Page 3.

Thomas Weelkes was organist of Winchester College in 1600, and of Chichester Cathedral in 1608. His first collection, “Madrigals to three, four, five, or six voices,” was published in 1597. Here first appeared the verses (fraudulently ascribed, in “The Passionate Pilgrim,” 1599, to Shakespeare), “My flocks feed not.” In 1598 Weelkes published “Ballets and Madrigals to five voices,” which was followed in 1600 by “Madrigals of five and six parts.” Prefixed to the last-named work is the following dedicatory epistle:—

“To the truly noble, virtuous, and honorable, my very good Lord Henry, Lord Winsor, Baron of Bradenham.
My Lord, in the College at Winchester, where I live, I have heard learned men say that some philosophers have mistaken the soul of man for an harmony: let the precedent of their error be a privilege for mine. I see not, if souls do not partly consist of music, how it should come to pass that so noble a spirit as your’s, so perfectly tuned to so perpetual a tenor of excellence as it is, should descend to the notice of a quality lying single in so low a personage as myself. But in music the base part is no disgrace to the best ears’ attendancy. I confess my conscience is untoucht with any other arts, and I hope my confession is unsuspected; many of us musicians think it as much praise to be somewhat more than musicians as it is for gold to be somewhat more than gold, and if Jack Cade were alive, yet some of us might live, unless we should think, as the artisans in the Universities of Poland and Germany think, that the Latin tongue comes by reflection. I hope your Lordship will pardon this presumption of mine; the rather, because I know before Nobility I am to deal sincerely; and this small faculty of mine, because it is alone in me, and without the assistance of other more confident sciences, is the more to be favoured and the rather to be received into your honour’s protection; so shall I observe you with as humble and as true an heart, as he whose knowledge is as large as the world’s creation, and as earnestly pray for you to the world’s Creator.

Your Honor’s in all humble service,
Thomas Weelkes.”

In 1608 appeared Weelkes’ last work, “Airs or Fantastic Spirits for three voices,” a collection of lively and humorous ditties. Oliphant writes:—“For originality of ideas, and ingenuity of construction in part writing, (I allude more especially to his ballets,) Weelkes in my opinion leaves all other composers of his time far behind.” The verses in Weelkes’ song-books are never heavy or laboured; they are always bright, cheerful, and arch.

Page 3. Robert Jones was a famous performer on the lute. He had a share in the management of the theatre in the Whitefriars (Collier’s “Annals of the Stage,” i. 395). His works are of the highest rarity. The delightful lyrics in Jones’ song-books have escaped the notice of all the editors of anthologies.

Page 4. Thomas Morley, who was a pupil of William Byrd, was the author of the first systematic treatise on music published in this country—“A plain and easy Introduction to practical Music,” 1597, quaintly set down in form of a dialogue. The verses in his collections are mere airy trifles, and hardly bear to be separated from the music.

“About the maypole new,” &c., is a translation of some Italian lines, beginning—

In Morley’s “Canzonets to three Voices,” 1593, we have the following pleasant description of the preparations for a country wedding:—

Page 9. John Wilbye is styled by Oliphant “the first of madrigal writers.” He published his “First Set of English Madrigals” in 1598, and his “Second Set” in 1609. The Second Set was dedicated to the unfortunate Lady Arabella Stuart. The composer concludes his dedicatory epistle with the prayer, “I beseech the Almighty to make you in all the passages of your life truly happy, as you are in the world’s true opinion, virtuous.” In the very year when the epistle was written the gifted patroness of art and learning was accused before the Privy Council and ordered to be kept in close confinement. She made her escape, but after a few hours was captured at sea in her flight to Dunkirk, brought back to London, and committed to the Tower, where she died of a broken heart in 1615. It is pleasant to think that the song-book dedicated to her honour may have cheered her in the long hours of solitude. The collection consists chiefly of love-lyrics; but such verses as “Happy, O happy he,” &c. (p. 37) and “Draw on, sweet Night” (p. 21), must have been carefully cherished by the poor captive.

Page 9. “April is in my mistress’ face.”—Compare Robert Greene’s verses in “Perimedes, the Blacksmith,” 1588:—

Page 11. “The Urchins’ Dance” is from the anonymous play “The Maid’s Metamorphosis,” 1600. In the same play are the following dainty verses;—

Thomas Ravenscroft, compiler of the “Brief Discourse,” won his spurs at a very early age. He took his degree of Bachelor of Music before he had reached his fifteenth year, as we learn from some commendatory verses prefixed to the “Brief Discourse;”—

He was twenty-two when he published the “Brief Discourse” in 1614: but in 1611 be had published “Melismata, musical fancies fitting the court, city, and country humours,” and he edited two collections that appeared in 1609—“Pammelia” and “Deuteromelia.” “Pammelia” is the earliest English printed collection of Catches, Rounds, and Canons; both words and music were for the most part older than the date of publication. “Deuteromelia” was intended as a continuation of “Pammelia.”

Page 12. Robert Dowland, editor of “A Musical Banquet,” was a son of John Dowland; he succeeded his father as one of the Court musicians in 1626, and was alive in 1641.

Page 16. Thomas Ford, when he published his “Music of sundry kinds,” 1607, was a musician in the suite of Prince Henry. At the accession of Charles I. he was appointed one of his musicians, and he died in 1648—the year before his royal patron was beheaded.

Page 23. “Little lawn then serve[d] the Pawn.”—The Pawn was a corridor, serving as a bazaar, in the Royal Exchange (Gresham’s).

Page 24. “Farewell, false Love, the oracle of lies.”—“J. C.” in “Alcilia,” 1595, writes:—

Robert Greene has a somewhat similar description of Love (“What thing is Love? it is a power divine,” &c.) in “Menaphon,” 1589.

Page 28. “Fond wanton youths.”—This piece is also printed in “The Golden Garland of Princely Delights,” 1620, where it is headed “Of the Inconveniences by Marriage,” and is directed to be sung to the tune of “When Troy town.”

Page 29, l. 22. “Their longings must not be beguiled.”—The original gives “Their laughings” (which is unintelligible).

Page 31. It was at Wanstead House, a seat of the Earl of Leicester, that Sidney wrote his masque the “Lady of the May” in honour of Queen Elizabeth’s visit in 1578. “Was Raleigh retired there,” writes Mr. W. J. Linton (Rare Poems, p. 257), “during some season of her displeasure? There is a look of him about this song, not unlike the lines to Cynthia; and what mistress but Majesty should appoint his place of retirement?

The two lines that close each stanza are from a song in Sidney’s “Arcadia.”

Page 37. “Who, known to all, unknown to himself dies.” From Seneca’s “Thyestes:”—

Page 39. “How many things.”—I have given four of John Maynard’s “Twelve Wonders of the World” (cf. pp. 44-5, 69); and, if I am not mistaken, the reader will like to see the remaining eight. There is much freshness and piquancy in these quaint old rhymes, which were written by no less a poet than Sir John Davies.

Page 41. “I have house and land in Kent.”—This admirable song has been frequently reprinted. Miss De Vaynes, in her very valuable “Kentish Garland” (i., 142), observes:—“We have met with no other song in the Kentish dialect except Jan Ploughshare’s” (printed on p. 372, vol. i., of the “Garland”). Rimbault in his “Little Book of Songs and Ballads” (1851), gives the following lines from an old MS. (temp. Henry VIII.):—

David Herd printed a fragment of a Scotch song that was founded on the English song:—

Page 43. “I joy not in no earthly bliss.”—These stanzas are usually printed with “My mind to me a kingdom is” (p. 78), and the whole poem has been attributed to Sir Edward Dyer.

Page 47. “I weigh not Fortune’s frown nor smile.”—These lines (which seem to have been modelled on “I joy not in no earthly bliss”) are by Joshua Sylvester.

In the second stanza, “I sound not at the news of wreck,” sound is an old form of swoon.

Page 52. “If women could be fair.”—This poem is ascribed to Edward, Earl of Oxford, in Rawlinson, MS. 85, fol. 16.

Page 53. “In darkness let me dwell.”—These lines are also found in Robert Dowland’s “Musical Banquet,” 1610, set to music by John Dowland.

Page 57. “In the merry month of May.”—First printed in “The Honorable Entertainment given to the Queen’s Majesty in Progress at Elvetham in Hampshire, by the Right Honorable the Earl of Hertford,” 1591, under the title of “The Ploughman’s Song.”

Page 60. “It was the frog in the well.”—There are several versions of this old ditty: the following is from Kirkpatrick Sharpe’s “Ballad Book,” 1824:—

Doubtless Ravenscroft’s version is more ancient. A ballad entitled “A most strange weddinge of the frogge and the mouse” was licensed for printing in 1580. Page 65. “Lady, when I behold.”—Gracefully Paraphrased from an Italian original:—

Page 66. John Danyel is supposed to have been a brother of Samuel Daniel, the poet. He took his degree of Bachelor of Music in 1604. “At the commencement of the reign of Charles the First he was one of the Court Musicians, and his name occurs among the ‘Musicians for the Lutes and Voices’ in a privy seal, dated December 20th, 1625, exempting the musicians belonging to the Court from the payment of subsidies” (Rimbault).

Page 68. “Then all at once for our town cries.”—“I should imagine,” says Oliphant, “that there was occasionally a sort of friendly contention in the sports between neighbouring villages; which idea is rather corroborated by a passage from an old play called the ‘Vow-breaker’ by Samson, 1636: ‘Let the major play the hobby-horse an’ he will; I hope our Town lads cannot want a hobby-horse.’” In an old play. “The Country Girl,” (first printed in 1647), attributed to that shadowy personage Antony Brewer, we have an allusion to this pleasant form of rivalry:—

The stage-direction at the entrance of the dancers runs thus:—“Enter six country wenches, all red petticoats, white stitch’d bodies, in their smock-sleeves, the fiddler before them, and Gillian with her tippet up in the midst of them dancing.”

Page 73. “It was the purest light of heaven” &c.—I am reminded of a fine passage in Drayton’s “Barons’ Wars,” canto VI.:—

Page 74. “The Bellman’s Song.”—In “Robin Goodfellow; his mad pranks and merry jests,” 1628, we have another specimen of a Bellman’s Song:—

“Sometimes would he go like a bellman in the night, and with many pretty verses delight the ears of those that waked at his bell-ringing: his verses were these:—

Then would he go laughing Ho ho ho! as his use was.” Page 77. “That kisses were the seals of love.”—Every reader will recall

(The first stanza is found among the poems of Sir Philip Sidney.)

Page 80. “My prime of youth.”—This song is also set to music in Richard Alison’s “Hour’s Recreation,” 1606, and Michael Este’s “Madrigals of three, four, and five parts,” 1604. It is printed in “ReliquiÆ: WottonianÆ” as “By Chidick Tychborn, being young and then in the tower, the night before his execution.” Chidiock Tychbourne of Southampton was executed with Ballard and Babington in 1586.

Page 80. “My sweetest Lesbia.”—The first stanza is an elegant paraphrase from Catullus, though the last line fails to render the rhythmical sweetness long-drawn-out of “Nox est perpetua una dormienda.”

Page 81. “My Thoughts are winged with Hopes.”—This piece is also found in “England’s Helicon.” A MS. copy, in a commonplace book found at Hamburg, is signed “W. S.” I have frequently met with these initials in volumes of MS. poetry of the early part of the seventeenth century. The following pretty verses in Add. MS. 21, 433, fol. 158, are subscribed “W. S.”:—

There is not the slightest ground for identifying “W. S.” with Shakespeare. Mr. Linton (“Rare Poems,” p. 255) conjectures that “My Thoughts are winged with Hopes”—which has the heading “To Cynthia” in “England’s Helicon”—may be by Raleigh.

Page 83. “Now each creature.”—The first stanza of “An Ode” by Samuel Daniel, originally printed in the 1592 edition of “Delia.” “Now God be with old Simeon.”—Here is another round from “Pammelia”:—

Good honest verse, but ill-suited to these degenerate, tea-drinking days.

Page 85. “Now I see thy looks were feignÈd.”—First printed in “The Phoenix Nest,” 1593, subscribed “T. L. Gent,” i.e. Thomas Lodge, one of the most brilliant of Elizabethan lyrists.

Page 87. “Shall we play barley-break.”—The fullest description of the rustic game of barley-break is to be found in the first book of Sidney’s “Arcadia.”

Page 87. “Now let her change.” This song is also set to Music in Robert Jones’ “Ultimum Vale” (1608).

Page 89. “Now what is love” &c.—This poem originally appeared in “The Phoenix Nest,” 1593; it is also printed (in form of a dialogue) in “England’s Helicon,” 1600, and Davison’s “Poetical Rhapsody,” 1602. It is ascribed to Raleigh in a MS. list of Davison’s. See Canon Hannah’s edition of Raleigh’s poems.

Page 93. “Oft have I mused.”—This poem was printed in Davison’s “Poetical Rhapsody,” 1602. Page 96. “Our country-swains in the morris-dance.”—In Morley’s “Madrigals to Four Voices,” 1594, there is a lively description of the morris-dance:—

“I woo with tears and ne’er the near.”—Ne’er the near (a proverbial expression) = Never the nigher.

Page 107. “When they came home Sis floted cream.”—I suppose the meaning is that Sis skimmed the cream from the milk. Halliwell (Arch. Dict.) gives “Flotten-milk. Same as Flet-mitte” and “flet-mitte” is a north-country term for skimmed milk.

“Since first I saw.”—This exquisite song is also found in “The Golden Garland of Princely Delights,” 1620.

Page 114. “Sweet Love, my only treasure.”—Printed in Davison’s “Poetical Rhapsody,” 1602, where it is subscribed with the mysterious initials “A. W.”

Page 115. “Sweet, stay awhile.”—I suspect that this stanza does not really belong to Donne’s “Break of day;” it is not found in MS. copies of Donne’s poems, nor in any edition prior to that of 1669. Probably Donne’s verses were written as a companion-piece to the present poem.

Page 120. “Yet merrily sings little Robin.”—The loveliest of all verses in praise of Robin Redbreast are in Chapman’s “Tears of Peace,” 1609:—

Page 120. “The love of change.”—This is the first stanza of a poem which is printed entire (in six stanzas) in Davison’s “Poetical Rhapsody,” 1602.

Page 121. “The lowest trees have tops.”—Printed in Davison’s “Poetical Rhapsody” with the signature “Incerto.”

Page 121. “The man of life upright.”—In some old MS. copies this poem is ascribed to Francis Bacon: see Hannah’s “Poems of Raleigh and Wotton,” p. 119. Canon Hannah makes no mention of Campion’s claim. Campion distinctly tells us that he wrote both the verses and the music of his songs: and I have no doubt that he was the author of the present lyric, which has more merit than any of Bacon’s poems. In an epigram printed in his “Observations in the Art of English Poetry,” 1602, there is a striking image that reappears in the present poem:—

Henceforward let nobody claim “The man of life upright” for Bacon.

Page 124. “The Nightingale so pleasant and so gay.”—“According to Peacham,” says Oliphant (“Musa Madrigalesca,” p. 45), “there was a virtuous contention between W. Byrd and Ferrabosco who of the two should best set these words; in which according to his (Peacham’s) opinion, Ferrabosco succeeded so well that ‘it could not be bettered for sweetness of ayre and depth of judgment.’”

Page 124. “The Nightingale so soon as April bringeth.”—From the first stanza of a poem printed in the third edition of Sidney’s “Arcadia,” 1598.

Page 126. “There is a garden in her face.”—This poem is also set to music in Alison’s “Hour’s Recreation,” 1606, and Robert Jones’ “Ultimum Vale” (1608). Herrick’s dainty verses “Cherry-Ripe” are well-known:—

Page 127. “There is a lady sweet and kind.”—Printed also in “The Golden Garland of Princely Delights,” 1620.

Page 128. “There were three Ravens.”—The north-country version of this noble dirge contains some verses of appalling intensity:—

Page 130. “Think’st thou to seduce me,” &c.—In William Corkine’s “Airs,” 1610, this song is found with considerable variations. Corkine gives only three stanzas. The first stanza agrees closely with Campion’s text; the second and third stanzas run thus:—

Page 131. “Thou art not fair for all thy red and white.”—These lines are printed in Dr. Grosart’s edition of Donne’s poems, vol. ii. p. 259. They are ascribed to Donne in an early MS.; but I see no reason for depriving Campion of them. (The first stanza is also set to music in Thomas Vautor’s “Airs,” 1619.)

Page 132. “Though Amaryllis dance in green.”—Also printed in “England’s Helicon,” 1600.

Page 148. “We must not part as others do.”—These lines are very much in Donne’s manner. The MS. from which they are taken (Egerton MS. 2013) contains some undoubted poems of Donne.

Page 151. “Were I a king.”—Canon Hannah prints these verses (in his “Poems of Raleigh and Wotton,” p. 147) from a MS. copy, in which they are assigned to Edward Earl of Oxford. Appended in the MS. are the following answers:—

Page 152. “What is our life?”—A MS. copy of these verses is subscribed “S^r W. R.”, i.e., Sir Walter Raleigh. See Hannah’s “Poems of Raleigh and Wotton,” p. 27.

Compare the sombre verses, signed “Ignoto,” in “ReliquiÆ WottonianÆ”:—

Page 153. “What needeth all this travail and turmoiling?”—Suggested by Spenser’s fifteenth sonnet:—

Page 154, l. 1. “And fortune’s fate not fearing.”—Oliphant boldly reads, for the sake of the rhyme, “And fickle fortune scorning.”—in “England’s Helicon” the text is the same as in the song-book.

Page 158, l. 5. “And when she saw that I was in her danger.”—Within one’s danger = to be in a person’s power or control.

L. 16. “White Iope.”—Campion must have had in his mind a passage of Propertius (ii. 28);—

See Hertzberg’s note on that passage.

Page 162. “While that the sun.”—Also printed in “England’s Helicon,” 1600.