Merry Drollery Compleat (1875)/Additional Notes to the Westminster Drolleries
Additional Notes
to the
Westminster Drolleries.
Our next book will contain fresh Title-pages to the series of Drolleries, completed in three volumes. Meanwhile, let readers accept the following, for Corrections and Additions to the Appendix of Westminster Drollery:—
Page 10. Wert thou much fairer than thou art is by “M. W. M.,” before 1651, as it was answered in that year by Thomas Stanley, in a Song beginning “Wert thou by all affections sought.”
— 13. Never perswade me to’t. Also in Playford’s Select Ayres, 1652, p. 30, with music by Dr. Colman; where is O fain would I, &c., p. 9.
— 17. Cellamina, of my heart. By John Dryden, same date, 1671, in “An Evening’s Love,” Act i.
— 20. Was ever man so vex'd, &c. Given, with the music, in Wit & Mirth, 1700, ii. 152; Pills, iv. 155.
— 28. Line 30. Note on Sauncing bell. See also The Second Maiden’s Tragedy, 1611, Act ii. Sc. 2,—“That drowns a saunce bell.”
— 30. (Additional.) The two poems On a Great Heat, and On a Mighty Rain, beginning respectively “I formerly in Countreys, &c., and “Heaven did not Weep,” &c., West. Droll., i. 67, 68, are by William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, in his Comedy of “The Country Captain,” 1649.
— 30. Madam, I cannot Court, &c. The original poem, of which this is the middle verse (modernized), is attributed to no less a poet than Christopher Marlow (who died, May, 1593), although marked “Ignoto.” Alexander Dyce gives it in both editions of that dramatist, and another of our best modern editors, Colonel Francis Cunningham, inserts it in his “Mermaid Edition,” p. 271. We transcribe the rare original, printed “At Middleborugh,” n.d., about 1597, at end of the earliest edition of “Epigrammes and Elegies. By I. D[avies]. and C. M[arlow].” It begins:—
Ignoto.
Who loues for that? nor for thy sprightly wit:
I loue thee not for thy sweete modestie,
Which makes thee in perfections throane to sit.
Thy beautie[’s] rauishing perfection:
I loue thee not for vnchast luxurie,
Nor for thy bodies faire proportion.
And leap with pleasure when those lips of thine:
Give Musicall and graceful vtterance,
To some (by thee made happie) poet’s line.
But wilt thou know wherefore? faire sweet[,] for all.
(Compare Thomas Carew’s “O my dearest,” in Westm. Droll., i. 91.) Wit’s Interpreter keeps much closer to the original than our version in W. D., and indeed gives true readings where the “Ignoto” is wrong. Guilding my Saint (not Oiling); Buss thy fist (not fill), &c. Finally, it reads “jerk thee soundly.” An obliging correspondent (W. G. Medlicott, of Long Meadow, Massachusetts) drew our attention to this. Third verse reads:—
Or shew my loue as muskie Courtiers doe,
Ile not carouse a health to honor thee,
In this same bezling drunken curtesie:
and when als quafde, eate vp my bowsing glasse.
In glory that I am thy seruile asse.
Nor wil I weare a rotten burbon locke,
as some sworne pesant to a female smock.
wel featurde lasse, Thou knowest I loue the[e] deare[,]
Yet for thy sake I wil not bore mine eare. [,]
To hang thy durtie silken shoo[-]tires there.
nor for thy loue wil I once gnash a brick,
Or some pied collours in my bonnet stiche.
but by the chaps of hell to do thee good,
Ile freely spend my Thrise decocted bloud.
— 39. Beat on, Proud billows. As far as we are aware, no claim to the authorship of this excellent Song was ever advanced by Colonel Richard Lovelace during his lifetime, or by his friends for him in later time. It neither appears among his Lucasta Poems, 1649, nor among the “Posthume Poems of Richard Lovelace, Esqre,” 1659. David Lloyd, in his “Memoires of those that suffered” in the cause of Charles I., 1668, certainly implies that the author of it was still living, with no other reward than “the conscience of having suffered.” Now, unless there were an earlier edition, ten years earlier than 1668, (against the existence of which are good reasons), this assertion by Lloyd disposes of the claim advanced by a learned and genial critic of Westminster Drolleries in the Athenæum of April 10th, 1875. Nor do we think the internal evidence strongly in favour of Lovelace. The parallelism indicated between his lines,
That for an Hermitage;
and the similar expression in “Beat on, proud billows,”
Makes me no Pris’ner, but an Anchoret:
is such (in our humble opinion) as more resembles an imitation, in the latter, of an already famous poem (written certainly before 1649, and then published), than the self-repetition probable from a poet who had already so fixed his idea. Tradition assigns “Beat on, proud billows,” to Sir Roger L’Estrange; but we confess to doubting the correctness of the supposition. It seems to us, firstly, above his range; secondly, he was appointed to the lucrative office of Licenser (a hangman’s duty, too often), so early as 1665. How then can David Lloyd’s assertion of the author being unrewarded, &c., be held to apply to this already pampered official? It still remains in great part a question of dates: Lloyd wrote thus after the Restoration.
— 42. As we went wandering. This is a variation of “When I do travel in the night,” Merry Drollery, Complete, p. 255 (p. 73, edit. 1661); see p. 393.
— 46. Note on Wm. Hicks. We find Samuel Pepys recording in his Diary, Sept. 25, 1663, “Pleased to see Captn. Hickes come to me with a list of all the officers of Deptford Yard, wherein he, being a high old Cavalier, do give me an account of every one of them to their reproach in all respects, and discovers many of their knaverys,” &c. An important bit, in its way, and not making much in favour of the adventurer.
— 55. Line 29. Delete "&," (W. D. being for Westm. Drollery,) and add this:—In J.P. Collier’s Extracts, Registers of Stationer’s Company, i. 230, we find under date 1569–70, a licence to Wyllm. Greffeth for printing a ballad entitled Taken Napping, as Mosse took his Meare. J. P. C. notes that the proverb is not yet forgotten, and is in the collection by John Heywood.
— 63. Line 33. Delete “It appears to be still older, as” and read “It is as early as 1632; and in,” &c.
— 68. The Ballad, on a similar theme, entitled “The Devonshire Damsels’ Frollick,” begins thus:—
In all they were about nine or ten,” &c.
See our next volume, and Rox. Col., iii. 137.
— 72. Bottom line but five, read John Crowne.
— 74. Line sixth. Read 1618, not 1614.
Introduction to W. D., p. 19, line 11, (note), read 1673: uncertainty about 1672. The frontispiece referred to on this page, and on p. 74 of Appendix, is now being engraved for our Readers. It gives a valuable record of a Stage-interior at the exact date of the Westminster Drolleries; or, more probably, immediately before the Restoration. J. W. E.