A Little Book of Songs and Ballads. INTRODUCTION. HE LITTLE BOOK OF SONGS AND BALLADS, now offered to the public, is a gathering from various sources, and may be likened unto the wallet of one of those minstrels of the olden time, who "Walken fer and wyde, Here, and ther, in every syde, In many a diverse londe." It does not indeed contain the "lay of chivalry," or the "romance of price;" but in it may be found rhymes adapted to the old tavern-min strelsy used by harpers, who gave "a fit of mirth ""Carols for Christmas;" "Poems for a groat; for Bride Ales," as Puttenham, the arch-critic of Elizabeth's reign, has it; and "diverse small rimes," "Sum of love, and sum of wo, Sum of joie, and mirthe also." The productions of the minstrels were of various kinds. The romance of chivalry seems principally to have been composed for the gratification of knights and nobles. Thus they frequently commence with an invitation to the "Lords," to listen and attend; whilst, on the other hand, it is probable that those in the lower class of life were amused with lays of a nature more readily addressed to their feelings and occupations, and which were occasionally satirical, and generally ludicrous. 1 1 1 See the Introduction to Utterson's Select Pieces of Early Popular Poetry. Concerning this wandering class of men, the minstrels, much has been written; but perhaps after all Bishop Percy was not far wrong when he designated them as "an order of men in the middle ages, who united the arts of poetry and music, and sung verses to the harp, of their own composing. "2 The monastic education of the minstrels, and their intimate connection with the musical service of the church, has not, we think, been properly investigated, or the qualifications which 2 Relics of Ancient English Poetry. |
