Part 2 — Part II., page 89. Cheer up, my mates, &c.
Reading edition
(See Appendix to Westm. Droll., p. lxii.) The author of this frollicsome ditty was no other than Abraham Cowley (1618-67), dear to all who know his choice “Essays in Prose and Verse,” his unlaboured letters, the best of his smaller poems, or the story of his stainless life and gentleness. It is that noble thinker and poet, Walter Savage Landor, who writes, and in his finest mood:—
Time has been When Cowley shone near Milton, nay, above! An age roll’d on before a keener sight Could separate and see them far apart. (Hellenics, edit. 1859, p. 258.)
Yet while we yield unquestioningly the higher rank as Poet to John Milton, we hold the generous nature of his rival, Cowley, in more loving regard. He was not of the massive build in mind, or stern unflinching resolution needed for such times as those wherein his lot was cast. When the weakest goes to the wall, amid universal disturbance and selfish warring for supremacy, his was not the strong arm to beat back encroachment. Gentle, affectionate, and truthful, exceptionally pure and single-minded, although living as Queen Henrietta’s secretary in her French Court, where impurity of thought and lightness of conduct were scarcely visited with censure, the uncongenial scenes and company around him help to enhance the charm of his mild disposition. Heartless wits might lampoon him, stealthy foes defame him, lest he should gain one favour or reward that they were hankering after. To us he remains the lover of the “Old Patrician trees,” the friend of Crashaw and of Evelyn, the writer of the most delightful essays and familiar letters: alas! too few.
The “Song” in Westminster-Drollery, ii. 89, set by Pelham Humphrey, is the opening verse of Cowley’s “Ode: Sitting and Drinking in the Chair made out of the Reliques of Sir Francis Drake’s Ship.” [The chair was presented to the University Library, Oxford.]
Corrections: dull men are those who tarry; and spy too. Three verses follow. Of these we add the earliest, leaving uncopied the others, of 21 and 18 lines. They are to be found on p. 9 of Cowley’s “Verses written on Several Occasions,” folio ed., 1668. The idea of the shipwreck “in the wide Sea of Drink” had been early welcomed by him, and treated largely, Feb. 1638-9, in his Naufragium Joculare.
2. What do I mean: What thoughts do me misguide? As well upon a staff may Witches ride Their fancy’d Journies in the Ayr, As I sail round the Ocean in this Chair: ’Tis true; but yet this Chair which here you see, For all its quiet now and gravitie, Has wandred, and has travail’d more Than ever Beast, or Fish, or Bird, or ever Tree before. In every Ayr, and every Sea ’t has been, ’T has compos’d all the Earth, and all the Heavens ’t has seen. Let not the Pope’s it self with this compare, This is the only Universal Chair.
It must have been written before 1661, as it appears among the “Choyce Poems, being Songs, Sonnets, &c.”, printed for Henry Brome, (who ten years afterwards published Westm. Droll.) at the Gun in Ivie Lane, in that year. It is in the additional opening sheet, p. 13; not found in the 1658 editions of Choyce Poems.
Westminster-Drollery Appendix, p. liv. “The Green Gown,” Pan, leave piping, &c.
Under the title “The Fetching Home of May,” we meet an early ballad-form copy in the Roxburghe Collection, i. 535, printed for J. Wright, junior, dwelling at the upper end of the Old Bailey. It begins “Now Pan leaves piping,” and is in two parts, each containing five verses. Three of these are not represented in the Antidote of 1661. Wm. Chappell, the safest of all guides in such matters, notes that “the publisher [of the broadside] flourished in and after 1635. No clue remains to the authorship.” (Bd. Soc. reprint, iii. 311, 1875.)
As in the case of the companion-ditty, “Come, Lasses and Lads” (Westm. Droll., ii. 80), we may feel satisfied that this lively song was written before the year 1642. No hint of the Puritanic suppression of Maypoles can be discerned in either of them. Such sports were soon afterwards prohibited, and if ballads celebrating their past delights had then been newly written, the author must have yielded to the temptation to gird at the hypocrites and despots who desolated each village green. We cannot regard the Roxburghe Ballad as being superior to the Antidote version: But they mutually help one another in corrections. We note the chief: first verse, So lively it passes; Good lack, what paines; 2, Thus they so much; 3 (our 4), Came very lazily. It is after the five verses that differences are greatest. Our 6th verse is absent, and our 7th appears as the 8th; with new 6th, 7th, 9th, and 10th, which we here give, but print them to match our others:
THE FETCHING HOME OF MAY. (The Second Part.) 6. This Maying so pleased || Most of the fine lasses, That they much desired to fetch in May flowers, For to strew the windows and such like places, Besides they’l have May bows, fit for shady bowers. But most of all they goe || To find where Love doth growe, Each young man knowes ’tis so, || Else hee’s a clowne: For ’tis an old saying, || “There is great joying, When maids go a Maying,” || They’ll have a greene gowne. 7. Maidens and young men goe, || As ’tis an order old, For to drink merrily and eat spiced cakes; The lads and the lasses their customs wil hold, For they wil goe walk i’ th’ fields, like loving mates: Em calls for Mary, || And Ruth calls for Sarah, Iddy calls for Har[r]y || To man them along: Martin calls Marcy, || Dick calls for Debary, Then they goe lovingly || All in a throng. 8. (Westm. Droll., 7.) The bright Apollo || Was all the while peeping To see if his Daphne had bin in the throng, And, missing her, hastily downward was creeping, For [Thetis] imagined [he] they tarri’d too long. Then all the troope mourned || And homeward returned, For Cynthia scorned || To smile or to frowne: Thus did they gather May || All the long summer’s day, And went at night away, || With a green gowne. 9. Bright Venus still glisters, Out-shining of Luna; Saturne was present, as right did require; And he called Jupiter with his Queen Juno, To see how Dame Venus did burn in desire: Now Jove sent Mercury || To Vulcan hastily, Because he should descry [decoy] Dame Venus down: Vulkan came running, On Mars he stood frowning, Yet for all his cunning, || Venus had a greene gowne. 10. Cupid shootes arrowes At Venus her darlings, For they are nearest unto him by kind: Diana he hits not, nor can he pierce worldlings, For they have strong armour his darts to defend: The one hath chastity, And Cupid doth defie; The others cruelty || makes him a clowne: But leaving this I see, From Cupid few are free, And ther’s much courtesie In a greene gowne. FINIS.
We have a firm conviction that these verses (not including “The bright Apollo”) were unauthorized additions by an inferior hand, of a mere ballad-monger. We hold by the Antidote.