"Minstrel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by various authors, amongst whom Quevedo holds a distinguished place. We, on the contrary, have scarcely any slang songs of merit. With a race of depredators so melodious and convivial as our highwaymen, this is the more to be wondered at. Had they no bards amongst their bands? Was there no minstrel at hand to record their exploits? I can only call to mind one robber who was a poet,—Delany, and he was an Irishman. This barrenness, I have shown, is not attributable to the poverty of the soil, but to the want of due cultivation. Materials are at hand ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Rev. Thomas Percy, fellow of St. John's College, Oxford, and afterwards Bishop of Dromore. "The reviver of minstrel poetry in Scotland was the venerable Bishop of Dromore, who, in 1765, published his elegant collection of heroic ballads, songs, and pieces of early poetry under the title of 'Reliques Of Ancient English Poetry.' The plan of the work was adjusted in concert with Mr. Shenstone, but we own we ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... little except a burglar's tool or two here and there to mark its operations, and, with the aged and infirm General Scott at the head of a little army, and no encouragement except from the Abolitionists, many of whom had never seen a colored man outside of a minstrel performance, the President stole incog. into Washington, like a man who had agreed to ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... were painted standing on the edge of a pillar that revolved without pause. There was a woman with flaming red cheeks, a gold dress and dead white dusty arms, a man with a golden crown and a purple robe, but a broken nose, and a minstrel with a harp. The woman and the king moved stiffly their arms up and down, that they might strike instruments, one a cymbal and the other a drum. But it was finally the horses that caught Jeremy's heart. Half of them at least were without ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... street singers are practising songs, sacred and secular, and our friend the street minstrel produces an old flute and plays an obbligato, whilst the quivering voice of his poor old wife again wants to know the ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... uncomplaining to my fate." This prayer, like the others, would have been unheeded,—they thought only of their booty,—but to hear so famous a musician, that moved their rude hearts. "Suffer me," he added, "to arrange my dress. Apollo will not favor me unless I be clad in my minstrel garb." ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... and except among antiquarians and professional scholars, there was no remembrance of the whole corpus poetarum of the English Middle Age: none of the metrical romances, rhymed chronicles, saints' legends, miracle plays, minstrel ballads, verse homilies, manuals of devotion, animal fables, courtly or popular allegories and love songs of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. Nor was there any knowledge or care about the masterpieces ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... has caught this sentiment and plays upon it skillfully. His setting is in keeping with his story. The wandering minstrel, the turreted castle, the festive board, the high-vaulted hall with its oaken rafters, the chase, the wide reaches of the forests of Franconia, the beetling ramparts of old feudal castles by the Rhine or the lovely shores of the Lake of Constance, the vineyards on the slopes of sunny hills, ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... found in the later chroniclers which relates that at this crisis of his fortunes Alfred, not daring to rely on any evidence but that of his own senses as to the numbers, disposition, and discipline of the pagan army, assumed the garb of a minstrel and with one attendant visited the camp of Guthrum. Here he stayed, "showing tricks and making sport," until he had penetrated to the King's tents, and learned all that he wished to know. After satisfying himself as to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... Innocent III. ordered a Crusade, and John de Montfort not only opened up the Mediterranean ports for Philip, but brought Toulouse, the greatest of the remaining feudal states, into subjection to the King of France; at the same time forever silencing the voice of the heretic, of the minstrel, and of the harp; even the speech, with its delicate inflections and musical intonations, disappeared, to be heard nevermore. Such, in brief, is the story of the "Albigensian War," so called on account of the heresy having ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... chunk of snow fell right into the cup, splashing the chocolate all over the lad. Luckily it was not hot, though after the splashing was over Ted looked as if he had colored himself to take part in a minstrel show. ...
— The Curlytops and Their Playmates - or Jolly Times Through the Holidays • Howard R. Garis
... Muse, once more, Come with me to the days of yore, And let us wake, with friendly hand The memories of that distant land, The past; and while thy minstrel weaves A chaplet from the Sybil leaves Of recollection—let the light Of truth upon his lines be bright. May he with reverential tread Approach the dwellings of the dead, Seeking for some sweet flower of good Within their solemn solitude: ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... hall Shields gleamed upon the wall, Loud sang the minstrels all, Chanting his glory: When of old Hildebrand I asked his daughter's hand, Mute did the minstrel stand To hear ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... there leaped into his mind an improved revival of his original plan. If he could have made a fortune with his great inventions in 1876, what might he not accomplish by the same means in 1598! He pictured to himself the delight of the ancient worthies when they heard the rag-time airs and minstrel jokes ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... and farther delighted to recognize a well-known face on the minstrel's shoulders, she hastened at the conclusion to give him her compliments. It was the young nobleman who had aided her flight with Clemenceau at Munich, and of whom she had not cherished a second thought! ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... in a circus, he would make fun for old and young; again, as a wandering minstrel, he twanged the strings of his banjo and sung a merry song, and so on through all his travels, he would lighten the cares of others, and make them forget their sorrows, and fill ...
— Denslow's Humpty Dumpty • William Wallace Denslow
... was able to see clearly once more, I perceived that Gussie was now seated. He had his hands on his knees, with his elbows out at right angles, like a nigger minstrel of the old school about to ask Mr. Bones why a chicken crosses the road, and he was staring before him with a smile so fixed and pebble-beached that I should have thought that anybody could have guessed that there sat ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... the harmonious sound, Sylvans and Fauns the Cot surround, And curious crowd the Minstrel to behold: The Wood-nymphs haste the spell to prove; Eager They run; They list, they love, And while They hear the strain, forget the ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... themselves with their beauty and talent. And then out in the audience Judge Luttrell had Tony's mother, dressed in lovely black silk and also full of pride, while Mr. Chadwell kept nodding to Pink's mother at everything that Pink did, like there never had been a negro minstrel before. I thought of Father being the only lonely one up on the platform and with only me to be a credit to him—and me not doing it. I prayed for an immediate plan and as I prayed, as is my custom, I acted. I asked Mr. Douglass Byrd quick, if there was time for me to do ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... character. Not only was he a perfect knight on horseback, but in wrestling and running, throwing the hammer, and "putting the stane," he had 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 ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... and the fleet, and then, leaving for a long cruise up the Indian Ocean, Phillips had borrowed a lot of English books from an officer, which, in those days, as indeed in these, was quite a windfall. Among them, as the Devil would order, was the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," which they had all of them heard of, but which most of them had never seen. I think it could not have been published long. Well, nobody thought there could be any risk of anything national in that, though Phillips swore ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... your honour be a north-country gentleman," said the persevering minstrel, "whilk I wad judge from your tongue, I can play 'Liggeram Cosh,' and 'Mullin Dhu,' and ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... reading we had; my father, the Bishop, and Mr. Jephson reading it aloud alternately. It is a charming poem: a most interesting story, generous, finely-drawn characters, and in many parts the finest poetry. But for an old prepossession—an unconquerable prepossession—in favour of the old minstrel, I think I should prefer this to either the Lay or Marmion. Our pleasure in reading it was increased by the sympathy and ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... been on what, as he ruefully reflected, were very kind terms—rather more than kind, he had hoped, or feared, now and then. Merton saw that he had annoyed her, and thrown her, metaphorically speaking, into the arms of the Irish minstrel. All the better, perhaps, he thought, ruefully. The poet was handsome enough to be one that 'limners loved to paint, and ladies to look upon.' He generally took chaff well, and could give it, as well as take it, and there were hours ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... of the strife with the world shall be dealing. There song was and sound all gather'd together Of that Healfdene's warrior and wielder of battle, The wood of glee greeted, the lay wreaked often, Whenas the hall-game the minstrel of Hrothgar All down by the mead-bench tale must be making: By Finn's sons aforetime, when the fear gat them, The hero of Half-Danes, Hnaef of the Scyldings, On the slaughter-field Frisian needs must ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous
... the immense advantage over dull authors of being almost always interesting, and the equally great advantage over many exciting authors that he never leaves an unhealthy feeling in the mind. I began with "The Lady of the Lake," then read "Marmion," and "The Lay of the Last Minstrel" and the Ballads, and finally "Rokeby." These were in separate small volumes, which gave me a desire to possess other authors in the same convenient form, so I added Goldsmith, Crabbe, Kirke White, and Moore's "Irish Melodies." ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... door-keeper, Fr. huis, door, Lat. ostium. I conjecture that Lusher is the French name Lhuissier, and that Lush is local, for Old Fr. le huis; cf. Laporte. Wait, corruptly Weight, now used only of a Christmas minstrel, was once a watchman. It is a dialect form of Old Fr. gaite, cognate with watch. The older sense survives in the expression "to lie in wait." Gate is the same name, ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... I find it more distinguished to be the simple commoner. Dull at the Chateau! Good Lord! don't I know it!" He paused, lifting his head with a quick, bird-like motion: a cunning smile wrinkled his face and he smote the table with his open hand. "Dull, are they? There, my hedge-minstrel from Valmy, is your welcome ready made. Bring your lute and make pretty Ursula's grey eyes dance to a love song, prude ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... all books! Benign Ceruleans of the second sex! Who advertise new poems by your looks, Your 'imprimatur' will ye not annex? What! must I go to the oblivious cooks, Those Cornish plunderers of Parnassian wrecks? Ah! must I then the only minstrel be, Proscribed ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... The end man of the negro minstrel troupe is a modern creation like the Greek phlyax, for he is a buffoon of the plantation-negro type, with every feature exaggerated to the utmost, so that he is unreal and a caricature; but the exaggerations direct attention to familiar facts and display characteristic features which are ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... placed under the protection of St. Julian the Martyr. The chapel was consecrated on the last Sunday in September, 1335, and on the front of it there were three figures, one representing a troubadour, one a minstrel, and one a juggler, each ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... with "gabs," i.e. boastful and exaggerated accounts of their achievements. But soon a greater amount of leisure and luxury led them to pay for amusement; professed musicians and story-tellers were introduced, and were classed with the ministri or servants, whence came the name minstrel, which was soon confined to them alone. We find Talliefer going before William the Conqueror at the battle of Hastings chanting the brave deeds of Charlemagne and making a display of skill in tossing and catching his sword and spear. This union of tricks and music ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... not what I think of,' said Eleanor. 'It is to see our own Margaret, and to see and hear the minstrel knights, instead of the rude savages here, scarce one of whom ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Or are the birds all wrong That play on flute and viol, A thousand strong, In minstrel galleries Of the long deep wood, Epiphanies ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; And Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... expected to respond, though this by no means was the rule. The host might wish first to call out more of his own intellectual treasures. This he would do by having other occupants of the castle speak further words of welcome, or would call upon a minstrel to sing a song or relate ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... depicted as a baldheaded, elderly gentleman, with upturned eyes, apparently regarding with reverence a hole in an Indian-ink cloud through which slanted a gamboge sunbeam, and having a white beard, which streamed like a (horse-hair) "meteor on the troubled air." This venerable minstrel was seated on a cairn of rude stones, his white robe clasped at his throat and round his waist by golden brooches, and with a harp, shaped like that of David in old Bible illustrations, resting on the sward before him. In the background ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... Mary—but then Mary was one of those inconvenient people to whom it mattered not a jot what a fool you made of yourself, as long as you did what was asked of you. And so, from memory and unaccompanied, he played them the old familiar air of THE MINSTREL BOY. The theme, in his rendering, was overlaid by florid variations and cumbered with senseless repetitions; but, none the less, the wild, wistful melody went home, touching even those who were not musical to thoughtfulness and retrospect. The most obstinate chatterers, ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... yawned through the crevices of the stones, amid the grass there was a charming beginning of daisies, and buttercups, the white butterflies of the year were making their first appearance, the wind, that minstrel of the eternal wedding, was trying in the trees the first notes of that grand, auroral symphony which the old poets called the springtide,—Marius said to Cosette:—"We said that we would go back to take a look at our garden in the Rue Plumet. Let us go ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... an Irish saying of one who tells wonderful stories. Perhaps Banaghan was a minstrel famous for ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... shadowy halls of the Danish king a minstrel sings of the famous deeds of men, and his song is given as an interlude in the main action. It is a poem on that same tragedy of Finnesburh, which is the theme of a separate poem in the Old English heroic cycle; so Demodocus took his subjects from the heroic cycle of Achaea. The leisure of the ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... that are gone," he said, "love was more fortunate. Grief was our minstrel of things that endure. Now, ashes and dust and this world grow importunate. Time has no sorrow that time cannot cure. Once, we could lose, and the loss was worth cherishing. Now, we may win, but, O, where ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... angrily to know what "that infernal noise" meant. The Count instantly got up from the piano. "Ah! if Percival is coming," he said, "harmony and melody are both at an end. The Muse of Music, Miss Halcombe, deserts us in dismay, and I, the fat old minstrel, exhale the rest of my enthusiasm in the open air!" He stalked out into the verandah, put his hands in his pockets, and resumed the Recitativo of Moses, sotto voce, in ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... English poets the perfect minstrel. He takes love as a theme rather than is burned by it. His most charming, if not his most beautiful poem begins: "Hark, all you ladies." He sings of love-making rather than of love. His poetry, like Moore's—though it is infinitely better poetry than Moore's—is the poetry of ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... "It's the Minstrel. His boy threw him fair across Lucretia, and knocked her to her knees." He lowered his glasses listlessly. "It's Lauzanne all the way, if he lasts out. He's dying fast though, and Westley's gone to ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... in our strain, Now the months bring again The pipe and the minstrel to gladden the folk? Rather strike on the ear With a note strong and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... the tale, and it would not have needed Harry Hotspur to rouse his namesake from his folly. There was, alas! no such noble rival to excite David of Scotland to emulation, and no such happy turning-point before him. No one, not even a minstrel or romancer, has remembered it in his favour that he once defied the English host for the love of his country and the old never-abandoned cause of Scottish independence. Already it would seem a prodigal who was a Stewart had less chance than ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... cathedral aisles the coolness and freshness seems perennial, the silence was suddenly broken by a strain so rapid and gushing, and touched with such a wild, sylvan plaintiveness, that I listened in amazement. And so shy and coy was the little minstrel, that I came twice to the woods before I was sure to whom I was listening. In summer he is one of those birds of the deep northern forests, that, like the speckled Canada warbler and the hermit thrush, only ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... celebrated minstrel, led away by an exaggeration of healthy human desires, has left his friends and gone to live with Venus in the Hoerselberg. He soon tires of her; she tries to keep him; he calls on the Virgin; the hallucinatory dream is shattered, and he is in the ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... thought of Alfred, by there being many more stories told of him than of almost any other of the old Kings. One story is that Alfred, wishing to know what the Danes were about and how strong they were, set out one day from Athelney in the disguise of a minstrel or juggler, and went into the Danish camp, and stayed there several days, amusing the Danes with his playing, till he had seen all that he wanted, and then went back without any one finding him out. This is what you may call a soldier's story, while some of the others are rather ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... Our country's minstrel! in whose crystal verse With tranquil joy we trace Her native glories, and the tale rehearse ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... that succeeds the death of God's dumb creatures, are crowded halls, are slaughtered cattle festivals?—are maddening songs, and giddy dances, and hireling praises from parti-coloured coats? Can the voice of a minstrel tell us better things of ourselves than our own internal one might tell us; or can his breath make our breath softer in sleep? O my beloved! let everything be a joyance to us: it will, if we will. Sad is the day, and worse must follow, when we hear the blackbird in ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... "Little minstrel-bard of Coneri The son of the King has come with two or three— Nay, with a whole bright flock of paroquets, ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... Munro replied, "You surely must have been fortunate, as your name imports, and I am sure that you have been more so than I have been this day; but it's fit to take your advice, MacRath." This was a play on the minstrel's name - MacRath literally meaning "Son of Fortune" - and the harper being, like most of his kind, smart and sagacious, made the following impromptu ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... was proud to be The state's fast friend, and venal bribes would flee; When manhood wrote upon each lofty brow That glorious seal which makes the meaner bow; When Industry, Art, Science, Learning cast That light o'er Rome which gilds her to the last; The Roman minstrel caught the sacred flame, And made that age the chosen child of fame: The Golden Age recalled the happy hour, When man walked sinless in the first, sweet bower. Such was the glorious golden Age of yore,— That golden Age of virtue is no more. The ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley
... most of their views by talking with the women and children of their congregations. They are not permitted to mingle freely with society. They cannot attend plays nor hear operas. I believe some of them have ventured to minstrel shows and menageries, where they confine themselves strictly to the animal part of the entertainment. But, as a rule, they have very few opportunities of ascertaining what the real public opinion is. They read religious papers, edited by gentlemen who know as little ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... historian, and Oriental scholar, who was styled by his friend Ben Jonson 'a monarch in letters,' and 'vir omni eruditionis genere instructissimus' by Archbishop Laud, was born on the 16th of December 1584 at Salvington, near Worthing, in Sussex. His father was John Selden, a farmer, known as the 'Minstrel' on account of his proficiency in music. Aubrey describes him as 'a yeomanly man of about forty pounds a year, who played well on the violin, in which he took much delight.' Selden was first educated at the free grammar school at Chichester, and ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... how soon Aldebaran began to taste the sweets of great achievement. His name was on the tongue of every troubador, his deeds in every minstrel's song. And though he travelled far to alien lands, scarce known by hearsay even to the folk at home, his fame was carried back, far over seas again, and in his father's court his name was spoken daily in proud tones, as they recounted ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the 'Antiquary,' under the eye of Jonathan Oldbuck, who was himself once in love but has come to see that he was a fool for his pains. Certainly, somehow or other, they are apt to be terribly wooden. Cranstoun in the 'Lay of the Last Minstrel,' Graeme in the 'Lady of the Lake,' or Wilton in 'Marmion,' are all unspeakable bores. Waverley himself, and Lovel in the 'Antiquary,' and Vanbeest Brown in 'Guy Mannering,' and Harry Morton in 'Old Mortality,' and, in short, the whole series of Scott's pattern young men, are all chips ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... Harold being shot through the eye at the Battle of Hastings may have arisen from a reporter's using the figurative expression that William the Conqueror "put his eye out." Nor, after reading the account of the landing of the Austrian children, can I believe the tale of the minstrel Taillifer who sprang into the water to lead the Normans in landing. And as for the time-honoured phrases, "Take away that bauble!" and "England expects every man to do his duty," I don't believe ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... university; but in neither school nor college, was he distinguished for scholarship. In 1797 he was admitted to the practice of law,—a profession which he soon forsook for literature. His first poems appeared in 1802. The "Lay of the Last Minstrel" was published in 1805, "Marmion" in 1808, and "The Lady of the Lake" in 1810. Several poems of less power followed. In 1814 "Waverley," his first novel, made its appearance, but the author was unknown for some time. Numerous other novels followed with great rapidity, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... had already disposed of it in the manner and for the purpose I have shown you. As I still believed you capable of remorse and confession, I twice allowed you to see I was on your track: once in the garb of an itinerant negro minstrel, and the second time as a workman looking in the window of the pawnshop where you ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... cut the trees; to build and launch boats; to sail them, finally, across the strip of water to that England he was to meet at last, to grapple with, and overthrow, even as the English huscarles in their turn bore down on that gay Minstrel Taillefer, who rode so insolently forth to meet them, with a song in his throat, tossing his sword in English eyes, still chanting the song of Roland as he fell. None of the inn features were in the least informed with this great, impressive picture of its past. Yet does William ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... election in Arkansas in 1872 was that Brooks got the votes and Baxter the office, whereupon a contest was inaugurated, terminating in civil war. The Baxter, or Minstrel, wing of the party, with the view of spiking the guns of the Brindles, had, in their overtures to the Democrats during the campaign and in their platform at the nominating convention declared in favor of enfranchising the Confederates that took part in the war against the Union. Baxter's movement ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... luck, to have been introduced to this dandy in one's capacity of teacher of the mixed primary that very morning, when he had been given permission by Mr. Garvan to make an announcement at the school concerning special privileges granted school-children at the "high-class minstrel performance" given at Lally's Opera House. To be unhampered now by the timidities of office, and ready to pick up the gage of coquetry his saucy glance threw down. And so, after the smallest second's hesitation,—the woman in one stifling ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... shapely female balanced upon one delicate toe on the bristling back of a fiery, untamed palfrey that whoops round and round to the music of the band, the plaudits of the public, and the still, small voice of the dyspeptic gent announcing a minstrel show "under this canvas after the performance, which is ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... sailor's ship there was a minstrel bound for the king's court to sing on May Day; and the minstrel learned ...
— The Story-teller • Maud Lindsay
... sustaining a cross-piece, against which the preacher might lean his back. The services commenced with the singing of a psalm by the whole vast assemblage. Clement Marot's verses, recently translated by Dathenus, were then new and popular. The strains of the monarch minstrel, chanted thus in their homely but nervous mother tongue by a multitude who had but recently learned that all the poetry and rapture of devotion were not irrevocably coffined with a buried language, or immured in the precincts of a church, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... to love can be desert, I am not all unworthy. Cheeks as pale As these you see, and trembling knees that fail To bear the burden of a heavy heart,— This weary minstrel-life that once was girt To climb Aornus, and can scarce avail To pipe now 'gainst the valley nightingale A melancholy music,—why advert To these things? O Beloved, it is plain I am not of thy worth nor for thy place! And ...
— Sonnets from the Portuguese • Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
... was tremendously urging himself to play the mouth-organ there, to skip and be nimble, and gain a minstrel's meed. Meaning lunch. ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... of the North! that mouldering long hast hung On the witch-elm that shades Saint Fillan's spring And down the fitful breeze thy numbers flung, Till envious ivy did around thee cling, Muffling with verdant ringlet every string,— O Minstrel Harp, still must thine accents sleep? Mid rustling leaves and fountains murmuring, Still must thy sweeter sounds their silence keep, Nor bid a warrior smile, nor teach ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... amusing specimens of the MISAPPLICATION of the style and meter of Mr. Scott's admirable romances."—Quarterly Review. "'A Tale of Drury.' by Walter Scott, is, upon the whole, admirably execuated; though the introduction is rather tame. The burning is described with the mighty minstrel's characteristic love of localitics. The catastrophe is described with a spirit not unworthy of the name so ventureously assumed by the ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... little Norman chapel; for he was a puny, ailing child, apt to scandalize his father and brother, and their warlike retainers, by being scared at the dazzling helm and nodding crest, and preferring the seat at this mother's feet, the fairy tale of the old nurse, the song of the minstrel, or the book of the Priest, to horse and hound, or even to the sight of the martial sports ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... orbs sparkled and gleamed like fairy lamps of fire; and the bowers, in which the "Sultana of the Nightingale" inspired a song from her minstrel lover, assumed the dream-like repose which pervaded the surrounding scenes, and extended its influence to the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 473., Saturday, January 29, 1831 • Various
... world, no more? Return, thou virgin-bloom on Nature's face; Ah, only on the Minstrel's magic shore, Can we the footstep of sweet Fable trace! The meadows mourn for the old hallowing life; Vainly we search the earth of gods bereft; Where once the warm and living shapes were rife, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... world, no more? Return, thou virgin-bloom on Nature's face! Ah, only on the minstrel's magic shore Can we the footsteps of sweet Fable trace! The meadows mourn for the old hallowing life; Vainly we search the earth, of gods bereft; Where once the warm and living shapes were rife Shadows alone ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... The minstrel of the classic lay Of love and wine who sings Still found the fingers run astray That touched ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... later; at least the awfulness was well covered. The program of entertainment was awful enough, if deadly mediocrity is awful. A big darkey, dressed in a suit which reminded me of the "end man" at an old-time minstrel show, sang "My Alabama Coon," accompanying himself, more or less intimately, on the banjo. I could have heard the same thing, better done, at a ten cent theater in the States, where this chap had doubtless served an apprenticeship. However, the audience, which was growing larger every minute, seemed ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... ball, with rich gowns and flashing jewels, and the grounds ablaze with lights, and a full orchestra, and special trains from the city. Or a whole theatrical company would be brought down to give an entertainment in the theatre; or a minstrel show, or a troupe of acrobats, or a menagerie of trained animals. Or perhaps there would be a great pianist, or a palmist, or a trance medium. Anyone at all would be welcome who could bring a new thrill—it mattered nothing at ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... household minstrel, who always loved to please, Sat down to the new "Clementi," and struck the glittering keys. Hushed were the children's voices, and every eye grew dim, As, floating from lip and ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... A minstrel's fire within me burn'd, I'd sing, as one whose heart must break, Lay upon lay: I nearly learn'd To shake. All day I sang; of love, of fame, Of fights our fathers fought of yore, Until the thing almost became ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... with some soap and water, Herb," he said. "Just now you look like the lead for a minstrel show." ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... Jew, finding voice through the very extremity of his danger; "heard man ever such a demand? Who ever heard, even in a minstrel's tale, of such a sum as a thousand pounds of silver? What human eyes were ever blessed with the sight of so great a mass of treasure? Not within the walls of York, ransack my house and that of all my tribe, wilt thou find the [v]tithe of that huge sum of silver ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... Materialized it, maybe, just as they did the tambourine. You don't suppose a quiet New York lawyer kept a stock of musical instruments large enough to fit out a strolling minstrel troupe just on the chance of a pair of ghosts coming to give him a surprise party, do you? Every spook has its own instrument of torture. Angels play on harps, I'm informed, and spirits delight in banjos and tambourines. These spooks of Eliphalet Duncan's were ghosts with all the modern improvements, ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... as red as her mother's, though the old Countess paints hers every day. Her foot is as light as a sparrow's, and her voice as sweet as a minstrel's dulcimer; but give me nathless the Lady Anne," cried Philibert; "give me the peerless Lady Anne! As soon as ever I have won spurs, I will ride all Christendom through, and proclaim her the Queen of Beauty. Ho, Lady Anne! Lady Anne!" ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... days. I doubt whether they had any more amusement than the swine or the cows had. Looking after the fowls or the geese, hunting for the hen's nest in the furze brake, and digging out a fox or a badger, gave them an hour's excitement or interest now and again. Now and then a wandering minstrel came by, playing upon his rude instrument, and now and then somebody would come out from Lynn, or Yarmouth, or Norwich, with some new batch of songs for the most part scurrilous and coarse, and listened ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... half filled with old rubbish. I found rooms where an amateur minstrel entertainment had been given. Rude lettering upon the walls recorded the fact in lampblack, and a monster hand pointed with index finger to its temporary bar. Burnt-cork debris was scattered about, ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... gloom or depression. I say to you that the most buoyant, happy, hopeful, confident crowd of men in the wide world is the American army in France. If you could see them back of the lines, even within sound of the guns, playing a game of ball; if you could see them putting on a minstrel show in a Y. M. C. A. hotel in Paris; if you could see a team of white boys playing a team of negro boys; if you could see a whole regiment go in swimming; if you could see them in a track meet, you would know that, in spite of war, they are ...
— Soldier Silhouettes on our Front • William L. Stidger
... reinforces itself,—a real John Brown power that is always marching on, and we must march beside it with patient, cheery hearts. Is it strange that even the moss-covered Carlisle town, of which the Last Minstrel sang, and where the Scottish Mary tarried in her flight from the cousin queen, is now chiefly remarkable for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... which it acquired from the poems and stories of Scott. The thousands of pilgrims who come every year are attracted by this alone, since the abbey had no extraordinary history and no tomb of king or hero is to be found in its precincts. Were it not for the weird interest which the "Lay of the Last Minstrel" has thrown around Melrose, its fame would probably be no greater than that of the abbeys of Jedburgh and Kelso in the same neighborhood. Abbottsford House is only three miles from Melrose, but it is closed to visitors after five o'clock and we missed a second ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... Rome her "pictures of the world"; she has pictures of her own, "pictures of England"; and is it a new thing to toss up caps and shout—England against the world? Yes, against the world in all, in all; in science and in arms, in minstrel strain, and not less in the art "which enables the hand to deceive the intoxicated soul by means of pictures". {137} Seek'st models? to Gainsborough and Hogarth turn, not names of the world, maybe, but English names—and England against the world! A living master? why, there he ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... minstrel, and travelled to Durham, where King Edward held his court, and where young Bruce, taken captive, was now confined. By making himself known to the Earl of Gloucester, Wallace was able to gain access to Bruce, whose father was now ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... Thou soaring minstrel! winged bard! Whose path is the free air, Whose song makes sunshine seem more bright, And this fair ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... for something more worthy of the refined intelligence of his clever audience. Yet it must be acknowledged that much even of his wit is the mere filth-throwing of a naughty boy; or at best the underbred jocularity of the "funny column," the topical song, or the minstrel show. There are puns on the names of notable personages; a grotesque, fantastic, punning fauna, flora, and geography of Greece; a constant succession of surprises effected by the sudden substitution of low or incongruous ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... arose within the hall the din of voices and the sound of song; the instruments also were brought out and Hrothgar's minstrel sang a ballad for the delight of the warriors. Waltheow too came forth, bearing in her train presents for Beowulf—a cup, two armlets, raiment and rings, and the largest and richest collar that could be found ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... modern Englishman Handel is almost a contemporary. Paintings and busts of this great minstrel are scattered everywhere throughout the land. He lies in Westminster Abbey among the great poets, warriors, and statesmen, a giant memory in his noble art. A few hours after death the sculptor Roubiliac took a cast of his face, which he wrought into imperishable ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... melody; and very few, indeed, can gather from the silent notes the full effect of its splendid combinations. Yet even here the great master has analogous compensations. The idle amateur, the boarding-school girl, the street minstrel, and the barrel-organ, reflect his more palpable beauties; and, subjecting them to the severe test of incessant reiteration, make us wonder that "custom cannot stale" the infinite variety that is shut up even ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... marble minstrel's voiceless stone, In deathless song shall tell, When many a vanished age hath flown The story how ye fell; Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight, Nor Time's remorseless doom, Shall dim one ray of glory's light That gilds your ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... the want, the care, the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in. ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... was a land which was so much a woodland, that a minstrel thereof said it that a squirrel might go from end to end, and all about, from tree to tree, and never touch the earth: therefore was that land ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris
... called for blood; at another he declared that he would be satisfied with governing in Egypt. He recalled the prediction which promised him lordship in Jerusalem, and he was moved by the thought that as a wandering minstrel he would earn his daily bread,—that cities and countries would honor in him, not Caesar, the lord of the earth, but a poet whose like the world had not produced before. And so he struggled, raged, played, sang, changed his plan, changed his quotations, changed his life and the world into a dream ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... more dear, to her fine-tuned ear, On the midnight breezes float; Than the sounds that ring From the minstrel's string, When the mighty deeds of some warrior king Inspire each ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... to her that his silence was eloquent of the inherent generosity of the man, even as his poetic outburst of a few minutes before had been eloquent of the minstrel in him. She rode in silence, regarding him critically from time to time, and when they came to the tree where the panther hung he gave her the calf to hold while he deftly skinned the dead marauder, tied the pelt behind his saddle, relieved her ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... moon could sing, On a marvellous, mystical night in spring, I wonder what the song would be That the minstrel moon would sing to me. And as I think, I seem to know How the music of the moon would go. It would be a mystic, murmuring strain Like the falling of far-away fairy rain. Just a soft and silvery song That would swing and swirl along; ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... no flattery in this," replied Lucie; "but I will confess nothing,—except that I danced away my spirits last evening, and was most melodiously disturbed afterwards, by some strolling minstrel. Were you not annoyed ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... memories must die, yet as there sometimes clings to a prisoner's feet some dust of the fields wherein he was captured, so sometimes fragments of remembrance cling to a man's soul after it hath been taken to earth. Then a great minstrel arises, and, weaving together the shreds of his memories, maketh some melody such as the hand of Shimono Kani smites out of his harp; and they that pass by say: 'Hath there not been some such melody before?' and pass on sad at heart ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... the countryside, both gentle and common. In some booths there was dancing to merry music, in others flowed ale and beer, and in others yet again sweet cakes and barley sugar were sold; and sport was going outside the booths also, where some minstrel sang ballads of the olden time, playing a second upon the harp, or where the wrestlers struggled with one another within the sawdust ring, but the people gathered most of all around a raised platform where stout ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... of the gallant Froissart, although he flourished at a period so much more remote from the date of my history. If, therefore, my dear friend, you have generosity enough to pardon the presumptuous attempt, to frame for myself a minstrel coronet, partly out of the pearls of pure antiquity, and partly from the Bristol stones and paste, with which I have endeavoured to imitate them, I am convinced your opinion of the difficulty of the task will reconcile you to the imperfect ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... birds of the air seemed to welcome her. The warm southern winds were full of their warbling—beccafico, loriot, merle, citronelle, woodlark, nightingale,—every tree, copse and tuft of grass held a tiny minstrel. When the great gate opened to a fanfare of trumpets, from the castle walls there came the murmur of innumerable doves. A castle had its dove-cote as it had its poultry-yard or rabbit-warren, but the birds were not always so fearless ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... Rusafah on the Eastern side and villages like Baturanjah, dear to the votaries of pleasure; and with the roar of a gigantic capital mingled the hum of prayer, the trilling of birds, the thrilling of harp and lute, the shrilling of pipes, the witching strains of the professional Almah, and the minstrel's lay. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... hears the voice of a roving minstrel who is approaching. She conceals herself. He comes near, and not venturing to enter the hotel, lies down to sleep on a bench. He is soon asleep; and Silvia comes near to see him. She recognizes in him her ideal; and at once loves him. ...
— Zanetto and Cavalleria Rusticana • Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti, Guido Menasci, and Pietro Mascagni
... exquisite bird-song from an adjacent maple. Webb took off his hat in respectful greeting to the minstrel. ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... and Magdalena, welcoming them to their ancestral home. The girls almost shuddered, as they gazed upon the the huge hall, with its lofty carved ceiling, and its dark oak panelling. In ancient times, when it was crowded by armed retainers, or echoed to the joyful chorus of the feast and the minstrel's song, it must have been admirably suited to its purpose; but now it looked solitary and desolate, like a fit abode for the owl and the raven. At one end, a wide, substantial stone staircase led to the ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... incidents and remarks which, like atrophied organs in an animal body, reveal its gradual formation. Art and a deliberate pursuit of unction or beauty would have thrown over this baggage. The automatic and pious minstrel carries it with him ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... with any spirit in this measure has, other things not being quite equal, yet almost a certainty of becoming more popular than one written in any other measure. Most of Barry Cornwall's and Mrs. Heman's songs are written in it. Scott's "Lay of the Last Minstrel," Coleridge's "Christabel," Byron's "Siege of Corinth," Shelley's "Sensitive Plant," are examples of the rhythm. Spenser is the first who has made good use of it. One of the months in the "Shepherd's Calendar" is composed in it. We quote ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... relative merits of sitting and standing to wait until called by the bell. Of course no one could afford to be absent, for entertainments were entirely infrequent at Backley; the populace was too small to support a course of lectures, and too moral to give any encouragement to circuses and minstrel troupes, but a temperance meeting was both moral and cheap, and the children might all be ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... with varnished pumps and expanses of ankle in grey silk. One, inspecting him through an eyeglass on a woven hair guard, expressed a pointed surprise at Jasper Penny's informal garb. "Christoval!" he ejaculated. "It approaches an insult to the da-da-darlings." Another commenced to sing a popular minstrel air: ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... minstrel, cousin, who playeth not on a harp? Maketh no man melody but he who playeth on a lute? He may be a minstrel and make melody, you know, with some other instrument—a strange-fashioned one, peradventure, that never ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... in an attitude which I am half inclined to suspect was studied, began the little French air of the Troubadour. The Squire, however, exclaimed against having anything on Christmas eve but good old English; upon which the young minstrel, casting up his eye for a moment, as if in an effort of memory, struck into another strain, and, with a charming air of gallantry, gave Herrick's ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... first in ancient time, from Jubal's tongue, The tuneful anthem filled the morning air, To sacred hymnings and Elysian song His music-breathing shell the minstrel woke— Devotion breathed aloud from every chord, The voice of praise was heard in every tone, And prayer and thanks to Him the Eternal One, To Him, that, with bright inspiration touched The high and gifted lyre of everlasting song, And warmed ...
— Sketch of Handel and Beethoven • Thomas Hanly Ball
... company with their songs and music. Lady Clifford never went down to the great hall when her lord was away, but confined herself to her own private apartments with her female attendants and her children, but she readily gave permission for the domestics to admit the minstrel for their own amusement, and right glad they were of this indulgence, as they had spent ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... hearts' bond began, in due time signed. And long years thence, when Age had scared Romance, At some old attitude of his or glance That gallery-scene would break upon her mind, With him as minstrel, ardent, young, and trim, Bowing "New ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... emulate The Minstrel Boy, and we shall find you Storming its barred and bolted gate With reams of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... falconers with their well-trained birds, whose skill they had been approving upon their fists, their jesses ringing as they moved along, while nearer still, and almost at the foot of the terrace wall, was a minstrel playing on a rebec, to which a keeper, in a dress of Lincoln green, with a bow over his shoulder, a quiver of arrows at his back, and a comely damsel ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... recovery, with which Virgil closes the fourth Georgic, is among the most exquisite passages in all Latin poetry. Pope made it the subject of his Ode on St. Cecilia's Day; but if Pluto and Proserpine really relented at the doggerel that the English poet puts into the mouth of the half-divine minstrel, they cannot deserve the title of illacrymabiles which Horace gives them. Some of the pedantic scientists (to borrow a new word) have discovered in this tale of true love an allegory about the alternations of Day and Night, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... heard all that went on. 'Since your minds are made up,' says Arion, 'at least let me get my mantle on, and sing my own dirge; and then I will throw myself into the sea of my own accord.'—The sailors agreed. He threw his minstrel's cloak about him, and sang a most sweet melody; and then he let himself drop into the water, never doubting but that his last moment had come. But I caught him up on my back, and swam to shore ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... warbling dare approach the thrush Or blackbird's accents in the hawthorn bush? Or with the lark dost thou poor mimic, vie, Or nightingale's unequal'd melody? These other birds possessing twice thy fire Have been content in silence to admire." "With candor judge," the minstrel bird replied, "Nor deem my efforts arrogance or pride; Think not ambition makes me act this part, I only sing because I love the art: I envy not, indeed, but much revere Those birds whose fame the test of skill will bear; I feel no hope arising to surpass, Nor with their charming ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... minstrel tradesmen of Germany. An association of master tradesmen to revive the national minstrelsy, which had fallen into decay with the decline of the minnesingers, or love minstrels (1350-1523). Their subjects were ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... on the scenery of that now noted district of the south of Scotland, blended with the graceful expression of those melancholy remembrances, we doubt not deeply felt, which must ever cast a dark shadow over the minds of the surviving associates of the Great Minstrel. Alas! where can we turn ourselves without being reminded of the transitory nature of this our low estate, of its dissevered ties, its buried hopes, and lost affections! How many bitter endurances, reflected from the bosom of the past, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... unheeded by him, Arsenio prattled at his elbow. He bethought him of the old minstrel's gallery at the end of the hall in which the Condillacs were dining and whither the courier would be conducted. He knew the way to that gallery, for he had made a very close study of the chateau against the time when he might find himself in need ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... were followed by a lunch and that by an entertainment of mixed character. Billy Emerson, Ben Cotton, Billy Rice, Ernest Linden, F. Oberist, W. F. Baker, J. G. Russell and Billy Arlington of Maguire's Minstrel Troupe, and W. S. Lawton, Capt. Martin and L. P. Ward, and the Buisley family being ...
— California 1849-1913 - or the Rambling Sketches and Experiences of Sixty-four - Years' Residence in that State. • L. H. Woolley
... his body ached with all the strain and exertion it had so recently undergone. Slowly he moved off towards his own sleeping apartment, in case the Queen, when she awoke, should send to inquire after him. And on his way, as a short cut, he crossed the minstrel gallery, which divided one from the other the two state drawing-rooms,—a broad half-story colonnade, with central opening and corners draped ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... live in London and to have no notion of the House of Commons, nor indeed of the Queen, except perhaps that she is a rich lady; the police—yes, you knew what a policeman was because you used to be sent to fetch one to make an organ-man or a Christy minstrel move on. To know of nothing but a dark kitchen, grates, eggs and bacon, dirty children; to work seventeen hours a day and to get cheated out of your wages; to answer, when asked, why you did not get your wages or leave if you weren't paid, that you "didn't know ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... See in Notes on the Months, p.418, the Song "Bryng us in good ale," copied from the MS. song-book of an Ipswich Minstrel of the 15th century, read by Mr Thomas Wright before the British Archological Association, August, 1864, and afterwards published in The Gentleman's Magazine. P.S.—The song was first printed complete in Mr Wright's edition of Songs & Carols for the Percy Society, 1847, p.63. He gives ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... view of the Falls of Niagara the misunderstandings between the two countries would be reduced. Peter Irving, who was then in Edinburgh, was impressed with the brilliant talent of the editor of the "Review," disguised as it was by affectation, but he said he "would not give the Minstrel for ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... over sunny seas, until they came to the shore where the royal lover awaited his bride, impatiently scanning the horizon for the gilded dragon's head of the ship that bore her. The minstrel sings of the great wedding that was held in the old city of Ribe.[2] The gray old cathedral in which they knelt together still stands; but of Valdemar's strong castle only a grass-grown hill is left. It was the privilege of a bride in those ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... the fair form of May MacLeod appeared at the casement overhead, she waved a fond farewell to her mountain minstrel and closed the window; but the light deprived of her fair face had no charm for him—he gazed once more at the pane through which it beamed like a solitary star, amid the masses of foliage, and was turning away when he found a heavy hand laid on ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2, December 1875 • Various
... evening charmingly; I read the Lay of the Last Minstrel aloud to him, and he seemed to enjoy it very ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... not care to defend himself. He had drifted up toward the northern barbarians with the idea that they would well reward a minstrel who could offer them something more than their own crude chants. It had been a mistake; they didn't care for roundels or sestinas, they yawned at the thought of roses white and red under the moon of Caronne, a moon less fair than my ...
— The Valor of Cappen Varra • Poul William Anderson
... I want to dance as I had never yet danced: beyond all heavens did I want to dance. Then did ye seduce my favourite minstrel. ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... the stage today are built upon music and dancing. We find these two essential elements in opera, revue, musical comedy, pantomime and vaudeville, while the place of the dance in moving pictures may well be recognized. Should the old-time minstrel show come back, as it is certain to do, there will be added another name to the list of active entertainments that call for a union of music and dancing to insure ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... Never to wandering minstrel or pondering Poet her castle gate closes: Ever her kindly cheer—ever her praise sincere Falls like the dew on faint roses. And when her Pennillions rhyming She mates to her triple harp's chiming, In her green Gorsedd gown— ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... and Coleridge spoke with awe of his genius; Keats dedicated one of his poems to his memory; and Coleridge copied some of his rhythms. One of his best poems is the Minstrel's Roundelay— ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... old Robert, with harp-stringing numbers, Raise a flame in the breast, for the war laurell'd wreath, Near Askalon's Towers John of Horiston[1] slumbers, Unnerv'd is the hand of his minstrel ...
— Fugitive Pieces • George Gordon Noel Byron
... seated himself, and producing the ready little volume and the iron-rimmed spectacles, he prepared to discharge a duty, which nothing but the unexpected assault he had received in his orthodoxy could have so long suspended. He was, in truth, a minstrel of the western continent—of a much later day, certainly, than those gifted bards, who formerly sang the profane renown of baron and prince, but after the spirit of his own age and country; and he was now prepared to exercise the cunning of ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... What honest prose might best rehearse; How much we forest-dwellers grieve Our valued friends our cot should leave, Unseen each beauty that we boast, The little wonders of our coast, That still the pile of Melrose gray, For you must rise in minstrel's lay, And Yarrow's birk immortal long For yon but bloom in rural song. Yet Hope, who still in present sorrow Whispers the promise of to-morrow, Tells us of future days to come, When you shall glad our rustic home; When this wild whirlwind ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... and dearer still than he, or any living songster, was our ill-fated fellow-craftsman Tannahill. Poor weaver chiel! what we owe to you!— your "Braes of Balquidder," and "Yon Burnside," and "Gloomy Winter," and the "Minstrel's" wailing ditty, and the noble "Gleneiffer." Oh! how they did ring above the rattle of a thousand shuttles! Let me again proclaim the debt which we owe to these song spirits, as they walked in melody from loom to loom, ministering to the low-hearted; and when the breast was filled with ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... nuptials from the bright abode Yourselves were present; when this minstrel god (Well pleased to share the feast) amid the quire Stood proud to hymn, and tune his youthful lyre ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... He moveth his cunning hand. He opes his lips, and he poureth forth Such a sweet stream of sound, That the Soldan's heart leaps up in his breast, And his eye he casts around. 'Was never a voice,' the Soldan said, 'So sweet—nor so blest a song;— Sing on, kind minstrel,' the Soldan said, 'I have been sad too long.' The minstrel sang, and soft and sweet The Soldan's tears fell free; 'Oh, tell me, thou minstrel dear,' he said, 'What boon shall I give to thee? Oh, stay with me but a year and a day, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... pleasure. His new-found friend was making a favorable impression. He at once urged Oliver to sing one of his own Southern songs as the darkies sung them at home, and not as they were caricatured by the end men in the minstrel shows. ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... find an increasing admixture of buffoonery, without which no Interlude could be regarded as complete. Herein we see the influence of certain farcical entertainments brought over by the Norman jongleurs (or travelling minstrel-comedians). Just as the French fabliaux inspired Chaucer's coarser tales, so the French farce stimulated the natural inclination of the English taste to broad humour and rough-and-tumble buffoonery on the stage. Held in some ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... turned the home town topsy-turvy. This led to an organization of a boys' department in the local Y. M. C. A. When the lads realized what was being done for them, they joined in the movement with vigor and did all they could to help the good cause. To raise funds they gave a minstrel show and other entertainments, and a number of them did their best to win a gold medal offered by a local minister who was greatly interested in the work of ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... an apparent agony of grief. Three children are present, the two elder crying for sympathy, the youngest sitting in a crib or cradle and amusing himself with some toy, in apparent unconsciousness of his father's approaching departure. Soft blue light from left. Music, "The Minstrel Boy." ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... will be observed, is wholly different from that of the Hon. Pompey Smash and his literary descendants, and different also from the intolerable misrepresentations of the minstrel stage, but it is at least phonetically genuine. Nevertheless, if the language of Uncle Remus fails to give vivid hints of the really poetic imagination of the negro; if it fails to embody the quaint and homely humor which was his most prominent characteristic; ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... world?" An echo came — "Ails the world?" The minstrel bands, With famous or forgotten hands, Lift up their lyres in all the lands, And chant alike, and ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... said Tucket, starting for the rendezvous, and striking into another quotation from his favorite minstrel, parodied for the occasion. "'Speed, Manly, speed! the cow's tough hide on fleeter foot was ne'er tied. Speed, Manly, speed! such cause of haste a drummer's sinews never braced. For turkey's doom and rebel deed are in ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... found in Dr. Russell's pictorial neutrality, in the dashing effects of popular Mr. Trollope, nor even—making all allowance for the sanative influence of counter-irritation—in the weekly malignity of that ex-Moral Minstrel whom the London "Times" has sent to the aid of our insurgent slave-masters. For, instead of gloating over objections and picking out what petty enigmas may not be readily soluble, Mr. Dicey has a manly, English way of accepting the preponderant evidence concerning the crisis he came to study. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... if he may dare to hazard the remark, that the stanza in which he has attempted to write, has advantages over even the Spenserean stanzas. He understands the latter to be that in which the Fairy Queen, from whose author it takes its name—Beattie's Minstrel, Thompson's Castle of Indolence, Byron's Childe Harold, &c. &c., are written. The following is a stanza of it, from ...
— The Emigrant - or Reflections While Descending the Ohio • Frederick William Thomas |
