Popular Music Of The Olden Time Vol 1

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

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	260                                  ENGLISH SONG AND BALLAD MUSIC. Smoothly and rather slow.
	COME, SHEPHERDS, DECK YOUR HEADS. This is also one of the songs mentioned by old Isaak Walton. Milkwoman. " What song was it, I pray? was it 'Come, shepherds, deck your heads;' or, 'As, at noon, Dulcina rested;' or, 'Philida flouts me;' or, Chevy Chace;' or, ' Johnny Armstrong;' or, ' Troy Town ? ' " a Tzaak Walton was born in 1593, and married first Rachel Cranmer, niece of that distinguished prelate, Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1624. The air is found, under its English name, in Bellerophon, of Lust tot Wyshed, Amsterdam, 1622 ; and in Gesangh der Zeeden, Amsterdam, 1662." The words (which Ritson said " are not known ") will be found in the Pepys Collection, i. 366, entitled "The Shepherd's Lamentation: to the tune of
	All will be found in this collection except " Johnny Armstrong" of which (although an Epglish song, and of a Westmoreland man) I have not yet found the tune. The words are in Wit restored, 1658, and in Wit and Drollery, Jovial Poems, 1682, called "A Northern Ballet, " begin­ning—"There dwelt a man in fair Westmorland, Johnny Armstrong men did him call; He had neither lands nor rents coming in, Yet he kept eight score men in his hall."	There is also a Scotch ballad about the same hero. b There is another English tune under the same name, to be found in two other collections, Nederlandtsche Ge-denck-Clanck, 1626, and Friesche Lust-Hof, 1634. 1 printed it in National English Airs, 1839, but think this rather more like a ballad-tune, and it is of somewhat earlier authority.