"Minstrelsy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ill-timed. Besides the natural anxiety of a civilized community to read, in preference to cheap rural poetry, verses paid for at the rate of 'a guinea a word,' or at the least 'five shillings a syllable,' there were many notable matters directing public attention away from village minstrelsy to other things. The book was brought out in the same month that the 'injured Queen of England' died; that the populace fought for the honour of participating in the funeral; and that royal lifeguardsmen killed the loyal people like rabbits in the streets of London. ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... 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 in design ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various
... 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 any warrior met victoriously, and that ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... 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 ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... 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 longer ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 551, June 9, 1832 • Various
... had gained him in the neighbourhood the reputation, still possible in Scotland, of a local bard; and, though not printed himself, he was recognised by others who were and who had become famous. Walter Scott owed to Dandie the text of the "Raid of Wearie" in the MINSTRELSY; and made him welcome at his house, and appreciated his talents, such as they were, with all his usual generosity. The Ettrick Shepherd was his sworn crony; they would meet, drink to excess, roar out their lyrics in each other's faces, and ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Berlichingen." The 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 ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... who, from time to time, in a low tone, as if afraid of awakening the dawn, chaunted, now an old song of Normandy, and now a ballad upon the fate of some lost voyageur. The moon was yet shining, and he was in the mood to enjoy such minstrelsy; but when they neared the opposite shore, a feeling of sadness and apprehension stole over him, as he thought of meeting his father, to whom he knew he must either communicate distasteful tidings, or what was worse to his ingenuous mind, ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... 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 a clover blossom he sits—sipping honey? Oh no. It is honey-dew ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... 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 ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... shed, No man can tell; but all before their sight, A fairy train appear'd in order bright: Adown the glitt'ring stream they featly danc'd; Bright to the moon their various dresses glanc'd: They footed owre the wat'ry glass so neat, The infant ice scarce bent beneath their feet: While arts of minstrelsy among them rung, And soul-ennobling bards heroic ditties sung.— O had M'Lauchlan,[67] thairm-inspiring Sage, Been there to hear this heavenly band engage, When thro' his dear strathspeys they bore with highland rage; Or when they struck old Scotia's melting airs, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... exhibition of short petticoats and long-legged boots, and to the holding of conventions and speech-making in concert rooms, the people were disposed to be amused by them, as they are by the wit of the clown in the circus, or the performances of Punch and Judy on fair days, or the minstrelsy of gentlemen with blackened faces, on banjos, the tambourine, and bones. But the joke is becoming stale. People are getting cloyed with these performances, and are looking for some healthier and more intellectual amusement. The ludicrous is wearing away, and disgust is taking the place ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... the 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 in the pan; the ballad in the ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... spread unexpected feasts, the supernatural flavour of which overpowered on many occasions the religious scruples of the Presbyterian shepherds, performed wonderful deeds of horsemanship, and marched in midnight processions, when the sound of their elfin minstrelsy charmed youths and maidens into love for their persons and pursuits; and more than one family of Corriewater have the fame of augmenting the numbers of the elfin chivalry. Faces of friends and relatives, long since doomed to the battle-trench or the deep sea, ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... generation with pictures of social life, faded and indistinct to their eyes, but the strong lines of which an older race still remember. By thus coming forward at a favourable moment, no doubt many beautiful specimens of SCOTTISH MINSTRELSY have in this manner been preserved from oblivion by the timely exertions of Bishop Percy, Ritson, Walter Scott, and others. Lord Macaulay, in his preface to The Lays of Ancient Rome, shows very powerfully the tendency in all that lingers in the memory to become obsolete, and he does ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... assurance which these simple children obtain from their Moses and the Prophets. Yet external Nature does its share in their training; witness that most poetic of all their songs, which always reminds me of the "Lyke-Wake Dirge" in the "Scottish Border Minstrelsy":— ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... person in the bath, an officer of 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
... 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 ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... rejoicing over the abundance which rewarded the labor of the closing year! And the listening, too, has many a time and oft filled my bosom with emotions, and opened my heart with charity and love toward this subject and dependent race, such as no oratory, no rhetoric or minstrelsy in all this wide earth ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... 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— ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie
... the neighbourhood, I suppose—big, burly fellows in greatcoats and top-boots, mightily flushed with liquor when they arrived, and, before they left, inimitably drunk. They stayed long in the kitchen with Burchell, drinking, shouting, singing, and keeping it up; and the sound of their merry minstrelsy kept me a kind of company. The night fell, and the shine of the fire brightened and blinked on the panelled wall. Our illuminated windows must have been visible not only from the back lane of which Fenn had spoken, but from the court where the farmer's gig awaited ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... way—that he couldn't refuse to hear what she might have, so very elaborately, to say for herself—he ought certainly to be at his ease; in illustration of which he whistled odd snatches to himself as he hung about on that cloud-dappled autumn Sunday, a mild private minstrelsy that his lips hadn't known since when? The interval of the twenty-four hours, made longer by a night of many more revivals than oblivions, had in fact dragged not a little; in spite of which, however, our extremely brushed-up ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... 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 precede spring, and spring must ...
— The Interdependence of Literature • Georgina Pell Curtis
... late, by then the chewing flocks Had ta'en their supper on the savoury herb Of knot-grass dew-besprent, and were in fold, I sat me down to watch upon a bank With ivy canopied, and interwove With flaunting honeysuckle, and began, Wrapt in a pleasing fit of melancholy, To meditate my rural minstrelsy, Till fancy had her fill. But ere a close The wonted roar was up amidst the woods, And filled the air with barbarous dissonance; At which I ceased, and listened them awhile, Till an unusual stop of sudden silence Gave respite ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... the warriors of old who dwelt near its banks; and over the Knot o' Gate into Liddiesdale, "noted in former times for its predatory hands, as in more recent times for its primitive yeomen and romantic minstrelsy."[73] After a march of twenty-five miles, the Prince arrived at Haggiehaugh, upon Liddel water; here he slept, the Highlanders finding their quarters for the night as well as they could in barns, or byres, or houses, as their fortune might be. On the eighth of ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... From minstrelsy's melee, Its foam and its surge, A Keats or a Shelley May haply emerge; Or there may be a Tupper To leaven the lot— Some bards are immortal And others ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 12, 1917 • Various
... all 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 nought that day of that which exciteth ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... 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 ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... us that songs were the only memorials of the past which the ancient Germans possessed. We learn from Lucan and from Ammianus Marcellinus that the brave actions of the ancient Gauls were commemorated in the verses of Bards. During many ages, and through many revolution, minstrelsy retained its influence over both the Teutonic and the Celtic race. The vengeance exacted by the spouse of Attila for the murder of Siegfried was celebrated in rhymes, of which Germany is still justly proud. The exploits of Athelstane ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... And, but that thou would'st feel a pang for me, 'Twere sweet, methinks, to sleep beneath the wave; Its murmuring song, like sweetest minstrelsy, Would rest a wanderer in an early grave, Within thee, River, many a pale face sleeps— And many a redman's ghost his vigil keeps— And many a maid has watched the dark banks over— He comes not, yet, in truth, he ...
— The Emigrant - or Reflections While Descending the Ohio • Frederick William Thomas
... collection of the Border ballads, the study of the old metrical romance of Sir Tristrem. The story of the Goblin Page was at first reckoned enough simply for one of the additions to the Border Minstrelsy on the scale of a ballad. Scott had tried another sort of imitation in the stanzas composed in old English and in the metre of the original to supply the missing conclusion of Sir Tristrem. It was ...
— Sir Walter Scott - A Lecture at the Sorbonne • William Paton Ker
... 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 of a ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... countenances of the attendant monks and friars. The procession 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 despoiled of her transient finery, ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... down the hill are far away; From the still valleys I can hear them call; Their distant laughter faintly floats Through the unmoving air and back to me. I am alone with the declining day And the declining forest where the notes Of all the happy minstrelsy, Birds and leaf-music and the rest, Sink separately in the hush of fall. The sun and clouds conflicting in the west Swirl into smoky light together and fade Under the unbroken shadow; Under the shadowed peace that is the night; Under the night's great quietude of shade. The sheep below ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer
... are applied simply to set forth erotomania; in negro minstrelsy, they are degraded to the lowest humor; in higher European music, when employed, they simply illustrate the skill of composer and musician. The spirit of gypsy singing recalled by its method and sweetness that of the Nubian boatmen, but in its general effect I could think only of those strange ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... by their Moorish conquerors with regard to music, minstrelsy, and dancing is certain. The origin of such movements as the Saraband, the Morisca (or Morris dance), and the Chaconne,[10] has been traced to the East. That such dances should have been accompanied by instruments of Eastern origin of the Lute kind may be assumed. Both in ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... established. To the Jane Austen volumes succeeded other numbers of the so-called "Cranford" series, to which, in 1894, Mr. Thomson had already added, under the title of Coridon's Song and other Verses, a fresh ingathering of old-time minstrelsy from the pages of the English Illustrated. Many of the drawings for these, though of necessity reduced for publication in book form, are in his most delightful and winning manner,—notably perhaps (if one must ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... scarcely a rival, and he was skilled in all the learned lore of the 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, and grace, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... his back on Twybridge for ever, he found the conditions of life there quite supportable through this last month or two; the family reaped benefit from his improved temper. Even to Mr. Cusse he behaved with modified contempt. Oliver was judicious enough to suppress his nigger minstrelsy and kindred demonstrations of spirit in his brother's presence, and Charlotte, though steadily resentful, did her best to ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... 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 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 383, August 1, 1829 • Various
... the ocean shall wail in her coral caves, and the sprite that lives in the waterfalls shall mourn! Strange shapes shall hew thy monument in the recesses of the lonely rocks! ever by moonlight shall the fairies pause from their roundel when some wild note of their minstrelsy reminds them of thine own,—ceasing from their revelries, to weep for the silence of that mighty lyre, which breathed alike a revelation of the mysteries ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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, and Beauty's ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... night's 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 ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... 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
... white-oak trunk. A strange, wild strain, like a detached chord of a vesper melody, sounds above him! It is the whippoorwill—steadily, continuously, entrancingly the dulcet measure is taken up and echoed, until the slough of despond seems transformed into a varying diapason of melancholy minstrelsy. He dares not raise his head. It will vanish if he moves. He crouches, panting, almost exultant, in the sense of recovered faculties, or rather the suspension of numbing fear. How long will it last? He must move; his ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... spark; So, stooping down from hawthorn top, He thought to put him in his crop. The worm, aware of 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 ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... 54-5.) Ascham, while lamenting in 1545 (Toxophilus, p. 29) 'that the laudable custom of England to teach children their plain song and prick-song' is 'so decayed throughout all the realm as it is,' denounces the great practise of instrumental music by older students: "the minstrelsy of lutes, pipes, harps, and all other that standeth by such nice, fine, minikin fingering, (such as the most part of scholars whom I know use, if they use any,) is far more fit, for the womanishness of it, to dwell in the Court among ladies, ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... own name into Donizetti. The Scottish predilections of our composer show themselves in the music of "Don Pasquale," noticeably in "Com' e gentil;" and the score of "Lucia" is strongly flavored by Scottish sympathy and minstrelsy. ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... recollect 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... Richard, was an elegant scholar and antiquary, and was intimate with Mr. Marriott, of Rokeby; with Mr. Surtees, the beauty of whose forged ballads almost makes us forgive him for having palmed them off as genuine; and with Walter Scott, then chiefly known as "the compiler of the 'Border Minstrelsy,'" but who a few years later immortalized his friendship for Richard Heber by the sixth of his introductions to "Marmion,"—the best known, as it contains the description of the Christmas of the olden time. It concludes ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... true!" "She travels from Havenpool Town," the deacon would softly speak, "The stipend can hardly cover her fare hither twice in the week." (It fell far short of doing, indeed; but I never told, For I have craved minstrelsy more than ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... rill's blithe minstrelsy; In willow bough or alder bush Birds sing, o'er golden filigree Of pebbles 'neath the ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... 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 touched your ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... which we are all familiar. There was this difference: The jokes hit off exclusively local affairs and conditions. The officers who served as instructors at West Point did not by any means escape in the running fire of minstrelsy nonsense. ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock
... was melted at Tristram's minstrelsy, and he said: "That is wonderful harping. Now ask what thou wilt of me, and it shall be ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... 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
... Their yellow hair.... Bates and Giles- On the shingle sat, Gazing at Turvey's Floating hat. But never a ripple Nor bubble told Where he was supping Off plates of gold. Never an echo Rilled through the sea Of the feasting and dancing And minstrelsy. They called-called-called: Came no reply: Nought but the ripples' Sandy sigh. Then glum and silent They sat instead, Vacantly brooding On home and bed, Till both together Stood up and said.- 'Us knows ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare
... elfin land, Or soundings from that heaven-commissioned band, Ushering the good man to the bliss on high. Now swells the chorus full, anon ye die Away upon the breeze, so soft and bland Melting on evening's ear. Sure Love's own hand In kindest mood hath wrought this minstrelsy. How to the lorn heart does its influence creep, As the wild winds sweep o'er the fairy strings, Bringing again departed, perish'd things, O'er which we feel it luxury to weep. Sing on ye zephyr-sprites, your vespers cheer The ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... Amor i begli occhi a terra inchina." When Love doth those sweet eyes to earth incline, And weaves those wandering notes into a sigh Soft as his touch, and leads a minstrelsy Clear-voiced and pure, angelic and divine, He makes sweet havoc in this heart of mine, And to my thoughts brings transformation high, So that I say, "My time has come to die, If fate so blest a death for me design." ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... 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, and join in ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... hearts to love, with eyes to see, With ears to hear their minstrelsy; Through us no harm, by deed or word, Shall ever come to ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [June, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... 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
... to be of no importance that Jubal invented rude instruments of music, calling them harp and organ; but they were the introduction of all the world's minstrelsy; and as you hear the vibration of a stringed instrument, even after the fingers have been taken away from it, so all music now of lute and drum and cornet is only the long-continued strains of Jubal's harp and Jubal's organ. It seemed to be a matter of very little importance that Tubal Cain ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... by 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, that he was overpowered ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... Ulster, returned hale and well from the land of Faylinn, and much did he entertain the King and all the court with tales of the smallness of the Wee Folk, and their marvel at his own size, and their bravery and beauty, and their marble palaces and matchless minstrelsy. ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... 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
... From The Border Minstrelsy, Sir Walter Scott's latest edition of 1833: the copy in the edition of 1802 is less complete. The gentle and joyous passage of arms here recorded, took place in August 1388. We have an admirable account of Otterburn fight from Froissart, who revels ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... this anthology of traditional song are the "Cleveland Lyke-wake Dirge" and "A Dree Neet." The former has been well known to lovers of poetry since Sir Walter Scott included it in his Border Minstrelsy; the latter, I believe, was never published until the appearance of T' Hunt o' Yatton Brigg in 1896. The tragic power and suggestiveness of these two poems is very remarkable. It is, I think, fairly certain that they stand in intimate association with one another and point ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... the arm uplifted, And nerved with God's own might, In an age of glory living In a holy cause to fight: And whilom catching music Of the future's minstrelsy, As those who strike for freedom Blows ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... red. I lie not. The French buy minstrelsy, but breed jests, and make their own mirth. The Germans foster their set fools, with ear-caps, which move them to laughter by simulating madness; a calamity that asks pity, not laughter. In this particular I deem that lighter nation wiser than ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... of glorious joy was there: Harping and dancing, loud and fair, And minstrelsy that made of air Fire, so like fire its raptures were. Then the chief lady spake on high: "Knight with the two swords, one of two Must help you here or fall from you: For needs you now must have ado And joust ...
— The Tale of Balen • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the soul-soothing strains of thy harmonist bird, For they seem on the soft wing of quiet to come, Like celestial melodies luring us home, Faint breathings from Heaven, to bid us prepare For peals of ethereal minstrelsy there. ...
— Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered Life. • Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney
... prison of Tasso, and the home of Ariosto, who called her "citt bene avventurosa," as did Tassoni the "gran donna del Po,"—that the desolate old city is revived to the imagination, with its hundred thousand people, its gay courtiers and brave knights, the romance of its feats of minstrelsy and arms whereat noble beauties and immortal bards assisted, and Art, Chivalry, Learning, Church, and State held festival with the Muses to adorn and perpetuate the transient pageant, the loveliness, and the rule,—otherwise since ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... minstrelsy of Ireland seems to have drifted into the hands of the most unpoetical people in the green isle. The poor old creature walked very, very slowly along the gutter, ever and anon giving herself a suggestive twitch, which plainly indicated some cutaneous titillation—the ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... Englishman, even in his love of fighting. What would he say if he knew where England lies to-day? What would he say if he knew the awful fate that has come upon this fair and pleasant land, from whose poets and singers he learned the art of minstrelsy?" ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... symphony, variations, cadenza; cadence; fugue, canon, quodlibet, serenade, notturno [Italian], dithyramb; opera, operetta; oratorio; composition, movement; stave; passamezzo [obs3][Italian], toccata, Vorspiel [German]. instrumental music; full score; minstrelsy, tweedledum and tweedledee, band, orchestra; concerted piece[Fr], potpourri, capriccio. vocal music, vocalism[obs3]; chaunt, chant; psalm, psalmody; hymn; song &c. (poem) 597; canticle, canzonet[obs3], cantata, bravura, lay, ballad, ditty, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... harmony, which is not too often deserving of the name, still constitutes, notwithstanding the large amount of indisputable talent which derives its support from the gratuitous contributions of the public, by far the larger portion of the peripatetic minstrelsy of the metropolis. It would appear that these grinders of music, with some few exceptions which we shall notice as we proceed, are distinguished from their praiseworthy exemplars, the musicians, by one remarkable, and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various
... 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 from that time ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 2 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... by, while the day came brighter, and the sun rose and drank up the clouds: an hour of silence in the ship, an hour of agony beyond narration for the sufferers. Brown's gabbling prayers, the cries of the sailors in the rigging, strains of the dead Hemstead's minstrelsy, ran together in Carthew's mind with sickening iteration. He neither acquitted nor condemned himself: he did not think he suffered. In the bright water into which he stared, the pictures changed and were repeated: the baresark rage of Goddedaal; the blood-red light of the sunset ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... me cutt if I do go down," said Adam; "you are near as good minstrelsy as the stroller can make, if you had but the grace to listen ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... Suddenly the character of the music changed, ... from an appealing murmurous complaint and persuasion, it rose to a martial and almost menacing fervor; the roll of drums and the shrill, reedy warbling of pipes and other fluty minstrelsy crossed the silvery thread of strung harps and viols, ... the light from the fiery globe shot forth a new effulgence, this time in two broad rays, one a dazzling, pale azure, the other a clear, pearly white. Nelida's graceful movements grew slower and slower, till she merely seemed to sway ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... 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
... not consider their vanities amiable at all. It was the view of Authority that the Devil had dispatched three lesser D's to be the damnation of nuns, and those three D's were Dances, Dresses, and Dogs. Medieval England was famous for dancing and mumming and minstrelsy; it was Merry England because, however plague and pestilence and famine and the cruelties of man to man might darken life, still it loved these things. But there were no two views possible about what the Church thought of dancing; it was accurately summed up by one moralist in the aphorism, 'The ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... 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, with courteous ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... of thought the calmer chimes came bringing, Telling praises every hour To His majesty and power, Telling prayers with punctual service, summers, centuries, how long? The beads upon our rosary of immemorial song." The Minstrelsy ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... herself for a man. In the older form of the tale Tannhaeuser lived goodness knows how long with Venus; then he forsook her, and she vowed to take vengeance on him. He returned to his friends, and entered for a competition in minstrelsy. While in the middle of his song, which would have gained him the prize, Venus visited him with sudden madness, and throwing away all cant about pure platonic love, he chanted the praise of foul carnal lust and ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... 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
... thou roam? Far safer 'twere to stay at home, Where thou mayst sit and piping please The poor and private cottages, Since cotes and hamlets best agree With this thy meaner minstrelsy. There with the reed thou mayst express The shepherd's fleecy happiness, And with thy eclogues intermix Some smooth and harmless bucolics. There on a hillock thou mayst sing Unto a handsome shepherdling, Or to a girl, that keeps the neat, With breath ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... Scott to test his own powers, his genius soon turned to more appropriate and natural subjects. Ever since his earliest college days he had been collecting, in those excursions of his into Liddesdale and elsewhere, materials for a book on The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border; and the publication of this work, in January, 1802 (in two volumes at first), was his first great literary success. The whole edition of eight hundred copies was sold within the year, while the skill and care which Scott had devoted to the ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... brass-plate. For a moment, I wondered what it meant; and then I realized, with a great gratitude, that London had not changed so much, after all, since the days of Charles Lamb. As I emerged into a broader thoroughfare, my ears were smitten with the sound of minstrelsy. It is true that the tune was changed. It was unmistakably rag-time. Yet, there was the old piano-organ, and in a broad circle of spectators, suspended awhile from their various wayfaring, a young man in ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... were the very words 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 for peace and rest, to spread no snares for ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... and rank 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 ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... kept them constantly to the exercise of arms, making them adroit in the use of their weapons and management of their steeds, and prompt for the field at a moment's notice. He permitted no sound of lute or harp or song or other loose minstrelsy to be heard in his fortress, debauching the ear and softening the valor of the soldier; no other music was allowed but the wholesome rolling of the drum and braying of the trumpet, and such like spirit-stirring instruments as fill the mind with thoughts ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... returned to his own pure and original style; and, like the dying swan, he sings the sweeter as he is approaching the land where the voice of his minstrelsy shall no more be heard. There is a calm melancholy in the close of his present ode which is very pathetic, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... pervaded by a faint mysterious light, which was every instant growing brighter and clearer. And as the light increased the music grew louder and sweeter, and he knew that it was within the sacred walls. But it was no mortal minstrelsy. ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... in India. This 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
... of earth— That both are not of heavenly birth? While gathered blossoms fade away, The Poet's thoughts for ever stay— E'en as the rose's perfumed breath Survives the faded flow'ret's death. No pleasure human hand can give Is lasting—all things briefly live. But sounds which flow from Minstrelsy Vibrate through all eternity! Then welcome! welcome! one and all, To this, our Nation's Festival. Come rich—come poor: come old and young And join our Feast of Art ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... bow and arrow that would not have disgraced the best men-at-arms of Maisonforte—here again, later in the day, was minstrelsy of a higher order than his father's ears had cared for, but of which his mother ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his prince to battle, and recited the might and prowess of his leader and the martial virtue of his hosts. No court or hall was complete without the presence of the bard, who enlivened the feast with his minstrelsy and song. We also see that the Welsh bard, like the primitive poets of Greece, and the troubadours of southern France, sang his verses to the harp, whose dulcet strings have always sent forth the national melodies. The chief bards were attached to the courts and castles of their princes and ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... 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 ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... young men who, for the price of a ticket, a cigar, and a glass of beer, purchase the flattering delusion that they are "seeing life," and "going it with a perfect looseness." The performances consist of Ethiopian minstrelsy, comic songs, farces, and the dancing of "beauteous Terpsichorean nymphs"; and these succeed one another with not a minute's intermission for three or four hours. At St. Louis, where gentlemen connected with navigation are numerous, the Varieties Theatre is large, highly decorated, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... voice of minstrelsy Speaks not of the vanquished man, I will Hector's witness be,"— Tydeus' noble son [27] began: "Fighting bravely in defence Of his household-gods he fell. Great the victor's glory thence, He in purpose did excel! Battling for his altars dear, Sank that rock, no more to ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... head A hundred snakes are hissing death, Whose triple jaws black venom shed, And sickening breath. Ixion too and Tityos smooth'd Their rugged brows: the urn stood dry One hour, while Danaus' maids were sooth'd With minstrelsy. Let Lyde hear those maidens' guilt, Their famous doom, the ceaseless drain Of outpour'd water, ever spilt, And all the pain Reserved for sinners, e'en when dead: Those impious hands, (could crime do more?) Those impious hands ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... 5302 verses, 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 ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... amorous selections of that crude minstrelsy made any impression upon her, she gave no indication. Before the songs ended she withdrew to the rude shelter that had been fashioned for her and wrapped herself in her blanket. But the pistol holster lay ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... Cardigan, faking his own accompaniment at the piano, had sung for her a number of carefully expurgated lumberjack ballads, the lunatic humour of which had delighted her exceedingly. She marvelled now at his choice of minstrelsy, for the melody was hauntingly plaintive— the words Eugene Field's poem of childhood, ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... 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 date ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... selection is 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
... in the present instance, has yielded to the extensive researches of Mr. Douce, who has afforded assistance to me, which, perhaps, no other antiquary could have bestowed. He has unravelled all the mysteries of minstrelsy with his usual ability; and I give the information in his own words, only observing that the numbers begin from the left.—"No. 1 was called the violl, corresponding with our Viol de Gamba. As this was a larger violin, though the sculptor has not duly expressed its comparative ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... 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 troupe, numbering more than a dozen, started back, ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... "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
... doubt the chocolates would be appreciated, but she had not expected to receive back a poetical effusion from her small knight. He evidently, however, had some slight gift for minstrelsy, for one day there was a tremendous rap on the front-door knocker at Burswood Farm, then a sound of running footsteps, and inside the letter-box was a note addressed to 'Miss Merle Ramsay,' in a rather wobbly and unformed hand. ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... pastourelle has sometimes been described as a popular form, but it would be difficult to determine wherein its 'popularity,' in the sense intended, consists, for it is easily recognized as the offspring of a knightly minstrelsy, and indeed is scarcely less artificial or conventional than the Italian eclogue. Although the situation is frequently developed with resource and invention on the part of the individual poet, the general type ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... His minstrelsy may be unchaste - 'Tis much unto that motley taste, And loud the laughter he provokes From those sad slaves of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... incorrect 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
... This child of fancy, that Armado hight, For interim to our studies shall relate, In high-born words, the worth of many a knight From tawny Spain lost in the world's debate. How you delight, my lords, I know not, I; But, I protest, I love to hear him lie, And I will use him for my minstrelsy. ...
— Love's Labour's Lost • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... 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 to meet ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... chaunted rose The song of Bacchic women: all the band Of shaggy Satyrs howled with mystic voice, Preluding to the Phrygian minstrelsy Of nightly orgies. Earth around them laughed; The rocks reechoed; shouts of revelling joy Shrilled from the Naiads, and the river nymphs Sent echoes from their whirlpool-circled tides, Flowing in silence; and beneath the rocks Chanted Sicilian songs, like preludes ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... "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
... I, all noble; I play at chess so free, At ravelling runes I'm ready, At books and smithery; I'm skill'd o'er ice at skimming On skates, I shoot and row, And few at harping match me, Or minstrelsy, I trow." ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... and its pillars quivered and sprang under the blow. It was then that the foreman builder, Mr. Goodwillie, whom I see before me still in his rock-habit of undecipherable rags, would get his fiddle down and strike up human minstrelsy amid the music of the storm. But it was in sunshine only that I saw Dhu Heartach; and it was in sunshine, or the yet lovelier summer afterglow, that the steamer would return to Earraid, ploughing an enchanted sea; the obedient lighters, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... twang of a citerne was heard in the street below her window,—nothing new in these piping times of love and minstrelsy; but so sensitive was the ear now become to exterior impressions, that she started, as though expecting a salutation from the midnight rambler. Her anticipations were in some measure realised, the minstrel pausing beneath her lattice. A wooden balcony projected ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... 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 ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... of this there's a price— 'Tis the price of minstrelsy— You will never have of the things you play, Sad singer of poetry, And throughout your life you will go for aye, Heart-hungry and silently!" I heard a voice from the far away ...
— The Rose-Jar • Thomas S. (Thomas Samuel) Jones
... one could have revived the true heroic style, it would have been done by Walter Scott, with his delight in the border minstrelsy, and his martial ardour; but the romantic spirit was too strong upon him. He had laid hold of the right tradition, could give picturesque scenes and characters of a bygone time, and Bonnie Dundee is a ringing ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... service I appreciated was the organ and chant: hidden in the midst of forest arches of stone, pouring forth its volumes of harmony as by unseen minstrelsy, it seemed to create an atmosphere of sound, in which the massive columns seemed transfused,—not standing, as it were, but floating,—not resting, as with weight of granite mountains, but growing as by a spirit and law ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... 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
... gentlemen there present to join him. This form 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, four drums and fifes, and ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... doing his best to cheer me with his music. This noble bird, though so far from his native fields, and shut up in his narrow prison, pours forth his rapturous melody in an almost unbroken stream from dawn to sunset. He allows no change of season to abate his minstrelsy, to any observable degree, and seems equally happy and musical all the year round. I have had him nearly two years, and though of course he must moult his feathers yearly, I have not observed the change of plumage, nor have I noticed that ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... 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
... sadly dying note, Upon this silent hour to float, Where, from the bustling world remote, The lyre might wake its melody! One feeble strain is all can swell. From mine almost deserted shell, In mournful accents yet to tell That slumbers not its minstrelsy. ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... once more," said the lark's sweet voice. "I see no cause to repent my choice; You build your nest in the lofty pine, But is your slumber more sweet than mine? You make more noise in the world than I, But whose is the sweeter minstrelsy?" ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... Bible, did the 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 ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... Beldham now, and Brett, Barker, and Hogsflesh, where be they? Brett, of all bowlers fleetest yet That drove the bails in disarray? And Small that would, like Orpheus, play Till wild bulls followed his minstrelsy? {2} Booker, and Quiddington, and May? Beneath ...
— New Collected Rhymes • Andrew Lang
... particle of his privileges. He has a right to wear the kilt, or ancient Highland dress, with the purse, pistol, and durk — a broad yellow ribbon, fixed to the chanter-pipe, is thrown over his shoulder, and trails along the ground, while he performs the function of his minstrelsy; and this, I suppose, is analogous to the pennon or flag which was formerly carried before every knight in battle. — He plays before the laird every Sunday in his way to the kirk, which he circles three times, performing the family march which implies defiance to all the enemies of the clan; ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... 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 harmony from ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 troubadours—among them the elder sons of Queen ...
— History of France • Charlotte M. Yonge
... faint vibration was in its midst of the violin's string, listen as he might. More than once he sought to assure himself that he heard it, but his fancy failed to respond to his bidding, although again and again he took up his position where it had before struck his ear. The wild minstrelsy of the woods felt no lack, and stream and wind and harping pine and vagrant bird lifted their voices in their wonted strains. He could hardly accept the fact; he would verify anew the landmarks he had made and again return to the spot, his hat in his hand, his ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... Roman coins in it, and so forth. A claymore and Lochaber axe, given him by old Invernahyle, mounted guard on a little print of Prince Charlie; and Broughton's Saucer was hooked up on the wall below it." He had entered literature through the ruined gateway of archleology, in the "Border Minstrelsy," and his last project was an edition of Perrault's "Contes de Ma Mere l'Oie." As pleasant to him as the purchase of new lands like Turn Again, bought dearly, as in Monkbarns's case, from "bonnet lauds," was a fresh acquisition of an old book or of old armour. ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... broad, sonorous, silver swells The air was billowed like the sea; And listening ears were listening shells That caught the Sabbath minstrelsy, And sang it with the ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... the philosophers have done and performed their commandments, then the minstrels begin to do their minstrelsy, everych in their instruments, each after other, with all the melody that they can devise. And when they have done a good while, one of the officers of the emperor goeth up on a high stage wrought full curiously, and ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... 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
... Gems," but thick volumes representing the bumper crop of the year. Many poets are reciting their poems to big, eager, enthusiastic audiences, and the atmosphere is charged with the melodies of ubiquitous minstrelsy. ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... Table, and his Knights, and told how they lay sleeping under the Eildon Hills, waiting to be awakened at the Crack of Doom. He sang of Gawaine, and Merlin, Tristrem and Isolde; and those who listened to the wondrous story felt somehow that they would never hear such minstrelsy again. ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... train to meet this loving pair, In silk and steel, moves from the castle door, And up the broad and ringing castle stair They go with gleeful minstrelsy before, And "Hail our prince and princess evermore!" From all the ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... humming-bird, like 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
... 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... for this glorious conquest." Reynard thanked them all kindly, and received their congratulations with great joy and gladness. And, the marshals going before, they went all to the King, guarding the fox on every side, all the trumpets, pipes, and minstrelsy sounding before him. ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... and 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 ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... leafy arcade, a rustic walk, which zigzags round the property, following to the southwest the many windings of the Belle Borne streamlet. This sylvan region most congenial to the tastes of a naturalist, echoes in spring and summer with the ever-varying and wild minstrelsy of the robin, the veery, the songsparrow, the red-start, the hermit-thrush, the red-eyed flycatcher and other feathered choristers, while the golden-winged woodpecker or rain fowl, heralds at dawn the coming rain ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... Mediaeval Period (a) Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border 17 (b) Studies in the Romances 32 (c) Other ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... a similar legend the subject of one of his ballads in the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," entitled "The Curse of Moy," a tale founded on an ancient Highland tradition that originated in a feud between the clans of Chattan and Grant. The Castle of Moy, the early residence of Mackintosh, the chief of the clan ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... of three great 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
... himself. At a later period, when Miss Scott, Walter's aunt, removed from Smailholm to Kelso, the intercourse between the families was renewed. Scott was then an Edinburgh advocate, engaged in collecting materials for his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, or, as his aunt described his pursuit, "running after the auld wives of the country gatherin' havers." He used frequently to read over by the fireside in the evening the results of his curious ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... only hear the deep growling tones of his voice, like the low breathing of an organ, without distinguishing the words, until pausing, and turning his face toward me, I found he was reciting some scrap of border minstrelsy about Thomas the Rhymer. This was continually the case in my ramblings with him about this storied neighborhood. His mind was fraught with the traditionary fictions connected with every object around him, and he would breathe it forth ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... 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
... He moveth nigh: He holds the region: not with tone Of piping shepherd's rural minstrelsy, But belloweth his far cry, Stumbling perchance with mortal pain, Or else in wild amaze, As he our ship surveys ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles |
