The English Lyrics, II.

SEVENTEENTH

CENTURY

LYRICS

FROM THE ORIGINAL TEXTS

CENTURY

LYRICS

FROM THE ORIGINAL TEXTS

Chosen, Edited
and Arranged
By

NORMAN AULT

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. LTD.

39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, E.C.4

NEW YORK, TORONTO

CALCUTTA, BOMBAY, AND MADRAS

That man or woman which will look
And well observe this new-made book,
Shall find therein such sweet content,
Which will procure much merriment.
'Twill fill your hearts with rare delights,
And serve to pass away long nights ;
'Twill comfort them that are full sad,
'Twill make a sorrowful man right glad ;
'Twill make a pretty damsel thrive,
Though almost dead, 'twill her revive.
Then let it be refused by no man,
Since it is good for man and woman ;
Buy it, and read it at your leisure,
Both for your profit and your pleasure.

Make Room for Christmas,' 1675.

ANON.

Made and Printed in Great Britain
T. and A. CONSTABLE LTD., Printers, Edinburgh

English

3-6-39 18974

INTRODUCTION

THE plan of illustrating the movement of poetic thought within a period by arranging poems according to the dates at which they became known to the author's public, employed (I believe for the first time) in my Elizabethan Lyrics, is followed in this sequel to it. This makes it possible to trace step by step the series of changes in the development of the lyric, from the last songs of Fletcher to the first of Pope; and to perceive that, great as are the changes, there is nowhere any abrupt break in the poetic tradition-late Elizabethan, Caroline, Restoration, and Augustan merging imperceptibly into each other in a natural progression. By this means also the student of literature is enabled to see each poem in its original environment, against its historical background of contemporary song; it is at times unexpectedly illuminating to find side by side in the same year, poets like Jonson and Milton, Dekker and Cowley, Waller and Bunyan.

For Seventeenth Century verse the field is very wide. The printed volumes I have examined run into thousands, the MSS. into hundreds. The 566 poems here printed represent the final result of the sifting and re-sifting of a provisional selection of over 3000 made in the course of that examination; and they include the work of 212 named poets besides much that is anonymous.

In working through the MSS. I found some hundreds of poems which have never been printed. Out of a large number that I transcribed, I select thirty-three as being of outstanding merit. These are indicated by a dagger (†) in the Index of First Lines. To me it was sufficient reward for weeks of tedious search to light on a poem like 'Sickness, not Sleep' (p. 292); or Sleep, sleep, my soul' (p. 65); or in another kind, 'Oh, England!' (p. 386). Of special interest is the discovery of a MS. volume of lyrics-five of which I