Popular Music Of The Olden Time Vol 2
Ancient Songs, Ballads, & Dance Tunes, Sheet Music & Lyrics - online book
| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
546 ENGLISH SONG AND BALLAD MUSIC. |
||
|
tainments quoted by Mr. Daniel, in his Merry England, of about the year 1691, John Sleepe advertises " a young man that dances a hornpipe, the Lancaster way, extraordinary finely."
• Lancashire was equally famous for pipers and fiddlers ; for a note upon whom I refer the reader to Gifford's Ben Jonson, v. 436; but Lincolnshire disputed with Worcestershire the honor of the bagpipes. In Drayton's Blazons of the Shires, he says— " Beane-belly Lestershire, her attribute doth beare,
And bells and bagpipes next, belong to Lincolneshire;" and again, in "his twenty-fifth Song,—
" Thou, Wytham, mine own town, first water'd with my source, As to the Eastern sea I hasten on my course, Who sees so pleasant plains, or knows of fairer scene? Whose swains in shepherd's gray, and girls in Lincoln green, Whilst some the rings of bells, and some the bagpipes ply, Dance many a merry Round, and many a Hydegy."
A variety of notices about Lincolnshire bagpipes have been collected by the commentators on Shakespeare. The bagpipe was quite a rustic instrument, and generally held in contempt. " It seems you never heard good music, that commend a bagpipe," is a figurative speech in Middleton's Any thing for a quiet life; and again, in The Witch, " 'Twill be a worthy work to put down all these pipers; 'tis a pity there should not be a statute against them, as against fiddlers." Ben Jonson says, "A rhyme to him is worse than cheese or a bagpipe," &c, &c. The contemptuous similes to the bagpipe by dramatists, such as, " that snuffles in the nose like a decayed bagpipe," are extremely numerous." |
||
|
|
||
 |
||
|
T |
||