An American Garland. Edited by C. H. Firth, M.A. (B.
A. Blackwell, Oxford. 3s. 6d. net.)This is a collection of con- temporary ballads relating to the disecivery and colonization of America, and should prove most attractive to the student of history. Many of them are here reprinted for the first time, and some, from Professor Firth's own collection, have been hitherto unknown. They make quaint ,and curious _reading. " A West-Country' Man's Voyage to New England," taken from The Merry Drollery (1661), begins thus :- " My Masters give audience, and listen to me, And atreight the will tell you where ehe have 'be ; Che have' been in New-England, but now chain come o'er, itch do think they shal catch me go thither no more.
Before ohe went o'er Lord how Voice did toll
Bow vishes did grow, and how birds did dwell All one among t'other, in the wood and the water,
Che thought had been true, but the find no such matter."
The same note of disillusion is to be found in the sad lament of " The Trepann'd Maiden," from which we quote the following :—
" Instead of Beds of Ease to lye down when I please, In the Land of Virginny, 0;
Upon a bed-of straw, I lye down full of woe,
When that I am weary, weary, weary, weary, 0.
Then the Spider she, daily waits on me,
In the Land of Virginny, 0 ; Round about my bed, she spins her web (of thread), When that I am weary, weary, weary, weary, 0.
So soon as it is day, to work I must away, In the Land of Virginny, U :
Then my Dame she knocks, with her tinder-box. When that I am weary, weary, weary, weary, 0."
We may add that Professor Firth's introduction is as interesting as the ballads.
Previous page
