Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age. Edited by
A. H. Bullen. (Nimmo.)—This beautifully printed little volume is a selection from the two volumes of " Lyrics from Elizabethan Song-Books ". already published by Mr. Bullen. It is wonderful what a faculty for singing the minor poets of that age possessed. Their faintest notes are musical notes, and sometimes the verses of men whose names are unknown, or who are known to most readers only by name, reach a lyrical height which a poet of established fame might envy. These writers sang from the pure joy of singing, and so their strains, as simple as they are sweet, charm the ear and win their way to the heart. Mr. Bullen, who has rescued more than one old dramatist from oblivion, has also done admirable service in reviving the memory of several forgotten song-writers, and especially of Dr. Thomas Campion, a poet and a musician whose snatches of song are often eminently beautiful. From many quarters the editor collects the golden treasures that fill this anthology,—from Byrd, who published a collection of psalms, songs, and sonnets in 1588 ; from Dowland, whose name has been handed down in a familiar sonnet, and who published three books of songs or airs some years later; from Robert Jones, who is said to have issued six musical works ; and from several collections unknown probably by name even to readers who can boast of being fairly well-read in English poetry. This volume, then, is something far better than an ordinary anthology, for Mr. Bullen may be said to break new ground, and to discover treasures which even critical students of our early poetry appear to have passed by unnoticed. Campion, the most conspicuous of these lyrists, was a contemporary of Spenser. In that day, as in our own, there were conceits in vogue about versification. Gabriel Harvey wanted Spenser to reform English verse by following the laws of the classical metres, an error into which Sir Philip Sidney fell; and Campion, similarly infected, published a treatise in which he asserted that the use of rhyme should be dis- continued, and that our poets should follow the classical models. In reply to this, Daniel, the famous author of " Musophilus," wrote a " Defence of Rhyme." He " was puzzled," Mr. Bullen writes, "as well he might be, that an attack on rhyme should have been made by one whose commendable rhymes, albeit now himself an enemy to rhyme, have given heretofore to the world the best notice of his worth." Fortunately, however, Campion did not practise what he preached. A far greater poet, the author of " L'Allegro" and "II Penseroso," followed, it will be remembered, in the same direction, and called rhyme the " invention of a barbarous age to set forth wretched matter and lame metre." It would be pleasant, did space permit, to quote some lovely verses from this delightful selection of lyrics. Here is a feast of nectared sweets which has the charm of novelty as well as of fragrance. There are more than 250 lyrics in this volume, and of these not more than five or six are to be found in Mr. Palgrave's " Golden Treasury " and in Mr. Ward's " English Poets."
Previous page
