Popular Music Of The Olden Time Vol 1

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	190	ENGLISH SONG AND BALLAD MUSIC.



	THE OXFORDSHIRE TRAGEDY. This is one of the old and simple chaunt-Iike ditties, which seem to have been peculiarly suited to the lengthy narratives of the minstrels ; and I am strongly impressed with a belief that it was one of their tunes. It has very much the same character as Sir Guy, which I met with in another of the ballad operas, and which—the entry at Stationers' Hall proving to be earlier than 1592—may be fairly supposed to be the air used, by the class of minstrel described by Puttenham, in singing the adventures of Sir Guy, at feasts. See page 172. I have seen no earlier copy of The Oxfordshire Tragedy,* than an edition " printed and sold in Bow Church-Yard," in which the name of the tune is not mentioned. The ballad is in four parts, the third and fourth of which, being in a different metre, must have been sung to another air. " As I walk'd forth to take the air," is the second line of the first part, and a tune is often referred to under that title. As the measures agree, it may be a second name for this air. In the Douce Collection, 44, is a black-letter ballad of " Cupid's Conquest, or