Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age Part 1

Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age.

by Various.

PREFACE.

The present Anthology is intended to serve as a companion volume to the Poetical Miscellanies published in England at the close of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries. A few of the lyrics here collected are, it is true, included in "England's Helicon," Davison's "Poetical Rhapsody," and "The Ph[oe]nix' Nest"; and some are to be found in the modern collections of Oliphant, Collier, Rimbault, Mr. W.J.

Linton, Canon Hannah, and Professor Arber. But many of the poems in the present volume are, I have every reason to believe, unknown even to those who have made a special study of Elizabethan poetry. I have gone carefully through all the old song-books preserved in the library of the British Museum, and I have given extracts from two books of which there is no copy in our national library. A first attempt of this kind must necessarily be imperfect. Were I to go over the ground again I should enlarge the collection, and I should hope to gain tidings of some song-books (mentioned by bibliographers) which I have hitherto been unable to trace.

In Elizabeth's days composers were not content to regard the words of a song as a mere peg on which to hang the music, but sought the services of true-born lyrists. It is not too much to say that, for delicate perfection of form, some of the Elizabethan songs can compare with the choicest epigrams in the Greek Anthology. At least one composer, Thomas Campion, wrote both the words and the music of his songs; and there are no sweeter lyrics in English poetry than are to be found in Campion's song-books. But it may be a.s.sumed that, as a rule, the composers are responsible only for the music.

It was in the year of the Spanish Armada, 1588, that William Byrd published "Psalms, Sonnets, and Songs of Sadness and Piety," the first Elizabethan song-book of importance. Few biographical particulars concerning Byrd have come down. As he was senior chorister of St. Paul's in 1554, he is conjectured to have been born about 1538. From 1563 to 1569 he was organist of Lincoln Cathedral. He and Tallis were granted a patent, which must have proved fairly lucrative, for the printing of music and the vending of music-paper. In later life he appears to have become a convert to Romanism. His last work was published in 1611, and he died at a ripe old age on the 24th of July, 1623. The "Psalms, Sonnets, and Songs" are dedicated to Sir Christopher Hatton. In the dedicatory epistle he terms the collection "this first printed work of mine _in English_;" in 1575 he had published with Tallis "Cantiones Sacrae." From the t.i.tle one would gather that Byrd's first English collection was mainly of a sacred character, but in an epistle to the reader he hastens to set us right on that point:--"Benign reader, here is offered unto thy courteous acceptance music of sundry sorts, and to content divers humours. If thou be disposed to pray, here are psalms; if to be merry, here are sonnets." There is, indeed, fare for all comers; and a reader has only himself to blame if he goes away dissatisfied. In those days, as in these, it was not uncommon for a writer to attribute all faults, whether of omission or commission, to the luckless printer.

Byrd, on the other hand, solemnly warns us that "in the expression of these songs either by voices or instruments, if there be any jar or dissonance," we are not to blame the printer, who has been at the greatest pains to secure accuracy. Then the composer makes a modest appeal on behalf of himself, requesting those who find any fault in the composition "either with courtesy to let the same be concealed," or "in friendly sort" point out the errors, which shall be corrected in a future impression. This is the proper manner of dealing between gentlemen. His next publication was "Songs of Sundry Natures," 1589, which was dedicated to Sir Henry Carey, who seems to have been as staunch a patron of Byrd as his son, Sir George Carey, was of Dowland.

In 1611 appeared Byrd's last work, "Psalms, Songs, and Sonnets." The composer must have taken to heart the precepts set down by Sir Edward Dyer in "My mind to me a kingdom is," (printed in "Psalms, Sonnets, and Songs") for his dedicatory epistle and his address to the reader show him to have been a man who had laid up a large store of genial wisdom, upon which he could draw freely in the closing days of an honourable life. His earlier works had been well received, and in addressing "all true lovers of music" he knew that he could rely upon their cordial sympathy. "I am much encouraged," he writes, "to commend to you these my last labours, for mine _ultimum vale_;" and then follows a piece of friendly counsel: "Only this I desire, that you will be as careful to hear them well expressed, as I have been both in the composing and correcting of them. Otherwise the best song that ever was made will seem harsh and unpleasant; for that the well expressing of them either by voices or instruments is the life of our labours, which is seldom or never well performed at the first singing or playing."

No musician of the Elizabethan age was more famous than John Dowland, whose "heavenly touch upon the lute" was commended in a well-known sonnet (long attributed to Shakespeare) by Richard Barnfield. Dowland was born at Westminster in 1562. At the age of twenty, or thereabouts, he started on his travels; and, after rambling through "the chiefest parts of France, a nation furnished with great variety of music," he bent his course "towards the famous province of Germany," where he found "both excellent masters and most honourable patrons of music." In the course of his travels he visited Venice, Padua, Genoa, Ferrara, and Florence, gaining applause everywhere by his musical skill. On his return to England he took his degree at Oxford, as Bachelor of Music, in 1588. In 1597 he published "The First Book of Songs or Airs of four parts, with Tableture for the Lute." Prefixed is a dedicatory epistle to Sir George Carey (second Lord Hunsdon), in which the composer alludes gracefully to the kindness he had received from Lady Elizabeth Carey, the patroness of Spenser. A "Second Book of Songs or Airs" was published in 1600, when the composer was at the Danish Court, serving as lutenist to King Christian the Fourth. The work was dedicated to the famous Countess of Bedford, whom Ben Jonson immortalized in a n.o.ble sonnet.

From a curious address to the reader by George Eastland, the publisher, it would appear that in spite of Dowland's high reputation the sale of his works was not very profitable. "If the consideration of mine own estate," writes Eastland, "or the true worth of money, had prevailed with me above the desire of pleasing you and showing my love to my friends, these second labours of Master Dowland--whose very name is a large preface of commendation to the book--had for ever lain hid in darkness, or at the least frozen in a cold and foreign country." The expenses of publication were heavy, but he consoled himself with the thought that his high-spirited enterprise would be appreciated by a select audience. In 1603 appeared "The Third and Last Book of Songs or Airs;" and, in 1612, when he was acting as lutenist to Lord Walden, Dowland issued his last work, "A Pilgrime's Solace." He is supposed to have died about 1615, leaving a son, Robert Dowland, who gained some fame as a composer. Modern critics have judged that Dowland's music was somewhat overrated by his contemporaries, and that he is wanting in variety and originality. Whether these critics are right or wrong, it would be difficult to overrate the poetry. In attempting to select representative lyrics one is embarra.s.sed by the wealth of material. The rich cl.u.s.ters of golden verse hang so temptingly that it is difficult to cease plucking when once we have begun.

In his charming collection of "Rare Poems" Mr. Linton quotes freely from the song-books of Byrd and Dowland, but gives only one lyric of Dr.

Thomas Campion. As Mr. Linton is an excellent judge of poetry, I can only suppose that he had no wide acquaintance with Campion's writings, when he put together his dainty Anthology. There is clear evidence[1]

that Campion wrote not only the music but the words for his songs--that he was at once an eminent composer and a lyric poet of the first rank.

He published a volume of Latin verse, which displays ease and fluency (though the prosody is occasionally erratic); as a masque-writer he was inferior only to Ben Jonson; he was the author of treatises on the arts of music and poetry; and he practised as a physician. It would be interesting to ascertain some facts about the life of this highly-gifted man; but hitherto little information has been collected.

The Oxford historian, good old Anthony-a-Wood, went altogether wrong and confused our Thomas Campion with another person of the same name who took his degree in 1624--five years after the poet's death. It is probable that our Thomas Campion was the second son of Thomas Campion of Witham, Ess.e.x, and that he was distantly related to Edmund Campion the famous Jesuit. His first work was his "Epigrammatum Libri duo,"

published in 1595, and republished in 1619. The first edition is exceedingly rare; there is no copy in the British Museum. Francis Meres, in his very valuable (and very tedious) "Wit's Treasury," 1598, mentions Campion among the "English men, being Latin poets," who had "attained good report and honorable advancement in the Latin empire." In 1601 Campion and Philip Rosseter published jointly "A Book of Airs." The music was partly written by Campion and partly by Rosseter; but the whole of the poetry may be safely a.s.signed to Campion. From a dedicatory epistle, by Rosseter, to Sir Thomas Monson, we learn that Campion's songs, "made at his vacant hours and privately imparted to his friends,"

had been pa.s.sed from hand to hand and had suffered from the carelessness of successive transcribers. Some impudent persons, we are told, had "unrespectively challenged" (_i.e._ claimed) the credit both of the music and the poetry. The address _To the Reader_, which follows the dedicatory epistle, is unsigned, but appears to have been written by Campion. "What epigrams are in poetry," it begins, "the same are airs in music: then in their chief perfection when they are short and well seasoned. But to clog a light song with a long preludium is to corrupt the nature of it. Many rests in music were invented either for necessity of the fugue, or granted as an harmonical licence in songs of many parts; but in airs I find no use they have, unless it be to make a vulgar and trivial modulation seem to the ignorant strange, and to the judicial tedious." It is among the curiosities of literature that this true poet, who had so exquisite a sense of form, and whose lyrics are frequently triumphs of metrical skill, should have published a work (ent.i.tled "Observations in the Art of English Poesy") to prove that the use of rhyme ought to be discontinued, and that English metres should be fashioned after cla.s.sical models. "Poesy," he writes, "in all kind of speaking is the chief beginner and maintainer of eloquence, not only helping the ear with the acquaintance of sweet numbers, but also raising the mind to a more high and lofty conceit. For this end have I studied to induce a true form of versifying into our language; for the vulgar and artificial custom of rhyming hath, I know, deterr'd many excellent wits from the exercise of English poesy." The work was published in 1602, the year after he had issued the first collection of his charming lyrics. It was in answer to Campion that Samuel Daniel wrote his "Defence of Rhyme" (1603), one of the ablest critical treatises in the English language. Daniel was puzzled, as well he might be, that an attack on rhyme should have been made by one "whose commendable rhymes, albeit now himself an enemy to rhyme, have given heretofore to the world the best notice of his worth." It is pleasant to find Daniel testifying to the fact that Campion was "a man of fair parts and good reputation."

Ben Jonson, as we are informed by Drummond of Hawthornden, wrote "a Discourse of Poesy both against Campion and Daniel;" but the discourse was never published. In his "Observations" Campion gives us a few specimen-poems written in the unrhymed metres that he proposed to introduce. The following verses are the least objectionable that I can find:--

"Just beguiler, Kindest love yet only chastest, Royal in thy smooth denials, Frowning or demurely smiling, Still my pure delight.

Let me view thee With thoughts and with eyes affected, And if then the flames do murmur, Quench them with thy virtue, charm them With thy stormy brows.

Heaven so cheerful Laughs not ever; h.o.a.ry winter Knows his season, even the freshest Summer morns from angry thunder Yet not still secure."

There is artful ease and the touch of a poet's hand in those verses; but the Muses shield us from such innovations! Campion's second collection, "Two Books of Airs," is undated; but, from an allusion to the death of Prince Henry, we may conclude that it was published about the year 1613.

The first book consists of "Divine and Moral Songs" and the second of "light conceits of lovers." In dealing with sacred themes, particularly when they venture on paraphrases of the Psalms, our poets seldom do themselves justice; but I claim for Campion that he is neither stiff nor awkward. Henry Vaughan is the one English poet whose devotional fervour found the highest lyrical expression; and Campion's impa.s.sioned poem "Awake, awake, thou heavy sprite!" (p. 6) is not unworthy of the great Silurist. Among the sacred verses are some lines ("Jack and Joan they think no ill," p. 61) in praise of a contented countryman and his good wife. A sweeter example of an old pastoral lyric could nowhere be found, not even in the pages of Nicholas Breton. The "Third and Fourth Books of Airs" are also undated, but they were probably published in 1613. In this collection, where all is good, my favourite is "Now winter nights enlarge" (p. 90). Others may prefer the melodious serenade, worthy even of Sh.e.l.ley, "Shall I come, sweet love, to thee" (p. 100). But there is one poem of Campion (printed in the collection of 1601) which, for strange richness of romantic beauty, could hardly be matched outside the sonnets of Shakespeare:--

"When thou must home to shades of underground, And there arrived, a new admired guest, The beauteous spirits do engirt thee round, White Iope, blithe Helen, and the rest, To hear the stories of thy finish'd love From that smooth tongue whose music h.e.l.l can move:

Then wilt thou speak of banqueting delights, Of masques and revels which sweet youth did make, Of tourneys and great challenges of knights, And all these triumphs for thy beauty sake: When thou hast told these honours done to thee, Then tell, O tell, how thou didst murder me!"

The mention of "White Iope" was suggested by a pa.s.sage of Propertius:--

"Sunt apud infernos tot millia formosarum; Pulchra sit, in superis, si licet, una locis.

Vobisc.u.m[2] est _Iope_, vobisc.u.m candida Tyro," &c.

Campion was steeped in cla.s.sical feeling: his rendering of Catullus'

"Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus" (p. 80) is, so far as it goes, delightful. It is time that Campion should again take his rightful place among the lyric poets of England. In his own day his fame stood high.

Camden did not hesitate to couple his name with the names of Spenser and Sidney; but modern critics have persistently neglected him. The present anthology contains a large number of his best poems; and I venture to hope that my attempt to recall attention to the claims of this true poet will not be fruitless.

There is much excellent verse hidden away in the Song-books of Robert Jones, a famous performer on the lute. Between 1601 and 1611 Jones issued six musical works. Two of these--"The First Set of Madrigals,"

1607, and "The Muses' Garden for Delight," 1611,--I have unfortunately not been able to see, as I have not yet succeeded in discovering their present resting-place. Of "Ultimum Vale, or the Third Book of Airs"

[1608], only one copy is known. It formerly belonged to Rimbault, and is now preserved in the library of the Royal College of Music. The other publications of Jones are of the highest rarity. By turns the songs are grave and gay. On one page is the warning to Love--

"Little boy, pretty knave, hence, I beseech you!

For if you hit me, knave, in faith I'll breech you." (p. 72.)

On another we read "Love winged my hopes and taught me how to fly," (p.

73); but the vain hopes, seeking to woo the sun's fair light, were scorched with fire and drown'd in woe,

"And none but Love their woeful hap did rue, For Love did know that their desires were true; Though Fate frowned.

And now drowned They in sorrow dwell, It was the purest light of heaven for whose fair love they fell."

The last line is superb.

I have drawn freely from the madrigals of Weelkes, Morley, Farmer, Wilbye and others. Thomas Ford's "Music of Sundry Kinds," 1607, has yielded some very choice verse; and Francis Pilkington's collections have not been consulted in vain. From John Attye's "First Book of Airs,"

1622, I have selected one song, (p. 94), only one,--warm and tender and delicious. Some pleasant verses have been drawn from the rare song-books of William Corkine; and Thomas Vautor's "Songs of Divers Airs and Natures," 1619, have supplied some quaint s.n.a.t.c.hes, notably the address to the owl, (p. 116) "Sweet Suffolk owl, so trimly dight." I have purposely refrained from giving many humorous ditties. Had I been otherwise minded there was plenty of material to my hand in the rollicking rounds and catches of Ravenscroft's admirable collections.

As I have no technical knowledge of the subject, it would be impertinent for me to attempt to estimate the merits of the music contained in these old song-books; but I venture with all confidence to commend the poetry to the reader's attention. There is one poem which I have deliberately kept back. It occurs in "The First Part of Airs, French, Polish, and others together, some in tableture and some in p.r.i.c.k-song," 1605. The composer was a certain Captain Tobias Hume, but who the author of the poem was I know not. Here is the first stanza:--

"Fain would I change that note To which fond love hath charm'd me, Long long to sing by rote, Fancying that that harm'd me: Yet when this thought doth come, 'Love is the perfect sum Of all delight,'

I have no other choice Either for pen or voice To sing or write."

The other stanza shall occupy the place of honour in the front of my Anthology; for among all the Elizabethan song-books I have found no lines of more faultless beauty, of happier cadence or sweeter simplicity, no lines that more justly deserve to be treasured in the memory while memory lasts.

[1] In his address _To The Reader_ prefixed to the "Fourth Book of Airs"

he writes:--"Some words are in these books which have been clothed in music by others, and I am content they then served their turn: _yet give me leave to make use of mine own_." Again, in the address _To the Reader_ prefixed to the "Third Book of Airs:"--"In these English airs I have chiefly aimed to _couple my words and notes lovingly together; which will be much for him to do that hath not power over both_."

[2] Some editions read "Vobisc.u.m Antiope."

LYRICS FROM ELIZABETHAN SONG-BOOKS.

From FARMER's _First Set of English Madrigals_, 1599.

A little pretty bonny la.s.s was walking In midst of May before the sun gan rise; I took her by the hand and fell to talking Of this and that as best I could devise: I swore I would--yet still she said I should not; Do what I would, and yet for all I could not.

From JOHN DOWLAND's _Second Book of Songs or Airs_, 1600.

A shepherd in a shade his plaining made Of love and lover's wrong Unto the fairest la.s.s that trod on gra.s.s, And thus began his song: "Since Love and Fortune will, I honour still Your fair and lovely eye: What conquest will it be, sweet Nymph, for thee If I for sorrow die?

Restore, restore my heart again Which love by thy sweet looks hath slain, Lest that, enforced by your disdain, I sing 'Fie on love! it is a foolish thing.'

"My heart where have you laid? O cruel maid, To kill when you might save!