CAROLS.
DR. PiftuiPs has written a very delightful little book on Carols, Their Origin, Music, and Connection with Mystery-Plays. (Rout- ledge. 6s. net.) The first carol, presumably, was sung at the Christmas creche of St. Francis, in Grecia, near Assisi. For a time the carol had its place as an interlude between the scenes of Mystery plays, and in this r6le became so popular that the players were frequently mobbed, as at Chester, because the audience did not get as many carols as it wanted. This popu- larity eventually caused the carol to be detached from its place in the Mysteries, and in the fifteenth century it was commonly sung alone. Dr. Phillips gives his readers many interesting old carols. The following we quote because it is a quaint example
of the Poetical Salad which not long ago was the subject of an article in these columns :-
" Now make we joy in this feast, In quo Christus natus est.
A Patre Unigenitus Through a maid is come to us.
Sing we of Him and say, Welcome, Veal, Redemptor gentium.
0 lux beata Trinitas, That lay between an ox and ass.
Beside His mother maiden free, Gloria Tibi Domine."
There are several other couplets with this effective rhyming of Latin and English lines. It is curious that few good carols were written by the Elizabethans, whose attempts were pastoral and hymn-like, and lacked the fervour of earlier times. Dr. Phillips deserves the gratitude of his readers for including a number of little known tunes, such as the Coventry carol, " Orientus Partibus." A good carol tune has a character of its own. Many of the old ones, of course, were merely folk- songs and popular dances fitted to religious words and used in other seasons of the year for secular purposes. The woodcuts with which this book is illustrated well recapture the atmosphere of the subject.
Previous page
