[Roxburghe Collection (B. H. Bright's), IV. 42; Douce's, I. 62.]

The

Doubting Virgin's Satisfaction ;

Or,

The Maid's Answer.

She who was possest with fear

is now eas'd of her Doubt;

And she her Sweet-heart loves so dear,

She can't live him without.

To the Tune of, The Repriev'd Captive; Or, The Doubting Virgin.

Earest, know I do not slight thee, for my Love is firm and true, Do not fear me, Love, but hear me, and believe my constancy: In me put trust, I will be just, I scorn to tell my Love a lye. "Some young men may be deceitful, but do not blame all for a few; To be false to me is hateful, you shall not find me untrue; But I will strive, whilst I'm alive, to imitate the constant dove, Thou shalt find me ever kind, to thee my joy and dearest Love. "It would be to me a wonder, if that thee and I should part, And would surely break in sunder the tender strings of my poor heart: But I desire, to admire, the radiant beams of thy fair eye; Which pierce my breast, and spoyl my rest, O grant me Love, or else I dye.

"In my eyes thou art a jewel, far more precious then pure gold; If thou dost to me prove cruel, my warm blood will soon be cold: Then shall I, assuredly, be laid into my silent grave:

'Tis you that can preserve a man, then kill me not whom you can save.

"What is in my lines asserted, nothing is but perfect truth;
Never shall ['t] be controverted, pray believe a faithful youth:
And if I lye, I wish to dye, then never doubt what I do speak,
For if you do, you'l find it true, that for your love my heart will break."

The Maid's Kind Answer.

["T] Would put it to the tryal, if I thought your Love were pure, I And you would be true and Loyal: falseness I cannot indure. But yet indeed my heart doth bleed, to hear you make such sad complaint,

And now, I find, I am inclin'd to love you by a mean constraint.

"Then what Love you have possessed, and declared unto me,
Be but true, 'twill make you blessed, all your life you'll happy be,
But yet my fear begets a care, by me cannot be well exprest:
Be true to me, and thou shalt see, I'le take a Lodging in thy breast.

;

"And we quickly will be marry'd, to compleat true Lover's bliss There shall nothing be miscarry'd: come wee'l bind it with a kiss." Imbraces, then, they 'chang'd agen, and more and more both proved

kind;

So they, at last, were linked fast: you Lovers all my ditty mind.

"Would you be a Man of Fashion?"

349

You that oft make great pretences, if you prove not just and true, You will find that great offences will imputed be to you:

But you'l be blest, and live at rest, and when you dye depart in peace, While some that prove unjust, in Love, shall meet with pains that

never cease.

Then let me in Love advise you, to be constant unto death,

For you know death will surprize you, and will stop each mortal's breath.

Then live and be from dangers free; entail a Blessing while you may, Be sure you prove so sure in Love, 't may be your own another day.

FINIS.

Printed for Philip] Brooksby, at the Harp, near the Bare-Tavern in Pye-Corner.

[In Black letter. These four woodcuts. Date probably the early part of 1672-1686.]

THREE

The Dumb Lady; Dr, No, No!

"How fondly our loving lips falter'd,
What further can grandeur bestow?'

My heart is the same! is your's alter'd?
My own Araminta, say 'No!'"'

-Poems by W. M. Praed: 1828.

HREE tunes are named in connection with the following ballad. We have already reprinted on p. 344 the words of "The Doubting Virgin," which is the first mentioned. "The New

Boree," a dance tune, is second: music is found in the 8th and 10th editions of Playford's Dancing-Master, p. 189 (1690 and 1698), but not previously in the 7th or the 9th. It reappears in the 12th edition, 1703, i. 253, and in the 17th. The third tune, "Will you be a Man of Fashion?" belonged to a popular ditty, of which the music was composed by Tom D'Urfey's friend Captain Pack, as a play-house song, before 1680. Originally it was a single verse, and thus appears, music and words, in Wit and Mirth; or, Pills to Purge Melancholy, 1714, and 1719, v. 154:

A Song: set by Captain Pack.

Would you be a Man in Fashion? Would you lead a Life Divine?

Take a little Dram of Passion, In a lusty Dose of Wine.

If the Nymph has no Compassion, Vain it is to sigh and groan :
Love was but put in for Fashion, Wine will do the Work alone.

350

The Man of Fashion, renewed in politics and religion.

This was not to be left in its brevity, for the political partizans took hold of it and made it suit their own purposes. The high Tories and Tantiviees adopted it, and in the year 1681 added the five verses here following. They refer to the intrigues of Shaftesbury, the murder of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, the imprisonment of Miles Prance, the lying pamphleteers Langley Curtis and Henry Care (who afterwards avowed himself a convert to Romanism, first having libelled for hire the whole body of Catholics as Papists), with the spitefully mendacious inscriptions affixed to the FishStreet-Hill Monument by a bigoted and unscrupulous Lord Mayor, Sir Thomas Davies, in 1677, attributing the Great Fire of London to the Papists. Allusions are also made to the "Ignoramus" Juries, throwing out bills of indictment when brought against Ultra-" Protestants," and to the recall of the City Charters, by which Charles II. trumped their cards, and gave the nomination of Sheriffs and Jurymen to the Court party. The Loyal Song when reissued was entitled "The Compleat Citizen; or, the Man of Fashion." Here are the additional verses (the first kept unaltered):

Would you have at your devotion Gown Fop Whigs that love to prate?
Take a Dram of Tony's Notions,1 In a Coffee-dish of State :2
If the Poyson will not warm you, Take ye Tea, 'twill do the thing;
There are Statesmen can inform you, How to Rule without a King.

Would you then be thought most witty, Would you be a man of parts?
Aid the Factions of the City, Till you're hang'd for your Deserts:3
If your Virtue's not rewarded, For the glorious thing you aim'd,
And another Saint Recorded, Care and Curtis both be p,wap.

Would you have a new Religion, Founded on a Plot of State?
Whisper but with Prance's pidgeon, In a dungeon through a Grate.*
If your soul find no Impression, Murder'd Godfrey's will appear;
Tho' there needs no more Confession, Kiss the Book and all is clear.

1 Anthony Ashley Cooper, first Earl of Shaftesbury, his Plan of an Association, draughted schemes of which were found in his lodging. The Fop was Monmouth. 2 The sedition talked and plotted at the Coffee-Houses in the later years of Charles II. will be seen glanced at in a Roxburghe Collection "Satyr against Coffee," beginning, "Avoid, Satanick Tipple! hence." It will be given soon, in the Group of Loyal Ballads, incorporated with the Monmouth Insurrection Group.

66

3 This probably refers specially to the pamphleteer and heavy poetaster Stephen College, the Protestant Joiner" (on whom see previous pp. 262, 263). He was hanged at Oxford, in 1681. Harry Care and Langley Curtis, unprincipled libellers whose very rebelliousness and sectarianism were insincere, have also been mentioned in the "Anti-Papal Group," on our pp. 158, 172, and in our Bagford Ballads. We return to College in the Monmouth Group.

4 Miles Prance, who had been goldsmith to the Queen Catharine, and implicated in the death of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, on the accusation of Titus Oates and others in the Sham Popish Plot. His own shifty conduct, his alternate extortedconfessions and frightened recantations, could only have been explained by Shaftesbury, who pulled the wires of this puppet. (See pp. 135, 242, 252.)

The Dumb Lady's answer, " No, not I."

Would you have a true Narration1 How the City first was fir'd;
Let the Monument relation Prove the Men, and those they hir'd.
If the Phoenix was consumed, As they say by Popish Priggs,
All her Pride was re-assumed By the Ignoramus Whigs.

Would you have another Charter,3 You that should be men of sense?
Talk no more of Magna Charta, But relie upon your Prince :

If you can repent sincerely, Cæsar has a God-like mind;
Purge our Factiousness severely, Caesar will be always kind.

351

A parody on this Loyal Song was written and printed in 1688, as an attack on James II., telling in the burden, How to please a Popish King. We have given it already, on p. 288, and it is in the Pepysian Collection, V. 127, as a broadside, beginning "Would you be a Man of Favour? Would you have your Fortune kind?"

As to the following ballad of "The Dumb Lady," a modern dramatist constructed on the same incident the still-popular farce entitled "No." (We believe the authorship belonged to our dearlyloved friend the late William Henry Murray, brother of Mrs. Henry Siddons, of Edinburgh.) In the farce, a jealous guardian has commanded all his servants and the fair ward herself to answer every inquiry made by visitors with the one unvarying monosyllable "No!" The scheme is ultimately turned against its projector, so soon as the favoured Lover perceives the plot, and alters his questions for thus he obtains a satisfactory answer in the appointed word. So the lovers gain their ends, as they always ought to do, before the curtain falls. And thus it will be found in the ballad.

1 See the title-page on folio pamphlet (in the Editor's Collection), A Narative and Impartial Discovery of the Horrid Popish Plot, carried on for the Burning and Destroying the CITIES OF LONDON AND WESTMINSTER, with their Suburbs, &c. By Captain William Bedloe. Lately Engaged in that Horrid Design, and one of the Popish Committee for carrying on such Fires. 1679. As to the Monument inscription, see Bagford Ballads, pp. 672, 1078. Here are the words round the base of the Monument (defaced at accession of James II., but insultingly renewed by William of Orange, more deeply engraved :—

"This Pillar was set vp in perpetvall remembrance of that most dreadfull Burning of this Protestant City, begun and carried on by ye treachery and malice of ye Popish Factio in ye beginning of Septembr, in ye Year of ovr Lord 1666, in order for carrying on their horrid Plott for extirpating the Protestant religion and Old English Liberty, and introducing Popery and Slavery."

Well might Alexander Pope denounce it in "Sir Balaam " (Epistle iii.) :
Where London's column, pointing at the skies,

Like a tall Bully, lifts the head and lies.

2 and 3 The "Ignoramus" Juries, that refused to accept the indictment against Shaftesbury and others of their own political faction, will be treated in the Group of Loyal Ballads, of this volume, and so will the agitation concerning the recall of City Charters. "Cæsar" is, of course, Charles the Second.