We have not the Church History at hand, but Fuller, in his Worthies, says, “Bray is a village well known in Barkshire, the vivacious Vicar whereof, living under King Henry the Eighth, King Edward the Sixth, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, was first a Papist, then a Protestant, then a Papist, then a Protestant again.  This Vicar being tax’t by one for being a turncoat, not so (said he) for I always kept my principles, which is this, to live and die Vicar of Bray.”

Lastly, here is the song:—­

THE VICAR OF BRAY.

  In good King Charles’s golden days,
    When loyalty had no harm in’t,
  A zealous high-churchman I was,
    And so I got preferment. 
  To teach my flock I never miss’d: 
    Kings are by God appointed;
  And those are damn’d that do resist,
    And touch the Lord’s anointed: 
      And this is law, I will maintain
        Until my dying day, sir,
      That whatsoever king shall reign,
        I will be Vicar of Bray, sir.

When royal James obtain’d the throne,
And Popery came in fashion,
The penal laws I booted down,
And read the declaration: 
The Church of Rome I found would fit
Full well my constitution;
And had become a Jesuit,
But for the Revolution,
And this is law, &c.

When William was our king declared,
To ease the nation’s grievance,
With his new wind about I steer’d,
And swore to him allegiance: 
Old principles I did revoke,
Set conscience at a distance;
Passive obedience was a joke,
And pish for non-resistance. 
And this is law, &.c.

When gracious Anne ascends the throne. 
The Church of England’s glory,
Another face of things was seen,
And I became a Tory: 
Occasional conformists base,
I damn’d their moderation,
And thought the church in danger was
By such prevarication,
And this is law, &c.

When George in pudding-time came o’er,
And moderate men look’d big, sir,
I turn’d a cat-in-pan once more,
And then became a Whig, sir: 
And so preferment I procured
By our new faith’s defender,
And always every day abjured
The Pope and the pretender. 
And this is law, &c.

The illustrious house of Hanover,
And Protestant succession,
To these I do allegiance swear
While they can keep possession: 
For by my faith and loyalty
I never more will falter,
And George my lawful king shall be
Until the time shall alter. 
And this is law, &c.

* * * * *

ANOTHER OLD SONG.

ORIGIN OF THE SONG “FOUR AND TWENTY FIDDLERS ALL ON A ROW.”

The fiddle was not allowed to be a concert instrument till the reign of Charles the Second, who, in imitation of Louis the Fourteenth, established a band of twenty-four violins, alias fiddles, which gave birth to Tom Durfey’s song of “Four and Twenty Fiddlers all on a Row,” &c.:  a humorous production, in which there is a mockery of every instrument, and almost every trade, and which used to be performed between the acts, or between the play and farce, by some man of humour at benefits.