accomplishment is so constantly attributed to females, by our ancient bards, as their singing to, and playing on, the harp. (A a 2)

In the fourth year of King Richard II., John of Gaunt erected at Tutbury in Staffordshire, a court of Minstrels, similar to that annually kept at Chester, and which, like a court-leet or court baron, had a legal jurisdiction, with full power to receive suit and service from the men of this profession within five neighbouring counties, to enact laws, and determine their controversies; and to apprehend and arrest such of them as should refuse to appear at the said court annually held on the 16th of August. For this they had a charter, by which they were empowered to appoint a King of the Minstrels with four officers to preside over them.(B b) These were every year elected with great ceremony; the whole form of which, as observed in 1680, is described by Dr. Plot:* in whose time, however, they appear to have lost their singing talents, and to have confined all their skill to "wind and string music."+

The Minstrels seem to have been in many respects upon the same footing as the heralds and the King of the Minstrels, like the king at arms, was both here and on the Continent an usual officer in the courts of princes. Thus we have in the reign of King Edward I. mention of a King Robert and others. And in 16 Edward II. is a grant to William de Morlee, "the King's Minstrel, styled Roy de North," of houses which had belonged to another king, John le Boteler. (B b 2) Rymer hath also printed a license granted by King Richard II. in 1387, to John Caumz, the King of his Minstrels, to pass the seas, recommending him to the protection and kind treatment of all his subjects and allies.?

In the subsequent reign of King Henry IV. we meet with no particulars relating to the Minstrels in England, but we find in the Statute Book a severe law passed against

Hist. of Staffordshire, ch. 10, 69-76, p. 433 et seqq., of which see Extracts in Sir J. Hawkins's Hist. of Music, vol. ii. p. 64; and Dr. Burney's Hist. vol. ii. p. 360 et seqq.

N. B. The barbarous diversion of bull-running was no part of the original institution, &c., as is fully proved by the Rev. Dr. Pegge, in Archæologia, vol. ii. no. xiii. p. 86.

† See the charge given by the Steward, at the time of the election, in Plot's Hist. ubi supra; and in Hawkins, p. 67. Burney, p. 363-4.

So among the Heralds Norrey was anciently styled Roy d'Armes de North. (Anstis, ii. 300.) And the Kings at Armes in general were originally called Reges Heraldorum (Ibid. p. 302), as these were Reges Minstrallorum. Rymer's Foedera, tom. vii. p. 555.

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their brethren the Welsh Bards; whom our ancestors could not distinguish from their own Rimours Ministralx; for by these names they describe them.(B b 3) This act plainly shows, that far from being extirpated by the rigorous policy of King Edward I., this order of men were still able to alarm the English government, which attributed to them 'many diseases and mischiefs in Wales," and prohibited their meetings and contributions. When his heroic son King Henry V. was preparing his great voyage for France, in 1415, an express order was given for his Minstrels, fifteen in number, to attend him ;* and eighteen are afterwards mentioned, to each of whom he allowed xii. d. a day, when that sum must have been of more than ten times the value it is at present.† Yet when he entered London in triumph after the battle of Agincourt, he, from a principle of humility, slighted the pageants and verses which were prepared to hail his return; and, as we are told by Holingshed, ‡ would not suffer "any dities to be made and song by Minstrels, of his glorious victorie; for that he would whollie have the praise and thankes altogether given to God." (B b 4) But this did not proceed from any disregard for the professors of music or of song; for at the feast of Pentecost, which he celebrated in 1416, having the Emperor and the Duke of Holland for his guests, he ordered rich gowns for sixteen of his Minstrels, of which the particulars are preserved by Rymer.? And having before his death orally granted an annuity of one hundred shillings to each of his Minstrels, the grant was confirmed in the first year of his son King Henry VI., A. D. 1423, and payment ordered out of the Exchequer.

See his Chronicle, sub anno 1415, p. 1170. He also

gives this other instance of the king's great modesty, "that he would not suffer his helmet to be carried with him, and

shewed to the people, that they might behold the dintes and cuttes whiche appeared in the same, of such blowes and stripes as hee received the daye of the battell." Ibid. Vid. T. de Elmham, c. 29, p. 72.

The prohibition against vain and secular songs would probably not include that inserted in Series the Second Book I. No. V., which would be considered as a hymn. The original notes engraven on a plate at the end of the vol. may be seen reduced and set to score in Mr. Stafford Smith's "Collection of English Songs for three and four Voices," and in Dr. Burney's Hist. of Music, ii. p. 384. ? Tom. ix. 336.

Rymer, tom. x. 287. They are mentioned by name, being ten in number: one of them was named Thomas Chatterton.

The unfortunate reign of King Henry VI. affords no occurrences respecting our subject; but in his 34th year, A. D. 1456, we have in Rymer* a commission for impressing boys or youths, to supply vacancies by death among the King's Minstrels : in which it is expressly directed that they shall be elegant in their limbs, as well as instructed in the Minstrel art, wherever they can be found, for the solace of his majesty.

In the following reign, King Edward IV. (in his 9th year, 1469), upon a complaint that certain rude husbandmen and artificers of various trades had assumed the title and livery of the King's Minstrels, and under that colour and pretence had collected money in diverse parts of the kingdom, and committed other disorders, the king grants to Walter Haliday, Marshal, and to seven others his own Minstrels whom he names, a charter,† by which he creates, or rather restores, a fraternity or perpetual gild (such as, he understands, the brothers and sisters of the frater nity of Minstrels had in times past), to be governed by a Marshall appointed for life, and by two Wardens to be chosen annually; who are empowered to admit brothers and sisters into the said gild, and are authorized to examine the pretensions of all such as affected to exercise the Minstrel profession; and to regulate, govern, and punish them throughout the realm (those of Chester excepted). This seems to have some resemblance to the Earl Marshal's court among the heralds, and is another proof of the great affinity and resemblance which the Minstrels bore to the members of the College of Arms.

It is remarkable that Walter Haliday, whose name occurs as marshal in the foregoing charter, had been retained in the service of the two preceding monarchs, King Henry V. and VI. Nor is this the first time he is mentioned as Marshal of the King's Minstrels, for in the third year of this reign 1464, he had a grant from King Edward of 10 marks per annum during life, directed to him with that title.

But besides their Marshal, we have also in this reign mention of a Sergeant of the Minstrels, who upon a particular occasion was able to do his royal master a singular service, wherein his confidential situation and ready access to the king at all hours is very apparent: for "as he [King Edward IV.] was in the north contray in the monneth of Septembre, as he lay in his bedde, one namid Alexander Carlile, that was Sariaunt of the Mynstrellis, cam to him in grete hast, and badde hym aryse for he hadde enemyes cummyng for to take him, the which were within vi. or vii. mylis, of the which tydinges the king gretely marveylid," &c.* This happened in the same year, 1469, wherein the king granted or confirmed the charter for the fraternity or gild above mentioned; yet this Alexander Carlile is not one of the eight Minstrels to whom that charter is directed.†

The same charter was renewed by King Henry VIII. in 1520, to John Gilman, his then marshal, and to seven others his Minstrels and on the death of Gilman, he granted in 1529, this office of Marshal of his Minstrels to Hugh Wodehouse, whom I take to have borne the office of his serjeant over them.]]

VI. In all the establishments of royal and noble households, we find an ample provision made for the Minstrels; and their situation to have been both honourable and lucrative. In proof of this it is sufficient to refer to the household book of the Earl of Northumberland, A. D. 1512. (Ce) And the rewards they received so frequently recur in ancient writers that it is unnecessary to crowd the page with them here. (C c 2)

The name of Minstrel seems however to

*Here unfortunately ends a curious fragment (an. 9 R. IV.), ad calcem Sprotti Chron. Ed. Hearne. Oxon. 1719, 8vo. Vid. T. Warton's Hist. ii. p. 134. Note (c). Rymer, xi. 642. Ibid. xiii. 705.

Rymer, tom. xiv. 2, 93.

So I am inclined to understand the term Serviens noster Hugo Wodehous, in the original grant., (See Rymer ubi supra.) It is needless to observe that Serviens expressed a serjeant as well as a servant. If this interpretation of Serviens be allowed, it will account for his placing Wodehouse at the head of his gild, although he had not been one of the eight minstrels who had had the general direction. The Serjeant of his Minstrels, we may presume, was next in dignity to the Marshal, although he had no share in the government of the gild.

have been gradually appropriated to the musician only, especially in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, yet we occasionally meet with applications of the term in its more enlarged meaning, as including the Singer, if not the composer, of heroic or popular rhymes.*

In the time of King Henry VIII., we find it to have been a common entertainment to hear verses recited, or moral speeches learned for that purpose by a set of men who got their livelihood by repeating them, and who intruded without ceremony into all companies; not only in taverns, but in the houses of the nobility themselves. This we learn from Erasmus, whose argument led him only to describe a species of these men who did not sing their compositions; but the others that did, enjoyed, without doubt, the same privileges.(D d)

For even long after, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it was usual in places of assembly" for the company to be "desirous to heare of old adventures and valiaunces of noble knights in times past, as those of King Arthur, and his knights of the round table, Sir Bevys of Southampton, Guy of Warwicke, and others like" in "short and long meetres, and by breaches or divisions, [sc. Fits†] to be more commodiously sung to the harpe," as the reader may be informed by a courtly writer, in 1589.‡ Who himself had "written for pleasure a little briefe romance or historicall ditty. . . . . of the Isle of Great Britaine," in order to contribute to such entertainment. And he subjoins this caution: "Such as have not premonition hereof," (viz. that his poem was written in short metre, &c., to be sung to the harp in such places of assembly,) "and consideration of the causes alledged, would peradventure reprove and disgrace every romance, or short historicall ditty, for that they be not written in long meeters or verses Alexandrins," which constituted the prevailing versification among the poets of that age, and which no one now can endure to read.

And that the recital of such romances sung to the harp was at that time the delight of the common people, we are told by the same writer, who mentions that "common rimers"

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were fond of using rimes at short distances, "in small and popular musickes song by these Cantabanqui" [the said common rimers] upon benches and barrels heads," &c., “or else by blind Harpers or such like Taverne Minstrels that give a fit of mirth for a groat; and their matter being for the most part stories of old time, as the tale of Sir Topas, the reportes of Bevis of Southampton, Guy of Warwicke, Adam Bell, and Clymme of the Clough, and such other old romances, or historicall rimes," &c., "also they be used in carols and rounds, and such light or lascivious poemes, which are commonly more commodiously uttered by these buffons, or vices in playes, then by any other person. Such were the rimes of Skelton (usurping the name of a Poet Laureat), being in deede but a rude railing rimer, and all his doings ridiculous."*

But although we find here that the Minstrels had lost much of their dignity, and were sinking into contempt and neglect, yet that they still sustained a character far supe rior to anything we can conceive at present of the singers of old ballads, I think, may be inferred from the following representation.

When Queen Elizabeth was entertained at Killingworth Castle by the Earl of Leicester in 1575, among the many devices and pageants which were contrived for her entertainment, one of the personages introduced was to have been that of an ancient Minstrel; whose appearance and dress are so minutely described by a writer there present,† and gives us so distinct an idea of the character, that I shall quote the passage at large. (E e)

"A person very meet seemed he for the purpose, of a xlv years old, apparelled partly as he would himself. His cap off: his head seemly rounded tonsterwise:‡ fair kembed, that with a sponge daintily dipt in a little capon's greace was finely smoothed, to make it shine like a mallard's wing. His beard smugly shaven: and yet his shirt after the new trink, with ruffs fair starched, sleeked

Puttenham, &c., p. 69.

† See a very curious "Letter: whearin, part of the enter tainment untoo the Queenz Maiesty, at Killingwoorth Castl, in Warwick Sheer, in this soomerz progress 1575, iz signi fied," &c., bl. 1. 4to. vid. p. 46 & seqq. (Printed in Nichols's Collection of Queen Elizabeth's Progresses, &c., in two vols. 4to.) We have not followed above the peculiar and affected orthography of this writer, who was named Ro. Laneham, or rather Langham; see p. 84.

I suppose "tonsure-wise," after the manner of the Monks.

finest Scottish ballads is laid in the south of Scotland; which should seem to have been peculiarly the nursery of Scottish Minstrels. In the old song of Maggy Lawder, a piper is asked, by way of distinction, "come ze frae the border?"* The martial spirit constantly kept up and exercised near the frontier of the two kingdoms, as it furnished continual subjects for their songs, so it inspired the inhabitants of the adjacent counties on both sides with the powers of poetry. Besides, as our southern metropolis must have been ever the scene of novelty and refinement, the northern countries, as being most distant, would preserve their ancient manners longest, and of course the old poetry, in which those manners are peculiarly described.

The reader will observe in the more ancient ballads of this collection, a cast of style and measure very different from that of contemporary poets of a higher class; many phrases and idioms, which the Minstrels seem to have appropriated to themselves, and a very remarkable license of varying the accent of words at pleasure, in order to humour the flow of the verse, particularly in the rhymes; as

also help to account for the superior skill and fame of our

northern Minstrels and Harpers afterwards, who had preserved and transmitted the arts of their Scaldic ancestors.

See Northern Antiquities, vol. i. c. 13, p. 386, and Five Pieces of Runic Poetry, 1763, 8vo.-Compare the original passage in Giraldus, as given by Sir John Hawkins, i. 408, and by Dr. Burney, ii. 108, who are both at a loss to account

for this peculiarity, and therefore doubt the fact. The credit of Giraldus, which hath been attacked by some partial and bigoted antiquaries, the reader will find defended in that learned and curious work, "Antiquities of Ireland, by Edward Led wich, LL.D., &c., Dublin, 1790," 4to., p. 207 & seqq.

* This line being quoted from memory, and given as old Scottish Poetry is now usually printed, would have been readily corrected by the copy published in "Scottish Songs, 1794," 2 vols., 12mo. i. p. 267, thus (though apparently corrupted from the Scottish Idiom),

"Live you upo' the Border?" had not all confidence been destroyed by its being altered in the "Historical Essay" prefixed to that publication

(p. ex.) to

"Ye live upo' the Border."

the better to favour a position, that many of the pipers

"might live upon the border, for the conveniency of attend

ing fairs, &c., in both kingdoms." But whoever is acquainted with that part of England, knows that on the

English frontier, rude mountains and barren wastes reach almost across the island, scarcely inhabited by any but solitary shepherds; many of whom durst not venture into the opposite border on account of the ancient feuds and subsequent disputes concerning the Debateable Lands, which separated the boundaries of the two kingdoms, as

well as the estates of the two great families of Percy and

Douglas, till these disputes were settled not many years

since by arbitration between the present Lord Douglas and

the late Duke and Duchess of Northumberland.

Countrie harpèr Ladie

battel morning singèr damsèl loving,

instead of country, làdy, hàrper, sìnger, &c.— This liberty is but sparingly assumed by the classical poets of the same age; or even by the latter composers of heroical ballads; I mean, by such as professedly wrote for the press. For it is to be observed, that so long as the Minstrels subsisted, they seem never to have designed their rhymes for literary publication, and probably never committed them to writing themselves: what copies are preserved of them were doubtless taken down from their mouths. But as the old Minstrels gradually wore out, a new race of balladwriters succeeded, an inferior sort of minor poets, who wrote narrative songs merely for the press. Instances of both may be found in the reign of Elizabeth. The two latest pieces in the genuine strain of the old minstrelsy that I can discover, are No. III. and IV. of Book III., Series the First. Lower than these I cannot trace the old mode of writing.

The old Minstrel ballads are in the northern dialect, abound with antique words and phrases, are extremely incorrect, and run into the utmost license of metre; they have also a romantic wildness, and are in the true spirit of chivalry. The other sort are written in exacter measure, have a low or subordinate correctness, sometimes bordering on the insipid, yet often well adapted to the pathetic: these are generally in the southern dialect, exhibit a more modern phraseology, and are commonly descriptive of more modern manners.-To be sensible of the difference between them, let the reader compare in Series the First, No. III. of Book III., with No. XI. of Book II.

Towards the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign (as is mentioned above), the genuine old minstrelsy seems to have been extinct, and thenceforth the ballads that were produced were wholly of the latter kind, and these came forth in such abundance, that in the reign of James I. they began to be collected into little miscellanies, under the name of garlands, and at length to be written purposely for such collections. (F f 2)

P.S.-By way of Postscript, should follow here the discussion of the question whether the term Minstrels was applied in English to Singers, and Composers of Songs, &c., or confined to Musicians only. But it is reserved for the concluding note. (G g)