SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
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Augutt. I un Darned the bote monetb of Augiut For redolent heate of Phebna bri^htnes In raj time eche man ou^t for to haue lust To lalioor in bamest, with great bnsynes To repe & itieffe, eschewing ydlenea And ry»e early with pcrfyte diligence Tluuikiiig our Loide of bis great prouidence.
September. Who can my name perfitely remember With the commodities of my season Ought cmF right to call me Septemb^ Flenteona <rf goodes by all maner reson As wheate, rye, otes, beanes, fytchea & peason Of which froite eaery man ought to haue in store To line directly, & thanke our Lorde therefore.
October. Among the other October I hight Ftende unto vinteners naturally And in my time Bacchus is ready dight All maner wyne to presse and clarify Of which is sacred as we see daily Tbe blessed body of Christ in fleshe and blode Which is our hope refection and fode,
Htnember. I Nooenaber will not abyde behynde To shewe my kindely wortbynesse and Tre For in my time the blastes of the wynde Abateth leaues and shedeth their Terduie Wherefore enery pradent creature Ought for to lyne right as they would dye For aU thinge taketh end natoially.
December, December every man doth me call In whose time the mother inniolate DUinered was in an old oxe stall Of Jean Christ Gods owne Sonne incarnate Wherefore I thinke me the most fortunate Of all the other, to whom pray we then That we may come unto his blisse. Amen.
Only two devices were used by Notary, of which there are a very few variations. The fol- lowing is a representation of one of them : —
HerbertVcopy of the Scala Petfectiont, print- ed by Notary, had " stamped on the covers on one side the king's arms, crowned, supported by a diagon and a greyhound ; on the other the rose encompassed by two Latin verses, Hac rosa tirtutU, Sre. In the upper comers are the city anns, wiUi the sun on one side and half-moon on the other. In the centre at the bottom are his maA and initials."
John Barbier, who is stated by La Caille, in big Hutoire de Vlmprivwne et de la Librairie, to have been a printer of considerable skill, and, besides being in partnership with Julian Notary, was much employed by the most eminent typo- gnpheis of his day. How long he remained to
exereise the profession, or when he died, does not appear.
I62I. The earliest collection of Christmas Carols supposed to have been published, is only known from the last leaf of a volume printed by Wynkyn de Worde, in this year. Christmaite carolle$ newely enprtnted at London, in lAeJUte- ttrete at the tygne of the Sonne hy Wynkyn de Worde. The ycre of our lorde, m.d.xxi. Quarto. This precious scrap was picked up by Tom Heame. Dr. Rawlinson, who purchased it at his decease, in a volume of tracts, bequeathed it to the Bodleian Kbrary. There are two carols upon it : one, " a caroll of huntynge," is re- printed in the last edition of Juliana Bemers' Bohe of St. Alhan't ; the other, " a caroll, bringing in the bore's head," is in Mr. Dibdin's Ames, with a copy of it as it is now sung in Queen's college, Oxford, every Christmas-oay, " to the common chaunt of the prose version of the Psalms in cathedrals." Dr. Bliss, of Oxford, also printed on a sheet for private distribution, a few copies of this and Antony Wood's version of it, with notices concerning the custom, from the handwritings of Wood and Dr. Rawlinson, in the Bodleian library. Ritson, in his ill-tempered Obtervatiom on Warton't Hittory of Engliih Poetry, has a Christmas Mrol upon bringing up the boar's head, from an ancient manuscript in his possession, wholly diflilrent from Dr. Bliss's. The Biblioyraphical Miicellaniei, contains seven carols, from a collection in one volume in the possession of Dr. Cotton, of Christ-chureh college, Oxford, " inprynted at London, in the Powftry, by Richard Kele, dwellyng at the longe shop vnder saynt Myldred's Chyrche," probably "between 1546 and 1652." There are carols among the Godly and Spiritual Soryi and Ba- lates, in " Scotish Poems of the sixteenth cen- tury ;" and one by Dunbar, from the Bannatyne manuscript in ATicient Scottith Poena. Others are in Mr. Ellis's edition of Brand's Popular An- tiquities, with several useful notices. Warton's Hittory of English Poefra contains much con- cerning old carols. Mr. Douce, in his Jtlus- tratiom of Shakspeare, gives a specimen of the carol sung by the shepherds on the birth of Christ in one of the Coventry plays.
The custom of singing carols at Christmas prevails in Ireland to the present time.* In Scotland, where no church feasts have been kept since the days of John Knox, the custom is un- known. InWalesitis still preserved to a greater extent, perhaps, than in England ; at a former period, the Welsh had carols adapted to mOst of the ecclesiastical festivals, and the four seasons of the year, but at this time they are limited to that of Christmas.
• Mr. Soothey, describing the flgbt upon the Plain of Patay, tells of one who fell, as having
In his lord's castle dwelt, for many a year, A well-beloved servant : he could sing Carols for Shrove-tide, or for Candlemas, Songs for the Wassel, and when the Boar's head Crown'd with gay garlands, and with rosemary, Smok'd on the Christmas board.— /mm of Arc.
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