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

REIGN OF CHARLES II. TO WILLIAM III.
5G9
eluded that he was the author." I think there are very sufficient reasons for
doubting this conclusion. In the first place, the Earl of Dorset laid no claim to
it, and it is scarcely to be believed that the author of To all you ladies noio at land
could have penned such thorough doggrel. Although poetry was not required for
the purpose, he would certainly have paid more attention to rhythm than is there
exhibited. Secondly, the ballad contains no expression that the King would have
used, which might not equally have been employed by any other person. And
thirdly, Lord Wharton being alive when the attacks in The True Relation and
other pamphlets were made upon him, we may infer that his opponents, who
freely charge him with lying, would not have omitted the falsehood of this claim,
if there had been any ground for disputing it.
"In The Examiner, and in several pamphlets of 1712," says Lord Macaulay,
" Wharton is mentioned as the author." a
The tune of LilliburUro was printed before the time at which the words are
supposed to have .been written. " In February, 1687, Tyrconnel began to rule
his native country with the powers and appointments of Lord Lieutenant, but
with the humbler title of Lord Deputy." It was against such appointment that
the ballad was levelled. The tunc will be found in the second edition of The
Delightful Companion, or Choice new Lessons for the Recorder or Flute (by Robert
Carr), 1686, and in all probability in the first edition of the same book. b It
* The writing of lampoons was a favorite amusement
during the reigns of the Stuarts, when every courtier was
expected to handle a pen in rhyme. Passing hy minor
personages, how many there are still extant which were
written by the Earl of Rochester and others upon
Charles U. I I quote a few odd stanzas, principally from
memory ; —
" I am a senseless thing, with a hey t
Men call me a king, with a ho,
For my luxury and ease they brought me o'er the seas,
With a hoy, tronncy, nonney, nonncy no." . . .
" Chaste, pious, prudent Charles the Second,
The miracle of thy restoration
May like to that of quails be reckon'd,
llain'd on the Israelitish nation :
The wish'd-for blessing, from heaven sent,
Became their curse and punishment," . . .
" Rowley too late will understand
What now he shuns to find,
That nothing's quiet in this land,
Except his careless mind." . . .
" Beyond sea he began, where such riot he ran,
That ev'ry one there did leave him,
And now he'B come o'er, ten times worse than before,
When none but we fools would receive him." . . .
"His dogs would sit at council board,
Like judges in their furs ;
We question much which has more sense,
The master or the curs." . . .
" His father's foes he doth reward,
Preserving those that cut off'B head ;
Old Cavaliers, the Crown's best guard,
He lets them starve for want of bread :
Never was any king endow'd
With so much grace and gratitude." . . .
" New upstarts, bastards, pimps, &c.,
That, locust-like, devour the laud,
By shutting up the Exchequer doors,
Whither our money is trcpann'd,
Have render'd Charles's restoration
But a small blessing to the nation." . . .
"Then, Charles, beware thy brother York,
Who to thy government gives law ;
If once you fall to the old sport,
Both must away again to BrCdfl, —
When, 'spite of all that would restore you,
Grown wise by wrongs, we shall abhor you."
Even to Charles's face, things of this kind were occa-
sionally said, with a good motive, but such as the sterner
nature of his brother would not have suffered to be uttered
with impunity. Pepya records Tom Killegrew's having
told Charles, in the presence of Cowley the poet, that
matters were in a very ill state, but yet there was one way
to help all. "There is," said he, "a good, honest, able
man, that I could name, that if your Majesty would em-
ploy, and command to see things well executed, all things
would soon be mended : and this is one Charles Stuart, who
now spends his time employing his tips about the court, and
hath no other employment : he were the fittest man in the
world to perform it." To this Pepys adds: "This is most
true, but the King do not profit by any of this, but lays
all aside, and remembers nothing, but to his pleasures
again; which is a sorrowful consideration." — Diary,
Dec. 8, 1066.
b I have never seen the first edition of The Delightful
Companion, neither can I trace any other copy of the
' second than the one in my own possession, which came
from Gostling's library. The second edition is professedly
"corrected," but not "enlarged;" and, as the work is
engraved on plates (not set up in type, like The Dancing
Master), the contents of the two editions are probably the
same. LilliOurlero is found about thenriddle of the book,
Sig. F.