Part iii

. p. 163, as “made at Oxford many years since”:—

_My Lady and her Maid_ _Were late at Course-a-Park:_ _The wind blew out the candle, and_ _She went to bed in the dark,_

_My Lady, &c._ [as in _Antidote ag. Mel._]

It was popular before December, 1659; allusions to it are in the _Rump_, 1662, i. 369; ii. 62, 97.

Page 153. _An old house end._

Also in _Windsor Drollery_, 1672, p. 30.

Same p. 153. _Wilt thou lend me thy Mare._

With music by Edmund Nelham, in John Hilton’s _Catch that Catch can_, 1652, p. 78. The Answer, here beginning “Your Mare is lame,” &c., we have not met elsewhere. The Catch itself has always been a favourite. In a world wherein, amid much neighbourly kindness, there is more than a little of imposition, the sly cynicism of the verse could not fail to please. Folks do not object to doing a good turn, but dislike being deemed silly enough to have been taken at a disadvantage. So we laugh at the Catch, say something wise, and straightway let ourselves do good-natured things again with a clear conscience.

Page 154. _Good ~Symon~, how comes it, &c._

With music by William Howes, in Hilton’s _Catch that Catch can_, 1652, p. 84. Also in Walsh’s _Catch-Club_, ii. 77. We are told that the _Symon_ here addressed, regarding his Bardolphian nose, was worthy Symon Wadloe,—“Old _Sym_, the King of Skinkers,” or Drawers. Possibly some jocular allusion to the same reveller animates the choice ditty (for which see the _Percy Folio MS._, iv. 124, and _Pills_, iii. 143),

_Old Sir ~Simon~ the King!_ _With his ale-dropt hose,_ _And his malmesy nose,_ _Sing hey ding, ding a ding ding._

We scarcely believe the ascription to be correct, and that “Old Symon the King” originally referred to Simon Wadloe, who kept the “Devil and St. Dunstan” Tavern, whereat Ben Jonson and his comrades held their meetings as The Apollo Club; for which the _Leges Conviviales_ were written. Seeing that Wadloe died in 1626, or ’27, and there being a clear trace of “Old Simon the King” in 1575, in Laneham’s _Kenilworth Letter_ (Reprinted for Ballad Society, 1871, p. cxxxi.), the song appears of too early a date to suit the theory. _Tant pis pour les faits._ But consult Chappell’s _Pop. Mus._, 263-5, 776-7.

Same p. 154. _Wilt thou be fatt? &c._

In 1865 (see his _Bibliog. Account_, i. 25), J. P. Collier drew attention to the mention of Falstaff’s name in this Catch; also to the other _Shakesperiana_, viz., the complete song of “Jog on, jog on the footpath way,” (p. 156), and the burden of “Three merry boys,” to “The Wise-men were but Seven” (_M. D. C._, p. 232), which is connected with Sir Toby Belch’s joviality in _Twelfth Night_, Act ii. 3.

Page 155. _Of all the birds that ever I see._

With the music, in Chappell’s _Pop. Mus. O. T._, p. 75. This favourite of our own day dates back so early, at least, as 1609, when it appeared in (Thomas Ravenscroft’s?) _Deuteromelia; or, the Second Part of Musick’s Melodie, &c._, p. 7. We therein find (what has dropped out, to the damage of our _Antidote_ version), as the final couplet:—

_Sinamont and ginger, nutmegs and cloves,_ _And that gave me my jolly red nose._

Of course, it was the spice deserved blame, not the liquor (as Sam Weller observed, on a similar occasion, “Somehow it always _is_ the salmon”). Those who remember (at the Johnson in Fleet Street, or among the Harmonist Society of Edinburgh) the suggestive lingering over the first syllable of the word “gin-ger,” when “this song is well sung,” cannot willingly relinquish the half-line. It is a genuine relic, for it also occurs in Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Knight of the Burning Pestle,” about 1613, Act i. sc. 3; where chirping Old Merrythought, “who sings with never a penny in his purse,” gives it thus, while “singing and hoiting” [i.e., skipping]:—

_Nose, nose, jolly red nose,_ _And who gave thee this jolly red nose?_ Cinnamon and ginger, nutmegs and cloves, _And they gave me this jolly red nose_.

And we know, by _A Booke of Merrie Riddles_, 1630, and 1631, that it was much sung:

—_then Ale-Knights should_ _To sing this song not be so bold,_ Nutmegs, Ginger, Cinamon and Cloves, They gave us this jolly red nose.

Same p. 155. _This Ale, my bonny lads, &c._

Like Nos. 4, 21, 24, 31, &c., not yet found elsewhere.

Page 156. _What! are we met? Come. &c._

With music by Thomas Holmes, in Hilton’s _Catch that Catch can_, 1652, p. 46.

Same p. 156. _Jog on, jog on the foot path-way._

The four earliest lines of this ditty are sung by Autolycus the Pedlar, and “picker up of unconsidered trifles,” in Shakespeare’s _Winter’s Tale_ (about 1610), Act iv. sc. 2. Whether the latter portion of the song was also by him (nay, more, whether he actually wrote, or merely quoted even the four opening lines), cannot be determined. We prefer to believe that from his hand alone came the fragment, at least—this lively snatch of melody, with good philosophy, such as the Ascetics reject, to their own damage. No wrong is done in accepting the remainder of the song as genuine. The final verse is orthodox, according to the Autolycusian rule of faith. It is in _Windsor Drollery_, p. 30; and our Introduction to _Westminster-Drollery_, p. xxxv.

Page 157. _The parcht earth drinks_, &c.

Compare, with this lame paraphrase of Anacreon’s racy Ode, the more poetic version by Abraham Cowley, printed in _Merry Drollery, Compleat_, p. 22 (not in 1661 ed. _Merry D._) All of Cowley’s Anacreontiques are graceful and melodious. He and Thomas Stanley fully entered into the spirit of them, _arcades ambo_.

Same p. 157. _A Man of Wales_, &c.

We meet this, six years earlier, in _Wits Interpreter_, 1655 edit., p. 285; 1671, p. 290. Our text is the superior.

Page 158. _Drink, drink, all you that think._

Also found in _Wit and Mirth_, 1684, p. 113.

Page 159. _Welcome, welcome, again to thy wits._

By JAMES SHIRLEY, (1590-1666) in his comedy, “The Example,” 1637, Act v. sc. 3, where it is the Song of Sir Solitary Plot and Lady Plot. Repeated in the _Academy of Complements_, 1670, p. 209. Until after that date, for nearly a century, almost all the best songs had been written for stage plays. It forms an appropriate finale, from the last Dramatist of the old school, to the Restoration merriment, the _Antidote against Melancholy_, of 1661.

In one of the later “Sessions of the Poets” (_vide postea_