Part IV

. of our _Appendix_.

To no other living writer are we lovers of old literature more deeply indebted than to the veteran John Payne Collier, who is now far advanced in his eighty-seventh year, and whose intellect and industry remain vigorously employed at this great age: one proof of the fact being his new edition of Shakespeare (each play in a separate quarto, issued to private subscribers), begun in January, 1875, and already the Comedies are finished, in the third volume. Among his numerous choice reprints of rare originals, his series of the more than “_Seven Early Poetical Miscellanies_” was a work of greatest value. To these, with his new “_Shakespeare_,” the interesting “_Old Man’s Diary_,” his “_Bibliographical and Critical Account of the Rarest Books in the English Language_,” his “_Annals of the Stage_,” “_The Poetical Decameron_,” his charming “_Book of Roxburghe Ballads_,” 1847, his “_Broadside Black-Letter-Ballads_,” 1868, and other labours, no less than to his warmth of heart and friendly encouragement by letters, the present Editor owes many happy hours, and for them makes grateful acknowledgment.

About the year 1870, J. P. Collier issued to private subscribers his very limited and elegant Reprint, in quarto, of “_An Antidote against Melancholy_,” 1661. This is already nearly as unattainable as the original.

J. P. Collier gave no notes to his Reprint of the “Antidote,” but, in the brief Introduction thereunto, he mentioned that:—“This poetical tract has been selected for our reprint on account of its rarity, the excellence of the greater part of its contents, the high antiquity of some of them, and from the fact that many of the ballads and humorous pieces of versification are either not met with elsewhere, or have been strangely corrupted in repetition through the press. Two or three of them are used by Shakespeare, and the word ‘incarnadine’ [see our p. 148] is only found in ‘Macbeth’ (A. ii., sc. 2), in Carew’s poems, and in this tract: here we have it as the name of a red wine; and nobody hitherto has noticed it in that sense.

“When Ritson published his ‘Robin Hood’ in 1795, he relied chiefly upon the text of the famous ballad of ‘Arthur o’ Bradley,’ as he discovered it in the miscellany before us [See our _Merry Drollery, Compleat_, pp. 312, 399; also, in present volume, p. 166, and Additional Note]; but, learned in such matters as he undoubtedly was, he was not aware of the very early period at which ‘Arthur o’ Bradley’ was so popular as to be quoted in one of our Old Moralities, which may have been in existence in the reigns of Henry VI. or Henry VII., which was acted while Henry VIII. or Edward VI. were on the throne, and which is contained in a manuscript bearing the date of 1579.

“The few known copies of ‘An Antidote against Melancholy’ are dated 1661, the year after the Restoration, when lawless licence was allowed both to the press and in social intercourse; and, if we permitted ourselves to mutilate our originals, we might not have reproduced such coarseness; but still no words will be found which, even a century afterwards, were not sometimes used in private conversation, and which did not even make their appearance at full length in print. Mere words may be said to be comparatively harmless; but when, as in the time of Charles II, they were employed as incentives to vice and laxity of manners, they become dangerous. The repetition of them in our day, in a small number of reprints, can hardly be offensive to decorum, and unquestionably cannot be injurious to public morals. We always address ourselves to the students of our language and habits of life.”

Page 113 (original, p. 1). _Not drunken, nor sober, &c._

Joseph Ritson gave this Bacchanalian chant in the second volume of his “English Songs,” p. 58, 1783. Forty-six verses, out of the seventy, had been repeated in the “Collection of Old Ballads,” 1723-25, (which Ambrose Philips and David Mallet may have edited,) “The Ex-Ale-tation of Ale” is in vol. iii. p. 166. Part, if not all, must have been in existence fully ten years before it appeared in the “Antidote,” as we find “O Ale _ab alendo_, thou Liquor of life!” with music by John Hilton, in his “Catch that Catch Can,” p. 5, 1652. It is also in _Wit’s Merriment; or, Lusty Drollery_, 1656, p. 118; eight verses only. These are: 1. Not drunken; 2. But yet to commend it; 3. But yet, by your leave; 4. It makes a man merry; 5. The old wife whose teeth; 6. The Ploughman, the Lab’rer; 7. The man that hath a black blous to his wife; 8. With that my friend said, &c. Still earlier, the poem had appeared, imperfectly, in a four-paged quarto pamphlet, dated 1642 (along with “The Battle fought between the Norfolk Cock and the Wisbeach Cock,” see _M. D. C._, p. 242) as by THOMAS RANDALL, i.e. RANDOLPH. Accordingly, it has been included (34 verses only) in the 1875 edition of his Works, p. 662. We personally attach no weight to the pamphlet’s ascription of it to Randolph, (who died in March, 1634-5). It is far more likely to have been the work of SAMUEL ROWLANDS, in whose _Crew of Kind London Gossips_, 1663, we meet it, p. 129-141, and whose style it more closely resembles. Some poems duly assigned to Randolph are in the same volume, but the “Exaltation of Ale” is _not_ thus distinguished. There are seventy-two verses given, and the motto is _Tempus edax rerum, &c._ We have not been able to consult an earlier edition of S. Rowland’s “_Crew_,” &c., about 1650.

So long afterwards as 1788, we find an abbreviated copy of the song, six verses, in Lackington’s “British Songster,” p. 202, entitled “A Tankard of Ale.” The first verse runs thus:—

“_Not drunk, nor yet sober, but brother to both,_ _I met with a man upon Aylesbury Vale,_ _I saw in his face that he was in good case_ _To go and take part of a tankard of ale._”

Omitting all sequence of narrative, the other verses are adapted from the _Antidote’s_ 21st, 19th, 10th, 26th, and 50th; concerning the hedger, beggar, widow, clerk, and amicable conclusion over a tankard of ale. In a _Convivial Songster_, of 1807, by Tegg, London, these six are given with addition of another as fifth:—

_The old parish Vicar, when he’s in his liquor,_ _Will merrily at his parishioners rail,_ _“Come, pay all your tithes, or I’ll kiss all your wives,”_ _When once he shakes hands with a tankard of ale._

It had appeared in a Chap-book (circa 1794, according to Wm. Logan; see his amusing “Pedlar’s Pack,” pp. 224-6), with other five verses inserted before the Finale. We give them to complete the tale:—

_There’s the blacksmith by trade, a jolly brisk blade,_ _Cries, “Fill up the bumper, dear host, from the pail;”_ _So cheerful he’ll sing, and make the house ring,_ _When once he shakes hands with a tankard of ale._ _Laru la re, laru, &c. So cheerful, &c._

_There’s the tinker, ye ken, cries “old kettles to mend,”_ _With his budget and hammer to drive in the nail;_ _Will spend a whole crown, at one sitting down,_ _When once he shakes hands with a tankard of ale._ _Laru, &c._

_There’s the mason, brave ~John~, the carver of stone,_ _The Master’s grand secret he’ll never reveal;_ _Yet how merry is he with his lass on his knee,_ _When once he shakes hands with a tankard of ale._ _Laru, &c._

_You maids who feel shame, pray me do not blame,_ _Though your private ongoings in public I tell;_ _Young ~Bridget~ and ~Nell~ to kiss will not fail_ _When once they shake hands with a tankard of ale._ _Laru, &c._

_There’s some jolly wives, love drink as their lives,_ _Dear neighbours but mind the sad thread of my tale;_ _Their husbands they’ll scorn, as sure’s they were born,_ _If once they shake hands with a tankard of ale._ _Laru, &c._

_From wrangling or jangling, and ev’ry such strife,_ _Or anything else that may happen to fall;_ _From words come to blows, and sharp bloody nose,_ _But friends again over a tankard of ale._ _Laru, &c._

Notice the characteristic mention of William Elderton, the Ballad-writer (who died before 1592), in the thirty-third verse (our p. 119):—

_For ballads Elderton never had peer;_ _How went his wit in them, with how merry a gale,_ _And with all the sails up, had he been at the cup,_ _And washed his beard with a pot of good ale._

William Elderton’s “New Yorkshire Song, intituled _Yorke, Yorke, for my Monie_,” (entered at Stationers’ Hall, 16 November, 1582, and afterwards “Imprinted at London by Richard Iones; dwelling neere Holbourne Bridge: 1584),” has the place of honour in the Roxburghe Collection, being the first ballad in the first volume. It consequently takes the lead in the valuable “Roxburghe Bds.” of the Ballad Society, 1869, so ably edited by William Chappell, Esq., F.S.A. It also formed the commencement of Ritson’s _Yorkshire Garland_: York, 1788. It is believed that Elderton wrote the “excellent Ballad intituled The Constancy of Susanna” (Roxb. Coll., i. 60; Bagford, ii. 6; Pepys, i. 33, 496). A list of others was first given by Ritson; since, by W. C. Hazlitt, in his _Handbook_, p. 177. Elderton’s “Lenton Stuff ys come to the town” was reprinted by J. O. Halliwell, for the Shakespeare Society, in 1846 (p. 105). He gives Drayton’s allusion to Elderton in Notes to Mr. Hy. Huth’s “79 Black-Letter Ballads,” 1870, 274 (the “Praise of my Ladie Marquess,” by W. E., being on pp. 14-16). Elderton had been an actor in 1552; his earliest dated ballad is of 1559, and he had ceased to live by 1592. Camden gives an epitaph, which corroborates our text, in regard to the “thirst complaint” of the balladist:—

_Hic situs est sitiens, atque ebrius Eldertonus—_ _Quid dico—Hic situs est? his potius sitis est._

Thus freely rendered by Oldys:—

_Dead drunk here Elderton doth lie;_ _Dead as he is, he still is dry;_ _So of him it may well be said,_ _Here he, but not his thirst, is laid._

A MS., time of James I., possessed by J. P. Collier, mentions, in further confirmation:

_~Will Elderton’s~ red nose is famous everywhere,_ _And many a ballet shows it cost him very dear;_ _In ale, and toast, and spice, he spent good store of coin,_ _You need not ask him twice to take a cup of wine._ _But though his nose was red, his hand was very white,_ _In work it never sped, nor took in it delight;_ _No marvel therefore ’tis, that white should be his hand,_ _That ballets writ a score, as you well understand._

(See Wm. Chappell’s Popular Music of the Olden Time, pp. 107, 815; and J. P. Collier’s Extracts from Reg. Stat. Comp., _passim_, Indices, art. Elderton; and his Bk. of Roxb. Bds., p. 139.)

Page 125 (orig. 14). _With an old Song, made by, &c._

The fashion of disparaging the present, by praising the customs and people of days that have passed away, is almost as old as the Deluge, if not older. Homer speaks of the degeneracy in his time, and aged Israel had long earlier lamented the few and evil days to which his own life extended, in comparison with those patriarchs who had gone before him. Even as we know not the full value of the Mistress or the friend whose affection had been given unto us, until separated from them, for ever, by estrangement or the grave, so does it seem to be with many customs and things. Robert Browning touchingly declares:—

_And she is gone; sweet human love is gone!_ _’Tis only when they spring to heaven that angels_ _Reveal themselves to you; they sit all day_ _Beside you, and lie down at night by you_ _Who care not for their presence, muse or sleep,_ _And all at once they leave you, and you know them!_

Modified in succeeding reigns, the ballad of “The Queen [Elizabeth]’s Old Courtier, and A New Courtier of the King [James]” has already known two hundred and fifty years’ popularity. The earliest printed copy was probably issued by T. Symcocke, by or after 1626. We find it in several books about the time of the Restoration, when parodies became frequent. It is in _Le Prince d’Amour_, 1660, p. 161; _Wit and Drollery_, 1682 (not in 1656, 1661 edits.), p. 278, “With an old Song,” _&c._; _Wit and Mirth_, 1684, p. 43; _Dryden’s Misc. Poems_ (ed. 1716, iv. 108); with the Music, in _Pills_, iii. 271; in _Philomel_, 130, 1744; Percy’s _Reliques_, ii. Bk. 3, No. 8, 1767; Ritson’s _English Sgs._, ii. 140, and Chappell’s _Pop. Music_, p. 300, to which refer for a good introduction, with extract from Pepys Diary of 16th June, 1668. Accompanying a Parody by T. Howard, Gent. (beginning similarly, “An Old Song made of an old aged pate”), it meets us in the Roxburghe Coll., iii. 72, printed for F. Coles (1646-74).

Among other parodies may be mentioned one entitled “An Old Souldier of the Queen’s” (in _Merry Drollery, Compleat_, 31, and in _Wit and Drollery_, 248, 1661); another, “The New Souldier” (_Wit and Drollery_, 282, 1682), beginning:—

_With a new Beard but lately trimmed,_ _With a new love-lock neatly kemm’d,_ _With a new favour snatch’d or nimm’d,_ _With a new doublet, French-like trimm’d;_ _And a new gate, as if he swimm’d;_ Like a new Souldier of the King’s, And the King’s new Souldier.

_With a new feather in his Cap;_ _With new white bootes, without a strap_; &c.

In the same edition of _Wit and Drollery_, p. 165, is yet another parody, headed “_Old Souldiers_,” which runs thus (see _Westminster-Drollery_, ii. 24, 1672,):—

_Of Old Souldiers the song you would hear,_ _And we old fiddlers have forgot who they were._

John Cleveland had a parody on the Queen’s Courtier, about 1648, entitled The Puritan, beginning “With face and fashion to be known, For one of sure election.” Another, called The Tub-Preacher, is doubtfully attributed to Samuel Butler, and begins similarly, “With face and fashion to be known: With eyes all white, and many a groan” (in his _Posthumous Works_, p. 44, 3rd edit., 1730). The political parody, entitled “Saint George and the Dragon, _anglicé Mercurius Poeticus_,” to the same tune of “The Old Courtier,” is in the Kings Pamphlets, XVI., and has been reprinted by T. Wright for the Percy Soc., iii. 205. It bears Thomason’s date, 28 Feb., 1659-[60], and is on the overthrow of the Rump, by General Monk. It begins thus:—

_News! news! here’s the occurrences and a new Mercurius,_ _A dialogue between Haselrigg the baffled and Arthur the furious;_ _With Ireton’s readings upon legitimate and spurious,_ _Proving that a Saint may be the Son of a Wh——, for the satisfaction of the curious._ _From a Rump insatiate as the Sea,_ Libera nos, Domine, _&c._

Old songs have rarely, if ever, been modernized so successfully as “The Queen’s Old Courtier,” of which “The Fine Old English Gentleman” is no unworthy representative. Popular though it was, thirty or forty years ago, it is not easily met with now; thus we may be excused for adding it here:—

_THE FINE OLD ENGLISH GENTLEMAN._

_I’ll sing you a good old song, made by a good old pate,_ _Of a fine old English gentleman, who had an old estate,_ _And who kept up his old mansion, at a bountiful old rate;_ _With a good old porter to relieve the old poor at his gate._ _Like a fine old English gentleman, all of the olden time._

_His hall so old was hung around with pikes, and guns, and bows,_ _And swords, and good old bucklers, that had stood against old foes;_ _’Twas there “his worship” held his state in doublet and trunk hose,_ _And quaff’d his cup of good old Sack, to warm, his good old nose:_ _Like a fine old English gentleman, &c._

_When Winter’s cold brought frost and snow, he open’d house to all;_ _And though threescore and ten his years, he featly led the ball;_ _Nor was the houseless wanderer e’er driven from his hall,_ _For, while he feasted all the great, he ne’er forgot the small:_ _Like a fine old English gentleman, &c._

_But time, though sweet, is strong in flight, and years roll swiftly by;_ _And autum’s falling leaves proclaimed, the old man—he must die!_ _He laid him down right tranquilly, gave up life’s latest sigh;_ _While a heavy stillness reign’d around, and tears dimm’d every eye._ _For this good old English gentleman, &c._

_Now surely this is better far than all the new parade_ _Of theatres and fancy balls, “At Home,” and masquerade;_ _And much more economical, when all the bills are paid:_ _Then leave your new vagaries off, and take up the old trade_ _Of a fine old English gentleman, &c._

A series of eight Essays, each illustrated with a design by R. W. Buss, was devoted to “The Old and Young Courtier” in the _Penny Magazine_ of the Society for Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, in 1842.

Charles Matthews used to sing (was it in “Patter _versus_ Clatter”?) an amusing version of “The Fine Young English Gentleman,” of whom it was reported that,

_He kept up his vagaries at a most astounding rate,_ _And likewise his old Landlady,—by staying out so late,_ _Like a fine young English gentleman, one of the present time, &c._

T. R. Planché wrote a parody to the same tune, in his “Golden Fleece,” on the “Fine Young Grecian Gentleman,” Iason, as described by his deserted wife Medea: it begins, “I’ll tell you a sad tale of the life I’ve been led of late.” In Dinny Blake’s “_Sprig of Shillelah_,” p. 3, is found “The Rale Ould Irish Gintleman,” (5 verses) beginning, “I’ll sing you a dacent song, that was made by a Paddy’s pate,” and ending thus:—

_Each Irish boy then took a pride to prove himself a man,_ _To serve a friend, and beat a foe it always was the plan_ _Of a rale ould Irish Gintleman, the boy of the olden time._

(Or, as Wm. Hy. Murray, of Edinburgh, used to say, in his unequalled “Old Country Squire,” “A smile for a friend, a frown for a foe, and a full front for every one!”)

At the beginning of the Crimean War appeared another parody, ridiculing the Emperor Nicholas, as “The Fine Old Russian Gentleman” (it is in Berger’s _Red, White, and Blue_, 467); and clever Robert B. Brough, in one of his more bitter moods against “The Governing Classes,” misrepresented the “Fine Old English Gentleman” (_Ibid._, p. 733), as splenetically as Charles Dickens did in _Barnaby Rudge_, chapter 47.

Page 20 (original). Pan _leave piping, &c._

Given already, in our Appendix to the _Westminster Drollery_, p. liv., with note of tune and locality. See Additional Note in