In Elizabethan England in the sixteenth century the strolling minstrels and ballad singers had already largely adopted the Ionian or major mode for their songs. This mode was in high disfavor among the educated musicians of the time, who called it _il modo lascivio_, the ‘lascivious mode.’ It is interesting to recall that the Greeks, including Plato, brought the same charge against their Lydian mode, which was the one of the four original modes which was most predominantly major in its feeling. In the England of Elizabeth and James the madrigal had nearly as much vogue as in Italy and the madrigal writers, chief among whom was Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625), were highly regarded. Not a few of the solo songs from this period have continued in favor to this day, but the more familiar ones were in most cases the work of educated composers writing in the popular style. In fact, the pure English folk-song was so inhospitably received among its own folk during the Commonwealth and after, that, until recently, it was popularly supposed that England had no folk-song of consequence. But the folk-songs were there and have continued from generation to generation through the centuries, to be discovered of late years by conscientious investigators. Though they are dying out in modern industrial England, they still exist in such numbers and of such distinctive beauty that they prove, more than all records can, the genuine musical quality of the England that existed before the great Rebellion. From among the ‘folk-like’ songs of this period we have, preserved in full popularity, a number, notably the ‘Carman’s Whistle,’ ‘The British Grenadiers,’ ‘The Bailiff’s Daughter of Islington,’ the ‘Willow’ song which Shakespeare introduced into ‘Othello,’ and ‘The Friar of Orders Gray.’