"When meate and drinke is great plentyè,
And lords and ladyes still wil bee,
And sitt and solace lythe;[578]
Then itt is time for mee to speake
Of keene knightes, and kempès great,
Such carping for to kythe."
If we consider that a groat in the age of Elizabeth was more than equivalent to a shilling now, we shall find that the old harpers were even then, when their art was on the decline, upon a far more reputable footing than the ballad-singers of our time. The reciting of one such ballad as this of the Beggar of Bednal Green, in two parts, was rewarded with half-a-crown of our money. And that they made a very respectable appearance, we may learn from the dress of the old beggar, in the preceding ballad, p. [178], where he comes into company in the habit and character of one of these minstrels, being not known to be the bride's father till after her speech, ver. 63. The exordium of his song, and his claiming a groat for his reward, v. 76, are peculiarly characteristic of that profession. Most of the old ballads begin in a pompous manner, in order to captivate the attention of the audience, and induce them to purchase a recital of the song: and they seldom conclude the first part without large promises of still greater entertainment in the second. This was a necessary piece of art to incline the hearers to be at the expense of a second groat's-worth. Many of the old romances extend to eight or nine fits, which would afford a considerable profit to the reciter.
To return to the word fit; it seems at one time to have peculiarly signified the pause, or breathing-time, between the several parts (answering to Passus in the Visions of Pierce Plowman): thus in the ancient ballad of Chevy-Chase (vol. i. p. 27), the first part ends with this line:
"The first fit here I fynde:"
i.e. here I come to the first pause or intermission. (See also vol. i. p. 44.) By degrees it came to signify the whole part or division preceding the pause. (See vol. i. pp. 162, 169.) This sense it had obtained so early as the time of Chaucer; who thus concludes the first part of his rhyme of Sir Thopas (writ in ridicule of the old ballad romances):—
"Lo! lordis mine, here is a fitt;
If ye woll any more of it,
To tell it woll I fonde."
The word fit indeed appears originally to have signified a poetic strain, verse, or poem; for in these senses it is used by the Anglo-Saxon writers. Thus K. Ælfred in his Boethius, having given a version of lib. 3, metr. 5, adds, Ða ꞅe pιꞅꝺom þa þaꞅ ꝼιꞇꞇe aꞅunȝen hæꝼꝺe, p. [65], i.e. "When wisdom had sung these (Fitts) verses." And in the proem to the same book, Fon on ꝼιꞇꞇe, "Put into (fitt) verse." So in Cedmon, p. [45]. Feonꝺ on ꝼιꞇꞇe, seems to mean "composed a song," or "poem." The reader will trace this old Saxon phrase, in the application of the word fond, in the foregoing passage of Chaucer.
Spencer has used the word fit to denote "a strain of music;" see his poem, intitled, Collin Clout's come home again, where he says:—
"The Shepherd of the ocean [Sir Walt. Raleigh]
Provoked me to play some pleasant fit.
And when he heard the music which I made
He found himself full greatlye pleas'd at it," &c.
It is also used in the old ballad of K. Estmere, vol. i. book 1, No. 6, v. 243.