[Bagford Collection, I. 101.]

A New Song, on the Strange and Wonderful

Groaning Board.

2 Stephen Colledge, "the Protestant Joyner," executed 31 Aug. 1682. See "Brave Colledge is hang'd, the chief of our hopes," in 180 Loyal Songs, 1685, p. 64. His trade being the planing of boards and making of tables, as well as politics, he is here called the Board's "Master."

VI.

Some say, you Groan much like a Whigg,
Or rather like a Ranter;

Some say as loud and full as big
As Conventicle Canter.

VII.

Some say, you do Petition,
And think you represent
The woe, and sad condition
Of Old Rump Parliament.

VIII.

The wisest say, you are a Cheat;
Another Politician

Says, 'tis a Mistery as great
And true, as Hatfield Vision.1

IX.

Some say, 'tis a New Evidence,
Or Witness of the Plot;

And can Discover many things,
Which are the Lord knows what.

36

X.

And least you should the Plot Disgrace,
For wanting of a Name,

Narrative Board henceforth we'll place

In Registers of Fame.

London, Printed for T. P. in the year 1682.

40

[Probably this refers to Thomas Passinger, at the Three Bibles, on London-Bridge. In White-letter, and not before September.]

1 "Ben and Franck" have the credit of manufacturing some of these accounts of Battles in the Air. See p. 98.

THERE

Gilderoy.

HERE are two distinct versions of the Gilderoy ballad. One of these (A) is the five octave-verse "Scotch Song, called Gilderoy," in Westminster Drollery, 1671, Part 1st, p. 112. It begins thus:

Then follows what is our Bagford 5th verse, "In mickle joy," etc. (but with "Then wantonly he ligg'd," instead of "Then gently he did lay," etc.; and "I gate my Goon, and I followed him," ," in place of "But ever since I loved the Man"). The other three verses are quite distinct from those in the Bagford copy, and run thus :

3. Now Gilderoy was a bonny Boy,

Would needs to th' King be gone,
With his silken Garters on his legs,
And the Roses on his shoone:
Far better he had staid at home
With me his only joy,

For on a Gallow-tree they hung
My handsom Gilderoy.

4. When they had ta'ne this lad so strong,

Gude Lord, how sore they bound him,
They carried him to Edenb'rough Town,
And there God wot they hung him :
They knit him fast above the rest,
And I lost my only joy,

For ever more my Benison

Gang with my Gilderoy

5. Wo worth the man that made those Laws,

To hang a man for geare,

For neither stealing Ox nor Ass,

Or bony Horse or Meere :

Had not their Laws a bin so strict,

I might have got my joy:

[misprinted "genee"]

And ne'er had need tull a wat my cheek

For my dear Gilderoy.

This earliest printed version of 1671 has been little used, but

it reappears in the 1716 edition of " Miscellany Poems . . . By

the most eminent Hands, Published by Mr. Dryden. The Third Part," p. 321. It is virtually identical with the WestminsterDrollery copy. (See the present Editor's Reprint, Drolleries of the Restoration, Westm.-D., 1875, i. p. 112, and its Appendix, p. xliii.)

The other early version (B) is the one before us, contained in the Bagford Collection, beginning "Gilderoy was a bonny Boy." Here we have the original, or earliest copy extant (dating about 1685); of the version which, with corruptions and expurgations calling themselves "improvements," has come down in unceasing popularity through all the Scottish Song-books to the present day. We attach no weight whatever to the declaration of Mr. Stenhouse, to the effect that a black-letter copy exists dated 1650: it will be time enough to believe this when some more trustworthy authority asserts as much, and produces the printed broadsheet. We find this (B) version, with the music attached, in Pills to P. Melancholy, v. 39; 1719 (and also, it is said, in the "first edition of vol. iii. printed in 1703," which we have never seen). The chief difference is in the seventh verse, which, instead of ""Tis pity," etc., flows thus:

O never, never shall I see

:

The cause of my delight;
Or sike a lovely Lad as he,
Transport my Ravish'd sight:
The Law forbids what love enjoyns,
And does prevent our Joy;

Though just and fair were the designs
Of me and Gilderoy.

As to the prudish Lady Wardlaw, née Halket, who bears the credit, or discredit, of tampering with this and other old ballads or songs in Scotland, her share in remodelling "Gilderoy" must have been infinitesimally small. According to the generallyaccurate Alex. Whitelaw:- "She was born in 1677, married in 1696, and died in 1727. Her maiden name was Elizabeth Halket of Pitferran" (Bk. of Scot. Sgs., 1843, p. 560). Whitelaw's version, from her's, grounded on (B), has thirteen stanzas. Many writers, finding themselves insecure if claiming Gilderoy for her, attribute the song to "Sir Alexander Halket, her brother" but, we learn, "entirely through a mistake, there being in reality no such person,' says Dr. Robt. Chambers (Songs of Scotland prior to Burns, p. 27, n.d.); who was earlier the assertor of what is known as the "Wardlaw Heresy," in regard to her supposititious claim as author of many other Scottish ballads. (See Norval Clyne,' exposing these errors.)

1 The Romantic Scottish Ballads, and the Lady Wardlaw Heresy. [By Norval Clyne.] A. Brown & Co., Aberdeen, 1859, pp. 49. Norval Clyne returned to the assault in the additional notes to his spirited Ballads from Scottish History. Edmonston & Douglas, 1863. Robert Chambers's claim advanced for Lady Wardlaw's authorship of Sir Patrick Spens, and "upwards of a score of other popular Scottish ballads," was made in extenso in 1859: The Romantic Scottish Ballads, their Epoch and Authorship: Edinburgh Papers, First Series, pp. 46.

That she wrote the first part of the stilted and over-rated Hardyknute" seems probable enough (the second part, inferior, was John Pinkerton's manufacture, not to say forgery). And that she cobbled here and there at "". Gilderoy" much later than the Bagford printed version may be conceded to her admirers. But the version (A) had been extensively in print six years before she was born; and the other version (B) appeared when she was not more than eight years old: and in one or other of these is everything that is valuable of "Gilderoy." Gilderoy." So perhaps it may be deemed time now to let her "claims" pass into oblivion. No wonder that "words, phrases, and even whole lines" from the (A) version, as well as (B), appear in the Halketized "Gilderoy." A duplicate of (B) is in Pepys, v. 354.

In W. Thomson's Orpheus Caledonius, 1733, words and music of Gilderoy meet us, in vol. ii. p. 106. But among its seven verses there are three new ones inexpressibly silly, worthy of Wardlawism or Halketism; such as "Rhyming Wattie" in his coat of many colours, a century later, could have easily surpassed. They are merely curious now as being obsolete innovations, with their far-fetched rhymes of "Dalmahoy," "Foy," and "Croy;" and coarser language than the ballad heretofore possessed. So much for the refined taste of W. Thomson and the LondonScotch Song-men in 1733.1

1 Orpheus Caledonius being somewhat scarce, these wretched verses are here given, verbatim et literatim, degraded to a foot-note. They are the 3rd, 5th, and 6th:

When Gilderoy went to the Glen,

He always choos'd the Fat;
And in these days there were not ten,
With him durst bell the Cat:
For had he been as Walace stout,
And tall as Dalmahoy,

He never mist to get a Clout,
Frae my Love Gilderoy.

The Queen of Scots possessed nought,
That my Love let me want, &c.

But ah! they catch'd him on a Hill,
And baith his Hands they tied;
Alledging he had done much ill;

But Sons of Whores they lyed:
Three Gallons large of Usquebaugh,
We drank to his last Foy,

Before he went for Edinburgh,

My dearest Gilderoy.

To Edinburgh I followed fast;

But long e'er I came there,
They had him mounted on a Mast,
And wagging in the Air.

His Relicks there were mair esteem'd,
Than Scanderbeg and Croy;
And ev'ry Man was happy deem'd,
That gaz'd on Gilderoy.

Alas! that e'er such Laws were made
To hang, &c.

Had not the Laws then been so strict,
I had ne'er lost my joy;

But now he lodges with auld Nick,
That hang'd my Gilderoy.

This is what comes of feminine pruning and eking-out our literature. We

remember the Ecclesiazusa and the Thesmophoriazusa.