The Press. — London, England, 1857-08-22 00:00:00

824 fittraturt. Anoient Poems Ballads and Songs of the . Peasantry of England. Edited by Robert Bell. (Annotated Edition of the English Poets.) London : J. W. Parker and Son. Tins edition of the English Poets is really a most important undertaking. It is not a flimsy and flashy reprint, in unreadable type, with pillaged notes and pedantic prefaces. The paper is fit for library shelves; the type is clear, and strongly set out. The volumes are edited with scholarly supervision. The texts are carefully compared, and the notes are close, strong, and pointed. We find what we want to know, without being affronted with a tiresome parade of the editor's erudition, or teased with index-learning. We have, from the first, carefully examined this most valuable republication of our English poets, and we can conscientiously recommend it to our readers. In point of price it is the cheapest issue of our times. Although we differ from the able editor on some critical questions, we cheerfully acknowledge the weight which must attach to his opinion ; and we are confirmed in our own views on this point by our recol lection of the estimate formed of his powers by one of the soundest critics of our age, now unhappily no more. Mr. Robert Bell, the editor of this impor tant undertaking, is in many respects one of the best living representatives of our English critics. He has had great practical experience of literary life; and he has united the habits of a student of the closet with the tastes of a genial man of the world. Some literary men are apt to become the dupes of their own subtlety, but Mr. Bell guards himself against this tendency by his wholesome sense of reality ; and in our opinion " reality " is the _aspiration of pure English literature. There is a representative power, a vigorous repro duction of the true national feelings, in Chaucer, Shakespeare, and also in Dryden, and our other standard classics. In Spenser and Milton, for obvious reasons, the Anglo-Saxon realism is not so defined. But even in the secondary poets and prose-writers of the last century, exactly as they approached to this verification of English life, so did they succeed in gaining the attention of the public and the ears of posterity. Critics aro obliged often to learn this truth from books, but Mr. Bell has an intuitive sense of it, and it guides him on his course as editor of our English poets. Other qualities, also, support Mr. Bell in his arduous undertaking. He is no Dryasdust buried in the lumber of a library. He has a manly-mind, and he can bring solid, weighty, good sense to the interpretation and appre ciation of critical questions on which opinions are divided. We confess, for our own part, we like that critics should not be learned mechanicians, who " measure genius with a two-foot ule," and who " scorn the genius that scorns them." The example of Ritson—" a literary wild oat " of the mountains," as he was called by Isaac Disraeli—was enough as a specimen of that kind ; but in our own day we have had some Ritsons of a smaller species, and we do not think that they have contributed much to the honour of our critical literature. Goethe, in "Faust," has expressed (with some reserve) an opinion that the habit of criticism hardens the heart and narrows the mind. There is no necessity for such being the result of an application to critical pur suits. No one would apply the terms " narrow " or " frigid " to Longinus, or Cicero, or Quinctilian, or to Erasmus, Bayle, Le Clerc, or the Schlegels, each and all of whom were habitually addicted to critical studies. We purposely avoid refere nce t o grea t original thinkers like Aristotle, and modern moralists from Bacon to Sir William Hamil ton. We admit that mere reviewers, like Lord Jeffrey, and men of his type, become narrow and blind to originality, or else that they become extravagantly emotional, and fall into silly ecstacies about secondary productions. When we compare the frenzied raptures with which Lord Jeffrey gloated over the pro 'luctions of Mr. Dickens with the cold recep tion given to the genius of Shelley and THE PRESS, AUGUST 22, 1857. Coleridge and other lofty intellects, we are tempted to think that our immediate fore fathers must have been very gullible in matters of literary criticism. Mr. Bell is not a sectarian in his literary creed. He does not belong to any particular school in criticism. He is neither Latinised like Parr, nor Germanised like several of our Quarterly reviewers, nor Gallicised like too many of our critics in the last century. In his solid and relevant observations we meet with one who can take a judicial tone and act as moderator between controversial anno tators. His versatile intellect and supple understanding are balanced by great know ledge and disciplined good taste. Ho has strong natural feelings for what is true and fine ; and experience has chastened his per ceptions without impairing his susceptibility. The volume of the "annotated edition" now before us is the most interesting that has yet appeared. Much of its contents will be quite novel to many of our readers, and there are many poems in the volume which we have seen for the first time. The titlepage might, we think, be read disjunctively. The "ancient poems" here presented could scarcely ever have been familiar to the " peasantry " of England ; and, in point of fact, we think that the yeomanry of England rather than the " peasantry " have been the pre servers of these poems. We do not concur with the justice of calling these pieces, as Mr. Bell does in his preface, " peasant minstrelsy." He observes : The value of this ♦olume consists in the genuineness of its contents, and the healthiness of its tone. While fashionable life was masquerading in imaginary Arcadias, and deluging theatres and concert rooms with shams, the English peasant remained true to the realities of his own experience, and produced and sang songs which faithfully reflected the actual life around him. Whatever these songs describe is true to that life. There are no fictitious rap tures in them. Love here never dresses its emotions in artificial images, nor disguises itself in the mask of a Strephon or a Daphne. It is in this particular aspect that the poetry of the country possesses a permanent and moral interest. We concur with Mr. Bell's opinion as to the " genuineness " and " healthiness " of tone in the contents of this volume, but ho overrates the share which " the peasant " had in pre serving its poems. Here, for example, is a piece which we confess has completely puzzled us, and which " the peasant " surely could have not had much ehare in preserving. It is called " Lord Delaware." and is a traditional ballad, first published by Mr. Thomas Lyle, in his " Ancient Ballads and Songs, London, 1827 " LORD DELAWARE. In the Parliament House, a great rout has been there, Betwixt our good King and the Lord Delaware: Says Lord Delaware to his Majesty full soon, " Will it please you, my liege, to grant me a boon ?" " What's your boon," says the King," now let me under- stand ?" " It's, give me all the poor men we've starving in this land ; And without delay, hie me to Lincolnshire, To sow hemp•seed and flax-seed, and hang them all there. "For with hempen cord it's better to stop each poor man's breath, Than with famine you should see your subjects starve to death." Up starts a Dutch Lord, who to Delaware did say, " Thou deserves to be stabbed !" tben he turned himself away; " Thou deserves to be stabbed, and the dogs have thine For insulting our King in this Parliament of peers." Up sprang a Welsh Lord, the brave Duke of Devonshire, " In young Delaware's defence, I'll fight this Dutch Lord, my sire ; " For he is in the right, and I'll make it so appear : Him I dare to single combat, for insulting Delaware." A stage was soon erected, and to combat they went, For to kill, or to be killed, it was either's full intent. But the very first flourish, when the heralds gave command, The sword of brave Devonshire bent backward on his hand : in suspense he paused awhile, scanned his foe before he Then against the King's armour, his bent sword he brake. Then be sprang from the stage, to a soldier in the ring, Saying, " Lend your sword, that to an end this tragedy we bring: Though he's fighting me in armour, while I am fighting bare, Even more than this I'd venture for young Lord Dela. ware." Leaping back on the singe, sword to buckler now resounds, Till he left the Dutch Lord a bleeding in his wounds • This seeing, cries the King to 11;s guards without delay, !! Call Devonshire down—take the dead man away !" " No," says brave Devonshire, " I've fought him as a man, Since he's dead, I will keep the trophies I have won i • For he fought me in your armour, while I fought him bare, And the same you must win back, my liege, if ever yo them wear." God bless the Church of England, may it prosper on each hand, _ _ - And also every poor man now starving in this land ; And while I pray success may crown our King upon his throne, I'll wish that every poor man may long enjoy his own. What could that song have referred to, and on what incidents was it based ? In its present state the ballad reads to ourselves like one of the days of James I. ( circa.) Mr. Bell cites the explanation of Mr. Lyle, and thus com ments upon it : " We have not as yet," says Mr. Lyle, " been able to trace out the historical incident upon which this ballad appears to have been founded; yet those curious in such matters may consult, if they list, Proceedings and Debates in the House of Commons, for 1621 and 1662,' where they will find that some stormy debating in these several years had been agitated in Parliament regarding the corn laws, which bear pretty close upon the leading features of the ballad." Does not the ballad, however, belong to a much earlier period ? The description of the combat, the presence of heralds, the wearing of armour, &c.,justify the conjecture. For De la Ware, ought we not to read De la Mare? and is not Sir Thomas De la Mare the hero? the De la Mare who in the reign of Edward 111., A.D. 1377, was Speaker of the House of Commons. All historians are agreed in representing him as a person using " great freedom of speech," and which, indeed, he carded to such an extent as to endanger his personal liberty. As bearing somewhat upon the subject of the ballad, it may be ob. served that De la Mare was a great advocate of popular rights, and particularly protested against the inhabitants of England being subject to " purveyance," asserting that, "if the royal revenue was faithfully administered, there could be n6Vecessity for laying burdens on the people." In the subsequent reign of Richard IL, De la Mare was a prominent character, and though history is silent on the subject, it is not improbable that such a man might, even in the royal presence, have defended the rights of the poor, and spoken in extenuation of the agrarian insurrectionary movements which were then so prevalent and so alarming. On the hypothesis of De la Mare being the hero, there are other incidents in the tale which cannot be reconciled with history, such as the title given to De la Mare, who certainly was never ennobled ; nor can we ascertain that he was ever mixed up in any duel; nor does it appear clear who can be meant by the " Welah Lord, the brave Duke of Devonshire," that dukedom not having been created till 1694, and no nobleman having derived any title whatever from Devonshire previously to 1618, when Baron Cavendish, of Hardwick, was created the first Earl of Devonshire. Mr. Lyle does not cite any passages from the debates in 1621 and 1662 to justify his hypothesis ; and who was the antagonist to the De la Mare alluded to by Mr. Bell? We doubt whether at that time the phrase " Parliament House" was in vogue at all ; and the last stanza about " the Church of Eng land " reads on that hypothesis like an ana chronism. Mr. Bell is in error in saying that there was no title of Devonshire previously to that of the ennoblement of the Cavendish family. The famous family of Blount (Lords Mountjoy) enjoyed it for a short time, as Charles, eighth Lord Mountjoy (Lord Lieute nant of Ireland in the reign of James I.), was advanced to the title of " Earl of Devonshire" in 1603, but three years afterwards he died without legitimate issue. We surmised, ourselves, that the ballad might be a sort of apologue on a great Par liamentary altercation in the seventeenth century, or else that some public transaction of that century was commemorated in it. In Whittington, in Derbyshire (the Duke of Devonshire's locality), the farmhouse is still shown where Henry Booth, Lord Delamere, met the Earl of Devonshire and the Earl of Danby, and consulted together in " the plotting parlour " how to bring over the Prince of Orange. In Bishop Burnet's " Reign of King William and Queen Mary" we read,— " Lord Mordaunt was made Earl of Monmouth, " and Lord Delamere was made Chancellor of " the Exchequer." It appears afterwards that the Earls of Monmouth and Delamere, created Earl of Warrington, became "great enemies," and they seem to have had struggles to obtain ascendancy with the King. Interpreting the poem as a sort of squib, we might thus explain the phrase " Dutch lord " as a partisan of the Dutch king ; and the allusions to the " Church of England " would be quite chronological. But we admit that we have run that trail with out success. We also thought it might refer to the trial for high treason of Lord Delamere in 1683, but after perusing "The Tryal of Henry, Baron Delamere, in Westminster-hall, the 14th day of January, 1683 " (printed for