1

of old sack" is, apparently, the refrain of the above song. "This is "quoted as an old song in Brome's play, The Jovial Crew.... acted 1641. "It is also in the Antidote against Melancholy, 1661." (Chappell, II, 158, where also the air is given.)

WHERE IS THE LIFE THAT LATE I LED?

This song referred to by Petruchio (Shrew, IV, 1, 143)2 and by Pistol (2. Henry IV., Act V, 1, 146) is no longer extant. But we know in what metre the poem was written, and what subject it dealt with, and when it was probably composed. First, there is a song to the tune of 'Where is the Life that late I led' in A Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant Inventions (1578). This settles the metre question. Then we have a poem in a Handefull of pleasant delites (1584) entitled 'Dame Beauties replie to the Lover late at libertie: and now complaineth 'himselfe to be her captive, Intituled: Where is the life that late ‘led.' (Arber, Engl. Sch. Libr., III, 14.) This reply to the lost song allows us to form some idea as to the contents of the latter. The title just given and the general contents of the 'reply' harmonize with the title of what may be the original song: 'a newe ballet of one 'who myslykeng his lybertie soughte his owne bondage through his 'owne folly'. This is an entry on the Stationers' Registers dated 1565/6 (Arber, Transcr., I, 308.)

WHOOP, DO ME NO HARM, GOOD MAN.

This song is alluded to by Shakespeare in The Winters Tale, IV, IV, 199-201. In 'The Famous History of Friar Bacon' there is a ballad to the tune of "Oh doe me no harme good man." (Thoms, Early Prose Rom., 1858, vol. I, p. 224.) 'A song [to this tune "Whoop, "do mee", etc.] will be found in Fry's Ancient Poetry, but it would 'not be desirable for republication,' says Chappell (orig. ed., 208). Pourquoi pas? Its date is probably c. 1615. Ford, in Act III, sc. III, of "The Fancies chaste and noble" (pr. 1638) places the line "Whoop, "do me no harm, good woman" in the mouth of Secco.-The music (1610) is in Chappell (I, 96).

WILLOW, WILLOW,

is Desdemona's swan song (Oth. IV, 11). Shakespeare, in making use

1 In An Antidote against Melancholy (1661) it is called a catch (=round). 2 "Where is the life that late I led? Where are those-Sit down, Kate, etc." I am inclined to regard "Where are those" [pleasant days?] as the continuation of the song. ("No doubt", says J. W. E.)

of the words of the old song (“an old thing 'twas”, 1. 29) ‘has made 'changes which were necessary to suit them to a female character.' A later version of the song is in the Roxburghe Collection, Ballad Soc., 4, Roxb. Bds. I, p. 171, a version, which is nearly identical with that printed by Percy in his Reliques from the Pepys collection. Each is of the first half of the seventeenth century, but the former is rather to be preferred. But an earlier copy (with the music) than either is to be found reprinted in Chappell, Old Engl. Pop. Music, I, 106; but it does not everywhere show the greater agreement with Shakespeare's version. (Cp., too, Chappell, original ed., 206, 774.)

ROUNDS.

JACK, BOY! HO! BOY!

1

This round for four voices, is printed in Th. Ravenscroft's Pammelia, 1609, the first collection of popular rounds printed in England. The words are as follows:

Jacke, boy, ho, boy, newes!

The Cat is in the well.

Let us ring now for her knell,
Ding, dong, ding, dong, bell.

(see Knight, Pict. Shaksp., Comedies I, p. 316, where the music is given). The first line is alluded to in 'The Shrew', IV, 1, 41:— Curtis: "There's fire ready; and therefore, good Grumio, the news. Gru. Wy, Jack boy! ho! boy! and as much news as will thaw. Curt. Come, you are so full of cony-catching!

THOU KNAVE.

In Twelfth Night, II, III, Sir Toby having made the proposal to sing a catch, that is, a round or roundelay, Sir Andrew, says (v. 66): "Let our catch be, "Thou knave"".-Clown: "Hold thy peace, thou "knave', knight? I shall be constrained in't to call thee knave, knight." Sir Andrew: ""Tis not the first time I have constrained one to call "me knave. Begin, fool: it begins 'Hold thy peace'." This catch 'Hold thy peace' was printed in the 'Deuteromelia', a work supple

1 This is Chappell's opinion, (Ball. Soc., ut sup.). Mr. Wooldridge, however, who prepared the latest edition of 'The Pop. Mus.' thinks (I, 109) the version, as found in the Roxburghe Collection, falls after the Restoration. But Mr. Wooldridge must be in the wrong; as the Roxburghe copy is printed for Edward Wright, whose dates are 1620-1655; see Roxb. Ball. I, Ball. Soc., p. 174 and p. XXIII.

mentary to the 'Pammelia', both published by Th. Ravenscroft in 1609, when he was about 17 years of age. The music, reproduced by Hawkins (see Furness, XIII, 118), is beyond doubt original.

THREE MERRY MEN.

The original words are probably the following, given by Peele in his 'Old Wives' Tale,' 1595:

let us rehearse the old proverb [=song]

'Three merry men, and three merry men, and three merry man be we: 'I in the wood, and thou on the ground, and Jack sleeps in the tree.' The melody as it is preserved to us by Playford, circa 1650, is given by Chappell, I, 197, and, Naylor, 189. I have no doubt but that 'Three Merry Men' was originally a round, or two rounds, for three voices. The three Parts would suit the words as follows:

The song is alluded to by Sir Toby in Twelfth Night, II, III, 81: 'Three merry men be we'.

POPULAR RHYMES.

1) In The Merry Wives (IV, II,) we hear that, Mr. Ford, considering himself a cuckold, "buffets himself on the forehead crying, "Peer out, peer out!" (1. 25),—that is, appear horns! Henley thinks that 'Shakspeare here refers to the practice of children, when they 'call on a snail to push forth his horns:

'Peer out, peer out, peer out of your hole,
'Or else I'll beat you black as a coal.'

These lines are given by Ritson in his collection of mursery rhymes

entitled 'Gammer Gurton's Garland, or the Nursery Parnassus', 1783. Compare King Lear, III, iv, 78:

Edgar: "Pillicock sat on Pillicock-hill".

3)

When Adam delved and Eve span,
Who was then a gentleman?,

is alluded to by the clown in Hamlet, V, 1, 32f.:

First Clown: .... Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers: they hold up Adam's profession. Sec. Clo. Was he a gentleman?

Regarding this old rhyme compare Hazlitt 'English Proverbs', 1869, p. 455. We find it quoted by Greene: 'I will not forget the old wives 'logick, when Adam delvd and Eve spanne, who was then a Gentleman?' (A Quip for an Upstart Courtier, 1592. Huth Libr., XI., p. 225.)

The couplet is also to be found in Holinshed (cf. Bosw.-Stone, p. 272, n. 2), who relates that John Ball, the fomenter of Wat Tyler's Insurrection (1381), made it the theme of his sermon at Blackheath. There is an evident allusion to this in 2. Henry VI., Act IV, 11, 142: Sir Humphrey Stafford: Villain, thy father was a plasterer;

And thou thyself a shearman, art thou not?

Cade. And Adam was a gardener.

Compare also John Holland's assertion, ll. 9-10:

Well, I say it was never merry world in England since gentlemen came up.

4)

"For I the ballad1 will repeat,
Which men full true shall find;

Your marriage comes by destiny,
Your cuckoo sings by kind."

(All's Well, I, 111, 64.)

Something like two of these lines are to be found in John Grange's 'Garden', 15772:

'Content your selfe as well as I, let reason rule your minde,
'As Cuckoldes come by destinie, so Cuckowes sing by kinde.'

1 ballad='a proverbial saying, usually in form of a couplet'. (New Engl. Dict.) 2 On folio R.ij.

A SPELL.

In King Lear (III, iv, 125 ff.) we have the following spell:-
S. Withold footed thrice the old;

He met the night-mare, and her nine-fold;

Bid her alight,

And her troth plight,

And, aroint thee, witch, aroint thee!

In illustration of this truly Teutonic spell, with the epic introduction and the winding up with the charm proper, we might cite numerous examples, beginning with the 'Merseburger Zaubersprüche', the oldest of them. A characteristic charm against the nightmare or Incubus, coming near to the one quoted by Edgar, is to be found in Scott's 'Discoverie of Witchcraft', 1584, (reprinted, 1886,-see p. 68 ib.) and deserves to be quoted here:

S. George, S. George, our ladies knight,
He walkt by daie, so did he by night:
Untill such time as he hir found,

He hir beat and he hir bound,
Untill hir troth she to him plight,

She would not come to hir that night.

FURTHER NOTES AND COMMENTS
ILLUSTRATIVE OF SOME OLD SONGS AND
BALLADS IN SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS.

The song in Twelfth Night, II, IV, 52,

"COME AWAY, COME AWAY, DEATH", etc.

appears to be a later interpolation and not the original song intended by the great dramatist, for it cannot be said to chime in with the description of it given immediately before1:

"it is old and plain;

"The spinsters and the knitters in the sun

"And the free maids that weave their thread with bones

"Do use to chant it: it is silly sooth,

"And dallies with the innocence of love,

"Like the old age."

1 J. W. E. objects strongly (see below, Addenda and Corrigenda).