ANOTH The Lass of Lynn's New Joy. "Oh wae's me for the hour, Willie, Oh wae's me for the time, Willie, Where we were wont to gae- That gart me luve thee sae."-Motherwell. NOTHER copy of this ballad is preserved in the Pepys Collection, iii. 300. The music to it (as also to the second ditty of the series) is in Chappell's Popular Mus., 585, where mention is made of it being found in Youth's Delight on the Flageolet, 1697. The tune is its own and, from the varying burden, is called sometimes, Aye, marry, and thank ye too"; at other times, "I live in the Town of Lynn.' The commencement of its popularity must have been before 1689. 66 Although not exactly fitted for being sung in our drawingrooms (which yet accept without damage the sly innuendoes of the Prohibited Song in La Fille de Madame Angot, concerning Barras and La Lange), the humour and wit fully atone for the impropriety. But to be fully intelligible, as a narrative, a knowledge of its two preceding ballads is indispensable. It seems proper at length to re-unite the three parts of the history of so thankful a damsel. We first hear of "The Maid of Lyn[n]" in the following verses :— ON Brandon Heath, in sight of Methwold steeple, In Norfolk as I rode along, I met a Maiden with Apples laden, And thus, thus to her I urg'd my Song: Kiss me said I, she answer'd no, And still she cry'd I won't, I won't, I won't do so; But when I did my Love begin, Quoth she, Good Sir; good Sir, I live in Lyn. 'Twas Summer season then, and sultry weather, Said I, come hither, let us, together, Go try to lay this scorching heat: But she deny'd the more I cry'd, And answer'd No, and seem'd to go; But when I did my Love begin, Quoth she, Good Sir, I live in Lyn. To kiss this Maiden, then was my intent, With much perswasion, she shew['d] occasion, Then in we went and Six-p x-pence spent, I cry'd My Dear, she cry'd Forbear; But when I did my Love begin, Quoth she, Good Sir, I live in Lyn. 8 12 16 20 20 Three times I try'd to satisfie this Maiden, And bid me try it o'er again: Quoth she, Good Sir, I live in Lyn. 28 28 32 We have a suspicion that there was another song which either gave a slightly different commencement, or else followed immediately after this "On Brandon Heath, in sight of Methwold steeple," for the tune and rhythm are thereafter changed, agreeing now with our Bagford Ballad; and it seems clearly indicated that the burden of it was Marry, and thank you, too!" The next we hear of her is "The Lass of Lyn's sorrowful Lamentation for the Loss of her Maiden-Head." 1 "While" here="until;" or else read, "Be sure, while [un]married, lye alone." "I worked while six o'clock" is used in Herts, etc., for "until six." To us there is a pathetic sadness underlying this song: whatever it appears to others. Some may think it only a merry jest, and some people (whom we confess to hold in detestation), always quick-scented after impurity, may affect to be shocked at it, as an impropriety in print, while themselves sinning unblushingly in private. What would such prurient prudes say to William Motherwell's own ballad ?-a verse of which we have taken for our present motto, beginning, My heid is like to rend, Willie, My heart is like to breakI'm wearin' aff my feet, Willie, I'm dyin' for your sake! I'm sittin' on your knee, Willie, For the last time in my life- Ay, press your hand upon my heart, Oh lay your cheek to mine, Willie, Your hand on my briest-bane-Oh say ye'll think on me, Willie, When I am deid and gane! If Motherwell's "Jeannie Morrison" be his sweetest song, and we are inclined to think it unequalled of its kind, certainly "My heid is like to rend, Willie," is the saddest and most memorable of all written by him. Few things have ever been said or sung more touchingly pleading against the heartless sin of seduction. It tells (as does, less mournfully, but still effectively, "The Lass of Lynn's sorrowful Lamentation ") how much more heavily falls the punishment on the weaker of the two. We have had more than enough of pretentious agitations, with Archiepiscopal letters to stimulate the clergy in an adoption of Total Abstinence; as though there were no other sin crying out in the land but drunkenness. We shall begin to believe in them when sensuality and avarice, luxury and cheating, are attacked. There is, surely, far more foulness in unchastity than in the taking an extra glass at an odd time, or taking a glass at all. Yet how much more bitterly, from pulpits and platforms, in tracts and congresses, is any indulgence in "moderate drinking" denounced, than sexual profligacy. Our day shews to us a renewal of what Butler justly reproached, in the hypocritical Puritans of his own time; persons who "Compound for sins they are inclined to, By damning those they have no mind to." It is wrong, of course, for people to waste their health and substance in such revels as of those who sang, We take no thought, we have no care, We euer tosse the pot. Tosse the pot, tosse the pot! let vs be merry, And drink till our cheeks be as red as a Cherry.1 1 By Thomas Ravenscroft, in his Briefe Discourse, &c., 1614. No. 11. But, in almost every case, the error of the convivialist recoils on himself. Even the poor hopeless creature who vainly tries to cheer the heart with a poisonous "tasting," has no easy time of it: "Hot spirits shall haunt him all the night; Blue devils all the day." While, on the other hand, not only a heavier burden of shame weighs upon the dishonoured girl, than the world ever thinks fit to lay on the shoulders of her guilty seducer; but, in most cases, she is, like the Lass of Lynn, further oppressed with the expense of keeping the pledge of her disgrace, at the very time when doors are closed against her, and remunerative employment the hardest to be obtained. A reputation for des bonnes fortunes does not exile a man from the society of irreproachable wives, beautiful daughters, or their match-making mothers. His only punishment is remorse, or still worse, the inability to feel As Burns himself sadly confesses: remorse. I waive the quantum o' the sin, The hazard of concealing; But, Och! it hardens a' within, The Lass of Lynn, in the following ballad, escapes the heavier part of punishment, and is "made an honest woman after the approved pattern. Since George the Tapster appears as well satisfied as was Ralph of Reading (at the Winchester wedding, and christening), it is not our business to institute doubts as to the correctness of chronology. The midwife's reckoning was ingenious, to say the least of it. We have no doubt that she was a crony of that scheming mother-in-law, who had persuaded the lass into the marriage. Our hope is that they were not often admitted into the house. There were no mothers-in-law in the Garden of Eden: they are decidedly a product of the Fall, and one of its worst. [Bagford Collection, II. 141.] The Lass of Lynn's New Joy, For finding a Father for her Child, Being a Third Song of Marry and Thank ye too. the end of a Tale so true, The Lass that made her Belly Swell, With many hard Sobs and Throws, and Sorrow enough (I wot) She had wept Tears, the whole Town knows, could fill a whole Chamber-pot. For Pleasure with Pain she pays, So hard all day she Lac'd her Stayes, as pinch'd both her Back and Side. 8 12 |