The remainder of the tract is occupied with extracts from Herrick, the beautiful little ballad of "Robin Goodfellow," printed by Percy, and the poem on Melancholy, prefixed to the early editions of Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy." From this last-mentioned poem Milton is supposed to have derived the hint of "Il Pensoroso.” ERCY having inserted this song in his "Reliques," it is PERCY well known to most readers. Several copies of it are found in the poetical collections of the seventeenth century. One, hitherto unnoticed, is in MS. Ashmole 37, and another in a MS. in the Rawlinson collection. It was sung to the tune of the "Spanish Gipsy." See Thorpe's Catalogue of Manuscripts for 1831, p. 114. Come follow, follow me, Ye fairy elves that be Come follow Mab, your queen : When mortals are at rest, Through key-holes we do glide; Over tables, stools, and shelves, And if the house be foul, Then we pinch their arms and thighs; But if the house be swept, Every night before we go, Upon a mushroom's head The grasshopper, gnat, and fly, Grace said, we dance awhile, And when the moon doth hide her head, 1 In some copies is inserted the following stanza :— The brains of wrens, the beards of mice O'er tops of dewy grass Yet in the morning may be seen [From Heywood's "Hierarchie of the blessed Angels," fol. Lond. 1635, p. 574.] F Faustus and Agrippa it is told, OF That in their travels they bare seeming gold In all their hostries they would, freely pay. These in obscurest vaults themselves invest, Pugs and hob-goblins call. Their dwellings be X |