Ruffle, Sleeves and Hose.
The Nut Brown Mayd.
Row well ye marynors.
God send me a wyfe that will do as I say.
This list might be multiplied indefinitely. Enough has been given to show that the ballad was the principal medium by which the people were moved and taught. One would not underrate the power of the sermon. At no time, not even in the seventeenth century, was the sermon more powerful than under Elizabeth; but the sermon chiefly treated of doctrine and the ballads taught morals and the conduct of life. Nay, in these cases, which were many, when a ballad secular, amatory, scandalous, or immoral, had become popular, the clergy took it in hand and moralised it: i.e. presented a religious parody of it, which they persuaded the people to sing instead of the first version. For example, here is part of a “moralised” ballad:—
“To pass the place where pleasure is
It ought to please one fantasie,
If that the pleasure be amis,
And to God’s Work plaine contrarie,
Or else we sinne, we sinne,