thought fit, upon the performers. Another passage alludes to its having been represented at the University. The play was printed in 1567, and the author is described on the 6 title-page as the learned clarke Lewis Wager.'] THE LIFE AND REPENTANCE OF MARY MAGDALEN. MISTRESS MARY. EY dery dery, with a lusty dery, HEY Hoigh Mistress Mary, I pray you be merry. Your pretty person we may compare to Lais, A morsel for princes and nobler kings; In beauty you excel the fair lady Thais; You exceed the beautiful Helen in all things.* To behold your face who can be weary? Hoigh my Mistress Mary, I pray you be merry. The hair of your head shineth as the pure gold, Your eyes as glass, and right amiable; Your smiling countenance, so lovely to behold, To us all is most pleasant and delectable; Of your commendations who can be weary? Hussa, my Mistress Mary, I pray you be merry. Your lips are ruddy as the reddy rose, Your teeth as white as ever was the whale's bones; * The love songs of the period are crowded with similar complimentary comparisons. In an interlude called The Trial of Treasure, bearing the same date of 1567, there is a song in praise of the Lady Treasure, containing a verse identical in substance with the above:Helene may not compared be, Nor Cressida that was so bright; These cannot stain the shine of thee, Love thee I will both night and day, THE DRAMATISTS. So clear, so sweet, so fair, so good, so fresh, so gay, Hussa, Mistress Mary, I pray you be merry. WILLIAM WAGER. 15 [THE date of the only piece that bears the name of this writer, probably a relation of the preceding, is omitted from the title-page of the original edition. But it evidently belongs to the early part of the reign of Elizabeth. The snatches that follow are sung by Moros, the fool, and are 'foots' of songs, or burthens of well-known ballads, some of which are of a much earlier date than the play itself.] THE LONGER THOU LIVEST THE MORE FOOL THOU ART. FOOTS OF SONGS. BROOM, Broom on hill, The gentle Broom on hill, hill; Broom, Broom on Hive hill, The gentle Broom on Hive hill, The Broom stands on Hive hill a.* Robin, lend me thy bow, thy bow, There was a maid came out of Kent, Dainty love, dainty love; There was a maid came out of Kent, Dangerous be [she]. * Mr. Collier observes that this is one of the ballads in Cox's collection, and that it is also mentioned by Laneham. There was a maid came out of Kent, As ever upon the ground went, 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, Martin Swart and his man, sodle-dum, sodle-dum, Come over the boorne, Besse, Come over the boorne, Besse, to me.§ The white dove set on the castle wall, * 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, 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, I have twenty more songs yet, '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 * Forester. 49 JOHN LYLY. 1553 [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 removed 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, 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 |