English And Scottish

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An inspection of the first hundred lines of Robert of Gloucester's Life and Martyrdom of Thomas Beket, (edited for the Percy Society by W. H. Black, vol. xix,) will leave no doubt that the hero of this ancient and beautiful tale is veritably Gilbert Becket, father of the renowned Saint Thomas of Canterbury. Robert of Gloucester's story coincides in all essential particulars with the traditionary legend, but Susie Pye is, unfortunately, spoken of in the chronicle by no other name than the daughter of the Saracen Prince Admiraud.

We have thought it well to present the three best versions of so popular and interesting a ballad. The two which are given in the body of this work are Jamieson's, from Popular Ballads, ii. 117, and ii. 127. In the Appendix is Kinloch's, from Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 260. Other printed copies are Lord Beichan, in Richardson's Borderer's Table Book, vii. 20, communicated by J. H. Dixon, who has inserted the same in Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs, Percy Society, vol. xvii. p. 85; Lord Bateman, the common English broadside (at p. 95 of the collection just cited); and Young Bondwell, published from Buchan's MS. in Scottish Traditionary Versions of Ancient Ballads, p. 1, (Percy Soc. vol. xvii.) identical, we suppose, with the copy referred to by Motherwell in Scarce Ancient Ballads, Peterhead, 1819. There is a well-known burlesque of the ordinary English ballad, called The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman, with comical illustrations by Cruikshank. On this was founded a burlesque drama, produced some years ago at the Strand Theatre, London, with great applause.

"This ballad, and that which succeeds it in this collection, (both on the same subject,) are given from copies taken from Mrs. Brown's recitation, collated with two other copies procured from Scotland, one in MS., another very good one printed for the stalls; a third, in the possession of the late Reverend Jonathan Boucher of Epsom, taken from recitation in the North of England; and a fourth, about one third as long as the others, which the Editor picked off an old wall in Piccadilly."

Jamieson's interpolations have been omitted.

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Those metrical romances, which in the chivalrous ages, constituted the most refined pastime of a rude nobility, are known in many cases to have been adapted for the entertainment of humbler hearers, by abridgment in the form of ballads. Such was the case with the ancient gest of King Horn. Preserved in several MSS., both French and English, in something of its original proportions, an epitome of it has also descended to us through the mouths of the people.

An imperfect copy of the following piece was inserted by Cromek in his Select Scottish Songs, (London, 1810, vol. ii. p. 204-210.) Better editions have since been furnished by Kinloch, Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 138; Motherwell, Minstrelsy, p. 95; and Buchan, Ballads of the North of Scotland, ii. 268. Of these, we reprint the last two.

All the poems relating to Horn, in French and English, including the Scottish ballads above mentioned, are collected by Michel in a beautiful volume of the Bannatyne Club, Horn et Rimenhild, Paris, 1845.

From Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 35.

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From Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, ii. 268.

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A story similar to this occurs in various forms both in Scotland and the Scandinavian kingdoms. Scott inserted the ballad in his first edition under the title of The Laird of Laminton; the present copy is an improved one obtained by him from several recitations. (Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, iii. 122.) Other versions are Motherwell's, printed with this, Maidment's, in his North Countrie Garland, p. 34, (Catharine Jaffery), and Buchan's, in his Gleanings, p. 74, (Loch-in-var.) Sweet William, in Motherwell's collection, (see Appendix,) is still another variety.

Jamieson has translated a Danish ballad which, though not cognate with these, exhibits nearly the same incidents, and we have inserted it in the Appendix.

It need hardly be remarked that the spirited ballad of Lochinvar in Marmion is founded on this ancient legend.

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Obtained from recitation, in the West of Scotland. Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 225.

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Jamieson's Popular Ballads, ii. 135, from Mrs. Brown's recitation. Barbara Livingston, a shorter piece, with a different catastrophe, is given in the Appendix, from Motherwell's collection.

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Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, iii. 37. For other versions, see Bonny May, Herd's Scottish Songs, i. 159, and Johnson's Museum, p. 113; Broom o' the Cowdenknowes, Buchan, i. 172; Laird of Ochiltree, Kinloch, 160; Laird of Lochnie, Kinloch, 167.

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The edition of this ballad here printed was prepared by Motherwell from three copies obtained from recitation, (Minstrelsy, p. 204.) Other versions have been published in Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 78, Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, i. 248, and his Gleanings, p. 122. The proper names which occur in the course of the piece vary considerably in the different copies. In two of Motherwell's, the hero's designation was Johnie Scot, in a third, Johnie M'Nauchton. In one of Buchan's he is styled Love John, in the other, Lang Johnny Moir. In Kinloch's copy, "Buneftan is his name," and he is also called "Jack that little Scot," which seems to have been the title of the ballad in an unpublished collection quoted by Ritson in his Dissertation on Scottish Song, p. lxxxi. In like manner, for the King of Aulsberry, (v. 111,) we have the various readings, Duke of Marlborough, Duke of Mulberry, Duke of York, and Duke of Winesberrie, and in the following verse, James the Scottish King, for the King of Spain.

The following passage, illustrative of the feat of arms accomplished by Johnie Scot, was pointed out to Motherwell by Mr. Sharpe:—James Macgill, of Lindores, having killed Sir Robert Balfour, of Denmiln, in a duel, "immediately went up to London in order to procure his pardon, which, it seems, the King (Charles the Second) offered to grant him, upon condition of his fighting an Italian gladiator, or bravo, or, as he was called, a bully, which, it is said, none could be found to do. Accordingly, a large stage was erected for the exhibition before the King and court. Sir James, it is said, stood on the defensive till the bully had spent himself a little; being a taller man than Sir James, in his mighty gasconading and bravadoing, he actually leapt over the knight as if he would swallow him alive; but, in attempting to do this a second time, Sir James ran his sword up through him, and then called out, 'I have spitted him, let them roast him who will.' This not only procured his pardon, but he was also knighted on the spot."—Small's Account of Roman Antiquities recently discovered in Fife, p. 217.

From Buchan's Lang Johnny Moir, printed in the Appendix, it will be seen that the title of Little Scot is not to be taken literally, but that the doughty champion was a man of huge stature.

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Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, iii. 159.

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Complete copies of this pretty ballad are given in Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, ii. 102, and in Whitelaw's Book of Scottish Ballads, p. 51. The latter we have printed with the present version, which, though lacking a stanza or two, is better in some respects than either of the others.—Robert Allan has made a song out of this ballad, Smith's Scottish Minstrel, ii. 100.

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"This version of Lizzie Lindsay is given from the recitation of a lady in Glasgow, and is a faithful transcript of the ballad as it used to be sung in the West of Scotland." Whitelaw's Book of Scottish Ballads, p. 51.—A very good copy, from Mr. Kinloch's MS., is printed in Aytoun's Ballads of Scotland, i. 269, (Donald of the Isles.)

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From Herd's Scottish Songs, ii. 50. A longer version, from Buchan's larger collection, is in the Appendix. Mr. Chambers, assuming that the foregoing ballad of Lizie Lindsay was originally the same as Lizie Baillie, has made out of various copies of both one story in two parts: The Scottish Ballads, p. 158. Smith has somewhat altered the language of this ballad: Scottish Minstrel, iv. 90.

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From recitation, in Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 174. Other copies are printed in Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, ii. 155, (Donald of the Isles,) Sharpe's Ballad Book, p. 40, (and Chambers's Popular Rhymes, p. 27,) Smith's Scottish Minstrel, iv. 78.

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First published in the fourth volume of Smith's Scottish Minstrel. Great liberties, says Motherwell, have been taken with the songs in that work. Other versions are given in Sharpe's Ballad Book, and in Buchan's larger collection, i. 188, (Jean o' Bethelnie's Love for Sir G. Gordon.)

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Neither the present version of this ballad, (taken from Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, ii. 253,) nor that furnished by Kinloch, (Jock o' Hazelgreen, p. 206,) is at all satisfactory. Another, much superior in point of taste, but made up from four different copies, is given in Chambers's Scottish Ballads, p. 319.

Sir W. Scott's song of Jock o' Hazeldean was suggested by a single stanza of this ballad, which he had heard as a fragment, thus:

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From Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, i. 268. The fourth and fifth stanzas are found as a fragment in Herd's Scottish Songs, ii. 6, (ed. 1776,) thus:

Sir Walter Scott, also, as Chambers has pointed out, has, in Waverley, put two similar stanzas into the mouth of Davie Gellatley.

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From Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 74. The last stanza but one is found in the preceding ballad. Another copy is given by Buchan, Ballads of the North of Scotland, ii. 187.

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"Taken down from the recitation of an idiot boy in Wishaw." Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 170.

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An imperfect copy of this ballad was printed in Johnson's Museum, (p. 474,) contributed, Mr. Stenhouse informs us, by Burns. The present copy is from the Thistle of Scotland, p. 7. Another, shorter than either, is given in Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, ii. 66, Lord Aboyne. (Also in Smith's Scottish Minstrel, iv. 6.)

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Ritson's Scottish Songs, ii. 169.

"Alexander, third Earl of Huntly, was succeeded, in 1523, by his grandson Alexander, Lord Gordon, who actually had three daughters. I. Lady Elizabeth, the eldest, married to John, Earl of Athol. II. Lady Margaret, married to John, Lord Forbes. III. Lady Jean, the youngest, married first, to James, Earl of Bothwell, from whom she was divorced in 1568; she married, secondly, Alexander, Earl of Southerland, who died in 1594; and surviving him, she married, thirdly, Captain Alexander Ogilvie, son and successor of Sir Walter Ogilvie of Boym, who died in 1606 without issue." Stenhouse, Musical Museum, iv. 378.

The dukedom of Gordon was not created until 1684, and therefore the first line should probably run as quoted by Burns,—

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Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, iii. 131.

An edition of this ballad was published in Herd's Scottish Songs, (i. 54,) and there is styled The Young Laird of Ochiltrie. Scott recovered the following copy from recitation, which is to be preferred to the other, as agreeing more closely with the real fact, both in the name and the circumstances.

The incident here celebrated occurred in the year 1592. Francis, Earl Bothwell, being then engaged in a wild conspiracy against James VI., succeeded in obtaining some followers even among the king's personal attendants. Among these was a gentleman named Weymis of Logie. Accused of treasonable converse with Bothwell, he confessed to the charge, and was, of course, in danger of expiating his crime by death. But he was rescued through the address and courage of Margaret Twynstoun, a lady of the court, to whom he was attached. It being her duty to wait on the queen the night of Logie's accusation, she left the royal chamber while the king and queen were asleep, passed to the room where he was kept in custody, and ordered the guard to bring the prisoner into the presence of their majesties. She received her lover at the chamber door, commanding the guard to wait there, and conveyed him to a window, from which he escaped by a long cord. This is the story as related in The Historie of King James the Sext, quoted by Scott.

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This ballad first appeared in print in the Tea-Table Miscellany, (ii. 282,) from which it was adopted into Herd's and Pinkerton's collections, Johnson's Museum, and Ritson's Scottish Songs. The version here selected, that of Finlay, (Scottish Ballads, ii. 39,) is nearly the same, but has two more stanzas, the third and the fourth. Different copies are given in Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 360, Smith's Scottish Minstrel, iii. 90, The Songs of England and Scotland, (by Peter Cunningham,) ii. 346, and Sheldon's Minstrelsy of the English Border, p. 329, (see our Appendix;) others, which we have not seen, in Mactaggart's Gallovidian Dictionary, Chambers's Scottish Gypsies, and The Scot's Magazine for November, 1817.

There is a popular tradition, possessing, we believe, no foundation in fact, that the incidents of this ballad belong to the history of the noble family of Cassilis. The Lady Jean Hamilton, daughter of the Earl of Waddington, is said to have been constrained to marry a grim Covenanter, John, Earl of Cassilis, though her affections were already engaged to Sir John Faa of Dunbar. In 1643, several years after their union, when the Countess had given birth to two or three children, her husband being absent from home on a mission to the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, Sir John presented himself at Cassilis Castle, attended by a small band of gypsies, and himself disguised as one. The recollection of her early passion proved stronger than the marriage vow, and the lady eloped with her former lover. But before she had got far from home, the Earl happened to return. Learning what had occurred, he set out in pursuit with a considerable body of followers, and, arresting the fugitives, brought them back to his castle, where he hanged Sir John and his companions on a great tree before the gate. The Countess was obliged to witness the execution from a chamber window, and after a short confinement in the castle, was shut up for the rest of her life in a house at Maybole, four miles distant, which had been fitted up for her, with a staircase on which were carved a set of heads representing her lover and his troop.

Unfortunately for the truth of the story, letters are in existence, written by the Earl of Cassilis to the Lady Jean after the date of these events, which prove the subsistence of a high degree of mutual affection and confidence; and Finlay assures us that after a diligent search, he had been able to discern nothing that in the slightest confirmed the popular tale. The whole story is perhaps the malicious invention of an enemy of the house of Cassilis, and as such would not be unparalleled in the history of ballad poetry. See Dauney's Ancient Scottish Melodies, p. 269, and Chambers's Scottish Ballads, p. 143.

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From Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 200, obtained from recitation. Another copy is furnished by Buchan, Ballads of the North of Scotland, ii. 194, which, with some variations, is printed again in Scottish Traditional Versions of Ancient Ballads, Percy Society, vol. xvii. p. 53.

"This ballad," says Kinloch, was composed on the marriage of Alexander Irvine of Drum to his second wife, Margaret Coutts, a woman of inferior birth and manners, which step gave great offence to his relations. He had previously, in 1643, married Mary, fourth daughter of George, second Marquis of Huntly.

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The unhappy lady into whose mouth some unknown poet has put this lament, is now ascertained to have been Anne, daughter to Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney. Her faithless lover was her cousin, Alexander Erskine, son to the Earl of Mar. Lady Anne is said to have possessed great beauty, and Sir Alexander was reputed the handsomest man of his age. He was first a colonel in the French army, but afterwards engaged in the service of the Covenanters, and came to his death by being blown up, with many other persons of rank, in Douglass Castle, on the 30th of August, 1640. The events which occasioned the ballad seem to have taken place early in the seventeenth century. Of the fate of the lady subsequent to this period nothing is known. See Chambers, Scottish Ballads, p. 150, and The Scots Musical Museum, (1853,) iv. 203*.

In Brome's comedy of The Northern Lass, or the Nest of Fools, acted in 1632, occur the two following stanzas. They are, perhaps, a part of the original Lament, which certainly has undergone great alterations in its progress down to our times.

The first professed edition of this piece is in the Third Part of Watson's Collection of Comic and Serious Scots Poems, p. 79; the next in the Tea-Table Miscellany, i. 161. Both of these copies have been modernized, but Ramsay's is the better of the two, and equally authentic. We therefore select Ramsay's, and add to it Percy's, which contains three stanzas not found in the others, and preserves somewhat more of the air of antiquity. There is a version extending to fifteen stanzas, arranged in a very different order, in Evans's Old Ballads, i. 259. Herd, Ritson, &c., have followed Ramsay.

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From Percy's Reliques, ii. 207.

"From a copy in the Editor's folio MS., corrected by another in Allan Ramsay's Miscellany."

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These beautiful verses are thought to be only a part of Lord Jamie Douglas, (see the next piece,) in one copy or another of which, according to Motherwell, nearly all of them are to be found. They were first published in the Tea-Table Miscellany, (i. 231,) and are here given as they there appear, separate from an explicit story. Although in this condition they must be looked upon as a fragment, still, they are too awkwardly introduced in the ballad above mentioned, and too superior to the rest of the composition, to allow of our believing that they have as yet found their proper connection.

In Johnson's Museum, (i. 166,) besides several trifling variations from Ramsay's copy, the fourth is replaced by the following:

The third stanza stands thus in a Christmas medley, quoted by Leyden from a "MS. Cantus of the latter part of the 17th century:"

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From the appendix to Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. v. An imperfect copy of this ballad was printed in Finlay's collection, vol. ii. p. 4; another, called the Laird of Blackwood, in Kinloch's, p. 60. Both of them may be seen at the end of this volume. Chambers has compiled a ballad in four parts from these three versions, another in manuscript, furnished by Kinloch, and the verses just given from Ramsay's Miscellany; and Aytoun, more recently, has made up a ballad from two copies obtained from recitation by Kinloch, and called it The Marchioness of Douglas. Ballads of Scotland, 2d ed. i. 135.

The circumstances which gave rise to the ballad are thus stated by Chambers: "James, second Marquis of Douglas, when aged twenty-four, married at Edinburgh, on the 7th of September, 1670, Lady Barbara Erskine, eldest daughter of John, ninth Earl of Mar. This lady is said to have been previously wooed, without success, by a gentleman of the name of Lowrie, who on account of his afterwards marrying Mariotte Weir, heiress of Blackwood, in Lanarkshire, was commonly called, according to the custom of Scotland, the Tutor, and sometimes the Laird, of Blackwood. Lowrie, who seems to have been considerably advanced in life at the time, was chamberlain or factor to the Marquis of Douglas; a circumstance which gave him peculiar facilities for executing an atrocious scheme of vengeance he had projected against the lady. By a train of proceedings somewhat similar to those of Iago, and in particular, by pretending to have discovered a pair of men's shoes underneath the Marchioness's bed, he completely succeeded in breaking up the affection of the unfortunate couple. Lord Douglas, who, though a man of profligate conduct, had hitherto treated his wife with some degree of politeness, now rendered her life so miserable, that she was obliged to seek refuge with her father. The earl came with a large retinue to carry her off, when, according to the ballad, as well as the tradition of the country, a most affecting scene took place. The Marquis himself was so much overcome by the parting of his wife and child—for she had now borne a son—that he expressed, even in that last hour, a desire of being reconciled to her. But the traitorous Lowrie succeeded in preventing him from doing so, by a well-aimed sarcasm at his weakness.... Regarding the ultimate fate of the Marchioness I am altogether ignorant. It is, however, very improbable that any reconciliation ever took place between her and her husband, such as is related in the ballad." Scottish Ballads, p. 150.

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We owe the preservation of this beautiful old ballad to Arnold's Chronicle, of which the earliest edition is thought to have been printed in 1502. In Laneham's account of Elizabeth's visit to Kenilworth, the Nut-brown Maid is mentioned as a book by itself, and there is said to be at Oxford a list of books offered for sale at that place in 1520, among which is the Not-Broon Mayd, price one penny; still, the ballad is not known to exist at present in any other ancient form than that of the Chronicle. We have no means of determining the date of the composition, but Percy has justly remarked that it is not probable that an antiquary would have inserted a piece in his historical collections which he knew to be modern. The language is that of the time at which it was printed.

The ballad seems to have been long forgotten, when it was revived in The Muse's Mercury for June, 1707, (Percy.) There Prior met with it, and, charmed with its merit, he took the story for the foundation of his Henry and Emma. Capel, in 1760, published a collated text from two different editions of the Chronicle,—we suppose that of 1502, and the second, which was printed in 1521, and exhibits some differences. Percy adopted Capel's text with a few alterations, (Reliques, ii. 30.) The text of the edition of 1502 has been twice reprinted since Percy's time: in the Censura Literaria, vol. i. p. 15, and by Mr. Wright, in a little black-letter volume, London, 1836. We have adopted Mr. Wright's text, not neglecting to compare it with that of Sir Egerton Brydges.

It will be interesting to compare with this matchless poem a ballad in other languages, which has the same drift;—Die Lind im Thale, or Liebesprobe, Erk, Deutscher Liederhort, p. 1, 3; Uhland, No. 116; Hoffmann, Schlesische V. L., No. 22, Niederländische V. L., No. 26; Haupt and Schmaler, V. L. der Wenden, i. 72 (Hoffmann).

In the sixteenth century a ridiculous attempt was made to supplant the popular ballads in the mouths and affections of the people by turning them into pious parodies. The Nut-Brown Maid was treated in this way, and the result may be seen in The New Not-borune Mayd, printed by the Roxburghe Club, and by the Percy Society, vol. vi.

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From Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, iii. 177. Another copy is in Ritson's Ancient Songs, ii. 134.

"From an ancient black-letter copy in the Pepys collection, with some improvements communicated by a lady as she had heard the same recited in her youth. The full title is, True love requited: Or, the Bailiff's daughter of Islington."—Percy.

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The copy here given of this favorite popular ballad is derived from Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England, Percy Society, xvii. 60. It is there printed from a modern broadside, "carefully collated" with a copy in the Bagford collection. In Percy's edition, (Reliques, ii. 171,) besides many trivial emendations, eight modern stanzas (said to be the work of Robert Dodsley) are substituted for the first five of the Beggar's second song, "to remove absurdities and inconsistencies," and to reconcile the story to probability and true history! The copy in A Collection of Old Ballads, ii. 202, is not very different from the present, and the few changes that have been made in the text selected, unless otherwise accounted for, are adopted from that.

"Pepys, in his diary, 25th June, 1663, speaks of going with Sir William and Lady Batten, and Sir J. Minnes, to Sir W. Rider's at Bednall Green, to dinner, 'a fine place;' and adds, 'This very house was built by the Blind Beggar of Bednall Green, so much talked of and sung in ballads; but they say it was only some outhouses of it.'" Chappell, Popular Musk of the Olden Time, p. 159.

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From A Collection of Old Ballads, i. 216. Percy's edition, (iii. 126,) was from a written copy, "containing some improvements, (perhaps modern ones.") Mr. Kinloch has printed a fragment of this piece in its Scottish dress, as taken down from the recitation of an old woman in Lanark,—Sweet Willie, p. 96. Several of the verses in the following are found also in The Lament of the Border Widow; see ante, iii. 86.

A similar story is found in Swedish and Danish: Liten Kerstin, or Stolts Botelid, Stalldräng, Svenska Folk-Visor, ii. 15, 20, Arwidsson, ii. 179: Stolt Ingeborgs Forklædning, Danske Viser, No. 184.

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Ritson's Ancient Songs and Ballads, ii. 75.

Preserved in Thomas Deloney's History of Jack of Newbery, whence it was extracted by Ritson. In that extraordinary book, The Minstrelsy of the English Border, (p. 201,) Ritson's copy is inserted without acknowledgment, and with a few alterations for the worse. Scottish versions of this ballad are given by Kinloch, (The Provost's Dochter, p. 131,) and by Buchan, (The Betrayed Lady, ii. 208.) The former of these is printed in our Appendix.

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From Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, ii. 82.

"The scene of this beautiful old ballad is laid near Walsingham, in Norfolk, where was anciently an image of the Virgin Mary, famous over all Europe for the numerous pilgrimages made to it, and the great riches it possessed. Erasmus has given a very exact and humorous description of the superstitions practised there in his time. See his account of the Virgo Parathalassia, in his colloquy entitled, Peregrinatio Religionis Ergo. He tells us, the rich offerings in silver, gold, and precious stones that were there shown him were incredible, there being scarce a person of any note in England, but what some time or other paid a visit or sent a present to Our Lady of Walsingham. At the dissolution of the monasteries in 1538, this splendid image, with another from Ipswich, was carried to Chelsea, and there burnt in the presence of commissioners; who, we trust, did not burn the jewels and the finery.

"This poem is printed from a copy in the Editor's folio MS. which had greatly suffered by the hand of time; but vestiges of several of the lines remaining, some conjectural supplements have been attempted, which, for greater exactness, are in this one ballad distinguished by italics." Percy.

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From The Garland of Good Will, as reprinted by the Percy Society, vol. XXX. p. 111. Percy's copy was communicated to him by Shenstone, and was retouched by that poet.

"The pilgrimage to Walsingham," remarks the Bishop, "suggested the plan of many popular pieces. In the Pepys collection, vol. i. p. 226, is a kind of interlude in the old ballad style, of which the first stanza alone is worth reprinting.

The pilgrimages undertaken on pretence of religion were often productive of affairs of gallantry, and led the votaries to no other shrine than that of Venus.[1]"

"The following ballad was once very popular; it is quoted in Fletcher's 'Knight of the Burning Pestle,' Act ii. sc. ult., and in another old play, called "Hans Beer-pot, his invisible Comedy, &c. 4to 1618, Act i."

"As I went to Walsingham is quoted in Nashe's Have with you to Saffron-Walden, 1596, sign. L."—Chappell.

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From Richard Johnson's Crowne-Garland of Goulden Roses, (1612,) as reprinted by the Percy Society, vi. 45. It is there simply entitled A Song of a Beggar and a King. Given in Percy's Reliques, i. 202, "corrected by another copy."

This story, and it would appear this very ballad, is alluded to by Shakespeare and others of the dramatists.

Thus, the 13th verse is partly quoted in Romeo and Juliet, A. ii. sc. 1:

Again in Love's Labour's Lost, (printed in 1598,) A. i. sc. 2.

See also Henry Fourth, P. ii. A. v. sc. 3, Richard Second, A. v. sc. 3, and Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour, A. iii. sc. 4,—all these cited by Percy.

In A Collection of Old Ballads, i. 138, is a rifacimento of this piece, in a different stanza, but following the story closely and preserving much of the diction. It is also printed in Evans's Old Ballads, ii. 361.

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From The Garland of Good-Will, as reprinted by the Percy Society, xxx. 125. Other copies, slightly different, in A Collection of Old Ballads, ii. 191, and in Percy's Reliques, ii. 246.

Percy conjectures that this ballad "took its rise from one of those descents made on the Spanish coasts in the time of Queen Elizabeth." The weight of tradition is decidedly, perhaps entirely, in favor of the hero's having been one of Essex's comrades in the Cadiz expedition, but which of his gallant captains achieved the double conquest of the Spanish Lady is by no means satisfactorily determined. Among the candidates put forth are Sir Richard Levison of Trentham, Staffordshire, Sir John Popham of Littlecot, Wilts, Sir Urias Legh of Adlington, Cheshire, and Sir John Bolle of Thorpe Hall, Lincolnshire. The right of the last to this distinction has been recently warmly contended for, and, as is usual in similar cases, strong circumstantial evidence is urged in his favor. The reader will judge for himself of its probable authenticity.

"On Sir John Bolle's departure from Cadiz," it is said, "the Spanish Lady sent as presents to his wife a profusion of jewels and other valuables, among which was her portrait drawn in green; plate, money, and other treasures." Some of these articles are maintained to be still in possession of the family, and also a portrait of Sir John, drawn in 1596, at the age of thirty-six, in which he wears the gold chain given him by his enamored prisoner. See The Times newspaper of April 30 and May 1, 1846, (the latter article cited in Notes and Queries, ix. 573,) and the Quarterly Review, Sept. 1846, Art. III. The literary merits of the ballad are also considered in the Edinburgh Review, of April, 1846.

Shenstone has essayed in his Moral Tale of Love and Honour to bring out "the Spanish Ladye and her Knight in less grovelling accents than the simple guise of ancient record," while Wordsworth, in a more reverential spirit, has taken this noble old romance as the model of his Armenian Lady's Love.

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The story of Griselda was first told in the Decameron. Boccaccio derived the incidents from Petrarch, and Petrarch seems to have communicated them also to Chaucer, who (in his Clerk of Oxenford's Tale) first made known the tale to English readers. The theme was subsequently treated in a great variety of ways.[2] Two plays upon the subject are known to have been written, one of which (by Dekker, Chettle and Haughton) has been printed by the Shakespeare Society, while the other, an older production of the close of Henry VIII.'s reign, is lost. About the middle of the sixteenth century, (1565,) a Song of Patient Grissell is entered in the Stationers' Registers, and a prose history the same year. The earliest edition of the popular prose history as yet recovered, dated 1619, has been reprinted in the third volume of the Percy Society's Publications.

The ballad here given is taken from Thomas Deloney's Garland of Good Will, a collection which was printed some time before 1596. It was circulated after that time, and probably even before the compilation of the Garland, as a broadside, in black-letter, and also, with the addition of a prose introduction and conclusion, as a tract or chap-book. In this last form it is printed in the above-mentioned volume of the Percy Society. The ballad in its proper simplicity is inserted in A Collection of Old Ballads, i. 252.

Percy's Patient Countess (Reliques, i. 310) is extracted from Albion's England.

The title in The Garland of Good Will is, Of Patient Grissel and a Noble Marquess. To the tune of the Bride's Good Morrow. Percy Society, vol. XXX. p. 82.

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From Thomas Deloney's Garland of Good Will, as reprinted by the Percy Society, vol. xxx. p. 52. Other copies are in Old Ballads, (1723,) i. 181, Ritson's Ancient Songs, ii. 136, and Percy's Reliques, iii. 207,—the last altered by the editor.

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From Collier's Book of Roxburghe Ballads, p. 163.

"This romantic ballad, in a somewhat plain and unpretending style, relates incidents that may remind the reader of the old story of Titus and Gisippus, which was told in English verse by Edw. Lewicke, as early as 1562: the ballad is not so ancient by, perhaps, thirty or forty years; and the printed copy that has come down to our day is at least fifty years more recent than the date when we believe the ballad to have been first published. The title the broadside ('Printed for F. Coles, J. W., T. Vere, W. Gilbertson,') bears is, 'Constance of Cleveland: A very excellent Sonnet of the most fair Lady Constance of Cleveland, and her disloyal Knight.' We conclude that the incidents are mere invention, but Constance of Rome is the name of a play, by Drayton, Munday and Hathway, mentioned in Henslowe's Diary under the year 1600, (p. 171.) The tune of Crimson Velvet was highly popular in the reigns of Elizabeth and her successor."

To the Tune of Crimson Velvet.

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From Percy's Reliques, i. 210.

This is the "song of willow" from which Desdemona sings snatches in the Fourth Act of Othello, (Sc. 3.) The portions which occur in Shakespeare are the first stanza, and fragments of the fifth, sixth, and seventh; he also introduces a couplet which does not belong to the ballad as here given.

The Second Part is very likely a separate composition. Songs upon this model or with the same burden were not infrequent. See one in Park's Heliconia, Part i. 132, and another in The Moral Play of Wit and Science, (Shakespeare Society,) p. 86.

Percy gave this song from a black-letter copy in the Pepys collection, entitled A Lover's Complaint, being forsaken of his Love. Another version, differing principally in arrangement, is printed in the above cited publication of the Shakespeare Society, p. 126, from a MS. in the British Museum, "written about the year 1633."

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From A Handefull of Pleasant Delites, &c., London, 1584, as reprinted in Park's Heliconia, vol. ii. p. 23. It is there entitled A New Courtly Sonet of the Lady Greensleeves. To the new Tune of Greensleeves.

"The earliest mention of the ballad of Green Sleeves, in the Registers of the Stationers' Company, is in September, 1580, when Richard Jones had licensed to him A New Northern Dittye of the Lady Green Sleeves."

"Green Sleeves, or Which nobody can deny, has been a favorite tune from the time of Elizabeth to the present day, and is still frequently to be heard in the streets of London to songs with the old burden, Which nobody can deny. It will also be recognized as the air of Christmas comes but once a year, and many another merry ditty." Chappell's Popular Music of the Olden Time, p. 227.

Greensleeves is twice alluded to by Shakespeare in The Merry Wives of Windsor; Act ii. Sc. 1; Act v. Sc. 5.

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This exceedingly pretty pastoral, the earliest poem of the kind in the Scottish language, is ascribed in the Bannatyne MS., where it is preserved, to Robert Henryson, who appears to have written in the latter half of the fifteenth century. All that is certainly known of the author is that he was chief schoolmaster of Dunfermline.

Robene and Makyne was first printed by Ramsay in his Evergreen, (i. 56,) and afterwards by Lord Hailes, in Ancient Scottish Poems published from the MS. of George Bannatyne, (p. 98.) Some freedoms were taken with the text by Ramsay, and one line was altered by Lord Hailes. Our copy is given from Sibbald's Chronicle of Scottish Poetry, (i. 115,) where the manuscript is faithfully adhered to.

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