| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
|
||
|
DOWN IN THE NORTH COUNTRY, THE MERRY MILKMAIDS, ETC. 777
In Sportive Wit: The Muses' Merriment, 1658, the burden is quoted in a medley of songs:—
" Old Simon the king, With a thread-bare coat and malmsey nose, Sing heigh------"
The last line quoted on p. 26G, leads to another identification for the tune. In the Roxburghe Collection, i. 170, is "Joy and sorrow mixt together; or a pleasant new ditty, wherein you may find conceits that are pretty, to pleasure your mind : To the tune of Such a Rogue would be hang'd." It commences:—
" Hang sorrow, let's east away care, For now I do mean to be merry, We'll drink some good ale and strong beer,
With sugar, and claret, and sherry. Now I'll have a wife of mine own," &c. The second part of this ballad makes the young man complain, and wish in heart he were unmarried again. M[artin] P[arker] wrote " Have among yon, good women," Ac, to the tune of 0 such a rogue. See Rox., i. 143. And I may add that " Time's alteration," beginning " When this old cap was new," was by him.
t p. 279. Down in the North Country.—The three tunes, " Down in the North Country," " Ah, cruel, bloody fate," and " The merry Milkmaids " (pages 280, 281, and 282), belong to the reign of Charles II., and not to that of Charles I. I was Hjisled as to the date by supposing " Within the North Country," and " Down in the North Country," to be the same tune, for the words of the one could be sung to the tune of the other.
i " Ah, cruel, bloody fate " is by Purcell, and was sung between the acts in Nat. Lee's play of Theodosius, 1680. Of the two remaining, the one is merely an alteration, and the other an arrangement of that air.
'■ p. 282. The Merry Milkmaids.—The print in Tempest's Cryes of London coincides with the description of the milkmaids given by Misson in his Observations on his travels in England, in the reigns of James II. and William III. He says, " On the first of May, and the five and six days following, all the pretty young country girls that serve the town with milk, dress themselves up very neatly, and borrow abundance of silver plate, whereof they make a pyramid, which they adorn with ribbands and flowers, and carry upon their heads instead of their common milk-pails. In this equipage, accompanied by some of their fellow milkmaids, and a bagpipe or fiddle, they go from door to door, dancing before the houses of their customers, hi the midst of boys and girls that follow them in troops, and everybody gives them something." (Ozell's translation, 8vo., 1719, p. 307.) We are told that during Mary's reign, the princess, afterwards Queen Elizabeth, had little opportunity for meditation or amusement: that she was closely guarded, yet sometimes suffered to walk in the gardens of the palace. " In this situation," says Holinshed, " no marvell if she, hearing upon a time out of her garden at Woodstock, a certain milkmaid singing pleasantlie, wished herself to be a milkmaid as she was; saying that her case was better, and life merrier." The remark gave birth to an elegant ballad by Shenstone.
p. 283. Morris Dance.—The first part of this tune will be found in the form of a tune for chimes, in Hawkins's lEstory, 8vo., p. 770. Hawkins supposes it to have |
||
|
|
||