The subject of this ballad is the taking of the city of Cadiz, (called by our sailors corruptly Cales) on June 21, 1596, in a descent made on the.coast of Spain, under the command of the Lord Howard admiral, and the Earl of Essex general.

The valour of Essex was not more distinguished on this occasion than his generosity: the town was carried sword in hand, but he stopt the slaughter as soon as possible, and treated his prisoners with the greatest humanity, and even affability and kindness. The English made a rich plunder in the city, but missed of a much richer, by the resolution which the Duke of Medina the Spanish admiral took, of setting fire to the ships, in order to prevent their falling into the hands of the enemy. It was computed, that the loss which the Spaniards sustained from this enterprize, amounted to twenty millions of ducats. See Hume's History.

The Earl of Essex knighted on this occasion not fewer than sixty persons, which gave rise to the following sarcasm:

A gentleman of Wales, a knight of Cales,
And a laird of the North country;
But a yeoman of Kent with his yearly rent
Will buy them out all three.

The ballad is printed, with some corrections, from the Editor's folio MS. and seems to have been composed by some person, who was concerned in the expedition. Most of the circumstances related in it will be found supported by history.

This beautiful old ballad most probably took its rise from one of these descents made on the Spanish coasts in the time of Queen Elizabeth; and in all likelihood from that which is celebrated in the foregoing ballad.

It was a tradition in the West of England, that the person admired by the Spanish lady was a gentleman of the Popham family, and that her picture, with the pearl necklace mentioned in the ballad, was not many years ago preserved at Littlecot, near Hungerford, Wilts, the seat of that respectable family.

Another tradition hath pointed out Sir Richard Levison, of Trentham, in Staffordshire, as the subject of this ballad; who married Margaret daughter of Charles Earl of Nottingham; and was eminently distinguished as a naval officer and commander in all the expeditions against the Spaniards in the latter end of Queen Elizabeth's reign, particularly in that to Cadiz in 1596, when he was aged 27. He died in 1605, and has a monument, with his effigy in brass, in Wolverhampton church.

It is printed from an ancient back letter copy, corrected in part by the Editor's folio MS.

WILL you hear a Spanish lady,

How shee wooed an English man?

Garments gay as rich as may be

Decked with jewels she had on.

Of a comely countenance and grace was she,
And by birth and parentage of high degree.

5

As his prisoner there he kept her,
In his hands her life did lye;
Cupid's bands did tye them faster
By the liking of an eye.

In his courteous company was all her joy,
To favour him in any thing she was not cov

But at last there came commandment
For to set the ladies free,
With their jewels still adorned,

None to do them injury.
Then said this lady mild, Full woe is me;
O let me still sustain this kind captivity!

Gallant captain, shew some pity

To a ladye in distresse ;

Leave me not within this city,
For to dye in heavinesse :
Thou hast set this present day my body free,
But my
heart in prison still remains with thee.

"How should'st thou, fair lady, love me.
Whom thou knowst thy country's foe?
Thy fair wordes make me suspect thee:
Serpents lie where flowers grow."

10

15

25

All the harm I wishe to thee, most courteous knight, God grant the same upon my head may fully light. 30

Blessed be the time and season,

That you came on Spanish ground;

If our foes you may be termed,

Gentle foes we have you found :

-Is extracted from an ancient historical poem in XIII. Books, intitled, "Albion's England, by William Warner :" "An author (says a former Editor) only unhappy in the choice of his subject, and measure of nis verse. His poem is an epitome of the British history, and written with great learning, sense, and spirit; in some places fine to an extraordinary degree, as I think will eminently appear in the ensuing episode [of Argentile and Curan,]-a tale full of beautiful incidents in the romantic taste, extremely affecting, rich in ornament, wonderfully various in style; and in short, one of the most beautiful pastorals I ever met with." [Muses library, 1738. 8vo.] To his merit nothing can be objected, unless perhaps an affected quaintness in some of his expressions, and an indelicacy in some of his pastoral images.

Warner is said, by A. Woodt, to have been a Warwickshire man, and to have been educated in Oxford, at Magdalene-hall: as also in the latter part of his life to have been retained in the service of

Ver. 65, Well in worth, MS.
* Athen. Our

So the MS.-10,000/. PC.

Henry Cary Lord Hunsdon, to whom he dedicates his poem. However that may have been, new light is thrown upon his history, and the time and manner of his death are now ascertained, by the following extract from the parish register book of Amwell, in Hertfordshire; which was obligingly communicated to the editor by Mr. Hoole, the very ingenious translator of Tasso, &c.

[1608-1609.]

"Master William Warner, a man of good yeares and of honest reputation; by his profession an Atturnye of the Common Pleas; author of Albions England, diynge suddenly in the night in his bedde, without any former complaynt or sicknesse, on thursday night beeinge the 9th daye of March; was buried the satturday following, and lyeth in the church at the corner under the stone of Walter Ffader." Signed Tho. Hassall Vicarius.

Though now Warner is so seldom mentioned, his Contemporaries ranked him on a level with Spenser, and called them the Homer and Virgil of their age*

Ver. 86. So the folio MS. Other editions read his laws. • Athen. Oxon.

3ut Warner rather resembled Ovid, whose Metamorphosis he seems to have taken for his model, having deduced a perpetual poem from the deluge down to the era of Elizabeth, full of lively digressions and entertaining episodes. And though he is sometimes harsh, affected, and obscure, he often displays a most charming and pathetic simplicity: as where he describes Eleanor's harsh treatment of Rosamond:

With that she dasht her on the lippes
So dyed double red :

Hard was the heart that gave the blow,

Soft were those lippes that bled.

The edition of "Albion's England" here followed was printed in 4to, 1602; said in the title-page to have been "first penned and published by William Warner, and now revised and newly enlarged by the same author." The story of " Argentile and Curan" is, I believe, the poet's own invention; it is not mentioned in any of our chronicles. It was, however, so much admired, that not many years after he published it, came out a larger poem on the same subject in stanzas of six lines, intitled, "The most pleasant and delightful historie of Curan a prince of Danske, and the fayre princesse Argentile, daughter and heyre to Adelbright, sometime Kingof Northumberland,&c. by William Webster, London 1617," in eight sheets 4to. An indifferent paraphrase of the following poem. -This episode of Warner's has also been altered into the common Ballad, "of the two young Princes on Salisbury Plain," which is chiefly composed of Warner's lines, with a few contractions and interpolations, but all greatly for the worse. See the collection of Historical Ballads, 1727, 3 vols. 12mo.

Though here subdivided into stanzas, Warner's metre is the old-fashioned alexandrine of fourteen syllables. The reader therefore must not expect to find the close of the stanzas consulted in the pauses.

THE Bruton's 'being' departed hence
Seaven kingdoms here begonne,

Where diversly in divers broyles

The Saxons lost and wonne,

King Edel and King Adelbright

5

Meane while the king did beate his braines, His booty to atchieve,

In Diria jointly raigne ;

Nor caring what became of her,

In loyal concorde during life

So he by her might thrive;

These kingly friends remaine.

At last his resolution was

65