The time I have to live, I'll spend, You Ser[v]ants now both far and near, Least passion should your Lives decay. 76 80 [In Black-letter. Printer's name cut off: but the other side of the sheet ("A Warning to all Lewd Livers:" "My bleeding heart," etc.) has on it "London: Printed by and for W. O. and are to be sold by B. Deacon, at the Angel in Guiltspur-street." It is by no means certain that both sides came from the same printer. W. Onlen's date is about 1650-1702; but B. Deacon's, same place, is of 1702; perhaps also earlier. We may safely take the date of the Cook-maid's Tragedy ballad to be not later than 1695: For the Pepys copy has "London: Printed for J. Deacon, at the Angel, in Guiltspur-street (i.e. 1684-95). See, for Answer, on p. 200, Bagford Coll., ii. 59 verso, "Assist, all you Muses, to make my sad moan."] The Weeping Lady. "They say it was a shocking sight, "And everybody prais'd the Duke Who this great fight did win." "But what good came of it at last ?" Quoth little Peterkin. But things like that, you know, must be "Why that I cannot tell," said he, After a famous victory. WE "But 'twas a famous victory." Southey's Battle of Blenheim, 1798. RITTEN and circulated soon after the battle of Landen in Flanders, which was fought on July 29th, 1693, to the temporary defeat of William III., this ballad of The Weeping Lady is found also in the Pepys Collection, v. 279. After the Revolution of 1688, and during the whole of the Orange reign, foreign wars were incessant. At such times a mournful ditty like the present could not fail to interest many women, who were lamenting for their lost lovers or husbands, slain in Flanders. William, although defeated, had fought bravely, both personally and in command of the troops. The fortune of war went against him, but his conduct under the reverse demands respect. In prosperity his arrogance and ruthlessness weigh heavily against him. The Massacre of Glencoe stains his memory for ever. Despite all the partisanship and skill of Lord Macaulay, vigorously striving to lend the glamour of his own genius to the cold-blooded Dutchman, the selfish and unlovely character of William remains visible to all who are not blinded by party-prejudice. Nicholas Tindal (no favourer of the Stuarts, or of Tory statesmen, moreover), in continuation of Rapin, writes in reference to this very year, 1693, after mentioning the political intrigues of the Opposition: "That which gave them much strength was the King's cold and reserved way. He took no pains to oblige those who came to him; nor was he easy of access. He lived out of town at Kensington, and his chief confidents were Dutch. He took no notice of the Clergy, and seemed to have little concern in the matters of the Church or of Religion. And at this time some Deists were publishing books against the Christian Religion in general, as the Socinians were more particularly against some points of the orthodox faith. These, expressing great zeal for the Government, gave a handle to those, who were waiting for all advantages, and were careful of increasing and improving them, to spread it all over the nation, that the King, and those about him, had no regard to religion, nor to the Church of England."-Rapin's Hist. of England, Continued, 1744, iii. 238. "The Honble. Mr. Robert Boyle, the famous experimental Philosopher, who died in the beginning of the year 1692, left the foundation of a monthly sermon, to convince Atheists, Deists, and Jews of their errors, and demonstrate the truth of the Christian Religion in general, without meddling with any of the points about which the Christians are divided into parties and sects."—Ibid. Readers may turn profitably to Macaulay's glowing account of the battle, written with his best vigour. It thus concludes: "The defeat of Landen was indeed a heavy blow. The King [William] had a few days of cruel anxiety. If Luxemburg pushed on, all was lost. Louvain must fall, and Mechlin, and Nieuport, and Ostend. The Batavian frontier would be in danger. The cry for peace throughout Holland might be such as neither States General nor Stadtholder would be able to resist. But there was delay and a very short delay was enough for William."-Macaulay's History of England, cap. xx. (1855). The description of the Landen battle-field, as it was left after that terrible slaughter, reads like what Dickens had given to us in 1846, in his "Battle of Life": "During many months the ground was strewn with sculls and bones of men and horses, and with fragments of hats and shoes, saddles and holsters. The next summer the soil, fertilized by twenty thousand corpses, broke forth into millions of poppies. The traveller who, on the road from Saint Tron to Tirlemont, saw that vast sheet of rich scarlet spreading from Landen to Neerwinden, could hardly help fancying that the figurative prediction of the Hebrew prophet was literally accomplished, that the earth was disclosing her blood, and refusing to cover the slain."-Ibid. The tune named, "If Love's a sweet passion," (music given in Pills to P. Melancholy, iii. 286, 1719), to which "The Weeping Lady" is directed to be sung, belongs to a song that was afterwards introduced into Sir Richard Steele's comedy of "The Conscious Lovers," acted in 1722. But the words of the song had appeared in the Academy of Compliments, edition 1705, p. 118. They were almost certainly not by Steele. They had been printed still earlier. We possess them, in "A Collection of Poems: viz. The Temple of Death, . . with several Original Poems never before printed. The second edition. London: Printed for Ralph Smith, at the Bible, under the Royal Exchange, in Cornhill, 1702." They are therein entitled a "Song, by a Person of Honour," and on p. 366. Steele's name does not occur among the ten mentioned on the title-page: there is "&c.," it is true, but Steele was scarcely known until his first book, The Christian Hero, was published in 1701 (the probable date of R. Smith's Collection, the first edition). We give the poem verbatim, from the 1702 edition : As he lay in the Plain, his Arm under his Head, And his Flock feeding by, the fond Celadon said, If Love's a sweet Passion, why does it Torment? To my self I sigh often, without knowing why; In her Eyes (the bright Stars that foretel what's to come,) I press her Hand gently, look languishing down, This poem being of the second edition, we may see the probability of it having been first printed not later than 1701, and written still earlier. The date of the re-introduction of the song in "The Conscious Lovers" is, therefore, of no importance whatever in determining the date of our "Weeping Lady." Dependence can seldom be placed on any publisher's announcement, "never before printed." We are left to conjecture the date of our ballad, as fixed between 1694 and 1699: probably in, or close upon, the earlier year, since any semi-remote date of battle would be of small account as an advertisement, in such times when "one woe doth tread upon another's heel," so long as warfare continued. Reference to the same tune and words, "If Love's a sweet passion," meets us again (II. 59, verso). It was therefore worth while for us to determine their date, so far as might be possible. "The Weeping Lady" has been slashed and mutilated, to fit the ballad-broadside to the Procrustean bed of the Bagford folio. Vide ante, p. 147. It is printed at the back of "Attend and give ear," &c. 1 Omitting lines 1, 2, and 9 to 14 of this poem, we find no more than lines 3 to 8, and 15 to 20, of the original reappear in the later imprints; but a new verse is added, viz., "How pleasing is Beauty! how sweet are the Charms! 'Tis taught us on earth, and by all things above: And to Beauty's bright Standard all heroes must yield, With music set afresh by Baildon (pupil of Dr. John Blow), it is thus given [Bagford Collection, II. 56 reverso.] The Weeping Lady; Dr, The Fortune of War: Containing Her Lamentation for the Loss of her Lover, a Noble Commander, who was slain in the late Famous Battle of Landen, in Flanders. I TO THE TUNE OF, If Love's a sweet Passion. Am an Unfortunate Lady this day! All my Glory is blasted and gone to decay; And here I am left to bemoan his sad Fate; He is slain in the Wars, I shall ne'r see him more. The Tydings was brought me, He fought in the Field, 6 12 And with which he fell dead from his Horse to the Ground. Thus I lost my dear Jewel whom I did adore, He is slain in the Wars, I shall ne'r see him more. [T]his Tydings was like to a desperate Dart; Is he gone! then I cry'd, with a Sigh from my Heart; And mine Eyes like two Fountains did streight overflow, [Tha]t my Grief it was more than I could undergo; Haring lost my dear Jewel whom I did adore, He is slain in the Wars, I shall ne'r see him more. 18 24 1 Misprint in original, from blundered correction of press: it reads "brings up earthe R:". BAGFORD. |