“ RICHARD OF ALMAIGNE,
"A ballad made by one of the adherents to Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, soon after the battle of Lewes, which was fought May 14, 1264,"
—affords a curious specimen of ancient satire, and shews that the liberty, assumed by the good people of this realm, of abusing their kings and princes at pleasure, is a privilege of very long standing. ”

“ Our ballad-maker with more ingenuity, and probably as much truth, tells us the clue was gained by surprise, from the knight who was left to guard her bower.
It is observable, that none of the old writers attribute Rosamond's death to poison (Stow, above, mentions it merely as a slight conjecture) ; they only give us to understand, that the queen treated her harshly; with furious menaces, we may suppose, and sharp expostulations, which had such effect on her spirits, that she did not long survive it. ”

“ In Le Prince d'Amour, 1660, there is a song Upon Sir John Suckling's 100 Horse, and the following are two of the seven stanzas of which it consists:—
"I tell thee, Jack, thou gav'st the king
So rare a present, that nothing
Could welcomer have been;
A hundred horse! beshrew my heart,
It was a brave heroic part,
The like will scarce be seen.
"For ev'ry horse shall have on's back
A man as valiant as Sir Jack,
Although not half so witty:
Yet I did hear the other day
Two tailors made seven run away
Good faith, the more's the pity." ”

“ About the beginning of the sixteenth century this kind of versification began to change its form: the author of Scottish Field, we see, concludes his poem with a couplet in rhyme: this was an innovation that did but prepare the way for the general admission of [Pg 388] that more modish ornament; till at length the old uncouth verse of the ancient writers would no longer go down without it. Yet when rhyme began to be superadded, all the niceties of alliteration were at first retained along with it; and the song of Little John Nobody exhibits this union very clearly. ”

“ We are not to wonder that the ballad-writers of that age should be inspired with the zeal of controversy, when the very stage teemed with polemic divinity. I have now before me two very ancient quarto black-letter plays: the one published in the time of Henry VIII., intitled, Every Man; the other called Lusty Juventus, printed in the reign of Edward VI. In the former of these, occasion is taken to inculcate great reverence for old mother church and her superstitions: [513] in the other, the poet (one R. Wever) with great success attacks both. ”

“ Peregrine Bertie, lord Willoughby of Eresby, had, in the year 1586, distinguished himself at the siege of Zutphen, in the Low Countries. He was the year after made general of the English forces in the United Provinces, in room of the earl of Leicester, who was recalled. This gave him an opportunity of signalizing his courage and military skill in several actions against the Spaniards. One of these, greatly exaggerated by popular report, is probably the subject of this old ballad, which, on account of its flattering encomiums on English valour, hath always been a favourite with the people. ”

“ Controversial divinity is no friend to poetic flights. Yet this ballad of Luther and the Pope is not altogether devoid of spirit; it is of the dramatic kind, and the characters are tolerably well sustained; especially that of Luther, which is made to speak in a manner not unbecoming the spirit and courage of that vigorous Reformer. It is printed from the original black-letter copy (in the Pepys collection, vol. i. folio,) to which is prefixed a large wooden cut, designed and executed by some eminent master. ”

“ It is evident then that Lord Vaux, the poet, was not he that flourished in the reign of Henry VII., but either his son or grandson; and yet, according to Dugdale's Baronage, the former was named Thomas and the latter William: but this difficulty is not great, for none of the old writers mention the Christian name of the poetic Lord Vaux, [319] except Puttenham; and it is more likely that he might be mistaken in that lord's name, than in the time in which he lived, who was so nearly his contemporary. ”

“ ON THOMAS LORD CROMWELL.
It is ever the fate of a disgraced minister to be forsaken by his friends, and insulted by his enemies, always reckoning among the latter the giddy inconstant multitude. We have here a spurn at fallen greatness from one of the angry partisans of declining popery, who could never forgive the downfall of their Diana and loss of their craft. The ballad seems to have been composed between the time of Cromwell's commitment to the Tower, June 10th, 1540, and that of his being beheaded, July 28 following. ”

“ It is not fair to dispose of such a ballad as the present with the inference that the writer could know nothing of Darnley's character. It does not stand alone, and it appears from the broadsides that circulated through the country after his murder that the people had a real liking for him although he had been amongst them only a couple of years. Robert Lekprevik, the most celebrated Edinburgh printer of his time, printed in 1567, The Testament and Tragedie of umquhile King Henrie Stewart of gude memorie, a powerful poem, which discovers clearly the popular feeling against Mary. ”

“ Great difference of opinion has been expressed as to the merit of the ballad by various critics. Mathias was fascinated with it, and printed it privately with an encomiastic criticism. Scott wrote on the fly-leaf of his copy of Ramsay's Evergreen, "Hardyknute was the first poem I ever learnt—the last that I shall forget," and in his Minstrelsy of the Border he terms it "a most spirited and beautiful imitation of the ancient ballad." Thomas Warton was deceived by it, and describes it as genuine in the first edition of his Observations on Spenser. ”

“ By degrees the correspondence of final sounds engrossing the whole attention of the poet, and fully satisfying the reader, the internal imbellishment of alliteration was no longer studied, and thus was this kind of metre at length swallowed up and lost in our common burlesque Alexandrine, or Anapestic verse [900] , now never used but in ballads and pieces of light humour, as in the song of Conscience, and in that well-known doggerel,
"A cobler there was, and he lived in a stall." ”

“ George Gascoigne was a celebrated poet in the early part of Queen Elizabeth's reign, and appears to great advantage among the miscellaneous writers of that age. He was author of three or four plays, and of many smaller poems; one of the most remarkable of which is a satire in blank verse, called the Steele-glass, 1576, 4to.
Gascoigne was born in Essex, educated in both universities, whence he removed to Gray's-inn; but, disliking the study of the law, became first a dangler at court, and afterwards a soldier in the wars of the Low Countries. ”

“ ARGENTILE AND CURAN,
Is extracted from an ancient historical poem in XIII. Books, intitled, Albion's England, by William Warner: "An author (says a former editor,) only unhappy in the choice of his subject, and measure of his verse. His poem is an epitome of the British history, and written with great learning, sense, and spirit. In some places fine to an extraordinary degree, as I think will eminently appear in the ensuing episode (of Argentile and Curan) . A tale full of beautiful incidents in the romantic taste, extremely affecting, rich in ornament, wonderfully various in style ”

“ It is remarkable that the French alone have retained this old Gothic metre for their serious poems; while the English, Spaniards, &c. have adopted the Italic verse of ten syllables, although the Spaniards, as well as we, anciently used a short-lined metre. I believe the success with which Petrarch, and perhaps one or two others, first used the heroic verse of ten syllables in Italian poesy, recommended it to the Spanish writers; as it also did to our Chaucer, who first attempted it in English; and to his successors Lord Surrey, Sir Thomas Wyat, &c. ”

“ There were many other little niceties observed by the Islandic poets, who, as they retained their original language and peculiarities longer than the other nations of Gothic race, had time to cultivate their native poetry more, and to carry it to a higher pitch of refinement, than any of the rest.
Their brethren, the Anglo-Saxon poets, occasionally used the same kind of alliteration, and it is common to meet, in their writings, with similar examples of the foregoing rules. ”

“ May we not release the whole race from this imputation? The sole authority for the charge is Watson's Collection! the same book that ascribes to the unfortunate Montrose the song of 'My dear and only love, take heed,' and tacks it as a second part to his 'My dear and only love, I pray.' Shade of Montrose! how must you be ashamed of your over-zealous advocate! Let us examine whether the spirit of 'Lady Anne Bothwel' has more reason to be grateful. Among the stanzas ascribed to her by Watson are the two following, which are not to be found in any English copy ”

“ The battle of Lewes placed everything in the power of Simon de Montfort, but in his prosperity many of his followers fell away from him. The last scene of the great man's life is truly pathetic. He lay at Evesham awaiting the troops which his son was to bring from Kenilworth. He did not know, however, that the garrison of that town had been surprised by Prince Edward, who had escaped from confinement. The army that marched upon Evesham bore the banners of Simon's son, but they were flying in the van of an enemy. ”

“ Richard, Earl of Cornwall, brother of Henry III., was elected King of the Romans on the 13th of January, 1256-7, at Frankfort, and is styled in Latin documents Rex Alemanniæ. In earlier times Richard had been a leader of malecontents, and "all from the child to the old man heaped frequent blessings upon him," but Montfort (then a courtier) gained him over to the King's side, and the insurgents were in consequence dispersed.
Richard was probably not so base a man as the writer of the ballad would wish us to believe, and a good action is recorded of him which was very ill returned. ”

“ Readers will be able to judge for themselves as to the relative beauties of the two, now that the original is printed at the end of Percy's amended copy. To make the interpolations more apparent, Percy's added verses are placed between brackets, and it will be seen that these contain much of the phraseology and many of the stock prettinesses of the polite ballad-monger; some of the most vivid bits of the old ballad being passed over. Percy keeps tolerably to the story, except that he makes the second messenger one of the queen's damsels instead of a man. ”

“ To conclude: the metre of Pierce Plowman's Visions has no kind of affinity with what is commonly called blank verse; yet has it a sort of harmony of its own, proceeding not so much from its alliteration, as from the artful disposal of its cadence, and the contrivance of its pause; so that when the ear is a little accustomed to it, it is by no means unpleasing ”

“ Mr. James Maidment, in his elegant edition of Scottish Ballads and Songs (vol. ii. 1868) , writes: "The late Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esquire, whose knowledge of antiquated scandal was extraordinary, found in a MS. history of the family of Bothwell by Father Hay, that Adam Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney, had a daughter named 'Anne, who fell with child to a son of the Earl of Marre.'" Anne was the sister of the first Lord Holyroodhouse (created in 1607) , and her seducer was Alexander, third son of John, seventh Earl of Mar, a cousin of her own, considered one of the handsomest men of his day. ”

“ Then to your country bear away, that is your owne.
"Rest you still, most gallant lady;
Rest you still, and weep no more;
Of fair lovers there is plenty,
Spain doth yield a wonderous store." 40
Spaniards fraught with jealousy we often find,
But Englishmen through all the world are counted kind.
[Pg 252] Leave me not unto a Spaniard,
You alone enjoy my heart;
I am lovely, young, and tender, 45
Love is likewise my desert:
Still to serve thee day and night my mind is prest;
The wife of every Englishman is counted blest.
"It wold be a shame, fair lady,
For to bear a woman hence ”

“ When the Scottish covenanters rose up in arms, and advanced to the English borders in 1639, many of the courtiers complimented the king by raising forces at their own expence. Among these none were more distinguished than the gallant Sir John Suckling, who raised a troop of horse, so richly accoutred, that it cost him £12,000. The like expensive equipment of other parts of the army, made [Pg 321] the king remark, that "the Scots would fight stoutly, if it were but for the Englishmen's fine cloaths." ”

“ A BALLAD OF LUTHER, THE POPE, A CARDINAL, AND A HUSBANDMAN.
In the former Book we brought down this second Series of poems, as low as about the middle of the sixteenth century. We now find the Muses deeply engaged in religious controversy. The sudden revolution, wrought in the opinions of mankind by the Reformation, is one of the most striking events in the history of the human mind. ”

“ THE TURNAMENT OF TOTTENHAM: Or, the Wooeing, Winning, and Wedding of Tibbe, the Reev's Daughter there.
It does honour to the good sense of this nation, that while all Europe was captivated with the bewitching charms of chivalry and romance, two of our writers in the rudest times could see thro' the false glare that surrounded them, and discover whatever was absurd in them both. Chaucer wrote his Rhyme of Sir Thopas in ridicule of the latter; and in the following poem we have a humorous burlesque of the former. ”

“ The harmony of both however depends so much on the same flow of cadence and disposal of the pause, that they appear plainly to be of the same original; and every French heroic verse evidently consists of the ancient distich of their Francic ancestors: which, by the way, will account to us why this verse of the French so naturally resolves itself into two complete hemistics. ”

“ The archness of the following questions and answers hath been much admired by our old ballad-makers; for besides the two copies above mentioned, there is extant another ballad on the same subject (but of no great antiquity or merit) , intitled, King Olfrey and the Abbot. [823] Lastly, about the time of the civil wars, when the cry ran against the Bishops, some Puritan worked up the same story into a very doleful ditty, to a solemn tune, concerning King Henry and a Bishop, with this stinging moral:
"Unlearned men hard matters out can find,
When learned bishops princes eyes do blind." ”