’Tis only when they spring to heaven that angels
Reveal themselves to you; they sit all day
Beside you, and lie down at night by you
Who care not for their presence, muse or sleep,
And all at once they leave you, and you know them!
Modified in succeeding reigns, the ballad of “The Queen [Elizabeth]’s Old Courtier, and A New Courtier of the King [James]” has already known two hundred and fifty years’ popularity. The earliest printed copy was probably issued by T. Symcocke, by or after 1626. We find it in several books about the time of the Restoration, when parodies became frequent. It is in Le Prince d’Amour, 1660, p. 161; Wit and Drollery, 1682 (not in 1656, 1661 edits.), p. 278, “With an old Song,” &c.; Wit and Mirth, 1684, p. 43; Dryden’s Misc. Poems (ed. 1716, iv. 108); with the Music, in Pills, iii. 271; in Philomel, 130, 1744; Percy’s Reliques, ii. Bk. 3, No. 8, 1767; Ritson’s English Sgs., ii. 140, and Chappell’s Pop. Music, p. 300, to which refer for a good introduction, with extract from Pepys Diary of 16th June, 1668. Accompanying a Parody by T. Howard, Gent. (beginning similarly, “An Old Song made of an old aged pate”), it meets us in the Roxburghe Coll., iii. 72, printed for F. Coles (1646-74).
Among other parodies may be mentioned one entitled “An Old Souldier of the Queen’s” (in Merry Drollery, Compleat, 31, and in Wit and Drollery, 248, 1661); another, “The New Souldier” (Wit and Drollery, 282, 1682), beginning:—
With a new Beard but lately trimmed,
With a new love-lock neatly kemm’d,
With a new favour snatch’d or nimm’d,