In partye-colours strange to see: The right side cloth of gold, 1 This will remind the reader of the livery and device of Charles Brandon, a private gentleman, who married the Queen-dowager of France, sister of Henry VIII. At a tournament which he held at his wedding, the trappings of his horse were half cloth of gold, and half frieze, with the following motto: "Cloth of Gold, do not despise, Tho' thou art matcht with Cloth of Frize; Tho' thou art matcht with Cloth of Gold." See Sir W. Temple's Misc. vol. iii. P. 356. Askt how he durst be so bold To let his wife soe weare, And decke his children there In costly robes of pearl and gold. The forrester replying, 195 And the cause descrying', To the king these words did say, Well may they, by their mother, Pardon mee, my soveraine liege. The king perceiving this, His daughter deare did kiss, While joyfull teares did stopp his speeche. With his traine he tourned, And with them sojourned. 2 i. e. describing. See Gloss. 215 Strait he dubb'd her husband knight; Then made him erle of Flanders, And chiefe of his commanders: Thus were their sorrowes put to flight. 220 ** XVIII. The Sweet Neglect. THIS little madrigal (extracted from Ben Jonson's Silent Woman, act i. sc. 1, first acted in 1609) is in imitation of a Latin poem printed at the end of the variorum edit. of Petronius, beginning, "Semper munditias, semper Basilissa, decoras," &c. See Whalley's Ben Jonson, vol. ii. p. 420. STILL to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast : Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a looke, give me a face, That strike mine eyes, but not my heart. 5 10 XIX. The Children in the Wood. THE subject of this very popular ballad (which has been set in so favourable a light by the Spectator, No. 85) seems to be taken from an old play, entitled, "Two lamentable Tragedies; the one of the murder of Maister Beech, a chandler in Thames-streete, &c. The other of a young child murthered in a wood by two ruffins, with the consent of his unkle. By Rob. Yarrington, 1601, 4to." Our ballad-maker has strictly followed the play in the description of the father and mother's dying charge: in the uncle's promise to take care of their issue: his hiring two ruffians to destroy his ward, under pretence of sending him to school: their choosing a wood to perpetrate the murder in one of the ruffians relenting, and a battle ensuing, &c. In other respects he has departed from the play. In the latter, the scene is laid in Padua: there is but one child, which is murdered by a sudden stab of the unrelenting ruffian: he is slain himself by his less bloody companion; but ere he dies he gives the other a mortal wound the latter living just long enough to impeach the uncle; who, in consequence of this impeachment, is arraigned and executed by the hand of justice, &c. Whoever compares the play with the ballad, will have no doubt but the former is the original: the language is far more obsolete, and such a vein of simplicity runs through the whole performance, that, had the ballad been written first, there is no doubt but every circumstance of it would have been received into the drama: whereas this was probably built on some Italian novel. |