What part to each they did assign
The world, fair dame, can plainly see;
The Spring and Summer days were thine,
Autumn and Winter came to me.H.
ENGLISH BALLAD SINGING.
(For the Mirror.)
The minstrels were once a great and flourishing body in England; but their dignity being interwoven with the illusory splendour of feudal institutions, declined on the advance of moral cultivation: they became in time vulgar mountebanks and jugglers, and in the reign of Elizabeth were suppressed as rogues and vagabonds. Banished from the highways they betook themselves to alehouses—followed the trade of pipers and fiddlers—and minstrelsy was no longer known in England.
The suppression of "the order" of minstrels, gave rise to that of the Ballad-singers, who relied upon the quality of their voices for success. The subjects of many of the songs handed down by the minstrels were still held in honour by the ballad-singers. The feats of "Elym of the Clough," "Randle of Chester," and "Sir Topaz," which had faded under the kind keeping of the minstrels, were now refreshed and brought more boldly in the new version before the sense. Robin Hood and Friar Tuck had their honours enlarged by the new dynasty; more maidens and heroes were inspired by their misfortunes. Drayton's allusions to the propagation of Robin's fame may give an idea of the diffusion of the ballad-singers:
"In this our spacious isle I think there is not one,