[wood] footnotes to CANADIAN FOLKSONGS 81 



lections : moi-eover, in these collections, the authors' names are often 

 ffiven and we find them to have been mostly those of priests, organists 

 and men of letters, who all had some learning to boast of and who 

 generally show unmistakable signs of having looked at their theme 

 through the spectacles of books. 



Less popular than the Noël or the Vaudeville, and not much more so- 

 than the Lyric, is the Drinking-song. The French-Canadian so-called 

 drinking-song, like its fellows elsewhere, is really not a drinking-song at 

 all. It may be a specimen of pot-house jingle, like Vive la Can- 

 adienne,^^ or a maid's lament that her lover prefers the company of his 

 boozing companions to her own,'- or a gallant's toast to his mistress,''' or 

 the expression of a rejected lover's determination to drown his woes in 

 the bottle,'* or a versified account of a rollicking adventure in Avhich the 

 singer takes a conscious pride in saying 



On dit que je suis fler, 

 Ivrogne et paresseux ; 



and does not scruple to send this very unabashed confession to M. le Curé: 



Dis-lui que sa paroisse 

 Est sans dessus dessous, 

 Que dans le P'tit Bois d'Aillé 

 On n'y voit qu' des gens soûls : i^ 



it may be any one of these, or something of the same kind ; but it is not 

 a drinking-song. A drinking-song, pure and simjîle, is a song in jDraise 

 of wine, and whatever else is said in praise of love, or war, or other 

 gallant delights only serves to enhance the importance of the theme. 

 Perhaps, the somewhat gross imagination of the folk cannot take flight 

 except upon the wings of love and other of the finer passions, and, per- 

 haps, an educated fancy and an allusive wit are necessary to give the more 

 material things of life the little power of flight vouchsafed to them ; but 

 it is certain that such folksongs as this one, which is still sung by the har- 

 vesters in the remoter dales of Craven, are rare exceptions to a general rule : 



This ale it is a gallant thing, 

 It cheers the spirits of a king, 

 It makes a dumb man strive to sing, 

 Ay, and a beggar play ! i" 



Take almost any collection of drinking-songs and you will find most of 

 them are lyrics of clever verse with a spice of real, or least mock, learn- 

 ing in them. Adam Billaut, who wrote as his own epitaph 



Ci-git le plus grand ivrogne 

 Qui jamais ait vu le jour,'^ 



declared, in another place,''' his intention of going 



dans I'Averne, 



Faire enivrer Alecton, 

 Et planter une taverne 

 Dans la chambre de Pluton. 



Sec. II., 1896. 6. 



