the poets of their age; plucking forth and illustrating the beauty that lay in the acts of their generation. What the old barons did in their fighting, havoc-making lives— conceiving it their due occupation-these minstrels endowed with grace and attraction. It was pleasant, of course, for a Percy, or a Douglas, to hear the hunting and slaughtering adventures of his grandfather, recounted with the magic of music, made look so bright by the light of poetic fire. The minstrel, with his gifts, was undoubtedly a welcome visitor; and, indeed, the great barons had minstrels of their own in habitual attendance on them. We cannot complain that our ancestors were without musical taste. They had "serenades," for example, in the days when our climate was worse than it is now. I have no doubt they were, what we should call, "coarse," rough, from the very vigour of life they felt. Yet, they had their refinements; they were extremely fond of perfumes, not delicate, ethereal essences, but thick compounds, touching up the sense with a vengeance. Undoubtedly they liked splendour and ornament-witness only their armorial ensigns-and generally must have loved the expression of beauty by their minstrels, who revealed the highest beauty to them, by the chant and the harp. We need only remember how Taillefer came singing up in front of the Norman line, at Hastings; how Blondel sang to the young knights under the walls at Acre; how the condition of the minstrels improved after the times of Richard the First. They remained a distinct body for many ages after the Norman conquest. They were, in fact, the literary exponents of life, as the chroniclers were the preservers of tradition; they did for the nationality of their countrymen, what the Church did for their religious belief. The church had singers of the deeds of saints, while the minstrels sang

its

the wars,

ad

ventures, and loves. We sing of imaginary pirates, imaginary loves, of sentiments notoriously contrary to the general feeling of society, about every conceivable subject. The first song was a winged fact; a kind of inspired history. I confess, for this reason, to a liking for the ballad of “Sweet William and Fair Margaret; " those "noble lovers,” as the old titles called them. It is full of character, tenderness, prettiness-of truth, in short. The simple English air breathes about it. The two lovers are sitting together, and William speaks:

"I see no harm by you, Margaret,
And you see none by me;
Before to-morrow at eight o'clock

A rich wedding you shall see.”

Of course, the artful villain "palters" in a "double sense; " but neither Margaret nor the "intelligent reader" (the fact is, that entity was not extant then) are supposed to see through it. You are to "shut your eyes," as the children say, "and wait what fortune sends you." Accordingly, in the very next stanza—

"Fair Margaret sate in her bower window,

Combing her yellow hair;

There she spied sweet William and his bride,

As they were a-riding near."

It never seemed to enter Margaret's head that anything but death remained; accordingly it comes and her spirit glides up to William's feet:—

"Are you awake, sweet William, she said,

Or, sweet William are you asleep?
God give you joy of your gay bride-bed,
And me of my winding-sheet!"

I un

William tells his bride of his bad dream; and in one momentary glimpse of that bride, we discern her to be a common-place and, probably, a disagreeable woman. dertake to declare that Master William married her for money. He goes off to his Margaret's house, and, finding her dead, and that

"She has lost her cherry red,"

he himself dies of sorrow. Margaret was buried in the lower chancel, and William in the higher. A rose sprang from her breast, and a briar from his; and ultimately they joined, above the church-spire, in a true-love knot,

"Which made the people admire."

Bishop Percy gives, in his "reliques," a final stanza, narrating how the clerk cut it down, which, as it is rather a mocking tone, I incline to hold spurious-added by somebody personally hostile to clerks, and intended to bring the whole fraternity into ridicule.

The greater part of the genuine old songs which the people loved must have perished, as the Saturnian verses of Italy in old times did. By Queen Elizabeth's time, the minstrels had become "rogues and vagabonds," and were so declared in an Act of Parliment. The whole relations of the old life were altering. Poor-laws were coming on: and the then minstrels," we may suppose-if they went on churming over old stories, expressing a class of feelings which belonged neither to them nor their contemporaries— had become what we call "bores"; having lost all the heart and breath properly becoming their occupation, and being idle wasters of their own and the public time. Many a once noble order has degenerated into a gang of

"rogues and vagabonds!" The feudal minstrel became extinct. Ancient literature, besides foreign contemporary literature, was flowing into England from the urns of the past, and from the courts and cities of the South. Warton re

marks that "the revival of classical learning gave a temporary check to vernacular composition." Henceforth, poetry became part of literature, and literature is only itself a part of life. It would be a curious inquiry, how far the character of those orders of the people, to whom books were unknown objects for generations afterwards, was affected by the cessation of minstrelsy, and the confinement of poetic expressions to books. Even in our day, the people are only attaining-particularly in rural districts—to any mental food equal to the old ballads and songs of their forefathers.

One of the first effects of the classical studies must have been an increased attention to prose; and they had very soon a palpable effect on our language. The influence of ancient literature is manifested by all English songwriters after this. But let us not forget, while speaking of this period, our earliest good drinking-song—one of the most national of all our songs-which first appeared in 1551. It celebrates the praise of ale, and was written by a bishop, John Still, Bishop of Bath and Wells. There is some honesty in an Englishman's writing in praise of ale. How can the public at large sympathise with the mere praise of wine? I quote one stanza from the Right Reverend Prelate's production:

"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 don't desire.

No frost, no snow, no wind, I trow,
Can hurt me if I wold,

I am so wrapt and thoroughly lapt
Of jolly good ale and old.
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."

It would be superfluous to quote any of Shakspeare's songs: snatches of divine melody that rise here and there from his plays, like larks starting singing from a beautiful landscape. One is glad to know that he has quoted from the old songs of the country occasionally; fragments which roll down to us on the surface of his great river of fame from the heart of the old times. Desdemona's melancholy chaunt of "the Willow," and Jago's roistering verses, were both derived from old national ditties.

The song-writers who made their appearance about the time of the extinction of the minstrels, and whose lucubrations were gathered into "Garlands," and into various collections with fanciful names, have a more conventional tone than the old singers. The school of classical-pastoral now makes its appearance-a school whose lucubrations haunt us down to the days of Shenstone, and beyond them. Corydon, Phyllis, and Amynta were imported into our landscapes, and stood shivering in them like so many foreign slaves exposed for sale. Every lover was a "shepherd ;" but in our cold climate, these Arcadian transplantations will not grow. We must look for our best songs in the poems of original writers after this. The productions of what Dr. Johnson called the " Metaphysical Poets," read more natural, and look more honest, than the theatrical amorousness of the sham-pastoral writers.