have dyed a violent death; the written dialect we meet toward the end of his time, being effentially a different tongue from this uncertain period, therefor, we date the birth and establishment of the English language.

Before we proceed further, the reader may not be dif pleased with a rather curious paffage in an ancient writer, relative to the vulgar mode of finging in his own time, the age of king Henry II. In general, fays he, there is not the leaft uniformity in mufical modulation. Every man fings his own fong, and, in a croud of fingers, as is the custom here, fo many perfons as you fee, so many fongs and various voices will you hear. In the northern parts, on the confines of Yorkshire, the natives, he tells us, ufed a fymphoniac harmony with two different tones. One finging the under part of the fong in a low voice, the other the upper part in a voice equally foft and delighting: and this not fo much, he fays, by art as ufe and nature: children, and even infants in the cradle, obferving the fame kind of modulation. This practice, altogether peculiar to these people, he fuppofes them to have acquired from the Danes and Norwegians who had fettled or refided in these parts (126). Later writers, however, incline to believe that they had learned it from the method obferved in chanting the fervice by the monks of Wearmouth in the bishopric of Durham.

The most ancient English fong now extant is one in praife of the cuckoo, a favourite fubject, in every age, both with poets and muficians. This great curiofity, for befides that the words theirfelves are far from being inelegant, they are accompanied with a very mafterly mufical compofition for fix voices, in the nature of a catch, is preferved in a fine old MS. in the Harleian library, and is, by fir John Hawkins and dr. Burney, both of whom have inferted it in their respective works, referred to about the middle of the fifteenth century (127). But the rea

(126) Giraldus Cambrenfis, as quoted by Hawkins and Burney. (127) Mr. Warton has (but without the leaft acknowledgement) followed fir John Hawkins, and confequently involved hisfelf in the fame mistake.

foning of thefe two learned and ingenious gentlemen on the subject is as inconclufive, as their judgement is erroneous. There cannot be a doubt that the manufcript is two hundred years older; i. e. of the latter part of the reign of Henry III. The fong will speak for itsfelf:

In the enfuing reign we are fortunately enabled to proceed with greater certainty and fuccefs. In the British Museum is a large folio book, written by the hand of fome Norman fcribe, about the beginning of the time of Edward II. and containing a variety of fongs and poems, by different authors, both in French and English, chiefly, as it must seem, of the preceding reign. Most of these pieces are of an amourous or fatyrical turn, and many of them, for fo remote an age, not deftitute of merit. The libel on Richard, king of the Romans, printed by Percy in his Reliques of ancient English Poetry, is from this collection: from whence, likewife, Warton, in the first volume of his hiftory, has made several extracts; which, however, are very inaccurate. It likewife includes an abufive ballad against the Scots; and another against the French, on the infurrection at Bruges in 1301. As a fpecimen

(128) i e. Summer is come in; loud fings the cuckoo: now the feed grows, and the mead blows (i.e. is in flower), and the wood fprings. The ewe bleats after the lamb; the calf lows after the cow; the bullock ftarts, the buck verts (i. e. goes to harbour in the fern); merrily fings the cuckoo. Well fingeft thou, cuckoo. Mayeft thou never ceafe.

of

of the language and poetic manner of this early period, we shall infert the first verfe of "a fong in praise of "the authors mistress, whose name was Alyfoun."

Bytuene merah & aueril

When fpray biginneb to fp^nge
be luzel foul hap hire wyl
On hyre lud to fynge
Ich libbe in loue longinge
For femlokeft of alle þynge
He may me bliffe bringe

Icham in hire bandoun

An hendy hap ichabbe yhent
Ichot from heuene it is me fent

From alle wymmen mi loue is lent

And lyht on Alyfoun (129).

The four laft lines make the burthen of the three remaining ftanzas.

66

"

Of nearly the fame age, in another manufcript, we have a fong in praife of the valiant knight fir Piers de Birmingham, who, while he lived, was a fcourge to "the Irish, and died A. D. 1288." But it is very long, and has little merit.

During the reign of Edward III. Chaucer confiderably improved and polished both our language and our poetry. He is, undoubtedly, a writer of great genius, and, almoft, the first English poet worth naming. In the CANTERBURY TALES, and, indeed, throughout his works, are numberless allufions to the state of the mufic and fong of his age (130). But few, perhaps, if any, of those

numerous

(129) Between March and April, when the branches begin to fpring, the little birds indulge their inclination to fing in their lan guage. I live in the longings of love, for the feemlieft of all creatures. She may bring me happiness. I am in her bonds. I have obtained a happy lot. I wot [believe] it is fent me from heaven. My love has left all other women, and is alighted upon Alifon.

(130) For instance, the Pardoner fings "Come hither, love, to me:" while the fompnour (fummoner or apparitor) bears him a stiff "burdoun," i. e. fings the bafe. This was, doubtlefs, fome favourite fong at that time. As was, likewife, it should feem "The Kinges "Note,"

numerous fongs, which he exprefsly tells us he compofed, and for the compofition of which he teftifies fo much penitence (131), feem to have come down to us; unless the rondeau printed by Percy, beginning

Your two eyn will fle me fodenly,

should happen to be one of them. His ballades may, indeed, have been fung, but they are certainly no fongs.

Of the reign of Richard II. there is no fong known to be extant. A manufcript in the Cotton library, of the time of his ufurping fucceffor, contains a farcaftic ballad upon the execution, as it should feem, of John Holland, duke of Exeter, whom the author calls "Jac Nape," and for whofe foul he makes the rest of

"note," which is elsewhere mentioned. Abfalon, the all-accomplished parish clerk, is celebrated for his skill in mufic:

And playen SONGES on a fmal ribible +

Thereto he fong fomtime a loud quinible

And as wel coude he play on a giterne ||, &ci

Nay, our jocofe author has even preferved the very fong which this amourous youth performed in one of his nocturnal ferenades,

He fingeth in his vois gentil and smal;
Now, dere lady,if thy wille be,

pray you that ye-wol rewe on me ;
Ful wel accordant to his giterning.

Nor does the mincing Wife of Bath forget to tell us,

Tho coude I dancen to an harpé smale

And SING ywis as any nightingale.

And from a paffage in the Priorefses Tale it fhould appear that "ro SINGEN' was as much an established branch of the education of "fmale children" as 66 to rede."

(131) -"and many a soNG, and many a LECHEROUS LAY, "Crift of his grete mercie foryeve me the finne." RETRAC. C. T. (iii. 277.)

the confpirators, by name, fing "Placebo dirige." It begins,

In the moneth of May, when gaffe groweb grene,

and is accompanied by another, against the Lollards, of the fame age.

Henry V. forbad his fubjects to extol his victory at Agincourt: but they either had already begun to chant triumphal fongs, or were not deterred by the prohibition ; for one of these pieces, with the original mufic, is luckily preferved to us, and has been frequently printed (132).

The reign of Henry VI. is an ara of great confequence in the poetical annals of this country; not fo much, indeed, from the excellence, as from the magnitude and multiplicity of its metrical productions. The works of Lydgate, monk of Bury, alone, are nearly fufficient to load. a waggon. His ballades are numerous; but we find nothing which we can call a fong; except a fort of" roun"dell" previous to the coronation of Henry the Sixth, which is not worth inferting here. But Dan John, like moft of the other profeffed poets of that age, laboured too much with a leaden pen, in what was then thought a folemn and stately ftanza (rythme royal), to be a good writer of fongs. Thefe were chiefly compofed by anonymous and ignorant rimers, for the ufe of the vulgar, and it is by mere accident that any of them have been preferved. It muft, indeed, be confeffed that most of those which remain poffefs very little merit, befides that of exhibiting the state of the art at the time in which they were written. Though a collection of fuch things, rude and fimple as they are, would by no means prove either unworthy of attention, or void of ufe. The Turnament of Tottenham, however, printed by Percy, is a very humourous and very excellent compofition. But the most curicus and remarkable pieces of this period are two fongs or ballads, in a rude Northern dialect, which deferve particular attention; the one is upon the battle of

(112) Literary Magazine, 1757, p. 308. Percys Reliques, ii. 25. and elsewhere.

Otterburn,