University of Virginia Library

At the beginning of this volume we gave the old original Song of Chevy Chace. The reader has here the more improved edition of that fine Heroic ballad. It will afford

an agreeable entertainment to the curious to compare them together, and to see how far the latter bard has excelled his predecessor, and where he has fallen short of him. For tho' he has every where improved the versification, and generally the sentiment and diction: yet some few passages retain more dignity in the ancient copy; at least the obsoleteness of the style serves as a veil to hide whatever might appear too familiar or vulgar in them. Thus, for instance, the catastrophe of the gallant Witherington is in the modern copy exprest in terms which never fail at present to excite ridicule: whereas in the original it is related with a plain and pathetic simplicity, that is liable to no such unlucky effect: See the stanza in pag. 241 which in modern orthography, &c. would run thus,

So again the stanza which describes the fall of Montgomery is somewhat more elevated in the ancient copy,

WE might also add, that the circumstances of the battle are more clearly conceived, and the several incidents more distinctly marked in the old original, than in the improved copy. It is well known that the ancient English weapon was the long bow, and that this nation excelled all others in archery; while the Scottish warriours chiefly depended on the use of the spear: this characteristic difference never escapes our ancient bard, whose description of the first onset (p. 9.) is to the following effect.

“The proposal of the two gallant earls to determine the dispute by single combat being over-ruled; the English, says he, who stood with their bows ready bent, gave a general discharge of their arrows, which slew seven score spearmen of the enemy: but notwithstanding so severe a loss, Douglas like a brave captain kept his ground. He had divided his forces into three columns, who as soon as the English had discharged the first volley, bore down upon them with their spears, and breaking through their ranks reduced them to close fighting. The archers upon this dropt their bows and had recourse to their swords, and there followed so sharp a conflict, that multitudes on both sides lost their lives.” In the midst of this general engagement, at length the two great earls meet, and after a spirited rencounter agree to breathe; upon which a parley ensues, that would do honour to Homer himself.

Nothing can be more pleasingly distinct and circumstantial than this: whereas the modern copy, tho' in general it has great merit, is here unluckily both confused and obscure. Indeed the original words seem here to have been totally misunderstood. “Yet bydys the yerl Douglas upon the bent,” evidently signifies, “Yet the earl Douglas abides in the field:” Whereas the more modern bard seems to have understood by bent, the inclination of his mind, and accordingly runs quite off from the subject ,

ONE may also observe a generous impartiality in the old original bard, when in the conclusion of his tale he represents both nations as quitting the field without any reproachful reflection on either: tho' he gives to his own countrymen the credit of being the smaller number.

He attributes flight to neither party, as hath been done in the modern copies of this ballad, as well Scotch as English. For, to be even with our latter bard, who makes the Scots to flee, some reviser of North Britain has turned his own arms against him, and printed an Edition at Glasgow, in which the lines are thus transposed,

And to countenance this change he has suppressed the two stanzas between ver. 241. and ver. 249.—From this Edition I have reformed the Scottish names in pag. 263. which in the modern English ballad appeared to be corrupted.

When I call the present admired ballad modern, I only mean that it is comparatively so; for that it could not be writ much later than the time of Q. Elizabeth, I think may be made appear; nor yet does it seem to be older than the beginning of the last century . Sir Philip Sidney, when he complains

of the antiquated phrase of Chevy Chace, could never have seen this improved copy, the language of which is not more ancient than that he himself used. It is probable that the encomiums of so admired a writer excited some bard to revise the ballad, and to free it from those faults he had objected to it. That it could not be much later than that time, appears from the phrase doleful dumps; which in that age carried no ill sound with it, but to the next generation became ridiculous. We have seen it pass uncensured in a sonnet that was at that time in request, and where it could not fail to have been taken notice of, had it been in the least exceptionable: see above p. 180, 1: Yet in about half a century after, it was become burlesque. See Hudibras, Pt. 1. c. 3. v. 95.

THIS much premised, the reader that would see the general beauties of this ballad set in a just and striking light, may consult the excellent criticism of Mr. Addison . With regard to its subject: it has already been considered in page 3d. The conjectures there offered will receive confirmation from a passage in the Memoirs of Cary Earl of Monmouth, 8 vo. 1759. p. 165. Whence we learn that it was an ancient custom with the borderers of the two kingdoms when they were at peace, to send to the Lord Wardens of the opposite Marches for leave to hunt within their districts. If leave was granted, then towards the end of summer they would come and hunt for several days together “with their grey-hounds for deer:” but if they took this liberty unpermitted, then the Lord Warden of the border so invaded, would not fail to interrupt their sport and chastise their boldness. He mentions a remarkable instance that happened while he was Warden, when some Scotch Gentlemen coming to hunt in defiance of him, there must have ensued such an action as this of Chevy Chace, if the intruders had been proportionably numerous and well-armed; for upon their being attacked by his men at arms, he tells us, “some hurt was done, tho'

“he had given especiall order that they should shed as little blood as possible.” They were in effect overpowered and taken prisoners, and only released on their promise to abstain from such licentious sporting for the future.

The following text is given from a copy in the Editor's folio MS. compared with two or three others printed in black letter.—In the second volume of Dryden's Miscellanies may be found a translation of Chevy Chace into Latin Rhymes. The translator, Mr. Henry Bold of New College, undertook it at the command of Dr. Compton, bishop of London; who thought it no derogation to his episcopal character, to avow a fondness for this excellent old ballad.

See the preface to Bold's Latin Songs, 1685. 8 vo.

The 4 stanzas here inclosed in Brackets, which are borrowed chiefly from the ancient Copy, are offered to the Reader instead of the following unmeaning lines, which are those of the Author, viz.

These fine moral stanzas were originally intended for a solemn funeral song in a play of James Shirley's, intitled “The Contention of Ajax and Ulysses:” no date, 8vo.— Shirley flourished as a Dramatic writer early in the reign of Charles I: but he outlived the Restoration. His death happened Oct. 29. 1666. Æt. 72.

This little poem was written long after many of those that follow, but is inserted here as a kind of Dirge to the foregoing piece. It is said to have been a favourite Song with K. Charles II.

The subject of this ballad is the great Northern Insurrection in the 12th year of Elizabeth, 1569; which proved

so fatal to Thomas Percy the seventh Earl of Northumberland.

There had not long before been a secret negotiation entered into between some of the Scottish and English nobility, to bring about a marriage between Mary Q. of Scots, at that time a prisoner in England, and the Duke of Norfolk, a nobleman of excellent character, and firmly attached to the Protestant religion. This match was proposed to all the most considerable of the English nobility, and among the rest to the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, two noblemen very powerful in the North. As it seemed to promise a speedy and safe conclusion of the troubles in Scotland, with many advantages to the crown of England; they all consented to it, provided it should prove agreeable to Q. Elizabeth. The Earl of Leicester (Elizabeth's favourite) undertook to break the matter to her, but before he could find an opportunity, the affair had come to her ears by other hands, and she was thrown into a violent flame. The Duke of Norfolk, with several of his friends, was committed to the tower, and summons were sent to the Northern Earls instantly to make their appearance at court. It is said that the Earl of Northumberland, who was a man of a mild and gentle nature, was deliberating with himself whether he should not obey the message, and rely upon the queen's candour and clemency, when he was forced into desperate measures by a sudden report at midnight, Nov. 14. that a party of his enemies were come to seize on his person . The Earl was then at his house at Topcliffe in Yorkshire. When rising hastily out of bed, he withdrew to the Earl of Westmoreland, at Brancepeth, where the country came in to them, and pressed them to take arms in their own defence. They accordingly set up their standards, declaring their intent was to restore the ancient religion; to get the succession of the crown firmly settled, and to prevent the destruction of the

ancient nobility, &c. Their common banner (on which was displayed the cross, together with the five wounds of Christ) was borne by an ancient gentleman, Richard Norton, Esq; of Norton-conyers: who with his sons (among whom, Christopher, Marmaduke, and Thomas, are expressly named by Camden) distinguished himself on this occasion. Having entered Durham, they tore the Bible, &c. and caused mass to be said there: they then marched on to Clifford-moor near Wetherbye, where they mustered their men. Their intention was to have proceeded on to York, but altering their minds they fell upon Barnard's castle, which Sir George Bowes held out against them for eleven days. The two earls, who spent their large estates in hospitality, and were extremely beloved on that account, were masters of little ready money; the E. of Northumberland bringing with him only 8000 crowns, and the E. of Westmoreland nothing at all for the subsistence of their forces, they were not able to march to London, as they had at first intended. In these circumstances, Westmoreland began so visibly to despond that many of his men slunk away, tho' Northumberland still kept up his resolution, and was master of the field till December 13. when the Earl of Sussex, accompanied with Lord Hunsden and others, having marched out of York at the head of a large body of forces, and being followed by a still larger army under the command of Ambrose Dudley Earl of Warwick, the insurgents retreated northward towards the borders, and there dismissing their followers, made their escape into Scotland. Tho' this insurrection had been suppressed with so little bloodshed, the Earl of Sussex and Sir George Bowes, marshal of the army, put vast numbers to death by martial law, without any regular trial. The former of these caused at Durham sixty-three constables to be hanged at once. And the latter made his boast that for sixty miles in length and forty in breadth, betwixt Newcastle and Wetherby, there was hardly a town or village wherein he had not executed some of the inhabitants. This exceeds the cruelties practised in the West after Monmouth's rebellion: but that was not the age of tenderness and humanity.

Such is the account collected from Stow, Speed, Camden, Guthrie, Carte, and Rapin; it agrees in most particulars with the following ballad, which was apparently the production of some northern minstrel, who was well affected to the two noblemen. It is here printed from two MS copies, one of them in the editor's folio collection. They contained considerable variations, out of which such readings were chosen as seemed most poetical and consonant to history.

This ballad may be considered as the sequel of the preceding. After the unfortunate Earl of Northumberland

had seen himself forsaken of his followers, he endeavoured to withdraw into Scotland, but falling into the hands of the thievish borderers, was stript and otherwise ill-treated by them. At length he reached the house of Hector of Harlaw, an Armstrong, with whom he hoped to lie concealed: for Hector had engaged his honour to be true to him, and was under great obligations to this unhappy nobleman. But this faithless wretch betrayed his guest for a sum of money to Murray the Regent of Scotland, who sent him to the castle of Lough-leven, then belonging to William Douglas.— All the writers of that time assure us that Hector, who was rich before, fell shortly after into poverty, and became so infamous, that to take Hector's cloak, grew into a proverb to express a man, who betrays his friend.

See Camden, Carleton, Holingshed, &c.

Lord Northumberland continued in the castle of Loughleven, till the year 1572; when James Douglas Earl of Morton being elected Regent, he was given up to the Lord Hunsden at Berwick, and being carried to York, suffered death. As Morton's party depended on Elizabeth for protection, an elegant Historian thinks “it was scarce possible for them to refuse putting into her hands, a person who had taken up arms against her. But as a sum of money was paid on that account, and shared between Morton and his kinsman Douglas, the former of whom during his exile in England had been much indebted to Northumberland's friendship, the abandoning this unhappy nobleman to inevitable destruction, was deemed an ungrateful and mercenary act.”

Robertson's Hist.

So far history coincides with this ballad, which was apparently written by some northern bard, soon after the event. The interposal of the witch-lady (v. 53.) is probably his own invention: yet even this hath some countenance from history; for about 25 years before, the Lady Jane Douglas, Lady Glamis, sister of the earl of Angus, and nearly related to Douglas of Lough-leven, had suffered death for the pretended crime of witchcraft; who, it is presumed, is the lady alluded to in verse 133.

The following is printed (like the former) from two copies: one of them in the Editor's folio MS: Which also contains another ballad on the escape of the E. of Westmoreland, who got safe into Flanders, and is feigned in the ballad to have undergone a great variety of adventures.

This excellent philosophical song appears to have been famous in the sixteenth century. It is quoted by Ben Jonson in his play of “Every man out of his humour,” first acted in 1599. A. 1. sc. 1. where an impatient person says,

It is here chiefly printed from a thin quarto Musick-book, intitled, “Bassus. Psalmes, Sonets and Songs of sadnes and pietie, made into Musicke of five parts: &c. By William Byrd, one of the Gent. of the Queenes Maiesties honorable Chappell.—Printed by Thomas East, &c.” 4to. no date: but Ames in his Typog. has mentioned another edit. of the same book, dated 1588, which I take to have been later than this of ours.

Some improvements and an additional stanza (sc. the 5th.) were had from two other ancient copies; one of them in black letter in the Pepys Collection, thus inscribed, “A sweet and pleasant sonet, entituled, “My Minde to me a Kingdom is. To the tune of, In Crete, &c.”

To these last were subjoined four other stanzas, as part of the same poem, and were accordingly so printed in our first edit. but as they are given separate by Byrd, as an independent piece, they are accordingly so printed here: See below, Song VII.

The following tale is found in an ancient poem intitled Albion's England, written by W. Warner, a celebrated Poet in the reign of Q. Elizabeth, tho' his name and works are now equally forgotten. The reader will find some account of him in Vol. 2. p. 231. 232.

The following stanzas are printed from the author's improved edition of his work, printed in 1602. 4to. This seems to have been the third impression, for “The first and second Parts of Albion's England, &c.” made their first appearance in 1583, 4to; and were reprinted in 1597, under the title of “Albion's England; a continued

historie of the same kingdom,” &c. 4to. See Ames's Typography, where is preserved the memory of another publication of this writer's, intitled, “Warner's Poetry,” printed in 1586, 12mo. and reprinted in 1602.

It is proper to premise, that the following lines were not written by the Author in stanzas, but in long Alexandrines of 14 syllables; which the narrowness of our page made it here necessary to subdivide.

The four stanzas following are commonly printed as part of the foregoing song, Num. V. My mind to me a kingdom is; and accordingly so stand in our first edition. But as they are found distinct and separate, after the manner of an independent poem, with different notes of music, in Birde's bassus, it was thought proper so to give them here.

The following stanzas were written by Michael Drayton, a poet of some eminence in the reigns of Q. Elizabeth, James I. and Charles I. They are inserted in

one of his Pastorals, the first edition of which bears this whimsical Title. “Idea. The Shepheards Garland fashioned in nine Eglogs. Rowlands sacrifice to the nine muses. Lond. 1593.” 4to. They are inscribed with the Author's name at length “To the noble and valerous gentleman master Robert Dudley, &c.” It is very remarkable that when Drayton reprinted them in the first folio Edit. of his works, 1619, he had given those Eclogues so thorough a revisal that there is hardly a line to be found the same as in the old Edition. This poem had received the fewest corrections, and therefore is chiefly given from the ancient copy, where it is thus introduced by one of his Shepherds:

The Author has professedly imitated the style and metre of some of the old metrical Romances; particularly that of Sir Isenbras , (alluded to in v. 3.) as the reader may judge from the following specimen:

This ancient Legend was printed in black letter, 4to, by Wyllyam Copland; no date.—In the Cotton Library (Calig. A. 2.) is a MS copy of the same Romance containing the greatest variations. They are probably two different translations of some French Original.

From Beaumont and Fletcher's play, intitled The Lover's Progress. A. 3. sc. 1.

—affords a pretty poetical contest between Pleasure and Honour. It is found at the end of “Hymen's triumph: a “pastoral tragicomedie” written by Daniel, and printed among his works, 4to. 1623.—Daniel, who was a contemporary of Drayton's, and is said to have been poet laureat to Queen Elizabeth, was born in 1562, and died in 1619. Anne Countess of Dorset, Pembroke, and Montgomery (to whom Daniel had been Tutor) has inserted a small Portrait of him in a full-length Picture of herself, preserved at Appleby Castle in Cumberland.

This little poem is the rather selected for a specimen of Daniel's poetic powers, as it is omitted in the later edition of his works, 2 vol. 12mo. 1718.

The attribution of this poem is questionable.

This beautiful poem, which possesses a classical elegance hardly to be expected in the age of James I. is printed from the 4th edition of Davison's poems , &c. 1621. It is also found in a later miscellany, intitled, “Le Prince d'amour.” 1660. 8vo.—Francis Davison, editor of the poems above reserred to, was son of that unfortunate secretary of state, who suffered so much from the affair of Mary Q. of Scots. These poems, he tells us in his preface, were written by himself, by his brother [Walter], who was a soldier in the wars of the Low Countries, and by some dear friends “anonymoi.” Among them are found pieces by Sir J. Davis, the Countess of Pembroke, Sir Philip Sidney, Spenser, and other wits of those times.

In the fourth vol. of Dryden's Miscellanies, this poem is attributed to Sydney Godolphin, Esq; but erroneously, being probably written before he was born. One edit. of Davison's book was published in 1608. Godolphin was born in 1610, and died in 1642–3. Ath. Ox. II. 23.

This little moral poem was writ by Sir Henry Wotton, who died Provost of Eaton, in 1639. Æt. 72. It is printed from a little collection of his pieces, intitled Reliquiæ Wottonianæ, 1651. 12mo; compared with one or two other copies.

—was a famous robber, who lived about the middle of the last century, if we may credit the histories and storybooks of highwaymen, which relate many improbable feats of him, as his robbing Cardinal Richlieu, Oliver Cromwell, &c. But these stories have probably no other authority, than the records of Grub-street: At least the Gilderoy, who is the hero of Scottish Songsters, seems to have lived in an earlier age; for in Thompson's Orpheus Caledonius, vol. 2. 1733. 8vo. is a copy of this ballad, which, tho' corrupt and interpolated, contains some lines that appear to be of genuine antiquity: in these he is represented as contemporary with Mary Q. of Scots: ex. gr.

Those lines perhaps might safely have been inserted among the following stanzas, which are given from a written copy, that seems to have received some modern corrections. Indeed the common popular ballad contained some indecent luxuriances that required the pruning-book.

This beautiful address to conjugal love, a subject too much neglected by the libertine muses, is printed in some modern collections as a translation “from the ancient British language;” how truly I know not. See the Musical Miscellany, vol. 6. 1731. 8vo. Errata

—was published in a small collection of poems intitled, Euthemia, or the Power of Harmony, &c. 1756. written by an ingenious Physician near Bath, who chose to conceal his name. The following contains some variations from the original copy, which it is hoped the author will pardon, when he is informed they came from the elegant pen of the late Mr. Shenstone.

Wokey-hole is a noted cavern in Somersetshire, which has given birth to as many wild fanciful stories as the Sybil's Cave in Italy. Thro' a very narrow entrance, it opens into a large vault, the roof whereof, either on account of its height, or the thickness of the gloom, cannot be discovered by the light of torches. It goes winding a great way under ground, is crost by a stream of very cold water, and is all horrid with broken pieces of rock: many of these are evident petrifactions; which, on account of their singular forms, have given rise to the fables alluded to in this poem.

—is founded on a real fact, that happened in the island of St. Christophers about two years ago. The editor owes the

following stanzas to the friendship of Dr. James Grainger , who was in the island when this tragical incident happened, and is now (in 1765) an eminent physician there. To this ingenious gentleman the public is indebted for the fine Ode on Solitude printed in the IVth Vol. of Dodsley's Miscel. p. 229. in which are assembled some of the sublimest imagesin nature. The reader will pardon the insertion of the first stanza here, for the sake of rectifying the two last lines, which were thus given by the Author.

alluding to the account of Palmyra published by some late ingenious travellers, and the manner in which they were struck at the first sight of those magnificent ruins by break of day .

Although the English are remarkable for the number and variety of their ancient Ballads, and retain perhap sa greater fondness for these old simple rhapsodies of their ancestors, than most other nations; they are not the only people who have distinguished themselves by compositions of this kind. The Spaniards have great multitudes of them, many of which are of the highest merit. They call them in their language Romances, and have collected them into volumes under the titles of El Romancero, El Cancionero

, &c. Most of them relate to their conflicts with the Moors, and display a spirit of gallantry peculiar to that romantic people. But of all the Spanish ballads, none exceed in poetical merit those inserted in a little Spanish “History of the civil wars of Granada,” describing the dissensions which raged in that last seat of Moorish empire before it was conquered in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1491. In this History (or perhaps, Romance) a great number of heroic songs are inserted and appealed to as authentic vouchers for the truth of facts. In reality, the prose narrative seems to be drawn up for no other end, but to introduce and illustrate these beautiful pieces.

The Spanish editor pretends (how truly I know not) that they are translations from the Arabic or Morisco language. Indeed the plain unadorned nature of the verse, and the native simplicity of language and sentiment, which runs through these poems, prove that they are ancient; or, at least, that they were written before the Castillians began to form themselves on the model of the Tuscan poets, and had imported from Italy that fondness for conceit and refinement, which has for these

two centuries past so miserably infected the Spanish poetry, and rendered it so unnatural, affected, and obscure.

As a specimen of the ancient Spanish manner, which very much resembles that of our old English Bards and Minstrels, the Reader is desired candidly to accept the two following poems. They are given from a small Collection of pieces of this kind, which the Editor some years ago translated for his amusement when he was studying the Spanish language. As the first is a pretty close translation, to gratify the curious it is accompanied with the original. The Metre is the same in all these old Spanish songs: and its plain unpolished nature strongly argues its great antiquity. It runs in short stanzas of four lines, of which the second and fourth alone correspond in their terminations; and in these it is only required that the vowels should be alike, the consonants may be altogether different, as

pone casa meten arcos

Yet has this kind of verse a sort of simple harmonious flow, which atones for the imperfect nature of the rhyme, and renders it not unpleasing to the ear. The same flow of numbers has been studied in the following versions. The first of them is given from two different originals, both of which are printed in the Hist. de las civiles guerras de Granada. Mad. 1694. One of them hath the rhymes ending in AA, the other in IA. They both of them begin with the same line,

Rio verde, rio verde ,

which could not be translated faithfully;

Verdant river, verdant river,

would have given an affected stiffness to the verse; the great merit of which is its easy simplicity; and therefore a more simple epithet was adopted, though less poetical or expressive.

In the Spanish original of the foregoing ballad, follow a few more stanzas, but being of inferior merit were not translated.

Renegado properly signifies an apostate; but it is sometimes used to express an infidel in general; as it seems to do above in ver. 21. &c.

The image of the Lion, &c. in ver. 37. is taken from the other Spanish copy, the rhymes of which end in IA, viz,

The foregoing version was rendered as literal as the nature of the two languages would admit. In the following a wider compass hath been taken. The Spanish poem that was chiefly had in view, is preserved in the same history of the Civil wars of Granada, f. 22. and begins with these lines,