Sir Turlough, or the Churchyard Bride ... W. CARLETON

(Friendship's Offering)

...

--

CORRIGENDA.

Page 36, Introduction, last line, for p. 201 read p. 83.
195, Introduction, last line, for p. 115 read p. 204.
-632, Introduction, first line, for preceding read succeeding.
835, Introduction, last line, for the Appendix read p. 463.

This Work is so arranged as to make either one or two Volumes ;-
if bound in two Vols. the first should consist of the ANCIENT BALLADS,
and the second (for which a separate title is given) the IMITATIONS,
TRANSLATIONS, and GLOSSARY.

ANCIENT BALLADS.

The Ancient Ballaw

OF

Cheby-Chase.

UNIV OF

[This curlosity is printed from an old manuscript, at the end of Hearne's Preface to Gul Nubrigiensis Hist. 1719, 8vo, vol. i. To the MS. copy is subjoined the name of the author, RICHARD SHEALE, subscribed, after the usual manner of our old poets, expliceth [explicit] quoth Rychard Sheale: whom Hearne had so little judgment as to suppose to be the same with a R. Sheale, who was living in 1588. But whoever examines the gradation of language and idiom in the following volumes, will be convinced that this is the production of an earlier poet. It is indeed expressly mentioned among some very ancient songs in an old book intituled, The Complaint of Scotland, (fol. 42,) under the title of the HUNTIS OF CHEVET, where the two following lines are also quoted:

The Perssee and the Mongumrye mette

That day, that day, that gentil day:

Which, though not quite the same as they stand in the ballad, yet differ not more than might be owing to the author's quoting from memory. Indeed, whoever considers the style and orthography of this old poem, will not be inclined to place it lower than the time of Henry VI.; as, on the other hand, the mention of James the Scottish King, (Pt. 2, v. 36, 140,) with one or two anachronisms, forbids us to assign it an earlier date. King James I., who was prisoner in this kingdom at the death of his father, who died Aug. 5, 1406, in the seventh year of our Henry IV., did not wear the crown of Scotland till the second year of our Henry VI., but before the end of that long reign, a third James had mounted the throne. A succession of two or three Jameses, and the long detention of one of them in England, would render the name familiar to the English, and dispose a poet in those rude times to give it to any Scottish king he happened to mention.

Hearne printed this ballad without any division of stanzas, in long lines, as he found it in the old written copy; but it is usual to find the distinction of stanzas neglected in ancient MSS., where, to save room, two or three verses are frequently given in one line undivided. See flagrant instances in the Harleian Catalogue, No. 2253, s. 29, 34, 61, 70, et passim.'— PERCY.]

THE FIRST FIT.

THE Persè owt of Northombarlande,
And a vowe to God mayd he,

That he wolde hunte in the mountayns
Off Chyviat within dayes thre,
In the mauger of doughtè Dogles,
And all that ever with him be.

The fattiste hartes in all Cheviat

He sayd he wold kill, and cary them away:
Be my feth, sayd the dougheti Doglas agayn,
I wyll let that hontyng yf that I may.