Though I no more will have, I must not love disdain; Penelope her self Did suitors entertain.
And yet to draw on such As are of best esteem, Nor younger than I am Nor richer will I seem."
_Page_ 41. "I have house and land in Kent."--This admirable song has been frequently reprinted. Miss De Vaynes, in her very valuable "Kentish Garland" (i., 142), observes:--"We have met with no other song in the Kentish dialect except Jan Ploughshare's" (printed on p. 372, vol. i., of the "Garland"). Rimbault in his "Little Book of Songs and Ballads" (1851), gives the following lines from an old MS. (temp. Henry VIII.):--
"Joan, quoth John, when will this be? Tell me when wilt thou marry me, My corn and eke my calf and rents, My lands and all my tenements? Say, Joan, quoth John, what wilt thou do? I cannot come every day to woo?"
David Herd printed a fragment of a Scotch song that was founded on the English song:--
"I hae layen three herring a' sa't, Bonny lass, gin ze'll take me, tell me now, And I hae brew'n three pickles o' ma't And I cannae cum ilka day to woo. _To woo, to woo, to lilt and to woo, And I cannae cum ilka day to woo_.
I hae a wee ca'f that wad fain be a cow, Bonny lassie, gin ye'll take me, tell me now, I hae a wee gryce that wad fain be a sow, And I cannae cum ilka day to woo. _To woo, to woo, to lilt and to woo, And I cannae cum ilka day to woo_."
_Page_ 43. "I joy not in no earthly bliss."--These stanzas are usually printed with "My mind to me a kingdom is" (p. 78), and the whole poem has been attributed to Sir Edward Dyer.
_Page_ 47. "I weigh not Fortune's frown nor smile."--These lines (which seem to have been modelled on "I joy not in no earthly bliss") are by Joshua Sylvester.
In the second stanza, "I sound not at the news of wreck," _sound_ is an old form of _swoon_.
_Page_ 52. "If women could be fair."--This poem is ascribed to Edward, Earl of Oxford, in Rawlinson, MS. 85, fol. 16.
_Page_ 53. "In darkness let me dwell."--These lines are also found in Robert Dowland's "Musical Banquet," 1610, set to music by John Dowland.
_Page_ 57. "In the merry month of May."--First printed in "The Honorable Entertainment given to the Queen's Majesty in Progress at Elvetham in Hampshire, by the Right Honorable the Earl of Hertford," 1591, under the title of "The Ploughman's Song."