Popular Music Of The Olden Time Vol 1

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

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ILLUSTRATING SHAKESPEARE.                                         233
I have selected a few lines from a political song called Tlie Trimmer, to print with this copy, because it has the burden, " Which nobody can deny." It is one of the many songs to the tune in Pills to purge Melancholy.
MY ROBIN IS TO THE GRKENWOOD GONE; or, BONNY SWEET ROBIN.
This is contained in Anthony Holborne's Gittharn ScJwole, 1597; in Queen Elizabeth's Virginal Book; in William Ballet's Lute Book; and in many other manuscripts and printed books.
There are two copies in William Ballet's Lute Book, and the second is entitled " Robin Mood is to the greenwood gone;" it is, therefore, probably the tune of a ballad of Robin Hood, now lost.
Ophelia sings a line of it in Samlet
" For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy;" and in Fletcher's Two Noble Kinsmen, the jailer's daughter, being mad, says, " I can sing twenty more ... I can sing The Broom and Bonny Robin." In Robinson's Schoole of' Musicke (1603), and in one of Dowland's Lute Manuscripts,