Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/63

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Rollins
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when the ballad from which it derives its tune was having some vogue. This tune is used also for No. 32.


28. "A faithfull vow of two constant Louers. To the new Rogero."

The tune of "Rogero" is in Popular Music, I, 93 ff., but nothing is there told of the "New Rogero." Elderton's "Lamentation of Follie," which is to be sung to the latter tune, seems to have been printed after February 15, 1584 (cf. Collmann's Ballads and Broadsides, p. 118). No. 28 may have been added to the 1584 edition of the Handfull.


29. "A sorrowfull Sonet, made by M. George mannington, at Cambridge Castle. To the tune of Labandala Shot."

"A woefull ballade made by master George mannyngton an houre before he suffered at Cambridge castell 1576" was licensed, as was long ago pointed out, by Richard Jones on November 7, 1576 (Trans., II, 304). This is the most famous ballad in the entire collection, primarily because Jonson burlesqued it in Eastward Ho. Many other scornful references to it by Elizabethan writers could be pointed out. Samuel Rowlands, in his Melancholic Knight, 1615 (Works, ed. Hunterian Club, II, No. xxiv, p. 37), refers to "Thou scuruie Ballat of I wale in woe"; and the first line is burlesqued in Rowley's Match at Midnight, V, i, where Randall sings, "Hur wail in woe, hur plunge in pain." No one, I believe, has noticed that in the old play of Misogonus (Brandl's Quellen, p. 456) one of the characters sings a "songe to the tune of Labondolose Hoto," beginning,

O mighty Jove, some pitty take
One me poore wretch for christis sake.
Greif doth me gripe, payne doth me pinch,
Willfull dispite my harte doth wrinch,

which not only borrows Mannington's tune but also unmistakably imitates his style and diction. This imitation is of the highest importance, for it makes conclusive the argument some time ago advanced by Professor Kittredge (Jour. Germ. Phil., III, 339 ff.), that Misogonus was written, not in 1560 as Collier suggested, but circa 1578. Professor Kittredge holds that Laurence Johnson, B.A., 1573–4, M.A., 1577, of Cambridge, wrote Misogonus; and this indirect allusion to Mannington, who was hanged at Cambridge in 1576, undoubtedly favors his argument. R. W. Bond (Early Plays from the Italian, p. 171) thinks that Misogonus and its