The Ballad Literature and Popular Music of the Olden Time : a History Of

CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1 89 1 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE PJSIC Cornell University Library ML 3650.C46 V.1 The ballad literature and popular music 3 1924 022 433 969 Cornell University Library The original of this bool< is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022433969 — ^ Haute 1. fac Suml& cf an £nfflish "So-r m-e/ie" Sonzi JUf'CerUu^. l^^S ft -T-% -1^-^ :p 1 *- -^W-r la t^ uiar^ 'N^tao • fill o — tiont^tatxenf'rrnvrnf^^fvL- sgrr~r 1X7 tnozi?f^-^<îao— diitcapaiio^ fmnuiuoS^ -•— J^ :r±±T ' « -l}aTicifxnarmcarn3trer»(jflinrt^ûa;cvi<>2/r<?«j^M^ H 11^ fo \x - ' <? ^ ' - p 1^. - 1/ - » ^t . 1^ ^=5 îttt«f)aufem7aip„faSH«ff^f<i. 'Ti attfei tyaoo ttWHfXotiggr-nd-ogr- ~ ' 7 '^ I in^ cucmm^feigr cucoi ^ _ J . ItUj^CUCOl THE BALLAD LITERATURE 'fûkx Mmit nf If Mkn €m : \ HISTOBV or THE ANCIENT SONGS, BALLADS, AND OF THE DANCE TUNES OF ENGLAND, WITH NUMEROUS ANECDOTES AND ENTIRE BALLADS. ALSO A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE MINSTRELS. BY W. CHAPPELL, F.S.A. THE WHOLE OF THE AIRS HARMONIZED BY G. A. MACFARREN. VOL. I. ' Prout sunt illi Anglicani concentus suavissimi quidem, ac elegantes.'' Thesaurus Sixrmonicus Laueenciki, Romani, 1603. CHAPPELL AND CO., 50, NEW BOND STREET, W. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. General Introduction. P VGE Minstrelsy from the Saxon period to tlie reign of Edward I. .1 Music of the middle ages, and Music in England to the end of the thirteenth century 11 English Minstrelsy from 1270 to 1480, and the gradual extinction of the old Minstrels 28 Introduction to the reigns of Henry VII., Henrv VIII., Edward VI., and Queen Mary 48 Songs and ballads of ditto . 56 to 9t Introduction to the reign of Queen Elizabeth . 98 Songs and ballads of ditto . 110 to 243 Introduction to the reign of James I. 244 Songs and Ijallads of the reigns of James I. and Charles I. 254 to 384 — INTRODUCTION. It is now nearly twenty years since the publication of my collection of National English Airs (the first of the kind), and about fourteen since the edition was exhausted. In the interval, I found such numerous notices of music and ballads in old English books, that nearly every volume supplied some fresh illustration of my subject. If " Sternhold and Hopkins" was at hand the " title-page told that the psalms were penned for the laying apart of all ungodly songs and ballads," and the translation furnished a list of musical instruments in use at the time it was made: if Myles Coverdale's GliosUy Psalms—in the preface he alludes to the ballads of our courtiers, to the whistling of our carters and ploughmen, and recommends young women at the distaff and spinning-wheel to forsake their " hey, nonny, nonny—key, trolly, lolly, and such like fantasies;" thus shewing what were the usual burdens of their songs. Even m the twelfth century, Abbot AUred's, or Ethelred's, reprehension of the singers gives so lively a picture of their airs and graces, as to resemble an exaggerated description of opera-singing at the present day ; and, if still receding in point of date, in the life of St. Aldhelm, or Oldham, we find that, in order to ingratiate himself with the lower orders, and induce them to listen to serious subjects, he adopted the expedient of dressing himself like a minstrel, and first sang to them their popular songs. If something was to be gleaned from works of this order, how much more from the comedies and other pictures of English life in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ! I resolved, therefore, to defer the re-publication for a few years, and then found the increase of materials so great, that it became easier to re-write than to make additions. Hence the change of title to the work. Since my former publication, also, I have been favoured with access to the ballads collected by Pepys, the well-known diarist ; and the nearly equally celebrated " Roxhurghe Collection" (formed by Robert, Earl of Oxford, and increased by subsequent possessors) has been added to the library of the British Museum. These and other advantages, such as the permission to examine and make extracts from the registers of the Stationers' Company (through the liberality of the governing body) , have induced me to attempt a chronological arrangement of tho airs. Such an arrangement is necessarily imperfect, on account of -the irnpossir bility of tracing the exact dates of tunes by unknown authors ; but in every case the reader has before him the evidence upon which the classification has been founded. Vi. INTRODUCTION. It might be supposed that the registers of the Company of Stationers would furnish a complete list of ballads and ballad-printers, but, having seen all the entries from 1577 to 1799, I should say that not more than one out of every hundred ballads was registered. The names of some of the printers are not to be found in the registers. It appears from an entry referring to the "white book" of the Company (which is not now existing) , that seven hundred and ninety-six ballads were left in the council-chamber of the Company at the end of the year 1560, to be handed over to the new Wardens, and at the same time but forty-four books. Webbe, in a Discourse of Unglish Foetrie, printed in 1586, speaks of " the un-countahle rabble of ryming ballet-makers and compylers of senseless sonnets," and adds, " there is not anie tune or stroke which may be sung or plaide on instruments, which hath not some poetical ditties framed according to the numbers thereof : some to Rogero, some to Trenchmore, to Downright Squire, to galliardes, to pavines, to jygges, to brawles, to all manner of tunes ; which every fidler knows better than myself, and therefore I will let them passe." Here the class of music is named with which old English ditties were usually coupled—dance and ballad tunes. The great musicians of Elizabeth's reign did not often compose airs of the short and rhythmical character required for ballads. These were chiefly the productions of older musicians, or of those of lower grade, and some of ordinary fiddlers and pipers. The Frog Cfalliard is the only instance I know of a popular ^ ballad-tune to be traced to a celebrated composer of the latter half of the sixteenth century. The scholastic music then in vogue was of a wholly different character. Point and counterpoint, fugue and the ingenious working of parts, were the great objects of study, and rhythmical melody was but lightly esteemed. In the reigns of James I. and Charles I., we find a few " new court tunes" employed for ballads, but it was not until Charles II. ascended the throne that composers of high repute commenced, or re-commenced, the writing of simple " airs, and then but sparingly. Matthew Locke's The delights of the bottle" is perhaps the first song composed for the stage, that supplied a tune to ballads. My former publication contained two hundred and forty-five airs ; the present number exceeds four hundred. Of these, two hundred are contained in the first volume, which extends no further than the reign of Charles I. This portion of the work may be considered as a collection ; but the number of airs extant of later date is so much larger than of the earlier period, that the second volume can be viewed only in the light of a selection. To have made it upon the same scale as the first would have occupied at least three volumes instead of one. My endeavour has therefore been, to give as much variety of character as possible, but especially to include those airs which were popular as ballad-tunes. Some of those contained the old collection have in now given place to others of more general interest but more than two hundred are retained. Every air has been re-harmonized, upon a and consistent simple plan,— the introductions to the various reigns have been .added,—and nearly every line in the book has been re-written. I have been at some trouble to trace to its origin the assertion that the English — — " INTHODUCTION. vii. have no national music. It is extraordinary that such a report should have obtained credence, for England may safely challenge any nation not only to pro- duce as much, but also to give the same satisfactory proofs of antiquity. The report seems to have gained ground from the unsatisfactory selection of English airs in Dr. Crotch's Specimens of various Styles of Music ; but the national music in that ivork Tvas supplied by Malchair, a Spanish violin-player at Oxford, whose authority Crotch therein quotes. It is perhaps not generally known that at the time of the publication Dr. Crotch was but nineteen years of age. No collection of English airs had at that time been made to guide Malchair, and he followed the dictum of Dr. Bui-ney in such passages as the following : "It is related by Giovanni Battista Donado that the Turks have a limited number of tunes, to which the poets of their country have continued to write for ages ; and the vocal music of our own country seems long to have been equally circumscribed : for, till the last century, it seems as if the number of our secular and popular melodies did not greatly exceed that of the Turks." In a note, he adds, that the tunes of the Turks were in all twenty-four, which were to depict melancholy, joy, or fury,—to be mellifluous or amorous.

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