Then wait on pleasure, Heart's ease it lendeth, Then sing we all Fa la la la la. CXXVII. Lady, your eye my love enforced; But your proud look my heart divorced : That now I laugh, and now I And now I sing before I die. cry, Fa la. CXXVIII. We shepherds sing, we pipe, we play, With pretty sport we pass the day: But with our fold We dance And prance As pleasure would. Fa la. CXXIX. Come clap thy hands, thou shepherd swain, Phillis doth love thee once again : If thou agree, then sing with me, Phillis hath sworn she loves the man, That knows what's love, and love her can: Phillis my choice of choice shall be. Brava! fair Phillis.-A rare wench I warrant,-one who liketh not your shilly-shally lovers, and tedious courtships, -but word and blow-no sooner said than done. Postchaise and four,-Gretna green,-harmonious Blacksmith, &c., and a fig for Papa and Mama, Uncles, Aunts, Guardians, or Courts of Chancery. CXXX. Farewell my joy, Farewell my love and pleasure; To sport and toy We have no longer leisure. Farewell, adieu! Until our next consorting. Sweet love, be true; And thus we end our sporting. Fa la. A pretty adieu! In the hope that thou wilt be true, quoth the shepherd, I will rest happy until we meet again. CXXXI. Now is my Cloris fresh as May, But she keeps May throughout the year, His next work is "Madrigals of five and six parts, (ten "in number) apt for the viols and voices, made and newly "published by Thomas Weelkes of the College at Win"chester, Organist. At London, printed by Thos. Este, "1600. "To the truly noble, virtuous, and honorable, my very "good Lord Henry, Lord Winsor, Baron of Bradenham. "My Lord, in the College at Winchester, where I live, "I have heard learned men say that some philosophers have "mistaken the soul of man for an harmony: let the pre"cedent of their error be a privilege for mine. I see not, "if souls do not partly consist of music, how it should come to pass that so noble a spirit as your's, so perfectly "tuned to so perpetual a tenor of excellence as it is, should "descend to the notice of a quality lying single in so low 66 66 a personage as myself. But in music the base part is no "disgrace to the best ears' attendancy. I confess my con"science is untoucht with any other arts, and I hope my "confession is unsuspected: many of us musicians think it as much praise to be somewhat more than musicians as it "is for gold to be somewhat more than gold, and if Jack "Cade were alive, yet some of us might live, unless we "should think, as the artisans in the Universities of Poland "and Germany think, that the Latin tongue comes by "reflection. I hope your Lordship will pardon this pre"sumption of mine; the rather, because I know before * Vide No. XVIII. "Nobility I am to deal sincerely; and this small faculty of "mine, because it is alone in me, and without the assist66 ance of other more confident sciences, is the more to be "favored and the rather to be received into 66 your honour's protection; so shall I observe you with as humble and as true an heart, as he whose knowledge is as large as "the world's creation, and as earnestly pray for you to the "world's Creator, "Your Honor's in all humble service, "THOMAS WEELKES." Mr. Weelkes is here rather severe upon certain of his brother musicians who seem to have been in the habit of affecting a knowledge of other sciences besides their own. He very modestly disclaims all such learning on the part of himself. CXXXII. Cold winter's ice is fled and gone, And so doth Phillis, Summer's Queen. What would not a Cockney sonnetteer give to be able to write anything like the first four lines of this ditty! How far superior is such a sketch to all the trash about Mermaids and grottoes in the deep, deep sea, or about "Two little birds that whistled thirds "Behind my father's house."* * Vide the bills of two or three concerts this season. Were I to make further extracts from the glee from which this quotation is given, I feel confident I should not be believed. Such a specimen I never witnessed from the press of the Seven Dials. Nature is nature all the world over! Witness a similar scene described by others: "The winter it is past, "And the summer's come at last; "And the small birds sing on every tree." and again, Old Scotch Ballad. "Lo the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the "flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of "birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our "land."-Solomon's Song, ii. 11. CXXXIII. Now let us make a merry greeting, CXXXIV. Take here my heart, I give it thee for ever! |