The Ancient Ballad of the Nut Brown Maid [pp. 161-169]

The Ancient Ballad of the Nut Brown Maid.
membrance, that so remarkable a pro duction as t]e Nut Brown Maid, if its
origin and pthlication were simultaneous,
should have excited no inquiry and
awakened no curiosity with regard to its
fortunate author. No writer of that
period, nor during the whole reign of
Henry VII., has left any memorial of
his muse at all comparable to this, either
in its natural graces or artificial adornments.
There is another historical truth worthy
of remembrance. With rare exceptions
none of the Old Ballads have recognised
authors. They were usually treated as a
kind of dtft-wood, thrown upon the
stream of literature, which any one could
appropriate in whole or in part, as his
interest or inclination might prompt.
This peculiarity does not belong to those
productions which emanated with a view
to the press in the infancy of the printing art. Vanity, ambition, the hope of
fame, and the prospect of immediate
profit conspired to induce authors to emblazon conspicuously on their volumes
their names and the particular merits of
their works. Besides, the old minstrels
never designed their rhymes for print, and
seldom, if ever, reduced them to writing.
Their recitations were from memory, and
their communications altogether oral.
In forming their verses for the ear instead
of the eye, they placed the accent arbitrarily to suit the measure, or the rhyme.
There were also particular words and
idioms which they used, as well as in
some instances, a peculiar orthography,
which cannot be found in the writings of
poets of a higher class. Their style is
marked by this same distinction. All
these peculiarities and distinguishing
features are to be traced in eight different
versions of the Nut Brown Maid now before us. They only vanished when printing became general and the minstrel character had changed. When these coincidences, are added to the fact that Arnold himself is silent; that all contemporaneous records are silent; that all succeeding writers of the century which followed are void of the slightest allusion
to the author, or the date of its produc
tion, it is certainly not a,strained conclusion which places the paternity of the
Nut Brown Maid back into those thick
mists which surrounded the introduction
of printing into England.
We, therefore, venture to differ with
some of the able authorities whom we
have cited, and unhesitatingly express
the opinion, that it was composed not
much later than 1480 or 1485. That this
opinion is not wholly unsustained, we
have already negatively shewn. There are
some affirmative reasons which may still
be urged. About this period the metrical
romances were in such favour that they
were recited at all entertainments of the
nobility and of the common people. The
minstrels were not only encouraged, patronised, and made welcome wherever
they appeared, but were the favourites of
royalty-enjoyed special immunities and
privileges-had the protection of charters,
elected their own governors, held their
own court sects, and enacted their own
laws. Such peculiar and extensive benefactions were well calculated to confer
dignity upon the order, and to stimulate
its members in those studies most likely
to please and most necessary to success.
These were music and poetry. In those
arts they occasionally attained a rare
perfection for so rude an age. And yet,
rude as was the age, there were taste and
refinement enough to value what was
beautiful in poetry and to reward its
authors. As an evidence of the truth of
this assertion, it may be mentioned, that
among the earliest publications of Caxton
are to be found the poetical works of
Chaucer, Gower, and Lydgate, —all of
whom had preceded him on the stage of
action near a century. Such, indeed,
was the favour in which the works of the
former was regarded, and such the exalted integrity of this father of printing,
that he actually published a second
version, to use his own words, "for to
satisfy the auctor, whereas tofore I
erred in hurting, and defaming his book,.
in divers places, in some things that henever said ne made, and leaving out
many things that he made which been
requisite to be set in it."
1860.]
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