In ale, and toast, and spice, he spent good store of coin,
You need not ask him twice to take a cup of wine.
But though his nose was red, his hand was very white,
In work it never sped, nor took in it delight;
No marvel therefore ’tis, that white should be his hand,
That ballets writ a score, as you well understand.
(See Wm. Chappell’s Popular Music of the Olden Time, pp. 107, 815; and J. P. Collier’s Extracts from Reg. Stat. Comp., passim, Indices, art. Elderton; and his Bk. of Roxb. Bds., p. 139.)
[Page 125 (orig. 14).] With an old Song, made by, &c.
The fashion of disparaging the present, by praising the customs and people of days that have passed away, is almost as old as the Deluge, if not older. Homer speaks of the degeneracy in his time, and aged Israel had long earlier lamented the few and evil days to which his own life extended, in comparison with those patriarchs who had gone before him. Even as we know not the full value of the Mistress or the friend whose affection had been given unto us, until separated from them, for ever, by estrangement or the grave, so does it seem to be with many customs and things. Robert Browning touchingly declares:—
And she is gone; sweet human love is gone!