"Minstrelsy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... all noble; I play at chess so free, At ravelling runes I'm ready, At books and smithery; I'm skilled o'er ice at skimming On skates, I shoot and row, And few at harping match me, Or minstrelsy, I trow." ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... of the Sun stroke forth a glorious strain; the worlds are shawns and cymbals for his minstrelsy. The Spirit of Creation pours ...
— The Masque of the Elements • Herman Scheffauer
... May we look for? "Puritan elder, speak!" "Yea, friend, peradventure thou mayest seek Recreation singing a psalm." If I did, your visage so grim and stern Would relax in a ghastly smile, For of music I never one note could learn, And my feeble minstrelsy would turn Your ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... distempered child Thou pourest on him thy soft influences, Thy sunny hues, fair forms, and breathing sweets, Thy melodies of woods, and winds, and waters, Till he relent, and can no more endure To be a jarring and a dissonant thing Amidst this general dance and minstrelsy." ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... "Edinbro'," and many others, and became completely enamored of the wild beauty of the Scotch ballads, the terror and pity of their stories, and the strange, sweet, mournful music to which they were told. I knew every collection of them, that I could get hold of, by heart, from Scott's "Border Minstrelsy" to Smith's six volumes of "National Scottish Songs with their Musical Settings," and I said and sang them over in my lonely walks perpetually; and they still are to me among the deepest and freshest sources of poetical ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... long as thou livest thou wilt remember my poor soul in thy Masses and prayers." It had been her custom in life to recite the office of the dead every day during Lent and Advent. Sir Walter Scott mentions in his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border "a curious league or treaty of peace between two hostile clans, by which the heads of each became bound to make the four pilgrimages of Scotland for the benefit of those souls who had fallen ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... attachment to the melody of sound, inspired by her mother's voice—almost imbibed at her mother's breast—lived through all neglect, and survived all opposition. It found its nourishment in childish recollections, in snatches of street minstrelsy heard through her window, in the passage of the night winds of winter through the groves on the Pincian Mount, and received its rapturous gratification in the first audible sounds from the Roman senator's lute. How her possession of an instrument, ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... the faint, delicious sound of very distant bells—clear, silvery, and sweet—upon mine ear, as the tones of a well-touched harp: sad were they—luxuriously sad; and their unearthly melody infused into my bosom a repose unknown to mortality. As I listened with awe and rapture to that delicate minstrelsy, I seemed to become all soul; tears—far indeed from tears of sorrow—suffused my wondering eyes, and my heart, in the delirium of gratitude, raised itself in solemn thanksgivings ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 480, Saturday, March 12, 1831 • Various
... one corner staring out of the window at the cab lights that wove in and out among the trees, all seeming to be bent upon joyous courses. Taxicabs were still new in New York, and the theme of popular minstrelsy. Landry had sung her a ditty he heard in some ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... himself Tramtris. The queen undertook his cure, and by a medicated bath gradually restored him to health. His skill in music and in games occasioned his being frequently called to court, and he became the instructor of the princess Isoude in minstrelsy and poetry, who profited so well under his care, that she soon had no equal in the ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... hinter-snow- The pent heart-throbbings of the wan plateau- Wing through the pulsing spell thrown o'er the sea, In wild and shrieking blizzard minstrelsy. ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... which the German duel, the Mexican bullfight, or the American game of football are mild sports. The other diversions of the knights and nobles were hunting, hawking, feasting, drinking, making love, minstrelsy, and chess. Intellectual ability formed no part of their accomplishments, and a knowledge of reading and writing was ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... crazy table shaking with every gust and causing a tiny kerosene lamp to flare up and menace the dim religious darkness by depositing even more lamp-black than was its wont on its already negrine globe; the meagre board of dark bread, "oleo," and molasses; the weird minstrelsy of the hurricane—the whole a harmony of poverty and war. Yet the memory brings deeper pleasure to my mind than that of many costly banquets—and even I have eaten from plates of silver with implements of ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... golden constellations dimly shine as day draws on, And the moon must veil her beauties at the rising of the sun. Let the grove be wrapt in silence as the nightingale outflings Her unrivaled minstrelsy, th' eclipse of every ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... gratification upon the sky and landscape, and on the human form divine when unmarred by vice! How rarely the taste is offended or the appetite starved, while every meal, be it ever so simple, yields enjoyment to the palate! The ear is regaled with the perpetual music of wind and ocean and feathered minstrelsy, of childhood's voice and the sweet converse of friends. So, too, Nature is a great laboratory of delicate odors: the salt breath of the sea is like wine to the sense; the summer air is freighted with delights, and every tree and flower exhales fragrance: only where danger ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... occasionally took turn; but there was no brighter voice or sweeter song than that of Louis de Marmontier, the third of our trio of pages. He had distinguished himself that day in the lists, following closely in the steps of Etienne, and now he seemed likely to win the prize for minstrelsy, as he sang the song of Rollo, accompanying himself with thrilling chords on the harp, whose strings had never uttered ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... sketches, gives the rude out-lines of general art, and leaves the filling up to the leisure of happier days, and the refinement of more enlightened times. Their drawing is a rude Sbozzo, and their poetry wild minstrelsy. ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... "The Two Sisters," is a ballad on an old theme popular in Scandinavia as well as in this country. There have been many versions of it. Dr. Rimbault published it from a broadside dated 1656. The version here given is Sir Walter Scott's, from his "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," with a few touches from other versions given in Professor Francis James Child's noble edition of "The English and Scottish Popular Ballads," which, when complete, will be the chief ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... the Stage, even of Old Drury, can hold no more, and there is scarcely room for them all to move, much less to indulge in any "kicking up ahind and afore," as was the wont of the Ancient JOSEPH, whose fame is hymned in Nigger Minstrelsy. A most brilliant scene, never to be forgotten!—that is, until next Pantomime Season, when Sir DRURIOLANUS will, in all probability, show us something equally magnificent, and as perfect ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various
... Verona, Padua, Ferrara, six hundred years ago. There was not a lively sympathy with Sordello himself. Who were the "Pisan pair"? Lanzi's pages were turned up to discover. And Greek scholars recognized the "Loxian." But any reader might be pardoned for not at once divining that the double rillet of minstrelsy, on page 37, was the Troubadour and the Trouvere, nor for refusing to read pages 155 and 156 without a tolerable outfit of information upon the historical points and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... graciously the homage of the Herculean porter, and, bending her head to him in requital, passed through his guarded tower, from the top of which was poured a clamorous blast of warlike music, which was replied to by other bands of minstrelsy placed at different points on the Castle walls, and by others again stationed in the Chase; while the tones of the one, as they yet vibrated on the echoes, were caught up and answered by new ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... the Lord of Love went by To take possession of his flowery throne, Ringed round with maids, and youths, and minstrelsy; A little while I sighed to find him gone, A little while the dawning was alone, And the light gathered; then I held my breath, And shuddered at the sight of ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... to have been, as I have intimated, the leader who started these players on the long way to their new art. Such leadership his record hardly augered. It was in the very lowest forms of vaudeville, in what is the analogue abroad of our negro minstrelsy, that Mr. Fay had his stage experience, a stage experience that had made him well enough known in burlesque roles to make it difficult for him to assume with success serious roles in the early years of the National Dramatic Company. Because of this old association, Dublin ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... Gaelic songs. He could not bear the monotonous melancholy of them. When Sheila, sitting by herself, would sing these strange old ballads of an evening, he would suddenly enter the room, probably find her eyes filled with tears, and then he would in his inmost heart devote the whole of Gaelic minstrelsy and all its authors to the infernal gods. Why should people be for ever saddening themselves with the stories of other folks' misfortunes? It was bad enough for those poor people, but they had borne their sorrows and died, and were at peace. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... mute amid the festal crowd, When lay of hopeless love, or glory won, Aroused the fearful or subdued the proud. At each according pause was heard aloud Thine ardent symphony sublime and high! Fair dames and crested chiefs attention bowed; For still the burden of thy minstrelsy Was Knighthood's dauntless deed, ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... free to ravage. From this period date the legends of the King's visit in disguise to the hut of the neat-herd, and his burning the bread he was set to watch; his penetrating into the camp of the Danes and entertaining Guthrum by his minstrelsy while discovering his plans and force; the vision of St. Cuthbert; and the fable of his calling five hundred men by the winding of ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... that day, with dancing-women and singing-women, and all the instruments of mirth and minstrelsy were smitten, whilst the queen and the Vizier and his son were exceeding assiduous in keeping up the festivities, so the Lady Bedrulbudour should rejoice and her chagrin be dispelled; nay, they left ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... M. D., who had been of great service to Sir Walter Scott in the preparation of the 'Border Minstrelsy,' sailed for India in April, 1803, and died at Java in August, 1811, before completing his ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... rolled into a corner of the tent, and the crew to whom the awning belonged began to settle themselves to rest; while those who owned the other encampment marched forth, with King Cole at their head. Leaning with no light weight upon his guest's arm, the lover of ancient minstrelsy poured into the youth's ear a strain of eulogy, rather eloquent than coherent, upon the scene they ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... smaller compartment of the main hut completing a set of pendulum observations, while Royds was in the larger compartment—the hut was used for many and various purposes—rehearsing his nigger minstrel troupe. Either because nigger minstrelsy and scientific work did not go hand in hand, or because their work was finished, Bernacchi and Skelton, soon after the rehearsal began, left the hut to return to the ship. Fully an hour and a half afterwards Royds and his ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... responsive voices of the night I join your minstrelsy, And call across the fading silver light As something calls to me; I may not all your meaning understand, But I have ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... disaster, till he died in 1180. What life went on in France, went on principally in the south. The lands of Aquitaine and Provence had never dropped the old classical love of poetry and art. A softer form of broken Latin was then spoken, and the art of minstrelsy was frequent among all ranks. Poets were called troubadours and trouveres (finders). Courts of love were held, where there were competitions in poetry, the prize being a golden violet; and many of the bravest warriors were also distinguished ...
— History of France • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the "Lady of the Kingdoms". A woman with a mind thus richly stored with the literary treasure of Greece and Rome was likely to look with impatient scorn on the barren and barbarous annals of her people. We in whose ears the notes of the Teutonic minstrelsy of the Middle Ages are still sounding, we who know that Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe were all one day to arise from beneath the soil of Germanic literature, can hardly conceive how dreary and repulsive the national sagas, and even the every-day speech of her people, would seem in ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... heart is burning, While thine eyes have strength to see; Hark, behind yon blackening cloud-bank, To the Storm-King's minstrelsy! ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... Love held by ladies of high rank were originally courts in which the rules of minstrelsy were laid down, they pronounced on the qualifications of a candidate, they polished and cherished the Langue d'oc in its purity, dictated the subjects upon which the troubadours were to compose their lays, judged their pretensions, settled their controversies, ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... time, wrote poetry, composed music both sacred and profane, and was a complete minstrel, able to sing beautifully and to play on the harp and organ. His queen, the beautiful Joan Beaufort, had been the lady of his minstrelsy in the days of his captivity, ever since he had watched her walking on the slopes of Windsor Park, and wooed her in verses that are still preserved. They had now been eleven years married, and their court was one bright spot of civilization, refinement, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... none other medicine, Nicias, against Love, neither unguent, methinks, nor salve to sprinkle,—none, save the Muses of Pieria! Now a delicate thing is their minstrelsy in man's life, and a sweet, but hard to procure. Methinks thou know'st this well, who art thyself a leech, and beyond all men art plainly ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... minstrelsy can amuse, if it does not charm, a weary soul, and such a vacant hour there was on this same Friday evening. The "opera-house" was spacious and admirably ventilated. As I was listening to the merriment of the sooty buffoons, I happened to ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... music of the birds, as they warble from tree to tree, untrammelled by the forms of art, their sweetest melodies. How often do their lightsome, inspiriting carollings ring out upon the morning air, persuasively calling us from our couches to listen in delight to Nature's minstrelsy! "After man," says a writer, "the birds occupy the highest rank in Nature's concerts. They make the woods, the gardens, and the fields resound with their merry warbles. Their warbled 'shake' has never been equalled by human gifts of voice, ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... renewed. James Ballantyne established the Kelso Mail in 1796, but at the recommendation of Scott, for whom he had printed a collection of ballads, he removed to Edinburgh in 1802. There he printed the "Border Minstrelsy," for Scott, who assisted him with money. Ballantyne was in frequent and intimate correspondence with Murray from the year 1806, and had printed for him Hogg's "Ettrick ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... governess, teacher and saint, all in one. We must look to the Watt women as carefully as to the men; and these fortunately we find all that can be desired. His mother was Agnes Muirhead, a descendant of the Muirheads of Lachop, who date away back before the reign of King David, 1122. Scott, in his "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," gives us the old ballad of "The Laird of Muirhead," who played a great part ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... summer has come at my window with its sighs and murmurs; and the bees are plying their minstrelsy at the ...
— Gitanjali • Rabindranath Tagore
... this, for I had seen the first volumes of "The Minstrelsy of the Border," and had copied a number of old things from my mother's recital, and sent them to the editor preparatory for a third volume. I accordingly went towards home to put on my Sunday clothes, but before reaching it I met with THE SHIRRA and Mr. William Laidlaw coming to visit ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 383, August 1, 1829 • Various
... a courtier gay, Dipped down with a dalliant song, And twanged his wings through the roundelay Of love the whole day long: Yet my rose turned from his minstrelsy And hid in the leaves ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... reveries were broken. In the shallow water of the ford down at the river splashed a horse's hoofs and she heard a voice singing in the weird falsetto of mountain minstrelsy an old ballade which, like much else of the life there, was a heritage from ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... of ghost stories, and some remarks about the ideas of the Russian peasants with respect to the dead, will be found in Chap. V. Scott mentions a story in "The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," vol. ii. p. 223, of a widower who believed he was haunted by his dead wife. On one occasion the ghost, to prove her identity, gave suck ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... complained that his life had been without an aim; now he determined that it should be so no longer. The dawning hope began to gladden him that he might take his place among the bards of Scotland, who, themselves mostly unknown, have created that atmosphere of minstrelsy which envelopes and glorifies their native country. This hope and aim is recorded in an entry of his commonplace book, of the probable ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... reward him. And thou, I shall not make thee a man-at-arms this time, though trust me, I misdoubt thy hare-heart. There is no such look in thine eyes.' And he turned away and left us. So we wore the night merrily enough till the time appointed, what with minstrelsy and some ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... I'd tune the lyre; Might minstrelsy my song inspire; Could I a gifted offering bring, I'd boldly sweep each silken string, And wake a sweet and thrilling strain, Thy ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... Walter was sincere, for he inserted the poem in the "English Minstrelsy." It may now be found in these volumes, Vol. I. p. 230, where, in consequence of the recollection of Sir Walter, and as illustrative of manners now obsolete, it ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... possibly accounted for the contrary character of the names, for there was little euphony in the minstrelsy of the one or a monopoly of brindle appearance in the other, for each faction's contingent, were about equally spotted with the sons of Ham. My friends, Benjamin & Barnes, were prominent as Brindles, ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... early time for thee To hear the sounds of minstrelsy, That breathe around the rosy shrine Of ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... pump is strangely stilled; The smoke-house door bangs once emphatic'ly, Then bangs no more, but leaves the silence filled With one lorn plaint's despotic minstrelsy. ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... barely taken wing, however, when a still louder buzz is heard, while a great black bumblebee follows closely in his wake, until the sounds of both are lost in the distance. The hum of this bumblebee is a frequent musical feature of the entertainment, and many is the dance that is set to its minstrelsy, as the burly insect darts in among the merrymakers and is off to his perch near by. It is only as we steal away and observe him closely that we learn the secret of his occasional sorties. There on ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... For though, with men of high degree, The proudest of the proud was he, Yet, trained in camps, he knew the art To win the soldier's hardy heart. They love a captain to obey, Boisterous as March, yet fresh as May; With open hand, and brow as free, Lover of wine and minstrelsy; Ever the first to scale a tower, As venturous in a lady's bower: Such buxom chief shall lead his host From India's fires ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... his chops, and a grim, rather red nod, and 'Good-morning, Mr. Dangerfield.' Puddock also saluted, still thrumming a low chord or two as he did so, for he was not ashamed, like his stout playmate, and saw nothing incongruous in their early minstrelsy. ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... was his. So sprang up talk in the hall betwixt man and man, and folk drank about and were merry, till the chieftain arose again and smote the board with the flat of his sword, and cried out in a loud and angry voice, so that all could hear: "Now let there be music and minstrelsy ere we wend bedward!" ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... his intent, Harangued him thus, right eloquent: "Did you admire my lamp," quoth he, "As much as I your minstrelsy, You would abhor to do me wrong As much as I to spoil your song: For 'twas the self-same Power Divine Taught you to sing and me to shine; That you with music, I with light, Might beautify and cheer the night." The songster heard this short oration, And, warbling out his approbation, Released ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... Lombarda,' the romance of the Baronessa di Carini, and the so-called Caso di Sciacca, may still be heard upon the lips of the people. But these exceptions are insignificant in comparison with the vast mass of songs which deal with love; and I cannot find that Tuscany, where the language of this minstrelsy is purest, and where the artistic instincts of the race are strongest, has anything at all approaching to our ballads.[21] Though the Tuscan contadini are always singing, it ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... to talking-birds. These are not so common as in Maerchen, but still are very general, and cause no surprise to their human listeners. The omniscient popinjay, who "up and spoke" in the Border minstrelsy, is of the same family of birds as those that, according to Talvj, pervade Servian song; as the [Greek: tria poulakia] which introduce the story in the Romaic ballads; as the wise birds whose speech is still understood by exceptionally gifted Zulus; as the wicked dove that whispers temptation in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... the stars above, In all their bloom and brightness given, Are, like the attributes of love, The poetry of earth and heaven. Thus Nature's volume, read aright, Attunes the soul to minstrelsy, Tinging life's clouds with rosy light, And all the ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... between two persons was made between Geraint and the maiden, and the choicest of all Gwenhwyvar's apparel was given to the maiden; and thus arrayed, she appeared comely and graceful to all who beheld her. And that day and that night were spent in abundance of minstrelsy, and ample gifts of liquor, and a multitude of games. And when it was time for them to go to sleep, they went. And in the chamber where the couch of Arthur and Gwenhwyvar was, the couch of Geraint and Enid was prepared. And ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 2 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... flowering thorn. Adown it trailed In zigzag curves erratic here and there Long lines of milky bloom, like rills of foam Furrowing the green back of some huge sea wave Refluent from cliffs. Ecstatic minstrelsy Swelled from its branches. Birds as thick as leaves Thronged them; and whether joy was theirs that hour Because the May had come, or joy of love, Or tenderer gladness for their young new-fledged, So piercing was that harmony, the place Eden to Sebert looked, while brake ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... one feature of the distress in Lancashire which was seen strikingly upon the streets of our large towns during some months of 1862. I allude to the wandering minstrelsy of the unemployed. Swarms of strange, shy, sad-looking singers and instrumental performers, in the work-worn clothing of factory operatives, went about the busy city, pleading for help in touching wails of simple song—like so many wild birds ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... on through many verses, made continuous by the fact that the end of each sixth line forms the rhyme of the next five. Now, Gilles knew nothing of Southern minstrelsy, and if he had, the pitch he was screwed to would have shrilled such knowledge out of him. At 'Defors li ven a estar,' he came in, and sturdily forward. Richard saw him and put up his hand: ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... there may be forthcoming, father," said Henry Smith, "though the blast of the bellows and the clatter of the anvil make but coarse company to lays of minstrelsy; but I can afford them no better, since I must mend my fortune, though I mar ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... one lute is lonely on the hills at night, then one soul calleth to his brother souls—the notes of Shimono Kani's dirge which have not been caught among the worlds—and he knoweth not to whom he calls or why, but knoweth only that minstrelsy is his only cry and sendeth it out ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... creation of Mignon, in "Wilhelm Meister," furnished Scott with the character of Fenella in his "Peveril of the Peak." Scott began his career as a writer with a translation of Buerger's "Ballads." His most successful metrical pieces, "The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," "Marmion," and "The Lady of the Lake," for the most part appeared during the opening years of the Nineteenth Century. Then came the great series of the "Waverley Novels," named after the romance of "Waverley," published ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... same. No text was necessary. The picture told the tale to a people who could not read, just as the stained-glass windows and mosaics in the churches did. Everywhere the feeble literature of the period took the form either of verbal minstrelsy, drama, or pictured representations. You will recall how most of the early races first wrote in pictures instead of letters. There were hieroglyphics in Egypt; 'speaking stories' in Assyria; and picture-writing in Turkey, China, and Japan. The picture book of the time was merely an ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... that the bloody Earl of Douglas said to keep the king's messenger in hand while he cut the head off MacLellan of Bombie, at the Threave Castle; and put Steenie mair and mair on his guard. So he spoke up like a man, and said he came neither to eat nor drink, nor make minstrelsy; but simply for his ain—to ken what was come o' the money he had paid, and to get a discharge for it; and he was so stout-hearted by this time that he charged Sir Robert for conscience's sake (he had no power to say the holy name), and as he hoped ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... high rank shelters his noble head with a great umbrella of crimson and gold, while others wave golden fans before him. On these occasions he is invariably preceded by musicians, who announce his approach with cheerful minstrelsy and songs. ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... doings, wanderings of Eneas, Hesiod, Eschylus, Sophocles, Merlin, Arthur, The Cid, Roland at Roncesvalles, the Nibelungen, The troubadours, minstrels, minnesingers, skalds, Chaucer, Dante, flocks of singing birds, The Border Minstrelsy, the bye-gone ballads, feudal tales, essays, plays, Shakespere, Schiller, Walter Scott, Tennyson, As some vast wondrous weird dream-presences, The great shadowy groups gathering around, Darting their mighty masterful eyes forward at thee, Thou! with as now thy bending neck and head, ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... the esteem our Teuton ancestors had for their scalds, or polishers of language, when poetry and music were linked together by the voice and harp of minstrelsy, and when the divine right to fill the office of bard meant the divine faculty to invent a few heroic stanzas ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... songsters, like the fox-sparrow, sojourned a few weeks, favoring all listeners with their sweet and simple melodies; but the chief musician of the American forests, the hermit thrush, passed silently, and would not deign to utter a note of his unrivalled minstrelsy until he had reached his remote haunts at the North. Dr. Marvin evidently had a grudge against this shy, distant bird, and often complained, "Why can't he give us a song or two as he lingers here in his journey? I often ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... court, they had been forced to take up their present occupation to make a living. To prove the truth of their assertions, Wat exhibited his skill in athletic sports, while Horant delighted all the ladies by his proficiency in the art of minstrelsy. ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... harp is this chilled bosom's only queen, But how would homage from its depths have burst In gushing minstrelsy at bright sixteen, If then these eyes had rested on ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... upon them with disfavor, as the enemies of sobriety and the promoters of revelry and mirth. In the sixteenth century they lost all credit and were classed, in penal enactments, with "rogues and vagabonds." One reason of the decline of minstrelsy was the introduction of printing and the advance of learning: that which might afford amusement and pleasure when sung to the harp, lost its point and spirit when read in retirement from the printed page. Their composition would not bear criticism. Besides, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... "the first is the only way in this enchanted house. But I was thinking that by rights, while we are standing here, those windows should blaze with lights and break forth with the noise of dancing and minstrelsy. To such a castle, high against such a velvet night as this, would Sir Lancelot come, or Sir Gawain, or Sir Perceval, at the close ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... waters of the Gary come with hoarse and wrathful mutterings and murmurs. The hills and mountains around are built up in more olden and antic forms than those of our Lowland parts, and a wild and strange solemnity is mingled there with much fantastical beauty, as if, according to the minstrelsy of ancient times, sullen wizards and gamesome fairies had joined their arts and spells to make a ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... Sir Gareth had won in battle came with their followings and did homage to him, and the Green Knight besought him that he might act as chamberlain at the feast, and the Red Knight that he might be his steward. As soon as the feast was ended, they had all manner of minstrelsy and games and a great tournament that lasted three days, but at the prayer of dame Lyonesse the King would not suffer that any man who was wedded should ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... little place of our worship, his fingers on the keys have often led us nearer to God's presence than could the poor and broken messages I tried to preach to you. For the other world was always close to Paul Burton and there was a magic in his minstrelsy, which was a gift from God. I sometimes wonder if in a less simple world he could have been so happy or if his life would have been so unmarred, away from the songs of birds and the lilt of mountain breezes. But among us he, too, lived and died—because ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... arrived at the chapel of the convent; the sun gleamed for the last time upon the chaplet of the poor novice, as she crossed the fatal threshold and disappeared within the building. The throng poured in with cowl, and cross, and minstrelsy; the lover paused for a moment at the door. I could divine the tumult of his feelings; but he mastered them, and entered. There was a long interval. I pictured to myself the scene passing within: the poor novice ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... early reference to hawking. Minstrelsy (hearpan wyn), saga-telling, racing, swimming, harpooning of sea-animals, feasting, and the bestowal of jewels, swords, and rings, are the other ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.
... wide earth echoing rung To their strange minstrelsy, The little glittering spirits sung, Or seemed ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... its disaster in the Red Sierra. It became the theme, not only of chronicle, but of song; the note of sorrow was prolonged in many a plaintive romance, and the names of Aguilar and his unfortunate companions were embalmed in that beautiful minstrelsy, scarcely less imperishable, and far more touching, than the stately and elaborate records of history. [25] The popular feeling was displayed after another fashion in regard to the count of Urena and his followers, who were accused of deserting their posts ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... Shirley resumed her ballad minstrelsy. Stopping short, she remarked ere long, "One could have loved Cowper, if it were only for the sake of having ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... Beauty, too, in league with Vice and Shame, And lending all her light to gild a lie; Crowning with laureate-wreaths an impious name, Or lulling us with Siren minstrelsy To false repose when peril most is nigh; Decking things vile or vain with colours rare, Till what is false and foul seems ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... with lonely state 1 Dost rule as in some isle's enchanted land, On whom soft airs and shadowy spirits wait, Whilst scenes of "faerie" bloom at thy command, On thy wild shores forgetful could I lie, And list, till earth dissolved to thy sweet minstrelsy! ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... hath paced into the hall, Red as a rose is she; Nodding their heads before her goes The merry minstrelsy." ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... among modern peoples by whom the outward world was seen and felt as something beautiful.... By the year 1200, at the height of the Middle Ages, a genuine hearty enjoyment of the external world was again in existence, and found lively expression in the minstrelsy of different nations, which gives evidence of the sympathy felt with all the simple phenomena of Nature—spring with its flowers, the green fields and the woods. But these pictures are all foreground ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... Arene, and Thryum where is the ford of the river Alpheus; strong Aipy, Cyparisseis, and Amphigenea; Pteleum, Helos, and Dorium, where the Muses met Thamyris, and stilled his minstrelsy for ever. He was returning from Oechalia, where Eurytus lived and reigned, and boasted that he would surpass even the Muses, daughters of aegis-bearing Jove, if they should sing against him; whereon they were angry, and maimed him. They robbed him of his divine ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... hopes that some day men will be "maids in purity".* I will not recall his gentle yet heroic life amid drawbacks almost unparalleled; for it is even sadder than it is beautiful. It is my deliberate judgment that, while, as the poet says in his 'Life and Song', no singer has ever wholly lived his minstrelsy, Lanier came so near it that we may fairly say, in the closing lines of the poem, "His song was only living aloud, His work, a singing with his hand." And, for my part, I am as grateful for his noble private life as for ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... John Norton's funeral elegy on Ann Bradstreet, the Eve of our female minstrelsy?" interrogated Miss Hurribattle; "there are two lines in it which are still in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... their morrice pacing To aerial minstrelsy, Emerald rings on brown heath tracing, Trip it ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... poet, born in Ettrick; had little or no schooling; was bred a shepherd; took to rhyming; fell in with Sir Walter Scott, whom he assisted with his "Border Minstrelsy"; rented a farm, and first came into notice by the publication of his poem, the "Queen's Wake"; he wrote in prose as well as poetry, with humour as well as no little graphic power; "was," says Carlyle, "a little red-skinned stiff sack of a body, with two little blue or grey eyes ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... minstrelsy, and the contrast was painful. Jack noticed a depression creeping over me, and, with the intuition of true hospitality, exerted his conversational powers for my entertainment. His discourse ran exclusively ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... schools. He founded the school of romantic mediaeval poetry; he founded the school of antiquarian romance; and he founded the school of Scottish-character romance. He did odds and ends of literary work, such as the compilation and annotation of 'The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,' and the notes to the poems and the Waverley Series. These were sparks from his great stithy, but a man of industry and talent might have shown them proudly as a lifetime's labour. The great men in literature are the epoch makers, and ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... Jocelyn, so completely was he engrossed by the fair creature at his side. Even the noise of the May Games, which, temporarily interrupted by Hugh Calveley, had recommenced with greater vigour than ever—the ringing of the church bells, the shouts of the crowd, and the sounds of the merry minstrelsy, scarcely reached his ear. For the first time he experienced those delicious sensations which new-born love excites within the breast; and the enchantment operated upon him so rapidly and so strongly, ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... grasshopper, gnat, and fly, Serve us for our minstrelsy; Grace said, we dance a while, And so the time beguile; And if the moon doth hide her head, The glow-worm lights ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... stop short of a certain point,—the point where wit degenerates into mockery, and liberty into license: nature is never put to shame, and will commonly bear much more. Especially to the American sense did their humorous and comic strokes, their negro-minstrelsy and attempts at Yankee comedy, seem in a minor key. There was not enough irreverence and slang and coarse ribaldry, in the whole evening's entertainment, to have seasoned one line of some of our most popular comic poetry. But the music, and ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... bold in enterprise, and of good counsel. Never did he suffer any unbeliever in his company, and he was very pious, every day making many and long prayers, and giving alms to the poor folk at his gate. He took much delight in minstrelsy, and at his midnight supper songs and virelays were chanted to him. Till about three o'clock in the morning he listened while Master Froissart read aloud his poems, tales, or histories, while the courtiers yawned, no doubt, and wished for bedtime. But it was ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... second act we are at the Wartburg, in the Hall of Song in which those tournaments of minstrelsy were held, for which the castle was celebrated in the middle ages. Elisabeth enters, bringing a greeting to the hall, whose threshold she has not crossed since Tannhaeuser's mysterious departure. Her joyous tones have scarcely ceased when Tannhaeuser, led by ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... the advance of moral cultivation: they became in time vulgar mountebanks and jugglers, and in the reign of Elizabeth were suppressed as rogues and vagabonds. Banished from the highways they betook themselves to alehouses—followed the trade of pipers and fiddlers—and minstrelsy was no ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 551, June 9, 1832 • Various
... really lay between the two, for neither appreciated the wide variety covered by a common name' (The Mediaeval Stage, E. K. Chambers, 1903). See especially chapters iii. and iv. of this work for an admirably complete and illuminating account of minstrelsy.] ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... of modern minstrelsy shows how very dangerous it is to write even on the English poetry of the day. Eighteen is long odds against a single critic, and Major Bellenden, in "Old Mortality," tells us that three to one are odds as long as ever ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... of high festivity was maintained during the twelve days of Christmas, closing on Twelfth Night. On Christmas Day (which in 1561 was a Thursday), at the first course of the dinner, the boar's head was brought in upon a platter, followed by minstrelsy. On St. Stephen's Day, December the 26th, the Constable Marshal entered the hall in gilt armour, with a nest of feathers of all colours on his helm, and a gilt pole-axe in his hand; with him sixteen trumpeters, ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... of the race that Mungo started continued, and when in 1781 Robinson Crusoe was given as a pantomime at Drury Lane, Friday was represented as a Negro. The exact origins of Negro minstrelsy are not altogether clear; there have been many claimants, and it is interesting to note in passing that there was an "African Company" playing in New York in the early twenties, though this was probably nothing more than a small group of amateurs. Whatever may have been the beginning, it was Thomas ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... are devoted to a concise historical account of English minstrelsy, from the earliest Saxon times to its gradual extinction in the reigns of Edward IV. and Queen Elizabeth; and while presenting in a condensed form all that is valuable in Percy and others, the author has interwoven in the narrative much curious and interesting matter derived ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... Scottish court of sessions. The fulfillment of his long-cherished desire of abandoning his labors as an advocate, in order to devote himself to literature, was now at hand. He had already delighted the public by various early literary efforts, the most important being the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," parts of which had occupied him since childhood. This was followed by "Sir Tristrem" and the "Lay of the Last Minstrel." Scott was now enrolled among the poets of the day, and while never neglecting the duties ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... clerkship to the court worth L1500, he early turned his mind to seek promotion elsewhere, and chose a literary career. His first literary efforts were translations in verse from the German, but his first great literary success was the publication, in 1802, of "The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," and in this he first gave evidence both of the native force and bent of his genius; it gave the keynote of all that subsequently proceeded from his pen. This was followed the same year by "Cadzow Castle," a poem instinct with military ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... companions, I shall see A well-remembered form in each old tree And hear a voice long-loved in thy wild minstrelsy. ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... written about 1150 in a mixture of Middle Frankish and Bavarian. It belongs to the order of Spielmannspoesie, or secular minstrelsy; but the author makes frequent reference to what 'the books' say, and evidently meant his work to be read. (The earlier gleemen, so far as known, could not read or write, got their material from oral tradition and composed their poems to be sung or recited to ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... smile and friendship's due; But of that age now all too few The thoughts that with me yet will stay; As from the hours of festive play There linger on mysterious notes, And in our minds the memory floats Of minstrelsy and music gay. ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... mournfully, This midnight wind doth swell! With its quaint, pensive minstrelsy, Hope's passionate farewell: To the dreamy joys of early years, Ere yet grief's canker fell On the heart's bloom—ay, well may tears, Start at that ...
— Fostina Woodman, the Wonderful Adventurer • Avis A. (Burnham) Stanwood
... oft would he Mellow old Time with minstrelsy,— But such as gave no scandal; Than his was never harp more famed; For Dunstan was the blacksmith named ...
— The True Legend of St. Dunstan and the Devil • Edward G. Flight
... and bracelets and brooches carved out of the local rocks), made our friends with their trunks very conscious of their disproportion to the accommodations of the smallest. They were the sole occupants of the omnibus, and they were embarrassed to be received at their hotel with a burst of minstrelsy from a whole band of music. Isabel felt that a single stringed instrument of some timid note would have been enough; and Basil was going to express his own modest preference for a jew's-harp, when the music ceased with a sudden ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... probably produced a more patriotic and more extended minstrelsy than any other country in the world. Those Caledonian harp-strains, styled by Sir Walter Scott "gems of our own mountains," have frequently been gathered into caskets of national song, but have never been stored ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... and free, To clip nor to kiss had she Talent, nor for minstrelsy Was she fain; Mistress never would be, Nor master have; but her fee She vowed to sweet Chastity, ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... yet first for thee, O lover with the kindling eye! Quick to discern the minstrelsy Where planets sway ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... extremities are made active, when currents of warm life run into the hands and the feet. I ask not for the great, the remote, the romantic; what is doing in Italy or Arabia; what is Greek art, or Provencal minstrelsy; I embrace the common, I explore and sit at the feet of the familiar, the low. Give me insight into to-day, and you may have the antique and future worlds. What would we really know the meaning of? The meal in the firkin; the milk ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... way, with their sweethearts and their wives. No factory smoke, dear no! There's the rivers, with tropical plants a-shading the banks, O my! There they goes up an' down in their boats, devil-may-care, a-strumming on the banjo,'—he imitated such action,—'and a-singing their nigger minstrelsy with light 'earts. Why? 'Cause they ain't got no work to get up to at 'arf-past five next morning. Their time's their own! That's the condition of an ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... as it was, had in it that warlike character which at any other time would have roused Halbert's spirit; but at present the charm of minstrelsy had no effect upon him. He made it his request to Christie to suffer him to retire to rest, a request with which that worthy person, seeing no chance of making a favourable impression on his intended proselyte in his present humour, was at length pleased to comply. But no Sergeant Kite, who ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... the pure little child, with a trace of heaven's own beauty on her face, was to Haldane like the watch of the shepherds on the hillside near Bethlehem. At times, in the deep hush that followed the storm, he was almost sure that he heard, faint and far away, angelic minstrelsy and song. ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... heard from a tall tree in the woodland silence; it has then a resonance and wildness which it appears to lack in the garden and orchard. In the village I had been glad to find that the chaffinch was not too common, that in the tangle of minstrelsy one could enjoy there his ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... cheeks; She daily failed and nearer drew to death. Pauline would often come with sun-lit face, Cheating the day of half its languid hours With cheering chapters from the holy book, And border tales and wizard minstrelsy: And mother loved her all the better for it. With feeble hands upon our sad-bowed heads, And in a voice all tremulous with tears, She said to us: 'Dear children, love each other— Bear and forbear, and come to me in heaven;' And praying for us ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... hath paced into the hall, Red as a rose is she; Nodding their heads before her goes 35 The merry minstrelsy. ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... whirl of the dance of Time ye start, Start at the cold touch of Eternity, And cast your cloaks about you, and depart: The minstrels pause not in their minstrelsy. ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... the Gaelic Minstrelsy admired by Scott and condemned by Macpherson, the English reader is presented in the present work with specimens, to enable him to form his own judgment. These specimens, it must however be remembered, not only labour under the ordinary disadvantages of translations, but ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... England and America are too prosaic and too busy, and the masses, notwithstanding all their supposed advantages in education, are much too vulgar to delight in either song or ballad that rises to the dignity of poetry. They appreciate the buffooneries of the "Negro Minstrelsy," and the inanities and the vapidities of sentimental love songs, but the elegance of such writers as Thomas Moore, and the force of such vigorous thinkers and tender lyrists as Robert Burns, are above their sphere, and are left ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... 'tis said, he dared to quaff, Though to the rest the sober berry's juice[208] The slaves bear round for rigid Moslems' use; 640 The long chibouque's[209] dissolving cloud supply, While dance the Almas[210] to wild minstrelsy. The rising morn will view the chiefs embark; But waves are somewhat treacherous in the dark: And revellers may more securely sleep On silken couch than o'er the rugged deep: Feast there who can—nor combat till they must, And less to conquest than to Korans trust; And ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... luckless youth, would have gone home empty-handed, but that one of his men found, entangled in the poles of the weir, a coracle, and a fair child in it. This was none other than he who was to be the father of Cymry minstrelsy, and whom then and there his rescuers named Taliesin, which means Radiant Brow. His mother, Ceridwen, seeking to be rid of her infant, but loath to have the child's blood on her head, had launched him in this sea proof cradle, ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... pioneers of the mediaeval revival were the Warton brothers. "The school of Warton" was a term employed, not without disparaging implications, by critics who had no liking for antique minstrelsy. Joseph and Thomas Warton were the sons of Thomas Warton, vicar of Basingstoke, who had been a fellow of Magdalen and Professor of Poetry at Oxford; which latter position was afterward filled by the younger of his ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... When life was green with me. Its lofty head it proudly rears To greet the summer sky, Whilst, bending with the weight of years, I feebly totter by. And hushed are all the thousand songs That filled these branches high: Echo no more for me prolongs The woodland minstrelsy. Silence has gathered round life's hall; My friends are in the clay; I hear no more the footsteps fall, That cheered my early day; I see no more the faces dear, Which shone around my hearth: Bereft of all—I sojourn here— Still happy, ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie
... piper of his times, and a choice company of musicians to play with him were hired for the occasion, and, in short, the event was so glorious that its wonders have been sung in minstrelsy ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... of Provence, where the guild flourished, but not a single line of it remains to us. Moreover, it is certain that the Eastern minstrels left their impress in Spain, and that the Crusaders brought back from the Orient, among many other novelties, the custom of encouraging minstrelsy. The Arabian bards sang chiefly of love, as they well might in a land where female loveliness received such excessive worship. At the Saracenic courts, the bards were ever ready to win gratitude, and even more substantial rewards, ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... thickset forest I hear a sound go free, Crashing the stately neighbours The pine and the cedar tree, Horns and harps and tabors, Drumming and harping and horning In savage minstrelsy— It wakes in my soul a warning Of the wind ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott
... for a dish of eels. But the Chancellor seldom touched these delicacies, living on the plainest fare, as he sat in his place as the host, answering the pledges of his guests, amusing them with his converse, and providing minstrelsy and sports of all kinds for their recreation. Often the King would ride into the hall, in the midst of the gay crowd seated on the floor, throw himself off his horse, leap over the table, ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... now seen something of a culture that was introduced from abroad, and guided by foreign models. But our people had a native gift of song, and a tradition of poetic lore, which lived in memory, and was sustained by the profession of minstrelsy. The Christian and literary culture obtained through the Latin tended strongly to the suppression and extinction of this ancient and national vein of poetry. But happily it has not all been lost, and it will be the aim of this chapter to present some specimens of that poetry which is rooted ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... the feet of the Madonna and playing on musical instruments, are most lovely and appropriate accessories, for the choral angels are always around her in heaven, and on earth she is the especial patroness of music and minstrelsy.[1] Her delegate Cecilia patronized sacred music; but all music and musicians, all minstrels, and all who plied the "gaye science," were under the protection of Mary. When the angels are singing from their music books, and others ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... tremendous hand is grasping it, And his dark brow for very wrath is knit? Or when his spirit, with more calm intent, Leaps to the honors of a tournament, And makes the gazers round about the ring Stare at the grandeur of the balancing? No, no! this is far off:—then how shall I Revive the dying tones of minstrelsy, Which linger yet about lone gothic arches, In dark green ivy, and among wild larches? How sing the splendour of the revelries, When buts of wine are drunk off to the lees? And that bright lance, ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... than in his poems, that we find Burns most regularly at his best. And excellence in song-writing is a rare gift. The snatches scattered here and there throughout the plays of Shakspeare are perhaps the only collection of lyrics that can at all stand comparison with the wealth of minstrelsy Burns has left behind him. This was his undying legacy to the world. Song-writing was a labour of love, almost his only comfort and consolation in the dark days of his later years. He set himself to this as to a congenial task, and he knew that he was writing himself into the ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... which Sir Walter Scott based the version given in the Border Minstrelsy. Byron notes in the preface to Childe Harold that 'the good-night in the beginning of the first canto was suggested by Lord Maxwell's Goodnight in the Border Minstrelsy.' ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various
... There is no determinate impression left on the mind by reading his poetry. It has no results. The reader rises up from the perusal with new images and associations, but he remains the same man that he was before. A great mind is one that moulds the minds of others. Mr. Scott has put the Border Minstrelsy and scattered traditions of the country into easy, animated verse. But the Notes to his poems are just as entertaining as the poems themselves, and his poems ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... find Achilles singing to his lyre, so the English musicians and story-tellers were originally amateurs of high rank. We read of King Alfred charming the Danes with his minstrelsy. So also in the Arthurian legends Sir Kaye is represented as amusing the company; but at the time of Hoel Dha's Welsh laws, the bard was paid, for we read that the king was to allow him a horse and a woollen garment, and the queen to give him a linen ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... the same key. It is, in fact, a contralto solo divided into brief stanzas, and easily might be mistaken for the grating buzz of an insect, especially if heard at a distance of a few rods. It possesses little or no musical quality, and is perhaps the most curious style of bird minstrelsy with which I am acquainted. In comparison the chippie's trill sounds loud and clear and bell-like, with a distinctly melodious quality of tone. The song of the little clay-colored sparrow is also marked by a kind ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... His minstrelsy may be unchaste - 'Tis much unto that motley taste, And loud the laughter he provokes From those ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the breeze, Till he could fancy them a band devout Engaged in worship, beyond any doubt. Now he first heard those "soft and soul-like sounds" From vast "pine groves," which seemed to have no bounds, Thrill his pure soul with their sweet melody, Till it awoke his own rude minstrelsy, And made him long near by to settle down In some small hut which he could call his own. This wish, in part, ere long was gratified— The father bought a farm, to which they hied. 'Twas six miles from the village, and a place Where much hard labor stared them in the face; And there ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... biloogh{e} lede[gh] inogh, 116 & ay a segge soerly[7] semed by her wede[gh]; So with marschal at her mete mensked ay were, Clene men i{n} compaynye for-knowen wern lyte, [Sidenote: All are well entertained "with meat and minstrelsy."] & [gh]et e symplest in {a}t sale wat[gh] serued to e fulle, 120 Boe with menske, & w{i}t{h} mete & mynstrasy noble, & alle e layke[gh] at a lorde a[gh]t i{n} londe schewe. [Sidenote: Each with his "mate" ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... Sweet Orpheus, lord of minstrelsy, For this with flute and pipe came nigh The danger of the dog's heads three That ravening at hell's door doth lie; Fain was Narcissus, fair and shy, For love's love lightly lost and won, In a deep well to drown and die; Good luck has he that deals ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... a song taken from Scott's poem of "Marmion." It is in a slight degree founded on a ballad called "Katharine Janfarie," to be found in the "Minstrelsy of ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... dainty spirits! now he slumbers! Ye have entranc'd him fairly with your numbers! This minstrelsy of yours I must repay,— Thou art not yet the man to hold the devil fast!— With fairest shapes your spells around him cast, And plunge him in a sea of dreams! But that this charm be rent, the threshold passed, Tooth of rat the way must clear. I need not conjure long it seems, ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... leaves, and then watch the quiet house, and lawn, and flowers, and fair human creatures, and shining water, all sleeping breathless in the glorious light beneath the glorious blue, till we doze off, lulled by the murmur of a thousand insects, and the rich minstrelsy of nightingale ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... she the marriage-tables nor the sound of many voices in hymeneal song, such as the bride's girl-mates are wont to sing at eventide with merry minstrelsy: but lo, she had longing for things otherwhere, even as many before and after. For a tribe there is most foolish among men, of such as scorn the things of home, and gaze on things that are afar off, and chase ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... in that state, the scenes were similar. There was always "a steady hum of laughter and talk, dance, song, shout, and the twang of musical instruments." It was "a scene full of life and fun, of jostling, scuffling, and racing, of clown performances and cake-walks, of impromptu minstrelsy, speech-making, and preaching, of deviling, guying, and fighting, both real and mimic." The colonel found great difficulty in getting men to work alone. Two would volunteer for any service. "Colonel," said a visitor to the camp, ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... have their seasons of blossoming, as well as individuals. The age of the Crusades, of chivalry, romance and minstrelsy, was an intellectual spring among all the nations of the West. In literature the time of invention must precede the refinements of art. Legend must go before history, and poetry before criticism. Vegetation must ...
— The Interdependence of Literature • Georgina Pell Curtis
... the highest priced male artist in the world. Whenever and wherever he sings multitudes flock to hear him, and no one goes away unsatisfied. He is constantly the recipient of ovations which demonstrate the power of his minstrelsy, and his lack of especial physical attractiveness is no bar to the witchery of ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... melody is reinforced from time to time by the songs of those birds that may be termed the seasonal choristers. It is the presence or absence of the voices of these latter which imparts distinctive features to the minstrelsy of every ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... greater part of Italy, and Spain as far as the Ebro. As Emperor of the West he bore the title Caesar Augustus. He established churches and monasteries, and encouraged arts and learning. He figures largely in mediaeval minstrelsy, where the achievements of his knights, or paladins, rival those of ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... really Becket, Gilbert Becket, father of Thomas of Canterbury. Every one has heard how HIS Saracen bride sought him in London. (Robert of Gloucester's Life and Martyrdom of Thomas Becket, Percy Society. See Child's Introduction, IV., i. 1861, and Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. xv., 1827.) The legend of the dissolved marriage is from the common stock of ballad lore, Motherwell found an example in the state of Cantefable, alternate prose and verse, like Aucassin and Nicolette. Thus the cockney rhyme ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... leaves made tender by decay, the splash of startled fish in the shadows, commingled and blended to the accompaniment of that subdued aerial buzz by which Nature manifests the more secret of her functions and art—that ineffable minstrelsy to which her silent battalions keep step. Preoccupation, the whirl of my own temperate thoughts, scared silence, while as soon as the mental machine was stilled, the very trees became vocal. Thus have I caught fleet silences as they passed ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield |
