Strange Survivals

It has been said that about the period of James I., the fashion set in for re-writing the old ballads in the style then affected.

There is a curious illustration of this accessible.

A ballad still sung by the English peasants, and found in an imperfect condition in Catnach’s broadsides, is “Henry Martyn.” It is couched in true ballad metre, and runs thus —

“In merry Scotland, in merry ScotlandThere lived brothers three,They all did cast lots which of them should goA robbing upon the salt sea.“The lot it fell upon Henry Martyn,The youngest of the three,That he should go rob on the salt, salt sea,To maintain his brothers and he.“He had not a-sailed a long winter’s night,Nor yet a short winter’s day,Before he espied a gay merchant shipCome sailing along that way.“Oh when that she came to Henry Martyn,Oh prithee, now let me go!Oh no! oh no! but that will I not,I never that will do.“Stand off! stand off! said he, God wot,And you shall not pass by me.For I am a robber upon the salt seas,To maintain my brothers and me.“How far? how far? cries Henry Martyn,How far do you make it? says he,For I am a robber upon the salt seas,To maintain my brothers and me.“They merrily fought for three long hours,They fought for hours full three.At last a deep wound got Henry Martyn,And down by the mast fell he.“’Twas a broadside to a broadside then,And a rain and a hail of blows.But the salt, salt sea ran in, ran in;To the bottom then she goes.“Bad news! bad news for old England;Bad news has come to the town,For a rich merchant vessel is cast away,And all her brave seamen drown.“Bad news! bad news through London street,Bad news has come to the King,For all the brave lives of his mariners lost,That sunk in the watery main.”

Now there is sad confusion here. The ballad as it now exists is a mere fragment. Clearly the “bad news” belongs to an earlier portion of the ballad, and it induces the King to send against the pirate and to sink his vessel. This “Henry Martyn” is, in fact, Andrew Barton. In 1476, a Portuguese squadron seized a richly laden vessel, commanded by John Barton, in consequence of which letters of reprisal were granted to Andrew, Robert, and John Barton, sons of John, and these were renewed in 1506. The King of Portugal remonstrated against reprisals for so old an offence, but he had put himself in the wrong four years before, by refusing to deal with a herald sent by the Scottish King for the arrangement of the matter in dispute. Hall, in his Chronicle, says: “In June, 1511, the King (Henry VIII.) being at Leicester, tidings were brought him that Andrew Barton, a Scottish man, and a pirate of the sea, did rob every nation, and so stopped the King’s streams that no merchants almost could pass, and when he took the Englishmen’s goods, he said they were Portingale’s goods, and thus he haunted and robbed at every haven’s mouth. The King, moved greatly with this crafty pirate, sent Sir Edward Howard, Lord Admiral of England, and Lord Thomas Howard, son and heir to the Earl of Surrey, in all haste to the sea, which hastily made ready two ships, and without any more abode, took the sea, and by chance of weather, were severed. The Lord Howard lying in the Downs, perceived when Andrew blew his whistle to encourage the men, yet, for all that, the Lord Howard and his men, by clean strength, entered the main deck; then the Englishmen entered on all sides, and the Scots fought sore on the hatches, but, in conclusion, Andrew was taken, which was so sore wounded that he died there; then all the remainder of the Scots were taken with their ship, called the Lion.”

Buchanan, about twenty years after Hall —i. e., in 1582 – also tells the story. Barton he calls Breton with further details. He says that Andrew Breton, though several times wounded, and with one leg broken by a cannon ball, seized a drum and beat a charge to inspirit his men to fight, until breath and life failed.

Now a ballad relative to Sir Andrew Barton has been given by Percy; it is found among the Douce, the Pepysian, the Roxburghe, the Bagford, and the Wood collection of old English ballads. In the Percy MS. the ballad consists of eighty-two stanzas, but there is something lost between the thirty-fifth and the next. It begins: —

“As itt beffell in Midsummer-timeWhen birds sing sweetlye on every tree,Our noble king, King Henry the Eighth,Over the river Thames past he.”

Another version is in the black letter collection. It begins: —

“When Flora, with her fragrant flowers,Bedeckt the earth so firm and gay,And Neptune, with his dainty showers,Came to present the month of May,“King Henry would a progress ride;Over the river Thames past he,Upon a mountain top alsoDid walk, some pleasure for to see.”

The first is a recomposition of the earlier ballad in the reign of James I. It makes a historical blunder. It supposes that Lord Charles Howard, who was not born till twenty-five years after the death of Andrew Barton, was sent against the pirate. The memory of the admiral who served against the Armada had eclipsed the fame of the earlier high admiral. The fact of this historic error existing in the ballad marks it as a late composition.

The second ballad is a still later recast, probably of the reign of Charles II. These two later versions would be all that we have, had not the popular memory held to the earliest and original ballad – because associated with a remarkably fine melody. Unhappily, it has retained but a few of the stanzas.

The Robin Hood ballads most fortunately escaped remodelling, and they retain the fresh character of the ancient ballad.

Ravenscroft preserved some ballads in his “Deuteromelia,” 1609. One begins: —

“Yonder comes a courteous knightLustily raking over the lay.He was full ’ware of a bonny lasse,As she came wandering over the way.Then she sang, downe a down a down,Hey down derry.”

Another is “John Dory”: —

“As it fell on a hole dayAnd upon a hole tide,John Dory bought him an ambling nag,Ambling nag to Paris for to ride.”

Another: —

“Who liveth so merry in all the landAs doth the poor widow that selleth sand,And ever she singeth as I can guess,Will you buy my sand, my sand, mistress?”

Also: —

“The Flye she sat in the shamble row,And shambled with her heels, I trow,And then came Sir CranionWith legs so long and many a one.”

A few – but only a few, unspoiled ballads have found their way into print in broadsides. Such are, “The Baffled Knight,” “The Knight and the Shepherd’s Daughter,” “Lord Thomas and the fair Eleanor,” “Barbara Allen,” “The Bailiff’s Daughter of Islington,” “The Brown Girl.” They are miserably few, but they are all that remain to us of the ballad poetry of England, except what has been preserved to us by the Scotch, who knew better than ourselves what was good, and had a finer poetic sense.

Moreover, our English ballad collectors never went to the right sources. There were to be had black and white letter broadsides, more or less scarce, and they set their booksellers to work to gather for them the drifting sheets, and fondly thought that they were collecting the ballad poetry of England. They were collecting make-shifts, the wretched stuff which had ousted the old ballad poetry. It occurred to none of them to go to the people. What would have been the result had Motherwell, Kinloch, Buchan, and Herd set to work in the same fashion? There is to be found in the British Museum a volume of Scottish Broadside Ballads printed at Aberdeen, and Glasgow, and Edinburgh. What do these sheet ballads contain? As great rubbish as do the English broadsides? Herd, Motherwell, and Buchan had more sense than our Ritson, Phillips, and Evans; they sat at the feet of the shepherds, listened beside the wheels of the old spinners, sat at the tavern table and over the peat fires with the peasants, and collected orally. Percy went to his MS. folio, Ritson to his booksellers, and passed over the great living wellspring of traditional poetry. Now it is too late. The utmost that can be gleaned is fragments. But enough does remain either in MS. or in black letter broadside, or in allusion and quotation by our early dramatists, to show that we in England had a mass of ballad poetry, one in kind and merit with the Scottish.

The first collection of scattered ballads and songs in a garland was made in the reign of James I., by Thomas Delony and Richard Johnson, and from that time forward these little assemblages of fugitive pieces were issued from the press. They rarely contain much that is good; they are stuffed with recent compositions. Everyone knew the traditional ballads, and it was not thought worth while reprinting them. A new ballad had to be entered at Stationers’ Hall, and composer as well as publisher reaped a profit from the sale, as a novelty.

The old tunes remained after that the words to which they had been wedded were forgotten; and it may be said that in the majority of cases the music is all that does remain to us of the old ballad song of England.

This is the sort of balderdash that was substituted by a degraded taste for the swinging musical poetry of the minstrel epoch —

“In searching ancient chroniclesIt was my chance to findeA story worth the writing outIn my conceit and mind,” etc.

or: —

“Of two constant lovers, as I understand,Were born near Appleby, in Westmoreland;The lad’s name Anthony, Constance the lass;To sea they both went, and great dangers did pass.”

or: —

“I reade in ancient times of yore,That men of worthy callingBuilt almeshouses and spittles store,Which now are all downfalling,” etc.

Compare the following with such beginnings as these: —

“In summer-time, when leaves grow green,And blossoms bedecke the tree,King Edward wold a hunting ryde,Some pastime for to see.”

or: —

“There came a bird out o’ a bush,On water for to dine;An’ sicking sair, says the King’s dochter,O wae’s this heart o’ mine,” etc.

or: —

“There was a pretty shepherd boyThat lived upon a hill,He laid aside his bag o’ pipesAnd then he slept his fill.”

or: —

“O! blow away, ye mountain breezes,Blow the winds, heigh-ho!And clear away the morning kisses,Blow the winds, heigh-ho!” etc.

The ring of the latter is fresh and pleasant; the former have no ring at all. The first articles are manufactured in a garret by a publisher’s poetaster, the latter have sprung spontaneously from the hearts of the people in the merry month of May.

Of black-letter printed ballads, the earliest we have are, “The Nut-brown Maid,” which was discovered in a book of customs, dues, etc., published at Antwerp, about 1502, and “The Ballade of the Scottish King,” written by John Skelton, poet laureate to King Henry VIII., and of the date 1513. This was found within the binding of an old book that was knocking about on the floor of a garret in a farmhouse at Whaddon, in Dorset. Mr. Arber’s Transcripts of the entries in Stationers’ Hall give us the list of ballads issued from the press, with their dates.

The list begins in the year 1557. We will take a few extracts only.

1588, 4th March. John Wolfe obtained leave to print three ballads; one was, “Goe from my window, goe.” Now this no longer exists as a ballad, but as a folk-tale, in which occur snatches of rhyme, with a certain melody attached to them; and this air, with the snatches of rhyme, has been preserved. Both are printed by Mr. Chappell in his “Popular Music of the Olden Time.” What the subject of the ballad was the writer learned from a blacksmith, who told him that he was in a village inn about 1860, when a very old man came in, and standing by the fire, recited and sang the following story: —

“Two men courted a pretty maid; the one was rich, the other was poor; and the rich man was old, but the poor man she loved; he was young. Her father forced her to marry the rich man, but still she loved the poor man; and sometimes he came under her window and tapped, and when the husband was away she let him in.

“So passed a twelvemonth and a day, and she had a little child.

“Then one night the lover came under the window, thinking her goodman was from home. With his tapping the husband woke, and asked what the sound was. She said an ivy leaf was caught in a cobweb, and fluttered against the pane. Then the lover began to call, and her husband asked what that sound was. She said the owls were hooting in the night. But fearing lest her lover should continue to call and tap, she began to sing, as she rocked the cradle: —

“‘Begone, begone, my Willy, my Billy!Begone, my love and my dear.O the wind, and O the rain,They have sent him back again,So thou can’st not have a lodging here.’

“Again the lover tapped, and the husband asked what that meant. She said it was a flittermouse that had flown against the pane. Then she sang: —

“‘Begone, begone, my Willy, my Billy!Begone, my love and my dear.O the weather is so warm,It will never do thee harm,And thou can’st not have a lodging here.’

“Then the lover began to call a third time, and the husband asked what it was. She said it was the whistling of the wind among the trees, and she sang: —

“‘Begone, begone, my Willy, my Billy!Begone, my love and my dear.O the wind is in the West,And the cuckoo’s in his nest,So thou can’st not have a lodging here.’

“Again the lover tapped. Then she sprang out of bed, threw open the casement, and sang: —

“‘Begone, begone, my Willy, you silly;Begone, you fool, yet my dear.O the devil’s in the man,And he can not understan’That he cannot have a lodging here.’”

The melody was arranged for Queen Elizabeth, and is in her Virginal Book. In Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Knight of the Burning Pestle,” old Merrythought says,

“Go from my window, love, go;Go from my window, my dear.The wind and the rainWill drive you back again;You cannot be lodged here.“Begone, begone, my juggy, my puggy;Begone, my love, my dear.The weather is warm;’Twill do thee no harm;Thou can’st not be lodged here.”

It is again quoted in Fletcher’s “Monsieur Thomas,” and again in “The Tamer Tamed.”

Almost certainly this was originally a ballad. But the ballad tale has been lost, and only scraps of rhyme were committed to writing.

1588, 26th Sept. John Wolfe had license to print “Peggy’s Complaint for the Death of her Willye.”37

9th Nov. Thomas Orwyn had license to print “Martyn said to his man, Who is the foole now?”

This has been preserved for us, with its tune, by Ravenscroft, in his “Deuteromelia.”

“Martyn said to his man, fie man, fie O!Who’s the fool now?Martyn said to his man, fill the cup and I the can,Thou hast well drunken, man,Who’s the fool now?“I see a sheep sheering come, fie man, fie O!And a cuckold blow his horn.“I see a man in the moonClouting St. Peter’s shoon.“I see a hare chase a houndTwenty miles above the ground.“I see a goose ring a hog,And a snayle that did bite a dog.“I see a mouse catch a cat,And the cheese to eat a rat.”

1591, 27th August. Robert Bourne obtained license to print a ballad on “A combat between a man and his wife for the breeches.” This has been often re-written.

1592, 5th Jan. Richard Jones, “The Valliant Acts of Guy of Warwick,” to the tune of “Was ever man soe tost (lost) in love?” The ballad of Guy is lost. The tune we have.

1592, 18th Jan. H. Kyrkham, “The crowe she sitteth upon a wall:” “Please one and please all.” The former is, perhaps, the original of “The crow sat in a pear-tree.” “Please one and please all” has been preserved.

1592, 21st July. John Danter, “The soules good morrowe.”

1592, 28th July. H Kyrkham, “The Nightingale’s Good-night.”

1593, 1st Oct. Stephen Peel, “Betwixt life and death,” to the tune of “Have with you into the country.”

1594, 16th Oct. John Danter, “Jones’ ale is new.” This is sung to the present day in village taverns. One verse is roared forth with special emphasis. It is that of the mason: —

“He dashed his hammer against the wall;He hoped both tower and church would fall;For Joan’s ale is new, my boys,For Joan’s ale is new.”

1594, 16th Oct. E. White, “The Devil of Devonshire and William of the West, his Sonne.” This is lost.

1595, 14th Jan. Thomas Creede, “The Saylor’s Joye,” to the tune of “Heigh-ho! hollidaie.” Both ballad and air lost.

1595, 24th Feb. Thomas Creede, The first part of “The Merchante’s Daughter of Bristole.” This we have, but it is a recast in the sixteenth century of a far earlier ballad.

1595, 15th Oct. Thomas Millington, “The Norfolk Gentleman, his Will and Testament, and howe he committed the keeping of his children to his owne brother.” This – “The Babes in the Wood,” we have, as well as the melody.

1595, 15th Oct. W. Blackwall, “The Prowde Mayde of Plymouthe.” Lost.

1603, 11th June. Wm. White, “A Sweet Maie Flower;” “The Ladie’s Fall;” “The Bryde’s Buriell;” “The Spanish Ladie’s Love;” “The Lover’s Promises to his Beloved;” “The Fayre Lady Constance of Cleveland and of her Disloyal Knight.”

We have “The Lady’s Fall” and the two that follow. “A Sweet Mayflower” is probably a real loss, as also the ballad of the Lady Constance and her disloyal knight. This will suffice to show how interesting are these records, and also how much has perished, as well as how much is preserved. It must not, however, be lost to mind that these were all new ballads, and were serving to displace the earlier and better ballads.38

Every accident, every murder, every battle was turned into doggerel and printed as a new ballad. Fourpence was the cost of a license.

In Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Philastes,” Megra threatens the King —

“By all those gods you swore by, and as manyMore of mine own —The princess, your daughter, shall stand by meOn walls, and sung in ballads.”

She refers to the manner in which every bit of court scandal was converted into rhythmic jingle, and also to the custom of pasting the ballads on the walls. The least acquaintance with the old black-letter ballads will make the reader understand the allusion to the two figures heading the broadside, in rude woodcut, standing side by side.

A large proportion of the black-letter ballads were of moral and religious import. In Beaumont and Fletcher’s “The Coxcomb,” the tinker refers to these, when he finds poor Viola wandering in the streets at night, and listens to her doleful words. He says: —

“What’s this? a prayer or a homily, or a ballad of good counsel?”

If we compare the black-letter issues of the sixteenth century with the snatches of ballads that come to us through the playwrights, we find that they do not wholly agree.

The dramatists made their characters sing the folk-ballads, the same that are described in “A Defence for Milksmaydes” in 1563.

“They rise in the morning to hear the larke sing,And welcome with balletts the somer’s coming.In going to milking, or coming away,They sing merry balletts, or storeys they say.Their mouth is as pure and as white as their milk;– You can not say that of your velvett and silke.”

So the mad jailor’s daughter in Fletcher’s and Shakespeare’s “The Two Noble Kinsmen.”

She says: “Is not this a fine song?”Brother: “Oh, a very fine one!”Daughter: “I can say twenty more, I can sing The Broom and Bonny Robin.”

And she begins to troll “Oh fair! oh sweet!” etc.

Unhappily the authors of this play did not write out the song, as it was too well known to require transcription, and now it is lost. So also are those she sings in another scene.

“The George alow came from the South,From the Coast of Barbary-a!And there we met with brave gallants of war,By one, by two, by three-a!“Well hail’d, well hail’d, you jolly gallants!And whither now are you bound-a?Or let me have your companyTill I come to the Sound-a!”

This sounds as though a part of the “Henry Martyn” (Andrew Barton) already given. Another of the mad girl’s songs is: —

“There were three fools fell out about an howlet.The one said ’twas an owl;The other said nay.The third he said it was a hawk,And her bells were cut away.”

So also with some of the songs and ballads of Ophelia. They were too well known to be printed, and now they are irrecoverably gone.

We have lost nearly the whole of our earliest ballad poetry, and only a tithe of that which took its place has come down to us.

“Our earliest ballads,” says the editor of Percy’s folio, “though highly popular in the Elizabethan age, were yet never collected into any collections, save in Garlands, till the year 1723. They wandered up and down the country without even sheepskins or goatskins to protect them; they flew about like the birds of the air, and sung songs dear to the hearts of the common people – songs whose power was sometimes confessed by the higher classes, but not so thoroughly appreciated as to conduce them to exert themselves for their preservation.”

In the reign of Queen Anne and through the early Hanoverian period, sheets of copperplate were issued with engraved songs and ballads, together with their music. Among them may be found a few – but only a very few – of the old favourites. Most are compositions of Arne, Carey, Berg, Dunn, etc., and the words are quite unsuited to hold the attention of the peasantry. Hardly any of these found their way into broadsides and garlands, and none can now be heard by the cottage fire or in the village ale-house.

In 1808, John Catnach of Newcastle settled in London, and began to print broadsides. He was quickly followed by others in London and in country towns. Catnach kept a number of ballad-mongers in his pay, who either composed verses for him or swept up such traditional ballads as they chanced to hear. They were paid half-a-crown for a copy, whether original or adulterate. If one of these poetasters chanced to hear an ancient ballad, he added to it some of his own verses, so as to be able to call it his property, and then disposed of it to one of the broadside publishers.

If these men had been sent round the country to collect from cottages and village hostelries, in the way in which Wardour Street Jews send about into every part of England to pick up old oak, then a great amount of our traditional ballad poetry might have been recovered. It was not too late in the first ten or twenty years of this century. But this was not done. These pot-poets loafed about in the low London public-houses, where it was only by the rarest chance that a country man, fresh from the fields, and woods, and downs, with his memory laden with the fragrance of the rustic music, was to be found. Moreover, these fellows were overweening in their opinion of their own powers. They had neither taste, nor ear, nor genius. They poured forth floods of atrocious rhymes, and of utter balderdash, as was required, as an occasion offered, and as they stood in need of half-crowns. Consequently the broadside “white-letter” ballad no more represents the folk ballad of the English people than does the black-letter ballad.

Who that has a sprinkling of grey on his head does not remember the ballad-singer at a fair, with his or her yards of verse for sale? The ballad-seller, who vended his broadsheets, did much to corrupt the taste of the peasant. He had begun to read, and he read the ha’penny broadside, and learned by heart what he had bought; then he set it to some fine old melody as ancient as the Wars of the Roses, and sang it; and what is unfortunate, discarded the old words for the sake of the vile stuff composed by the half-tipsy, wholly-stupid band, in the pay of Ryle, Catnach, Harkness of Preston, Williams of Portsea, Snidall of Manchester, etc.

Mr. Hindley, in his “History of the Catnach Press,” 1886, gives an amusing account of his acquaintance with John Morgan, the last surviving of Catnach’s poets: – “Mr. John Morgan, full of bows and scrapes, was ushered into our presence. ‘Take a seat, sir.’ ‘Yes, sir, and thank you too,’ he replied, at the same time sitting down, and then very carefully depositing his somewhat dilapidated hat under – far under – the chair. We then inquired whether he would have anything to eat, or have a cup of coffee. No! it was a little too early for eating, and coffee did not agree with him. Or, a drop of good ‘Old Tom,’ we somewhat significantly suggested. Mr. John Morgan would very much like to have a little drop of gin, for it was a nasty, raw, cold morning. In answer to our inquiry whether he would prefer hot or cold water, elected to have it neat, if it made no difference to us.

“Mr. John Morgan, at our suggestion, having ‘wet the other eye,’ i. e., taken the second glass, the real business commenced thus: – ‘We have been informed that you were acquainted with, and used to write for, the late James Catnach, who formerly lived in Seven Dials, and that you can give us much information that we require towards perfecting a work we have in hand, treating on street literature.’ … Here Mr. Morgan expressed his willingness to give all the information he could on the subject, and leave it to our generosity to pay him what we pleased, and adding that he had no doubt that we should not fall out on that score. Mr. Morgan talked and took gin. Mr. Morgan got warm – warmer, and warmer, – and very entertaining. We continued to talk and take notes, and Mr. Morgan talked and took gin, until he emulated the little old woman who sold ‘Hot Codlings,’ for of her it is related that, ‘The glass she filled, and the bottle she shrunk, And this little old woman in the end got – ’