The Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684. Various

they come on again; Sing Tantara rara, boys, Tantara rara, boys, This is the life of an Old Cavalier.

A CAVEAT TO THE ROUNDHEADS.

       Table of Contents

      From the Posthumous Works of Samuel Butler.

      I come to charge ye

       That fight the clergy,

       And pull the mitre from the prelate’s head,

       That you will be wary

       Lest you miscarry

       In all those factious humours you have bred;

       But as for Brownists we’ll have none, But take them all and hang them one by one.

      Your wicked actions

       Join’d in factions

       Are all but aims to rob the King of his due;

       Then give this reason

       For your treason,

       That you’ll be ruled, if he’ll be ruled by you.

       Then leave these factions, zealous brother,

       Lest you be hanged one against another.

HEY, THEN, UP GO WE.

       Table of Contents

      This song, says Mr. Chappell, in his Popular Music of the Olden Time, which describes with some humour the taste of the Puritans, might pass for a Puritan song, if it were not contained in the “Shepherds’ Oracles,” by Francis Quarles, 1646. He was cup-bearer to Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, daughter of James I., and afterwards chronologer to the city of London. He died in 1644, and his Shepherds’ Oracles were a posthumous publication. It was often reprinted during the Restoration, and reproduced and slightly altered by Thomas Durfey, in his “Pills to Purge Melancholy,” where the burthen is, “Hey, boys, up go we.”

      Know this, my brethren, heaven is clear,

       And all the clouds are gone;

       The righteous man shall flourish now,

       Good days are coming on.

       Then come, my brethren, and be glad,

       And eke rejoyce with me;

       Lawn sleeves and rochets shall go down,

       And hey, then, up go we.

      We’ll break the windows which the whore

       Of Babylon hath painted,

       And when the popish saints are down

       Then Barrow shall be sainted;

       There’s neither cross nor crucifix

       Shall stand for men to see,

       Rome’s trash and trumpery shall go down,

       And hey, then, up go we.

      Whate’er the Popish hands have built

       Our hammers shall undo;

       We’ll break their pipes and burn their copes,

       And pull down churches too;

       We’ll exercise within the groves,

       And teach beneath a tree;

       We’ll make a pulpit of a cask,

       And hey, then, up go we.

      We’ll put down Universities,

       Where learning is profest,

       Because they practise and maintain

       The language of the Beast;

       We’ll drive the doctors out of doors,

       And all that learned be;

       We’ll cry all arts and learning down,

       And hey, then, up go we.

      We’ll down with deans and prebends, too,

       And I rejoyce to tell ye

       We then shall get our fill of pig,

       And capons for the belly.

       We’ll burn the Fathers’ weighty tomes,

       And make the School-men flee;

       We’ll down with all that smells of wit,

       And hey, then, up go we.

      If once the Antichristian crew

       Be crush’d and overthrown,

       We’ll teach the nobles how to stoop,

       And keep the gentry down:

       Good manners have an ill report,

       And turn to pride, we see,

       We’ll therefore put good manners down,

       And hey, then, up go we.

      The name of lords shall be abhorr’d,

       For every man’s a brother;

       No reason why in Church and State

       One man should rule another;

       But when the change of government

       Shall set our fingers free,

       We’ll make these wanton sisters stoop,

       And hey, then, up go we.

      What though the King and Parliament

       Do not accord together,

       We have more cause to be content,

       This is our sunshine weather:

       For if that reason should take place,

       And they should once agree,

       Who would be in a Roundhead’s case,

       For hey, then, up go we.

      What should we do, then, in this case?

       Let’s put it to a venture;

       If that we hold out seven years’ space

       We’ll sue out our indenture.

       A time may come to make us rue,

       And time may set us free,

       Except the gallows claim his due,

       And hey, then, up go we.

THE CLEAN CONTRARY WAY,

       OR,

       COLONEL VENNE’S ENCOURAGEMENT TO HIS SOLDIERS.

       Table of Contents

      To the air of “Hey, then, up go we.”

       From a Collection of Loyal Songs written against the Rump Parliament.

      Fight on, brave soldiers, for the cause,

       Fear not the Cavaliers;

       Their threat’nings are as senseless as

       Our jealousies and fears.

       Tis you must perfect this great work,

       And all malignants slay;

       You must bring back the King again

       The clean contrary way.

      ’Tis for religion that you fight,

       And for the kingdom’s good;

       By robbing churches, plundering them,

       And shedding guiltless blood.

       Down with the orthodoxal train,

       All loyal subjects