Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age

Edited by A.H. BULLEN.

LONDON: JOHN C. NIMMO, 14, King William Street, Strand, W.C. 1887.

CHISWICK PRESS:--C. Whittingham and Co., Tooks Court, Chancery Lane.

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 assumed 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 title 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 noble 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 embarrassed by the wealth of material. The rich clusters 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, Essex, 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 assigned 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 passed 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 (entitled "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 classical 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:--