There was a maid came out of Kent,
Fair, proper, small and gent,

As ever upon the ground went,
For so it should be.

By a bank as I lay, I lay,

Musing on things past, hey how.*

Tom a Lin and his wife, and his wife's mother,
They went over a bridge all three together;
The bridge was broken and they fell in—
The devil go with all, quoth Tom a Lin.†

Martin Swart and his man, sodle-dum, sodle-dum,
Martin Swart and his man, sodle-dum bell.

Come over the boorne, Besse,

My pretty little Besse,

Come over the boorne, Besse, to me.§

The white dove set on the castle wall,
I bend my bow, and shoot her I shall;
I put her in my glove, both feathers and all.

* Another of Cox's ballads, also mentioned by Laneham. There is a popular old Irish song, in which the adventures of O'Lynn are carried through several verses. In the Irish version the name of the humorous hero is Bryan O'Lynn. That it was either the same song, or founded on the same original as the above, will be obvious from the following verse :—

Bryan O'Lynn his wife and wife's mother,
They all went over a bridge together,
The bridge it broke and they all fell in,

The devil go with you, says Bryan O'Lynn.

This song, says Mr. Collier, is unquestionably as old as Henry VII. Martin Swart was sent over in 1486, by the Duchess of Burgundy, to assist in the insurrection headed by Lord Lovell.

§ The Bessy of the song was Queen Elizabeth. Mr. Collier quotes a fragment of a dialogue between England and the Queen, on her coming to the throne, which opens in the same way. It is also one of the ballads of which a scrap is to be found in Shakespeare, sung by Edgar in King Lear. The form is common to many popular ditties, and appears to have suggested one of Moore's early songs.

I laid

my bridle upon the shelf,
If you will any more, sing it yourself.

I have twenty more songs yet,
A fond woman to my mother,
As I were wont in her lap to sit,
She taught me these, and many other.
I can sing a song of 'Robin Redbreast,'
AndMy little pretty Nightingale,'

'There dwelleth a jolly Foster* here by the West,' Also, 'I come to drink some of your Christmas ale.' When I walk by myself alone,

It doth me good my songs to render.

A CATCH.

I HAVE a pretty titmouse
Come pecking on my toe.
Gossip with you I purpose
To drink before I go.
Little pretty nightingale,
Among the branches green.
Give us of your Christmas ale,
In the honour of Saint Stephen.
Robin Redbreast with his notes
Singing aloft in the quire,
Warneth to get you frieze coats,
For Winter then draweth near.
My bridle lieth on the shelf,
If

you will have any more,
Vouchsafe to sing it yourself,
For here
you have all my store.

* Forester.

[JOHN LYLY, or Lilly, the Euphuist, was born in the Weald
of Kent, according to Wood, in 1553, but Oldys is inclined
to think some years earlier. He was a student of Magdalen
College, Oxford, where he took his degrees, and afterwards re-
moved to Cambridge. We next find him at court, where, says
his first editor, he was thought an excellent poet, and was
'heard, graced, and rewarded' by the Queen. The reward,
if any, came slowly; for after several years of attendance,
expecting and soliciting the appointment of Master of the
Revels, he was forced to apply to her Majesty at last for
some little grant to support him in his old age.' Of the
time or manner of his death nothing is known. He was
alive in 1597. Few men attained, for a short period, so
brilliant a reputation. His Anatomy of Wit and Euphues,
and his England, taught a new English to the court and
the country, and this language of tropes and puerilities
became the reigning fashion. All our ladies were his
scholars,' says Sir Henry Blount; and that beauty at court who
could not parley Euphuism, that is to say, who was unable
to converse in that pure and reformed English, which he had
formed his work to be the standard of, was as little regarded
as she who now there speaks not French.' This was written
in the reign of Charles I., when the effect of the
'pure and
reformed English' may be presumed to have been obliterated
by the interposition of the Scotch dialect, and a more learned
taste under James I. Lyly's 'reformed English,' says
Drayton, consisted in

Talking of stones, stars, plants, of fishes, flies,
Playing with words and idle similies.

Lyly wrote nine plays, which were very successful, and in which his fantastical refinements-especially in his songs, which possess considerable grace and delicacy-appear to much greater advantage than in his prose treatises. The

dates of the original editions are attached to each of the plays from which the following selections have been made.]

ALEXANDER AND CAMPASPE.

1584.

CUPID

CUPID AND CAMPASPE.

UPID and my Campaspe played
At cards for kisses-Cupid paid;
He stakes his quiver, bow and arrows,
His mother's doves, and team of sparrows;
Loses them too; then down he throws
The coral of his lip, the rose

Growing on's cheek (but none knows how),
With these, the crystal of his brow,
And then the dimple of his chin;
All these did my Campaspe win.
At last he set her both his eyes,
She won, and Cupid blind did rise.
O Love! has she done this to thee?
What shall, alas! become of me?*

WHAT

THE SONGS OF BIRDS.

HAT bird so sings, yet so does wail?
O'tis the ravished nightingale.

'Jug, jug, jug, jug, tereu,' she cries,
And still her woes at midnight rise.

Brave prick song! who is't now we hear?
None but the lark so shrill and clear;
Now at heaven's gates she claps her wings,t
The morn not waking till she sings.

*This exquisite little song is printed in Percy's Reliques.
Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings.

Ye birds

SHAKESPEARE.

That singing up to heaven's gate ascend.

MILTON.

Hark, hark, with what a pretty throat,
Poor robin red breast tunes his note;
Hark how the jolly cuckoos sing,
Cuckoo to welcome in the spring!
Cuckoo to welcome in the spring!*

SAPPHO AND PHAON. 1584.

VULCAN'S SONG.

MY shag-hair Cyclops, come, let's ply
Our Lemnian hammers lustily.
By my wife's sparrows,

I swear these arrows,
Shall singing fly

Through many a wanton's eye.

These headed are with golden blisses,
These silver ones feathered with kisses;
But this of lead

Strikes a clown dead,
When in a dance

He falls in a trance,

To see his black-brown lass not buss him,
And then whines out for death to untruss him.

COMPLAINT AGAINST LOVE.

CRUEL Love, on thee I lay

My curse, which shall strike blind the day;

Never may sleep with velvet hand

Charm these eyes with sacred wand;
Thy jailors shall be hopes and fears,
Thy prison mates groans, sighs, and tears,
Thy play to wear out weary times,
Fantastic passions, vows, and rhymes.

* An imitation, or rather an alteration, of this song occurs in the Sun's Darling. It will be found amongst the selections from Ford and Dekker.