printed by Ritson and others; but we have seen none so good as one printed in the Reliquiæ Antique, and contributed to that publication by Mr. David Laing, who found it in a MS. volume of "Metrical Romances and Moralizations," in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. We copy but a part of it: "This endurs (indoors?) night I see a sight, A star shone bright as day; And ever among a maiden's song, Was By, bye, lullay.' This endurs night, &c. "This lovely lady sat and sung, And till her child did say, 'My son, my lord, my Father dear, Why lies thou thus in hay? Mine own sweet brid, what art thou kyd (?) Never the less I will not cess To sing, "By, bye, lullay."' This endurs night, &c. "This child until his mother spake, Of this behest give me your breast, This endurs night, &c. "Mine own dear son, since it is thus 66 6 That thou art lord of all, Thou should have ordained thee some biding Should be in rich array; And yet for this I will not cess To sing, "By, bye, lullay." This endurs night, &c. My own dear son, to thee I say, That kings should come so far to thee And thou not them deny.' 'You sarwn (?) see the kinges three Upon the twelfé day; And for that sight, ye may be light To sing, "By, bye, lullay."" This endurs night, &c. Songs of the Fifteenth Century. "My own dear son, sin it is thus I pray thee, grant me a boon, Be merry on this day, To heaven bliss grant it his, And sing, "By, bye, lullay."" This endurs night," &c. 503 To the foregoing specimens of songs of the fifteenth century might be added one or two composed by Earl Rivers and other known writers. What we have quoted, however, must suffice by way of sample of English song-writing in that age. Nor can we go on to give specimens of the much superior song-writing of the first half of the sixteenth century,-that portion of the century which preceded the great age of English dramatic literature. It is enough to say, that the age of Henry VIII. seems to have been very prolific in songs of all kinds-political, satirical, moral, fantastic, and bacchanalian; and that it seems to have been at this time, in particular, that those quaint sentimental songs were put in circulation, of which Shakespeare was evidently so fond, and many snatches from which are quoted in his plays. It is to be remembered that by this time printing was doing its work in this as in other departments of literature, and that songs instead of being, as heretofore, confined to manuscript, were now circulated in black letter sheets,-the effect of which was to make the same songs popular over the whole nation, and even to make certain songs, with but variations of dialect, the common property of England and Scotland. Most of these blackletter sheets have perished; and though Percy and others have recovered some of the old songs of that period entire, it is chiefly by their titles, or by scraps of them cited in the dramas of Elizabeth's time, that their character is known. A list of some fifty or sixty songs might be made out, all of the pre-Elizabethan part of the sixteenth century, of which scraps varying from a line to a verse or two in length still survive. On the history of English song, as it was affected by the all but universal determination of the national genius towards the Drama, which took place in the latter part of the sixteenth century, we do not so much as enter. To those who desire to study this subject we recommend Mr. Bell's judicious and pleasant little collection of "Songs from the Dramatists;" while to those whose curiosity extends over the larger subject of the history of English song-writing from the sixteenth century to the present day, we may recommend the "Illustrated Book of English Songs," where there will be found an ample selection of songs of all kinds ranged in chronological series. On the first topic, we will only say that it seems to us that the cause of song was improved by the rise of the national drama-not only because the necessity of lyrical interpolations on the stage, to be sung before large audiences, created a demand for finer and more finished songs than had previously existed, but also because, as we have already hinted, the composition of songs for dramatic situations seems more suited to the English genius for song, such as it is, than the composition of songs expressing primary and personal feeling. On the second point we will say, that, with considerable acquaintance with such English songs as have been composed since the sixteenth century, we know none that, in their kind, are half so exquisite, and true, and deep, as the lyrical snatches that occur in the plays of Shakespeare. Greatest in every other respect, he is greatest in this too; and if any Englishman were to risk the assertion, that the English could produce one or two songs as good as any of the Scotch, his only chance of not being laughed at, would be in proving his assertion by singing, as sweetly and thrillingly as we have heard them sung more than once, several of Shakespeare's keenest ditties. But Shakespeare knew the conditions of a true song: "That piece of song, That old and antique song, we heard last night, Mark it, Cesario; it is old and plain; The spinsters and the knitters in the sun, And the free maids that weave their thread with bones, Do use to chaunt it; it is silly sooth, And dallies with the innocence of love, Like the old age." ART. VIII.-1. Table Traits, and Something on them. By DR. DORAN. Second Edition. London, 1854. ,, 2. Habits and Men; with Remnants of Records touching the Makers of both. By DR. DORAN, Author of "Table Traits,' &c. London, 1854. IF books find readers in proportion to the interest which their subject-matter awakens in the universal heart of society, these volumes must soon make their way into general circulation. We think of nothing so much as of our food and clothing, and the means of obtaining them. With a vast majority of men the necessity of providing food and clothing for themselves and their dependents is the great origin of human action. For food and clothing the labourer toils, the artisan drudges, the soldier dies, the author writes, the divine preaches, the lawyer argues, the physician cures. They are, indeed, the Alpha and Omega of humanity. In other words, they are the marks of the beast. They separate the human from the divine, and remind us almost every hour of our lives what miserable finite creatures we are. This is a very obvious commonplace, but it is one of which, to speak paradoxically, we are only insensibly sensible. We are continually feeling the truth of it in detail, but we seldom recognise it broadly as a whole. To the very poor-the many condemned to endure day by day the misery of absolute cold and hunger-who do not ask what they shall eat, or what they shall drink, or wherewithal they shall be clothed, but how they shall eat, and drink, and clothe themselves at all-this great matter of food and clothing is necessarily omnipresent, both in its integrity and its details. But, addressing ourselves to those who eat and drink and are sufficiently clothed, as a matter of course who know neither the agony of famine, nor the intense enjoyment of a full meal after a protracted fast-to the classes, indeed, to which the readers of this Journal mainly belong, we would ask whether it has ever occurred to them at the end of a day to consider how large a portion of their thoughts has been devoted to, and in how large a degree both the pains and pleasures of the day have resulted from, the various complications of the great question of Food and Clothing. We speak now of the direct and immediate relations of cause and effect, without pressing into our service those lengthened chains or concatenations of accident, by following which we may often trace to some point of diet or costume a link-line of circumstances more or less affecting the happiness or misery of thousands. It has been said, that an indigestion lost to Napoleon the Great the battle of Leipzig. We have little doubt in our own minds that the sanguinary contest which is now filling with fear and trembling so many homes in the three greatest countries of Europe, has its origin, humanly speaking, in some error of diet or costume-most probably of both—affecting the august person of the Czar Nicholas. But it is not, we say, of the remote and conjectural which we are now speaking, but of things much nearer and more demonstrable. Many a day's comfort and happiness have been destroyed by the loss of a button. A tight boot has turned joy into sorrow, thrown a pall over the beauties and benignities of Nature, and made the fresh cool air of heaven little better than a parching sirocco. A glass of wine and a biscuit have changed the whole aspect of the future, and given the fainting heart new courage to fight the battle of life, and to win it by brave exertions. Can we answer for the equanimity of any man who finds that his dinner and his wife are both badly dressed? The same verb is of common application to both cases. Cookery, indeed, is but the art of costume appealing to the palate, instead of to the eye; or rather to the palate as well as to the eye. There is a sort of confusion, or joint-action as it were, of the senses, at times, which it is easy to understand, but difficult to explain. When the old Greek wrote KTÚπov Sécорka, (I saw the sound,) he used, doubtless, a bold figure; but it was an expressive one. The modern poet has no misgivings when he writes of the visible "music breathing from the face" of a young beauty. When Mr. Fudge, of the famous family of that name, speaks of the "eatable" little grisettes whom he saw in Paris, we by no means set him down as a cannibal. It is common to speak of a dish looking nice or savoury; and we may often know by the look of it how it will taste. This is partly the effect of experience and association. But there is some intuition in it nevertheless. And yet, on the other hand, it is certain that many articles of food which we know to be savoury to the taste, have a very forbidding appearance to the eye. Indeed, the marvel is in such cases how we ever came to eat them. We wonder that Dr. Doran has not given us a chapter on "the origin of certain dishes." There would be room in it for little fact, but for a world of pleasant speculation and conjecture. We need hardly recall any reader's recollection to Charles Lamb's essay on the Origin of Roast Pig. It has often been said that he must have been a bold man who first ate an oyster. This is said in ignorance of the legend which assigns the first act of oyster-eating to a very natural cause. It is related that a man walking one |