The splendour and magnificence of Elizabeth's reign is nowhere more strongly painted than in these little diaries of some of her summer excursions to the houses of her nobility; nor could a more acceptable present be given to the world, than a republication of a select number of such details as this of the entertainment at Elvetham, that at Killingworth, &c., &c., which so strongly mark the spirit of the times, and present us with scenes so very remote from modern manners.
Since the above was written, the public hath been gratified with a most compleat work on the foregoing subject, intitled, The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth, &c. By John Nichols, F.A.S., Edinb. and Perth, 1788, 2 vols. 4to.
[The author of this elegant little poem was a most voluminous author, and "is supposed to be the same Capt. Nicholas Breton, who was of Norton in Northamptonshire, and dying there June 22, 1624, has a monument in that church."[223] Dr. Rimbault (Musical Illustrations of Percy's Reliques) writes as follows of the music:—"We have here two settings of this beautiful pastoral, the first as it was sung by the 'three excellent musitians' before Queen Elizabeth in 1591; the second as it was reset in the following century. The first is extracted from Madrigals to 3, 4, and 5 parts, apt for viols and voices, newly composed by Michael Este, 1604; the second from Cheerfull Ayres or Ballads, set for three voyces, by Dr. John Wilson, Oxford, 1660. The latter became extremely popular, and is included in D'Urfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy, 1719, and several other musical miscellanies of subsequent date.">[
In the merrie moneth of Maye,
In a morne by break of daye,
With a troope of damselles playing
Forthe "I yode" forsooth a maying:[224]
When anon by a wood side, 5
Where as Maye was in his pride,
I espied all alone
Phillida and Corydon.
Much adoe there was, god wot;
He wold love, and she wold not. 10
She sayde, never man was trewe;
He sayes, none was false to you.
He sayde, hee had lovde her longe:
She sayes, love should have no wronge.
Corydon wold kisse her then: 15
She sayes, maydes must kisse no men,