Popular Music Of The Olden Time Vol 2

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

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	502	ENGLISH SONG AND BALLAD MUSIC.
	of Interlude, before his Majesty in Cambridge, stil'd Liber novus de adveniu regis ad Cantabrigia?n, faithfully done into English, with some liberal advantages, made rather to be sung than read, to the tune of Bonny Nell." A copy in MSS. Ashmole, 36, 37, art. 271, and in Nicholls' Progresses of King James, iii. 66, as well as " A Cambridge Madrigal, confuting the Oxford Ballad that was sung to the tune of Bonny Nell." Massinger alludes to some " Bonny Nell," in his Old Law, act iv., sc. 1, where the Cook says, "That Nell was Helen of Greece too;" and Gnotho answers, " As long as she tarried with her husband, she was Ellen; but after she came to Troy, she was Nell of Troy, or Bonny Nell." There is much punning on musicians in this scene;—as " mre-drawers " they are compared to ttrcne-drawers, both being governed by pegs, both having pipes and sack-buts, only the heads differ; the one hogsheads, the other cittern or gittern heads, but still each wooden heads, &c. In the Pepys Collection, i. 70, is " A Battell of Birds most strangly fought in Ireland upon the 8th day of September, 1621, where neere unto the Citty of Corke, by the river Lee, were gathered together such a multytude of Stares, or Starlings, as the like for number was never seene in any age. To the tune of Shore's Wife, or to the tune of Bonny Nell." And in the same, iii. 124 (or Roxburghe, i. 84), another " to an excellent new tune, or to be sung to Bonny Nell," which commences —
	" As I went forth one summer's day,            Standing hard by the river's side ; To view the meadows fresh and gay,          And in't I heard a maiden cry, A pleasant bower I espied,                         Alas ! there's none e'er lov'd like I.'