EARLY FLEMISH ILLUSTRATIONS OF EARLY ENGLISH LITERATURE.
The commencement of a new volume of "NOTES AND QUERIES" affords a favourable opportunity for "tapping" (to use an expressive phrase of Horace Walpole's) a subject, on which it is reasonable to suppose much light may be thrown by some of your learned correspondents. I allude to the connection which formerly subsisted between the literature of England, and that of the Low Countries. Fortunate, indeed, would it be if any communication to "NOTES AND QUERIES" might be the means of drawing some illustration from one qualified beyond all others to treat every branch of this most interesting subject. Those of your readers who had the pleasure of hearing the admirable speech of a distinguished diplomatist at the Centenary Dinner of the Society of Antiquaries, will probably understand to whom I refer.
Reserving for a future occasion some observations on the manner in which our English antiquaries have hitherto overlooked the materials illustrative of our popular literature, our popular superstitions, our early drama, our legends, and our traditions, which may be had for the gathering, from the popular literature, the popular superstitions, the early drama, the legends and traditions of the Low Countries—those Low Countries from which Chaucer married his wife—those Low Countries from which Caxton brought us his printing-press, and its long train of blessings—those Low Countries, in which, as I believe, and hope one day to prove, Shakspeare himself added to his vast stores of knowledge—I shall for the present content myself with one example, and that shall be a seasonable one, namely, of the similarity between the old Flemish carols, and those with which, at this happy season, the nights were whilom blest here in Old England.
Hoffman von Fallersleben, in the second part of his Horæ Belgicæ, that great storehouse of materials for illustrating the early literature of the Netherlands (and which second part, by the bye, was separately published under the title of Holländische Volkslieder), after showing that the sacred songs of the Low Countries are, like our own, separable into Christmas carols, Easter hymns, songs in praise of the Virgin, and songs of Christian doctrine, proceeds to characterise the former in terms in which one might well describe many of those which were formerly most popular in our country. "The carols," he remarks, "are especially deserving of our attention. In them is most clearly shown the child-like religious spirit of the olden times, when men were not content merely to relate in the simple ballad form the story of Our Saviour's birth as recorded in Holy Scripture, but sought, by the introduction of little touches drawn from social and country life, to make that story more attractive and more instructive, and so to bring it home more directly to the hearts of their pious hearers." How truly applicable these remarks are to many of our own carols, must be obvious to all who know Mr. Sandys' valuable Collection; and the following instances, which Hoffman adduces in support of his views, will, I trust, satisfy your readers that I am right in maintaining the great resemblance between the carols of Old Flanders and those of Old England.
"Many of the descriptions in these carols," he remarks, "bear a strong resemblance to some of the Bible pictures of the old masters;" and he gives, as an instance, the following simple picture of the Infant Jesus in the bath:
"'The mother she made the child a bath,
How lovely then therein it sate;
The childling so platched with its hand
That the water out of the beaker sprang.'[2]
[2] The version is, of course, as nearly literal as possible.
"But sometimes these religious poetical feelings impress themselves so deeply in their subject, that the descriptions verge closely upon the ludicrous:
"'Mary did not herself prepare
With cradle-clothes to her hand there,
In which her dear child to wind.
Soon as Joseph this did find,
His hosen from his legs he drew,
Which to this day at Aix they show,
And with them those holy clothes did make
In which God first man's form did take.'
"It is true that we look upon these descriptions with modern eyes, not taking into consideration that our manners and customs, that our general views, in short, are not at all times in unison with those of the fifteenth century. But even if we are always right in these and similar cases, still we cannot deny that there often lies in these old poems what we, notwithstanding we are in the possession of the most exquisite skill, cannot at all reach,—an infinite naïveté, a touching simplicity. Especially rich in this respect are the songs which describe the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt:
"'Joseph he did leap and run,
Until an ass's foal he won,
Whereon he set the maiden mild,
And with her that most blessed child.'
"The whole idyllic life which they led in that country is told to us in a few unpretending traits:
"'Joseph he led the ass,
The bridle held he;
What found they by the way,
But a date tree?
Oh! ass's foal thou must stand still,
To gather dates it is our will,
So weary are we.
The date tree bowed to the earth,
To Mary's knee;
Mary would fill her lap
From the date tree.
Joseph was an old man,
And wearied was he;
Mary, let the date tree bide,
We have yet forty miles to ride,
And late it will be.
Let us pray this blessed child
Grant us mercie.'
"Nay, these simple songs even inform us how the Holy family laboured for their subsistence in this 'strange countree:'
"'Mary, that maiden dear,
Well could she spin;
Joseph as a carpenter,
Could his bread win.
When Joseph was grown old,
That no longer work he could,
The thread he wound,
And Jesus to rich and poor
Carried it round.'"
WILLIAM J. THOMS.