Glen Collection of printed music > Printed text > Popular music of the olden time > Volume 1

252 ENGLISH SONG AND BALLAD MUSIC.
" Let there be no noise made, my gentle friends,
Unless some slow and favourable hand
Will whisper music to my weary spirit."
Part II., act iv., sc. S).
Shakespeare purchased his house in Blackfriars, in 1612, from Henry Walker,
■who is described in the deed as " Citizen and Minstrel, of London." The price
paid was £140,^ which, considering the difference in the value of money, is equal
to, at least, £700 now. Of what class of " minstrel " Walker was, we know not,
but there were very few of any talent who had not the opportunity of saving money,
if so disposed. Even the itinerant fiddler who gave " a fytte of mirth for a groat,"
was well paid. The long ballads were usually divided into two or three "fyttes,"
and if he received a shilling per ballad, it would pui'chase as many of the neces-
saries of life as five or six times that amount now. The groat was so generally his
remuneration, whether it were for singing or for playing dances, as to be
commonly called " fiddlers' money," and when the groat was no longer current,
the term was transferred to the sixpence.
It appears that in the reign of James, ballads were first collected into little
miscellanies, called Garlands, for we have none extant of earlier date. Thomas
Deloney and Richard Johnson (author of the still popular boys' book, called The,
Seven Champions of Christendom) were the first who collected their scattered pro-
ductions, and printed them in that form.
Deloney's G-arland of Qood-ivill, and Johnson's Crown Garland of Golden Moses,
were two of the most popular of the class. They have been reprinted, with some
others, by the Percy Society, and the reader will find some account of the authors
prefixed to those works.
During the reign of Henry VHI., " the most pregnant wits " were employed
in compiling ballads.'' Those in the possession of Captain Cox, described in
Laneham's Letter from Kenilworth (1575), as " all ancient," ° could not well be
of later date than Henry's reign ; and at Henry's death we find, with the list of
musical instruments left in the charge of Philip van Wilder, "sondrie bookes and
shrolles of songes and ballattes.^' hi the reign of James, however, poets rarely
wrote in ballad metre ; ballad writing had become quite a separate employment,
and (from the evidently great demand for ballads) I should suppose it to have
been a profitable one. In Shakespeare's Senry IV., when Falstafi" threatens
Prince Henry and his companions, he says, " An I have not ballads made on you
all, and sung to filthy tunes, let a cup of sack be my poison ; " and after Sir
John Colvile had surrendered, he thus addresses Prince John : " I beseech your
grace, let it be booked with the rest of this day's deeds ; or by the Lord, I will
have it in a particular ballad else, with mine own picture at the top of it, Colvile
kissing my foot."
To conclude this introduction, I have subjoined a few quotations to shew the
a Shakespeare's autograph, attached to the counterpart « The list of Captain Cox's ballads has been so often re-
of this deed, was sold by auction by Evans, on 24th May, printed, that I do not fliink it necessary to repeat it. The
1S41, for .€155. reader will find it, with many others, in the introduction
*> See The Nature ofihe Four Elements, written about to Kitson's Ancient Songs, as well as in more recently-
1517. printed books.