| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
|
||
|
THE ENGLISH LOVE OF SONGS AND BALLADS. 53
Barklay, in his fourth Eclogue, (about 1514) says—
" When your fat dishes Bmoke hot upon your table, Then laude ye songs, and ballades magnifie ; If they be merry, or written craftely, Ye clap your kandes and to the making barke. And one say to another, Lo, here a proper warke !"
The interlude of " The Four Elements" was printed by Eastall about 1510; and, in that, Sensual Appetite, one of the characters, recommends Humanity " to-comfort his lyf naturall" with "daunsing, laughyng, or plesaunt songe," and says— " Make room, sirs, and let us be merry,
With huff a galand, syng Tyrll on the berry,
And let the wide world wynde. Sing Frisk a jolly, with Hey trolly lolly, For I see it is but folly for to have a sad mind."
Percy Soc, No. 74.
" Hey, ho, frisca jolly, under the greenwood tree," is the burden of one of the songs in the musical volume of the reign of Henry Vni. (MS. Reg. Append. 58.) from which I have extracted several specimens. It contains, also, some instrumental pieces, such as " My Lady Carey's Dompe," and " My Lady Wynkfield's Rownde," which when well played on the virginals, as recently, by an able lecturer, are very effective and musical.
Some of Henry the Eighth's own compositions are still extant. In a collection of anthems, motets, and other church offices, in the handwriting of John Baldwin, of Windsor, (who also transcribed that beautiful manuscript, Lady Neville's Virginal Book, in 1591), is a composition for three voices, " Quam pulchra es, et quam decora." It bears the name Henricus Octavus at the beginning, and "quod Henricus Octavus" at the end of the cantus part. The anthem " 0 Lord, the maker of all things," which is attributed to him in Boyce's Cathedral Music, is the composition of William Mundy; the words only are taken from Henry the Eighth's primer. Some music for a mask, which Stafford Smith attributes to him, will be' found in the Arundel Collection of MS. (Brit. Mus.) or in Musica Antiqua, vol. i.; and one of his ballads, " Pastime with good company," is given as a specimen in the following pages.
In 1533 a proclamation was issued to suppress " fond [foolish] books, ballads, rhimes, and other lewd treatises in the English tongue;" and in 1537 a man of the name of John Hogon was arrested for singing a political ballad to the tune of " The hunt is up." It was not only among the upper classes that songs and ballads were then so general, although the allusions to the music of the lower classes are less frequently to be met with at this period than a little later, when plays, which give the best insight to the manners and customs of private life, had become general. One passage, however, from Miles Coverdale's " Address unto the Christian reader" prefixed to his " Goastly Psalmcs and Spirituall Songes," [1538] will suffice to prove it. '( Wolde God that our Mynstrels had none other thynge to play upon, neither our carters and ploivmen other thynge to whistle |
||
|
|
||