Traditional
MR. REEVES has selected a hundred-odd tradi" tional poems from the notebooks of Cecil giving unexpurgated texts as Sharp could not. result is delightful, and this book, following 0°1 upon The Common Muse of Messrs. Pinto ell Rodway, should give popular poetry its rightf.? influence again. Not all these poems are ore.tilY extinct; some continue to be sung, though us0el4 in debased versions and exclusively male CO munities. Yet they are, some of them, very Mr. Reeves prints one song that is reallY mediteval nonsense poem, and there are traces °t authentic balladry, as well as poems of the se", known to the learned as chansons d'aventure complaints of the mal mariee. As in the munuoer:s, plays, the letter has sometimes survived the sPir''t and Sharp's singers did not always know wha,,, they were singing about; but it is pretty strikimb to come upon the word courage used in the long -
obsolete sense of 'sexual vigour.'
The sexual conventions of this poetry are aiscP archaic and extremely unofficial. The lovesongs are about fornication, usually followed by OW riage; fornication is invariably fertile as wel1as pleasant, but marriage is sheer drudgery in be', and out, as if the singer were one of the Wife 0,1 Bath's earlier husbands. Here is a smart piece 0' dialogue: 0 I have been sick since you have been gone My sickness was all for want of a man
Poor wife said he Poor cuckold thought she.
The sexual symbolism of the love-songs is veil sophisticated and should have a strong modern appeal The editor's claim that these words donl deserve to be entirely passed over in favour 01 their accompanying tunes is well justified; the are some passages that should certainly not have lain so long obscure. Mr. Reeves's introduction sets out to make WO of some of the songs; he convinces me that lb° foggy dew' means 'unwanted virginity.' His tiotes could have been fuller; for instance, 'The Rani; bling Boy' is interesting for the glimpse it gives 01 a criminal's view of Fielding's admired reforms at Bow Street. And An' means not 'dagger' bot
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