My Lady, &c. [as in Antidote ag. Mel.]
It was popular before December, 1659; allusions to it are in the Rump, 1662, i. 369; ii. 62, 97.
[Page 153.] An old house end.
Also in Windsor Drollery, 1672, p. 30.
[Same p. 153.] Wilt thou lend me thy Mare.
With music by Edmund Nelham, in John Hilton’s Catch that Catch can, 1652, p. 78. The Answer, here beginning “Your Mare is lame,” &c., we have not met elsewhere. The Catch itself has always been a favourite. In a world wherein, amid much neighbourly kindness, there is more than a little of imposition, the sly cynicism of the verse could not fail to please. Folks do not object to doing a good turn, but dislike being deemed silly enough to have been taken at a disadvantage. So we laugh at the Catch, say something wise, and straightway let ourselves do good-natured things again with a clear conscience.
[Page 154.] Good Symon, how comes it, &c.
With music by William Howes, in Hilton’s Catch that Catch can, 1652, p. 84. Also in Walsh’s Catch-Club, ii. 77. We are told that the Symon here addressed, regarding his Bardolphian nose, was worthy Symon Wadloe,—“Old Sym, the King of Skinkers,” or Drawers. Possibly some jocular allusion to the same reveller animates the choice ditty (for which see the Percy Folio MS., iv. 124, and Pills, iii. 143),
Old Sir Simon the King!
With his ale-dropt hose,