lations. And if we consider that it was written during his cruel confinement in Pomfret castle, a short time before his execution in 1483, it gives us a fine picture of the composure and steadiness with which this stout earl beheld his approaching fate.

This ballad we owe to Rouse, a contemporary historian, who seems to have copied it from the earl's own handwriting. In tempore, says this writer, incarcerationis apud Pontem-fractum edidit unum BALET in anglicis, ut mihi monstratum est, quod subsequitur sub his verbis: Zum what musyng, &c. Rossi Hist. 8vo. 2d edit. p. 213. In Rouse the second stanza, &c. is imperfect, but the defects are here supplied from a more perfect copy, printed in "Ancient Songs, from the Time of K. Henry III. to the Revolution," p. 87.

This little piece, which perhaps ought rather to have been printed in stanzas of eight short lines, is written in imitation of a poem of Chaucer's, that will be found in Urry's edit. 1721, p. 555, beginning thus :

"Alone walkyng, In thought plainyng,

And sore sighyng, All desolate.

My remembrying Of my livyng

My death wishyng Both erly and late.

"Infortunate Is so my fate

That wote ye what, Out of mesure

My life I hate; Thus desperate

In such pore estate, Doe I endure," &c.

SUMWHAT musyng, And more mornyng,
In remembring The unstydfastnes;
This world being Of such whelyng,

Me contrarieng, What may I gesse ?

5

I fere dowtles, Remediles,

Is now to sese My wofull chaunce. [For unkyndness, Withouten less, And no redress, Me doth avaunce,

With displesaunce, To my grevaunce,
And no suraunce Of remedy.]

Lo in this traunce, Now in substaunce,
Such is my dawnce, Wyllyng to dye.

Me thynkys truly, Bowndyn am I,
And that gretly, To be content:
Seyng playnly, Fortune doth wry
All contrary From myn entent.

My lyff was lent Me to on intent,

10

15

Hytt is ny spent. Welcome fortune!

But I ne went Thus to be shent,

But sho hit ment; such is hur won.

20

Ver. 15, That fortune. Rossi Hist. V. 19, went. i. e. weened.

VIII.

Cupid's Assault: by Lord Vaux.

The reader will think that infant Poetry grew apace between the times of Rivers and Vaux, though nearly contemporaries; if the following song is the composition of that Sir Nicholas (afterwards Lord) Vaux, who was the shining ornament of the court of Henry VII., and died in the year 1523.

And yet to this lord it is attributed by Puttenham, in his Art of Eng. Poesie, 1589, 4to., a writer commonly well informed: take the passage at large. "In this figure [Counterfait Action] the Lord Nicholas Vaux, a noble gentleman and much delighted in vulgar making, and a man otherwise of no great learning, but having herein a marvelous facilitie, made a dittie representing the Battayle and Assault of Cupide, so excellently well, as for the gallant and propre application of his fiction in every part, I cannot choose but set downe the greatest part of his ditty, for in truth it cannot be amended. 'When Cupid scaled,' &c." p. 200. For a farther account of Nicholas Lord Vaux, see Mr. Walpole's Noble Authors, vol. i.

The following copy is printed from the first edit. of Surrey's Poems, 1557, 4to. See another song of Lord Vaux's in the preceding volume, book ii. no. 2.

WHEN Cupide scaled first the fort,
Wherein my hart lay wounded sore;

The batry was of such a sort,

That I must yelde or die therfore.

There sawe I Love upon the wall,
How he his banner did display:
Alarme, alarme, he gan to call :

And bad his souldiours kepe aray.

5

The armes, the which that Cupide bare,

Were pearced hartes with teares besprent,

10

In silver and sable to declare

The stedfast love, he alwayes ment.

There might you se his band all drest

In colours like to white and blacke, With powder and with pelletes prest

To bring the fort to spoile and sacke.

Good-wyll, the maister of the shot,

Stode in the rampire brave and proude, For spence of pouder he spared not

Assault! assault! to crye aloude.

There might you heare the cannons rore;
Eche pece discharged a lovers loke;
Which had the power to rent, and tore
In any place whereas they toke.

And even with the trumpettes sowne;
The scaling ladders were up set,
And Beautie walked up and downe,
With bow in hand, and arrowes whet.

VOL. II.

D

15

20

25

Then first Desire began to scale,

And shrouded him under 'his' targe:

30

As one the worthiest of them all,

And aptest for to geve the charge.

Then pushed souldiers with their pikes,
And halberdes with handy strokes;

35

The argabushe in fleshe it lightes,

And duns the ayre with misty smokes.

And, as it is the souldiers use

When shot and powder gins to want,

I hanged up my flagge of truce,

And pleaded up for my livès grant.

40

When Fansy thus had made her breche,
And Beauty entred with her band,
With bagge and baggage, sely wretch,
I yelded into Beauties hand.

Then Beautie bad to blow retrete,

And every souldier to retire, And mercy wyll'd with spede to fet Me captive bound as prisoner.

Madame, quoth I, sith that this day
Hath served you at all assayes,

Ver. 30. her. ed. 1557: so. ed. 1585,

45

50