| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
|
||
|
770 APPENDIX. |
||
|
|
||
|
p. 107. Deloney's Ballads.—I have not seen a copy of " John for the King," but it was entered at Stationers' Hall on 24th Oct., 1603, as " A newe ballet, called John for the King, to the tune of Hey downe derrye." Deloney's " Eepent, England, repent," is perhaps " England's new Bellman," a copy of which is in the Roxburghe Collection, iii. 222. It begins, " Awake, awake, 0 England," and the burden is " Repent, therefore, 0 England, the day it draweth near," &c. It may also be the ballad of " The great Earthquake," a copy of which is contained in a manuscript of the time of James I. in Mr. Payne Collier's possession. The former is to the tune of 0 man in desperation,—the latter is in the same metre as the ballad on the burning of St. Paul's steeple (quoted at p. 117), and, in all probability, to the same tune. It commences—
" Take warning, London, and beware, It is a sign
By what you late have seen : Of wrath divine,—
O let it fill your minds with care,— A warning to all subjects of the Queen."
The Earthquake I do mean.
There are twelve stanzas, and the eleventh begins thus :— " Again I say repent, repent, Repent, O England, now."
p. 113. Row well, ye Mariners.—The tune is also in Pills to purge Melancholy, ii. 195, 1707, to a song called " John and Joan."
p. 114. Lord Willoughby.—Perhaps the name of Rowland, given to this tune in Queen Elizabeth's Virginal Book, is derived from a ballad commencing " Now welcome, neighbour Rowland," which is in the same metre as that of " Lord Wil-loughby." A copy of this Rowland is in the Pepys Collection, i. 210, " printed for J. Trundle." It is entitled " News, good and new ! to the tune of £20 a yeere."
p. 117. I am the Duke OF Norfolk, or Paul's Steeple.—I have omitted one very popular ballad which was sung to this tune. Many half-sheet copies of it were printed, with the music, during the last century, and it is still remembered. It commences : " There was a little man, and he woo'd a little maid,
And he said " Little maid, will you wed, wed, wed ? I have little more to say than, will you 1 aye or nay ? For little said is soonest mended-ed."
There cannot, I think, be a doubt that the Irish Cruiskeen Lawn, and the Scotch John Anderson, my Jo, are mere modifications of this very old English tune. I have already said that our Country Dances travelled not only over Scotland and Ireland, but over all Europe; and this tune has remained in constant and popular use from the early part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth down to the present time. John Anderson, my Jo, is first found in the Skene Manuscript,- and if any one should wish to be assured of the identity of the two airs, he has only to look to that copy, printed in Dauney's Ancient Scottish Melodies, p. 219. Dauney greatly exaggerates the age of the Skene Manuscript when he dates it in the time of our James I., for it includes an English Country Dance that first appeared in 1698, and the writing alone would sufficiently disprove his idea of its antiquity. Stenhouse asserts that the words of John Anderson, my Jo, are preserved in Bishop Percy's old manuscript, written as early, if not before the year 1560. Here the date of the manuscript, and its containing John |
||
|
|
||