Six Centuries of English Poetry Part 45

The ballads were originally the production of wandering minstrels or gleemen, a cla.s.s of men very popular in the Middle Ages, who followed the profession of poetry and music. These rude poets were held in the highest esteem and veneration by the people among whom they lived; they were received and welcomed wherever they went, and even kings delighted to honor them. In short, their art was supposed, by the Anglo-Saxons, to be of divine origin, having been invented by Odin, the great All-Father, and perfected by Bragi, the musician of the G.o.ds. As, however, civilization advanced and Christianity became established, this admiration for the minstrel and his art became modified in a degree. He was no longer regarded as a poet, but only as a singer, a sweet musician. Poetry was cultivated by men of leisure and refinement; but lyrical ballads remained the peculiar inheritance of the minstrel. For a long time after the Norman conquest, minstrels continued to gain their livelihood by singing in the houses of the great, and at festive occasions, which were never considered complete unless graced by the presence of these honored descendants of Bragi; nor did they cease to compose and sing their inimitable pieces until near the close of Elizabeth's reign. The greater number of the ballads now in existence were probably produced during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; and the best of them originated in the "North Country," or the border region between England and Scotland. They were not at first reduced to writing, but were handed down from one generation to another merely by oral tradition. As regards their metre and versification, the ballads were commonly composed of iambic hexameters or heptameters rhyming in couplets. These couplets are readily broken into stanzas of four lines, in which form they are usually printed.

The first collection of English ballads ever published was probably that of John Dryden, in 1684. The collection was included in a volume ent.i.tled _Miscellany Poems_. In 1723 a work called _A Collection of Old Ballads_ was published anonymously. In 1724 Allan Ramsay issued _The Evergreen_, "being a collection of Scots Poems wrote by the Ingenious before 1600." This work included many popular songs and ballads. It was reprinted in 1875.

We owe the preservation of a large number of the most interesting and beautiful ballads to Bishop Percy, who, in 1765, published the first really valuable collection of such works in his _Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_. Previous to that time most of these songs had existed only in ma.n.u.script, or, if printed at all, in the cheapest style of typography, on sheets designed for circulation among the poor. Bishop Percy's work first called the attention of scholars to the value and beauty of these neglected and half-forgotten relics, and did much to bring about that revolution in literature which took place in the latter part of the last century. And it is to these old ballads, thus rescued from oblivion, that we owe very many of the n.o.blest literary productions of the present century. We know that they were the immediate inspiration of Sir Walter Scott, and that they exerted a wonderful influence in modifying and directing the taste and style of many other distinguished writers.

The Fifteenth Century.

"_When we pa.s.s from Chaucer's age, we have to overleap nearly a hundred and eighty years before we alight upon a period presenting anything like an adequate show of literary continuation. A few smaller names are all that can be cited as poetical representatives of this sterile interval in the literary history of England: whatever of Chaucer's genius still lingered in the island seeming to have travelled northward and taken refuge in a series of Scotch poets, excelling any of their English contemporaries. We are driven to suppose that there was something in the social circ.u.mstances of England during the long period in question which prevented such talent as there was from a.s.suming the particular form of literature. Fully to make out what this 'something' was may baffle us; but, when we remember that this was the period of the Civil Wars of the Roses, we have reason to believe that the dearth of pure literature may have been owing, in part, to the engrossing nature of the practical questions which then disturbed English society. . . . Accordingly, though printing was introduced during this period, and thus Englishmen had greater temptations to write, what they did write was almost exclusively plain grave prose, intended for practical or polemical occasions, and making no figure in a historical retrospect._"--DAVID Ma.s.sON.

"_Must we quote all these good people who have nothing to say? . . .

dozens of translators, importing the poverties of French poetry, rhyming chroniclers, most commonplace of men; spinners and spinsters of didactic poems who pile up verses on the training of falcons, on heraldry, on chemistry, . . . invent the same dream over again for the hundredth time, and get themselves taught universal history by the G.o.ddess Sapience. . . . It is the scholastic phase of poetry._"--TAINE.

Poets of the Fifteenth Century.

=John Lydgate= (1370-1440). See biographical note, page 283.

=Thomas Occleve= (1365-1450). "De Regimine Principum"; short poems.

=Robert Henryson= (1425-1480). See biographical note, page 283.

=William Dunbar= (1450-1513). See biographical note, page 283.

=Gawain Douglas= (1474-1522). See biographical note, page 284.

=Stephen Hawes= ( -1530), "The Pastime of Pleasure"; "Graunde Amour and la Belle Pucel."

=John Skelton= (1460-1529). See biographical note, page 272.

John Skelton.

TO MAYSTRESS MARGARET HUSSEY.

Mirry Margaret, As mydsomer flowre; Jentill as fawcoun Or hawke of the towre: With solace and gladnes, Moche mirthe and no madness, All good and no badness, So joyously, So maydenly, So womanly, Her demenyng In every thynge, Far, far pa.s.synge That I can endyght, Or suffyce to wryghte, Of mirry Margaret, As mydsomer flowre, Jentyll as fawcoun Or hawke of the towre: As pacient and as styll, And as full of good wyll As faire Isaphill; Colyaunder, Swete pomaunder, Goode Ca.s.saunder; Stedfast of thought, Wele made, wele wrought; Far may be sought, Erst that ye can fynde So corteise, so kynde, As mirry Margaret, This mydsomer floure, Jentyll as fawcoun Or hawke of the towre.

CARDINAL WOLSEY.

[FROM "WHY COME YE NOT TO COURT?"]

He is set so hye In his ierarchye Of frantike frenesy, And folish fantasy, That in chambre of stars{1} Al maters ther he mars, Clapping his rod on the borde, No man dare speake a worde: For he hath al the saying Without any renaying.

He rolleth in his Recordes; He saith, "How say ye, my lordes?

Is not my reason good?"

Good!--even good--_Robin Hood_!-- Borne up on every syde With pompe and with pryde, With trump up alleluya,{2} For dame Philargyria{3} Hath so his hart in hold.

Adew, Philosophia!

Adew, Theologia!

Welcome, dame Simonia,{4} With dame Castamergia,{5} To drink and for to eate, Sweete ipocras{6} and sweete meate.

To keep his fleshe chaste In Lente, for his repaste He eateth capons stewed, Fesaunt and partriche mewed-- Spareth neither mayd ne wife-- This is a postel's{7} life!

NOTES.

1. =chambre of stars.= The Star Chamber, a court of civil and criminal jurisdiction for the punishment of offences for which the law made no provision. It was so called because the ceiling of the room in which it was held was decorated with gilt stars.

2. =alleluya.= In allusion to the pomp with which Wolsey celebrated divine service.

3. =Philargyria.= Love of money; covetousness.

4. =Simonia.= Simony; buying and selling church livings.

5. =Castamergia.= Gluttony. Greek _kastrimargia_. A not uncommon word among the monks of the Middle Ages, one of whose prayers was, "From the spirit of castrimargia, O Lord, deliver us!"

6. =ipocras.= Hippocras, or spiced wine, a drink formerly very popular in England. It was made by mixing Canary and Lisbon wines, in equal parts, with various kinds of sweet spices, and allowing the whole to stand for a few days, after which the wine was poured off and sweetened with sugar.

7. =postel.= Apostle--here ironically applied to Wolsey.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

JOHN SKELTON was born about the year 1460. In his earlier life he was the friend of Caxton, the first English printer, and of Percy, Earl of Northumberland. He was poet-laureate under Henry VII., and tutor of the young prince (afterwards Henry VIII.), and was described by Erasmus as _litterarum Anglicarum lumen et decus_. Later in life he was promoted to the rectory of Diss in Norfolk, but was severely censured by his bishop for his buffooneries in the pulpit and his satirical ballads against the mendicants. He finally became a hanger-on about the court of Henry VIII.; and, daring to write a rhyming libel on Cardinal Wolsey, was driven to take refuge in the sanctuary of Westminster Abbey. There he was kindly entertained and protected by Abbot Islip until his death in 1529. Some of his poems were printed in 1512, and others in 1568.

Taine calls Skelton "a virulent pamphleteer, who jumbles together French, English, Latin phrases, with slang and fas.h.i.+onable words, invented words, intermingled with short rhymes. Style, metre, rhyme, language, art of every kind, at an end; beneath the vain parade of official style there is only a heap of rubbish. Yet, as he says,

'Though my rhyme be ragged, Tatter'd and jagged, Rudely rain-beaten, Rusty, moth-eaten, Yf ye take welle therewithe, It hath in it some pithe.'"

As to the coa.r.s.eness which characterizes his verses, it cannot be explained by saying that it is a reflection of the manners of the times in which he lived. For, as Warton says, Skelton "would have been a writer without decorum at any period." Yet, notwithstanding his faults, he is deserving of our notice, if for nothing else, on account of the complete originality of his style--a style unknown and unattempted by any former writer. His bold departure from the accepted rules of versification showed to those who followed him some of the possibilities in English poetical composition, and helped to open the way to the great outburst of song which followed.

Selections from Four Minor Poets.