115

125

“Now help me up, thou fine fellowe,

'Tis time that I were gone :
When I come home to Gyllian, my wife,

Sheel say I am a gentilmon.”
The king he tooke him up by the legge,

The tanner a f** lett fall;
“ Nowe marrye, goode fellowe,” sayd the kyng,
“ Thy courtesye is but small.”

120 When the tanner he was in the kinges sadelle,

And his foote in the stirrup was,
He marvelled greatlye in his minde,

Whether it were golde or brass.
But when his steede saw the cows toile wagge,

And eke the blacke cowe-horne,
He stamped, and stared, and awaye he ranne,

As the devill had him borne.
The tanner he pulld, the tanner he sweat,
And held by the pummil fast;

130 At length the tanner came tumbling downe,

His necke he had well-nye brast. “ Take thy horse again with a vengeance," he sayd,

“ With mee he shall not byde." “My horse wolde have borne thee well enoughe, 135

But he knewe not of thy cowe-hide.
“ Yet if againe thou faine woldst change,

As change full well may wee,
By the faith of my bodye, thou jolly tanner,

I will have some boote of thee."
“ What boote wilt thou have,” the tanner replyd,

“ Nowe tell me in this stounde ?”. “No pence nor half-pence, sir, by my faye,

But I will have twentye pound.” “ Here's twentye groates out of my purse,

145 And twentye I have of thine; And I have one more, which we will spend

Together at the wine."

140

150

155

160

The king set a bugle-horne to his mouthe,

And blewe both loude and shrille;
And soone came lords, and soone came knights,

Fast ryding over the hille.
“ Nowe, out alas !” the tanner he cryde,

“ That ever I sawe this daye!
Thou art a strong thiefe; yon come thy fellowes

Will beare my cowe-hide away."
“ They are no thieves,” the king replyde,

“I sweare, soe mote I thee;
But they are the lords of the north countrèy,

Here come to hunt with mee."
And soone before our king they came,

And knelt downe on the grounde;
Then might the tanner have beene awaye,

He had lever than twentye pounde.
“A coller, a coller, here," sayd the king,

“A coller ” he loud gan crye;
Then woulde he lever then twentye pound,

He had not beene so nighe.
“A coller, a coller!” the tanner he sayd,

“I trowe it will breed sorrowe;
After a coller commeth a halter;

I trowe I shall be hang'd to-morrowe.”
“Be not afraid, tanner,” said our king;

“I tell thee, so mought I thee,
Lo here I make thee the best esquire

That is in the north countrie.

165

170

175

6 This stanza is restored from a quotation of this ballad in Selden's Titles of Honour, who produces it as a good authority to prove that one mode of creating Esquires at that time was by the imposition of a collar. His words are, “Nor is that old pamphlet of the Tanner of Tamworth and King Edward the Fourth so contemptible, but that wee may thence note also an observable passage, wherein the use of making Esquires, by giving Collars, is expressed.”_Sub. Tit. Esquire; and vide in Spelmanni Glossar. Armiger. This form of creating Esquires actually exists at this day among the Sergeants at Arms, who are invested with a Collar (which they wear on Collar days) by the king himself.

This information I owe to Samuel Pegge, Esq., to whom the public is indebted for that curious work the Curialia, 4to.

180

“For Plumpton-Parke I will give thee,

With tenements faire beside,
'Tis worth three hundred markes by the yeare,-

To maintaine thy good cowe-hide.”
“ Gramercye, my liege,” the tanner replyde;

“For the favour thou hast me showne,
If ever thou comest to merry Tamworth,

Neates leather shall clout thy shoen."

XVI.

As Ye came from the Holy Land.

DIALOGUE BETWEEN A PILGRIM AND A TRAVELLER. The scene of this song is the same as in No. xiv. The pilgrimage to Walsingham 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.

“ As I went to Walsingham,

To the shrine with speede,
Met I with a jolly palmer

In a pilgrimes weede.
Now God you save, you jolly palmer;

Welcome, lady gay,
Oft have I sued to thee for love'

-Oft have I said you nay.”

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.

The following ballad was once very popular; it is quoted in Fletcher's Knight of the burning Pestle, act ü. sc. ult., and in another old play, called Hans beer-pot, his invisible Comedy, &c., 4to, 1618, act i. The copy below was communicated to the Editor by the late Mr. Shenstone,

1 Even in the time of Langland, pilgrimages to Walsingham were not unfavourable to the rites of Venus. Thus, in his Visions of Pierce Plowman, fo. 1.

“ Hermets on a heape, with hoked staves,
Wenten to Walsingham, and her? wenches after.”

as corrected by him from an ancient copy, and supplied with a concluding stanza.

We have placed this, and Gentle Herdsman, &c., thus early in the volume, upon a presumption that they must have been written, if not before the dissolution of the monasteries, yet while the remembrance of them was fresh in the minds of the people.

“ As ye came from the holy land

Of blessed Walsingham,
O met you not with my true love

As by the way ye came ?”
“ How should I know your true love,

That have met many a one,
As I came from the holy land,

That have both come, and gone?”
“My love is neither white 3 nor browne,

But as the heavens faire ;
There is none hath her form divine,

Either in earth, or ayre.”
“Such an one did I meet, good sir,

With an angellicke face,
Who like a nymphe, a queene appeard

Both in her gait, her grace.”
“ Yes : she hath cleane forsaken me,

And left me all alone,
Who some time loved me as her life,

And called me her owne."
“What is the cause she leaves thee thus,

And a new way doth take,
That some times loved thee as her life,

And thee her joy did make ?”
“ I, that loved her all my youth,

Growe old now as you see;
Love liketh not the falling fruite,

Nor yet the withered tree.
" For love is like a carelesse childe,

Forgetting promise past;
He is blind, or deaf, whenere he list;
His faith is never fast.

3 Sc. pale.

15 “His fond desire is fickle found,

And yieldes a trustlesse joye ;
Wonne with a world of toil and care,

And lost ev'n with a toye.
“Such is the love of womankinde,

Or Loves faire name abusde,
Beneathe which many vaine desires

And follyes are excusde.
“But true love is a lasting fire,

Which viewless vestals 4 tend,
That burnes for ever in the soule,
And knowes nor change, nor end.”

* Sc. angels.

XVII.

Hardyknute.

A SCOTTISH FRAGMENT. As this fine morsel of heroic poetry hath generally passed for ancient, it is here thrown to the end of our earliest pieces; that such as doubt of its age may the better compare it with other pieces of genuine antiquity. For after all, there is more than reason to suspect that it owes most of its beauties (if not its own existence) to the pen of a lady, within the present century. The following particulars may be depended on. One Mrs. Wardlaw, whose maiden name was Halket (aunt to the late Sir Peter Halket, of Pitferran, in Scotland, who was killed in America, along with General Braddock, in 1755), pretended she had found this poem, written on shreds of paper, employed for what is called the bottoms of clues. A suspicion arose that it was her own composition. Some able judges asserted it to be modern. The lady did in a manner acknowledge it to be so. Being desired to show an additional stanza, as a proof of this, she produced the two last, beginning with “ There's nae light,” &c., which were not in the copy that was first printed. The late Lord President Forbes, and Sir Gilbert Elliot, of Minto (late Lord Justice Clerk for Scotland), who had believed it ancient, contributed to the expense of publishing the first edition, in folio, 1719. This account was transmitted from Scotland, by Sir David Dalrymple, the late Lord Hailes, who yet was of opinion that part of the ballad may be ancient, but retouched and much