “picker up of unconsidered trifles,” in Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale (about 1610), Act iv. sc. 2. Whether the latter portion of the song was also by him (nay, more, whether he actually wrote, or merely quoted even the four opening lines), cannot be determined. We prefer to believe that from his hand alone came the fragment, at least—this lively snatch of melody, with good philosophy, such as the Ascetics reject, to their own damage. No wrong is done in accepting the remainder of the song as genuine. The final verse is orthodox, according to the Autolycusian rule of faith. It is in Windsor Drollery, p. 30; and our Introduction to Westminster-Drollery, p. xxxv.
Page 157. The Parcht Earth Drinks, &c.
Compare, with this lame paraphrase of Anacreon’s racy Ode, the more poetic version by Abraham Cowley, printed in Merry Drollery, Compleat, p. 22 (not in 1661 ed. Merry D.) All of Cowley’s Anacreontiques are graceful and melodious. He and Thomas Stanley fully entered into the spirit of them, arcades ambo.
Same P. 157. A Man of Wales, &c.
We meet this, six years earlier, in Wits Interpreter, 1655 edit., p. 285; 1671, p. 290. Our text is the superior.
Page 158. Drink, Drink, All You That Think
Also found in Wit and Mirth, 1684, p. 113.
Page 159. Welcome, Welcome, Again to Thy Wits
By James Shirley, (1590-1666) in his comedy, “The Example,” 1637, Act v. sc. 3, where it is the Song of Sir Solitary Plot and Lady Plot. Repeated in the Academy of Complements, 1670, p. 209. Until after that date, for nearly a century, almost all the best songs had been written for stage plays. It forms an appropriate finale, from the last Dramatist of the old school, to the Restoration merriment, the Antidote against Melancholy, of 1661.
In one of the later “Sessions of the Poets” (vide postea Part 4, § 2)—probably, of 1664-5,—Shirley is referred to, ungenerously. He was then aged nearly seventy:—
Old Shirley stood up, and made an Excuse,
Because many Men before him had got;
He vow’d he had switch’d and spur-gall’d his Muse,
But still the dull Jade kept to her old trot.
He is also mentioned, with more reverence implied, by George Daniel of Beswick; and we may well conclude this second part of our Appendix with the final verses from the Beswick MS. (1636-53); insomuch as many Poets are therein mentioned, to whom we return in Section Fourth:—
The noble Overburies Quill has left [verse 20]
A better Wife then he could ever find:
I will not search too deep, lest I should lift
Dust from the dead: Strange power, of womankind,
To raise and ruine; for all he will claime,
As from that sex; his Birth, his Death, his Fame.
But I spin out too long: let me draw up
My thred, to honour names, of my owne time
Without their Eulogies, for it may stop
With Circumstantiall Termes, a wearie Rhime:
Suffice it if I name ’em; that for me
Shall stand, not to refuse their Eulogie.
The noble Falkland, Digbie, Carew, Maine,
Beaumond, Sands, Randolph, Allen, Rutter, May,13
The devine Herbert, and the Fletchers twaine,
Habinton, Shirley, Stapilton; I stay [N.B.]
Too much on names; yet may I not forget
Davenant, and Suckling, eminent in witt.
Waller, not wants, the glory of his verse;
And meets, a noble praise in every line;
What should I adde in honour? to reherse,
Admired Cleveland? by a verse of mine?
Or give ye glorious Muse of Denham praise?
Soe withering Brambles stand, to liveing Bayes.
These may suffice; not only to advance
Our English honour, but for ever crowne
Poesie, ’bove the reach of Ignorance;
Our dull fooles unmov’d, admire their owne
Stupiditie; and all beyond their sphere
As Madnes, and but tingling in the Eare.
[Final Verse.]
Great Flame! whose raies at once have power to peirce
The frosted skull of Ignorance, and close
The mouth of Envie; if I bring a verse
Unapt to move; my admiration flowes
With humble Love and Zeale in the intent
To a cleare Rapture, from the Argument.
(G. D.’s “A Vindication of Poesie.”)
End of Notes to Antidote.