When I, in the Tavern, did spy
Such fair boon Company,

On our knees drinking healths,

We look so divine, When our noses do shine,

Well burnisht with rich wine; Faith! I wish the cup were mine :
Unto thee I resign,

And may powerfully prove, In drinking, thy love.1

Free, free as the air let us be,
Esteeming no degree,

But to all breath alike:

70

["our births all alike"]

From [no] eye drop a tear, Lest you maudlin appear,

2

And next morning [do] fear To be physick'd with small Beer;
But I dare safely swear,

If a tear trickle down, 'Tis for love to the Crown.

And now, increaseth my woe,

I by all means must know

What is due for our Sack;

But the reckoning being paid, To the Hostess or Maid,
We need not to be afraid, to be scurvily betraid

To the Constable's aid :

Let us Honestly pay, Else we scarce get away.

Now must I make haste and see 3

What will us all free,

All our hands from the Bar,

You Ladies all adieu! Be your reckoning false or true,
I am going for to view What belongeth to all you:

Yet

Though we pay more then our due,

80

90

my Purse will I spend, And my life for my friend. 100 Printed for F. Coles, in Wine-street, Saffron-hill, neer Hatton-garden. [In Black-letter. Four woodcuts, but the two left-hand cuts are identical: therefore not repeated on p. 431 from p. 430. Date, 1646 and 1661.]

1 The Wit and Drollery reading is clearer :

Which to thee Ile resign,
And will palpably prove

By the drinking to thy Love.

2 (The broadside misprints this, injuriously, "From one eye," and also "to fear.") The supposed efficacy of "that poor creature, Small Beer," as a useful medicine to correct the stomach after a debauch, before the days when modern science gave us a B. and S., is often referred to in old literature.

3 Wit and Drollery reads:

How much money will free
All our hands from the Bar:
For a time, Boys, adieu!

Parody on The Delights of the Bottle. HAVING given, on our pp. 42 to 57, three of the five Roxburghe

Ballads which were appointed to be sung to Matthew Locke's tune of The Delights of the Bottle (also mentioning another on p. 457), we add here the Mock-Song, probably written by Lord Grimstone, and sung long afterwards in his "Lawyer's Fortune." It is convenient to have it in the same volume with the original, and the Anti-Papal Group, instead of awaiting the other two Roxburghe Collection ballads (R.C., II. 166, and III. 406), which run to the same tune. The allusions to Jack Ketch or "Catch" and to the [Rye-House] Plot mark the date as being probably the close of 1683.

A Mock Song.

Tune of Shadwell's Delights of the Bottle, and Charms of good Wine.

The Frights of the Bottle, the Harms of ill Wine,

Are chosen by some to drive away Time;

But th' aking Head, and sickness at Heart,
For those ill-spent Hours doth make 'em to smart.

But Love's dear Enchantments good Time doth redeem,
Where no pain but all Pleasure is ev'ry-where seen.

The Plotters are out-plotted, in this and in that,
And Catch comes home merry in a new Beaver Hat.
Revenge is a Mischief that cannot be cur'd,
And Envy and Malice are not to be endur'd.

Love's Plot a fair Game doth hug and enjoy,
And drives all Revenge and Malice away.

The Miser his Riches up sourly doth hoard,
And starves his poor Soul at Bed and at Board,
He rakes, and he scrapes, and hath never content,
At last he leaves all in an evil Moment.

But Love begins well, increaseth Revenue,
Which here and hereafter doth always continue.

[=Jack Ketch.

12

18

OF

Lavender's Green: Diddle Diddle!

*Αδ ̓ ἄδηλα, δῆλα δ ̓ ὧδε.

66

F this silly disconnected ditty a few opening verses still linger as a Nursery Jingle; the first being often sung. A different version of "My Dog and I" (known as My Dog and I we have a trick to visit Maids when they are sick "), is in our Roxburghe Collection, III. 792, beginning "You that are of the merry throng." We postpone, to the Appendix, the penultimate verse of "Diddle Diddle."

VOL. IV.

2 F

[Roxburghe Collection, II. 134, 135; Pepys, III. 28; Euing, No. 58.]

Diddle Diddle;

Or,

The kind Country Lovers.

With sly insinuations he persuades her,
And, by the bands of Love, along he leads her;
Relating pleasant stories for to bind her,
And all to make her unto him prove kinder:
And so in Love at last they live together,
With pleasant dayes enjoying one another.
[TO ITS OWN] TUNE OF, Lavender['s] Green, &c.
With Allowance: Ro. L'Estrange.

Lavender's green, Diddle diddle; Lavender's blue:

You must love me, diddle diddle, 'cause I love you.
I heard one say,
diddle diddle, since I came hither,
That you and I, diddle diddle, must [wed] together.

8

My hostess' maid, diddle diddle, her name was Nell;
She was a lass, diddle diddle, that I loved well;
But if she dye, diddle diddle, by some mishap,
Then she shall lye, diddle diddle, under the Tap:

16

Lavender's Green, Diddle Diddle.

That she may drink, Diddle, diddle, when she's a dry,
Because she lov'd, Diddle, diddle, my Dog and I.
Call up your maids, Diddle diddle, set them to work;
Some to make Hay, Diddle diddle, some to the Rock.'

Some to make Hay, Diddle diddle, some to the Corn,
Whilst you and I, Diddle diddle, keep the bed warm;
Let the birds sing, Diddle diddle, and the Lambs play,
We shall be safe, Diddle diddle, out of harm's way.

435

24

32

James at the George, Diddle diddle, Sue at the Swan,—
He loves his maid, Diddle diddle, she loves her man;
But if they chance, Diddle diddle, for to be found?—
Catch them i' th' Corn, Diddle diddle, put them i' th' Pound. 40

I heard a bird, Diddle diddle, sing in my Ear,
"Maids will be scarce," Diddle diddle, "the next New year;
For young men are [kind,] Diddle diddle, so wanton grown,
That they ne'r mind, Diddle diddle, which is their own."

48

Down in a Vale, Diddle diddle, where flowers do grow,
And the birds sing, Diddle diddle, all on a row,

A brisk young man, Diddle diddle, met with a maid,
And laid her down, Diddle diddle, under the shade.

56

Where they did play, Diddle diddle, and Kiss and Court,
Like Lambs in May, Diddle diddle, making fine sport.
There lives a Lass, Diddle diddle, over the Green,

She sells good Ale, Diddle diddle, think what I mean. . .

61

"I will be kind," Diddle diddle, "until I dye; Then prethee love," Diddle diddle, "my Dog and I. For thee and I," Diddle diddle,

And we will lye," Diddle diddle,

now are all one,

66

no more alone."

Printed for J. Wright, J. Clarke, W. Thackeray and T. Passinger.

80

[In Black-letter. Three woodcuts. The other two have been already given, viz. the Prince Rupert portrait in an oval (p. 381), and the Girl with ringlets, like a modern lawyer's wig (p. 70). Date, between 1672 and 1685.]

=

The Rock the Spindle. In the North the term is still used, although spinning with the distaff (for which the spindle was a substitute) is quite obsolete: perhaps so much the worse. We have innumerable instances of the phrase in old Scotch songs, such as "The Rock and the wee pickle tow." A recent writer sillily quoted a verse of "My jo Janet" concerning the Rock, not understanding the equivoque (which is as broad as that in the modernized "Maggie Lauder") any better than a noisy woodcutter, who, for electioneering flattery, misinterpreted"the land of the Leal" (i.e. Heaven) to be a synonym for Scotland!

The Devonshire Damsels' Frolick.

"It was in June, and 'twas on Barnaby Bright too,

A time when the days are long and the nights are short,
A crew of merry Girles, and that in the night too,

Resolv'd to wash in a river, and there to sport;

And there, poore things! they then resolv'd to be merry too,
And with them did bring good store of junketting stuff,
As Bisket, and Cakes, and Sugar, and Syder and Perry too,
Of each sort a quantity that was more than enough.”

-The Westminster Drollery, Part Second, 1672, p. 100.

THUS merrily reach we the end of this large group of ballads,

classed by their initial D. In 1875 the present Editor (not then a member of the Ballad Society) reprinted The Westminster Drolleries of 1671, 1672–3, including the eight verses of "The Bathing Girles: to the common Galliard Tune"-the ballad from which we borrow as our motto the opening verse. In the Appendix to his reprint of Choyce Drollery, 1656, forming the third volume of The Drolleries of the Restoration (to which he hopes erelong to add a Supplementary volume of varied Stuart Anthology,) he gave the following Roxburghe Ballad of "The Devonshire Damsels' Frollick." It is of later date than the Drollery version, being licensed by Richard Pocock, after August, 1685, and before beginning of 1689. The same incident is common to both. Indeed, it afterwards seems to have inspired at least one other ballad-writer, who localized it elsewhere. There had been no indication of the county in the earliest version, but it was shifted from the Philip Brooksby choice of Devonshire into East Kent near Canterbury: the water became the river Stour, which passing from Tunbridge by Ashford, Wye (four miles from Molash), Chartham renowned for lunatics, and the Minster City not unknown to Bribery commissioners and verger-fee-paying visitors, joins the sea near Ramsgate, at the pretty Pegwell Bay, which cockney Tea-gardens have been allowed to vulgarise. The ballad is in the Pepysian Collection, III. 242, beginning, "A frollick of late." The full title of it is "The Kentish Frolick; or, Sport upon Sport. Being an account of six young maidens, who, swimming in a River near Canterbury, were suddenly surprized by six Young Men; who, after sporting with them in the River, took away their smocks, gowns, and petticoats: which occasioned much mirth and pleasant pastime. Tune of, Let Mary live long. Licensed according to Order. Printed for F. Tracy, at the Three Bibles on London-Bridge." Date, probably 1693: certainly between the beginning of 168 and 169. In four columns of eleven-line stanzas, with two woodcuts. The opening verse of the original "Bathing Girles," as our motto shows, marks the event as being "on Barnaby Bright." "Barnaby