OLD SONGS AND BALLADS.

The Middlesex Election.

(A Ballad to the tune of Chevy Chase.)

God prosper long our noble king,

And eke his subjects too;

And grant such deeds as now I sing

We never more may rue.

In seventeen hundred sixty-eight,

All on a summer’s day,

Grim death did on our member wait,

And took him clean away.

O, then a writ was issued out,

To chuse a member in;

And soon began a mighty rout

For Procter and for Glynn.

When as the day advanced nigh,

Each party did its best;

And Horne (who scorns to tell a lye)

Turn’d Proctor’s cause to jest.

Some worthy wights, the Lord knows who,

Of Irish strength assur’d,

Provided many a gallant crew,

True men, I’ll pawn my word.

Such crowds to Brentford town did hie,

As fill’d the place outright;

While thousands knew not where to lie,

And so—sat up all night.

At length the fatal morning came,

O had it ne’er arriv’d!

For many a wight crawled home quite lame,

Full glad that he surviv’d.

Soon as the rising sun had clear’d

The gloomy shades of night,

All on the hustings they appear’d—

O! ’twas a glorious sight!

With ribbon and with star bespread,

(Given by the good old king)

Sir William hung his languid head,

And looked—like any thing.

The serjeant held his head upright,

For conscious still was he,

That those who do the deed that’s right,

Have real cause for glee.

Mr.O’Murphy too was there,

Hight counsellor at law—

His business was to strut and stare,

And find or make a flaw.

Count Gambler look’d as who should say,

“I’ll bet ye six to one

“That Beauchamp Proctor gets the day:”

“I’ll take it, damme.”—“Done.”

Whilst bustling still from place to place,

Old Brentford’s priest was seen,

Who for this meal said many a grace,

And fervent pray’r, I ween.

And still to heighten all they could

This mighty gallant show,

Close by the hustings numbers stood,

Like—soldiers all a-row.

The clock told two, up flew the hat,

(A signal for each wounder)

And soon the freeholders lay flat

As ever lay a flounder.

Then eyes and sculls, and arms and legs,

Were darken’d, fractur’d, broke;

And those who could not keep their pegs,

Fell down—to mend the joke.

And many a ribbon flew about,

(For favours then were common)

And hundreds of the rabble rout

Were dizen’d out like yeomen.

What they did more, let other bards

In other guise declare;

For, truth to say, they play’d their cards,

To make all England stare.

Now God preserve our noble king,

And grant henceforth, for aye,

No future poet e’er may sing

The deeds of such a day!

The Litchfield Defeat.

God prosper long our noble king!

Our lives and safeties all;

A woful horse-race late there did

At Whittington befall.

Great Bedford’s duke, a mighty prince!

A solemn vow did make,

His pleasure in fair Staffordshire

Three summer’s days to take.

At once to grace his father’s race,

And to confound his foes:

But ah! (with grief my Muse does speak)

A luckless time he chose.

For some rude clowns, who long had felt

The weight of Tax and Levy,

Explained their case unto his Grace

By arguments full heavy.

* * * * *

The whole of this parody will be found in volume iv. of The New Foundling Hospital for Wit. London, 1786.

Another parody of Chevy Chase occurs in the same volume, it is very long, and relates to some persons and political events of interest in 1776, but long since forgotten.

VERSES BY SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

Go soul, the body’s guest,

Upon a thankless errant,

Fear not to touch the best,

The truth shall be thy warrant.

Go, since I needs must dye,

And give them all the lye.

Go, tell the court it glowse

And shines like painted wood;

Go, tell the church it showes

What’s good, does no good.

If court and church replye,

Give court and church the lye.

Tell potentates they live

Acting, but oh! their actions,

Not lov’d unless they give!

Not strong, but by their factions.

If potentates replye,

Give potentates the lye.

* * * * *

A Parody written in 1764.

Go, truth, unwelcome guest!

Upon a thankless errant;

Fear not to touch the best,

For truth is a safe warrant.

Go, since thou needs must die,

And give them all the lye.

Go, tell the Tory faction,

Now in their noontide hour,

England won’t bear an action

Of an arbitrary power.

If Tories should reply,

Give Tories all the lye.

Go, tell th’ ennobled thief,

While cares oppress him most,

He ne’er shall taste relief

From guilt—from Ayliffe’s ghost.

And if the thief reply,

Then give the thief the lye.

* * * * *

The original and the parody are both given at full length in volume iv. of The New Foundling Hospital for Wit. London, 1786.

——:o:——

BEN JONSON’S “ODE ON THE STAGE.”

Ben Jonson was very unfortunate in not conciliating the affections of his brother writers. He possessed a great share of arrogance, and was desirous of ruling the realms of Parnassus with a despotic sceptre. That he was not always successful in his theatrical compositions is evident from his abusing, on the title pages of his plays, both the actors and the public. I have collected the following three satirical odes, written when the unfavorable reception of his “New Inn, or The Light Heart,” warmly exasperated the poet.

He printed the title in the following manner: “New Inn, or The Light Heart; a Comedy never acted, but most negligently played by some, the King’s servants; and more squeamishly beheld and censured by others, the King’s subjects, 1629. Now at last set at liberty to the readers, his Majesty’s servants and subjects, to be judged, 1631.”

At the end of this play he published the following Ode, in which he threatens to quit the stage for ever; and turn at once a Horace, an Anacreon, and a Pindar.

“The just indignation the author took at the vulgar censure of his play, begat this following Ode to himself:

Come, leave the loathed stage,

And the more loathsome age;

Where pride and impudence (in fashion knit,)

Usurp the chair of wit

Inditing and arraigning every day

Something they call a play.

Let their fastidious, vaine

Commission of braine

Run on, and rage, sweat, censure, and condemn;

They were not made for thee,—less thou for them.

Say that thou pour’st them wheat,

And they will acorns eat;

’Twere simple fury, still, thyself to waste

On such as have no taste!

To offer them a surfeit of pure bread,

Whose appetites are dead!

No, give them graines their fill,

Husks, draff, to drink and swill.

If they love lees, and leave the lusty wine,

Envy them not their palate with the swine.

No doubt some mouldy tale

Like Pericles [61], and stale

As the shrieve’s crusts, and nasty as his fish-

Scraps, out of every dish

Thrown forth, and rak’t into the common-tub,

May keep up the play-club:

There sweepings do as well

As the best order’d meale,

For who the relish of these guests will fit,

Needs set them but the almes-basket of wit.

And much good do’t you then,

Brave plush and velvet men

Can feed on orts, and safe in your stage clothes,

Dare quit, upon your oathes,

The stagers, and the stage-wrights too (your peers),

Of larding your large ears

With their foul comic socks,

Wrought upon twenty blocks:

Which if they’re torn, and turn’d, and patch’d enough,

The gamesters share your guilt and you their stuff.

Leave things so prostitute,

And take the Alcæick lute,

Or thine own Horace, or Anacreon’s lyre;

Warm thee by Pindar’s fire;

And, tho’ thy nerves be shrunk, and blood be cold,

Ere years have made thee old,

Strike that disdainful heat

Throughout, to their defeat;

As curious fools, and envious of thy strain,

May, blushing, swear no palsy’s in thy brain [62].

But when they hear thee sing

The glories of thy King,

His zeal to God, and his just awe o’er men,

They may blood-shaken then,

Feel such a flesh-quake to possess their powers,

As they shall cry like ours,

In sound of peace, or wars,

No harp ere hit the stars,

In tuning forth the acts of his sweet reign,

And raising Charles his chariot ’bove his wain.”

This Magisterial Ode, as Langbaine calls it, was answered by Owen Feltham, author of the “Resolves.” His character of Ben Jonson should be attended to:—

An Answer to the Ode, “Come Leave the
Loathed Stage, &c.”

Come leave this sawcy way

Of baiting those that pay

Dear for the sight of your declining wit

’Tis known it is not fit

That a sale poet, just contempt once thrown

Should cry up thus his own.

I wonder by what dower,

Or patent, you had power

From all to rape a judgment. Let’s suffice,

Had you been modest, y’ad been granted wise.

’Tis known you can do well,

And that you do excell

As a translator; but when things require

A genius, and fire,

Not kindled heretofore by other pains,

As oft y’ave wanted brains

And art to strike the white,

As you have levell’d right:

Yet if men vouch not things apocryphal,

You bellow, rave, and spatter round your gall.

Jug, Pierce, Peek, Fly [63], and all

Your jests so nominal,

Are things so far beneath an able brain,

As they do throw a stain

Thro’ all th’ unlikely plot, and do displease

As deep as Pericles.

Where yet there is not laid

Before a chamber-maid

Discourse so weighed [64], as might have serv’d of old

For schools, when they of love and valour told.

Why rage, then? when the show

Should judgment be, and know-[65]

ledge, there are plush who scorn to drudge

For stages, yet can judge

Not only poets’ looser lines, but wits,

And all their perquisits;

A gift as rich as high

Is noble poesie:

Yet, tho’ in sport it be for Kings to play,

’Tis next mechanicks’ when it works for pay.

Alcæus lute had none,

Nor loose Anacreon

E’er taught so bold assuming of the bays

When they deserv’d no praise.

To rail men into approbation

Is new to your’s alone:

And prospers not: for known,

Fame is as coy, as you

Can be disdainful; and who dares to prove

A rape on her shall gather scorn—not love.

Leave then this humour vain,

And this more humourous strain,

Where self-conceit, and choler of the blood,

Eclipse what else is good:

Then, if you please those raptures high to touch,

Whereof you boast so much:

And but forbear your crown

Till the world puts it on:

No doubt, from all you may amazement draw,

Since braver theme no Phœbus ever saw.

To console Ben for this reprimand, Randolph, one of the adopted poetical sons of Jonson, addressed him as follows:—

An Answer to Mr. Ben Jonson’s Ode,
To Persuade him not to Leave the Stage.

Ben, do not leave the stage

Cause ’tis a loathsome age:

For pride and impudence will grow too bold,

When they shall hear it told

They frighted thee; Stand high, as is thy cause;

Their hiss is thy applause:

More just were thy disdain,

Had they approved thy vein:

So thou for them, and they for thee were born;

They to incense, and thou as much to scorn.

II.

Wilt thou engross thy store

Of wheat, and pour no more,

Because their bacon-brains had such a taste

As more delight in mast:

No! set them forth a board of dainties, full

As thy best muse can cull;

Whilst they the while do pine

And thirst, midst all their wine.

What greater plague can hell itself devise,

Than to be willing thus to tantalise?

III.

Thou canst not find them stuff,

That will be bad enough

To please their pallates: let ’em them refuse,

For some Pye-corner muse:

She is too fair an hostess, ’twere a sin

For them to like thine Inn:

’Twas made to entertain

Guests of a nobler strain;

Yet, if they will have any of the store,

Give them some scraps, and send them from thy dore.

IV.

And let those things in plush

Till they be taught to blush,

Like what they will, and more contented be

With what Broom [66] swept from thee.

I know thy worth, and that thy lofty strains

Write not to cloaths, but brains:

But thy great spleen doth rise,

’Cause moles will have no eyes;

This only in my Ben I faulty find,

He’s angry they’ll not see him that are blind.

Why shou’d the scene be mute

’Cause thou canst touch the lute

And string thy Horace? Let each Muse of nine

Claim thee, and say, th’art mine.

’Twere fond, to let all other flames expire,

To sit by Pindar’s fire:

For by so strange neglect

I should myself suspect

Thy palsie were as well thy brain’s disease,

If they could shake thy muse which way they please.

VI.

And tho’ thou well canst sing

The glories of thy King,

And on the wings of verse his chariot bear

To heaven, and fix it there;

Yet let thy muse as well some raptures raise

To please him, as to praise.

I would not have thee chuse

Only a treble muse;

But have this envious, ignorant age to know,

Thou that canst sing so high, canst reach as low.