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ENGLISH SONO AND BALLAD MUSIC. |
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" To his friend, Master M. L., in praise of Music and Poetry." " If music and sweet poetry agree,
As they must needs, (the Bister and the brother,) Then must the love be great 'twixt thee and me,
Because thou lov'st the one, and I the other. Dorvland to thee is dear, whose heavenly touch
Upon the lute doth ravish human sense; Spenser to me, whose deep conceit is such, As, passing all conceit, needs no defence ; Thou lov'st to hear the sweet melodious sound
That Phoebus' lute, the queen of music, makes, And I, in deep delight am chiefly drown'd, When as himself to singing he betakes; One God is good to both, as poets feign, One knight loves both, and both in thee remain !" Anthony Wood says of Dowland, that " he was the rarest musician that the age did behold." In No Wit, no Help, like a Woman's, a comedy by Thomas Middleton (1657), the servant tells his master bad news; and is thus answered: " Thou plaiest Dowland's Lachrimce to thy master."
In Peacham's Q-arden of Seroical Devices, are the following verses, portraying Dowland's forlorn condition in the latter part of his life:— " Here Philomel in silence Bits alone
In depth of winter, on the bared briar, Whereon the rose had once her beauty shown, Which lords and ladies did so much desire! But fruitless now, in winter'B frost and snow, It doth despis'd and unregarded grow.
So since (old friend) thy years have made thee white,
And thou for others hast consum'd thy spring, How few regard thee, whom thou didst delight,
And far and near came once to hear thee sing! Ungrateful times, and worthless age of ours, That lets us pine when it hath cropt our flowers." The device which precedes these stanzas, is a nightingale sitting on a bare brier, in the midst of a wintry storm.
The following ballads were sung to the tune under the title of The Frog Gralliard:—"The true love's-knot untyed: being the right path to advise princely virgins how to behave themselves, by the example of the renouned Princess, the Lady Arabella, and the second son to the Lord Seymore, late Earl of Hertford;" commencing— " As I to Ireland did pass,
I saw a ship at anchor lay, , Another ship likewise there was,
Which from fair England took her way. This ship that sail'd from fair England,
Unknown unto our gracious King, The Lord Chief Justice did command,
That they to London should her bring," &c. |
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