And shouted loud," Renew the bowl! V. Soldier's Song. Our vicar still preaches that Peter and Poule 1 Drink upsees out, and a fig for the vicar! Our vicar he calls it damnation to sip The ripe ruddy dew of a woman's dear lip, Says, that Beelzebub lurks in her kerchief so sly, Our vicar thus preaches-and why should he not? 1 Bacchanalian interjection, borrowed from the Dutch.. 2["The greatest blemish in the poem is the ribaldry and dull vulgarity which is put into the mouths of the soldiery in the guard-room. Mr Scott has condescended to write a song for VI The warder's challenge, heard without, A maid and minstrel with him come." As the rude mountains where they dwell; Nor much success can either poast." "But whence thy captives, friend? such spoil As theirs must needs reward thy toil.1 them, which will be read with pain, we are persuaded, even by his warmest admirers; and his whole genius, and even his power of versification, seems to desert him when he attempts to repeat their conversation. Here is some of the stuff which has dropped, in this inauspicious attempt, from the pen of one of the first poets of his age or country," &c. &c.-JEFFREY.] 1 [The MS. reads after this: "Get thee an ape, and then at once Thou mayst renounce the warder's lance, And trudge through borough and through land. The leader of a juggler band."] Old dost thou wax, and wars grow sharp; The jongleurs, or jugglers, as we learn from the elaborate work of the late Mr Strutt, on the sports and pastimes of the people of England, used to call in the aid of various assistants, to render these performances as captivating as possible. The glee-maiden was a necessary attendant. Her duty was tumbling and dancing; and therefore the Anglo-Saxon version of Saint Mark's Gospel states Herodias to have vaulted or tumbled before King Herod. In Scotland, these poor creatures seem, even at a late period, to have been bondswomen to their masters, as appears from a case reported by Fountainhall:-" Reid the mountebank pursues Scott of Harden and his lady, for stealing away from him a little girl, called the tumbling lassie, that danced upon his stage: and he claimed damages, and produced a contract, whereby he bought her from her mother for £30 Scots. But we have no slaves in Scotland, and mothers cannot sell their bairns: and physicians attested the employment of tumbling would kill her; and her joints were now grown stiff, and she declined to return; though she was at least a 'prentice, and so could not run away from her master: yet some cited Moses's law, that if a servant shelter himself with thee, against his master's cruelty, thou shalt surely not deliver him up. The Lords, renitente cancellario, assoilzied Harden, on the 27th of January (1687)."—FOUNTAINHALL'S Decisions, vol. i. p. 439.2 2 Though less to my purpose, I cannot help noticing a circumstance respecting another of this Mr Reid's attendants, which occurred during James II.'s zeal for Catholic proselytism, and is told by Fountainhall, with dry Scotch irony:-"January 17th, 1687.-Reid the mountebank is received into the Popish church, and one of his blackamores was persuaded to accept of baptism from the Popish priests, and to turn Christian papist; which was a great trophy: he was called James. after the king and chancellor, and the Apostle James.”— Ibid. p. 44). No, comrade VII. ;-no such fortune mine. The facetious qualities of the ape soon rendered him an acceptable addition to the strolling band of the jongleur. Ben Jonson, in his splenetic introduction to the comedy of "Bartholomew Fair," is at pains to inform the audience "that he has ne'er a sword-and-buckler man in his Fair, nor a juggler, with a well-educated ape, to come over the chaine for the King of England, and back again for the Prince, and sit still on his haunches for the Pope and the King of Spaine." 1 [MS.-"Bertram his such violence withstood."] }viol But Ellen boldly stepp'd beween, And dropp'd at once the tartan screen ;-- 1 Even hardy Brent, abash'd and tamed, VIII. Boldly she spoke,-" Soldiers, attend ' "I shame me of the part I play'd: And thou an outlaw's child, poor maid! An outlaw I by forest laws, And merry Needwood knows the cause. Poor Rose, if Rose be living now,"_ He wiped his iron eye and brow,"Must bear such age, I think, as thou.— 1 [MS.- -"While the rude soldiery, amazed."] 2 [MS." Should Ellen Douglas suffer wrong."] * [MS.-"My Rose,'-he wiped his iron eye and brow,~~ 'Poor Rose,-if Rose be living now.""] |