glee, or romance--came
from the northern counties, or from just on either side the borders.

The prevalence of a northern dialect in the compositions show this
suggestion to be in a great degree real. The poems of minstrelsy,
however, claim something more than dialect--the martial spirit, ever
fever-heat on the borders of the kingdoms of England and Scotland; the
age of chivalry furnishing the minstrel with the subject of his poem.

But with the strife of war ended, on Henry VII.'s accession, ballads
took the place of war-songs in the heart affections of the people, and
they sang songs of peace and contentment. Bard, scald, minstrel,
gleeman, with their heroic rhymes and long metrical romances, gave way
in the evolution of song and harmony to the ballad-monger with his
licence. However, in turn they became an intolerable nuisance, and a wag
wrote of them in 1740--

"Of all sorts of wit he's most fond of a ballad,
But asses choose thistles instead of a salad."

Another of the wayside songs of Henry VIII.'s time, sung by man, woman,
and child, ran--

"Quoth John to Joan, Wilt thou have me?
I prithee, now wilt? and I'se marry with thee
My cow, my calf, my house, my rents,
And all my land and tenements--
Oh, say, my Joan, will that not do?
I cannot come each day to woo.
I've corn and hay in the barn hard by,
And three fat hogs pent up in a sty;
I have a mare, and she's coal black;
I ride on her tail to save her back.
I have cheese upon the shelf,
And I cannot eat it all myself.
I've three good marks that lie in a rag
In the nook of the chimney instead of a bag."

The London surgeon-barber's boy pleased his master's patrons with a
whole host of similar extravagances, but he was not alone in the habit,
for so usual was it for the poorest of the poor to indulge in mirth,
that literary men of the day wrote against the practice.

In a black-letter book--a copy of which is in the British Museum, date
1560--and entitled, "The longer thou livest more fool thou art," W.
Wager, the author, says in the prologue--

"Good parents in good manners do instruct their child,
Correcting him when he beginneth to grow wild."

The subject matter of this book also gives a fair view of the customs
and habits of the boys of that age. In the character of Moros, a youth
enters the stage, "counterfeiting a vain gesture and foolish
countenance, singing the 'foote'