The Wise Fortune-Teller Answered. "If none of these thy fancy will please, Go seek thy complexion store, And take for thy Saint a Lady that will paint: Such beauties thou maist adore. If Beauty do write in her face red and white, and Cupid his flowers there breed, It pleaseth the eye, but the rose will dye, as soon as it runs to seed." JOHN -Merry Drollery, 1661. OHN WADE'S spirited ballads are numerous, and we reserve a full consideration of them until we bring a group together in the next volume of Roxburghe Ballads. The present ditty we advance from its accidental position, in order to connect it with "The English Fortune-Teller." Two similar ballads, merrily discriminating among young spinsters and bachelors, by the colour of their hair, have already been reprinted by us, in this volume, on pp. 66 to 73, "The Young Men's Counsellor," and "Directions for Damosels;" but John Wade answers another which is distinct from them, "writ by a fellow" not yet identified. The tune here assigned to Wade's ballad is named Corydon's Complaint, a ballad not at once accessible, but a sequel to which is preserved in "Celia's kind Answer to Corydon's Complaint." It begins, "O what's the matter?" and is in the Pepysian Collection, IV. 47, and Douce, I. 23. We cannot feel convinced of this Corydon's Complaint being the same as one (Pepys Coll., IV. 45) of a somewhat different metre, beginning, "When Phoebus had run;" where the nymph is Daphnis, not Celia. It is entitled "The Distasted Lover's Downfall; or, The Shepherd's Dying Complaint concerning the ingratitude of his Love." "The Shepherd Corydon doth seek relief, From cruel Daphnis, who augments his grief." This ballad was printed for J. Wright, J. Clarke, William Thackeray, and Thomas Passinger. It is marked to the tune of Cloris awake! which refers to a Roxburghe Ballad, and should be "Ah! Cloris awake! it is all abroad day;" that we give in our next volume, along with its answer, beginning, "My Shepherd's unkind." The tune for Cloris Awake is no other than Love will find out the way (which is in The Popular Music, p. 304); but this does not suit our requirements for Wade's "Young Man's Approbation;" by which word he intends to signify his "Reprobation." Later (Roxb. Coll., II. 511), we meet with a "Welsh FortuneTeller," beginning, "Since arrival, proclaiming, and crowning is o'er ; but it is an Orange-Williamite ballad of 1689, and comes into a group of such ditties in the next volume. [Roxburghe Collection, III. 98.] The Young Man's approbation against the Wherein he shows to all Batchellors rare TUNE OF, Corridon's Complaint. [The author is] John Wade. Did you not hear a fellow, that writ against all those Which had a face of tallow,' or had a fiery nose? He thought to please young Maidens, but yet let me you tell, And what here's writ they shall find fit, to please their humours well. Then listen [all] young Men, and to you I will show, To take heed of subtle Damosels, when they intend to Wooe: 1 The broadside misprints this as "had a tallow face." 20 No, nor yet do not chuse one that hath red hair, For if you should chance to sell her, she'l be no Market ware, And when that she has done it, she'l laugh thee to scorn; Lso beware and take good heed of a [Lass with] fleering looks, 30 Also and that gothen the Fisher-men, to catch you with her hooks, She'l tell you many stories, but none you true shall find, And when that you have Wedded her, she soon will change her mind, And if she can get [to be] Master, she will beat thee blind. 40 Moreover, let me tell thee, if thou wilt be rul'd, Nor one that hath two blobber lips, her mouth is never dry: 50 Likewise, honest young Men, I more to you will tell, 60 Therefore 'tis good for all Men in time for to take heed, The better you do look about, the better you may speed; An honest Girl she is worth Pearl, but of such there is but few, And for to find out one of them a man shall have much ado, He'd as good to seek St. Dennis out: these words I speak are true. 2 There's Sarah, Sue, and Betty, are of a merry mood, But tho' they are so pretty, they have more ways than's good: They'l lout and pout, they'l scoul and frown, if a man he don't them please, And when they list, then they can [each] be sick of the same Disease,3 But the brown-hair'd Girl, I do protest, is better then all these. 80 Misprinted his mouth," in broadside. A common error, from writing her as hir, which misled early compositors. 2 A proverbial saying that seems to have escaped collectors. It agreed with one that is better known, and forms the burden of an old ballad: You'd as soon find a needle in a Bottle of Hay. Or, as another proverb runs, You'll have your labour for your pains! An understood euphemism for getting tipsy. Thus in the much older racy Elizabethan ballad we were told My Hostess was sick of the Mumps, the Maid was ill at ease, The Tapster was drunk in his Dumps: they were all of one disease, Says old Sir Simon the King. Against the Wise Fortune-Teller. A black-brow'd Girl is lovely, and seemly to behold, 495 But the flaxen-hair's without compare, and worth her wai[gh]t in Gold; And he that gains her to his Wife, thus much for her I'le say, Thus much, honest Batchellors, I hope you all do hear, 90 You know true blew will never stain, no more won't an honest Wife, And he that gains such a one [as this] he lives a merry Life: But a scolding dame is void of shame, and given much to strife. 100 Printed by J. Lock for J. Clarke, at the Bible and Harp, in West-Smith-Field. [In Black-letter. One woodcut. Date, probably 1650-1682.] 1 See Tom D'Urfey's song of invitation to the game of stool-ball, with its merry lilt: "Come all, great, small, short, tall, away to Stool-Ball." It is in Pills to Purge Melancholy, i. 91, and belongs to the third act, scene second, of his Don Quixote, Part III. 1696, as sung at the wedding of Mary the Buxom:Down in a Dale, on a Summer's day, All the Lads and Lasses met to be merry; A Match for Kisses at Stool-Ball play, And for Cakes and Ale, and Cyder and Perry. Will and Tom, Hal, Dick and Hugh, Kate, Doll, [and Siss,] 2 "True-Blue will never stain" is the burden of an old ballad still extant at the His good profession for the hopes of gain. To which the burden is, And Tory shall ne'er be my Love again. In Harleian True-Blue was the Colour which never will stain: (Probably this was Sir George Oxenden of Barham, fifth Baronet, and M.P. for Sandwich. See Miss De Vaynes's Kentish Garland, i. 335, for the song in full.) Here we reach the close of the E-initialed Group, and take a fresh "Group of Ballads on Monmouth's Ensurrection." This picture has been mentioned on our p. 475, as reproduced in "England's Monethly Observations," 1653. It serves well enough, while preceding our "Monmouth Group," to represent some of those "Armies in the Air" which, with a particular spectre who might be Lucy Walter, the Maid of Hatfield pretended to have seen in her visions; all intended supernaturally to warn Charles the Second that he ought straightway to proclaim the Duke of Monmouth as his lawful son and legitimate successor, to the due satisfaction of the exceptionally sane liege dwellers in Hatfield, Maids or otherwise. His Majesty listened attentively, as he always did, to the Sex (being "the most courteous and best-bred man alive"), but did not feel convinced, insomuch that if the visions were for his special benefit it might have been more satisfactory had they appeared to him. Moreover, this girl, Elizabeth Freeman, could scarcely recognize Lucy Walter, never having seen her alive! As we are told in No Protestant Plot: See there, a fighting Army in the Air ! But now it vanishes, and does disappear, And with Ben Harris she is also mentioned in The Recovery, a Loyal Poem:- And learnt their lessons to the Hatfield Maid; |