_Au, but what say yow should it shance too,_ _That we should leap it in a dance too,_ _And make it you as great a pleasure,_ _If but your eyes be now at leisure;_ _As in your ears s’all leave a laughter,_ _To last upon you six days after?_ _Ha! well-a-go to, let us try to do,_ _As your old ~Britton~, things to be writ on._
CHORUS.—_Come, put on other looks now,_ _And lay away your hooks now;_ _And though yet yow ha’ no pump, sirs,_ _Let ’em hear that yow can jump, sirs,_ _Still, still, we’ll toudge your ears,_ _With the praise of her thirteen s’eeres._
(See Col. F. Cunningham’s “Mermaid” Ben Jonson, iii. 130-2, for Gifford’s Notes.) With a quaint old woodcut of a strutting Welshman, in cap and feather, the song reappears in “_Recreations for Ingenious Head-pieces_,” 1645 (_Wits Recreations_, Reprint, p. 387).
This is attributed to THOMAS RANDALL, or RANDOLPH (died 1634-5), in _Wit and Mirth_, 1684. p. 101: But to N. N., along with music by Hy. Lawes, in his _Ayres_, Book ii. p. 29, 1655. It is also in _Parnassus Biceps_, 1656, p. 158, “_All_ Poets,” &c., and in _Sportive Wit_, p. 60.
With music in _Pills_, vi. 182; title, “The Presbyter’s Gill:” where we find three other verses, as 4th, 5th, and 7th:—
_The stout-brested ~Lombard~, His brains ne’er incumbred,_ _With drinking of Gallons three;_ _~Trycongius~ was named, And by ~Cæsar~ famed,_ _Who dubb’d him Knight Cap-a-pee._
_If then Honour be in’t, Why a Pox should we stint_ _Ourselves of the fulness it bears?_ _H’ has less Wit than an Ape, In the blood of a Grape,_ _Will not plunge himself o’er Head and Ears._
_See the bold Foe appears, May he fall that him Fears,_ _Keep you but close order, and then_ _We will give him the Rout, Be he never so stout[,]_ _And prepare for his Rallying agen._
The accumulative progression, humourously exaggerated, is to be seen employed in other Drinking Songs; notably in “Here’s a Health to the Barley-Mow, my brave boys!” (still heard at rural festivals in East Yorkshire, and printed in J. H. Dixon’s _Bds. & Sgs. of the Peasantry_, Bell’s annotated edit., p. 159) and “Bacchus Overcome,” beginning “My Friend and I, we drank,” &c. (in _Coll. Old Bds._, iii. 145, 1725.)
With music by Henry Lawes, in his Select Ayres, i. 32, 1653, entitled “The Excellency of Wine:” the author was “LORD BROUGHALL” [query, Broghill?].