Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, Consisting of Old Heroic Ballads, Songs, Etc

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SERIES THE FIRST.-BOOK III.

I. THE MORE MODERN BALLAD OF CHEVY-CHASE.

At the beginning of this volume we gave the old original song of Chevy-Chase. 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. Some few passages retain more dignity in the ancient copy; 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.

"The old song of Chevy-Chase," says Addison, "is the favourite ballad of the common people of England;" and Ben Jonson used to say he had rather have been the author of it than of all his works. Sir Philip Sydney, in his Discourse of Poetry, speaks of it in the following words: "I never heard the old song of Piercy and Douglas that I found not my heart more stirred than with a trumpet."

'An heroic poem should be founded upon some important precept of morality adapted to the constitution of the country in which the poet writes ;" and this keynote of the poem Addison tells us that we have in the first verse, where the author of the ballad desires an ending of the unnatural strife that brought about so many disasters. Prof. Henry Morley says 'that the ballad that moved Sir Philip Sydney was written in the fifteenth century, and that this version before us was not composed until after Sydney's death, and after the best of Shakespeare's plays had been written." However, Addison's criticism concerns the present ballad, and we shall append footnotes to some of the verses he particularly admires.

From a passage in the Memoirs of Carey, Earl of Monmouth, 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 greyhounds 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 ChevyChase, 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.

GOD prosper long our noble king,
Our lives and safetyes all;
A woefull hunting once there did
In Chevy-Chace befall;

To drive the deere with hound and horne,
Erle Percy took his way;

The child may rue* that is unborne,
The hunting of that day.

The stout Erle of Northumberland
A vow to God did make,

His pleasure in the Scottish woods
Three summers days to take;

The cheefest harts in Chevy-Chace
To kill and beare away.
These tydings to Erle Douglas came,
In Scottland where he lay :

Who sent Erle Percy present word,

He wold prevent his sport.
The English Erle, not fearing that,
Did to the woods resort

With fifteen hundred bow-men bold;
All chosen men of might,
Who knew full well in time of neede
To ayme their shafts arright.

The gallant greyhounds swiftly ran,
To chase the fallow deere :
On munday they began to hunt,

Ere daylight did appeare;

And long before high noone they had
An hundred fat buckes slaine;
Then having dined, the drovyers went
To rouze the deare againe.

The bow-men mustered on the hills,
Well able to endure;

Theire backsides all, with speciall care,
That day were guarded sure.

The hounds ran swiftly through the

woods,

The nimble deere to take,*

That with their cryes the hills and dales An eccho shrill did make.

Lord Percy to the quarry went,

To view the slaughter'd deere ;
Quoth he, Erle Douglas promised
This day to meet me heere :

But if I thought he wold not come,
Noe longer wold I stay.

With that, a brave younge gentleman
Thus to the Erle did say:

Loe, yonder doth Erle Douglas come,
His men in armour bright;
Full twenty hundred Scottish speres
All marching in our sight;

All men of pleasant Tivydale,

Fast by the river Tweede :
O cease your sports, Erle Percy said,
And take your bowes with speede :
And now with me, my countrymen,
Your courage forth advance;
For there was never champion yett,
In Scotland or in France,

That ever did on horsebacke come,
But if my hap it were,

I durst encounter man for man,
With him to break a spere.

Until the blood, like drops of rain,
They trickling downe did feele.

Yeeld thee, Lord Percy, Douglas sayd;
In faith I will thee bringe,
Where thou shalt high advanced bee
By James our Scottish king:

Thy ransome I will freely give,

And this report of thee, Thou art the most couragious knight, That ever I did see.

Noe, Douglas, quoth Erle Percy then,
Thy proffer I doe scorne;

I will not yeelde to any Scott,
That ever yett was borne.

With that, there came an arrow keene
Out of an English bow,

Which struck Erle Douglas to the heart,
A deepe and deadlye blow:

Who never spake more words than these,
Fight on, my merry men all;
For why, my life is at an end;

Lord Percy sees my fall.

Then leaving liffe, Erle Percy tooke
The dead man by the hand ;*
And said, Erle Douglas, for thy life
Wold I had lost my land.

O Christ! my verry hart doth bleed
With sorrow for thy sake;
For sure, a more redoubted knight
Mischance cold never take.

A knight amongst the Scots there was,
Which saw Erle Douglas dye,
Who streight in wrath did vow revenge
Upon the Lord Percye:

Sir Hugh Mountgomery was he call'd,
Who, with a spere most bright,
Well-mounted on a gallant steed,
Ran fiercely through the fight;

* Addison praises this line as wonderfully beautiful and pathetic.

And past the English archers all,
Without all dread or feare;
And through Earl Percyes body then
He thrust his hatefull spere;

With such a vehement force and might
He did his body gore,

The staff ran through the other side
A large cloth-yard, and more.
So thus did both these nobles dye,

Whose courage none could staine:
An English archer then perceiv'd
The noble erle was slaine;

He had a bow bent in his hand,
Made of a trusty tree;
An arrow of a cloth-yard long
Up to the head drew hee:

Against Sir Hugh Mountgomerye,
So right the shaft he sett,
The grey goose-winge that was thereon,
In his harts bloode was wett.

This fight did last from breake of day,
Till setting of the sun;

For when they rung the evening-bell,*
The battel scarce was done.

With stout Erle Percy, there was slaine
Sir John of Egerton,

Sir Robert Ratcliff, and Sir John,
Sir James that bold barròn:

And with Sir George and stout Sir James,
Both knights of good account,
Good Sir Ralph Raby there was slaine,
Whose prowesse did surmount.

For Witherington needs must I wayle,
As one in doleful dumpes;†

*Sc. the Curfew bell, usually rung at 8 o'clock, to which the modernizer apparently alludes, instead of the "Evensong bell," a bell for vespers of the original author, before the Reformation.

ti.e. "I, as one in deep concern, must lament." The construction here has generally been misunderstood. The old MS. reads "wofull dumpes."

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