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From The Nineteenth Century. I collected by Mr. William Chappell, and
| shown to be equal to any in Europe, there
is no excuse for an ignorance of which pa-
triotism ought to be ashamed. "What a
beautiful melody," said Rossini to an En-
glishman (who agreed with him), "is 'The
girl I left behind me '! It does honor to
Ireland." But Rossini was wrong. That
beautiful melody is pure English — pub-
lished in England long before it was first
played in Ireland by the soldiers of Wil.
liam the Third. "How sweet," said an
English lady, "is the air of 'My lodging
is on the cold ground'! England has no
tunes so tender and so touching."
this case also, the fair critic was as much
at fault as Napoleon and Rossini. The
tune is old English; and Ireland has no
other claim to it than the assertion of
Thomas Moore, unsupported by a tittle of
evidence.

In

ENGLISH SONGS: ANCIENT AND MODERN. THE poetical literature of England is the richest and noblest of modern time superior in some respects to that of the Greeks and Romans, as all will confess who have studied it, and who remember Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Byron, and all the glorious galaxy of the poets from the age of Chaucer to the present day. But many who acknowledge the claims of English literature to the highest poetical pre-eminence deny that in one great department of poetry, popular song, it can rank on an equality with other nations. The late Thomas Davis-one of the young Irishmen who conferred honor upon the literature of his country - declared that the songs of England were the worst in the world. "How can a nation have good songs," said he, "when it has no music?" As songs are compositions that may be "English music is execrable," said the sung, it is necessary to show that a people great Napoleon, when he discoursed to have good melodies before it can be adhis faithful Las Casas, in the mournful mitted that they have good songs. So days of his exile, on all imaginable sub- far from being an unmusical, the English jects of war, policy, philosophy, and lit- are pre-eminently a musical nation. Long erature. "The English have no music; before the invention of printing, long be or, at all events, no national music. They fore the age of Chaucer, England, from have, in fact, but one good tune." And her love of singing and music, was called to show his qualifications for the office of " Merry England;" and to hear the minmusical critic, he declared that tune to be strels sing, and to join in their choruses, "Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon". was the favorite amusement both of the an excellent tune certainly, only it hap- nobles and the people. Chaucer, in his pens to be one that the Scotch have bor-"Canterbury Tales," makes frequent allurowed from the French. The emperor did not stand alone in his ignorance. Even now we hear of English ladies and gentlemen who not only know nothing of the beautiful melodies of their native land, but who actually deny that such melodies have any existence. Not content with shutting their ears against the sweet sounds, they affirm that there is no such thing as music in British, or at all events in English nature. In days when the popular melodies of England had not been collected, as those of Ireland had been by Sir John Stevenson and Thomas Moore, or as those of Scotland had been by George Thomson and Robert Burns, there was some excuse for Englishmen who did not know their own wealth in this respect. But now, when their melodies have been

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sions to the love of the English of that period for music and song. At and before Chaucer's time the education of an English gentleman was held to be incomplete if he could not read music at sight; and in the public schools it was compulsory on every boy, and a necessary portion of his studies, to learn part-singing.

The English glees, catches, rounds, canons, and madrigals are thoroughly national, and are admired by musicians of every country for their graceful complications both of melody and harmony. The English dance music is equally spirited, and her country jigs and sailors' hornpipes are known all over the world. Some of the most ancient popular melodies of the English are fortunately preserved in a little manuscript of the age of Queen Eliz

abeth, called "Queen Elizabeth's Virginal | bards were either hymns or chants of deBook," containing airs that are still popu-votion - like the Psalms of David-or lar among the peasantry - such as "The celebrated the great deeds of the heroes, Carman's Whistle," or "The Jolly Miller," who were first in and last out of the battle. and Shakespeare's favorite melody, of They aroused the patriotic enthusiasm of which he makes honorable mention, "Sing the living by glowing recitals of the it to the air of Light o' Love."" Those achievements of the dead. But never exquisitely pathetic tunes sung by Ophelia having been committed to writing, their in Hamlet are admired by all musicians, ballads and songs, or epic poems, if they and are far older than history can trace. produced any, have either perished altoSo famous were the English for their pro-gether, or only exist in fragments, such as ficiency in singing, that before the Reformation the Churches of Belgium, Holland, and France sent to England for choristers: and one of the most valuable collections of popular English music that exists was published in Amsterdam at the commencement of the seventeenth century.

Such noble tunes as "The King shall enjoy his own again," "Crop-eared Roundheads," "The girl I left behind me," "Farewell, Manchester!" "Balance a

Straw," " Packington's Pound," "The

British Grenadiers," "Drink to me only with thine eyes," "Down among the dead men," ," "The Vicar of Bray," "The man who will not merry be," "The Miller of Dee," " Begone, dull care!" "'Tis my delight, on a shiny night," and others, may be cited as fair specimens of English popular and traditional music. Its general characteristics are strength and martial energy. It has a dashing, impulsive, leaping, frolicsome spirit, occasionally overshadowed by a touch of sadness. It has not the tender melancholy of the music of Ireland, nor the light, airy grace, delicate beauty, and heart-wrung pathos of the songs of Scotland, but it has a lilt and style of its own. In one word, the music of England may be described as "merry;" and her national songs partake of the same character, and and are jovial, lusty, exultant, and full of life and daring. There are no authentic records of the earliest song-writers of England. It is known that among the ancient Britons, the bard was next in rank to the Druid, and that his character and functions were invested with a high degree of veneration, if not of sanctity. He was held to be a seer and a prophet, as well as a bard, as indeed true poets are in all ages. The compositions of the British and Celtic

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James Macpherson discovered among the peasantry in remote districts of the Highlands of Scotland, and gave to the world as the poems of Ossian, the greatest bard of the Celtic nations. The Danish skalds and Saxon gleemen, who succeeded to the British bards, drew from their predeces sors many materials for popular song. The adventures of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table, the loves of Guenever and Sir Lancelot du Lake, the pranks of the boy with that wonderful mantle described in Percy's "Reliques," the merriment of King Cole, and the enchantments of Merlin — all traditions of the Celtic period were embalmed in Celtic and afterwards in Saxon song, and found as much favor among the newer people who took possession of the British Isles as the legends of the Mohicans, the Cherokees, or the Creek Indians, when enshrined in the classic pages of Cooper or Longfellow, find among the English and Americans of the present day. King Arthur, his court, his queen, his Round Table, and his knights were for a thousand years the great themes of the minstrels in England and Wales, and have not yet lost their hold over the imagination of the people. King Arthur and King Cole are cited in nursery rhymes, and the earliest songs of children; though Mr. Chappell, in his excellent work on English music, is heterodox enough to suggest that the King Cole of song is not the King Cole of history, but a mere public-house king or good fellow of the seventeenth century. Of the same period as King Arthur, though a generation or two later, were King Lud and King Lear, mere names and shadows of names except for poetry, that has made them immortal. The King Arthur of his. tory is less than a dream. The King

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Arthur of song is a living reality. The | red breasts could but know how many of
Lear that reigned in Britain has left no their lives have been spared for the sake
record on which the historian can build; of“ an old song," and the pity which it has
but the Lear of the poet, the foolish, fond inspired, they would hover around the
old man, sightless, and not in his perfect graves of poets as they did over the un-
mind, stands out in Shakespeare's history, buried bodies of the "children in the
hallowed in the light of poetry, a man wood," and strew them with leaves in
whom we know more intimately than we grateful remembrance of the power and
do many persons whom we met yesterday tenderness of poetry.
and talked to in the streets.

During the Saxon and early Norman period the minstrels played an important part in social life. They were the wel come guests of all ranks and classes from the monarch's palace and the baron's hall to the tavern of the town and the cottage of the peasant.

'Twas merry in the hall

When beards wagged all;

when the minstrels set the beard in mo-
tion by singing their last new ballads of
romance or adventure. The minstrels
united in their persons not only the func-
tions of the song-maker and musician, but
those of the newspaper editor and re-
porter of the present day. Although they
sang songs of the olden time, they did not
confine themselves to the past, but de-
tailed the freshest news from the court or
the camp, or put into verse the circum-
stances of the last horrible murder or des-
perate love-tragedy.

In the days prior to the invention of printing, when the wealthy classes thought it no shame to be unable to read and write, the ballad-maker was a power in the State. Richard the First, the great Cœur-de-Lion (whose name is still invoked to frighten unruly children in Syria and Palestine), was unable to sign his name, but he was familiar with the poetry of the troubadours. He knew nothing of the songs of Celtic or Saxon Englishmen, but had committed to memory the choicest effusions of the Norman muse. And, indeed, if kings and other high personages, to say nothing of the gentry and trading classes, would not derive all their knowledge of the affairs of this world from the priests, who pos sessed the keys of learning, or from actual observation with their own eyes, which was always difficult, and sometimes impossible, they were glad to gather information, combined with amusement, from the minstrels, who travelled all over the country, mixed with all classes, heard all Of these minstrels, as of the bards who the news, and learned all the opinion that preceded them, few genuine remains have was current. But the invention of printcome down to us; although the tunes and ing gradually operated a change. The modernized versions of many of the bal-minstrels, who by this time had lost their lads which they sang have been preserved, original and honorable appellation, and such as the famous "Ballad of Chevy were called "crowders or "fiddlers," Chase," the mournful story of "Fair Ro- were thrown out of bread. They ceased, samond," the adventures of the mythical by degrees, to be the favorites of the "Robin Hood," who was not one but wealthy, and found their only refuge many, the doleful ballad of "The Babes in among the poor and illiterate, and became the Wood," a legend of unknown antiq. of scarcely more repute than the mounteuity, of which it may be said that it has banks and merry-andrews of country fairs. made the robin redbreast a sacred bird in An act of Parliament of the thirty-ninth England, and touched with compassion year of Queen Elizabeth classed them as the heart of the roughest clodhopper." rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy vagrants," The English boy will rob the nest of any a legal definition which still applies in bird that sings, or that cannot sing; but to disturb the nest of the robin, "the bold beggar with the glittering eye and scarlet bosom," is held not only to be cruel and ungenerous, but unlucky. If the robin

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England to strolling actors and singers, and which might, with a little stretching, be applied to a prima donna on a provincial tour. King Henry the Eighth, notwithstanding the cares of State, his love.

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