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; "double Of course, the artful villain "palters" in a 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, 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 remarks 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, I am so wrapt and thoroughly lapt Both foot and hand go cold; But, belly, God send thee good ale enough 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. 66 The founder of that school of Metaphysical Poets, so well known to us from Johnson's "Life of Cowley," was Donne, born the year before Ben Jonson. Donne, whose biography by Izaak Walton is one of the most delightful books we have, was a pious, learned man, of great wit and intellectual subtlety. This is the peculiarity of the man, and was of the school. They were good loving men, like their neighbours. Old Donne made a thorough love-match; but when he celebrated the passion of love in song, he and his disciples did so in their caps and gowns, and robes. When the heart of a 66 Metaphysical Poet" was taken by storm, the intellect-like Archimedes, when Syracuse was taken-remained employed in the subtlest exercise in the very heat of the capture. Fancy a lady being addressed. thus. We quote from Donne. He is speaking of the souls. of himself and his lady-love. "If they be two, they are two so, As stiff twin-compasses are two: "And though it in the centre sit, Yet when the other far doth roam, It leans and hearkens after it, And grows erect as that comes home. "Such wilt thou be to me, who must In another poem he tells us that his affection had grown corpulent," and he was obliged to limit it to " a sigh a day!" |