Glen Collection of printed music > Printed text > Popular music of the olden time > Volume 2

502
ENGLISH SONG AND BALLAD IVfUSIC.
of Interlude, before his Majesty in Cambridge, stil'd Liber novas de adventu regis
ad Cantabrigiani, faithfully done into English, with some liberal advantages, made
rather to be sung than read, to the tune of Bonny Nell." A copy in MSS.
Ashmole, 36, 37, art. 271, and in Nicholls' Progresses of King James, Hi. 66, as
well as " A Cambridge Madrigal, confuting the Oxford Ballad that was sung to
the tune of Bonny Nell."
Massinger alludes to some " Bonny Nell," in his Old Laiv, act iv., sc. 1, where
the Cook says, " That Nell was Helen of Greece too;" and Gnotho answers,
" As long as she tarried with her husband, she was Ellen ; but after she came to
Troy, she was Nell of Troy, or Bonny Nell." There is much punning on
musici'ans in this scene ; — as " «wre-drawers " they are compared to m'we-drawers,
both being governed by pegs, both having pipes and sack-buts, only the heads
diifer ; the one hogsheads, the other cittern or gittern heads, but still each wooden
heads, &c.
In the Pepys Collection, i. 70, is " A Battell of Birds most strangly fought in
Ireland upon the 8th day of September, 1621, where neere unto the Citty of
Corke, by the river Lee, were gathered together such a multytude of Stares, or
Starlings, as the like for number was never seene in any age. To the tune of
Shore's Wife, or to the tune of Bonny Nell." And in the same, iii. 124 (or
Roxburghe, i. 84), another " to an excellent new tune, or to be sung to Bonny
Nell," which commences —
" As I went forth one summer's day,
To view the meadows fresh and gay,
A pleasant bovver I espied,
Merrily.
Standing hard by the river's side ;
And in't I heard a maiden cry,
Alas ! there's none e'er lov'd like I."
g
^=ff=
^m
T
m
m
35
w
-8z£
-*— *-
m&
£
is
-C ir E~
ir B
?RF
3+z
£&
W
rn^tf jf^
w
? '..i:::t-
£
1
* • *
=?
^ mmM^m
±***£±^=$=£
^
m
3t=S=