And one unto the other 'gan say, Shall we go dine by the wild salt sea? As I sat on the deep sea sand, I saw a fair ship nigh at land, I waved my wings, I bent my beak, Come, I will show ye a sweeter sight, His sword half-drawn, his shafts unshot; But his hawk, his hound, and his lady fair. His hound is to the hunting gane, His hawk to fetch the wild fowl hame, His lady's away with another mate, Ye shall sit on his white hause-bane, Oh! cauld and bare will his bed be, RAVENSCROFT'S MELISMATA. 65 The late Mr. John Findlay, author of Wallace, or the Vale of Ellerslie, &c. seems also to have borne Ravenscroft's "Three Ravens" in mind, when he composed his Dirge of the Slain Knight, beginning, "A knight there came from the field of slain, THE MARRIAGE OF THE FROGGIE AND THE MOUSE. FROM COUNTRY PASTIMES. It was the froggie in the well, The froggie would a-wooing ride, When he was upon his high horse set, When he came to the merry mill-pin, Ho! mistress mouse, be ye within. She cries, out o'er the seedy mill-dam, O yes, kind Sir, and that I am. And then came out the dusty mouse, Hast thou any mind of me? Then he pull'd out a farthing fine, The table where they both did dine, And who shall this marriage make? What shall we have to our supper? And now when supper they were at, Then came in sly Gib, our cat, And catch'd the mouse even by the back. This made them all to separate; And the frog leap'd on the floor so flat. Then came in gobble Dick, our drake, Our lord the rat ran up the wall, A goodly company, the devil go with all! The above Ballad is collated with another copy noted down from recitation. This may have been a satire of the olden times, but against what or whom, it is now immaterial to know, or perhaps a nursery chant. The modern Ballad, "Rowley would a wooing go," is a happy imitation of the foregoing. RAVENSCROFT'S MELISMATA. A WOOING SONG OF A YEOMAN OF KENT'S SON. FROM COUNTRY PASTIMES. I have house and land in Kent, And if you'll love me, love me now; I cannot come every day to woo. I am my father's eldest son, My mother eke doth love me well; My father he gave me a hog, My mother she gave me a sow; One time, I gave thee a paper of pins, I have been twice our Whitsun lord, 67 I will put on my best white slope, Wherefore, cease off, make no delay, We are inclined to hazard a conjecture, that the above "Wooing Song" is the parent stem of our goodly Scottish piece, "I hae laid a herring in saut;" and that the air of the latter has been altered a little by some skilful hand from that of the Wooing Song, and now is by every one called a standard Scottish tune, when in reality it is an English one, as any amateur may satisfy himself, by running over the bars of the one after the other, in Song 22, of the "Melismata;" even the Songs, in some points, bearing a resemblance, independent of the terminal lines of the first and concluding stanzas of the English set of words. We never have seen that old Scottish Ballad alluded to by Lord Hales, in notes to his Selections from the Bannatyne M.S. which seems to be the primary Scottish version of the same; but those who have, may compare the twain, and see how far they resemble each other. One stanza quoted by his Lordship is the following: "I ha a wie lairdschip down in the Merse, The nynetenth pairt of a gusse's gerse, And I wo' na cum every day to wow." wwwwwwwwww. |