Popular Music Of The Olden Time Vol 1

Ancient Songs, Ballads, & Dance Tunes, Sheet Music & Lyrics - online book

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	148	ENGLISH SONG AND BALLAD MUSIC.
	" In former times 't hath been upbraided thus, That barber's music was most barbarous; For that the cittern was confin'd unto ' The Ladies' Fall,' or ' John,'come kiss me now,' ' Green Sleeves and Pudding Pyes,' ' The P------'s Delight,' ' Winning of Bulloigne,' ' Essex's last Good-night,' &c." From lines " On a Barber who became a great Master of Musick." The ground of John, come kiss me now, was a popular theme for fancies and divisions (now called fantasias and variations) for the- virginals, lute, and viols. In the Virginal Book, only the first part of the tune is taken, and it is doubtful if it then had any second part; the copy we have given is from Playford's and Walsh's Division Violin. It is one of the songs parodied in Andro Hart's Compendium of Godly Songs, before mentioned, on the strength of which- the tune has been claimed as Scotch, although it has no Scotch character, nor has hitherto been found in any old Scotch copy. Not only are all the other tunes to the songs in the Compendium, of which any traces are left, English, but what little secular music was printed in Scotland until the eighteenth century, was entirely English or foreign. The following are the first, second, and twenty-first stanzas of the "Godly Song":—
	John, come kisse me now; John, come kisse me now, Johne, come kisse me by and by, And make no more adow. The Lord thy God I am, That John dois thee cell;		John represents man, By grace celestiall. My prophites call, my preachers cry, John, come kisse me now; John, come kisse me by and by, And make no more adow.