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LIBRARY OF THE WORLD'S BEST LITERATURE ANCIENT AND MODERN

CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER

EDITOR

HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE LUCIA GILBERT RUNKLE GEORGE HENRY WARNER

ASSOCIATE EDITORS

Connoisseur Edition

VOL. XV.

NEW YORK THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY

Connoisseur Edition

LIMITED TO FIVE HUNDRED COPIES IN HALF RUSSIA

_No_. ..........

Copyright, 1896, by R. S. PEALE AND J. A. HILL _All rights reserved_

THE ADVISORY COUNCIL

CRAWFORD H. TOY, A. M., LL. D., Professor of Hebrew, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, Cambridge, Mass.

THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY, LL. D., L. H. D., Professor of English in the Sheffield Scientific School of YALE UNIVERSITY, New Haven, Conn.

WILLIAM M. SLOANE, PH. D., L. H. D., Professor of History and Political Science, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, Princeton, N. J.

BRANDER MATTHEWS, A. M., LL. B., Professor of Literature, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, New York City.

JAMES B. ANGELL, LL. D., President of the UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, Ann Arbor, Mich.

WILLARD FISKE, A. M., PH. D., Late Professor of the Germanic and Scandinavian Languages and Literatures, CORNELL UNIVERSITY, Ithaca, N. Y.

EDWARD S. HOLDEN, A. M., LL. D., Director of the Lick Observatory, and Astronomer, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, Berkeley, Cal.

ALCEE FORTIER, LIT. D., Professor of the Romance Languages, TULANE UNIVERSITY, New Orleans, La.

WILLIAM P. TRENT, M. A., Dean of the Department of Arts and Sciences, and Professor of English and History, UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH, Sewanee, Tenn.

PAUL SHOREY, PH. D., Professor of Greek and Latin Literature, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, Chicago, Ill.

WILLIAM T. HARRIS, LL. D., United States Commissioner of Education, BUREAU OF EDUCATION, Washington, D. C.

MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN, A. M., LL. D., Professor of Literature in the CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA, Washington, D. C.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

VOL. XV

LIVED PAGE FOLK-SONG 5853 BY F. B. GUMMERE

SAMUEL FOOTE 1720-1777 5878 How to be a Lawyer ('The Lame Lover') A Misfortune in Orthography (same) From the 'Memoirs': A Cure for Bad Poetry; The Retort Courteous; On Garrick's Stature; Cape Wine; The Graces; The Debtor; Affectation; Arithmetical Criticism; The Dear Wife; Garrick and the Guinea; Dr. Paul Hifferman; Foote and Macklin; Baron Newman; Mrs. Abington; Garlic-Eaters; Mode of Burying Attorneys in London; Dining Badly; Dibble Davis; An Extraordinary Case; Mutability of the World; An Appropriate Motto; Real Friendship; Anecdote of an Author; Dr. Blair; Advice to a Dramatic Writer; The Grafton Ministry

JOHN FORD 1586-? 5889 From 'Perkin Warbeck' Penthea's Dying Song ('The Broken Heart') From 'The Lover's Melancholy': Amethus and Menaphon

FRIEDRICH, BARON DE LA MOTTE FOUQUE 1777-1843 5895 The Marriage of Undine ('Undine') The Last Appearance of Undine (same) Song from 'Minstrel Lore'

ANATOLE FRANCE 1844- 5909 In the Gardens ('The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard') Child-Life ('The Book of my Friend') From the 'Garden of Epicurus'

ST. FRANCIS D'ASSISI 1182-1226 5919 BY MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN Order The Canticle of the Sun

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 1706-1790 5925 BY JOHN BIGELOW Of Franklin's Family and Early Life ('Autobiography') Franklin's Journey to Philadelphia: His Arrival There (same) Franklin as a Printer (same) Rules of Health ('Poor Richard's Almanack') The Way to Wealth (same) Speech in the Federal Convention, in Favor of Opening Its Sessions with Prayer On War Revenge: Letter to Madame Helvetius The Ephemera: an Emblem of Human Life A Prophecy (Letter to Lord Kames) Early Marriages (Letter to John Alleyne) The Art of Virtue ('Autobiography')

LOUIS HONORE FRECHETTE 1839- 5964 BY MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN Our History ('Le Legende d'un Peuple') Caughnawaga Louisiana ('Les Feuilles Volantes') The Dream of Life (same)

HAROLD FREDERIC 1856- 5971 The Last Rite ('The Damnation of Theron Ware')

EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN 1823-1892 5977 BY JOHN BACH McMASTER The Altered Aspects of Rome ('Historical Essays') The Continuity of English History (same) Race and Language (same) The Norman Council and the Assembly of Lillebonne ('The History of the Norman Conquest of England')

FERDINAND FREILIGRATH 1810-1876 6002 The Emigrants The Lion's Ride Rest in the Beloved Oh, Love so Long as Love Thou Canst

GUSTAV FREYTAG 1816-1895 6011 The German Professor ('The Lost Manuscript')

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL 1782-1852 6022 BY NORA ARCHIBALD SMITH The Right of the Child ('Reminiscences of Friedrich Froebel') Evolution ('The Mottoes and Commentaries of Mother Play') The Laws of the Mind ('The Letters of Froebel') For the Children (same) Motives ('The Education of Man') Aphorisms

FROISSART 1337-1410? 6035 BY GEORGE McLEAN HARPER From the 'Chronicles': The Invasion of France by King Edward III., and the Battle of Crecy How the King of England Rode through Normandy Of the Great Assembly that the French King Made to Resist the King of England Of the Battle of Caen, and How the Englishmen Took the Town How the French King Followed the King of England in Beauvoisinois Of the Battle of Blanche-Taque Of the Order of the Englishmen at Cressy The Order of the Frenchmen at Cressy, and How They Beheld the Demeanor of the Englishmen Of the Battle of Cressy, August 26th, 1346

JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 1818-1894 6059 BY CHARLES FREDERICK JOHNSON The Growth of England's Navy ('English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century') The Death of Colonel Goring ('Two Chiefs of Dunboy') Scientific Method Applied to History ('Short Studies on Great Subjects') The Death of Thomas Becket (same) Character of Henry VIII. ('History of England') On a Siding at a Railway Station ('Short Studies on Great Subjects')

HENRY B. FULLER 1859- 6101 At the Head of the March ('With the Procession')

SARAH MARGARET FULLER (Marchioness Ossoli) 1810-1850 6119 George Sand ('Memoirs') Americans Abroad in Europe ('At Home and Abroad') A Character Sketch of Carlyle ('Memoirs')

THOMAS FULLER 1608-1661 6129 The King's Children ('The Worthies of England') A Learned Lady (same) Henry de Essex, Standard-Bearer to Henry II. (same) The Good Schoolmaster ('The Holy and Profane State') On Books (same) London ('The Worthies of England') Miscellaneous Sayings

EMILE GABORIAU 1835-1873 6137 The Impostor and the Banker's Wife: The Robbery ('File No. 113') M. Lecoq's System (same)

BENITO PEREZ GALDOS 1845- 6153 BY WILLIAM HENRY BISHOP The First Night of a Famous Play ('The Court of Charles IV.') Dona Perfecta's Daughter ('Dona Perfecta') Above Stairs in a Royal Palace ('La de Bringas')

FRANCIS GALTON 1822- 6174 The Comparative Worth of Different Races ('Hereditary Genius')

ARNE GARBORG 1851- 6185 The Conflict of the Creeds ('A Freethinker')

HAMLIN GARLAND 1860- 6195 A Summer Mood ('Prairie Songs') A Storm on Lake Michigan ('Rose of Butcher's Coolly')

ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL 1810-1865 6205 Our Society ('Cranford') Visiting (same)

THEOPHILE GAUTIER 1811-1872 6221 BY ROBERT SANDERSON The Entry of Pharaoh into Thebes ('The Romance of a Mummy') From 'The Marsh' From 'The Dragon-Fly' The Doves The Pot of Flowers Prayer The Poet and the Crowd The First Smile of Spring The Veterans ('The Old Guard')

JOHN GAY 1685-1732 6237 The Hare and Many Friends ('Fables') The Sick Man and the Angel (same) The Juggler (same) Sweet William's Farewell to Black-Eyed Susan From 'What D'ye Call It?'

EMANUEL VON GEIBEL 1815-1884 6248 See'st Thou the Sea? As it will Happen Gondoliera The Woodland Onward At Last the Daylight Fadeth

FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME XV

PAGE "How Kreimhild is Led to Etzel" (Colored Plate) Frontispiece Russian Writing (Fac-simile) 5876 Franklin (Portrait) 5925 "Music, Science, and Art" (Photogravure) 5964 Freytag (Portrait) 6011 "The Menagerie" (Photogravure) 6034 "The Wedding Dress" (Photogravure) 6166 "The Juggler" (Photogravure) 6244

VIGNETTE PORTRAITS

Foque Froude France Fuller (Margaret) Frederic Fuller (Thomas) Freeman Garland Freiligrath Gaskell Froebel Gautier Froissart Gay Von Giebel

FOLK-SONG

BY F. B. GUMMERE

As in the case of ballads, or narrative songs, it was important to sunder not only the popular from the artistic, but also the ballad of the people from the ballad for the people; precisely so in the article of communal lyric one must distinguish songs of the folk--songs made by the folk--from those verses of the street or the music hall which are often caught up and sung by the crowd until they pass as genuine folk-song. For true folk-song, as for the genuine ballad, the tests are simplicity, sincerity, mainly oral tradition, and origin in a homogeneous community. The style of such a poem is not only simple, but free from individual stamp; the metaphors, employed sparingly at the best, are like the phrases which constantly occur in narrative ballads, and belong to tradition. The metre is not so uniform as in ballads, but must betray its origin in song. An unsung folk-song is more than a contradiction,--it is an impossibility. Moreover, it is to be assumed that primitive folk-songs were an outcome of the dance, for which originally there was no music save the singing of the dancers. A German critic declares outright that for early times there was "no dance without singing, _and no song without a dance_; songs for the dance were the earliest of all songs, and melodies for the dance the oldest music of every race." Add to this the undoubted fact that dancing by pairs is a comparatively modern invention, and that primitive dances involved the whole able-bodied primitive community (Jeanroy's assertion that in the early Middle Ages only women danced, is a libel on human nature), and one begins to see what is meant by folk-song; primarily it was made by the singing and dancing throng, at a time when no distinction of lettered and unlettered classes divided the community. Few, if any, of these primitive folk-songs have come down to us; but they exist in survival, with more or less trace of individual and artistic influences. As we cannot apply directly the test of such a communal origin, we must cast about for other and more modern conditions.

When Mr. George Saintsbury deplores "the lack, notorious to this day, of one single original English folk-song of really great beauty," he leaves his readers to their own devices by way of defining this species of poetry. Probably, however, he means the communal lyric in survival, not the ballad, not what Germans would include under _volkslied_ and Frenchmen under _chanson populaire_. This distinction, so often forgotten by our critics, was laid down for English usage a century ago by no less a person than Joseph Ritson. "With us," he said, "songs of sentiment, expression, or even description, are properly called Songs, in contradistinction to mere narrative compositions, which now denominate Ballads."

Notwithstanding this lucid statement, we have failed to clear the field of all possible causes for error. The song of the folk is differentiated from the song of the individual poet; popular lyric is set over against the artistic, personal lyric. But lyric is commonly assumed to be the expression of individual emotion, and seems in its very essence to exclude all that is not single, personal, and conscious emotion. Professor Barrett Wendell, however, is fain to abandon this time-honored notion of lyric as the subjective element in poetry, the expression of individual emotion, and proposes a definition based upon the essentially musical character of these songs. If we adhere strictly to the older idea, communal lyric, or folk-song, is a contradiction in terms; but as a musical expression, direct and unreflective, of communal emotion, and as offspring of the enthusiasm felt by a festal, dancing multitude, the term is to be allowed. It means the lyric of a throng. Unless one feels this objective note in a lyric, it is certainly no folk-song, but merely an anonymous product of the schools. The artistic and individual lyric, however sincere it may be, is fairly sure to be blended with reflection; but such a subjective tone is foreign to communal verse--whether narrative or purely lyrical. In other words, to study the lyric of the people, one must banish that notion of individuality, of reflection and sentiment, which one is accustomed to associate with all lyrics. To illustrate the matter, it is evident that Shelley's 'O World, O Life, O Time,' and Wordsworth's 'My Heart Leaps Up,' however widely sundered may be the points of view, however varied the character of the emotion, are of the same individual and reflective class. Contrast now with these a third lyric, an English song of the thirteenth century, preserved by some happy chance from the oblivion which claimed most of its fellows; the casual reader would unhesitatingly put it into the same class with Wordsworth's verses as a lyric of "nature," of "joy," or what not,--an outburst of simple and natural emotion. But if this 'Cuckoo Song' be regarded critically, it will be seen that precisely those qualities of the individual and the subjective are wanting. The music of it is fairly clamorous; the refrain counts for as much as the verses; while the emotion seems to spring from the crowd and to represent a community. Written down--no one can say when it was actually composed--not later than the middle of the thirteenth century, along with the music and a Latin hymn interlined in red ink, this song is justly regarded by critics as communal rather than artistic in its character; and while it is set to music in what Chappell calls "the earliest secular composition, in parts, known to exist in any country," yet even this elaborate music was probably "a national song and tune, selected according to the custom of the times as a basis for harmony," and was "not entirely a scholastic composition." It runs in the original:--

Sumer is icumen in. Lhude sing cuccu. Groweth sed And bloweth med And springth the wde nu. Sing cuccu.

Awe bleteth after lomb, Lhouth after calve cu; Bulluc sterteth, Bucke verteth, Murie sing cuccu. Cuccu, cuccu.

Wel singes thu cuccu, Ne swik thu naver nu.

BURDEN

Sing cuccu nu. Sing cuccu. Sing cuccu. Sing cuccu nu.[1]

[1] For facsimile of the MS., music, and valuable remarks, see Chappell, 'Ballad Literature and Popular Music of the Olden Time,' Vol. i., frontispiece, and pages 21 ff. For pronunciation, see A. J. Ellis, 'Early English Pronunciation,' ii., 419 ff. The translation given by Mr. Ellis is:--

"Summer has come in; loudly sing, cuckoo! Grows seed and blossoms mead and springs the wood now. Sing, cuckoo! Ewe bleats after lamb, lows after (its) calf the cow; bullock leaps, buck verts (seeks the green); merrily sing, cuckoo! Cuckoo, cuckoo! Well singest thou, cuckoo; cease thou not never now. _Burden_.--Sing, cuckoo, now; sing, cuckoo! Sing, cuckoo, sing cuckoo, now."--_Lhude_, _wde_ (=_wude_), _awe_, _calve_, _bucke_, are dissyllabic. Mr. Ellis's translation of _verteth_ is very doubtful.

The monk, whose passion for music led him to rescue this charming song, probably regretted the rustic quality of the words, and did his best to hide the origin of the air; but behind the complicated music is a tune of the country-side, and if the refrain is here a burden, to be sung throughout the piece by certain voices while others sing the words of the song, we have every right to think of an earlier refrain which almost absorbed the poem and was sung by a dancing multitude. This is a most important consideration. In all parts of Europe, songs for the dance still abound in the shape of a welcome to spring; and a lyrical outburst in praise of the jocund season often occurs by way of prelude to the narrative ballad: witness the beautiful opening of 'Robin Hood and the Monk.' The troubadour of Provence, like the minnesinger of Germany, imitated these invocations to spring. A charming _balada_ of Provence probably takes us beyond the troubadour to the domain of actual folk-song.[2] "At the entrance of the bright season," it runs, "in order to begin joy and to tease the jealous, the queen will show that she is fain to love. As far as to the sea, no maid nor youth but must join the lusty dance which she devises. On the other hand comes the king to break up the dancing, fearful lest some one will rob him of his April queen. Little, however, cares she for the graybeard; a gay young 'bachelor' is there to pleasure her. Whoso might see her as she dances, swaying her fair body, he could say in sooth that nothing in all the world peers the joyous queen!" Then, as after each stanza, for conclusion the wild refrain--like a _procul este, profani!_--"Away, ye jealous ones, away! Let us dance together, together let us dance!" The interjectional refrain, "eya," a mere cry of joy, is common in French and German songs for the dance, and gives a very echo of the lusty singers. Repetition, refrain, the infectious pace and merriment of this old song, stamp it as a genuine product of the people.[3] The brief but emphatic praise of spring with which it opens is doubtless a survival of those older pagan hymns and songs which greeted the return of summer and were sung by the community in chorus to the dance, now as a religious rite, now merely as the expression of communal rejoicing. What the people once sang in chorus was repeated by the individual poet. Neidhart the German is famous on account of his rustic songs for the dance, which often begin with this lusty welcome to spring: while the dactyls of Walther von der Vogelweide not only echo the cadence of dancing feet, but so nearly exclude the reflective and artistic element that the "I" of the singer counts for little. "Winter," he sings,--

Winter has left us no pleasure at all; Leafage and heather have fled with the fall, Bare is the forest and dumb as a thrall; If the girls by the roadside were tossing the ball, I could prick up my ears for the singing-birds' call![4]

[2] The first stanza in the original will show the structure of this true "ballad" in the primitive sense of a dance-song. There are five of these stanzas, carrying the same rhymes throughout:--

A l'entrada del temps clar,--eya,-- Per joja recomencar,--eya,-- E per jelos irritar,--eya,-- Vol la regina mostrar Qu' el' est si amoroza.

REFRAIN

Alavi', alavia, jelos, laissaz nos, laissaz nos ballar entre nos, entre nos!

[3] Games and songs of children are still to be found which preserve many of the features of these old dance-songs. The dramatic traits met with in the games point back now to the choral poetry of pagan times, when perhaps a bit of myth was enacted, now to the communal dance where the stealing of a bride may have been imitated.

[4] Unless otherwise credited, translations are by the writer.

That is, "if spring were here, and the girls were going to the village dance"; for ball-playing was not only a rival of the dance, but was often combined with it. Walther's dactyls are one in spirit with the fragments of communal lyric which have been preserved for us by song-loving "clerks" or theological students, those intellectual tramps of the Middle Ages, who often wrote down such a merry song of May and then turned it more or less freely into their barbarous but not unattractive Latin. For example:--

Now is time for holiday! Let our singing greet the May: Flowers in the breezes play, Every holt and heath is gay.

Let us dance and let us spring With merry song and crying! Joy befits the lusty May: Set the ball a-flying! If I woo my lady-love, Will she be denying?[5]

[5] From 'Carmina Burana,' a collection of these songs in Latin and German preserved in a MS. of the thirteenth century; edited by J. A. Schmeller, Breslau, 1883. This song is page 181 ff., in German, 'Nu Suln Wir Alle Froeude Han.'

The steps of the dance are not remote; and the same echo haunts another song of the sort:--

Dance we now the measure, Dance, lady mine! May, the month of pleasure, Comes with sweet sunshine.

Winter vexed the meadow Many weary hours: Fled his chill and shadow,-- Lo, the fields are laughing Red with flowers.[6]

[6] Ibid., page 178: 'Springe wir den Reigen.'

Or the song at the dance may set forth some of the preliminaries, as when a girl is supposed to sing:--

Care and sorrow, fly away! On the green field let us play, Playmates gentle, playmates mine, Where we see the bright flowers shine, I say to thee, I say to thee, Playmate mine, O come with me!