should be compared with the celebrated stanza of Spenser's _Faerie Queen_
(book ii. canto xii. st. 71.), beginning with
"The joyous birds shrouded in cheareful shade;"
and with D'Israeli's animated defence, in his _Amenities_ (vol. ii. p.
395.) of these charming verses against the [Greek: plemmeles] and
tasteless, the anti-poetical and technical, criticism of Twining, in his
first _Dissertation on Poetical and Musical Imitation_.
T.J.
_Darby and Joan_ (Vol. iii., p. 38.).--I never heard of the tradition
mentioned by H. I can only suppose that the poet referred to was the first
person who introduced the ballad at the manor-house. Helaugh Nichols, an
excellent authority in such matters, whose trade traditions, through the
Boyers, father and son, went back a century and a half, tells us that the
ballad was supposed to have been written by Henry Woodfall, while an
apprentice to Darby. The Darbys were printers time out of mind--one Robert
Darby was probably an assistant to Wynkyn de Worde, who certainly left a
legacy to a person of that name. The Woodfalls, too, can be traced up as
printers for nearly two centuries.
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