MWfiTI. SO N OS FROM THE DEAIATISTS THIRD EDITION. LONDON GEIFFIN, BOHN, AND COMPANY STATIOKEKS* HALL COUET. 1861. LONDON: T. HARRILD, P*W*R > SHOE LANE, FLEET STREET. ADVERTISEMENT. THIS volume contains a collection of Songs from the English Dramatists, beginning with the writer of the first regular comedy, and ending with Sheridan. The want of such a collection has long been felt, and that it has never been supplied before must occasion sur- prise to all readers who are acquainted with the riches we possess in this branch of lyrical poetry. The plan upon which the work is arranged furnishes the means of following the course of the drama his- torically, and tracing in its progress the revolutions of style, manners, and morals that marked successive periods. The songs of each dramatist are distributed under the titles of the plays from which they are taken ; and the plays are given in the order of their' production. Short biographical notices, and explana- tory notes, have been introduced wherever they appeared necessary or desirable; but all superfluous annotation has been carefully avoided. The orthography of the early songs has been modernized, in no instance, however, to the loss or injury of a phrase essential to the coloring of the age, or the structure of the verse. The old spelling is not sacred ; nor can it be always fixed with certainty. It was generally left to the printers, who not only differed IV ADVERTISEMENT. from each other, but sometimes from themselves. By adopting a uniform and familiar orthography, the enjoy- ment of the beauties of these poems, the most perfect of their class in any language, is materially facilitated. In the preparation of this volume, all known acces- sible sources have been explored and exhausted. The research bestowed upon it cannot be adequately esti- mated by its bulk. The labour which is not repre- sented in the ensuing pages considerably exceeded the labour which has borne the fruit and flowers gathered into this little book. Many hundreds of plays have been examined without yielding any results, or such only as in their nature were unavailable. Some names will be missed from the catalogue of dramatic writers, and others will be found to contribute less than might be looked for from their celebrity ; but in all such cases a satisfactory explanation can be given. Marlowe's plays, for example, do not contain a single song, and Greene's only one. Southerne abounds in songs, but they are furnished chiefly by other writers, and are of nhe most commonplace character. Etherege has several broken snatches of drinking rhymes and choruses dancing through his comedies, full of riotous animal spirits soaring to the height of all manner of extrava- gance, and admirably suited to ventilate the profligacy of the day ; but for the most part they are either unfit for extract from their coarseness, or have not substance enough to stand alone. Wycherley's songs are simply gross, and Tom Killigrew's crude and artificial. ADVERTISEMENT. V On the other hand, some things will be found here that might not have been anticipated. A few plays with nothing else in them worth preservation have supplied an excellent song ; and others that had long been consigned to oblivion by their dulness or de- pravity, have unexpectedly thrown up an occasional stanza of permanent value. The superiority in all qualities of sweetness, thought- fulness, and purity of the writers of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century over their successors is strikingly exhibited in these productions. The dramatic songs of the age of Elizabeth and James I. are distinguished as much by their delicacy and chastity of feeling, as by their vigour and beauty. The change that took place under Charles II. was sudden and com- plete. With the Restoration, love disappears, and sensuousness takes its place. Voluptuous without taste or sentiment, the songs of that period may be said to dissect in broad daylight the life of the town, laying bare with revolting shamelessness the tissues of its most secret vices. But as this species of morbid anatomy required some variation to relieve its same- ness, the song sometimes transported the libertinism into the country, and through the medium of a sort of Covent-garden pastoral exhibited the fashionable delinquencies in a masquerade of Strephons and Ohio- rises, no better than the Courtalls and Loveits of the comedies. The costume of innocence gave increased zest to the dissolute wit, and the audiences seem to VI ADVERTISEMENT. have been delighted with the representation of their own licentiousness in the transparent disguise of ver- dant images, and the affectation of rural simplicity. It helped them to a spurious ideal, which rarely, however, lasted out to the end of the verse. The sub- sequent decline of the drama is sensibly felt in the degeneracy of its lyrics. The interval, from the end of the seventeenth century to the close of the eighteenth, presents a multitude of songs, chiefly, however, in operas which do not come strictly within the plan of this volume; but, with a few solitary ex- ceptions, they are trivial, monotonous, and conventional. The brilliant genius of Sheridan alone shines out with conspicuous lustre, and terminates the series with a gaiety and freshness that may be regarded as a revival of the spirit with which it opens. R. B. CONTENTS. ADVERTISEMENT. NICHOLAS UDALL. RALPH ROISTER DOISTER p. 15 JOHN HEYWOOD. THE PLAY OF LOVE 23 JOHN STILL. GAMMER GURTON'S NEEDLE 33 JOHN BEDFORD. THE PLAY OF WIT AND SCIENCE 38 THOMAS INGELEND. THE DISOBEDIENT CHILD . 40 ANTHONY MUNDAY. JOHN A KENT AND JOHN A CUMBER 43 LEWIS WAGER. THE LIFE AND REPENTANCE OF MARY MAGDALENE ... 45 WILLIAM WAGER. THE LONGER THOU LIVEST THE MORE FOOL THOU ART ... 46 JOHN LYLY. ALEXANDER AND CAMPASPE 50 SAPPHO AND PHAON 51 ENDYMION . . , 52 GALATHEA 53 MIDAS 54 MOTHER BOMBIE * . . 55 GEORGE PEELE. THE ARRAIGNMENT OF PARIS 58 POLYHYMNIA ". 60 THE HUNTING OF CUPID 61 THE OLD WIFE'S TALE 62 DAVID AND BETHSABE . 63 Vlll CONTENTS. ROBERT GREENE. LOOKING-GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND p. 65 THOMAS NASH. SUMMER'S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT 68 SAMUEL DANIEL. CLEOPATRA 73 DABRIDGECOURT BELCHIER. HANS BEER-POT, HIS INVISIBLE COMEDY OF SEE ME AND SEE ME NOT 76 SHAKESPEARE. Two GENTLEMEN OF VERONA 77 LOVE'S LABOUR LOST 78 ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL 82 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM 82 MERCHANT OF VENICE 85 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING 87 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR 88 TWELFTH NIGHT 88 As You LIKE IT 90 MEASURE FOR MEASURE 95 A WINTER'S TALE 96 THE TEMPEST 98 KING HENRY IV. PART II 100 KING HENRY V 101 KING HENRY VIII 101 HAMLET 102 CYMBELINE 104 OTHELLO 105 KING LEAR 106 MACBETH 107 TIMON OF ATHENS 108 TROILUS AND CRESSIDA 109 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 109 BEN JONSON. CYNTHIA'S REVELS 110 THE POETASTER 112 VOLPONE; OR, THE Fox 114 THE QUEEN'S MASQUE 115 EPICCENE; OR, THE SILENT WOMAN. 116 CONTENTS. IX BARTHOLOMEW FAIR . . . p. 117 THE NEW INN ; OR, THE LIGHT HEART . . 120 THE SAJD SHEPHERD ; OR, A TALE OF ROBIN HOOD .... 120 THE FOREST 121 FRANCIS BEAUMONT AND JOHN FLETCHER. THE MAID'S TRAGEDY 122 THE ELDER BROTHER 122 THE SPANISH CURATE 123 WIT WITHOUT MONEY 125 BEGGAR'S BUSH 125 THE HUMOROUS LIEUTENANT 126 THE FAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS 126 THE MAD LOVER 137 THE LOYAL SUBJECT 139 THE FALSE ONE 140 THE LITTLE FRENCH LAWYER 142 THE TRAGEDY OF VALENTINIAN 142 MONSIEUR THOMAS 143 THE CHANCES 144 THE BLOODY BROTHER ; OR, ROLLO, DUKE OF NORMANDY . 145 A WIFE FOR A MONTH 148 THE LOVERS' PROGRESS 149 THE PILGRIM 149 THE CAPTAIN 150 THE QUEEN OF CORINTH 152 THE KNIGHT OF THE BURNING PESTLE 152 THE MAID IN THE MILL 156 WOMEN PLEASED 156 CUPID'S REVENGE 157 THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN 159 THE WOMAN-HATER 160 THE NICE VALOUR,; OR, THE PASSIONATE MADMAN. . . . 161 THOMAS MIDDLETON. BLURT, MASTER CONSTABLE ; OR, THE SPANIARD'S NIGHT- WALK 165 A MAD WORLD, MY MASTERS 167 THE WITCH 168 MORE DISSEMBLERS BESIDES WOMEN 170 A CHASTE MAID IN CHEAPSIDE 171 THOMAS MIDDLETON AND WILLIAM ROWLEY. THE SPANISH GIPSY . 171 X CONTENTS. BEN JONSON, FLETCHER, AND MIDDLETON. THE WIDOW p. 176 THOMAS DEKKER. OLD FORTUNATUS 177 T. DEKKER AND R. WILSON. THE SHOEMAKER'S HOLIDAY; OR, THE GENTLE CRAFT . . 178 THOMAS DEKKER, HENRY CHETTLE, AND WILLIAM HAUGHTON. THE PLEASANT COMEDY OF PATIENT GRISSELL 180 JOHN WEBSTER. THE WHITE DEVIL; OR, VICTORIA COROMBONA 182 THE DUCHESS OF MALFY 183 JOHN WEBSTER AND WILLIAM ROWLEY. THE THRACIAN WONDER 184 SAMUEL ROWLEY. THE NOBLE SPANISH SOLDIER 189 THOMAS GOFFE. ORESTES 190 THE CARELESS SHEPHERDESS 191 CHETTLE AND MUNDAY. THE DEATH OF ROBERT, EARL OF HUNTINGDON 192 THOMAS HEYWOOD. THE RAPE OF LUCRECE 1 195 LOVE'S MISTRESS; OR, THE QUEEN'S MASQUE 197 FIRST PART OF KING EDWARD IV 198 THE SILVER AGE ... 198 THE FAIR MAID OF THE EXCHANGE 198 A CHALLENGE FOR BEAUTY 199 THE GOLDEN AGE . 201 PHILIP MASSINGER. THE PICTURE 202 THE EMPEROR OF THE EAST 203 THE GUARDIAN 203 JOHN FORD. THE SUN'S DARLING 206 THE LOVER'S MELANCHOLY . . 209 CONTENTS. XI THE BROKEN HEART p. 209 THE LADY'S TRIAL 211 SIR JOHN SUCKLING AGLAURA . . . . , 212 BRENNORALT 218 THE GOBLINS 214 THE SAD ONE 214 WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT. THE ORDINARY 215 PHINEAS FLETCHER. THE SICELIDES 216 WILLIAM HABINGTON. THE QUEEN OF ARRAGON 218 BARTEN HOLIDAY. TEXNOTAMLA; OR, THE MARRIAGE OF THE ARTS 220 JAMES SHIRLEY. LOVE TRICKS 222 THE WITTY FAIR ONE 223 THE BIRD IN A CAGE 223 THE TRIUMPH OF PEACE 224 ST. PATRICK FOR IRELAND 225 THE ARCADIA. 225 CUPID AND DEATH 226 THE CONTENTION OF AJAX AND ULYSSES 227 SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT. THE SIEGE OF RHODES 228 THE UNFORTUNATE LOVERS 229 THE LAW AGAINST LOVERS 231 THE MAN'S THE MASTER 232 THE CRUEL BROTHER 233 GERVASE MARKHAM AND WILLIAM SAMPSON. HEROD AND ANTIPATER 234 JASPER MAYNE. THE CITY MATCH 235 SIR SAMUEL TUKE. THE ADVENTURES OF Two HOURS .. 236 xii CONTENTS. SIR WILLIAM KILLIGREW. SELINDRA . . ................ p. 236 JOHN DRYDEN. THE INDIAN QUEEN ............... 239 THE INDIAN EMPEROR .............. 240 SECRET LOVE ; OR, THE MAIDEN QUEEN ........ 240 SIR MARTIN MAR- ALL; OR, THE FEIGNED INNOCENCE . . . 241 TYRANNIC LOVE; OR, THE ROYAL MARTYR ...... 242 AMBOYNA ................... 243 ALBION AND ALBANUS .............. 244 KING ARTHUR; OR, THE BRITISH WORTHY ....... 244 CLEOMENES ; OR, THE SPARTAN HERO ......... 245 LOVE TRIUMPHANT? OR, NATURE WILL PREVAIL ..... 246 THE SECULAR MASQUE .............. 247 SIR GEORGE ETHEREGE. LOVE IN A TUB ................. 247 THOMAS SHADWELL, THE WOMAN CAPTAIN ........ , ..... 248 THE AMOROUS BIGOT ............... 248 TTMON OF ATHENS ................ 249 SIR CHARLES SEDLEY. THE MULBERRY GARDEN ............. 249 TOM D'URFEY. THE COMICAL HISTORY OF DON QUIXOTE ....... 251 THE MODERN PROPHETS; OR, NEW WIT FOR A HUSBAND . 251 SIR JOHN VANBRUGH. THE RELAPSE ; OR, VIRTUE IN DANGER ........ 252 THE PROVOKED WIFE . . ............. 253 253 WILLIAM CONGREVE. LOVE FOR LOVE ................. 254 THE WAY OF THE WORLD ............. 255 GEORGE FARQUHAR. LOVE AND A BOTTLE ............... 256 THE TWINS .................. 257 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. THE DUENNA ................ , . 257 THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL ........ ... 259 SONGS EEOM THE DRAMATISTS. NICHOLAS UDALL. 1505 1556- [NICHOLAS UDALL, descended from Peter Lord Uvedale and Nicholas Udall, constable of Winchester Castle in the reign of Edward III.,* was born in Hampshire in 1505 or 1506, admitted scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 1520, and became probationary fellow 1524, but did not obtain his master's degree for ten years afterwards, in conse- quence of his known attachment to the doctrines of Luther. His first literary work was a pageant in Latin and English, exhibited by the mayor and citizens of London, to celebrate the entrance of Anne Bullen into the city after her marriage. This was written in 1532, in conjunction with Leland, the antiquary, with whom he had formed a friendship at Oxford. In 1534, having acquired a high reputation for scholarship, he was appointed head master of Eton. His severity in this capacity rendered him odious to the pupils, and has been specially recorded b} r Tusser, who says that Udall inflicted fifty-three stripes upon him ' for fault but small, or none at alL'f Udall continued at Eton till 1541, when he was brought before the council at Westminster, on a charge of having been concerned with two of the scholars and a servant * Communicated to the Gentleman's Magazine, v. Ixxx. p. n. by Robert Uvedale, in reply to the inquiries of Dr. Mavor, then making collections for his edition of Tusser. t See the poetical life added by Tusser to his poems. THE DEAMATISTS. 2 14 SONGS FKOM THE DRAMATISTS. of his own in a robbery of silver images and plate which had taken place at the college. There seems to be little doubt of his guilty knowledge of the transaction, if not of actual com- plicity in the theft, for he was dismissed from the mastership, and applied in vain to be restored. No further proceedings, however, were taken against him. From this time he devoted himself to literature, and took a leading part in the discus- sions against Popery. His great learning, and the services he rendered to religion by his controversial writings and his eloquence in the pulpit, were rewarded by his presentation to a stall at Windsor in 1551, and his nomination to the par- sonage of Calborne, in the Isle of Wight, two years afterwards. These preferments in the church were not considered incon- sistent with the encouragement of his skill as a dramatic writer; and in 1553 and 1554 he was ordered to prepare an entertainment for the feast of the coronation of Queen Mary, Dialogues and Interludes to be performed at court. About this time he was appointed head master of Westminster school, which he held till 1556, when the monastery was re-established in the November of that year. He died in the following month, and was buried at St. Margaret's.* It had long been supposed that Gammer Gurtons Needle was the first regular English comedy. This supposition rested on the authority of Wright, the author of the Historia Histrionica. But the discovery, in 1818, of a copy of Ralph Roister Doister, printed in 1566 (curiously enough the year in which Gammer Gurton's Needle was acted), trans- ferred the precedence to Nicholas Udall. At what time Udall wrote this play is not known. The earliest reference to it occurs in Wilson's Rule of Reason, printed in 1551 From a contemporary allusion in the play to a certain ballad-maker, also alluded to by Skelton, who died in 1533, * These particulars are chiefly derived from Mr. W. Durrani Cooper's careful memoir prefixed to the edition of Ralph Roister Doister, reprinted by the Shakespeare Society, from the unique copy in Eton College. The memoir may be consulted for a further account of Udall's works. NICHOLAS UDALL. 15 Mr. Collier conjectures that the comedy was a youthful pro- duction.* This is extremely probable ; although the evidence is not decisive, as the ballad-maker alluded to might have survived, and maintained his notoriety many years after the death of Skelton. However that may be, the claim of this comedy to be considered the first in our language is indis- putable. It must have preceded Crammer Gurton's Needle by at least fifteen years ; and, being at that period so well known as to be quoted by Wilson, we may reasonably assign it to a much earlier date. The comedy is written in rhyme, and divided into acts and scenes. The action takes place in London, and the plot, con- structed with a surprising knowledge of stage art, affords ample opportunity for the development of a variety of characters. The copy discovered in 1818 wants the title- page, but is presumed to have borne the date of 1566, as in that year Thomas Hackett had a license to print it. In 1818 a limited reprint was made by the Rev. Mr. Briggs, who deposited the original in the library of Eton College. ' There was a singular propriety,' observes Mr. Collier, ' in presenting it to Eton College, as Udall had been master of the school ;' a circumstance which was entirely fortuitous, Mr. Briggs not being acquainted even with the name of the author. It was reprinted in 1821 and 1830, and lastly by the Shakespeare Society in 1847.] KALPH ROISTER DOISTER. THE WOBEXHRLS* PIPE, merry Annot ; Trilla, Trilla, Trillarie. Work, Tibet; work, Annot; work, Margerie; Sew, Tibet; knit, Annot; spin, Margerie; Let us see who will win the victory. * His. En. Dram. Poetry, ii. 246. t To make this lively round intelligible, the reader should be in- formed that it is sung by three sewing girls, who are variously em- 22 16 SONGS FKOM THE DRAMATISTS. Pipe, merry Annot; Trilla, Trilla, Trillarie. What, Tibet ! what, Annot ! what, Margerie ! Ye sleep, but we do not, that shall we try; Your fingers be numb, our work will not lie. Pipe, merry Annot ; Trilla, Trilla, Trillarie. Now Tibet, now Annot, now Margerie ; Now whippet apace for the maystrie :* But it will not be, our mouth is so dry. Pipe, merry Annot; Trilla, Trilla, Trillarie. When, Tibet 1 when, Annot? when, Margerie? I will not, I can not, no more can I ; Then give we all over, and there let it lie ! THE SEWING-MEN'S SONG. A THING very fit A For them that have wit, And are fellows knit, Servants in one house to be ; As fast for to sit And not oft to flit, Nor vary a whit, But lovingly to agree. ployed, as indicated in the first stanza. The stage directions at the openiner of the scene describe their several occupations : ' Madge Mumblecrust spinning on the distaff Tibet Talkative sewing Annot Alyface knitting.' After some idle clatter, in which they are joined by the hair-brained Roister Doister, they agree to sing a song, to beguile the time and help them on in their work. Annot. Let all these matters pass, and we three sing a song; So shall we pleasantly both the time beguile now, And eke dispatch all our work, ere we can tell how. Tibet. I shrew them that say nay, and that shall not be I. Madge. And I am well content. Tibet. Sing on then by and by. * Mastery, superior skill. NICHOLAS UDALL. 17 No man complaining, Nor other disdaining, For loss or for gaining. But fellows or friends to be; No grudge remaining, No work refraining, Nor help restraining, But lovingly to agree. No man for despite, By word or by write, His fellow to twite, But further in honesty; No good turns entwite/* Nor old sores recite, But let all go quite, And lovingly to agree. After drudgery, When they be weary, Then to be merry, To laugh and sing they be free; With chip and cherie, Heigh derie derie, Trill on the berie, And lovingly to agree. THE MINION WIFE. WHO so to marry a minion t wife, Hath had good chance and hap, Must love her and cherish her all his life, And dandle her in his lap. If she will fare well, if she will go gay, A good husband ever still, What ever she list to do or to say, Must let her have her own will. * Twite, entwiter-iQ twit, to reproach. t Pet or darling. 18 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. About what affairs so ever lie go, He must shew her all his mind, None of his counsel she may be kept fro, Else is he a man unkind. I MTJN BE MAEEIED A SUNDAY. T MUIST be married a Sunday; * 1 mun be married a Sunday; Who soever shall come that way, I mun be married a Sunday. Roister Doister is my name; Roister Doister is my name; A lusty brute I am the same; I mun be married a Sunday. Christian Custance have I found ; Christian Custance have I found; A widow worth a thousand pound : I mun be married a Sunday. Custance is as sweet as honey; Custance is as sweet as honey; I her lamb, and she my coney; I mun be married a Sunday. When we shall make our wedding feast, When we shall make our wedding feast, There shall be cheer for man and beast, I mun be married a Sunday. I mun be married a Sunday.* * The following passage occurs in the Taming of the Shrew: We will have rings, and things, and fine array ; And kiss me, Kate, we will be married o' Sunday. Actii, Sc. i. The concluding words, probably intended to be sung with a fine air of banter and bravery by Petruchio as he goes off the stage, are evidently taken from the burthen of Ralph Roister Doister's song, which we may, therefore, infer to have been one of the popular ballads in Shakespeare's time. JOHN HEY WOOD. 19 THE PSALMODIE FOE THE BEJECTED LOVER. IVTAISTER Eoister Doister will straight go home "* and die, Our Lord Jesus Christ his soul have mercy upon : Thus you see to day a man, to morrow John. Yet, saving for a woman's extreme cruelty, He might have lived yet a month, or two, or three; But, in spite of Custance, which hath him wearied, His mashyp shall be worshipfully buried. And while some piece of his soul is yet him within, Some part of his funeral let us here begin. Dirige. He will go darkling to his grave ; Neque lux, neque crux, nisi solum clink ; Never genman so went toward heaven, I think. Yet, sirs, as ye will the bliss of heaven win, When he cometh to the grave, lay him softly in; And all men take heed, by this one gentleman, How you set your love upon an unkind woman; For these women be all such mad peevish elves, They will not be won, except it please themselves. But, in faith, Custance, if ever ye come in hell, Maister Roister Doister shall serve you as well. Good night, Roger old knave; Farewell, Roger old knave; Good night, Roger old knave ; knave knap. Nequando, Audivi vocem. fiequiem ceternam. [A peal of bells rung by the Parish Clerk and Roister Doister' s four men. JOHN HEYWOOD. I57-- HEYWOOD'S claims to a prominent place amongst the dramatists are not very considerable. His productions in this way are neither numerous nor important. They can 20 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. scarcely be called plays, in the higher sense of the term, and are more accurately described by the designation usually applied to them of Interludes, having few characters arid scarcely any plot, and consisting entirely of an uninterrupted dialogue, without an attempt at action or structural design. They may be said to represent the transition from the Mo- ralities to the regular drama ; and in this point of view they possess a special interest. The date of Heywood's birth is not known, nor has the place been ascertained with certainty. According to Bale and Wood, he was born in the city of London, and received his education in the University of Oxford, at the ancient hostel of Broadgate, in St. Aldgate's parish. Other writers assert that he was born at North Minims, near St. Alban's, Hertfordshire, where the family had some property, and at which place he lived after he left college ; while a MS. in the possession of the Earl of Ellesmere describes him as a native of Kent. Hey wood had no inclination for the life of a student. His tastes lay in music, good fellowship, and * mad, merry wit ;' and, as he tells us in one of his epigrams, he applied himself to * mirth more than thrift.' That he profited little by his residence at Oxford may be inferred from an observation made by Puttenham, who ascribes the favour in which he stood at Court to his ' mirth and quickness of conceit more than any good learning that was in him.' In Hertfordshire he became acquainted with Sir Thomas More, who lived in the neighbourhood, and who was so well pleased with his aptness for jest and repartee, qualities in much request at that period with the reigning monarch, that he not only introduced him to Henry VIII., but is said to have assisted him in the composition of his epigrams. He became a great favourite with the king, who appears, from the Book of Pay- ments, to have taken him into his service as a player on the virginal ; and gratuities from both the princesses are to be found amongst the items of the royal expenditure. In addi- JOHN HEYWOOD. tion to his wit and his music, he appears also to have had some talent as an actor, and to have presented an interlude at court (written no doubt by himself), played, according to the fashion then prevalent, by children. Heywood was a staunch Eoman Catholic, a circumstance to which, we may presume, he was mainly indebted for the particular favours bestowed upon him by the Princess Mary, who admitted him to the most intimate conversation during the time of Henry VIII. and the succeeding reign ; and conferred a distinguished mark of her patronage upon him when she came to the throne, by appointing him to address her in a Latin and English oration on her procession through the city to West- minster the day before her coronation. These were the palmy days of Heywood's career. The queen was so great an admirer of his humorous talents that she constantly sent for him to beguile the hours of illness, and is said to have sought relief from pain in his diverting stories even when she was languishing on her death- bed. * His stories,' ob- serves Chalmers, ' must have been diverting, indeed, if they soothed the recollections of such a woman.' Upon the death of Queen Mary he suffered the reverse which attended most of her personal adherents. The Pro- testant religion was now in the ascendancy, and Heywood had been so conspicuous a follower of the late sovereign, that he either could not endure to live under the rule of her suc- cessor, or was apprehensive that his safety would be jeopar- dized if he remained in England. He accordingly left the kingdom, and settled at Mechlin, in Belgium, where Wood informs us he died in 1565. The Ellesmere MS., however, says that he was still living in 1576. He left two sons, Ellis and Jasper, who both became Jesuits, and were eminent for their learning. In private life Heywood was a humorist and a jovial com- panion. The same character pervades his writings, which derived their popularity in his own time mainly from his social talents and his position at court. He began to write 22 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. about 1530; and his interludes, with one exception, were published in 1533.* His parable upon Queen Mary, called The Spider and the Fly, appeared in 1556, and his epigrams, by which he is best known to modern readers, in 1576. The Play of Love, from which the following song is extracted, affords a fair sample of his dramatic system. The characters are mere abstractions a Lover loving and not loved, a Woman loved and not loving, and a Vice who neither loves nor is loved. The dialogue draws out these metaphysical entities into a discourse which much more nearly resembles the application of the exhausting pro- cess to a very dull argument than the development of a passion. In the song taken from this play, Heywood adopts the vein of Skelton, who died in 1529, and who was not, as has been stated, one of his contemporaries. Heywood rarely displayed much tenderness of feeling, or an instinct of the beautiful; but more of these qualities will be found in this song, and in his verses on the Princess Mary,f than might be expected from the general character of his writings.] * For an account of these interludes the reader may be referred to Mr. Fairholt's excellent introduction to Heywood's Dialogue on Wit and Folly, printed by the Percy Society, from the original MS. in the British Museum. t Harleian MS., No. 1703. This poem, entitled A Description of a most Noble Lady, was printed in Park's edition of Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors, and a modernized copy of it is given in Evans's Old Ballads; another and a different version, in which some stanzas are omitted, and others altered, was published in Tottel's Miscellany, amongst the contributions of ' Uncertain Authors,' and quoted in that form (with the exception of a single verse) in Ellis's Specimens. Tottel's version will be found complete amongst the specimens of minor poets contemporaneous with Surrey, in the volume of Surrey's Poems, Ann. Ed. p. a 37- It is there inserted, as it had been previously copied by Ellis, amongst the ' Uncertain Authors,' and a conjecture hazarded from internal evidence that it might have been written by George Boleyn. There is no doubt, however, that the poem in the Harleian MS. was written by Heywood, and that the share whicli the * uncertain author,' whoever he may have been, had in Tottel's version, consisted in imparting certain refinements to the original, by which the sweetness and beauty of the expression are much heightened. JOHN HEYWOOD. 23 THE PLAY OF LOVE. IN PEAISE OF HIS LADY. A ND to begin ** At setting in : First was her skin White, smooth and thin, And every vein So blue seen plain; Her golden hair To see her wear, Her wearing gear, Alas! I fear To tell all to you, I shall undo you. Her eye so rolling Each heart controlling; Her nose not long, Her stode not wrong : Her finger tips So clean she clips; Her rosy lips, Her cheeks gossips So fair, so ruddy, It axeth study The whole to tell; Tt did excel. It was so made That even the shade At every glade Would hearts invade : The paps small, And round withal ; The waist not mickle, But it was tickle :* * In the sense of exciting. Tyckyll also meant unsteady, un- certain, doubtful. A thing was tickle that did not stand firmly 24 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. The thigh, the knee, As they should be ; But such a leg, A lover would beg To set eye on, But it is gone : Then, sight of the foot Bift hearts to the root. [The four songs that follow are derived from another source. There is no evidence to show that they were written for the stage, although it is not improbable that some of them might have been sung in the interludes. Whether such a suppo- sition may be considered sufficient to justify their insertion in this collection, I will not pretend to determine; but the reader who takes an interest in our early ballads will dis- cover an ample reason, for their introduction in the broad light they throw upon the lyrical poetry of the sixteenth cen- tury, and especially upon the peculiar style and manner of Heywood. These four songs, together with many others, are contained in the same MS. with Bedford's play of Wit and Science, which belonged to the late Mr. Bright, and was printed in 1848 by the Shakespeare Society, under the discriminating editorship of Mr. Halliwell. 'The collection of songs by John Heywood and others,' observes Mr. Halliwell, 'is of considerable interest to the poetical antiquary ; some are re- markably curious, and all of them belong to a period at which the reliques of that class of composition are exceedingly rare, and difficult to be met with.' The collection contains eight songs by Heywood. The four here selected are intrinsically the best, and the most cha- racteristic of the manner of the writer.] tickle weather was uncertain weather. Hence the modern phrase ticklish a ticklish case, a doubtful case. JOHN HEY WOOD. 25 THE SONQ OF THE GBEEN WILLOW.* ALL a green willow, willow, All a green willow is my garland. Alas ! by what means may I make ye to know The unkindness for kindness that to me doth grow ? That one who most kind love on me should bestow, Most unkind unkindness to me she doth show, For all a green willow is my garland ! To have love and hold love, where love is so sped, Oh ! delicate food to the lover so fed ! From love won to love lost where lovers be led, Oh ! desperate dolor, the lover is dead ! For all a green willow is his garland ! She said she did love me, and would love me still, She swore above all men I had her good will ; She said and she swore she would my will fulfil ; The promise all good, the performance all ill ; For all a green willow is my garland ! * The ballad, of which a fragment is sung by Desdemona, (OtheUo, Act iv. Scene iii.), derives its burthen from this song, which Mr. Halliwell observes is, perhaps, the oldest in our language with the willow burthen. There are many other songs with the same refrain of a later date. The following verse, or canto, is probably the earliest imitation of Heywood's song extant. It is extracted from an anonymous prose comedy, called Sir Gyles Goosecappe, presented by the children of the chapel, and printed in 1 606. The canto winds up the piece, and the allusion to the willow bears upon a boasting Captain who is left without a bride in the end. Willow, willow, willow, Our captain goes down : Willow, willow, willow, His valour doth crown. The rest with rosemary we grace, O Hymen, light thy light, With richest rays gild every face, And feast hearts with delight. Willow, willow, willow, We chaunt to the skies : And with black and yellow, Give courtship the prize. 26 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. Now, woe with the willow, and woe with the wight That windeth willow, willow garland to dight ! That dole dealt in allmys* is all amiss quite ! Where lovers are beggars for allmys in sight, No lover doth beg for this willow garland ! Of this willow garland the burden seems small, But my break-neck burden I may it well call ; Like the sow of lead on my head it doth fall ! Break head, and break neck, back, bones, brain, heart All parts pressed in pieces ! [and all ! Too ill for her think I best things may be had, Too good for me thinketh she things being most bad, All I do present her that may make her glad, All she doth present me that may make me sad; This equity have I with this willow garland ! Could T forget thee, as thou canst forget me, That were my sound fault, which cannot nor shall be; Though thou, like the soaring hawk, every way flee, I will be the turtle still steadfast to thee, And patiently wear this willow garland ! All ye that have had love, and have my like wrong, My like truth and patience plant still ye among ; When feminine fancies for new love do long, Old love cannot hold them, new love is so strong, For all. BE MEEET, FEIENDS.f BE merry, friends, take ye no thought, For worldly cares care ye right nought; * The allmys-dish, or alms-dish, was the dish in the old halls and country houses where bread was placed for the poor. t In the collection called A Book of Roxburghe Ballads, edited by Mr. Collier, there is a modernized version of this song, taken from a broadside printed soon after 1600. It contains some additional stanzas, which I have inserted in brackets to distinguish them from the version given by Mr. Halliwell. JOHN HEYWOOD. For whoso doth, when all is sought, Shall find that thought availeth nought ; Be merry, friends ! All such as have all wealth at will, Their wills at will for to fulfil, From grief or grudge or any ill I need not sing this them until, Be merry, friends ! But unto such as wish and want Of worldly wealth wrought them so scant, That wealth by work they cannot plant, To them I sing at this instant, Be merry, friends ! And such as when the rest seem next, Then they be straight extremely vexed; And such as be in storms perplexed, To them I sing this short sweet text, Be merry, friends ! To laugh and win each man agrees, But each man cannot laugh and lose, Yet laughing in the last of those Hath been allowed of sage decrees; Be merry, friends ! Be merry with sorrow, wise men have said, Which saying, being wisely weighed, It seems a lesson truly laid For those whom sorrows still invade. Be merry, friends ! Make ye not two sorrows of one, For of one grief grafted alone To graft a sorrow thereupon, A sourer crab we can graft none ; Be merry, friends ! 28 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. Taking our sorrows sorrowfully, Sorrow augmenteth our malady; Taking our sorrows merrily, Mirth salveth sorrows most soundly; Be merry, Mends ! Of griefs to come standing in fray, Provide defence the best we may; Which done, no more to do or say, Come what come shall, come care away ! Be merry, friends ! In such things as we cannot flee, But needs they must endured be, Let wise contentment be decree Make virtue of necessity; Be merry, friends ! To lack or lose that^ we would win. So that our fault be not therein, What woe or want, end or begin, Take never sorrow but for sin ! Be merry, friends ! In loss of friends, in lack of health, In loss of goods, in lack of wealth, Where liberty restraint expelleth, Where all these lack, yet as this telleth, Be merry, friends I* Man hardly hath a richer thing Than honest mirth, the which well-spring Watereth the roots of rejoicing, Feeding the flowers of flourishing; Be merry, friends !t In the Roxburghe copy this verse is thus modernized : If friends be lost, then get thee more ; If wealth be lost, thou still hast store The merry man is never poor, He lives upon the world ; therefore, Be merry, friends I t This verse is omitted in the Roxburghe copy. JOHN HEYWOOD. 29 [The loss of wealth is loss of dirt, As sages in all times assert; The happy man's without a shirt, And never comes to maim or hurt. Be merry, friends ! All seasons are to him the spring, In flowers bright and flourishing; With birds upon the tree or wing, Who in their fashion always sing Be merry, friends! If that thy doublet has a hole in, Why, it cannot keep the less thy soul in, Which rangeth forth beyond controlling Whilst thou hast nought to do but trolling Be merry, friends !] Be merry in God, saint Paul saith plain, And yet, saith he, be merry again; Since whose advice is not in vain, The fact thereof to entertain, Be merry, friends ! [Let the world slide, let the world go: A fig for care, and a fig for woe ! If I can't pay, why I can owe, And death makes equal the high and low. Be merry, friends!] TT7HAT heart can think, or tongue express, * * The harm that groweth of idleness? This idleness in some of us Is seen to seem a thing but slight; But if that sum the sums discuss, The total sum doth show us straight This idleness to weigh such weight That it no tongue can well express, The harm that groweth of idleness. THE DEAMATISTS. 3 30 SONGS PROM THE DRAMATISTS. This vice I liken to a weed That husband-men have namd tyne, The which in corn doth root or breed; The grain to ground it doth incline It never ripeth, but rotteth in fine; And even a like thing is to guess Against all virtue, idleness. The proud man may be patient, The ireful may be liberal, The gluttonous may be continent, The covetous may give alms all, The lecher may to prayer* fall; Each vice bideth some good business, Save only idle idleness. As some one virtue may by grace Suppress of vices many a one, So is one vice once taken place Destroyeth all virtues every one ; Where this vice cometh, all virtues are gone. In no kind of good business Can company with idleness. An ill wind that bloweth no man good, The blower of which blast is she ; The lythert lusts bred of her brood Can no way breed good property; Wherefore I say, as we now see, No heart can think, or tongue express, The harm that groweth of idleness ! To cleanse the corn, as men at need Weed out all weeds, and tyne for chief. Let diligence our weed-hook weed All vice from us for like relief; As faith may faithfully shew proof By faithful fruitful business, To weed out fruitless idleness. * This word was constantly used as a dissyllable. t Lazy. JOHN HEYWOOD. 31 WELCOME IS THE BEST DISH. be welcome, ye be welcome, Ye be welcome one by one ; Ye be heartily welcome, Ye be heartily welcome every one ! When friends like friends do friendly show Unto each other high and low, What cheer increase of love doth grow, What better cheer than they to know ! This is welcome ! To bread or drink, to flesh or fish, Yet welcome is the best dish ! In all our fare, in all our cheer Of dainty meats sought far or near, Most fine, most costly to appear, What for all this, if all this gear Lack this welcome 1 ? This cheer, lo ! is not worth one rush, For welcome is the best dish ! Where welcome is, though fare be small, Yet honest hearts be pleased withal ; When welcome want, though great fare fall, No honest heart content it shall Without welcome; For honest hearts do ever wish To have welcome to the best dish. Some with small fare they be not pleased; Some with much fare be much diseased; Some with mean fare be scant appeased; But of all somes none is displeased To be welcome ! Then all good cheer to accomplish, Welcome must be the best dish. 32 32 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. Yet some to this will say that they Without welcome with meat live may, And with welcome without meat, nay ! Wherefore meat seems best dish, they say, And not welcome ! But this vain saying to banish, We will prove welcome here best dish. Though in some case, for man's relief, Meat without welcome may be chief; Yet where man come, as here in proof, Much more for love than hunger's grief, Here is welcome. Thorough all the cheer to furnish, Here is welcome the best dish. What is this welcome now to tell? Ye are welcome, ye are come well, As heart can wish your coming fell, Your coming glads my heart each dell ! This is welcome ! Wherefore all doubts to relinquish, Your welcome is your best dish. Now as we have in words here spent Declared the fact of welcome meant, So pray we you to take the intent Of this poor dish that we present To your welcome, As heartily as heart can wish ; Your welcome is here your best dish ! JOHN STILL. 1543 16 7- [THEEE is little known of the life of John Still beyond the incidents of his preferments in the church. He was the son of William Still, of Grantham, in Lincolnshire, where he was JOHN STILL. 33 born in 1543. He took the degree of M.A. at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he was made Margaret Professor in 1570; and in subsequent years was elected Master of St. John's, and afterwards of Trinity College. In 1571 he was presented to the Kectory of Hadleigh, in Suffolk, commissioned one of the Deans of Booking in 1572, collated to the vicarage of Eastmarham, in Yorkshire, in 1573, and installed Canon of Westminster and Dean of Sudbury in 1576. He was chosen prolocutor of convocation in 1588, promoted in 1592 to the see of Bath and Wells, and held the bishopric till his death in 1607, having amassed a large fortune by the Mendip lead mines in the diocese, and endowed an almshouse in Wales, to which he bequeathed 500. Bishop Still was twicf; married, and left a large family. His excellent character is attested by Sir John Harrington, who says, that he was a man ' to whom he never came, but he grew more religious, and from whom he never went but he parted more instructed/ The comedy of Gammer Gurtoiis Needle was originally printed in 1575, but written several years earlier. It is com- posed in rhyme, and regularly divided into acts and scenes. The plot is meagre and silly, the whole of the five acts being occupied by a hunt after a needle which Gammer Gurton is supposed to have mislaid, but which is found, by way of catastrophe, in a garment she had been mending. The alter- cations, quarrels, mishaps, and cross-purposes, arising out of this circumstance constitute the entire substance of the piece. The dialogue is coarse, even for the age in which it was written, and the humour seldom rises above the level of clowns and buffoons.] GAMMER GURTON'S NEEDLE. B DBINKIN& S02TG.* ACK and side go bare, go bare, Both foot and hand go cold : * Warton, in his History of Poets, iii. 206, quotes this song as the first Chanson a boire of any merit in our language. He says it 34 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. But belly, God send thee good ale enough, Whether it be new or old. I can not eat, but little meat, My stomach is not good; appeared in 1 55 1 . This must be an oversight, if Still is to be considered the author, as he was then only eight years old. The comedy was produced in i566, and printed for the first time in i575- This song, observes Warton, ' has a vein of ease and humour which we should not expect to have been inspired by the simple beverage of those times.' Still less might it have been expected from the writer of the dialogue of this piece, the versification of which is harsh and lumbering. Whether Bishop Still really wrote the song, may be doubted. Mr. Dyce, in his edition of Skelton's works, gives another version of it from a MS. in his possession, which he says is certainly of an earlier date than i575. The differences are very curious and interesting ; but the most striking point of variance is the omission of the verse referring to Tyb, Gammer Gurton's maid, which suggests the probability that the song may have been originally an independent composition, of which Bishop Still availed himself, adapting it to the comedy by curtailments and a new verse with a personal allusion. There are many instances of a similar use being made of popular ballads by the old dramatists. How far this conjecture is justifiable, must be determined by a comparison between the above version and that given by Mr. Dyce, which is here subjoined in the orthography of the original. backe & syde goo bare goo bare bothe hande & fote goo colde but belly god sende the good ale inowghe whether hyt be newe or olde. but yf that I may have trwly good ale my belly full I shall looke lyke one by swete sainte Johnn were shoron agaynste the woole thowte I goo bare take you no care I am nothing colde I stuffe my skynne so full within of joly goode ale & olde. I cannot eate but lytyll meate my stomacke ys not goode but sure I thyncke that I cowd dryncke with hym that werythe an hoode dryncke is my lyfe althowghe my wyfe some tyme do chyde & scolde yet spare I not to plye the potte of joly goode ale & olde. backe & syde, &c. JOHN STILL. 35 But sure I think, that I can drink With him that wears a hood. Though I go bare, take ye no care, I am nothing a cold , I stuff my skin so full within, Of jolly good ale and old. I love noo roste but a browne toste or a crabbe in the fyer a lytyll breade shall do me steade mooche breade I neuer desyer nor froste nor snowe nor wynde I trow canne hurte me yf hyt wolde I am sc wrapped within & lapped with joly goode ale & olde. backe & syde, &c. I care ryte nowghte I take no thowte for clothes to kepe me warme have I goode dryncke I sur<*y thyncke nothynge canne do me harme for trwly than I feare noman be he neuer so bolde when I am armed and throwly warmed with joly goode ale & old. backe & syde, &c. but nowe & than I curse & banne they make ther ale so small god geve them care and evill to faare they strye the malte and all sooche pevisshe pewe I tell yowe trwe not for a c[r]ovne of golde ther commethe one syppe within my lyppe whether hyt be newe or olde. backe & syde, &c. good ale & stronge makethe me amonge full joconde& full lyte that ofte I slepe & take no kepe from mornynge vntyll nyte then starte I vppe & fle to the cuppe the ryte waye on I holde my thurste to staunche I fyll my paynche with joly goode ale & olde. backe & syde, &c. and kytte my wife that as her lyfe lovethe well goode ale to seke 36 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. Back and side go bare, go bare, Both foot and hand go cold : But belly, God send thee good ale enough, Whether it be new or old. I love no roast, but a nut-brown toast, And a crab laid in the fire, A little bread shall do me stead, Much bread I not desire. No frost nor snow, no wind, I trow, Can hurt me if I wold, I am so wrapt, and throwly* lapt, Of jolly good ale and old. Back and side go bare, &c. And Tyb my wife, that as her life Loveth well good ale to seek, Full oft drinks she, till ye may see The tears run down her cheeks; Then doth she trowl to me the bowl, Even as a malt worm should; And saith, sweetheart, I took my part Of this jolly good ale and old. Back and side go bare, &c. full ofte drynkythe she that ye maye se the tears ronne downe her cheke then doth she troule to me the bolle as a goode malte worme sholde & saye swete harte I have take my parte of joly goode ale & olde. backe & syde, &c. they that do dryncke tyll they nodde & wyncke even as goode fellowes shulde do they shall notte mysse to have the blysse that goode ale bathe browghte them to & all poore soules that skowre blacke bolles & them hathe lustely trowlde god save the lyves of them & ther wyves wether they be yonge or olde. backe & syde, &c. * Thoroughly. JOHN BEDFORD. 37 Now let them drink, till they nod and wink, Even as good fellows should do, They shall not miss to have the bliss Good ale doth bring men to : And all poor souls that have scoured bowls, Or have them lustily trowled, God save the lives of them and their wives, Whether they be young or old. Back and side go bare, &c. JOHN BEDFORD. [JoHN BEDFORD was a contemporary of John Heywood's, a fact sufficiently shown by the MS. of Wit and Science, already referred to, which Mr. Halliwell thinks is probably contemporary with the author, and which includes several songs by Heywood. Of John Bedford nothing more is known than is disclosed by the MS., which contains the moral play of Wit and Science, and a few lines of two other interludes by the same author. Mr. Collier conjectures that Bedford was a professor of music, perhaps employed at court. Wit and Science, which is after the manner of Heywood's interludes, must have been written sometime in the reign of Henry VIII., probably towards its close. The characters, like those in Heywood's pieces, are pure abstractions, and their conversation throughout consists of the same sort of dreary discussion, mottled over with the species of word- catching in vogue at that period. ' The dialogue/ says Mr. Halliwell, ' is not in some respects without humour, but the poetry is too contemptible to be patiently endured/ The song is curious as an illustration of the manner of these interludes. It is supposed to be sung by a character called Honest Recreation, coming in to the help of Wit, who has been overthrown in a contest with Tediousness, and who, according to the stage directions, ' falleth down and 38 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. dieth,' when he is recovered by Honest Recreation, with the assistance of his friends Comfort, Quickness, and Strength.] THE PLAY OF WIT AND SCIENCE. SONG OF HONEST BECBEATION. I AVTHEN travels grete* in matters thick Have dulled your wits and made them sick, What medicine, then, your wits to quick, If ye will know, the best physic, Is to give place to Honest Recreation : Give place, we say now, for thy consolation. 2 Where is that Wit that we seek than? Alas ! he lyeth here pale and wan : Help him at once now, if we can. O, Wit! how doest thou? Look up, man. O, Wit ! give place to Honest Recreation Give place, we say now, for thy consolation. 3 After place given let ear obey : Give an ear, Wit! now we thee pray; Give ear to what we sing and say; Give an ear and help will come straightway: Give an ear to Honest Recreation ; Give an ear now, for thy consolation. 4 After ear given, now give an eye : Behold, thy friends about thee lie, Recreation I, and Comfort I, Quickness am I, and Strength here bye. Give an eye to Honest Recreation : Give an eye now, for thy consolation. * Become enlarged. THOMAS INGELEND. 39 5 After an eye given, an hand give ye : Give an hand O Wit ! feel that ye see; Recreation feel, feel Comfort free ; Feel Quickness here, feel Strength to thee. Give an hand to Honest Recreation: Give an hand now, for thy consolation. 6 Upon his feet, would God he were ! To raise him now we need not fear ; Stay you his hand, while we here bear: Now, all at once upright him rear. O Wit ! give place to Honest Recreation : Give place, we say now, for thy consolation. THOMAS INGELEND. [ALL the information that has come down to us respecting Thomas Ingelend is to be found on the title-page of the interlude of the Disobedient Child, where he is designated as 'late student in Cambridge.' It is the only literary record by which he is known. The original edition has no date, but Mr. Halliwell, who edited a reprint of it for the Percy Society, thinks it was published about 1560. Mr* Collier remarks that the Disobedient Child is less like a moral play than most others of the same class, the introduc- tion of the Devil, in the usual manner, constituting its strongest resemblance to that species of dramatic represen- tation, In other points of view it approaches more nearly to the realization of the actual characters of every-day life than the dramatic allegories of Heywood. The persons of the drama, instead of representing abstract qualities, indicate certain social conditions and relations that are brought into direct collision by the story. Thus we have the Hick Man, 40 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. and the Rich Man's Son, the Young Woman, whom the Rick Man's Son is determined to marry against the wishes of his father, the Priest who marries them, and the Devil who stirs up strife in their household. The titles of these characters reveal the plot, and the following illustrates the main incident, the resolution of the son to pursue his own inclinations in opposition to the will of his father a hrave resolution, for which he pays dearly in the sequel. The Young Woman turns out a vixen, and after she has beaten him and rendered him sufficiently miserable, he is glad to make his escape from her, and seek refuge in his father's house.] THE DISOBEDIENT CHILD. MY FANTASY WILL NEVEB THEN. SPITE of his spite,* which that in vain, Doth seek to force my fantasy, I am professed for loss or gain, To be thine own assuredly : Wherefore let my father spite and spurn, My fantasy will never turn ! Although my father of busy wit, Doth, babble still, I care not though; I have no fear, nor yet will flit, As doth the water to and fro ; Wherefore, &c. For I am set and will not swerve, Whom spiteful speech removeth nought; And since that I thy grace deserve, I count it is not dearly bought; Wherefore, &c. * Anger. * And that which spites me more than all these wants.' SHAKESPEARE. THOMAS INGELEND. 41 Who is afraid, let you him fly, For I shall well abide the brunt : Maugre to his lips that listeth to lie, Of- busy brains as is the wont; Wherefore, &c. Who listeth thereat to laugh or lour,* I am not he that aught doth reach; There is no pain that hath the power, Out of my breast your love to fetch; Wherefore, &c. For whereas he moved me to the school, And only to follow my book and learning : He could never make me such a fool, With all his soft words and fair speaking ; Wherefore, &c. This minion here, this mincing trull, f Doth please me more a thousand fold, Than all the earth that is so full Of precious stones, silver and gold; Wherefore, &c. Whatsoever I did it was for her sake, It was for her love and only pleasure ; I count it no labour such labour to take, In getting to me so high a treasure. Wherefore, &c. This day I intended for to be merry, Although my hard father be far hence, I know no cause for to be heavy, For all this cost and great expense. Wherefore, &c. * To look sad. t Not a term of reproach. Cf. i Henry VI. HALLIWELL, 42 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. ANTHONY MUNDAY. T 553 16 33- [ANTHONY MUNDAY, son of Christopher Munday, draper of London, was horn in 1533, and losing his father at an early age, attempted the stage as an actor. It may he presumed that the experiment failed, as he afterwards apprenticed him- self, in 1576, to one Allde, a stationer. Wearying of this occupation, or abandoning it for some other reason, he travelled into France and Italy, returning to England in or about 1579, and again trying the stage, in a species of extem- poraneous entertainment, which Mr. Collier conjectures to have been similar to the Commedie al improviso of the Italians. According to a contemporary authority, the attempt was unsuccessful. He appears at this time to have entered the service of the Earl of Oxford, as one of his players, and to have been concerned as an evidence against the Roman Catholic priests who were executed at Tyburn in 1581. Not long afterwards he was appointed one of the messengers of her majesty's chamber, an office which he probably held till his death in 1633. Munday was a prolific writer, and embraced in the wide circuit of his literary labours a remarkable variety of subjects. Mr. Collier has collected the titles of forty- seven works in which he was concerned as author, translator, or editor, including poems, tracts, histories, dramas, and pageants. Independently of plays of which he was the sole author, he wrote several in conjunction with Chettle, Wilson, Drayton, Dekker, Middleton, and others ; was amongst the cluster of writers in Henslowe's pay, and one of the earliest contributors to the stage, in the period immediately preceding the era of Shakespeare. The play from which the following songs are taken was discovered in MS. by Sir Frederic Madden, amongst the papers of the Mostyn family, and printed in 1851 by the Shakespeare Society, with an elaborate introduction by Mr. ANTHONY MUNDAY. 43 Collier, rendered still more valuable by the addition of three of Munday's tracts against the Jesuits. The title of the MS. is The Book of John a Kent and John a Cumber. The structure of the piece fully bears out the character given by Meres of Munday as being the ' best plotter.' The action is ingeniously contrived ; and, without having recourse to arti- ficial expedients, the interest of the story is skilfully sus- tained.] JOHN A KENT AND JOHN A CUMBEE. WANTON LOVE. TIT HEN wanton love had walked astray, * * Then good regard began to chide, And meeting her upon the way, Says, wanton lass, thou must abide ; For I have seen in many years That sudden love breeds sullen fears. Shall I never, while I live, keep my girl at school ! She hath wandered to and fro, Further than a maid should go : Shall she never, while she lives, make me more a fool. LOVE IN PEEPLEXITY. IN a silent shade, as I sat a sunning, There I heard a maid grievously complain ; Many moans she said, amongst her sighs still coming; All was* Then her aged father counselled her the rather To consent where he had placed his mind; But her peevish mother brought her to another, Though it was against both course and kind. The passage is thus given in the original. 44 SONGS FKOM THE DRAMATISTS. Then like a father will I come to check my filly For her gadding forth without my leave ; And if she repent it, I am well contented Home again my darling to receive. STJNDEBED LOVE. YOU that seek to sunder love, Learn a lesson ere you go And as others pains do prove, So abide yourselves like woe. For I find, and you shall feel Self same turn of Fortune's wheel : Then if wrong be [so] repaid, Say deserved amends it made. THE THEFT. YOU stole my love; fy upon you, fy! You stole my love, fy, fy a ; Guessed you but what a pain it is to prove. You for your love would die a; And henceforth never longer Be such a crafty wronger : But when deceit takes such a fall, Then farewell sly device and all. You stole my love ; fy upon you, fy ! You stole my love, fy, fy a. LEWIS WAGER. 15- . [THE Life and Repentance of Mary Magdalen is one of the numerous plays of this period founded on scriptural subjects. It appears from a passage in the prologue, noticed by Mr. Collier, to have been acted by itinerant players at country fairs, the spectators bestowing ' half-pence or pence' as they LEWIS WAGES. 45 thought fit, upon the performers. Another passage alludes to its- having been represented at the University. The play was printed in 1567, and the author is described on the title-page as 'the learned clarke Lewis Wager.'] THE LIFE AND REPENTANCE OF MARY MAGDALEN. MISTEESS MAEY. HEY dery dery, with a lusty dery, Hoigh Mistress Mary, I pray you be merry. Your pretty person we may compare to Lais, A morsel for princes and nobler kings; In beauty you excel the fair lady Thais; You exceed the beautiful Helen in all things.* To behold your face who can be weary? Hoigh my Mistress Mary, I pray you be merry. The hair of your head shineth as the pure gold, Your eyes as glass, and right amiable; Your smiling countenance, so lovely to behold, To us all is most pleasant and delectable; Of your commendations who can be weary? Hussa, my Mistress Mary, I pray you be merry. Your lips are ruddy as the reddy rose, Your teeth as white as ever was the whale's bones; * The love songs of the period are crowded with similar compli mentary comparisons. In an interlude called The Trial of Treasure^ bearing the same date of i5<57, there is a song in praise of the Lady Treasure, containing a verse identical in substance with the above: Helene may not compared be, Nor Cressida that was so bright ; These cannot stain the shine of thee, Nor yet Minerva of great might. Thou passest Venus far away, Lady, Lady ! Love thee I will both night and day, My dear Lady ! THE DBAMATISTS. 4 46 SONGS FKOM THE DRAMATISTS. So clear, so sweet, so fair, so good, so fresh, so gay, In all Jurie truly at this day there is none. With a lusty voice sing we dery dery, Hussa, Mistress Mary, I pray you be merry. WILLIAM WAGEK. [THE date of the only piece that bears the name of this writer, probably a relation of the preceding, is omitted from the title-page of the original edition. But it evidently belongs to the early part of the reign of Elizabeth. The snatches that follow are sung by JMToros, the fool, and are ' foots' of songs, or burthens of well-known ballads, some of which are of a much earlier date than the play itself.] THE LONGER THOU LIVEST THE MORE FOOL THOU ART. FOOTS OP SONGS. BEOOM, Broom on hill, The gentle Broom on hill, hill; Broom, Broom on Hive hill, The gentle Broom on Hive hill, The Broom stands on Hive hill a.* Robin, lend me thy bow, thy bow, Robin the bow, Robin lend to me thy bow a. There was a maid came out of Kent, Dainty love, dainty love; There was a maid came out of Kent, Dangerous be [she]. * Mr. Collier observes that this is one of the ballads in Cox's collection, and that it is also mentioned by Laneham. WILLIAM WAGER. 47 There was a maid came out of Kent, Fair, proper, small and gent, As ever upon the ground went, For so it should be. By a bank as I lay, I lay, Musing on things past, hey how.* Tom a Lin and his wife, and his wife's mother, They went over a bridge all three together; The bridge was broken and they fell in The devil go with all, quoth Tom a Lin.t Martin Swart and his man, sodle-dum, sodle-dum, Martin Swart and his man, sodle-dum bell.J Come over the boorne, Besse, My pretty little Besse, Come over the boorne, Besse, to me. The white dove set on the castle wall, I bend my bow, and shoot her I shall; I put her in my glove, both feathers and all. * Another of Cox's ballads, also mentioned by Laneham. t There is a popular old Irish song, in which the adventures of O'Lynn are carried through several verses. In the Irish version the name of the humorous hero is Bryan O'Lynn. That it was either the same song, or founded on the same original as the above, will br obvious from the following verse : Bryan O'Lynn his wife and wife's mother, They all went over a bridge together, The bridge it broke and they all fell in, The devil go with you, says Bryan O'Lynn. J This song, says Mr. Collier, is unquestionably as old as Henry VII. Martin Swart was sent over in 148*5, by the Duchess of Burgundy, to assist in the insurrection headed by Lord Lovell. The Bessy of the song was Queen Elizabeth. Mr. Collier quotes a fragment of a dialogue between England and the Queen, on her coming to the throne, which opens in the same way. It is also one of the ballads of which a scrap is to be found in Shakespeare, sung by Edgar in King Lear. The form is common to many popular ditties, and appears to have suggested one of Moore's earl/ songs. 43 4<3 SONGS FEOM THE DRAMATISTS. I laid my bridle upon the shelf, If you will any more, sing it yourself. I have twenty more songs yet, A fond woman to my mother, As I were wont in her lap to sit, She taught me these, and many other. I can sing a song of ' Robin Redbreast,' And ' My little pretty Nightingale,' 'There dwelleth a jolly Foster* here by the West/ Also, 1 1 come to drink some of your Christmas ale.' When I walk by myself alone, It doth me good my songs to render. A CATCH. T HA YE a pretty titmouse J- Come pecking on my toe. Gossip with you I purpose To drink before I go. Little pretty nightingale, Among the branches green. Give us of your Christmas ale, In the honour of Saint Stephen. Robin Redbreast with his notes Singing aloft in the quire, Warneth to get you frieze coats, For Winter then draweth near. My bridle lieth on the shelf, If you will have any more, Vouchsafe to sing it yourself, For here you have all my store. * Forester. 49 JOHN LYLY. 1553 [JoHN LYLY, or Lilly, the Euphuist, was born in the Weald of Kent, according to Wood, in 1553, but Oldys is inclined to think some years earlier. He was a student of Magdalen College, Oxford, where he took his degrees, and afterwards re- moved to Cambridge. We next find him at court, where, says his first editor, he was thought an excellent poet, and was 'heard, graced, and rewarded' by the Queen. The reward, if any, came slowly; for after several years of attendance, expecting and soliciting the appointment of Master of the Eevels, he was forced to apply to her Majesty at last 'for some little grant to support him in his old age.' Of the time or manner of his death nothing is known. He was alive in 1597. Few men attained, for a short period, so brilliant a reputation. His Anatomy of Wit and JiJuphues, and his England, taught a new English to the court and the country, and this language of tropes and puerilities became the reigning fashion. 'All our ladies were his scholars,' says Sir Henry Blount; 'and that beauty at court who could not parley Euphuism, that is to say, who was unable to converse in that pure and reformed English, which he had formed his work to be the standard of, was as little regarded as she who now there speaks not French.' This was written in the reign of Charles I., when the effect of the ' pure and reformed English' may be presumed to have been obliterated by the interposition of the Scotch dialect, and a more learned taste under James I. Lyly's 'reformed English/ says Drayton, consisted in Talking of stones, stars, plants, of fishes, flies, Playing with words and idle similies. Lyly wrote nine plays, which were very successful, and in which his fantastical refinements especially in his songs, which possess considerable grace and delicacy appear to much greater advantage than in his prose treatises. The 50 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. dates of the original editions are attached to each of the plays from which the following selections have been made.] ALEXANDER AND CAMPASPE. 1584. CUPID AND CAMPASPE. CUPID and my Campaspe played At cards for kisses Cupid paid; He stakes his quiver, bow and arrows, His mother's doves, and team of sparrows ; Loses them too ; then down he throws The coral of his lip, the rose Growing on's cheek (but none knows how), With these, the crystal of his brow, And then the dimple of his chin; All these did^my Campaspe win. At last he set her both his eyes, She won, and Cupid blind did rise. O Love! has she done this to thee? What shall, alas! become of me?* THE SONGS OF BIEDS. "TT7HAT bird so sings, yet so does wail? * * 'tis the ravished nightingale. ' Jug, jug, jug, jug, tereu,' she cries, And still her woes at midnight rise. Brave prick song ! who is't now we hear? None but the lark so shrill and clear ; Now at heaven's gates she claps her wings,t The morn not waking till she sings. * This exquisite little song is printed in Percy's Reliques. t Hark, hark ! the lark at heaven's gate sings. SHAKESPEARE. Ye birds That singing up to heaven's gate ascend. MILTON. JOHN LYLY. 51 Hark, hark, with what a pretty throat, Poor robin redbreast tunes his note ; Hark how the jolly cuckoos sing, Cuckoo to welcome in the spring! Cuckoo to welcome in the spring 1* SAPPHO AND PHAON. 1584. VULCAN'S SONG. 1\/TY shag-hair Cyclops, come, let's ply -L'-*- Our Lemnian hammers lustily. By my wife's sparrows, I swear these arrows, Shall singing fly Through many a wanton's eye. These headed are with golden blisses, These silver ones feathered with kisses; But this of lead Strikes a clown dead, When in a dance He falls in a trance, To see his black-brown lass not buss him, And then whines out for death to untruss him. COMPLAINT AGAINST LOVE. OCKTJEL Love, on thee I lay My curse, which shall strike blind the day; Never may sleep with velvet hand Charm these eyes with sacred wand ; Thy jailors shall be hopes and fears, Thy prison mates groans, sighs, and tears, Thy play to wear out weary times, Fantastic passions, vows, and rhymes. * An imitation, or rather an alteration, of this song occurs in the Sun's Darling. It will be found amongst the selections from Ford and Dekker. 52 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. Thy bread be frowns, thy drink be gall, Such as when you Phaon call ; Thy sleep fond dreams, thy dreams long care. Hope, like thy fool at thy bed's head, Mock thee till madness strike thee dead, As Phaon thou dost me with thy proud eyes, In thee poor Sappho lives, for thee she dies. ENDYMION. I59L A NIGHT CATCH. The Pages and the Constables. Watch. C TAKD ! who goes there? ^ We charge you appear Tore our constable here, In the name of the man in the moon. To us billmen* relate, Why you stagger so late, And how you came drunk so soon. Pages. What are ye, scabs? Watch. The watch: This the constable. Pages. A patch. Const. Knock 'em down unless they all stand ; If any run away, 'Tis the old watchman's play, To reach them a bill of his hand. Pages. O gentlemen, hold, Your gowns freeze with cold, And your rotten teeth dance in your head. Wine nothing shall cost ye; Nor huge fires to roast ye ; Then soberly let us be led. Const. Come, my brown bills, we'll roar, Bounce loud at tavern door. Orrmes. And in the morning steal all to bed. * The watchmen were so called from the pole they carried with a blade at the top of it, resembling a bill or halbert. Davenant (i(S3<5> uses the term in his play of the Wits. JOHN LYLY. 53 SONG OF THE FAIEIES. Omnes. TJINCH him, pinch him, black and blue, -- Saucy mortals must not view What the queen of stars is doing, Nor pry into our fairy wooing. 1 Fairy. Pinch him blue 2 Fairy. And pinch him black 3 Fairy. Let him not lack Sharp nails to pinch him blue and red, Till sleep has rocked his addlehead. 4 Fairy. For the trespass he hath done, Spots o'er all his flesh shall run. Kiss Endymion, kiss his eyes, Then to our midnight heidegyes.* GALATHEA. 1592. CUPID BOUND OYES, O yes, if any maid Whom leering Cupid has betrayed To powers of spite, to eyes of scorn, And would in madness now see torn The boy in pieces, let her come Hither, and lay on him her doom. O yes, O yes, has any lost A heart which many a sigh hath cost ? If any cozened of a tear Which as a pearl disdain does wear? Here stands the thief; let her but come Hither, and lay on him her doom. Is any one undone by fire, And turned to ashes by desire? Did ever any lady weep, Being cheated of her golden sleep Sports, dances, pastimes. 54 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. Stolen by sick thoughts ? the pirate's found, And in her tears he shall be drowned. Read his indictment, let him hear What he's to trust to. Boy, give ear ! MIDAS. 1592. APOLLO'S SONG or DAPHNE. 1V/TY Daphne's hair is twisted gold, -L*-*- Bright stars a-piece her eyes do hold, My Daphne's brow enthrones the graces, My Daphne's beauty stains all faces, On Daphne's cheek grow rose and cherry, But Daphne's lip a sweeter berry ; Daphne's snowy hand but touched does melt. And then no heavenlier warmth is felt ; My Daphne's voice tunes all the spheres, My Daphne's music charms all ears ; Fond am I thus to sing her praise, These glories now are turned to bays. PAN'S SONG- OP STEINX. T)AN'S Syrinx was a girl indeed, Though now she's turned into a reed ; From that dear reed Pan's pipe does come, A pipe that strikes Apollo dumb; Nor flute, nor lute, nor gittern can So chant it as the pipe of Pan : Gross-gartered swains and dairy girls, With faces smug and round as pearls, When Pan's shrill pipe begins to play, With dancing wear out night and day; The bagpipe's drone his hum lays by, When Pan sounds up his minstrelsy; His minstrelsy, O base ! This quill, Which at my mouth with wind I fill, Puts me in mind, though her I miss, That still my Syrinx' lips I kiss. JOHN LYLY. 05 s SONG TO APOLLO. TNG to Apollo, god of day, ^ Whose golden beams with morning play, And make her eyes so brightly shine, Aurora's face is called divine. Sing to Phoebus and that throne Of -diamonds which he sets upon. lo Paeans let us sing To Physic and to Poesy's king. Crown all his altars with bright fire, Laurels bind about his lyre, A Daphnean coronet for his head, The Muses dance about his bed; When on his ravishing lute he plays, Strew his temple round with bays. lo Pseans let us sing To the glittering Delian king. MOTHER BOMBIE. 1598. BACCHANALIAN SONGk TO Bacchus! To thy table -*- Thou callest every drunken rabble ; We already are stiff drinkers, Then seal us for thy jolly skinkers.* Wine, O wine ! O juice divine ! How dost thou the nowlet refine. Plump thou makest men's ruby faces, And from girls can fetch embraces. By thee our noses swell With sparkling carbuncle. * Tapster, drawer. From skink, to draw liquor, to drink, t The noddle, or head used here to imply the brain. 56 SONGS FEOM THE DRAMATISTS. O the dear blood of grapes Turns us to antic shapes, Now to show tricks like apes, Now lion-like to roar, Now goatishly to whore, Now hoggishly in the mire, Now flinging hats in the fire. lo Bacchus ! at thy table. Make us of thy reeling rabble. f~\ CUPID ! monarch over kings, " Wherefore hast thou feet and wings? Is it to show how swift thou art, When thou woundest a tender heart? Thy wings being clipped, and feet held still, Thy bow so many could not kill. It is all one in Venus' wanton school, Who highest sits, the wise man or the fool. Fools in love's college Have far more knowledge To read a woman over, Than a neat prating lover : Nay, 'tis confessed, That fools please women best. GEORGE PEELE. 155- I59-- [GEORGE PEELE was a native of Devonshire. His name appears in the Matriculation Book of Oxford as a member of Broadgates Hall (now Pembroke College) in 1564, and Mr. Dyce, assuming him to have been at least twelve or thirteen when he was entered, places his birth about 1552 or 1553. While he was at the University, Wood tells us that he was GEORGE PEELE. 57 esteemed a most noted poet. In 1577 he took his Bachelor's degree, and was made Master of Arts in 1579? after which he went up to London, and "became a writer for the theatre. There is reason to believe that he appeared occasionally on the stage ; but he certainly did not follow it as a profession. His intimate associates were Nash, Marlowe, and Greene, the most profligate men of genius of the time : and in the latter part of his life he was acquainted with Shakespeare, Jonson, and their contemporaries, who were coming in at the close of his career. Peele appears to have abandoned himself to the worst excesses of the town, and to have shortened his life by dissipation, if a coarse allusion to him by Francis Meres may be credited. The date of his death is unknown; but as Meres* reference to it was printed in 1598, it must have taken place in or before that year. He was one of the earliest of our poets who imparted form and power to the drama, was one of the contributors to the Phoenix Nest, and, in addition to numerous small pieces and Pageants, wrote several plays, only five of which have come down to us. Of the remainder, few, probably, were printed, and these are supposed to have been destroyed in the fire of London in 1666. Peele holds a place amongst the dramatic poets of that period, described by Gifibrd as the time when ' the chaos of ignorance was breaking up,' second only to Marlowe. If his versification has not the pomp and grandeur of the ' mighty line,' of his great rival, it is sweeter and more melodious ; and none of his contemporaries exhibit so much tenderness or so luxuriant a fancy. Charles Lamb dismisses his David and BetJisabe as ' stuff;' but this hasty judgment is balanced by the panegyric of Campbell, who speaks of it as ' the earliest fountain of pathos and harmony that can be traced in our dramatic poetry.' What Hazlitt says of the literature of the time generally applies to Peele in common with the rest : * I would not be understood to say, that the age of Elizabeth was all gold without any alloy. There was both gold and lead in it, and often in one and the same writer.' There are both in Peele ; but the gold was of the finest quality.] 58 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. THE ARRAIGNMENT OF PARIS. 1584. .ENONE AND PAKIS. T?AIR and fair, and twice so fair, -*- As fair as any may be ; The fairest shepherd on our green, A love for any lady. Par. Fair and fair and twice so fair, As fair as any may be : Thy love is fair for thee alone, And for no other lady. J$n. My love is fair, my love is gay, As fresh as bin the flowers in May, And of my love my roundelay, My merry, merry, merry roundelay, Concludes with Cupid's curse, They that do change old love for new, Pray gods, they change for worse ! Ambo,simul. They that do change, &c. jffln. Fair and fair, &c. Par. Fair and fair, &c. jEn. My love can pipe, my love can sing, My love can many a pretty thing, And of his lovely praises ring My merry, merry roundelays, Amen to Cupid's curse, They that do change, &c. THE SONG OF THE ENAMOUEED SHEPHEED. GENTLE Love, ungentle for thy deed> Thou makest my heart A bloody mark With piercing shot to bleed. Shoot soft, sweet Love, for fear thou shoot amiss, For fear too keen Thy arrows been, And hit the heart where my beloved is. GEORGE PEELE. 59 Too fair that fortune were, nor never I Shall be so blest, Among the rest, That Love shall seize on her by sympathy. Then since with Love my prayers bear no boot, This doth remain To ease my pain, I take the wound, and die at Venus' foot. JENONE'S COMPLAINT. "JV/TELPOMENE, the muse of tragic songs, -Lf-J- With mournful tunes, in stole of dismal hue, Assist a silly nymph to wail her woe, And leave thy lusty company behind. Thou luckless wreath ! becomes not me to wear The poplar tree, for triumph of my love : Then as my joy, my pride of love, is left, Be thou unclothed of thy lovely green; And in thy leaves my fortunes written be, And them some gentle wind let blow abroad, That all the world may see how false of love False Paris hath to his -^Enone been. COLIN'S DIKGE. WELLADAY, welladay, poor Colin, thou art going to the ground, The love whom Thestylis hath slain, Hard heart, fair face, fraught with disdain, Disdain in love a deadly wound. Wound her, sweet love, so deep again, That she may feel the dying pain Of this unhappy shepherd's swain, And die for love as Colin died, as Colin died. 60 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. POLYHYMNIA.* I59O. THE AGED MAN-AT-ARMS. TTIS golden locks time hath to silver turned; tJ- time too swift, O swiftness never ceasing ! His youth 'gainst time and age hath ever spurned, But spurned in vain ; youth waneth by encreasing. Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen. Duty, faith, love, are roots, and ever green. His helmet now shall make a hive for bees, And lovers' songs be turned to holy psalms j A man at arms must now serve on his knees, And feed on prayers, which are old age's alms : But though from court to cottage he depart, His saint is sure of his unspotted heart. And when he saddest sits in homely cell, He'll teach his swains this carol for a song : ' Blessed be the hearts that wish my Sovereign well, Cursed be the souls that think her any wrong.' Goddess, allow this aged man his right, To be your beadsman now that was your knight. * A description of a Triumph at Tilt, held before Queen Elizabeth in the Tilt Yard at Westminster in i59o. This very rare poem was reprinted by Mr. Dyce, in his edition of Peele's works, from a copy in the University of Edinburgh, amongst the books presented by Drummond. The copy was slightly mutilated, but the deficiencies were supplied from a MS. found in an old house in Oxfordshire. The above song, or sonnet, taken from Polyhymnia, is extracted by Ellis, in his Specimens from Segur's Honour, Military and Civil (1602), and is also given by Beloe, from the Garrick collection in the British Museum. Mr. Dyce throws a doubt upon Beloe's veracity, by stating that he searched in vain for a copy of Polyhymnia in that collection ; but Beloe's version was evidently derived, notwithstanding, from the original work, and not from Segur's reprint, which exhibits several variations. GEORGE PEELE. 61 THE HUNTING OF CUPID.* 159*. QUESTION AND ANSWER. lyTELAMPTJS, when will Love be void of fears? ItJ. When Jealousy hath neither eyes nor ears. Melampus, when will Love be thoroughly shrieved? When it is hard to speak, and not believed. Melampus, when is Love most malcontent? When lovers range, and bear their bows unbent. Melampus, tell me when Love takes least harm? When swains' sweet pipes are puffed, and trulls are warm. Melampus, tell me when is love best fed? When it has sucked the sweet that ease hath bred. Melampus, when is time in love ill spent? When it earns meed and yet receives no rent. Melampus, when is time well spent in Love? When deeds win meed, and words love works do prove. CUPID'S ABEOWS. AT Venus' entreaty for Cupid her son These arrows by Vulcan were cunningly done. The first is Love, as here you may behold, His feathers, head, and body, are of gold : The second shaft is Hate, a foe to love, And bitter are his torments for to prove : The third is Hope, from whence our comfort springs, His feathers [they] are pulled from Fortune's wings : Fourth Jealousy in basest minds doth dwell, This metal Vulcan's Cyclops sent from hell. * No copy of this work, apparently a sort of dramatic pastoral, is known to be in existence. These three songs, two of which are familiar to the readers of the Helicon and the Parnassus, and a scanty fragment of the dialogue, were preserved by Drummond in his commonplace book, and have been included by Mr. Dyce in his edition of Peele's works. THE DEAMATISTS. C 62 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. TT7HAT thing is love? for sure love is a thing; " Love is a prick, love is a sting, Love is a pretty, pretty thing; Love is a fire, love is a coal, Whose flame creeps in at every hole ; And, as myself can best devise, His dwelling is in ladies' eyes, From whence he shoots his dainty darts Into the lusty gallants' hearts : And ever since was called a god That Mars with Venus played even and odd. THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 1595. THE MAID'S EESOLVE. TITHENAS* the rye reach to the chin, * * And chopcherry, chopcherry ripe within, Strawberries swimming in the cream, And schoolboys playing in the stream ; Then O, then O, then O, my true love said, 'Till that time come again She could not live a maid ! CELANTE AT THE WELL. p ENTLY dip, but not too deep, " For fear you make the golden beard to weep. \A head comes up with ears of corn, and she counts them in her lap. Fair maiden, white and red, Comb me smooth, and stroke my head, And thou shalt have some cockell-bread. Gently dip, but not too deep, For fear thou make the golden beard to weep. * Wheu. ROBERT GREENE. 63 Fair maid, white and red, Comb me smooth, and stroke my head, And every hair a sheaf shall be, And every sheaf a golden tree. \A head comes up full of gold, and she combs it into her lap. DAVID AND BETHSABE. 1599- BETHSABE BATHING. TTOT sun, cool fire, tempered with sweet air, El Black shade, fair nurse, shadow my white hair : Shine, sun; burn, fire; breathe air, and ease me; Black shade, fair nurse, shroud me, and please me : Shadow, my sweet nurse, keep me from burning, Make not my glad cause cause of mourning. Let not my beauty's fire Inflame unstayed desire, Nor pierce any bright eye That wandereth lightly. ROBERT GREENE. 15601592. [THE bulk of Greene's dramatic works, like those of his friend Peele, perished in the fire of London, or mouldered into dust in the closets of the theatres. Only five of his plays have come down to us?, and they contain but a single song. He shows no lyrical aptitude in his dramatic works; and, being compelled to write for subsistence, he had little leisure for cultivating any form of poetry he could not accomplish with ease and facility. Assuming him to be the author of this solitary song (the play in which it appears was written in conjunction with Lodge), it is an indifferent sample of his skill. He wrote better verses (and worse), and was capable occasionally of much beauty and neatness. Some of his best 52 64 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. short pieces will be found in England's Helicon. The song may, without much hesitation, be ascribed to Greene. It is scarcely worthy of Lodge, whose lyrics were generally of a higher and more imaginative cast. Kobert Greene was a native of Norwich, where he was born, according to different accounts, in 1560 or 1550. He was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, and took his degrees of A.B. and A.M. in 1578 and 1583. In 1588 he was incorporated at Oxford. In the interval he travelled on the Continent, and is supposed to have described some of his adventures in his Groat's Worth of Wit and Never too Late. He is said to have taken orders, and there is no doubt he studied medicine ; but it is certain he followed neither pro- fession. Like Peele, he seems to have appeared occasionally on the stage, probably as an amateur in some of his own pieces. The confessions he published of his career trace a course of almost incredible depravity. Upon his return to England, he set up for a man about town, and plunged into the grossest vices of the metropolis. It was easier for a man of genius, who loved pleasure and hated restraint, to write plays and 'love pamphlets,' than to sit down to the sober labours of the pulpit or the hospital ; and Greene found in this occupation easy, although uncertain, means of living, and indulging his tastes. Somewhere in the country he married a lady of good family, and as soon -as she had borne him a child, and he had expended her portion, he deserted her. The reason he assigns for this piece of turpitude is, that she was so virtuous as to endeavour to seduce him from his debauch- eries. He acknowledged that he acted as ijl to his friends as to his wife, exhausting their good offices, and repaying them with ingratitude. The consequence was, that he sank at last into the lowest depths of penury and degradation, run- ning up scores at alehouses, living precariously by his pen, and forsaken by all acquaintances who were able to render him any service. The only associates he retained in his dis- sipation were Peele, Marlowe, and Nash, and these, as pro- fligate and unprincipled as himself, abandoned him in the ROBERT GREENE. 65 end when he most needed their succour. The close of his life points a miserable moral. Having indulged in a surfeit of pickled herrings and Ehenish wine, he was seized with a mortal illness, and, being in the last extremity of distress, he must have perished for want of bare necessaries, but for the humanity of a poor shoemaker in Dowgate, at whose house he died in September, 1592, after lingering for a month in mental and bodily pain, deserted by his boon companions, and sustained by charity. The debt he contracted to this poor man he transferred on his deathbed to his wife, whom he had not seen for six years, imploring her to discharge it by an appeal to 'the love of their youth!' After his death, by his own request, his corpse was crowned with bays by the shoe- maker's wife. The deaths of his three intimate friends were no less wretched, as far as anything is known of them. JSTash, it is said, became a penitent; but Peele hurried himself to the grave by dissipation, and Marlowe came by a violent death under peculiarly appalling circumstances. Greene's writings were very numerous, and, as might be expected, very unequal. A full account of them will be found in Mr. Dyce's careful and elaborate edition of his dramatic works, published in two volumes in 1831. Many of them obtained a wide and rapid popularity; and his prose writings, abounding in contemporary allusions, possess, even at the present time, considerable interest for the student curious in this kind of lore.] LOOKING GLASS FOR LONDON AND ENGLAND. 1594. BEAUTY SUING- FOE LOVE. BEAUTY, alas ! where wast thou born, Thus to hold thyself in scorn ? Whenas Beauty kissed to woo thee, Thou by Beauty dost undo me : Heigh-ho ! despise me not. 66 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. I and thou in sooth are one, Fairer thou, I fairer none : Wanton thou, and wilt thou, wanton, Yield a cruel heart to plant on? Do me right, and do me reason; Cruelty is cursed treason : Heigh-ho ! I love, heigh-ho ! I love, Heigh-ho ! and yet he eyes me not. SAMELA.* T IKE to Diana in her summer weed, " Girt with a crimson robe of brightest dye, Goes fair Samela; Whiter than be the flocks that straggling feed, When washed by Arethusa faint they lie, Is fair Samela; As fair Aurora in her morning grey, Decked with the ruddy glister of her love, Is fair Samela; Like lovely Thetis on a calmed day, Whenas her brightness Neptune's fancy move, Shines fair Samela ; Her tresses gold, her eyes like glassy streams, Her teeth are pearl, t the breasts are ivory Of fair Samela ; Her cheeks, like rose and lily yield forth gleams, Her brows' bright arches framed of ebony ; Thus fair Samela * This charming song, which, in its structure, will remind the reader of one of Tennyson's popular lyrics, is taken from Greene's poems, of which I should have gladly availed myself more extensively if the plan of this volume permitted. f* This favourite image is wrought into a delicate and fantastical conceit in a song in the Fatal Contract, a play by William Heminge, the son of Heminge, the actor : Who notes her teeth and lips, discloses Walls of pearl and gates of roses ; Two-leaved doors that lead the way Through her breath to Araby, To which, would Cupid grant that bliss, Pd go a pilgrimage to kiss! THOMAS NASH. 67 Passeth fair Venus in her bravest hue, And Juno in the shew of majesty, For she's Samela : Pallas in wit, all three, if you will view, For beauty, wit, and matchless dignity Yield to Samela. THOMAS NASH. 1564 1601. [THOMAS NASH was born at Lowestoff, in Suffolk, and educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he took his degrees of A.B. and A.M. in 1585 and 1587. The date of his birth is not known, but it has been computed, from circum- stances, to have been 1564, the same year in which Shake- speare was born. His London life is sufficiently indicated in the notice already given of Peele and Greene. If he did not transcend the latter in profligacy, he underwent greater vicissi- tudes of distress and suffering, arising in part from the impe- tuosity of his temperament, which committed him to the most reckless excesses, and partly from his satirical propensities, which made him many enemies. On one occasion he was imprisoned for having written a play called the Isle of Dogs, and was several times confined in gaol in London. The prin- cipal incidents in his literary career are his famous paper-war with Gabriel Harvey, conducted on both sides with savage scurrility; and his controversy with Martin Marprelate, iti which he espoused the cause of the church. He obtained an unenviable notoriety by the licentiousness and fierceness of his invectives; and the tract in which he scourges his oppo- nent, Have with you to Saffron Walden (the name of Har- vey's residence), ran through no less than six editions. Not- withstanding the coarseness and violence of his controversial pamphlets, and the scoffing bitterness of his Pierce Penniless , he had the power of writing with grace and energy when he 68 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. left the region of polemics to breathe the purer air of litera- ture. He wrote three plaj^s : the tragedy of Dido (in con- junction, with Marlowe), and two comedies, Summers Last Will and Testament, and the Isle of Dogs, the last never printed, and now lost. Towards the close of his life he re- canted his errors in a pamphlet called Christ's Tears over Jerusalem. He died ahout 1601.] SUMMER'S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT. 1600. SPRING, the sweet Spring, is the year's pleasant king ; Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring, Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing, Cuckoo, jug, jug, pu we, to witta woo. The palm and may make country houses gay, Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day, And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay, Cuckoo, jug, jug, pu we, to witta woo. The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet, Young lovers meet, old wives a sunning sit, In every street these tunes our ears do greet, Cuckoo, jug, jug, pu we, to witta woo. Spring, the sweet Spring. THE DECAY OF SUMMEE. Tj 1 AIR summer droops, droop men and beasts therefore, *- So fair a summer look for never more : All good things vanish less than in a day, Peace, plenty, pleasure, suddenly decay. Go not yet away, bright soul of the sad year, The earth is hell when thou leavest to appear. What, shall those flowers that decked thy garland erst, Upon thy grave be wastefully dispersed? THOMAS NASH. 69 trees consume your sap in sorrow's source, Streams turn to tears your tributary course. Go not yet hence, bright soul of the sad year, The earth is hell when thou leavest to appear. THE COMING OF WINTEE. A UTTJMN hath all the summer's fruitful treasure ; ^ Gone is our sport, fled is our Croy don's pleasure ! Short days, sharp days, long nights come on apace : Ah, who shall hide us from the winter's face? Cold doth increase, the sickness will not cease, And here we lie, God knows, with little ease. From winter, plague and pestilence, good lord, deliver us ! London doth mourn, Lambeth is quite forlorn ! Trades cry, woe worth that ever they were born ! The want of term is town and city's harm ;* Close chambers we do want to keep us warm. Long banished must we live from our friends : This low-built house will bring us to our ends. From winter, plague and pestilence, good lord, deliver us ! APPROACHING DEATH. ADIEU; farewell earth's bliss, This world uncertain is ; Fond are life's lustful joys, Death proves them all but toys. None from his darts can fly : 1 am sick, I must die. Lord have mercy on us ! Rich men trust not in wealth; Gold cannot buy you health; * This line fixes the date of the acting of the play in the Michaelmas Term of i598, when, in consequence of the plague, Michaelmas Term was held at St. Alban's instead of in London. The date throws a light on the allusions in the song. 70 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. Physic himself must fade ; All things to end are made ; The plague full swift goes by; I am sick, I must die. Lord have mercy on us ! Beauty is but a flower, Which wrinkles will devour : Brightness falls from the air; Queens have died young and fair; Dust hath closed Helen's eye ; I am sick, I must die. Lord have mercy on us ! Strength stoops unto the grave : Worms feed on Hector brave. Swords may not fight with fate : Earth still holds ope her gate. Come, come the hells do cry ; I am sick, I must die. Lord have mercy on us ! Wit with his wantonness, Tasteth death's bitterness. Hell's executioner Hath no ears for to hear What vain art can reply; I am sick, I must die. Lord have mercy on us ! Haste therefore each degree To welcome destiny : Heaven is our heritage, Earth but a player's stage. Mount we unto the sky ; I am sick, I must die. Lord have mercy on us ! 71 SAMUEL DANIEL. 1562 1619. [SAMUEL DANIEL, the son of a music master, was born near Taunton, in Somersetshire, in 1562, and educated at Magdalen College, Oxford. Leaving the University at the end of three years without taking a degree, he continued to prosecute his studies under the patronage of the Countess of Pembroke, sister of the accomplished Sidney, whose friend- ship procured for him the appointment of tutor to the Lady Anne Clifford, daughter of the Earl of Cumberland. His diligent application to literary pursuits enabled him to im- prove these favourable circumstances, and the reputation he acquired by the publication of some of his early poems, especially the Complaint of Rosamond (in which Mr. Malone imagines he has discovered the inspiration of Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis) recommended him to the favour of royalty. Thus encouraged, he became one of the volunteer laureates of Queen Elizabeth, and under King James obtained a place at court as gentleman extraordinary, and subsequently as one of the grooms of the privy chamber to the Queen Consort, who is said to have entertained a high opinion of his conversation and his writings. Few poets have been more fortunate in their associations. Daniel enjoyed the friendship and respect of his most distinguished contem- poraries, and amongst those with whom he maintained an intimate intercourse were Camden, Drayton, Shakespeare, Jonson, Fulke Greville, Harrington and Spelman; even Gabriel Harvey paid tribute to his merits, and Spenser transmitted his character to after times in his Colin Clout's come home again. While he held his office at court (which imposed merely nominal duties upon him) he lived in a handsome garden-house in Old-street, St. Luke's; but towards the latter part of his life, feeling that a race of 72 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. greater poets had extinguished his early popularity, or, as he expresses it himself, that he had outlived the date Of former grace, acceptance, and delight, he retired to a farm in Somersetshire, where he died in 1619. In addition to his poems and plays, Daniel wrote a His- tory of England, which he carried down to the end of the reign of Edward III. His reputation as a poet rests chiefly on the ponderous cantos of the Civil Wars, a poem now little read, although it occupies a place of some mark in our literature. At the clcse of his career, when he was relinr quishing a Muse that no longer smiled upon his labours, he appears to have formed a very accurate estimate of the qualities to which he was indebted for his success : And I, although among the latter train, And least of those that sung unto this land, Have borne my part, though in an humble strain, And pleased the gentler that did understand ; And never had my harmless pen at all Distained with any loose immodesty, Nor ever noted to be touched with gall, To aggravate the worst man's infamy ; But still have done the fairest offices To virtue and the time. Dedication of PMlotas. The great defect of his poetry is want of imagination, which his naturally languid constitution was unable to remedy by vigour or boldness of treatment. He always writes with good sense ; and his diction, which seldom rises above the level of prose, is generally pure and appropriate. But his narrative is lifeless and tedious, and fails to sus- tain the attention. He is more successful in his smaller pieces, where neatness and delicacy of expression make a distinct impression, and atone for the absence of higher qualities. It has been said by some of his critics that he anticipated the improvements of a more refined age, because he wrote with a perspicuity and directness not common amongst his contemporaries. But these merits are not in themselves sufficient to project a poet beyond his own time ; a truth strikingly illustrated in his case. He lived in an SAMUEL DANIEL. 73 age that produced the noblest examples of English poetry, and he has not survived it either in the closet or on the stage. His plays are planned strictly on the classical model, which he lacked the power to fill up. Deficient in the essen- tial of action, and didactic rather than dramatic, they are for the most part very flat and dreary. The tragedy of Cleopatra, his first play, from which the following piece is taken, may, perhaps, be considered the best of them.] CLEOPATRA. 1594- THE INFLUENCE OF OPINION. r\PINIO]Sr, how dost thou molest ^/ The affected mind of restless man? Who following thee never can, Nor ever shall attain to rest, For getting what thou sayst is best. Yet lo, that best he finds far wide Of what thou promisedst before : For in the same he looked for more, Which proves but small when once 'tis tried. Then something else thou findst beside. To draw him still from thought to thought : When in the end all proves but nought. Farther from rest he finds him then, Than at the first when he began. O malcontent seducing guest, Contriver of our greatest woes : Which born of wind, and fed with shows, Dost nurse thyself in thy unrest ; Judging ungotten things the best, Or what thou in conceit designest ; And all things in the world dost deem, Not as they are, but as they seem ; Which shows their state thou ill definest : livest to come, in present pinest. 74 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. For what thou hast, thou still dost lack : O mind's tormentor, body's wrack, "Vain promiser of that sweet rest, Which never any yet possessed. If we unto ambition tend, Then dost thou draw our weakness on, With vain imagination Of that which never had an end. Or if that lust we apprehend, How dost that pleasant plague infest? O what strange forms of luxury, Thou straight dost cast to entice us by ? And tellest us that is ever best Which we have never yet possessed. And that more pleasure rests beside, In something that we have not tried. And when the same likewise is had, Then all is one, and all is bad. This Anthony can say is true, And Cleopatra knows 'tis so, By the experience of their woe. She can say, she never knew But that lust found pleasures new, And was never satisfied : He can say by proof of toil, Ambition is a vulture vile, That feeds upon the heart of pride, And finds no rest when all is tried. For worlds cannot confine the one, The other, lists and bounds hath none. And both subvert the mind, the state, Procure destruction, envy, hate. And now when all this is proved vain, Yet opinion leaves not here, But sticks to Cleopatra near, Persuading now, how she shall gain Honour by death, and fame attain; DABRIDGECOURT BELCHIER. 75 And what a shame it were to live, Her kingdom lost, her lover dead : And so with this persuasion led, Despair doth such a courage give, That nought else can her mind relieve, Nor yet divert her from that thought : To this conclusion all is brought. This is that rest this vain world lends, To end in death that all things ends. DABRIDGECOURT BELCHIER. 15 1621. [THE author of Hans Seer-Pot's Invisible Comedy was a Northamptonshire gentleman, who, after completing his education at Cambridge and Oxford, settled at Utrecht, where he died in 1621. In his dedication to Sir John Ogle, governor of the town and garrison of Utrecht, he describes the play as being neither comedy nor tragedy, but a plain dialogue, or conference, between certain persons, consisting of three acts and no more. No division into acts, however, appears in the only edition of this curious piece that is known to exist. The title-page informs us that it was ' acted in the Low Countries by an honest company of health-drinkers,' and was printed in London in 1618. Coxeter speaks of it as a translation [by inference from the Dutch] ; but it is dis- tinctly described in the dedication as an original production, that cost the author * not above sixteen days' labour/ It is written with considerable humour, and displays such ease and mastery of versification as to occasion regret that he who possessed so quaint and fluent a vein should not have given his powers more ample employment,] 76 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. HANS BEER-POT, HIS INVISIBLE COMEDY OF SEE ME AND SEE ME NOT. l6l8. THE CONFESSION. WALKING in a shady grove, Near silver streams fair gliding, Where trees in ranks did grace the banks, And nymphs had their abiding; Here as I stayed I saw a maid, A beauteous lovely creature, With angel's face and goddess grace, Of such exceeding feature. Her looks did so astonish me, And set my heart a-quaking, Like stag that gazed was I amazed, And in a stranger taking. Yet roused myself to see this elf, And lo a tree did hide me; Where I unseen beheld this queen Awhile, ere she espied me. Her voice was sweet melodiously, She sung in perfect measure ; And thus she said with trickling tears ; c Alas, my joy, my treasure, I'll be thy wife, or lose my life, There's no man else shall have me; If God so, I will say no, Although a thousand crave me. 1 Oh ! stay not long, but come, my dear, And knit our marriage knot ; Each hour a day, each month a year, Thou knowest, I think, God wot. Delay not then, like worldly maiden, Good works till withered age ; 'Bove other things, the King of kings Blessed a lawful marriage. SHAKESPEARE. 77 1 Thou art my choice, I constant am, I mean to die unspotted; With thee I'll live, for thee I love, And keep my name unblotted. A virtuous life in maid and wife, The Spirit of God commends it ; Accursed he for ever be, That seeks with shame to offend it.' With that she rose like nimble roe, The tender grass scarce bending,* And left me then perplexed with fear At this her sonnet's ending. I thought to move this dame of love, But she was gone already; Wherefore I pray that those that stay May find their loves as steady. SHAKESPEARE. 15641616. TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. SILVIA. YI7HO is Silvia? What is she, * * That all our swains commend her? Holy, fair, and wise is she, The heavens such grace did lend her, That she might admired be. * Or like a nymph with long dishevelled hair Dance on the sands, and yet no footing seen. SHAKESPEARE. Venus and Adonis. As falcon to the lure, away she flies ; The grass stoops not, she treads on it so light. Ibid. A foot more light, a step more true, Ne'er from the heath-flower dashed the dew ; E'en the slight harebell raised its head, Elastic from her airy tread. SCOTT. Lady of the Lato, THE DBAMATISTS. 6 78 SONGS FEOM THE DRAMATISTS. Is she kind as she is fair? For beauty lives with kindness : Love doth to her eyes repair, To help him of his blindness ; And, being helped, inhabits there. Then to Silvia let us sing, That Silvia is excelling ; She excels each mortal thing, Upon the dull earth dwelling : To her let us garlands bring. LOVE'S LABOUR LOST. WHITE AND BED. IF she be made of white and red, Her faults will ne'er be known ; For blushing cheeks by faults are bred, And fears by pale-white shown; Then, if the fear, or be to blame, By this you shall not know; For still her cheeks possess the same, Which native she doth own.* THE STUDENT POESAKES HIS BOOKS POE LOVE. IF love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love? Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed ! Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful prove ; These thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bowed. Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine eyes, Where all those pleasures live that art would com- prehend ; * Own possess. SHAKESPEARE. 79 If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice ; Well learned is that tongue that will ever thee commend : All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder ; (Which is to me some praise, that I thy parts admire ;) Thine eye Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder, Which, not to anger bent, is music, and sweet fire. Celestial as thou art, oh pardon, love, this wrong, That sings heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue! BEAUTY THEOTJGH TEAES. CO sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not ^ To those fresh morning drops upon the rose, As thine eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows : Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright Through the transparent bosom of the deep, As doth thy face through tears of mine give light : Thou shinest in every tear that I do weep; No drop but as a coach doth carry thee, So ridest thou triumphing in my woe : Do but behold the tears that swell in me, And they thy glory through my grief will show : But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep My tears for glasses, and still make me weep. O queen of queens, how far dost thou excel ! No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell. THE DEFENCE OP PEKJURY. DID not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye ('Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,) Persuade my heart to this false perjury 1 ? Yows for thee broke deserve not punishment. A woman I forswore; but, I will prove, Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee : 62 80 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love ; Thy grace being gained, cures all disgrace in me. Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is : Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine, Exhalest this vapour vow; in thee it is: If broken then, it is no fault of mine, If by me broke. What fool is not so wise, To lose an oath to win a paradise? FOESWOEN FOB LOVE. i~\N a day, (alack the day !) W Love, whose month is ever May, Spied a blossom, passing fair, Playing in the wanton air : Through the velvet leaves the wind, All unseen, 'gan passage find; That the lover, sick to death, Wished himself the heaven's breath. Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow; Air, would 1 might triumph so! But, alack, my hand is sworn, Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn : Vow, alack, for youth unmeet; Youth so apt to pluck a sweet. Do not call it sin in me, That I am forsworn for thee : Thou for whom Jove would swear, Juno but an Ethiope were; And deny himself for Jove, Turning mortal for thy love. SPEING AND WINTEE. I HEN daisies pied, and violets blue, And lady-smocks all silver-white, And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue, Do paint the meadows with delight, SHAKESPEARE. 81 The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men, for thus sings he, Cuckoo ; Cuckoo, cuckoo, O word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear ! 2 When shepherds pipe on oaten straws, And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks, When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws, And maidens bleach their summer smocks, The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men, for thus sings he, Cuckoo ; Cuckoo, cuckoo, O word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear ! 3 When icicles hang by the wall, And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail, When blood is nipped, and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl, To-who; Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel* the pot. 4 When all around the wind doth blow, And coughing drowns the parson's saw, And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marian's nose looks red and raw, When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl, To-who; Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. * Skim. 82 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. ALL S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. ONE GOOD WOMAN IN TEN. WAS this fair face the cause, quoth she, Why the Grecians sacked Troy] Fond done, done fond, Was this King Priam's joy? With that she sighed as she stood, With that she sighed as she stood, And gave this sentence then : Among nine bad if one be good, Among nine bad if one be good, There's yet one good in ten. A MIDSUMMER NIGHT S DREAM. SONG OF THE FAIRY. OVER hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do wander everywhere, Swifter than the moon's sphere ; And I serve the fairy queen, To dew her orbs* upon the green ; The cowslips tall her pensioners be; In their gold coats spots you see, These be rubies, fairy favours, In those freckles live their savours : I must go seek some dewdrops here, And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear. * The rings on the sward, dried up by the feet of the fairies in dancing their rounds. SHAKESPEARE. 83 TTTANIA IN THE WOOD. YOU spotted snakes, with double tongue, Thorny hedge-hogs, be not seen; Newts, and blind-worms, do no wrong; Come not near our fairy queen : Chorus. Philomel, with melody, Sing in our sweet lullaby; Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby; Never harm, nor spell nor charm, Come our lonely lady nigh; So, good night, with lullaby. Weaving spiders, come not here : Hence, you long-legged spinners, hence : Beetles black, approach not near; Worm, nor snail, do no offence. Chorus. Philomel, with melody, &c, BIEDS. rpHE woosel-cock,* so black of hue, J- With orange-tawny bill, The throstle with his note so true, The wren with little quill; The finch, the sparrow, and the lark, The plain-song cuckoo gray, Whose note full many a man doth mark, And dares not answer, nay. The blackbird. 84 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. THE DEAD OF THE NIGHT THE APPBOACH OP THE FAIRIES. TYTOW the hungry lion roars, And the wolf behowls the moon ; Whilst the heavy ploughman snores, All with weary task fordone. Now the wasted brands do glow, Whilst the scritch-owl, scritching loud, Puts the wretch that lies in woe, In remembrance of a shroud. Now it is the time of night That the graves, all gaping wide, Everyone lets forth his sprite, In the churchway paths to glide : And we fairies, that do run By the triple Hecate's team, From the presence of the sun, Following darkness like a dream, Now are frolic ; not a mouse Shall disturb this hallowed house : I am sent with broom before, To sweep the dust behind the door. Through the house give glimmering light, By the dead and drowsy fire ; Every elf, and fairy sprite, Hop as light as bird from brier ; And this ditty after me, Sing, and dance it, trippingly. First, rehearse this song by rote, To each word a warbling note, Hand in hand, with fairy grace, We will sing, and bless this place. Song. Now, until the break of day, Through this house each fairy stray. SHAKESPEAKE. 85 To the best bride-bed will we, Which by us shall blessM be; And the issue there create Ever shall be fortunate. So shall all the couples three Ever true in loving be; And the blots of nature's hand Shall not in their issue stand; Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar, Nor mark prodigious, such as are Despised in nativity, Shall upon their children be. With this field-dew consecrate, Every fairy take his gait; And each several chamber bless, Through this palace with sweet peace : Ever shall in safety rest, And the owner of it blessed. Trip away; Make no stay : Meet me all by break of day. MERCHANT OF VENICE. THE BIRTH AND DEATH OP FANCY.* TELL me where is fancy bred, Or in the heart, or in the head? How begot, how nourished? Reply, reply. It is engendered in the eyes, With gazing fed; and fancy dies Tn the cradle where it lies : Let us all ring fancy's knell ; I'll begin it, Ding, dong, bell. Ding, dong, bell. * Fancy is constantly used by Shakespeare and his contemporaries in the sense of love. 86 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. THE CHOICE. Gold. A LL that glisters is not gold, -*- Often have you heard that told; Many a man his life hath sold But my outside to behold; Gilded tombs do worms infold. Had you been as wise as bold, Young in limbs, in judgment old, Your answer had not been inscrolled ; Fare you well; your suit is cold. Silver. The fire seven times tried this; Seven times tried that judgment is That did never choose amiss : Some there be that shadows kiss ; Such have but a shadow's bliss; There be fools alive, I wis, Silvered o'er; and so was this. Take what wife you will to bed, I will ever be your head : So begone : you are sped. Lead. You that choose not by the view, Chance as fair, and choose as true ! Since this fortune falls to you, Be content, and seek no new. If you be well pleased with this, And hold your fortune for your bliss, Turn you where your lady is, And claim her with a loving kiss. SHAKESPEABE. 87 MUCH ADO ABOU.T NOTHING. INCONSTANCY OF MEN. I O IGH no more, ladies, sigh no more , & Men were deceivers ever; One foot in sea, and one on shore; To one thing constant never: Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny; Converting all your sounds of woe Into, hey nonny, nonny. 2 Sing no more ditties, sing no mo Of dumps so dull and heavy; The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leavy, Then sigh not so, &c. HERO'S EPITAPH. DONE to death by slanderous tongues Was the Hero that here lies; Death, in guerdon of her wrongs, Gives her fame which never dies : So the life that died with shame, Lives in death with glorious fame. Hang thou there upon the tomb, Praising her when I am dumb. HYMN AT THE TOMB. T)ABX>0]Sr, goddess of the night, -- Those that slew thy virgin knight ; For the which, with songs of woe, Hound about her tomb they go. SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. Midnight, assist our moan; Help us to sigh and groan, Heavily, heavily : Graves yawn, and yield your dead, Till death be uttered, Heavenly, heavenly. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. F A 'SCORNFUL RHYME.' 1 Y on sinful fantasy ! Fy on lust and luxury ! Lust is but a bloody fire, Kindled with unchaste desire, Fed in heart; whose flames aspire, As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher. Pinch him, fairies, mutually; Pinch him for his villainy ; Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about, Till candles, and star-light, and moon-shine be out. TWELFTH NIGHT. SWEET-AND-TWENTY. MISTRESS mine, where are you roaming] O, stay and hear ; your true love's coming, That can sing both high and low : Trip no further, pretty sweeting; Journeys end in lovers' meeting, Every wise man's son doth know. What is love? 'tis not hereafter; Present mirth hath present laughter; What's to come is still unsure : In delay there lies no plenty; Then come kiss me, sweet-and-twenty, Youth's a stuff will not endure. SHAKESPEAKE. 89 SLAIN BY LOVE. COME away, come away, death, And in sad cypress let me be laid; Fly away, fly away, breath; I am slain by a fair cruel maid. My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, O, prepare it; My part of death no one so true Did share it. Not a flower, not a flower sweet, On my black cofiin let there be strown ; Not a friend, not a friend greet My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown : A thousand thousand sighs to save, Lay me, O where Sad true lover never find my grave, To weep there. THE CLOWN'S EXIT. T AM gone, Sir, L And anon, Sir, I'll be with you again, In a trice, Like to the old Vice, Your need to sustain; Who with dagger of lath, In his rage and his wrath, Cries, ah, ha ! to the devil : Like a madjad, Pare thy nails, dad, Adieu, goodman drivel THE EAIN IT BAINETH EVEEY DAY. TTTHEN that I was and a little tiny boy, * * With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, A foolish thing was but a toy, For the rain it raineth every day. 90 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. But when I came to man's estate, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, 'Gainst knave and thief men shut their gate, For the rain it raineth every day. But when I came, alas ! to wive, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, By swaggering could I never thrive, For the rain it raineth every day. But when I came unto my bed, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,. With toss-pots still had drunken head, For the rain it raineth every day. A great while ago the world begun, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, But that's all one, our play is done, And we'll strive to please you every day.* AS YOU LIKE IT. UNDER THE GREENWOOD TEEE. UNDER the greenwood tree, Who loves to lie with me, And tunet his merry note Unto the sweet bird's throat, Come hither, come hither, come hither; Here shall we see No enemy But winter and rough weather. * The Fool in King Lear sings a snatch of a ballad with the same burthen : ' He that has and a little tiny wit, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, Must make content with his fortunes fit, Though the rain it raineth every day.' t In some editions turn. SHAKESPEARE. 91 Wlio doth ambition shun, And loves to live in the sun, Seeking the food he eats, And pleased with what he gets, Come hither, come hither, come hither; Here shall he see No enemy, But winter and rough weather. If it do come to pass, That any man turn ass, Leaving his wealth and ease, A stubborn will to please, Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame; Here shall he see, Gross fools as he, An if he will come to me. INGEATITTJDE. B ] >LOW, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As man's ingratitude ; Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen, Although thy breath be rude. Heigh ho ! sing, heigh ho ! unto the green holly : Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly ; Then, heigh ho ! the holly ! This life is most jolly. Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, Thou dost not bite so nigh As benefits forgot : Though thou the waters warp,* Thy sting is not so sharp As friend remembered not. Heigh ho ! sing heigh ho ! &c. * There was an old Saxon proverb, Winter shall warp water. 92 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. EOSALIND. Tj^ROM the east to western Ind, No jewel is like Rosalind. Her worth, being mounted on the wind, Through all the world bears Rosalind. All the pictures, fairest lined, Are but black to Rosalind. Let no face be kept in mind, But the fair* of Rosalind. If a hart do lack a hind, Let him seek out Rosalind. If the cat will after kind, So, be sure, will Rosalind. Winter garments must be lined, So must slender Rosalind. They that reap must sheaf and bind ; Then to cart with Rosalind. Sweetest nut hath sourest rind, Such a nut is Rosalind. He that sweetest rose will find, Must find love's prick and Rosalind. THE HOMILY OP LOVE. WHY should this desert silent be? For it is unpeopled 1 ? No; Tongues I'll hang on every tree, That shall civil sayings shew. Some, how brief the life of man Runs his erring pilgrimage ; That the stretching of a span Buckles in his sum of age. Some, of violated vows 'Twixt the souls of friend and friend : But upon the fairest boughs, Or at every sentence' end, * Used for fairness, or beauty . SHAKESPEARE. 93 Will I Rosalinda write : Teaching all that read to know The quintessence of every sprite Heaven would in little show. Therefore heaven nature charged That one body should be filled With all graces wide enlarged : Nature presently distilled Helen's cheek, but not her heart; Cleopatra's majesty; Atalanta's better part; Sad Lucretia's modesty. Thus Rosalind of many parts By heavenly synod was devised; Of many faces, eyes, and hearts, To have the touches dearest prized. Heaven would that she these gifts should have, And I to live and die her slave. THE DEATH OP THE DEEB. WHAT shall he have that killed the deer] His leather skin, and horns to wear. Take thou no scorn, to wear the horn; It was a crest ere thou wast born. Thy father's father wore it; And thy father bore it : The horn, the horn, the lusty horn, Is not a thing to laugh to scorn. THE MESSAGE OF HOPELESS LOVE. ART thou god to shepherd turned, That a maiden's heart hath burned? Why, thy godhead laid apart, . Warrest thou with a woman's heart'? Whiles the eye of man did woo me, That could do no vengeance to me. THE DEAMATISTS. 7 94 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. If the scorn of your bright eyne Have power to raise such love in mine, Alack, in me what strange effect Would they work in mild aspect? Whiles you chid me, I did love; How then might your prayers move? He that brings this love to thee, Little knows this love in me : And by him seal up thy mind ; Whether that by youth and kind Will the faithful offer take Of me, and all that I can make; Or else by him my love deny, And then I'll study how to die. LOVERS LOVE THE SPBIN0. IT was a lover and his lass, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, That o'er the green corn-field did pass In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding; Sweet lovers love the spring. Between the acres of the rye, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, These pretty country folks would lie, In spring time, &c. This carol they began that hour, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, How that a life was but a flower In spring time, &c. And therefore take the present time, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, For love is crowned with the prime, In spring time, &e SHAKESPEARE. 95 THE BETROTHAL. THEN is there mirth in heaven, When earthly things made even Atone together. Good duke, receive thy daughter, Hymen from heaven brought her, Yea, brought her hither ; That thou mightst join her hand with his, Whose heart within her bosom is. WEDLOCK. ING is great Juno's crown; O blessed bond of board and bed! 'Tis Hymen peoples every town; High wedlock then be honoured : Honour, high honour and renown, To Hymen, god of every town ! MEASURE FOR MEASURE. TAKE, OH! TAKE THOSE LIPS AWAY. HP AKE, oh ! take those lips away, - . That so sweetly were forsworn; And those eyes, the break of day, Lights that do mislead the morn : But my kisses bring again, Bring again. Seals of love, but sealed in vain, Sealed in vain.* * The music of this song was composed by * Jack Wilson,' the singer, who belonged to the same company of players with Shake- speare, and whose name is given in a stage direction in Much Ado about Nothing, 4to, 1600. [See communication from Mr. Collier, Shakespeare Society Papers, ii. 33.] Shakespeare's claim to the words is doubtful. The same song, with an additional stanza, appears in Beaumont and Fletcher's play of Rollo, Duke of Normandy, under which head they will be found in the present volume. Mr. Collier ob- 72 96 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. A WINTER S TALE. THE SWEET OF THE TEAE. TT7HEN daffodils begin to peer, * ' With heigh ! the doxy over the dale, Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year; For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale. The white sheet bleaching on the hedge, With heigh I the sweet birds, O, how they sing ! Doth set thy pugging* tooth on edge; For a quart of ale is a dish for a king. The lark, that tirra-lirra chants, With heigh ! with hey ! the thrush and the jay : Are summer songs for me and my aunts, While we lie tumbling in the hay. But shall I go mourn for that, my dear? The pale moon shines by night : And when I wander here and there, I then do most go right. If tinkers may have leave to live, And bear the sow-skin bowget ; Then my account I well may give, And in the stocks avouch it. serves, on the other hand, that both stanzas are ascribed to Shake- speare in the edition of his poems printed in 8vo, 1640. But it should be observed also that the song is not given in the earlier edition by Juggard, and that the edition of 1640 is not conclusive authority. The best evidence in favour of Shakespeare's authorship is the general fact that, unlike most of the old dramatists, he never introduced into his plays (with the exception of scraps and foots of popular ballads) any songs by other writers. This is the only instance upon wfiich a doubt can be raised. * Supposed to mean thieving, from the old word puggard, a thief. The close resemblance suggests the derivation from this word of the flash term prigging or proguing, which, however, is rejected by Dr. Nares. SHAKESPEARE. 97 A MEEEY HEAET FOB THE ROAD. JOG on, jog on, the footpath way, And merrily hent* the stile-a : A merry heart goes all the day, Your sad tires in a mile-a. THE PEDLAE AT THE DOOE. T AWN, as white as driven snow; -*-^ Cypress, black as e'er was crow; Gloves, as sweet as damask roses; Masks for faces, and for noses ; Bugle-bracelet, necklace-amber, Perfume for a lady's chamber : Golden quoifs and stomachers, For my lads to give their dears ; Pins and poking-sticks of steel,t What maids lack from head to heel : Come, buy of me, come; come buy, come buy; Buy, lads, or else your lasses cry : Come, buy, &c. THE BALLAD O* TWO MAIDS WOOING A MAN. A. /^ ET you hence, for I must go; ^ Where it fits not you to know. D. Whither? M. O, whither? D. Whither? M. It becomes thy oath full well, Thou to me thy secrets tell : D. Me too, let me go thither. M. Or thou goest to the grange, or mill : D. If to either, thou dost ill. * To seize, to hold. t A small stick used for setting the plaits of ruffs. They were originally made of wood or bone, afterwards of steel that they might be ased hot. The steel poking-stick was introduced in the reign of Elizabeth. 98 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. A. Neither. D. What, neither? A. Neither. D. Thou hast sworn my love to be : M. Thou hast sworn it more to me : Then, whither goest? Say, whither? THE PEDLAB'S PACK. "TT7ILL you buy any tape, * Or lace for your cape, My dainty duck, my dear-a? Any silk, any thread, Any toys for your head, Of the new'st, and fin'st, fin'st wear-a? Come to the pedlar ; Money's a medler, That doth utter all men's ware-a. THE TEMPEST. MTTSIC IN THE AIE. /"10ME unto these yellow sands, ^ And then take hands : Courtesied when you have, and kissed, The wild waves whist, Foot it featly here and there; And, sweet sprites, the burden bear. Hark, hark! Bowgh, wowgh. The watch-dogs bark: Bowgh, wowgh. Hark, hark ! I hear The strain of strutting chanticleer Cry, Cock-a-doodle-doo. THE DBOWNED FATHEB. T^TJLL fathom five thy father lies : Of his bones are coral made ; Those are pearls that were his eyes : Nothing of him that doth fade. SHAKESPEARE. 99 But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange, Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell : Hark ! now I hear them, ding-dong, bell.* THE WABNING. WHILE you here do snoring lie, Open-eyed Conspiracy His time doth take ; If of life you keep a care, Shake off slumber, and beware : Awake! awake! A BAILOR'S AVEBSION. rPHE master, the swabber, the boatswain, and I, The gunner and his mate, Loved Mall, Meg, and Marian, and Margery, But none of us cared for Kate ; For she had a tongue with a tang, Would cry to a sailor, < Go ha.ng ;' She loved not the savour of tar nor of pitch, Yet a tailor might scratch her where'er she did itch ; Then to sea, boys, and let her go hang. THE BLESSING OF JUNO AND CEEES. HONOUR, riches, marriage-blessing, Long continuance, and encreasing, Hourly joys be still upon you! Juno sings her blessings on you. Earth's increase, and foisont plenty, Barns and garners never empty; Vines with clustering bunches growing; Plants with goodly burthen bowing; * Set to music by Robert Johnson, 1612. t Abundance. 100 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. Spring come to you, at the farthest, In the very end of harvest ! Scarcity and want shall shun you; Ceres' blessing so is on you. AEIEL SET FREE. TTTHERE the bee sucks, there suck I; In a cowslip's bell I lie; There I couch when owls do cry; On the bat's back I do fly After summer merrily : Merrily, merrily, shall I live now, Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.* KING HENRY IV. PART II. BE MEEEY, BE MEEET. DO nothing but eat, and make good cheer, And praise Heaven for the merry year ; When flesh is cheap and females dear, And lusty lads roam here and there, So merrily, And ever among so merrily. Be merry, be merry, my wife has all, For women are shrews, both short and tall ; 'Tis merry in hall when beards wag all, And welcome merry shrove-tide. Be merry, be merry, &c. A cup of wine that's brisk and fine, And drink unto the leman mine ; And a merry heart lives long-a. Fill the cup, and let it come, I'll pledge you a mile to the bottom. * Robert Johnson also composed the music of this song. SHAKESPEARE. 101 KING HENRY V. FRAGMENTS OP BALLADS. I KNOCKS go and come To all and some God's vassals feel the same, And sword and shield In bloody field Do win immortal fame. 2 If wishes would prevail with me, My purpose should not fail with me, But thither would I now; And as duly, But not as truly, As bird doth sing on bough.* KING HENRY VIII. INFLUENCE OF MUSIC. OEPHETJS with his lute made trees, And the mountain-tops that freeze, Bow themselves, when he did sing : To his music, plants and flowers, Ever sprung; as sun, and showers There had made a lasting spring. * These fragments of ballads, sung by Pistol and the Boy (Act iii. Sc. z), are taken in the form in which they are here given from the curious volume of MS. Notes and Emendations on the Folio of i53z, published by Mr. Collier. In all existing editions of Shakespeare the first line of the first stanza forms part of the dialogue, and it is here, with the two lines that immediately follow, thrown into verse by the emendator. In the third line of the second stanza the word Me, as printed in all the copies, is changed, with obvious propriety, into now. A comparison between the verses as they are given above, and as they are printed in the play, will enable the reader to trace the variances. 102 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. Everything that heard him play, Even the billows of the sea, Hung their heads, and then lay by In sweet music is such art : Killing care, and grief of heart, Fall asleep, or, hearing, die. HAMLET. OPHELIA'S SONGS. i HOW should I your true love know From another one? By his cockle hat and staff, And his sandal shoon. He is dead and gone, lady, He is dead and gone ; At his head a grass-green turf, At his heels a stone. White his shroud as the mountain snow, Larded all with sweet flowers, Which bewept to the grave did go, With true-love showers. 2 GOOD morrow, 'tis Saint Valentine's day, All in the morning betime, And I a maid at your window, To be your Valentine. Then up he rose, and donned his clothes, And dupped* the chamber door; Let in the maid, that out a maid Never departed more. * To do open, abbreviated into dup, or do up. The meaning is ex- plained by Dr. Nares : ' Some gates and doors were opened by lifting up as port-cullises, and that kind of half-door swinging on two hinges at the top, which is still seen in some shops.' Glossary. It also applies to doors with latches. SHAKESPEARE. 103 By Gis, and by Saint Charity, Alack, and fy for shame ! Young men will do it, if they come to it; By cock, they are to blame. Quoth she, before you tumbled me, You promised me to wed : So would I ha' done, by yonder sun, An thou hadst not come to my bed. AND will he not come again? And will he not come again? No, no, he is dead, Go to thy death -bed, He never will come again. His beard was as white as snow All flaxen was his poll : He is gone, he is gone, And we cast away moan; God 'a' mercy on his soul ! GBAVE-DiaGER'S SONG-.* IN youth when I did love, did love, Methought, it was very sweet, To contract, O, the time, for, ah ! my behove O, methought, there was nothing meet. * These stanzas are from the poem of The Aged Lover renounceth Love, written by Lord Vaux. See Surrey's Poems [Ann. Ed. p. aztf]. In Shakespeare's time Lord Vaux's poem was one of the popular ballads of the .day, and Shakespeare appears to have altered the verses to suit them the better to the character of the grave-digger ; unless we are to suppose that corruptions had crept into the broad-sheet. The following are the original stanzas : ' I loathe that I did love In youth that I thought sweet, As time requires for my behove, Methinks they are not meet. 104 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. But age, with his stealing steps, Hath clawed me in his clutch, And hath shipped me intil the land, As if I had never been such. A pickaxe, and a spade, a spade, For and a shrouding sheet : O, a pit of clay for to be made For such a guest is meet. CYMBELINE. SEBENADE. HARK ! hark ! the lark at heaven's gate sings, And Phoebus 'gins arise, His steeds to water at those springs On chaliced flowers that lies ; And winking Mary-buds begin To ope their golden eyes ; With every thing that pretty bin :* My lady sweet, arise ; Arise, arise. THE DIRGE OF IMOGEN. FEAR no more the heat o' the sun Nor the furious winter's rages; Thou thy wordly task hast done, Home art gone and ta'en thy wages : Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. For Age with stealing steps Hath clawed me with his clutch, And lusty Life away she leaps As there had been none such. A pick-axe and a spade, And eke a shrouding sheet, A house of clay for to be made For such a guest most meet.' * Printed is in the folio, changed by Hanmer to bin SHAKESPEARE. 105 Fear no more the frown o' the great, Thou art past the tyrant's stroke; Care no more to clothe, and eat; To thee the reed is as the oak : The sceptre, learning, physic, must All follow this, and come to dust. Fear no more the lightning-flash, Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone Fear not slander, censure rash; Thou hast finished joy and moan: All lovers young, all lovers must Consign to thee, and come to dust. No exerciser harm thee ! Nor no witchcraft charm thee ! Ghost unlaid forbear thee ! Nothing ill come near thee ! Quiet consummation have ; And renowned be thy grave ! OTHELLO. KING STEPHEN. KING Stephen was a worthy peer, His breeches cost him but a crown ; He held them sixpence all too dear, With that he called the tailor lown. He was a wight of high renown, And thou art but of low degree : 'Tis pride that pulls the country down, Then tak thy auld cloak about thee.* * An English version of the old ballad (supposed to have been originally Scotch) from which these stanzas are taken will be found in Percy's Reliques, i. i53, ed. 1844. 106 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. THE WILLOW SONG. poor soul sat singing by a sycamore tree, -*- Sing all a green willow; Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee, Sing willow, willow, willow : The fresh streams ran by her, and murmured her moans ; Her salt tears fell from her, and softened the stones; Sing willow, willow, willow; Sing all a green willow must be my garland.* KING LEAR. THE FOOL'S SONG. Tj^OOLS had ne'er less grace in a year; -*- For wise men are grown foppish; And know not how their wits to wear, Their manners are so apish. Then they for sudden joy did weep, And I for sorrow sung, That such a king should play bo-peep, And go the fool among. * This is the opening verse of an old ballad adapted to Desdemona by changing the sex of the forsaken lover. The following are the words of the original : * A poor soul sat sighing under a sycamore tree ; * O willow, willow, willow !' With his hand on his bosom, his head on his knee ; * O willow, willow, willow! O willow, willow, willow ! Sing, O the green willow shall be my garland.' ' The whole ballad is given from a black-letter copy in the Pepys' Collection by Bishop Percy. Reliques, i. i55. For the first Willow Song, see ante, p. z5. SHAKESPEARE. 107 MACBETH. THE WITCHES' EENDEZVOTJS. 1 Witch. TT7HEN shall we three meet again, ** In thunder, lightning, or in rain? 2 Witch. When the hurlyburly's done, When the battle's lost and won : 3 Witch. That will be ere set of sun. 1 Witch. Where the place? 2 Witch. Upon the heath ; 3 Witch. There to meet with Macbeth, i Witch. I come, Grimalkin !* All. Paddockf calls : Anon. Fair is foul, and foul is fair ; Hover through the fog and filthy air. THE CHAEM. 1 Witch. HTHEICE the brindedj cat hath mewed. 2 Witch. Thrice; and once the hedgehog whined. 3 Witch. Harpier cries : 'Tis time, 'tis time. 1 Witch. Round about the caldron go : In the poisoned entrails throw. Toad, that under cold stone, Days and nights hath thirty-one, Sweltered venom sleeping got, Boil thou first in the charmed pot ! All. Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire, burn; and, caldron, bubble. 2 Witch. Fillet of a fenny snake, In the caldron boil and bake ; Eye of newt, and toe of frog ; Wool of bat, and tongue of dog; Adder's fork, and blind- worm's sting; Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing; * A cat. f A toad. J Fierce. 108" SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. For a charm of powerful trouble; Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. All, Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire, burn; and, caldron, bubble. 3 Witch. Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf; Witches' mummy; maw, and gulf Of the ravened salt sea-shark; Boot of hemlock, digged i' the dark ; Liver of blaspheming Jew; Gall of goat, and slips of yew, Silvered in the moon's eclipse; Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips; Finger of birth- strangled babe, Ditch-delivered by a drab, Make the gruel thick and slab ; Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,* For the ingredients of our caldron. AIL Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire, burn; and, caldron, bubble. 2 Witch. Cool it with a baboon's blood, Then the charm is firm and good. TIMON OF ATHENS. APEMANTTJS'S GBACE. TMMORTAL gods, I crave no pelf; * 1 pray for no man but myself: Grant I may never prove so fond, To trust man on his oath or bond , Or a harlot for her weeping; Or a dog that seems a sleeping ; Or a keeper with my freedom; Or my friends, if I should need 'em. Amen. So fall to't : Rich men sin, and I eat root. * Entrails. BEN JONSON. 109 TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. OH ! OH ! HA ! HA ! T OVE, love, nothing but love, still more ! JkA For, oh, love's bow Shoots buck and doe : The shaft confounds, Not that it wounds, But tickles still the sore. These lovers cry Oh ! oh ! they die ! Yet that which seems the wound to kill, Doth turn oh ! oh ! to ha ! ha ! he ! So dying love lives still : Oh! oh! a while, but ha ! ha! ha! Oh ! oh ! groans out for ha ! ha ! ha ! ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. BACCHANALIAN BOUND. thou monarch of the vine, ^ Plumpy Bacchus, with pink eyne : In thy vats our cares be drowned; With thy grapes our hairs be crowned ; Cup us, till the world go round; Cup us, till the world go round ! BEN JONSON. I574-I637- [AFTER Shakespeare's songs all others appear to disadvantage. He shows an instinctive knowledge of the secret of this kind of writing as of everything else. His songs possess in per- fection all the essential elements of gaiety and tenderness, facility and grace, idiomatic purity, melody in the expression, THE DEAMATISTS. 8 110 SONGS FKOM THE DRAMATISTS. variety, suddenness, and completeness. In their airiness and sweetness, their spontaneity and full-throated ease, they resemble the songs of birds. The contrast with Ben Jonson is striking. Here we have a great command of resources, and a visible air of preparation. The lines are thoughtful, and occasionally rugged, and must be read, even in the singing, with a certain degree of emphasis and deliberation. They do not spring at once to the heart and the fancy. Without a particle of pedantry, of which Jonson was unjustly accused by his detractors, the spirit of the Greek anthology is in them, and is felt either in the allusions, the phrase, the subject, or the diction. Yet, in a different way, they are as charming as Shakespeare's, and worthy to stand beside them. If they do not recall the ravishing music of the lark or the nightingale, they hold us in the spell of some fine instrument whose rich notes are delivered with the skill of a master. It is the difference between impulse and premeditation, and, in a general sense, between nature and art, although we are com- pelled to acknowledge in Shakespeare the presence of the highest art also. Ben Jonson is -generally supposed to be distinguished chiefly, if not exclusively, by his learning and his humour. But his songs, his masques, and pastoral scenes are strewn with beauties of another order, and exhibit, over and above his more special qualities, singular elegance of thought and a luxuriant fancy. The dates attached to the titles of the plays from which the following lyrics are extracted, are the dates of their pro- duction upon the stage.] CYNTHIA'S REVELS. 1600. ECHO MOURNING TKffiTH O:F NARCISSUS. SLOW, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears ; Yet slower, yet, faintly gentle springs : List to the heavy part the music bears, Woe weeps out her division when she sings. BEN JONSON. Ill Droop herbs and flowers; Fall grief in showers, Our beauties are not ours; O, I could still, Like melting snow upon some craggy hill, Drop, drop, drop, drop, Since nature's pride is, now, a withered daffodil. OTHAT joy so soon should waste ! 9 Or so sweet a bliss As a kiss Might not for ever last ! So sugared, so melting, so soft, so delicious, The dew that lies on roses, When the morn herself discloses, Is not so precious. O rather than I would it smother, Were I to taste such another; It should be my wishing That I might die kissing. THE GLOVE OF THE DEAD LADY. THOU more than most sweet glove, Unto my more sweet love, Suffer me to store with kisses This empty lodging that now misses The pure rosy hand that wore thee, Whiter than the kid that bore thee. Thou art soft, but that was softer; Cupid's self hath kissed it ofter Than e'er he did his mother's doves, Supposing her the queen of loves, That was thy mistress, Best of gloves. 82 112 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. HYMN TO DIANA. QUEEN, and huntress, chaste and fair, Now the sun is laid to sleep, Seated in thy silver chair, State in wonted manner keep :* Hesperus entreats thy light, Goddess excellently bright. Earth, let not thy envious shade Dare itself to interpose ; Cynthia's shining orb was made Heaven to clear when day did close : Bless us then with wished sight, Goddess excellently bright. Lay thy bow of pearl apart, And thy crystal shining quiver; Give unto thy flying hart Space to breathe, how short soever : Thou that makest a day of night, Goddess excellently bright. THE POETASTER. l6oi. THE LOVER'S IDEAL. T F I freely may discover -* What would please me in my lover, I would have her fair and witty, Savouring more of court than city; A little proud, but full of pity ; Light and humorous in her toying; Oft building hopes, and soon destroying ; Long, but sweet in the enjoying; Neither too easy nor too hard, All extremes I would have barred. * Come, but keep thy wonted state, With even step, and mincing gait. MILTON. II Penseroso. BEN JONSON. 113 She should be allowed her passions, So they were but used as fashions ; Sometimes froward, and then frowning, Sometimes sickish, and then swooning, Every fit with change still crowning. Purely jealous I would have her, Then only constant when I crave her ; 'Tis a virtue should not save her. Thus, nor her delicates would cloy me, Nor her peevishness annoy me.* WANTON CUPID. [~ YE is blind, and a wanton ; -L^ In the whole world, there is scant [one] One such another : No, not his mother. He hath plucked her doves and sparrows, To feather his sharp arrows, And alone prevaileth, While sick Yenus waileth. But if Cypris once recover The wag; it shall behove her To look better to him, Or she will undo him. WAKE! MUSIC AND WINE. TT7AKE, our mirth begins to die, ^ ' Quicken it with tunes and wines liaise your notes ; you're out : fy, fy ! This drowsiness is an ill sign. * The germ of this song may be traced to the following epigram of Martial : ' Qualem, Flacce, velim quseris, nolimve puellam, Nolo nimis facilem, diflicilemve nimis : Illud quod medium est, atque inter utrumque probamus, Nee volo quod cruciat, nee volo quod satiat.' Thus rendered by Elphinston : ' What a fair, my dear Flaccus, I like or dislike ? I approve not the dame, or too kind, or too coy; The sweet medium be mine : no extremities strike : I'll have her who knows nor to torture nor cloy.' 114 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. We banish him the quire of gods, That droops again : Then all are men, For here's not one, but nods. THE FEAST OF THE SENSES. 'THEN, in a free and lofty strain, -- Our broken tunes we thus repair; And we answer them again, Running division on the panting air; To celebrate this feast of sense, As free from scandal as offence. Here is beauty for the eye ; For the ear sweet melody ; Ambrosial odours for the smell ; Delicious nectar for the taste ; For the touch a lady's waist ; Which doth all the rest excel ! VOLPONE; OR, THE FOX. 1605. FOOLS. Tj^OOLS, they are the only nation -- Worth men's envy or admiration; Free from care or sorrow-taking, Selves and others merry making : All they speak or do is sterling. Your fool he is your great man's darling, And your ladies' sport and pleasure; Tongue and babble are his treasure. Even his face begetteth laughter, And he speaks truth free from slaughter ;* He's the grace of every feast, And sometimes the chief est guest ; * Reason here, observes one of Jonson's commentators, has been made to sufler for the rhyme, slander being the word apparently designed. BEN JONSON. 1 15 Hath his trencher and his stool, When wit waits upon the fool. O, who would not be He, he, he?* LOVE WHILE WE CAN. , my Celia, let us prove, ^ While we can the sports of love, Time will not be ours for ever, He, at length, our good will sever; Spend not then his gifts in vain, Suns that set may rise again : But if once we lose this light, Tis with us perpetual night. Why should we defer our joys? Fame and rumour are but toys. Cannot we delude the eyes Of a few poor household spies 1 Or his easier ears beguile, Thus removed by our wile? 'Tis no sin love's fruits to steal: But the sweet thefts to reveal : To be taken, to be seen, These have crimes accounted been.t THE QUEEN'S MASQUE. 1605. THE BIKTH OP LOVE. SO beauty on the waters stood, When love had severed earth from flood ; So when he parted air from fire, He did with concord all inspire ; * There is a Fool's Song in the Bird in a Cage of Shirley (see Shirley's songs in this volume) which seems to be formed upon this song. f The leading idea of this song is taken from Catullus. It was a favourite theme with the old dramatists, and will be found treated in a variety of ways amongst their songs. 116 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. And there a matter he then taught That elder than himself was thought ; Which thought was yet the child of earth, For Love is older than his birth. CTTPIDS SHOOTING AT EANDOM. TF all these Cupids now were blind, -*- As is their wanton brother, Or play should put it in their mind To shoot at one another, What pretty battle they would make, If they their object should mistake, And each one wound his mother. EPICCENE; OR, THE SILENT WOMAN. 1609. THE GKACE OF SIMPLICITY. OTILL to be neat, still to be drest, ^ A s you were going to a feast ; Still to be powdered, still perfumed : , Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace ; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free : Such sweet neglect more taketh me, Than all the adulteries of art ; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. * This is one of the best known of Jonson's songs, and a remarkable illustration of the art with which he constructed these compositions. The first verse is an evident preparation for the skilful flattery and delightful sentiment of the second. Nothing less than the fascinating result to which it leads us could excuse its want of gallantry. BEN JONSON. 117 BARTHOLOMEW PAIR. 1614. THE BALLAD OF THE CUT-PUESE.* MY masters, and friends, and good people, draw near, And look to your purses for that I do say; And though little money in them you do bear, It cost more to get, than to lose in a day. * In the Roxburghe collection there is a ballad with the following title : * A Caveat for Cut-Purses. With a warning to all purse carriers, shewing the confidence of the first, and the carelessness of the last, with necessary admonitions for them both, lest the hangman get the one, and the beggar the other.' Mr. Collier observes upon it that * this singular ballad preceded the Restoration, and indeed the civil wars, and the mention in it of Dun, the public hangman, is one proof of its date ;' and he adds, * it is to be observed that the ballad singer speaks in his own person ; and, were it not for the conclusion, we might suppose that the production was a 'jig' which had been per- formed by a comic actor at the Curtain, the Red Bull, or some other popular place of amusement.' It escaped Mr. Collier that the first five stanzas are in Ben Jonson's play of Bartholomew Fair, acted for the first time on the 3ist October, 1614, at the Hope theatre, Bank- side. The song is sung by Nightingale, a ballad singer in the fair, and immediately afterwards Edgworth, a cut-purse, puts its doctrines into practice by picking the pocket of a country-gentleman, and handing over the purse he has stolen to the ballad singer. The additional verses in the broad sheet, containing the allusion to Dun, the hangman, who seems to have succeeded to his office in 1616, two years after the play was produced, were evidently added afterwards. They extend the ballad to ten verses, and run as follow : The players do tell you, in Bartholomew Fair, What secret consumptions and rascals you are ; For one of their actors, it seems, had the fate By some of your trade to be fleeced of late : Then fall to your prayers, You that are way-layers, They're fit to choose all the world that can cheat players ; For he hath the art, and no man the worse, Whose cunning can pilfer the pilferer's purse. Youth, youth, &c. The plain countryman that comes staring to London, If once you come near him he quickly is undone, For when he amazedly gazeth about, One treads on his toes, and the other pulls it out Then in a strange place, Where he knows no face, His money is gone, 'tis a pitiful case. 118 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. You oft have been told, Both the young and the old, And bidden beware of the Cut-purse so bold ! Then if you take heed not, free me from the curse, Who both give you warning, for, and the Cut-purse. Youth, youth, thou hadst better been starved by thy Than live to be hanged for cutting a purse. [nurse, It hath been upbraided to men of my trade, That oftentimes we are the cause of this crime : Alack, and for pity ! why should it be said, As if they regarded or places or time? The Devil in hell in his trade is not worse, Than Gilter, and Diver, and Cutter of purse. Youth, youth, &c. The poor servant maid wears her purse in her placket, A place of quick feeling, and yet you can take it ; Nor is she aware that you have done the feat, Until she is going to pay for her meat ; Then she cries and rages Amongst the baggages, And swears at one thrust she hath lost all her wages ; For she is engaged her own to disburse, To make good the breach of the cruel Cut-purse. Youth, youth, &c. Your eyes and your fingers are nimble of growth, But Dun many times hath been nimbler than both ; Yet you are deceived by many a slut, But the hangman is only the Cut-purse's cut. It makes you to vex When he bridles your necks, And then, at the last, what becomes of your tricks ? But when you should pray, you begin for to curse The hand that first showed you to slash at a purse. Youth, youth, &c. But now to my hearers this counsel I give, And pray, friends, remember it as long as you live ; Bring out no more cash in purse, pocket, or wallet, Than one single penny to pay for this ballad ; For Cut-purse doth shroud Himself in a cloud, There's many a purse hath been lost in a crowd, For he's the most rogue that doth cry up, and curses, Who first cries, * My masters, beware of your purses.' Oh! youth, &c. An inferior hand may be easily detected in these supplementary verses. It will be seen, also, that the writer changes the alternate rhymes to couplets. BEN JONSON. 119 Examples have been Of some that were seen In Westminster-hall, yea, the pleaders between ; Then why should the judges be free from this curse, More than my poor self for cutting the purse? Youth, youth, &c. At Worcester, 'tis known well, and even in the jail, A knight of good worship did there show his face Against the foul sinners in zeal for to rail, And lost (ipso facto) his purse in the place. Nay, once from the seat Of judgment so great, A judge there did lose a fair purse of velvate. O Lord ! for thy mercy, how wicked, or worse, Are those that so venture their necks for a purse ! Youth, youth, &c. At plays, and at sermons, and at the sessions, 'Tis daily their practice such booty to make ; Yea, under the gallows, at executions, They stick not the stare-abouts' purses to take. Nay, one without grace, At a better place, At court, and in Christmas, before the king's face. Alack, then for pity ! must I bear the curse, That only belongs to the cunning Cut-purse? Youth, youth, &c. But O, you vile nation of Cut-purses all, Relent and repent, and amend and be sound, And know that you ought not by honest men's fall Advance your own fortunes, to die above ground ; And though you go gay In silks as you may, It is not the high way to heaven, as they say. Repent then, repent you, for better, for worse, And kiss not the gallows for cutting a purse. Youth, youth, &c. 120 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. THE NEW INN; OR, THE LIGHT HEART. 1629. A VISION OF BEAUTY. TT was a beauty that I saw * So pure, so perfect, as the frame Of all the universe was lame, To that one figure could I draw, Or give least line of it a law ! A skein of silk without a knot ! A fair march made without a halt ! A curious form without a fault ! A printed book without a blot ! All beauty, and without a spot. THE SAD SHEPHERD; OR, A TALE OF ROBIN LOVE AND DEATH. nPHOUGH I am young and cannot tell -*- Either what death or love is well, Yet I have heard they both bear darts, And both do aim at human hearts ; And then again, I have been told, Love wounds with heat, as death with cold ; So that I fear they do but bring Extremes to touch, and mean one thing. As in a ruin we it call, One thing to be blown up, or fall; Or to our end, like way may have, By a flash of lightning, or a wave : So love's inflamed shaft or brand, May kill as soon as death's cold hand ; Except love's fires the virtue have To fright the frost out of the grave. * This piece, a dramatic pastoral, in the manner of the Faithful Shepherdess of Fletcher, was left unfinished by Jonson at his death. Only two acts, and a fragment of a third, are all that have come down to us. They abound in passages of exquisite beauty, and display his mastery over a species of poetry in which he is least appreciated. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 121 THE FOREST.* TO CELIA. DRINK to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine ; Or leave a kiss but in the cup, And I'll not look for wine. The thirst that from the soul doth rise, Doth ask a drink divine : But might I of Jove's nectar sup, I would not change for thine. I sent thee late a rosy wreath, Not so much honouring thee, As giving it a hope that there It could not withered be ; But thou thereon didst only breathe, And sent'st it back to me ; Since when it grows, and smells, I swear, Not of itself, but thee. FRANCIS BEAUMONT AND JOHN FLETCHER. 15841616. 15791625. [VARIETY, grace, and sweetness are the predominant charac- teristics of Beaumont and Fletcher's songs. They occupy a middle region between Shakespeare and Jonson. The indi- vidual hand of either poet cannot be traced with certainty in any of these pieces. We learn from the traditions which have reached us, that they lived together on the Bank-side, and not only pursued their studies in close companionship, but carried their community of habits so far that they had only one bench between them, and used the same clothes and cloaks in common. Beaumont has got the credit (though the younger man) of possessing the restraining judgment, and Fletcher the overflowing fancy and exuberant wit. There * A collection of Jonson's smaller poems. 122 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. can be no doubt, however, from the allusions of the Pro- logues and Commendatory Verses, that Fletcher had by far the larger share in the plays ; and, if such a conjecture may be hazarded upon internal evidence, the bulk of the songs may be ascribed to him also. They are full of that luxuri- ance and beauty which distinguish the pieces known to have been written by him separately.] THE MAID'S TRAGEDY. CONSTANCY. LAY a garland on my hearse Of the dismal yew ; Maidens, willow branches bear; Say, I died true. My love was false, but I was firm From my hour of birth. Upon my buried body lie Lightly, gentle earth! * FICKLENESS. I COULD never have the power ' To love one above an hour, But my head would prompt mine eye On some other man to fly. Yenus, fix thou mine eyes fast, Or if not, give me all that I shall see at last. THE ELDER BROTHER.* THE STUDENT AWAKENED BY LOVE. T3EAUTY clear and fair, *-^ Where the air Rather like a perfume dwells ; Where the violet and the rose Their blue veins in blush disclose. And came to honour nothing else. * Ascribed to Fletcher. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 123 Where to live near, And planted there, Is to live, and still live new ; Where to gain a favour is More than light, perpetual bliss, Make me live by serving you. Dear, again back recall To this light, A stranger to himself and all ; Both the wonder and the story Shall be yours, and eke the glory : I am your servant, and your thrall. THE SPANISH CUKATE.* SPEAK, LOVE ! f "TiEAREST, do not delay me, *-* Since, thou knowest, I must be gone; Wind and tide, 'tis thought, doth stay me, But 'tis wind that must be blown From that breath, whose native smell Indian odours far excel. Oh, then speak, thou fairest fair ! Kill not him that vows to serve thee; But perfume this neighbouring air,J Else dull silence, sure, will starve me : 'Tis a word that's quickly spoken, Which, being restrained, a heart is broken. * By Fletcher. f This song, and that which immediately follows, not having appeared in the original edition of the Spanish Curate, were removed from the text by Mr. Colman. The authorship is, of course, doubtful ; but the stage directions in the places in which they were inserted indicate that some songs were intended to be introduced by the authors ; and, to whatever hand we are indebted for these, they are entitled to preservation in this collection. J This looks either like the authorship of Fletcher, or an intentional 124 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. COUNTBY FEASTING-. LET the bells ring, and let the boys sing, The young lasses skip and play ; Let the cups go round, 'till round goes the ground ; Our learned old vicar will stay. Let the pig turn merrily, merrily, ah ! And let the fat goose swim; For verily, verily, verily, ah ! Our vicar this day shall be trim.* The stewed cock shall crow, cock-a-loodle-loo, A loud cock-a-loodle shall he crow; The duck and the drake shall swim in a lake Of onions and claret below. Our wives shall be neat, to bring in our meat To thee our most noble adviser; Our pains shall be great, and bottles shall sweat, And we ourselves will be wiser. We'll labour and swink,t we'll kiss and we'll drink, And tithes shall come thicker and thicker; We'll fall to our plough, and get children enow, And thou shalt be learned old vicar. imitation. A similar passage occurs in a preceding song : * Beauty clear and fair, Where the air Rather like a perfume dwells,' &c. * Dibdin appears to have founded the burthen of a song in the Quaker on this verse : ' When the lads of the village shall merrily, ah, Sound the tabors, I'll hand thee along; And I say unto thee, that verily, ah ! Thou and I will be first in the throng.' f To work hard. BEAUMONT AKt> FLETCHER. 125 WIT WITHOUT MONEY. TAKE ME WHILE I J M IN THE VEIN. fit's upon me now, -- The fit's upon me now ! Come quickly, gentle lady, The fit's upon me now! The world shall soon know they're fools, And so shalt thou do too ; Let the cobbler meddle with his tools, The fit's upon me now ! BEGGARS' BUSH.* THE KING- OF THE BEGGARS. CAST our caps and cares away : This is beggar's holiday ! At the crowning of our king, Thus we ever dance and sing. In the world look out and see, Where's so happy a prince as he? "Where the nation lives so free, And so merry as do we? Be it peace, or be it war, Here at liberty we are, And enjoy our ease and rest : To the field we are not pressed; Nor are called into the town, To be troubled with the gown. Hang all offices, we cry, And the magistrate too, by ! When the subsidy's encreased, We are not a penny sessed ; * Ascribed to Fletcher. THE DRAMATISTS. 126 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. Nor will any go to law With the beggar for a straw. All which happiness, he brags, He doth owe unto his rags. THE HUMOROUS LIEUTENANT.* THE LOVE PHILTEB. ~D ISE from the shades below, -" All you that prove The helps of loose love ! Rise, and bestow Upon this cup whatever may compel, By powerful charm and unresisted spell, A heart un warmed to melt in love's desires ! Distil into liquor all your fires ; Heats, longings, tears; But keep back frozen fears; That she may know, that has all power defied^, Art is a power that will not be denied. THE FAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS, t THE SATYE.J yon same bending plain * That flings his arms down to the main, And through these thick woods, have I run, Whose bottom never kissed the sun * Also ascribed to Fletcher by the writers of the commendatory verses, and confirmed by the authority of a MS. referred to by Mr. Dyce. f The sole production of Fletcher. J The lyrical character of this soliloquy of the Satyr, and of two or three similar pieces extracted from the same pastoral comedy, may be allowed to justify their insertion in this volume, if their beauty stand in need of any plea for their admission. Mr. Seward traces an imitation of Shakespeare's Midsummer BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 127 Since the lusty spring began ; All to please my Master Pan, Have I trotted without rest To get him fruit ; for at a feast He entertains, this coming night, His paramour, the Syrinx bright. But, behold a fairer sight ! By that heavenly form of thine, Brightest fair, thou art divine, Sprung from great immortal raoo Of the gods ; for in thy face Shines more awful majesty, Than dull weak mortality Dare with misty eyes behold, And live ! Therefore on this mould Lowly do I bend my knee In worship of thy deity. Deign it, goddess, from my hand, To receive whate'er this land From her fertile womb doth send Of her choice fruits ; and but lend Belief to that the Satyr tells: Fairer by the famous wells To this present day ne'er grew, Never better nor more true. Here be grapes, whose lusty blood Is the learned poet's good, Sweeter yet did never crown The head of Bacchus; nuts more brown Night's Dream in the beginning and ending of this soliloquy. The pas- sage is in the speech of the Fairy : ' Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire,' &c. A still closer imitation of Fletcher himself may be found in the Comus of Milton, which owes large obligations not only to the imagery and general treatment, but to the plan of the Faithful Shepherdess. 9 3 128 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. Than the squirrel's teeth that crack them; Deign, oh fairest fair, to take them ! For these black-eyM Dryope Hath often-times commanded me With my clasped knee to climb : See how well the lusty time Hath decked their rising cheeks in red, Such as on your lips is spread ! Plere be berries for a queen, Some be red, some be green; These are of that luscious meat, The great god Pan himself doth eat : All these, and what the woods can yield, The hanging mountain, or the field, I freely offer, and ere long "Will bring you more, more sweet and strong: Till when, humbly leave I take, Lest the great Pan do awake, That sleeping lies in a deep glade, Under a broad beech's shade. I must go, I must run Swifter than the fiery sun. THE PEAISES OF PAN. is praises that doth keep M Our flocks from harm, Pan, the father of our sheep ; And arm in arm . Tread we softly in a round, "Whilst the hollow neighbouring ground Fills the music with her sound. Pan, oh, great god Pan, to thee Thus do we sing ! Thou that keep'st us chaste and free As the young spring ; Ever be thy honour spoke, From that place the morn is spoke, To that place day doth unyoke ! BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 129 THE INVITATION. , shepherds, come! ^ Come away Without delay Whilst the gentle time doth stay. Green woods are dumb, And will never tell to any Those dear kisses, and those many Sweet embraces, that are given, Dainty pleasures, that would even Raise in coldest age a fire, And give virgin blood desire. Then, if ever, Now or never, Come and have it : Think not I Dare deny, If you crave it. EVENING SONG OF PAN'S PEIEST. OHEPHERDS all, and maidens fair, M Fold your flocks up, for the air 'Gins to thicken, and the sun Already his great course hath run. See the dew-drops how they kiss Every little flower that is, Hanging on their velvet heads, Like a rope of crystal beads : See the heavy clouds low falling, And bright Hesperus down calling The dead Night from under ground ; At whose rising mists unsound, Damps and vapours fly apace, Hovering o'er the wanton face Of these pastures, where they come, Striking dead both bud and bloom : 130 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. Therefore, from such danger lock Every one his loved flock; And let your dogs lie loose without, Lest the wolf come as a scout From the mountain, and, ere day, Bear a lamb or kid away; Or the crafty thievish fox Break upon your simple flocks. To secure yourselves from these, Be not too secure in ease; Let one eye his watches keep, Whilst the other eye doth sleep ; So you shall good shepherds prove, And for ever hold the love Of our great god. Sweetest slumbers, And soft silence, fall in numbers On your eye -lids ! So, farewell ! Thus I end my evening's knell. THE SULLEN SHEPHERD TO AMABILLIS ASLEEP. FEOM thy forehead thus I take These herbs, and charge thee not awake 'Till in yonder holy well Thrice, with powerful magic spell, Filled with many a baleful word, Thou hast been dipped. Thus, with my chord Of blasted hemp, by moonlight twined, I do thy sleepy body bind. I turn thy head unto the east,* And thy feet unto the west, Thy left arm to the south put forth, And thy right unto the north. I take thy body from the ground, In this deep and deadly swound, * Thus in Cymbeline: ' Nay, Cadwal, we must lay his head to the east ; My father had a reason for't.' BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 131 And into this holy spring I let thee slide down by my string. Take this maid, thou holy pit, To thy bottom; nearer yet; In thy water pure and sweet, By thy leave I dip her feet; Thus I let her lower yet, That her ankles may be wet; Yet down lower, let her knee In thy waters washed be. There stop. Fly away,* Everything that loves the day ! Truth, that hath but one face, Thus I charm thee from this place. Snakes that cast your coats for new, Chamelions that alter hue, Hares that yearly sexes change, Proteus altering oft and strange, Hecate, with shapes three, Let this maiden changed be, With this holy water wet, To the shape of Amoret ! Cynthia, work thou with my charm ! Thus I draw thee, free from harm, Up out of this blessM lake. Rise both like her and awake ! THE SATYB'S WATCH. NOW, whilst the moon doth rule the sky, And the stars, whose feeble light Give[s] a pale shadow to the night, * Regarding this line as an ' unmusical hemistich' occasioned pro- bably ' by the loss of one or more words,' Mr. Seward and Mr. Sympson altered it to ' There I stop. Now fly away.' With such scrupulous ears for syllabic completeness, it is surprising they did not fill out a hemistich that occurs a few lines lower down, and that is really unmusical. The abruptness of the line they have altered was obviously intentional. 132 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. Are up, great Pan commanded me To walk this grove about, whilst he, In a corner of the wood, Where never mortal foot hath stood, Keeps dancing, music, and a feast, To entertain a lovely guest : Where he gives her many a rose, Sweeter than the breath that blows The leaves, grapes, berries of the best ; I never saw so great a feast. But, to my charge. Here must I stay, To see what mortals lose their way, And by a false fire, seeming bright, Train them in and leave them right. Then must I watch if any be Forcing of a chastity ; If I find it, then in haste Give my wreathed horn a blast, And the fairies all will run, Wildly dancing by the moon, And will pinch him to the bone, Till his lustful thoughts be gone. Back again about this ground; Sure I hear a mortal sound. I bind thee by this powerful spell, By the waters of this well, By the glimmering moon-beams bright, Speak again, thou mortal wight ! Here the foolisfy mortal lies, Sleeping on the ground. Arise ! The poor wight is almost dead ; On the ground his wounds have bled, And his clothes fouled with his blood : To my goddess in the wood Will I lead him, whose hands pure Will help this mortal wight to cure. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHEE. 133 AMOEET AND THE EIVEE-GOD, God. TT7HAT powerful charms my streams do * * Back again unto their spring, [bring With such force, that I their god, Three times striking with my rod, Could not keep them in their ranks'? My fishes shoot into the banks; There's not one that stays and feeds, All have hid them in the weeds. Here's a mortal almost dead, Fallen into my river-head, Hallowed so with many a spell, That till now none ever fell. 'Tis a female young and clear, Cast in by some ravisher : See upon her breast a wound, On which there is no plaster bound. Yet she's warm, her pulses beat, 'Tis a sign of life and heat. If thou be'st a virgin pure, I can give a present cure : Take a drop into thy wound, From my watery locks, more round Than orient pearl, and far more pure Than unchaste flesh may endure. See, she pants, and from her flesh The warm blood gusheth out afresh. She is an unpolluted maid; I must have this bleeding staid. From my banks I pluck this flower With holy hand, whose virtuous power Is at once to heal and draw. The blood returns. I never saw A fairer mortal. Now doth break Her deadly slumber. Virgin, speak, [breath, Amoret. Who hath restored my sense, given me new And brought me back out of the arms of death 1 134 SONGS FROM THE DEAMATISTS. God. I have healed thy wounds. Amoret. Ah me ! God. Fear not him that succoured thee. I am this fountain's god. Below, My waters to a river grow, And 'twixt two banks with osiers set, That only prosper in the wet, Through the meadows do they glide, Wheeling still on every side, Sometimes winding round about, To find the evenest channel out. And if thou wilt go with me, Leaving mortal company, In the cool streams shalt thou lie, Free from harm as well as I : I will give thee for thy food No fish that useth in the mud; But trout and pike, that love to swim Where the gravel from the brim Through the pure streams may be seen : Orient pearl fit for a queen Will I give, thy love to win, And a shell to keep them in ; Not a fish in all my brook That shall disobey thy look, But, when thou wilt, come sliding by, And from thy white hand take a fly : And to make thee understand How I can my waves command, They shall bubble whilst I sing, Sweeter than the silver string. The Song. Do not fear to put thy feet Naked in the river sweet; Think not leech, or newt, or toad, Will bite thy foot, when thou hast trod ; BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 135 Nor let the water rising high, As thou wad'st in, make thee cry And sob; but ever live with me, And not a wave shall trouble thee ! SONG TO PAN. ALL ye woods, and trees, and bowers, All ye virtues and ye powers That inhabit in the lakes, In the pleasant springs or brakes, Move your feet To our sound, Whilst we greet All this ground With his honour and his name That defends our flocks from blame. He is great, and he is just, He is ever good, and must Thus be honoured. Daffodillies, Roses, pinks, and loved lilies, Let us fling, Whilst we sing, Ever holy, Ever holy, Ever honoured, ever young ! Thus great Pan is ever sung. THE SATYR'S LEAVE-TAKING. divinest, fairest, brightest, Thou most powerful maid, and whitest, Thou most virtuous and most blessed, Eyes of stars, and golden tressed Like Apollo ! tell me, sweetest, What new service now is meetest For the Satyr? Shall I stray In the middle air, and stay 136 SONGS FKOM THE DRAMATISTS. The sailing rack, or nimbly take Hold by the moon, and gently make Suit to the pale queen of night For a beam to give thee light? Shall I dive into the sea, And bring thee coral, making way Through the rising waves that fall . In snowy fleeces'? Dearest, shall I catch thee wanton fawns, or flies Whose woven wings the summer dyes Of many colours 1 get thee fruit, Or steal from Heaven old Orpheus' lute? All these I'll venture for, and more, To do her service all these woods adore. Holy virgin, I will dance Round about these woods as quick As the breaking light, and prick Down the lawns and down the vales Faster than the wind-mill sails. So I take my leave, and pray All the comforts of the day, Such as Phoebus' heat doth send On the earth, may still befriend Thee and this arbour !* * The functions of the Satyr in this pastoral and the Attendant Spirit in Comus are identical ; and there are few passages in Milton finer or more exquisite than this last address of the Satyr. The fare- well of the Attendant Spirit is a direct imitation, and the lines toward the end are inferior in beauty to the original. The couplet, ' But now my task is smoothly done, I can fly, or I can run,' is transplanted almost verbally from the first speech of the Satyr : 1 1 must go, and I must run, Swifter than the fiery sun.' As a whole, however, the last speech of the Attendant Spirit transcends its prototype in magnificence of versification, and the gorgeous loveliness of its imagery. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHEE. 137 THE MAD LOVER.* THE LOVER'S LEGACY TO HIS CBTJEL MISTRESS. O, happy heart ! for thou shalt lie Intombed in her for whom I die, Example of her cruelty. Tell her, if she chance to chide Me for slowness, in her pride, That it was for her I died. If a tear escape her eye, 'Tis not for my memory, But thy rites of obsequy. The altar was my loving breast, My heart the sacrificed beast, And I was myself the priest. Your body was the sacred shrine, Your cruel mind the power divine, Pleased with the hearts of men, not kine. THE WARNING OF ORPHEUS. I am, come from the deeps below, ^ To thee, fond man, the plagues of love to show. To the fair fields where loves eternal dwell There's none that come, but first they pass through hell : Hark, and beware ! unless thou hast loved, ever Beloved again, thou shalt see those joys never. Hark ! how they groan that died despairing ! Oh, take heed, then ! Hark, how they howl for over-daring ! All these were men. They that be fools, and die for fame, They lose their name ; And they that bleed Hark how they speed. * Ascribed to Fletcher. 138 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. "Now in cold frosts, now scorching fires They sit, and curse their lost desires; Nor shall these souls be free from pains and fears, 'Till women wafb them over in their tears. TO VENUS. OH, fair sweet goddess, queen of loves, Soft and gentle as thy doves, Humble-eyed, and ever rueing These poor hearts, their loves pursuing ! Oh, thou mother of delights, Crowner of all happy nights, Star of dear content and pleasure, Of mutual loves the endless treasure ! Accept this sacrifice we bring, Thou continual youth and spring; Grant this lady her desires, And every hour we'll crown thy fires. THE BATTLE OF PELUSITTM. A KM, arm, arm, arm! the scouts are all come in; -*- Keep your ranks close, and now your honours win. Behold from yonder hill the foe appears; Bows, bills, glaves, arrows, shields, and spears ! Like a dark wood* he comes, or tempest pouring; Oh, view the wings of horse the meadows scouring. The van-guard marches bravely. Hark, the drums ! Dub, dub. They meet, they meet, and now the battle comes : * One of the commentators proposes to read cloud for wood. These emendations are very provoking, because they are supported by a cer- tain show of reason. But the writers of this hurricane song were not thinking of the literal reason of the matter, but of the suggestiveness of the image. And they have succeeded better than their critic. The coming of the dark wood is grander than the cloud. The rout and uproar of battle are admirably depicted. There are few specimens of this kind in these Dramatic Songs. The most animated and picturesque is a Sea-fight by Dry den. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHEK. 139 See how the arrows fly, That darken all the sky ! Hark how the trumpets sound, Hark how the hills rebound, Tara, tara, tara, tara, tara! Hark how the horses charge ! in, boys, boys, in ! The battle totters; now the wounds begin: Oh, how they cry ! Oh, how they die ! Room for the valiant Memnon, armed with thunder ! See how he breaks the ranks asunder ! They fly ! they fly ! Eumenes has the chase, And brave Polybius makes good his place. To the plains, to the woods, To the rocks, to the floods, They fly for succour. Follow, follow, follow ! Hark how the soldiers hollow ! Hey, hey I Brave Diocles is dead, And all his soldiers fled; The battle's won, and lost, That many a life hath cost. THE LOYAL SUBJECT.* THE BROOM-MAN'S SONG. "DROOM, broom, the bonny broom! *J Come, buy my birchen broom : In the wars we have no more room, Buy all my bonny broom ! For a kiss take two ; If those will not do, For a little, little pleasure, Take all my whole treasure : If all these will not do't, Take the broom-man to boot. Broom, broom, the bonny broom i * By Fletcher. 140 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. THE FALSEONE. TO CJESAH AND CLEOPATEA ON THE NILE. Isis. TSIS, the goddess of this land, -* Bids thee, great Caesar, understand And mark our customs : and first know, With greedy eyes these watch the glow Of plenteous Nilus ; when he comes, With songs, with dances, timbrels, drums, They entertain him; cut his way, And give his proud heads leave to play ; Nilus himself shall rise, and shew His matchless wealth in overflow. Labourers. Come, let us help the reverend Nile ; He's very old ; alas, the while ! Let us dig him easy ways, And prepare a thousand plays : To delight his streams, let's sing A loud welcome to our spring; This way let his curling heads Fall into our new-made beds; This way let his wanton spawns Frisk, and glide it o'er the lawns. This way profit comes, and gain: How he tumbles here amain ! How his waters haste to fall Into our channels ! Labour, all, And let him in ; let Nilus flow, And perpetual plenty shew. With incense let us bless the brim. And, as the wanton fishes swim, Let us gums and garlands fling. And loud our timbrels ring. Come, old father, come away ! Our labour is our holiday. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 141 Enter Nilus. Isis. Here comes the aged river now, With garlands of great pearl his brow Begirt and rounded. In his flow All things take life, and all things grow : A thousand wealthy treasures still, To do him service at his will, Follow his rising flood, and pour Perpetual blessings on our store. Hear him; and next there will advance His sacred heads to tread a dance, In honour of 'my royal guest : Mark them too; and you have a feast. Nilus. Make room for my rich waters' fall, And bless my flood; Nilus comes flowing to you all Encrease and good. Now the plants and flowers shall spring, And the merry ploughman sing : In my hidden waves I bring Bread, and wine, and everything. Let the damsels sing me in, Sing aloud, that I may rise : Your holy feasts and hours begin, And each hand bring a sacrifice. Now my wanton pearls I shew, That to ladies' fair necks grow ; Now my gold, And treasures that can ne'er be told, Shall bless this land, by my rich flow; And after this, to crown your eyes, My hidden holy heads arise. THE DRAMATISTS. 10 142 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. THE LITTLE FRENCH LAWYER. SONG- IN THE WOOD. way, this way come, and hear, -*- You that hold these pleasures dear ; Fill your ears with our sweet sound, Whilst we melt the frozen ground. This way come ; make haste, oh, fair ! Let your clear eyes gild the air; Come, and bless us with your sight ; This way, this way, seek delight ! THE TRAGEDY OF VALENTINIAN, THE LUSTY SPEINGL TVTOW the lusty spring is seen; -L^ Golden yellow, gaudy blue, Daintily invite the view. Everywhere on every green, Roses blushing as they blow, And enticing men to pull, Lilies whiter than the snow. Woodbines of sweet honey full : All love's emblems, and all cry, ' Ladies, if not plucked, we die.' Yet the lusty spring hath stayed, Blushing red and purest white Daintily to love invite Every woman, every maid. Cherries kissing as they grow, And inviting men to taste, Apples even ripe below, Winding gently to the waist : All love's emblems, and all cry, ' Ladies, if not plucked, we die.' BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 143 HEAR WHAT LOVE CAN DO. HEAB, ye ladies that despise, What the mighty lore has done ; Fear examples, and be wise : Fair Calisto was a nun; Leda, sailing on the stream To deceive the hopes of man, Love accounting but a dream, Doated on a silver swan ; Danae, in a brazen tower, Where no love was, loved a shower* Hear, ye ladies that are coy, r What the mighty love can do; Fear the fierceness of the boy : The chaste moon he makes to woo ; Yesta, kindling holy fires, Circled round about with spies, Never dreaming loose desires, Doting at the altar dies; Ilion, in a short hour, higher He can build, and once more fire. MONSIEUR' THOMAS.* THE MAID IN THE WINDOW. M- [Y man Thomas Did me promise, He would visit me this night. I am here, love; Tell me, dear love, How I may obtain thy sight. Come up to my window, love ; Come, come, come! * By Fletcher. 102 144 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. Come to my window, my dear ; The wind nor the rain Shall trouble thee again, But thou shalt be lodged here. THE CHANCES.* AN INVOCATION. COME away, thou lady gay : Hoist ! how she stumbles ! Hark how she mumbles. Dame Gillian ! Answer. I come, I come. By old Claret I enlarge thee, By Canary thus I charge thee, By Britain Metheglin, and Peeter,t Appear, and answer me in metre ! Why, when? Why, Gill! Why when? Answer. You'll tarry till I am ready. Once again I conjure thee, By the pose in thy nose, And the gout in thy toes ; By thine old dried skin, And the mummy within ; By thy little, little ruff, And thy hood that's made of stuff; By thy bottle at thy breech, And thine old salt itch; * Ascribed to Fletcher. f An abbreviation of Peter-see-me, itself a corruption of Pedro- Ximenes, derived from Pedro-Simon, who is said to have imported the grape from the Rhine. See note by Mr. Dyce, from Henderson's History of Wines Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, vii. 297- Ximenes is still a well-known wine. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 145 By the stakes, and the stones, That have worn out thy bones, Appear, Appear, Appear ! Answer. Oh, I am here ! THE BLOODY BROTHER; OR, ROLLO, DUKE OF NORMANDY.* A DEINKING SONG. DRINK to-day, and drown all sorrow, You shall perhaps not do it to-morrow : Best, while you have it, use your breath ; There is no drinking after death. Wine works the heart up, wakes the wit, There is no cure 'gainst age but it : It helps the head-ach, cough, and ptisick, And is for all diseases physick. Then let us swill, boys, for our health; Who drinks well, loves the commonwealth, t And he that will to bed go sober Falls with the leaf, still in October.:}: * The sole authorship of this play by Fletcher is doubtful, although ascribed to him on the title-page of the edition of 1640. Parts of it are supposed, on internal evidence, to have been written by some other dramatist. Weber suggests either W. Rowley or Middleton. f This defence of drinking is repeated and expanded in a song by Shadwell. J The following well-known catch, or glee, is formed on this song : ' He who goes to bed, and goes to bed sober, Falls as the leaves do, and dies in October ; But he who goes to bed, and goes to bed mellow, Lives as he ought to do, and dies an honest fellow.' 146 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. SONG OF THE YEOMAN OF THE CELLAE, THE BUTLER, THE COOK. AND PAUL THE PANTLER* GOING TO EXECUTION. Yeoman. /^lOME, Fortune's a jade, I care not who tell her, ^ Would offer to strangle a page of the cellar, That should by his oath, to any man's thinking, And place, have had a defence for his drinking; But thus she does still when she pleases to palter, Instead of his wages, she gives him a halter. Chorus. Three merry boys, and three merry boys. And three merry boys are we, As ever did sing in a hempen string Under the gallows tree ! Butler. But I that was so lusty, And ever kept my bottles, That neither they were musty, And seldom less than pottles; For me to be thus stopped now, With hemp instead of cork, sir, And from the gallows lopped now, Shews that there is a fork, sir, In death, and this the token; Man may be two ways killed, Or like the bottle broken, Or like the wine be spilled. Chorus. Three merry boys, &c. Cook. Oh, yet but look On the master cook, * The P antler was the servant who had charge of the pantry. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 147 The glory of the kitchen, In sewing whose fate, At so lofty a rate, No tailor e'er had stitch in; For, though he made the man, The cook yet makes the dishes, The which no tailor can, Wherein I have my wishes, That I, who at so many a feast Have pleased so many tasters, Should now myself come to be dressed, A dish for you, my masters. Chorus. Three merry boys, &c. Pantler. Oh, man or beast, Or you, at least, That wears or brow or antler, Prick up your ears Unto the tears Of me, poor Paul the Pantler, That thus am clipped Because I chipped The cursed crust of treason With loyal knife : * Oh, doleful strife, To hang thus without reason ! Chorus. Three merry boys, &c. TAKE, OH! TAKE THOSE LIPS AWAY. HP A KE, oh ! take those lips away, -*- That so sweetly were forsworn, And those eyes, like break of day, Lights that do mislead the morn ! But my kisses bring again, Seals of love, though sealed in vain. Hide, oh, hide those hills of snow, Which thy frozen bosom bears, 148 SONGS FROM THE DEAMATISTS. On whose tops the pinks that grow Are yet of those that April wears ! But first set my poor heart free, Bound in those icy chains by thee.* A WIFE FOR A MONTH.t TO THE BLEST EVANTHE. T ET those complain that feel Love's cruelty, --^ And in sad legends write their woes ; With roses gently h' has corrected me, My war is without rage or blows : My mistress' eyes shine fair on my desires, And hope springs up inflamed with her new fires. No more an exile will I dwell, With folded arms, and sighs all day, Reckoning the torments of my hell, And flinging my sweet joys away : I am called home again to quiet peace; My mistress smiles, and all my sorrows cease. * The first stanza of this song is found in Measure for Measure. See ante, p. 95. The origin of both verses may be traced to the frag- ment Ad Lydiam, ascribed to Cornelius Gallus. The following are the corresponding passages, which discover a resemblance too close to have been merely accidental : ' Pande, Puella, genas roseas, Perfusas rubro purpureae tyriae. Porrige labra, labra cotfallina ; Da columbatim mitia basia : Sugis amentis partem animi. Sinus expansa profert cinnama; Undique surgunt ex te deliciae. Conde papillas, quae me sauciant Candore, et luxu nivei pectoris.' The English version of the second of these passages, by the translator of Secundus, is still nearer to Fletcher's song. * Again, above its envious rest, See, thy bosom heaves confest ! Hide the rapturous, dear delight ! Hide it from my ravished sight ! Hide it ! for through all my soul Tides of maddening rapture roll.' f By Fletcher. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHEE. 149 Yet, what is living in her eye, Or being blessed with her sweet tongue, If these no pther joys imply? A golden gyve, a pleasing wrong : To be your own but one poor month, I'd give My youth, my fortune, and then leave to live. THE LOVERS' PRO GEES S.* THE SONG- OP THE DEAD HOST. 7f THIS late and cold; stir up the fire; -*- Sit close, and draw the table nigher; Be merry, and drink wine that's old, A hearty medicine 'gainst a cold : Your beds of wanton down the best, Where you shall tumble to your rest; I could wish you wenches too, But I am dead, and cannot do. Call for the best the house may ring, Sack, white, and claret, let them bring, And drink apace, while breath you have; You'll find but cold drink in the grave : Plover, partridge, for your dinner, And a capon for the sinner, You shall find ready when you're up, And your horse shall have his sup : Welcome, welcome, shall fly round, And I shall smile, though under ground. THE PILGRIM, t NEPTTJNE COMMANDING STILLNESS ON THE SEA. IT) OWN, ye angry waters all! *~* Ye loud whistling whirlwinds, fall ! Down, ye proud waves ! ye storms, cease ! I command ye, be at peace ! * One of the pieces left unfinished by Fletcher, and completed by ; another writer supposed to be Shirley, or Massinger. f Ascribed to Fletcher. 150 SONGS FEOM THE DKAMATISTS. Fright not with your churlish notes, Nor bruise the keel of bark that floats; No devouring fish come nigh, Nor monster in my empery Once show his head, or terror bring; But let the weary sailor sing : Amphitrite with white arms Strike my lute, I'll sing thy charms. THE CAPTAIN.* THE CATECHISM OF LOVE. TELL me, dearest, what is love? 'Tis a lightning from above; 'Tis an arrow, 'tis a fire, 'Tis a boy they call Desire. 'Tis a grave, Gapes to have Those poor fools that long to prove. Tell me more, are women true? Yes, some are, and some as you. Some are willing, some are strange, Since you men first taught to change And till troth Be in both, All shall love, to love anew. Tell me more yet, can they grieve? Yes, and sicken sore, but live, And be wise, and delay, When you men are as wise as they. Then I see, Faith will be, Never till they both believe, t * The Prologue speaks of only one author, one writer of com- mendatory verses ascribes it to both Beaumont and Fletcher, the rest to Fletcher alone. f The music of this song was composed by Robert Jones. The first BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 151 THE INVITATION. COME hither, you that love, and hear me sing Of joys still growing, Green, fresh, and lusty as the pride of spring, And ever blowing. Come hither, youths that blush, and dare not know What is desire; And old men, worse than you, that cannot blow One spark of fire ; And with the power of my enchanting song, Boys shall be able men, and old men young. Come hither, you that hope, and you that cry; Leave off complaining; Youth, strength, and beauty, that shall never die, Are here remaining. Come hither, fools, and blush you stay so long From being blessed ; And mad men, worse than you, that suffer wrong, Yet seek no rest; And in an hour, with my enchanting song, You shall be ever pleased, and young maids long. two verses are repeated in The Knight of the Burning Pestle, with some variations. ' Tell me, dearest, what is love? 'Tis a lightning from above ; 'Tis an arrow, 'tis a fire ; 'Tis a boy they call Desire. 'Tis a smile Doth beguile The poor hearts of men that prove. Tell me more, are women true? Some love change, and so do you. Are they fair, and never kind ? Yes, when men turn with the wind. Are they froward ? Ever toward Those that love, to love anew.' 152 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. THE QUEEN OF CORINTH.* A 'SAD SONG-.' TTTEEP no more, nor sigh, nor groan, Sorrow calls no time that's gone : Violets plucked, the sweetest rain Makes not fresh nor grow again ;t Trim thy locks, look cheerfully ; Fate's hidden ends eyes cannot see : Joys as winged dreams fly fast, Why should sadness longer last 1 ? Grief is but a wound to woe ; Gentlest fair, mourn, mourn no mo. THE KNIGHT OF THE BURNING PESTLE. THE HEALTHINESS OF MIRTH. ?r PIS mirth that fills the veins with blood, -- More than wine, or sleep, or food; Let each man keep his heart at ease ; No man dies of that disease. He that would his body keep From diseases, must not weep; But whoever laughs and sings, Never he his body brings Into fevers, gouts, or rheums, Or lingeringly his lungs consumes; Or meets with aches in his bone, Or catarrhs, or griping stone : But contented lives for aye; The more he laughs, the more he may. * Ascribed to Fletcher. f This most exquisite passage is thus embodied by Bishop Percy in his ballad of The Friar of Orders Grey: * Weep no more, lady, weep no more ; Thy sorrow is in vain : For violets plucked the sweetest showers Will ne'er make grow again.' BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 153 DIEGKE FOE THE FAITHFUL LOVEE. , you whose loves are dead, And, whiles I sing, Weep, and wring Every hand, and every head Bind with cypress and sad yew; Ribbons black and candles blue For him that was of men most true ! Come with heavy moaning, And on his grave Let him have Sacrifice of sighs and groaning ; Let him have fair flowers enow, White and purple, green and yellow, For him that was of men most true ! LIVE WELL AND BE IDLE. WOULD not be a serving-man - To carry the cloak-bag still, Nor would I be a falconer The greedy hawks to fill; But I would be in a good house, And have a good master too ; But I would eat and drink of the best, And no work would I do. JILLIAN OF BEEET. TjpOB, Jillian of Berry, she dwells on a hill, -- And she hath good beer and ale to sell, And of good fellows she thinks no ill, And thither will we go now, now, now, And thither we will go now. And when you have made a little stay, You need not ask what is to pay, But kiss your hostess, and go your way; And thither, &c. 154 SONGS PROM THE DRAMATISTS. THE SONG OF MAY-DAY. T OKDOlsr, to thee I do present *-* The merry month of May; Let each true subject be content To hear me what I say : For from the top of conduit-head, As plainly may appear, I will both tell my name to you, And wherefore I came here. My name is Ealph, by due descent, Though not ignoble I, Yet far inferior to the flock Of gracious grocery; And by the common counsel of My fellows in the Strand, With gilded staff and crossed scarf, The May-lord here I stand. Rejoice, oh, English hearts, rejoice ! Rejoice, oh, lovers dear! Rejoice, oh, city, town, and country, Rejoice eke every shire! For now the fragrant flowers do spring And sprout in seemly sort, The little birds do sit and sing, The lambs do make fine sport; And now the birchen-tree doth bud, That makes the schoolboy cry; The morris rings, while hobby-horse Doth foot it feateously; The lords and ladies now abroad, For their disport and play, Do kiss sometimes upon the grass, And sometimes in the hay. Now butter with a leaf of sage Is good to purge the blood ; Fly Venus and phlebotomy, For they are neither good ! BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 155 Now little fish on tender stone Begin to cast their bellies, . A.nd sluggish snails, that erst were mewed, Do creep out of their shellies ; The rumbling rivers now do warm, For little boys to paddle; The sturdy steed now goes to grass, And up they hang his saddle; The heavy hart, the blowing buck, The rascal, and the pricket, Are now among the yeoman's pease, And leave the fearful thicket ; And be like them, oh, you, I say, Of this same noble town, And lift aloft your velvet heads, And slipping off your gown, With bells on legs, and napkins clean Unto your shoulders tied, With scarfs and garters as you please, And ' Hey for our town I' cried, March out, and shew your willing minds, By twenty and by twenty, To Hogsdon, or to Newington, Where ale and cakes are plenty ; And let it ne'er be said for shame, That we the youths of London Lay thrumming of our caps at home, And left our custom undone. Up then, I say, both young and old, Both man and maid a-maying, With drums and guns that bounce aloud, And merry tabor playing ! Which to prolong, God save our king, And send his country peace, And root out treason from the land ! And so, my friends, I cease. 156 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. THE MAID IN THE MILL.* LET THE MILL GO EOUKD. "Vf O W having leisure, and a happy wind, A^ Thou mayst at pleasure cause the stones to grind ; Sails spread, and grist have ready to be ground ; Fy, stand not idly, but let the mill go round ! .How long shall I pine for love 1 How long shall I sue in vain 1 ? How long like the turtle-dove, Shall I heavily thus complain 1 ? Shall the sails of my love stand still? Shall the grist of my hopes be unground? Ohfy, ohfy, ohfy! Let the mill, let the mill go round ! WOMEN PLEASED. THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. OH, fair sweet face ! oh, eyes celestial bright, Twin stars in heaven, that now adorn the night ! Oh, fruitful lips, where cherries ever grow, And damask cheeks, where all sweet beauties blow ! Oh thou, from head to foot divinely fair ! Cupid's most cunning net's made of that hair; And, as he weaves himself for curious eyes, ' Oh me, oh me, I'm caught myself!' he cries : Sweet rest about thee, sweet and golden sleep, Soft peaceful thoughts your hourly watches keep, Whilst I in wonder sing this sacrifice, To beauty sacred, and those angel eyes ! WHAT WOMEN MOST DESIKE. Question. rFELL me what is that only thing J- For which all women long ; Yet having what they most desire, To have it does them wrong] The joint production of Fletcher and W. Rowley. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 157 Answer. 'Tis not to be chaste, nor fair, (Such gifts malice may impair,) Richly trimmed, to walk or ride, Or to wanton unespied; To preserve an honest name, And so to give it up to fame; These are toys. In good or ill They desire to have their will : Yet, when they have it, they abuse it, For they know not how to use it.* CUPID S REVENGE. SACRIFICE TO CTJPID. , my children, let your feet In an even measure meet, And your cheerful voices rise, To present this sacrifice To great Cupid, in whose name, I his priest begin the same. Young men, take your loves and kiss; Thus our Cupid honored is ; Kiss again, and in your kissing Let no promises be missing; Nor let any maiden here Dare to turn away her ear Unto the whisper of her love, But give bracelet, ring, or glove, As a token to her sweeting, Of an after secret meeting. Now, boy, sing, to stick our hearts Fuller of great Cupid's darts. * This solution of the question is to be found in the Wife of Bath's Tale, and, doubtless, was a common saw from time immemorial. But Chaucer spares the ladies the ungallant commentary with which the song closes. THE DRAMATISTS. II 158 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. LOVEES REJOICE ! T OVERS, rejoice! your pains shall be rewarded, -*-^ The god of love himself grieves at your crying ; No more shall frozen honor be regarded, Nor the coy faces of a maid denying. No more shall virgins sigh, and say ' We dare not, ' For men are false, and what they do they care not.' All shall be well again; then do not grieve; Men shall be true, and women shall believe. Lovers, rejoice! what you shall say henceforth, When you have caught your sweethearts in your arms, It shall be accounted oracle and worth ; No more faint-hearted girls shall dream of harms, And cry ' They are too young' ; the god hath said, Fifteen shall make a mother of a maid : Then, wise men, pull your roses yet unblown; Love hates the too-ripe fruit that falls alone. PEATEE TO CUPID. /^ CJPID, pardon what is past, ^ And forgive our sins at last ! Then we will be coy no more, But thy deity adore; Troths at fifteen we will plight, And will tread a dance each night, In the fields, or by the fire, With the youths that have desire. Given ear-rings we will wear, Bracelets of our lovers' hair, Which they on our arms shall twist, With their names carved, on our wrist ; All the money that we owe* We in tokens will bestow; Ownpossess. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 159 And learn to write that, when 'tis sent, Only our loves know what is meant. Oh, then pardon what is past, And forgive our sins at last ! THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN.* A BRIDAL SONG. ROSES, their sharp spines being gone, Not royal in their smells alone, But in their hue; Maiden-pinks, of odour faint, Daisies smell-less, yet most quaint, And sweet thyme time ; Primrose, first-born child of Yer, Merry spring-time's harbinger, With her bells dim; Oxlips in their cradles growing, Marigolds on death-beds blowing, Lark-heels trim. All, dear Nature's children sweet, Lie 'fore bride and bridegroom's feet, Blessing their sense ! Not an angel of the air, Bird melodious, or bird fair, Be absent hence ! The crow, the slanderous cuckoo, noi The boding raven, nor chough hoar,t * Stated in the first 4to edition, 1634, to be the joint production of Fletcher and Shakespeare. j* In the old editions, this line runs ' The boding raven, nor clough he ;' Mr. Sevrard altered it as above, to respond to the rhyme and the sense. There is some difficulty in accepting the original reading. Cl&ugh means a break or valley in the side of a hill, and the poet is 112 160 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. Nor chattering pie, May on our bride-house perch or sing, Or with them any discord bring. But from it fly ! THE DIKGE OP THE THEEE KINGS. T7RNS and odours bring away ! ^ Vapours, sighs, darken the day ! Our dole more deadly looks than dying ; Balms, and gums, and heavy cheers, Sacred vials filled with tears, And clamours through the wild air flying! Come, all sad and solemn shows, That are quick-eyed Pleasure's foes ! We convent nought else but woes. THE JAILOB'S DATTGHTEE. 1C 1 OR I'll cut my green coat, a foot above my knee; J- And I'll clip my yellow locks, an inch below mine Hey, nonny, nonny, nonny. [ eve - He's buy me a white cut, forth for to ride, And I'll go seek him through the world that is so wide : Hey, nonny, nonny, nonny. THE WOMAN-HATER. INVOCATION TO SLEEP. Sleep, and, with thy sweet deceiving, ^ Lock me in delight awhile; Let some pleasing dreams beguile All my fancies ; that from thence I may feel an influence, All my powers of care bereaving ! here enumerating the birds that are not to be permitted to perch or sing on the bride-house. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 161 Though but a shadow, but a sliding, Let me know some little joy ! We that suffer long annoy Are contented with a thought, Through an idle fancy wrought : Oh, let my joys have some abiding! THE NICE VALOUR; OR, THE PASSIONATE MADMAN.* LOVE, SHOOT MOBE! deity, swift-winged Love, Sometimes below, sometimes above, Little in shape, but great in power; Thou that makest a heart thy tower, And thy loop-holes ladies' eyes, From whence thou strikest the fond and wise ; Did all the shafts in thy fair quiver Stick fast in my ambitious liver, Yet thy power would I adore, And call upon thee to shoot more, Shoot more, shoot more ! LOVE, SHOOT NO MAID AGAIN! I, turn thy bow ! Thy power we feel and know; Fair Cupid, turn away thy bow ! They be those golden arrows, Bring ladies all their sorrows; And 'till there be more truth in men, Never shoot at maid again ! * Ascribed to Fletcher. 162 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. MELANCHOLY. TTENCE, all you vain delights, -" As short as are the nights Wherein you spend your folly 1 There's nought in this life sweet, If man were wise to see't, But only melancholy, Oh, sweetest melancholy ! Welcome, folded arms, and fixM eyes, A. sight that piercing mortifies, A look that's fastened to the ground, A tongue chained up without a sound ! Fountain heads, and pathless groves, Places which pale passion loves ! Moonlight walks, when all the fowls Are warmly housed, save bats and owls ! A midnight bell, a parting groan ! These are the sounds we feed upon; Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley, Nothing's so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy. THE PASSIONATE LOED. A CURSE upon thee, for a slave ! Art thou here, and heardst me rave? Fly not sparkles from mine eye, To shew my indignation nigh? Am I not all foam and fire, With voice as hoarse as a town-crier ? How my back opes and shuts together With fury, as old men's with weather ! Couldst thou not hear my teeth gnash hither? Death, hell, fiends, and darkness! I will thrash thy mangy carcase. There cannot be too many tortures Spent upon those lousy quarters. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 163 Thou nasty, scurvy, mungrel toad, Mischief on thee ! Light upon thee All the plagues that can confound thee, Or did ever reign abroad ! Better a thousand lives it cost, Than have brave anger spilt or lost. LAUGHING SONG. [For several voices.'] H, how my lungs do tickle ! ha, ha, ha. Oh, how my lungs do tickle ! ho, ho, ho, ho ! Set a sharp jest Against my breast, Then how my lungs do tickle ! As nightingales, And things in cambric rails, Sing best against a prickle.* Ha, ha, ha, ha ! Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho ! Laugh! Laugh! Laugh! Laugh! Wide ! Loud ! And vary ! A smile is for a simpering novice, One that ne'er tasted caviare, Nor knows the smack of dear anchovies. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho ! A giggling waiting wench for me, That shows her teeth how white they be ! * A multitude of examples might be cited of the use of this favourite allusion by the old poets. Giles Fletcher assigns a reason for the painful pose of the nightingale while she is singing : * Ne ever lets sweet rest invade her eyes, But leaning on a thorn her dainty chest, For fear soft sleep should steal into her breast, Expresses in her song grief not to be expressed.' Christ's Victory. 164 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. A thing not fit for gravity, For theirs are foul and hardly three. Ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho! Democritus, thou ancient fleerer, How I miss thy laugh, and ha' since !* There thou named the famous[est] jeerer, That e'er jeered in Rome or Athens. Ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho. How brave lives he that keeps a fool, Although the rate be deeper ! But he that is his own fool, sir, Does live a great deal cheaper. Sure I shall burst, burst, quite break, Thou art so witty. 'Tis rare to break at court, For that belongs to the city. Ha, ha ! my spleen is almost worn To the last laughter. Oh, keep a corner for a friend; A jest may come hereafter. THOMAS MIDDLETON. 15701627. [ME. DYCE conjectures that Thomas Middleton was born about 1570. His father was settled in London, where the poet was born. The materials gathered for his biography are scanty. He seems to have been admitted a member of Gray's Inn, to have been twice married, and to have contributed numerous pieces to the stage, sometimes in connection with * Changed by Seward to ' How I miss thy laugh, and ha-sense.' The change helps little towards clearing up the obscurity. THOMAS MIDDLETON. 165 several of his contemporaries. He was appointed, in 1620, Chronologer to the City of London, and 'Inventor of its honourable Entertainments.' In 1624, the Spanish ambas- sador having complained to the King that the persons of the King of Spain, Conde de Gondomar, and others were repre- sented upon the stage in ' a very scandalous comedy' called A Game at Chess, written by Middleton, the author and the actors were cited before the Privy Council. The actors appeared, and pleaded that the piece had been produced under the usual sanction of the Master of the Eevels ; but Middleton, ' shifting out of the way, and not attending the board with the rest,' was ordered to be arrested, and a war- rant was issued for his apprehension. The play was in the meanwhile suppressed, and for a certain time the actors were prohibited from appearing. Middleton afterwards submitted, but no further punishment appears to have been inflicted. At this time, Middleton resided at Newingtori Butts, where he died in 1627. Middleton may be fairly assigned a distinguished position amongst the dramatists of his period. His most conspicuous characteristics are a rich and natural humour and a poetical imagination. Nor was he deficient in passionate energy and pathos, although inferior in these qualities to some of his contemporaries.] BLUET, MASTER CONSTABLE;* OR, THE SPANIARD'S NIGHT-WALK. [First printed in WHAT LOVE IS LIKE. T O VE is like a lamb, and love is like a lion ; " Fly from love, he fights ; fight, then does he fly on ; Love is all on fire, and yet is ever freezing ; Love is much in winning, yet is more in leesing :t * A proverbial phrase. f Losing. 166 SONGS FKOM THE DRAMATISTS. Love is ever sick, and jet is never dying; Love is ever true, and yet is ever lying; Love does doat in liking, and is mad in loathing; Love indeed is anything, yet indeed is nothing. PITT, PITT, PITT! DITY, pity, pity! J- Pity, pity, pity! That word begins that ends a true-love ditty. Your blessed eyes, like a pair of suns, Shine in the sphere of smiling; Your pretty lips, like a pair of doves, Are kisses still compiling. Mercy hangs upon your brow like a precious jewel : O, let not then, Most lovely maid, best to be loved of men, Marble lie upon your heart, that will make you cruel ! Pity, pity, pity! Pity, pity, pity ! That word begins that ends a true-love ditty. CHEEET LIP AND WANTON ETE. T OYE for such a cherry lip J-J Would be glad to pawn his arrows; Yenus here to take a sip Would sell her doves and team of sparrows. But they shall not so ; Hey nonny, nonny no ! None but I this life must owe; Hey nonny, nonny no ! Did Jove see this wanton eye, Ganymede must wait no longer; Phoebe here one night did lie,* Would change her face and look much younger. * Mr. Dyce changes the line to ' Did Phoebe here one night lie,' obtaining the sense at the cost of the melody. THOMAS MIDDLETON. 167 But they shall not so; Hey nonny, nonny no ! None but I this life must owe ; Hey nonny, nonny no ! A MAD WORLD, MY MASTERS. [Licensed and first printed in 1608.] BACCHANALIAN CATCH. OFOR a bowl of fat canary, Rich Aristippus, sparkling sherry! Some nectar else from Juno's dairy; O these draughts would make us merry ! O for a wench ! I deal in faces, And in other daintier things ; Tickled am I with her embraces; Fine dancing in such fairy rings ! O for a plump, fat leg of mutton, Yeal, lamb, capon, pig, and coney! None is happy but a glutton, None an ass, but who wants money. Wines, indeed, and girls are good ; But brave victuals feast the blood ; For wenches, wine, and lusty cheer, Jove would come down to surfeit here.* * The authorship of this song is doubtful. It was printed for the first time in the Alexander and Campaspe of Lyly appended to the edition of 1 63a, and is not to be found in the earlier editions, the first of which appeared in i584. That it did not originally belong to A Mad World, my Masters, is clear from this circumstance, the first edition of that play having been published in 1608; but it was added to the second edition in 1640. The probability is that it was not written by either Lyly or Middleton; but, if by either, the evidence is in favour of the latter, as Lyly was dead many years before 1633, when the song was first printed, and Middleton was certainly alive a few years before that time. Mr. Dyce, who prints it at the end ot Middleton's play from the edition of 1640, does not appear to have been aware that it had previously been printed in Lyly's Alexander and Campaspe. 168 SONGS FKOM THE DKAMATISTS. THE WITCH. THE THEEE STATES OP WOMAN. IN a maiden-time professed, Then we say that life is blessed; Tasting once the married life, Then we only praise the wife ; There's but one state more to try, Which makes women laugh or cry Widow, widow : of these three The middle's best, and that give me. HECATE AND THE WITCHES. Voices above. /^OME away, come away, ^ Hecate, Hecate, come away Hecate. I come, I come, I come, I come, With all the speed I may, With all the speed I may. Where's Stadlin? Voice above. Here. Hecate. Where's Puckle? Voice above. Here; And Hoppo too, and Hell wain too ; We lack but you, we lack but you; Come away, make up the count. Hecate. I will but 'noint, and then I mount. \A spirit like a cat descends. Voice above. There's one comes down to fetch his dues, A. kiss, a coll, a sip of blood; And why thou stayest so long I muse, I muse, Since the air's so sweet and good. Hecate. O, art thou come? What news, what news 1 Spirit. All goes still to our delight : Either come, or else Refuse, refuse. Hecate. Now I'm furnished for the flight. THOMAS MIDDLETOX. 169 Now I go, now I fly, Malkin my sweet spirit and I. O what a dainty pleasure 'tis To ride in the air When the moon shines fair, And sing and dance, and toy and kiss ! Over woods, high rocks, and mountains, Over seas, our mistress' fountains, Over steeples, towers, and turrets, We % by night, 'mongst troops of spirits : No ring of bells to our ears sounds, No howls of wolves, no yelps of hounds ; No, not the noise of water's breach, Or cannon's throat our height can reach. THE CHARM. BLACK spirits and white, red spirits and gray, Mingle, mingle, mingle, you that mingle may ! Titty, Tiffin, Keep it stiff in; Firedrake, Puckey, Make it lucky ; Liard, Robin, You must bob in. Round, around, around, about, about! All ill come running in, all good keep out ! Here's the blood of a bat. Put in that, O put in that ! Here's libbard's bane. Put in again! The juice of toad, the oil of adder; Those will make the younker madder. Put in there's all and rid the stench. Nay, here's three ounces of the red-haired wench. Round, around, around, about, about !* * The similarity between these passages and the \vitch scenes in Macbeth is too close to admit of a doubt that Shakespeare borrowed from Middleton, or Middleton from Shakespeare. Which play was 170 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. MORE DISSEMBLERS BESIDES WOMEN. [In i6z3 this comedy was entered by Sir Henry Herbert as an' old play.' It was first printed in i657.] SONG OF THE GIPSIES. E, my dainty doxies, My dells,* my dells most dear; We have neither house nor land, Yet never want good cheer. We never want good cheer. We take no care for candle rents, We lie, we snort, we sport in tents, Then rouse betimes and steal our dinners. Our store is never taken Without pigs, hens, or bacon, And that's good meat for sinners : At wakes and fairs we cozen Poor country folk by dozen; If one have money, he disburses ; Whilst some tell fortunes, some pick purses ; Hather than be out of use, We'll steal garters, hose, or shoes, Boots, or spurs with gingling rowels, Shirts or napkins, smocks or towels. Come live with us, come live with us, produced first is an open question. Steevens and Giffbrd assign the priority to Middleton, Malone to Shakespeare. Mr. Dyce objects to Mr. Gifford that he adduces no evidence to show that the Witch was anterior to Macbeth; but, so far as his own opinion is concerned, leaves the question where he found it. Lamb, in a subtle and discriminating criticism, says that the coincidence does not detract much from the originality of Shakespeare (supposing Middleton to have preceded him), because his witches are distinguished from those of Middleton by es- sential differences. This is quite true. But it should be observed that it is not in these essential differences, which lie in the elements of character, and not in forms of expression, that the resemblance con- sists ; and that the fact of direct imitation in the conception and poetical treatment of the Charms and Incantations remains unaffected. * A cant term for an undefiled girl. MIDDLETON AND KOWLEY. All you that love your eases ; He that's a gipsy May be drunk or tipsy At any hour he pleases. We laugh, we quaff, we roar, we scuffle ; We cheat, we drab, we filch, we shuffle. A CHASTE MAID IN CHEAPSIDE. [First printed in i53o.] THE PARTING OP LOVERS. TYTEEP eyes, break heart! * * My love and I must part. Cruel fates true love do soonest sever; O, I shall see thee never, never, never ! O, happy is the maid whose life takes end Ere it knows parent's frown or loss of friend! Weep eyes, break heart ! My love and I must part. THOMAS MIDDLETON AND WILLIAM KOWLEY. [WILLIAM ROWLEY was an actor in the Prince of Wales's company in the reign of James I, In addition to some plays of which he was the sole author, his name appears attached to several others, in conjunction with those of Middleton, Webster, Massinger, Thomas Heywood, Day, Wilkins, Ford, and Fletcher ; and in one instance Shakespeare is said to have assisted him.] THE SPANISH GIPSY. [This piece was played at court about 162,3 or i6z4,but the date of its first production in the theatre is not known. It was first printed in i6S 3.] HTRIP it, gipsies, trip it fine, -*- Show tricks and lofty capers ; 172 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. At threading-needles* we repine, And leaping over rapiers : Pindy pandy rascal toys ! We scorn cutting purses; Though we live by making noise, For cheating non can curse us. Over high ways, over low, And over stones and gravel, Though we trip it on the toe, And thus for silver travel ; Though our dances waste our backs, At night fat capons mend them, Eggs well brewed in buttered sack, Our wenches say befriend them. Oh that all the world were mad ! Then should we have fine dancing ; Hobby-horses would be had, And brave girls keep a-prancing ; Beggars would on cock-horse ride, And boobies fall a-roaring; And cuckolds, though no horns be spied, Be one another goring. Welcome, poet to our ging It Make rhymes, we'll give thee reason, Canary bees thy brains shall sting, Mull-sack did ne'er speak treason; Peter-see-me J shall wash thy nowl, And Malaga glasses fox thee ; If, poet, thou toss not bowl for bowl, Thou shalt not kiss a doxy. An old pastime. t Gang. J See Note, p. 144, MIDDLETON AND ROWLEY. 173 THE GIPSY BOUT. , follow your leader, follow, >^ Our convoy be Mars and Apollo ; The van comes brave up here; As hotly conies the rear. Our knackers are the fifes and drums Sa, sa, the gipsies' army conies ! Horsemen we need not fear, There's none but footmen here ; The horse sure charge without; Or if they wheel about, Our knackers are the shot that fly, Pit-a-pat rattling in the sky. If once the great ordnance play, That's laughing, yet run not away, But stand the push of pike, Scorn can but basely strike ; Then let our armies join and sing, And pit-a-pat make our knackers ring. Arm, arm ! what bands are those 1 They cannot be sure our foes; We'll not draw up our force, Nor muster any horse ; For since they pleased to view our sight, Let's this way, this way, give delight. A council of war let's call, Look either to stand or fall ; If our weak army stands, Thank all these noble hands; Whose gates of love being open thrown, We enter, and then the town's our own. THE DEAMATISTS. 12 174 SONGS FKOM THE DKAMATISTS. THE GIPSY'S OATH. THY best hand lay on this turf of grass, There thy heart lies, vow not to pass From us two years for sun nor snow, For hill nor dale, howe'er winds blow ; Vow the hard earth to be thy bed, With her green cushions under thy head; Flower-banks or moss to be thy board, Water thy wine and drink like a lord. Kings can have but coronations ; We are as proud of gipsy fashions ; Dance, sing, and in a well-mixed border, Close this new brother of our order. What we get with us come share, You to get must vow to care; Nor strike gipsy, nor stand by When strangers strike, but fight or die; Our gipsy-wenches are not common, You must not kiss a fellow's leman; Nor to your own, for one you must, In songs send errands of base lust. Dance, sing, and in a well-mixed border Close this new brother of our order. Set foot to foot ; those garlands hold, Now mark [well] what more is told; By cross arms, the lover's sign, Vow as these flowers themselves entwine, Of April's wealth building a throne Hound, so your love to one or none; By those touches of your feet, You must each night embracing meet, Chaste, howe'er disjoined by day; You the sun with her must play, She to you the marigold, To none but you her leaves unfold; MIDDLETON AND KOWLEY. 175 Wake she or sleep, your eyes so charm, Want, woe, nor weather do her harm. This is your market now of kisses, Buy and sell free each other blisses. Holidays, high days, gipsy-fairs, [pairs. When kisses are fairings, and hearts meet in THE GIPSY LIFE. BRA YE Don, cast your eyes on our gipsy fashions : In our antique hey de guize* we go beyond all nations ; Plump Dutch at us grutch, so do English, so do French; He that lopest on the ropes, show me such another wench. We no camels have to show, nor elephant with growtj head; We can dance, he cannot go, because the beast is corn- fed; No blind bears shedding tears, for a collier's whipping; Apes nor dogs, quick as frogs, over cudgels skipping- Jacks-in-boxes, nor decoys, puppets, nor such poor things, Nor are we those roaring boys that cozen fools with gilt rings ; For an ocean, not such a motion as the city Nineveh, Dancing, singing, and fine ringing, you these sports shall hear and see. * A country dance. f Leaps. t Great. Ring-dropping, a gulling trick, which consisted in dropping a paper of brass rings, washed over with gold, on the pavement, and picking it up in the presence of a person likely to be swindled into the purchase of them. It is one of the cheats upon countrymen described by Sir John Fielding, in the last century, in his Extracts from the Penal Laws, and is still practised in the streets of London. 122 176 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. BEN JONSON, FLETCHEE, AND MIDDLETON. THE WIDOW. [Acted about 1616. First printed i653.] THE THIEVES SONG. HOW round the world goes, and every thing that's in it! The tides of gold and silver ebb and flow in a minute : From the usurer to his sons, there a current swiftly runs; From the sons to queans in chief, from the gallant to the thief; From the thief unto his host, from the host to husband- men; From the country to the court ; and so it comes to us again. How round the world goes, and every thing that's in it ! The tides of gold and silver ebb and flow in a minute. THOMAS DEKKEK. [AN industrious dramatist in the reign of James I., chiefly distinguished by having been engaged in a literary quarrel with Ben Jonson, who satirized him under the name of Crispinus, an indignity for which Dekker took ample revenge in his Satiro-mastix ; or, the Untru.ssing of a Humorous Poet. Dekker must not be estimated from Jonson' s character of him. He wrote a great number of plays, and was joined in several by Webster, Ford, and others. His pieces are remarkably unequal. His plots are not always well chosen, and are generally careless in construction. But in occasional scenes he rises to an unexpected height of power, and exhibits a range of fancy that fairly entitles him to take rank with the majority of his contemporaries.] T. DEKKEB AND B. WILSON. 177 OLD FOBTUNATUS. [First printed in 1600.] VIRTUE AND VICE. T7IRTUE'S branches wither, virtue pines, O pity ! pity ! and alack the time ! Vice doth flourish, vice in glory shines, Her gilded boughs above the cedar climb. Vice hath golden cheeks, O pity, pity ! She in every land doth monarchize : Virtue is exiled from every city, Virtue is a fool, Vice only wise. O pity, pity ! Virtue weeping dies ! Vice laughs to see her faint, alack the time ! This sinks ; with painted wings the other flies ; Alack, that best should fall, and bad should climb. O pity, pity, pity! mourn, not sing; Vice is a saint, Virtue an underling; Vice doth flourish, Vice in glory shines, Virtue's branches wither, Virtue pines. T, DEKKER AND R. WILSON. [WiLSON was an actor of humorous parts, and one of the boon companions over the ' Mermaid wine,' alluded to by Beaumont, in his verses to Ben Jonson : ' Filled with such moisture, in most grievous qualms Did Robert Wilson write his singing psalms.' He was considered by Meres one of the best comedy- writers of his time. He wrote, however, only one entire piece, The Cobbler's Prophecy ; but assisted Chettle, Dekker, and others, in the composition of several.] 178 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. THE SHOEMAKER'S HOLIDAY; OR, THE GENTLE CRAFT. 1594. THE SUMMER'S QUEEN. THE month of May, the merry month of May, i So frolick, so gay, and so green, so green, so 0, and then did I unto my true love say, [green ! Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my Summer's Queen. Now the nightingale, the pretty nightingale, The sweetest singer in all the forest's quire, Entreats thee, sweet Peggy, to hear thy true love's tale : Lo, yonder she sitteth, her breast against a brier. But O, I spy the cuckoo, the cuckoo, the cuckoo; See where she sitteth; come away, my joy: Come away, I prithee, I do not like the cuckoo Should sing where my Peggy and I kiss and toy. O, the month of May, the merry month of May, So frolick, so gay, and so green, so green, so green ; And then did I unto my true love say, Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my Summer's Queen. SAINT HUGH ! COLD'S the wind, and wet's the rain, Saint Hugh be our good speed ! Ill is the weather that bringeth no gain, Nor helps good hearts in need. Troll the bowl, the jolly nut-brown bowl ; And here kind mate to thee ! Let's sing a dirge for Saint Hugh's soul, And down it merrily. Down-a-down, hey, down-a-down, Hey derry derry down-a-down. Ho I well done, to me let come, Ring compass, gentle joy ! DEKKEK, CHETTLE, AND HAUGHTON. 179 Troll the bowl, the nut-brown bowl, And here kind, &c. Cold's the wind, and wet's the rain, Saint Hugh ! be our good speed ; 111 is the weather that bringeth no gain, Nor helps good hearts in need. THOMAS DEKKEE, HENRY CHETTLE, AND WILLIAM HAUGHTON. [THE names of Chettle and Haughton are attached to a great number of plays, generally in conjunction with those of other writers. It is difficult to determine their respective merits; but as far as any speculation may be founded upon such evidence of their independent labours as can be traced with certainty, Chettle had a more serious vein than Haughton, whose special force lay in comedy. How this joint authorship was conducted, we have no means of ascertaining. The likelihood is that in most cases there was one principal writer, with whom the subject may have originated, and that when he had completed his design, either as a sketch or a finished work, the others filled in, added, retrenched, or altered. If there be any weight in this supposition, the largest share in the comedy of Patient G-rissell should perhaps be assigned to Dekker, whose name stands first of the three in the entry acknowledging a payment in earnest of the play, in Henslowe's Diary. The story of Patient Grissell was first thrown into a nar- rative shape by Boccaccio; and the earliest drama on the subject was brought upon the stage by the French, in 1393. About 1538, Eichard Eadcliffe, a schoolmaster in Hertford- shire, wrote a play called Patient Griselde, founded on Boccaccio, of which nothing has survived but the name. Dekker and his coadjutors may probably have been to some 180 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. extent indebted to Kadcliffe's production. The story, how- ever, was well-known, and existed in other shapes; Chaucer- having long before rendered it familiar to English readers in the Canterbury Tales. The date of the receipt in Henslowe's Diary 19 December, 1599 determines the date of the play from which the following songs are derived.] THE PLEASANT COMEDY OP PATIENT GRISSELL. SWEET CONTENT. A RT thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers? *- Oh, sweet content! Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexed? Oh, punishment! Dost thou laugli to see how fools are vexed To add to golden numbers, golden numbers'? O, sweet content! O, sweet, &c. Work apace, apace, apace, apace; Honest labour bears a lovely face; Then hey noney, noney, hey noney, noney. Canst drink the waters of the crisped spring? O, sweet content ! Swimmest thou in wealth, yet sinkest in thine O, punishment ! [own tears ? Then he that patiently want's burden bears, No burden bears, but is a king, a king ! O, sweet content! &c. Work apace, apace, &c. OLDEN slumbers kiss your eyes, Smiles awake you when you rise. Sleep, pretty wantons; do not cry, And I will sing a lullaby : Rock them, rock them, lullaby. JOHN WEBSTER. 181 Care is heavy, therefore sleep you; You are care, and care must keep you. Sleep, pretty wantons ; do not cry, And I will sing a lullaby : Rock them, rock them, lullaby. BEAUTY, ARISE ! BEAUTY, arise, shew forth thy glorious shining; Thine eyes feed love, for them he standeth pining; Honour and youth attend to do their duty To thee, their only sovereign beauty. Beauty, arise, whilst we, thy servants, sing, lo to Hymen, wedlock's jocund king. lo to Hymen, lo, lo, sing, Of wedlock, love, and youth, is Hymen king. Beauty, arise, thy glorious lights display, Whilst we sing lo, glad to see this day. lo, lo, to Hymen, To, lo, sing, Of wedlock, love, and youth, is Hymen king. JOHN WEBSTER. [!N passionate energy and intensity of expression Webster resembles Marston and transcends him. He had a profounder dramatic power, and possessed a command over the sources of terror which none of our dramatists have exhibited so effec- tively. 'To move a terror skilfully/ observes Lamb, 'to touch a soul to the quick, to lay upon fear as much as it can bear, to wear and weary a life till it is ready to drop, and then step in with mortal instruments to take its last forfeit : this only a Webster can do. Writers of an inferior genius may ' upon horror's head horrors accumulate/ but they cannot do this. They mistake quantity for quality, they ' terrify babies with painted devils/ but they know not how a soul is capable of being moved; their terrors want dignity, their affright- 182 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. ments are without decorum.' This criticism refers specially to the Duchess of Malfy, but indicates generally that pecu- liar quality of Webster's genius which chiefly distinguishes him from his contemporaries. The earliest notice of Webster occurs in 1602. He is said to have been clerk of St. Andrew's, Holborn, and a member of the Merchants Tailors' Company; but Mr. Dyce could not discover any trace of his name, although he searched the re- gisters of the church, and the MSS. belonging to the Parish Clerk's Hall. In tracing, in his collected edition of Webster's works, the order of his productions, and examining every col- lateral question of authorship likely to throw any light upon his identity, Mr. Dyce has supplied all the information that can be obtained respecting him. It relates almost exclusively to his writings. His personal history is buried in obscurity.] THE WHITE DEVIL; OR, VITTORIA COROMBONA. 1612. A DIRGE. CALL for the robin-redbreast and the wren, Since o'er shady groves they hover, And with leaves and flowers do cover The friendless bodies of unburied men. Call unto his funeral dole The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole, To rear him hillocks that shall keep him warm, And (when gay tombs are robbed) sustain no harm ; But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men, For with his nails he'll* dig them up again. * * I never saw anything like this Dirge, except the Ditty which reminds Ferdinand of his drowned Father in the Tempest. As that is of the water, watery ; so this is of the earth, earthy. Both have that intenseness of feeling, which seems to resolve itself into the elements which it contemplates.' LAMB. JOHN WEBSTER. 183 THE DUCHESS OF MALFY. 1623. o, THE MADMAN'S SONG. LET us howl some heavy note, '> Some deadly dogged howl, Sounding, as from the threatning throat Of beasts and fatal fowl ! As ravens, screech-owls, bulls and bears, We'll bell, and bawl our parts, 'Till irksome noise have cloyed your ears, And corrosived your hearts. At last, whenas our quire wants breath, Our bodies being blessed, We'll sing, like swans, will welcome death, And die in love and rest. THE PREPARATION FOR EXECUTION. TTAEK, now everything is still, " The screech-owl, and the whistler shrill, Call upon our dame aloud, And bid her quickly don her shroud ! Much you had of land and rent ; Your length in clay's now competent : A long war disturbed your mind ; Here your perfect peace is signed. Of what is't fools make such vain keeping? Since their conception, their birth weeping, Their life a general mist of error, Their death, a hideous storm of terror. Strew your hair with powders sweet, Don clean linen, bathe your feet, And (the foul fiend more to check,) A crucifix let bless your neck : 'Tis now full tide 'tween night and day; End your groan, and come away. 184 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. JOHN WEBSTER AND WILLIAM ROWLEY. THE THRACIAN WONDER. l66l. WOMAN'S LOVE. T O VE is a law, a discord of such force, -*-^ That 'twixt our sense and reason makes divorce ; Love's a desire, that to obtain betime, We lose an age of years plucked from our prime ; Love is a thing to which we soon consent, As soon refuse, but sooner far repent. Then what must women be, that are the cause That love hath life 1 ? that lovers feel such laws? They're like the winds upon Lepanthse's shore, That still are changing : O, then love no more ! A woman's love is like that Syrian flower, That buds, and spreads, and withers in an hour. LOVE MUST HAVE LOVE. T CARE not for these idle toys, * That must be wooed and prayed to Come, sweet love, let's use the joys That men and women used to do. The first man had a woman Created for his use you know ; Then never seek so close to keep A jewel of a price so low. Delay in love's a lingering pain, That never can be cured ; Unless that love have love again, 'Tis not to be endured. WEBSTER AND ROWLEY. 185 THE PUKSUIT OF LOVE. ART tliou gone in haste? I'll not forsake thee; Runnest thou ne'er so fast, I'll overtake thee : Over the dales, over the downs, Through the green meadows, From the fields through the towns, To the dim shadows. All along the plain, To the low fountains, Up and down again From the high mountains; Echo then shall again Tell her I follow, And the floods to the woods, Carry my holla, holla ! Ce! la! ho! ho! hu! THE SONG OP JANUARY. 1VTOW does jolly Janus" greet your merriment; -L^ For since the world's creation, I never changed my fashion ; 'Tis good enough to fence the cold : My hatchet serves to cut my firing yearly, My bowl preserves the juice of grape and barley : Fire, wine, and strong beer, make me live so long here To give the merry new year a welcome in. All the potent powers of plenty wait upon You that intend to be frolic to-day : To Bacchus I commend ye, and Ceres eke attend ye, To keep encroaching cares away. That Boreas' blasts may never blow to harm you; Nor Hyems' frost, but give you cause to warm you : Old father Janevere drinks a health to all here, To give the merry new year a welcome in. 186 SONGS FKOM THE DRAMATISTS. THE DEPARTUEE OF JANUARY. OINCE you desire my absence; ^ I "will depart this green; Though loath to leave the presence Of such a lovely queen; Whose beauty, like the sun, Melts all my frost away; And now, instead of winter, Behold a youthful May. HOMAGE TO LOVE. T OYE'S a lovely lad " His bringing-up is beauty; Who loves him not is mad, For I must pay him duty; Now I'm sad. Hail to those sweet eyes, That shine celestial wonder; From thence do flames arise, Burn my poor heart asunder. Now it fries. Cupid sets a crown Upon those lovely tresses ; O, spoil not with a frown What he so sweetly dresses ! I'll sit down. HEIGH, HEIGHO ! TI7HITHER shall I go, * * To escape your folly? For now there's love I know, Or else 'tis melancholy : Heigh, heigho ! WEBSTER AND ROWLEY. 187 Yonder lies the snow, But my heart cannot melt it : Love shoots from his bow, And my poor heart hath felt it. Heigh, heighol I'LL NEVER LOVE MORE. STAY, O turn, O pity me That sighs, that sues for love of thee ! O lack ! I never loved before ; If you deny, I'll never love more. No hope, no help ! then wretched I Must lose, must lack, must pine, and die; Since you neglect when I implore. Farewell, hard, 111 ne'er love more. BEWARE OF LOVE. is not any wise man, That fancy can a woman ; Then never turn your eyes on A thing that is so common : For be they foul or fair, They tempting devils are, Since they first fell; They that love do live in hell, And therefore, men, beware. OUT UPON YE ALL! , idle toys, That nature gave unto us, But to curb our joys, And only to undo us; For since Lucretia's fall, There are none chaste at all ; 188 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. Or if perchance there be One in an empery, Some other malady Makes her far worse than she. Out upon ye all! 'Twere too much to tell The follies that attend ye; He must love you well That can but discommend ye; For your deserts are such, Man cannot rail too much ; Nor is the world so blind, But it may easily find The body, or the mind, Tainted in womankind. O, the devil take you all ! INVOCATION TO APOLLO. FAIH Apollo, whose bright beams Cheer all the world below : The birds that sing, the plants that spring, The herbs and flowers that grow : O, lend thy aid to a swain sore oppressed, That his mind Soon may find The delight that sense admits ! And by a maid let his harms be redressed. That no pain Do remain In his mind to offend his wits ! SAMUEL ROWLEY. [ONE of the players in the establishment of the Prince of Wales, and included in the list of Henslowe's authors. His principal pieces are the play from which the following song is THOMAS GOFFE. 189 taken, and a comedy called When you see me you know me. He also assisted other writers in some of the Moral Plays.] THE NOBLE SPANISH SOLDIER. 1634. SOREOW. AH, sorrow, sorrow, say where dost thou dwell? ^/ In the lowest room of hell. Art thou born of human race 1 No, no, I have a furier face. Art thou in city, town, or court? I to every place resort. Oh, why into the world is sorrow sent? Men afflicted best repent. What dost thou feed on? Broken sleep. What takest thou pleasure in? To weep, To sigh, to sob, to pine, to groan, To wring my hands, to sit alone. Oh when, oh when shall sorrow quiet have 1 Never, never, never, never. Never till she finds a grave. THOMAS GOFFE. 15921627. [THOMAS GOFFE was born in Essex, about 1592, and edu- cated at Westminster. In 1609 he entered Christ Church, Oxford, and having had the degree of bachelor of divinity conferred upon him, was preferred to the living of East Clandon, in Surrey, in 1623. He is said to have been a pro- fessed woman-hater, yet, notwithstanding, married the wife of his predecessor, who revenged the wrongs of the whole sex upon him by the violence of her temper, and finally, it is sup- posed, shortened his life. He died in 1627. He was the author of four dramas, and is believed in the latter part of his life to have embraced the church of Rome.] THE DEAMATISTS. 13 190 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. ORESTES. 1633. NURSE'S SONG T TJLLABY, lullaby, baby, --^ Great Argos' joy, The King of Greece thou art born to be, In despite of Troy. Rest ever wait upon thy head, Sleep close thine eyes, The blessdd guard tend on thy bed Of deities. O, how this brow will beseem a crown ! How these locks will shine 1 Like the rays of the sun on the ground, These locks of thine ! The nurse of heaven will send thee milk ; Mayst thou suck a Queen. Thy drink love's nectar, and clothes of silk ; A god mayst thou seem. Cupid sit on this rosean cheek, On these ruby lips. May thy mind like a lamb be meek, In the vales which trips. Lullaby, lullaby, baby, &c. THE MADNESS OP ORESTES. TT7EEP, weep, you Argonauts, ^ * Bewail the day That first to fatal Troy You took your way. Weep, Greece, weep, Greece, Two kings are dead. Argos, thou Argos, now a grave Where kings are buried; No heir, no heir is left, THOMAS GOFFE. 191 But one that's mad. See, Argos, hast not thou Cause to be sad 1 ? Sleep, sleep, wild brain, Best, rock thy sense, Live if thou canst To grieve for thy offence. Weep, weep, you Argonauts ! THE CAEELESS SHEPHERDESS. 1656. ' THE FOLLY OF LOVE. NOW fie on love, it ill befits, / Or man and woman know it, Love was not meant for people in their wits, And they that fondly show it Betray their too much feathered brains, And shall have only Bedlam for their pains. To love is to distract my sleep, And waking to wear fetters ; To love is but to go to school to weep; I'll leave it for my betters. If single love be such a curse, To marry is to make it ten times worse. THE TYRANNY OF CUPID. BLIND Cupid lay aside thy bow, Thou dost not know its use, For love, thou tyranny dost show, Thy kindness is abuse. Thou wert called a pretty boy, Art thought a skeleton, For thou like death dost still destroy, When thou dost strike but one. 132 192 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. Each vulgar hand can do as much ; Thine heavenly skill we see When we behold one arrow touch Two marks that distant be. Love always looks for love again, If ever thou wound man's heart, Pierce by the way his rib, and then He'll kiss, not curse thy dart. LOVE WITHOUT RETURN. fl BIEVE not, fond man, nor let one tear ^ Steal from thine eyes ; she'll hear No more of Cupid's shafts; they fly For wounding her, so let them die. For why shouldst thou nourish such flames as burn Thy easy breast, and not have like return] Love forces Iov3, as flames expire If not increased by gentle fire. Let then her frigid coolness move Thee to withdraw thy purer love; And since she is resolved to show She will not love, do thou so too : For why should beauty so charm thine eyes, That if she frown, thou'lt prove her sacrifice? Love, &c. CHETTLE AND MUNDAY. THE DEATH OF ROBERT, EARL OF HUNTINGDON. THE DEATH OP ROBIN HOOD. TT7EEP, weep, ye woodmen wail, Your hands with sorrow wring ; Your master Eobin Hood lies dead, Therefore sigh as you sing. THOMAS HEYWOOD. 193 Here lie his primer and his beads, His bent bow and his arrows keen, His good sword and his holy cross : "Now cast on flowers fresh and green ; And as they fall shed tears and say, Wella, wella-day, wella, wella-day : Thus cast ye flowers and sing, And on to Wakefield take your way. THOMAS HEYWOOD. 15 16 . [' HEYWOOD/ says Charles Lamb, ' is a sort of prose Shake- speare, his scenes are to the full as natural and affecting. But we miss the poet, that which in Shakespeare always appears out and above the surface of the nature. Hey wood's cha- racters, his country gentlemen, &c., are exactly what we see (but of the best kind of what we see) in life. Shakespeare makes us believe, while we are among his lovely creations, that we see nothing but what we are familiar with, as in dreams new things seem old; but we awake, and sigh for the dif- ference.' The test to which this comparison subjects the writings of Hey wood is a severe one; but he comes out of it with credit. Considering how much he wrote, and the cir- cumstances under which he appears to have written, it is no slight merit to have produced scenes as natural and affecting, and characters as true to life as those of Shakespeare, even without the power of idealizing his conceptions. Of all our dramatic writers he was the most voluminous, having been concerned in no less than two hundred and twenty dramatic pieces, besides his Apology for Actors, and other works. It was only by the most persevering and systematic industry such a prodigious quantity of labour could have been accom- plished, and Kirkman says that he ' not only acted almost 194 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. every day, but obliged himself to write a sheet every day for several years together/ Many of his plays were written in this way in taverns. ' As one proof of the rapidity of his composition/ observes the last editor of Dodsley, ' it may be mentioned that at the end of his Nine Books of Various History concerning Women, a folio of 466 pages, printed in 1624, are the following words: Opus excogitatum, inchoatum, explicitum et typograpJio excusum inter septemdecem septi- manas' We can hardly form a just estimate of the various merits of such a writer from the scanty evidence that has come down to us, twenty -three of his plays being all that are known to exist in print. He seems, indeed, to have written his plays solely for the stage without any view to publication, and he tells us that many of them were lost by the shifting and change of companies, that others were retained in the hands of the actors, who considered it injurious to their pro- fits to suffer them to be printed, that having sold his copies to them he thought he had no right to print them without their consent, and that, even if he had the right to print them, he never had ' any great ambition to be, in this kind, voluminously read/ The earliest notice that has been traced of Thomas Hey wood occurs in Henslowe's Diary under the date of 1596, from which it appears that he had at that time written a play for the Lord Admiral's company. In 1598 he entered Henslowe's company as a regular actor and sharer. On the accession of James I., he became one of the theatrical servants of the Earl of Worcester, was afterwards transferred to the service of ' Queen Anne, and upon her Majesty's death returned to Lord Worcester. Amongst the numerous works he either contem- plated or produced was a collection of The Lives of all the Poets, Modern and Foreign, upon the materials for which he was for many years engaged. Few further particulars are known concerning him. We learn from an elegy on Sir George Saint Poole, whom he calls his countryman, that he was born in Lincolnshire; and William Cartwright says that he was a fellow of Peter House, in Cambridge, which is in THOMAS HEYWOOD. 195 some degree confirmed by an allusion of his own to ' the time of his residence at Cambridge.' The following curious notice of Heywood, in which an allusion is made to the poverty under which he suffered at one period of his life, if not throughout his whole career of labour and struggle, is extracted from a poem on the Times' Poets, published by Mr. Halliwell amongst the miscellaneous papers of the Shakespeare Society. It occurs in a very scarce volume, bearing the date of 1656, and entitled Choyce Drollery, Songs, and Sonnets, being a collection of divers excellent pieces of poetry of several eminent authors, never before printed: The squibbling Middleton, and Heywood sage, The apologetic Atlas of the stage ; Well of the Golden Age he could entreat, But little of the metal he could get ; Threescore sweet babes he fashioned from the lump, For he was christened in Parnassus' pump, The Muses gossip to Aurora's bed, And ever since that time his face was red.] THE RAPE OP LUCRECE. WHAT IS LOVE? NOW what is love I will thee tell, It is the fountain and the well, Where pleasure and repentance dwell : It is perhaps the sansing bell,* That rings all in to heaven or hell, And this is love, and this is love, as I hear tell. Now what is love I will you show : A thing that creeps and cannot go ; A prize that passeth to and fro ; A thing for me, a thing for mo' : And he that proves shall find it so, And this is love, and this is love, sweet Mend, I trow. * Sanctus bell, or Saint's bell, that called to prayers. 196 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. TAVERN SIGNS. THE gentry to the King's Head, The nobles to the Crown, The knights unto the Golden Fleece, And to the Plough the clown. The churchman to the Mitre, The shepherd to the Star, The gardener hies him to the Rose, To the Drum the man of war; To the Feathers, ladies, you; the Globe The sea-man doth not scorn : The usurer to the Devil, and The townsman to the Horn. The huntsman to the White Hart, To the Ship the merchants go, But you that do the muses love, The Sign called River Po. The banquerout to the World's End, The fool to the Fortune hie, Unto the Mouth the oyster wife, The fiddler to the Pie. The punk unto the Cockatrice, The drunkard to the Vine, The beggar to the Bush, then meet, And with Duke Humphrey dine. THE DEATH BELL. , list and hark, the bell doth toll For some but now departing soul. And was not that some ominous fowl, The bat, the night-crow, or screech-owl? To these I hear the wild wolf howl, In this black night that seems to scowl. All these my black-book death enroll, For hark, still, still, the bell doth toll For some but now departing soul. THOMAS HEYWOOD. 197 LOVES MISTKESS; OR, THE QUEENS MASQUE. THE PRAISES OP PAN. THOU that art called the bright Hyperion, Wert thou more strong than Spanish Geryon That had three heads upon one man, Compare not with our great god Pan. They call thee son of bright Latona, But girt thee in thy torrid zona, Sweat, baste and broil, as best thou can; Thou art not like our dripping Pan. What cares he for the great god Neptune, With all the broth that he is kept in; Vulcan or Jove he scorns to bow to, Hermes, or the infernal Pluto. Then thou that art the heavens' bright eye, Or burn, or scorch, or broil, or fry, Be thou a god, or be thou man, Thou art not like our frying Pan. They call thee Phoebus, god of day, Years, months, weeks, hours, of March and May ; Bring up thy army in the van, We'll meet thee with our pudding Pan. Thyself in thy bright chariot settle, With skillet armed, brass-pot or kettle, With jug, black-pot, with glass or can, No talking to our warming Pan. Thou hast thy beams thy brows to deck, Thou hast thy Daphne at thy beck : Pan hath his horns, Syrinx, and Phillis, And I, Pan's swain, my Amaryllis. 198 SONGS FKOM THE DRAMATISTS. FIRST PART OF KING EDWARD IV. AGINCOURT. A GINCOTJRT, Agincourt! know ye not Agincourt? -** Where the English slew and hurt All the French foemen? With our guns and bills brown, Oh, the French were beat down, Morris-pikes and bowmen. THE SILVER AGE. HARVEST-HOME. TT7ITH fair Ceres, Queen of Grain, * * The reaped fields we roam, roam, roam : Each country peasant, nymph, and swain, Sing their harvest home, home, home; Whilst the Queen of Plenty hallows Growing fields, as well as fallows. Echo, double all our lays, Make the champaigns sound, sound, sound, To the Queen of Harvest's praise, That sows and reaps our ground, ground, ground. Ceres, Queen of Plenty, hallows Growing fields, as well as fallows. THE FAIR MAID OF THE EXCHANGE. GO, PRETTY BIRDS. YE little birds that sit and sing Amidst the shady valleys, And see how Phillis sweetly walks, Within her garden-alleys ; Go, pretty birds, about her bower; Sing, pretty birds, she may not lower; Ah, me ! methinks I see her frown ! Ye pretty wantons, warble. THOMAS HEYWOOD. 199 Go, tell her, through your chirping bills, As you by me are bidden, To her is only known my love, Which from the world is hidden. Go, pretty birds, and tell her so; See that your notes strain not too low, For still, methinks, I see her frown, Ye pretty wantons, warble. Go, tune your voices' harmony, And sing, I am her lover; Strain loud and sweet, that every note With sweet content may move her. And she that hath the sweetest voice, Tell her I will not change my choice; Yet still, methinks, I see her frown. Ye pretty wantons, warble. Oh, fly ! make haste ! see, see, she falls Into a pretty slumber. Sing round about her rosy bed, That waking, she may wonder. Say to her, 'tis her lover true That sendeth love to you, to you; And when you hear her kind reply, Return with pleasant warblings. A CHALLENGE FOR BEAUTY. THE NATIONS. Spaniard loves his ancient slop; A Lombard the Venetian; And some like breechless women go, The Russe, Turk, Jew, and Grecian: The thrifty Frenchman wears small waist, The Dutch his belly boasteth; The Englishman is for them all, And for each fashion coasteth. 200 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. The Turk in linen wraps his head, The Persian his in lawn too, The Russe with sables furs his cap, And change will not be drawn to. The Spaniard's constant to his block, The French inconstant ever; But of all felts that may be felt, Give me your English beaver. The German loves his coney-wool, The Irishman his shag too, The Welch his Monmouth loves to wear, And of the same will brag too. Some love the rough, and some the smooth, Some great, and others small things; But oh, your liquorish Englishman, He loves to deal in all things. The Buss drinks quasse; Dutch, Lubeck's beer, And that is strong and mighty ; The Briton he Metheglen quaffs, The Irish aqua vitse. The French affects the Orleans grape, The Spaniard sips his sherry, The English none of these can 'scape, But he with all makes merry. The Italian in her high chioppine,* Scotch lass, and lovely Erse too, The Spanish donna, French madam, He doth not fear to go to. Nothing so full of hazard, dread, Nought lives above the centre, No health, no fashion, wine or wench, On which he dare not venture, t * Choppine, a clog or patten, t This song is introduced into the Rape of Lucrece. THOMAS HEY WOOD. 201 THE GOLDEN AGE. DIANA'S NYMPHS. HAIL, beauteous Dian, queen of shades, That dwell' st beneath these shadowy glades. Mistress of all those beauteous maids That are by her allowed. Virginity we all profess, Abjure the worldly vain excess, And will to Dian yield no less Than we to her have vowed. The shepherds, satyrs, nymphs, and fawns, For thee will trip it o'er the lawns. Come, to the forest let us go, And trip it like the barren doe ; The fawns and satyrs still do so, And freely thus they may do. The fairies dance and satyrs sing, And on the grass tread many a ring, And to their caves their venison bring; And we will do as they. The shepherds, satyrs, r TIS, in good truth, a most wonderful thing -- (I am even ashamed to relate it) That love so many vexations should bring, And yet few have the wit to hate it. SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT. 231 Love's weather in maids should seldom hold fair : Like April's mine shall quickly alter; I'll give him to-night a lock of my hair, To whom next day I'll send a halter. I cannot abide these malapert males, Pirates of love, who know no duty ; Yet love with a storm can take down their sails, And they must strike to Admiral Beauty. Farewell to that maid who will be imdone, Who in markets of men (where plenty Is cried up and down) will die even for one ; I will live to make fools of twenty. THE LAW AGAINST LOVERS. LOVE PROSCRIBED. TTTAKE all the dead! what ho! what ho! * How soundly they sleep whose pillows lie low? They mind not poor lovers who walk above On the decks of the world in storms of love. No whisper now nor glance shall pass Through wickets or through panes of glass ; For our windows and doors are shut and barred. Lie close in the church, and in the churchyard. In every grave make room, make room ! The world's at an end, and we come, we come. The state is now love's foe, love's foe; Has seized on his arms, his quiver and bow; Has pinioned his wings, and fettered his feet, Because he made way for lovers to meet. But O sad chance, his judge was old ; Hearts cruel grown, when blood grows cold. No man being young, his process would draw. O heavens that love should be subject to law! Lovers go woo the dead, the dead ! Lie two in a grave, and to bed, to bed ! 232 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. THE MAN'S THE MASTER. A DRINKING BOUND. THE bread is all baked, The embers are raked ; Tis midnight now by chanticleer's first crowing ; Let's kindly carouse Whilst 'top of the house The cats fall out in the heat of their wooing. Time, whilst thy hour-glass does run out, This flowing glass shall go about. Stay, stay, the nurse is waked, the child does cry, No song so ancient is as lulla-by. The cradle's rocked, the child is hushed again, Then hey for the maids, and ho for the men. Now every one advance his glass; Then all at once together clash; Experienced lovers know This clashing does but shew, That, as in music, so in love must be Some discord to make up a harmony. Sing, sing ! When crickets sing why should not we ? The crickets were merry before us ; They sung us thanks ere we made them a fire. They taught us to sing in a chorus : The chimney's their church, the oven their quire. Once more the cock cries cock-a-doodle-doo. The owl cries o'er the barn, to-whit-to-whoo ! Benighted travellers now lose their way Whom Will-of-the-wisp bewitches : About and about he leads them astray Through bogs, through hedges, and ditches. Hark ! hark ! the cloister bell is rung ! Alas ! the midnight dirge is sung. Let 'em ring, Let 'em sing, MARKHAM AND SAMPSON. 233 Whilst we spend the night in love and in laughter. When night is gone, O then too soon The discords and cares of the day come after. Come boys ! a health, a health, a double health To those who 'scape from care by shunning wealth. Dispatch it away Before it be day, 'Twill quickly grow early when it is late : A health to thee, To him, to me, To all who beauty love, and business hate. THE CRUEL BROTHER. GRIEVE NOT FOE THE PAST. T1TEEP no more for what is past, * * For time in motion makes such haste He hath no leisure to descry Those errors which he passeth by. If we consider accident, And how repugnant unto sense It pays desert with bad event, We shall disparage Providence. GERVASE MARKHAM AND WILLIAM SAMPSON. [THESE writers belong to the time of Charles I., in whose service Markham bore a captain's commission. He was a writer of some authority in his day on agriculture and husbandry. Of Sampson nothing is known except that he was the author of two plays, and assisted Markham in the piece from which the following song is taken.] 234 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. HEROD AND ANTIPATER. SIMPLES TO SELL. COME will you buy? for I have here The rarest gums that ever were ; Gold is but dross, and features die, Else ^Esculapius tells a lie. But I, Come will you buy? Have medicines for that malady. Is there a lady in this place, Would not be masked, but for her face ? O do not blush, for here is that Will make your pale cheeks plump and fat. Then why Should I thus cry, And none a scruple of me buy? Come buy, you lusty gallants, These simples which I sell; In all your days were never seen like these, "For beauty, strength, and smell. Here's the king-cup, the pansy with the violet, The rose that loves the shower, The wholesome gilliflower, Both the cowslip, lily, And the daffodilly, With a thousand in my power. Here's golden amaranthus, That true love can provoke, Of horehound store, and poisoning helebore, With the polipode of the oak ; Here's chaste vervine, and lustful eringo, Health preserving sage, And rue which cures old age, With a world of others, Making fruitful mothers; All these attend me as my page. 235 JASPER MAYNE. 16041672. [DR. JASPEE MAYNE was a distinguished preacher in the time of Charles I., and held two livings in the gift of the University of Oxford, from which he was expelled under the Commonwealth. At the Restoration, however, he was not only re-appointed to his former benefice, but made chaplain in ordinary to his Majesty, and archdeacon of Chichester. Dr. Mayne is said to have been a clergyman of the most exemplary character ; but there is an anecdote related of him which, if true, shows that he was also a practical humorist. He had an old servant to whom he bequeathed a trunk, which he told him contained something that would make him drink after his death. When the trunk was opened on the Doctor's demise, it was found to contain a red-herring.] THE CITY MATCH. THE WONDERFUL FISH. TTTE show no monstrous crocodile, Nor any prodigy of Nile ; No Remora that stops your fleet, Like Serjeant's gallants in the street; No sea-horse which can trot or pace, Or swim false gallop, post, or race : For crooked dolphins we not care, Though on their back a fiddler were : The like to this fish, which we shew, Was ne'er in Fish-street, old, or new; Nor ever served to the sheriff's board, Or kept in souse for the Mayor Lord. Had old astronomers but seen This fish, none else in heaven had been. 236 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. SIR SAMUEL TUKE. 1673. THE ADVENTURES OF TWO HOURS. MISTAKEN KINDNESS. CAN Luciamira so mistake, To persuade me to fly 1 ? 'Tis cruel kind for my own sake, To counsel me to die; Like those faint souls, who cheat themselves of brfeath, And die for fear of death. Since Love's the principle of life, And you the object loved, Let's, Luciamira, end this strife, I cease to be removed. We know not what they do, are gone from hence, But here we love by sense. If the Platonics, who would prove Souls without bodies love, Had, with respect, well understood, The passions in the blood, They had suffered bodies to have had their part, And seated love in the heart. SIR WILLIAM KILLIGREW. 16051693. SELINDRA. THE HAPPY HOUR. , come, thou glorious object of my sight, Oh my joy! my life, my only delight! May this glad minute be Blessed to eternity. JOHN DRYDEN. 237 See how the glimmering tapers of the sky. Do gaze, and wonder at our constancy, How they crowd to behold ! What our arms do infold ! How all do envy our felicities ! And grudge the triumphs of Selindra's eyes : How Cynthia seeks to shroud Her crescent in yon cloud ! Where sad night puts her sable mantle on, Thy light mistaking, hasteth to be gone; Her gloomy shades give way, As at the approach of day ; And all the planets shrink, in doubt to be Eclipsed by a brighter deity. Look, oh look ! How the small Lights do fall, And adore, What before The heavens have not shown, Nor their god-heads known ! Such a faith, Such a love As may move From above To descend; and remain Amongst mortals again. JOHN DRYDEN. 1631 1700. [THE songs scattered through Dryden's plays are strikingly inferior to the rest of his poetry. The confession he makes in one of his dedications that in writing for the stage he THE DRAMATISTS. 16 238 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. consulted the taste of the audiences and not his own, and that, looking at the results, he was equally ashamed of the puhlic and himself, applies with special force to his songs. They seem for the most part to have heen thrown off merely to fill up a situation, or produce a transitory effect, without reference to substance, art, or beauty, in their structure. Like nearly all pieces written expressly for music, the conve- nience of the composer is consulted in many of them rather than the judgment of the poet, although the world had a right to expect that the genius of Dryden would have vindi- cated itself by reconciling both. Some of the verses designed on this principle undoubtedly exhibit remarkable skill in accommodating the diction and rhythm to the demands of the air ; and, however indifferent they may be in perusal, it can be easily understood how effective their breaks, repetitions, and sonorous words (sometimes without much meaning in them) must have been in the delivery. Dryden descended to the smallest things with as much success as he soared to the highest ; and, if he had cared to bestow any pains upon such compositions, two or three of the following specimens are sufficient to show with what a subtle fancy and melody of versification he might have enriched this department of our poetical literature. Many of the songs are stained with the grossness that defiled the whole drama of the Restoration. Others are metrical commonplaces not worth transplantation. From the nature of the subjects, the selection is necessarily scanty, although Dryden's plays yield a more plentiful crop of lyrics of various kinds' than those of any of his contemporaries. A larger collection might have been made, but that numerous songs, otherwise unobjectionable, are so closely interwoven with the business of the scene as to be inseparable from the dialogue. Of this character is the greater part of the opera of Albion and Albanus, and nearly the whole of the lyrical version of the Tempest, a work in which Dryden appears to greater disadvantage than in any other upon which he was ever engaged.] JOHN DRYDEN. 239 THE INDIAN QUEEN. 1664. INCANTATION. YOU twice ten hundred deities, To whom we daily sacrifice; You Powers that dwell with fate below, And see what men are doomed to do, Where elements in discord dwell ; Then God of Sleep arise and tell Great Zempoalla what strange fate Must on her dismal vision wait. By the croaking of the toad, - In their caves that make abode ; Earthy Dun that pants for breath, With her swelled sides full of death ; By the crested adders' pride, That along the clifts do glide; By thy visage fierce and black; By the death's head on thy back; By the twisted serpents placed For a girdle round thy waist ; By the hearts of gold that deck Thy breast, thy shoulders, and thy neck : From thy sleepy mansion rise, And open thy unwilling eyes, While bubbling springs their music keep, That use to lull thee in thy sleep. SONG OP THE AERIAL SPIRITS. POOR mortals, that are clogged with earth below, Sink under love and care, While we, that dwell in air, Such heavy passions never know. Why then should mortals be Unwilling to be free From blood, that sullen cloud, Which shining souls does shroud] 16--2 240 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. Then the/11 shew bright, And like us light, When leading bodies with their care, They sKde to us and air. THE INDIAN EMPEROR. 1665. THE FOLLY OF MAKING TROUBLES. AH fading joy! how quickly art thou past! Yet we thy ruin haste. As if the cares of human life were few, We seek out new : And follow fate, which would too fast pursue. See how on every bough the birds express In their sweet notes their happiness. They all enjoy and nothing spare, But on their mother nature lay their care : Why then should man, the lord of all below, Such troubles choose to know, As none of all his subjects undergo? Hark, hark, the waters, fall, fall, fall, And with a murmuring sound Dash, dash, upon the ground, To gentle slumbers call. SECRET LOVE; OR, THE MAIDEN QUEEN. 1667. CONCEALED LOVE. I FEED a flame within, which so torments me, That it both pains my heart, and yet contents me : 'Tis such a pleasing smart, and I so love it, That I had rather die, than once remove it. Yet he, for whom I grieve, shall never know it ; My tongue does not betray, nor my eyes show it. Not a sigh, nor a tear, my pain discloses, But they fall silently, like dew on roses. JOHN DRYDEN. 241 Thus, to prevent my love from being cruel, My heart's the sacrifice, as 'tis the fuel : And while I suffer this to give him quiet, My faith rewards my love, though he deny it. On his eyes will 1 gaze, and there delight me; While I conceal my love no frown can fright me : To be more happy, I dare not aspire; Nor can I fall more low, mounting no higher. SIR MARTIN MAR-ALL; OR, THE FEIGNED INNOCENCE. 1667. DEEP IN LOVE. BLIND love, to this hour, Had ne'er, like me, a slave under his power : Then blessed be the dart, That he threw at my heart ; For nothing can prove A joy so great, as to be wounded with love. My days, and my nights, Are filled to the purpose with sorrows and frights: From my heart still I sigh, And my eyes are ne'er dry; So that, Cupid be praised, I am to the top of love's happiness raised. My soul's all on fire, So that I have the pleasure to dote and desire : Such a pretty soft pain, That it tickles each vein; 'Tis the dream of a smart, [heart. Which makes me breathe short, when it beats at my Sometimes, in a pet, When I'm despised, I my freedom would get : But straight a sweet smile Does my anger beguile, And my heart does recal ; Then the more I do struggle, the lower I fall. 242 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. Heaven does not impart Such a grace as to love unto every one's heart ; For many may wish To be wounded, and miss : Then blessed be love's fire, And more blessed her eyes, that first taught me desire. TYRANNIC LOVE; OR, THE ROYAL MARTYR, 1669. ST. CATHERINE ASLEEP. T7"OTJ pleasing dreams of love and sweet delight, J- Appear before this slumbering Virgin's sight : Soft visions set her free From mournful piety; Let her sad thoughts from heaven retire; And let the melancholy love Of those remoter joys above Give place to your more sprightly fire ; Let purling streams be in her fancy seen, And flowery meads, and vales of cheerful green ; And in the midst of deathless groves Soft sighing wishes lie, And smiling hopes fast by, And just beyond them ever-laughing loves. THE COURSE OF LOVE. A H, how sweet it is to love ! *- Ah, how gay is young desire ! And what pleasing pains we prove When we first approach love's fire ! Pains of love be sweeter far Than all other pleasures are. Sighs, which are from lovers blown, Do but gently heave the heart : Even the tears they shed alone, Cure, like trickling balm, their smart JOHN DRYDEN. 243 Lovers when they lose their breath, Bleed away in easy death. Love and time with reverence use; Treat them like a parting friend, Nor the golden gifts refuse, Which in youth sincere they send : For each year their price is more, And they less simple than before. Love, like spring-tides, full and high, Swells in every youthful vein; But each tide does less supply, Till they quite shrink in again : If a flow in age appear, 'Tis but rain, and runs not clear. AMBOYNA. 1673. THE SEA FIGHT. TT7HO ever saw a noble sight, ** That never viewed a brave sea-fight! Hang up your bloody colours in the air, Up with your lights, and your nettings prepare; Your merry mates cheer with a lusty bold spright, Now each man his brindice, and then to the fight. St. George ! St. George ! we cry, The shouting Turks reply. Oh now it begins, and the gun-room grows hot, Ply it with culverin and with small shot; Hark, does it not thunder? no, 'tis the gun's roar, The neighbouring billows are turned into gore; Now each man must resolve to die, For here the coward cannot fly. Drums and trumpets toll the knell, And culverins the passing bell. Now, now they grapple, and now board amain ; Blow up the hatches, they're off all again: 244 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. Give them a broadside, the dice run at all, Down comes the mast, and yard and tacklings fall; She grows giddy now, like blind Fortune's wheel, She sinks there, she sinks, she turns up her keel. Who ever beheld so noble a sight, As this so brave, so bloody sea-fight ! ALBION AND ALBANUS. 1685. NEREIDS RISING FROM THE SEA. 1G 1 ROM the low palace of old father Ocean, Come we in pity our cares to deplore ; Sea-racing dolphins are trained for our motion, Moony tides swelling to roll us ashore. Every nymph of the flood, her tresses rending, Throws off her armlet of pearl in the main ; Neptune in anguish his charge unattending, Vessels are foundering, and vows are in vain. KING ARTHUR; OR, THE BRITISH WORTHY. 1691. HARVEST HOME.* OUR hay it is mowed, and your corn is reaped : Your barns will be full, and your hovels heaped : Come, my boys, come; Come, my boys, come ; And merrily roar out harvest home ! Harvest home, Harvest home; And merrily roar out harvest home ! Come, my boys, come,