ON

Russell's Farewell.

"Were I, like these, unhappily decreed
By Penny-Elegies to get my bread,

Or want a meal-unless George Croom and I
In our next measures luckily agree-

I'd damn my Lines to wrap up soap and cheese,
Or furnish Squibs for City 'Prentices,

To burn the Pope, or celebrate Queen Bess."

-A Satyr upon the Poets. 1683.

N a later page, viz. p. 691, we reprint complete one of the three ballads entitled "Russell's Last Farewell to the World," beginning"Farewell, farewell to Mortal Powers," from the Bodleian original: of which the music is found in Playford's Dancing Master, p. 163, 9th edition, 1695, being the same tune as James Whitney's Last Farewell (the words reprinted by us, in Bagford Ballads, p. 559). We had mentioned the two others, entitled similarly "Lord Russell's Farewell," each of them sung These we now give, although neither to a different tune. of them is properly a Roxburghe Ballad, until we make it so by inclusion here. One, by a perverse exhibition of malicious ingenuity, is made to accompany the lively notes of Dr. Henry Aldrich's wellknown "Hark! the bonny Christ-Church bells," that is dear to all Oxford men and lovers of music. (Aldrich was not made Dean until 1689.) Nothing could have been more insultingly provoking, or derogatory to the memory of that extremely self-conceited and respectable personage, Lord William Russell, than to make his melancholy Farewell glibly roll itself off to the liveliest of tunes, associated with festal bell-ringing and conviviality of taverns:

Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle goes the small bell at Nine, to call the Vergers home; But ne'er a man will leave his can, till he hears the mighty TOM! It is beyond one's power to keep a grave countenance under the circumstances. There is a knaggish persistence, as of a scolding but coquettish vixen, bantering and badgering the poor aggrieved and convicted nobleman to his face, that really deserves the outburst of solemnified moral indignation which some garrulous old men possess so liberally. Yet all that we are able to declare is, the performance is extremely reprehensible, and likewise risible; but we wonder at their impudence.

The third "Russell's Farewell" is a Pepysian ballad, tendered to those who feel shocked at the Christ-Church Bells parody. Perhaps its dullness may appear more sublime. Beginning with the words, "Pride, the bane of human creatures," it goes to the tune of "Tender Hearts of London City" (Roxburghe Coll., II. 272, 437; IV. 21); a ballad we meet early in our next volume.

Russel's Farewell.

TO THE TUNE OF, Oh, the bonny Christ-Church Bells.

1.

H, the mighty Innocence of Russel, Bedford's Son!

OH, mighty the plot, whether Guilty or not,

66

By his last equivocating Speech!

By the words of a dying Man, I here protest I know no Plot 'Gainst the life of the King or Government,

Either by Action or intent."

Fy, fy, fy, fy, fy, fy, my Lord! What are you about to do?

To sink to Hell, by th' sound of your Knell, both Soul and Body too?

2.

Oh, the shallow memory of this blood-thirsty Lord!

To deny and confess, and all to express

His guilty Insolence the more:

"I, at Mr. Shepherd's house, did hear some little slight discourse, How easie 't was the Guards to seize,

Yet I am guiltless, if you please!"

No, no, no, no, no, no, my Lord, your Guilt 's too plainly seen,

And Monmouth too, with Shaftesbury's Crew: to destroy both King and Queen.

3.

Next your Lordship does protest, "No man had ever yet

That Impudence against his Prince"

To your Face to propose any foul Design:

Then you confess, immediately, At the house of Politick Shaftesbury,
You heard such words, were sharp as swords,

The worst can be thought, or English affords;

Which rais'd your Righteous spirit to exclaim against their sense;
Yet this you conceal'd, and never reveal'd; all in your blind defence.

4.

"Popery," your Lordship says, " Is bloody and unjust !” What then you design'd, with those you combin'd,

Was Farce, to jest our Lives away;

For when the Duke of Monmouth] came t' acquaint your Honour of his fear, Of being undone by the heat of some

Too violent for the Bloody Cause,

Away you go to Shepherd's strait, where pernicious words were said,
In Passion all, with Judgement small, but consequence of Dread.

5.

"From the time of choosing Sheriffs, I did conclude the heat Would this produce; " That 's no excuse,

But just confession of the Fact.

Presently your Lordship says, for farther confirmation still,
You are not surpris'd to find it fall"

On your Honour (you deserv'd it all):

Immediately you would proclaim aloud your Innocence!

Why, your Lordship 's mad, in a Cause so bad, to put the Sham-pretence.

Russell's Last Speech, burlesqued by a Parodist.

6.

Oh, ye True-Blew-Protestants, whose times are yet to come,
You see your Fate, early or late;

Follow you must, 't is all

your

Doom.

Monmouth, Armstrong, Ferguson, Grey, Goodenough the Under-Shrieve,
With all your Ignoramus Crew,

That Justice hate, and Treason brew;

Scaffold, Tyburn, Halter, Ax, those Instruments of Death,
As 't is your due, may 't you pursue, till you resign your Breath.

325

[In White-letter. Date, between 21st and the end of July, 1683.] Note.-Russell spoke few words at his execution, but delivered into the hands of the Sheriffs a paper, which almost certainly was the composition of the notorious Gilbert Burnet, afterwards "printed for John Darby, by direction of the Lady Russell" (Darby being afterwards convicted thereof on 20th November), and circulated in a folio of four pages. The spoken words are those which are repeated in the foregoing ballad of "Russell's Farewell":

well

very 'Mr. Sheriff, I expected the noise would be such that I should not be God knows how heard. I was never fond of much speaking, much less now, therefore I have set down in this Paper all that I think fit to leave behind me.

far I was always from designs against the King's person, or of altering the Government. And I still pray for the preservation of both, and of the Protestant Religion. Mr. Sheriff, I am told that Captain Walcot yesterday said some things concerning my knowledge of the Plot: I know not whether the report be true or not." [He was answered by the Sheriff, "I did not hear him name your Lordship." To which another person added, "No, my Lord, your Lordship was not named by any of them."]

Russell continued:-" I hope it is not, for to my knowledge I never saw him, nor spake with him in my whole life; and in the words of a Dying Man, I profess I know of no Piot, either against the King's Life or the Government. But I have now done with this world, and am now going to a Better. I forgive the whole world heartily, and I thank God I die in charity with all men, and I wish all sincere Protestants may love one another, and not make way for I pray God forgive them, and continue the Popery by their animosities. Protestant Religion amongst them, that it may flourish so long as the Sun and Moon endures. I am now more satisfied to die than ever I have been." See p. 403, where appears another portion of the speech, mocked in preceding song.

On next page is given the Pepysian ballad of "Lord Russell's Farewell," beginning "Pride, the bane of humane creatures," issued immediately after his Execution. The tune named belongs to a Roxburghe Ballad in our next volume (Roxb. Coll., II. 272, 437; Ibid., IV. 21), the first verse being:

Tender hearts of London City,
Now be mov'd, by grief and pity,
Since by Love I am undone;

Now I languish in my anguish :

Too too soon my heart was won.

-

This Roxburghe Ballad had the same tune as "In the West of Devonshire liv'd a the title of which ballad is "The Devonshire Nymph; Nymph of beauty rare,' or, The Knight's Happy Choice." This, also, we reserve for our Vol. VI.

[Pepysian Collection, II. 165.]

Lord Russell's Farewel,

Who was Beheaded for High-Treason, in Lincoln's-Enn-Fields, July 21st, 1683.

TO THE TUNE of, Tender Hearts of London City [see p. 325].

Lord Russell's Ghost, seen with a real Head on. 327

Treason is a crime 'gainst Nature;
Against Kings, the higher matter

Sure can never be forgot:

He that blames him, does prophane him,
And his Soul is in the Plot.

Russell died then unlamented

By all men, but who consented

To this puшep inhuman Plot,

To destroy the Nation's Joy:

The King and Monarchy should rot.

But Heavens preserve the Crimson Royal,
And bring all the rest to Trial,

Who Allegiance have forgot:

And confounded be each Round-Head,

In this puuup inhuman Plot.

Printed for P[hilip] Brooksby, at the Golden Ball, in West Smithfield. [Black-letter. Three woodcuts, and two lines of music. Date, July, 1683.]

On p. 182 we mentioned Langley Curtis's libel, for which he was in 1684 sentenced to 500l. fine, with pillory exposure. It is entitled The Night- Walker of Bloomsbury: Being the result of several late Consultations between a Vintner, Judge, Tallow-chandler, a brace of Fishmongers, and a Printer. In a Dialogue between Ralph and Will. Entered according to Order. London: Printed by J. Grantham, 1683. It is a silly pointless single-sheet of two pages, concerning a pretended Apparition of Lord William Russell, which walked in Bloomsbury Square, with its head on, and cryed out, "Oh! I have no rest, because of the Speech that I never made, but Dr. Burnet." The constable asked it, "Can't you be quiet in your Grave? I'll make ye quiet?" and then gave the MockGhost a drubbing. Curtis asserts that it was a trick of the Papists, meant to implicate and injure Dr. Gilbert Burnet-but he afterwards recanted, as usual.

A Terror for Traitors.

"Indeed this Counsellor

Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,

Who was in life a foolish prating Knave."-Hamlet, Act iii.

LORD WILLIAM RUSSELL is the hero of the following ballad,

although his admirers may consider the treatment of him to be " on the north side of friendly." But for him to be well abused, as a leader, was in itself a compliment beyond his deserts.

On the tune, Digby's Farewell, we have written in Vol. IV. on pp. 392, 393, and 397 to 400. It was mentioned here on p. 125. The other tune-name of our ballad is On the banks of a river, close under the shade; which refers to a song in Playford's Choice Ayres, without composer's name (1683, iv. 17); also given in the posthumous edition of Dryden's Miscellany Poems (1716, ii. 173).