4^6 
ENGLISH BALLAD-SINGERS. 
ing on her majesty. The ballad-singer and the publisher were both com- 
mitted to the Compter; but the poet defied the government from his 
retreat. In a letter to the lord mayor, he avowed the ballad, justi- 
fied his satire, and concluded with these lines from the Mirror of Ma- 
gistrates, descriptive of the duties of a true poet. They were com- 
posed by one Collingbourne, put to death in the reign of Richard 111. 
for making a foolish rhyme. 
“ Things that import, hemust be quick to pen. 
Reproving \ices sharply now and then ; 
lie must be swift, when touched tyrants chafe. 
To gallop thence to keep his carcase safe.” 
Nash, in the mean time, in an interview with the secretary, fully 
established his innocence, and laid the foundation of his future 
prosperity. 
The gipsies furnished a number of female ballad-singers about this 
time. The laws, and the prejudices of society in that age, concurred 
in denouncing this race. But how just is nature! the most esteemed 
and the best received ballad-singers of their time belong to the out- 
lawed tribe. Alice Boyce, for instance, with the bronzed face, dark 
eyes and hair, of her nation, came to London from Cumberland. She 
sang her way to the metropolis, and, when there, very quickly gaineri 
the ears of the great. She was even appointed to sing, O the broom,” 
and “ Lady Greenleaves,” before the queen. 
The reigns of King James 1. and his successor were remarkable for 
nothing connected with our purpose, except that the taste of the 
population, for nature and simplicity, kept up the profession of ballad- 
singing. The poets of the day, in the mean time, became so learned, 
that they were scarcely to be understood, even by the great. Hence- 
forward ballad-singing maintained a prosperous and respectable 
course. The singers had no state enemies to contend with. Their 
employment was too lucrative, and custom had too firmly sanctioned 
it, to permit the persecutions of parish fiends. But, better than all, 
the law a>s yet furnished no pretext for stopping the free circulation 
of the lower ranks throughout the country. The government, and 
still more frequently the corporation of London, had been alarmed 
at the influx of humble strangers into the metropolis. There were 
issued bulls of penal annunciation, street proclamations, circumstan- 
tial and minute, embracing the professors of all manner of arts and 
employments, whether for use or amusement ; yet not a word of bal- 
lad singers. Fiddlers put the whole council into consternation ; 
minstrels (such as they were) had a price set upon their bodies ; but 
there was no vice assumed of the members of the vocal throng. Crom- 
well was disturbed by the presence of low visitors to the metropolis ; 
he again excommunicated minstrels and fiddlers, but left ballad-singers 
to pfjrsue their business unmolested. And yet the Protector found 
not in that order a friendly or even a neutral power. They sang of 
bold cavaliers and ladies bright, themes that did not fail to keep the 
memory of past times “ green in the souls of men.” But as soon as 
the Restoration removed all restraint from the ballad-singers, the 
streets re-echoed to the strains either of thanksgiving for the return 
of the monarch, or in ridicule of the fallen powder. The song begin- 
