This is a very ancient song, but we could only give it from a modern copy. Some editions instead of the four last lines in the second stanza have these, which have too much merit to be wholly suppressed:

"Whan cockle shells turn siller bells,

And muscles grow on every tree, When frost and snaw sall warm us aw', Than sall my love prove true to me.' See the Orpheus Caledonius, &c.

Arthur's-seat, mentioned in ver. 17, is a hill near Edinborough; at the bottom of which is St. Anthony's well.

O wherfore shuld I busk my head?
Or wherfore shuld I kame my hair?
For my true love has me forsook,
And says he'll never loe me mair.
Now Arthur-seat sall be my bed,

The sheets shall neir be fyl'd by me :
Saint Anton's well sall be my drink,
Since my true love has forsaken me.
Marti'mas wind, when wilt thou blaw,

And shake the green leaves aff the tree? O gentle death, whan wilt thou cum? For of my life I am wearìe.

Tis not the frost, that freezes fell,

Nor blawing snaws inclemencìe; 'Tis not sic cauld, that makes me cry, But my loves heart grown cauld to me. Whan we came in by Glasgowe town, We were a comely sight to see, My love was cled in black velvet, And I my sell in cramasìe.

But had I wist, before I kisst,

That love had been sae ill to win;
I had lockt my heart in a case of gowd,
And pinnd it with a siller pin.

And, oh! if my young babe were born,
And set upon the nurses knee,

And I my sell were dead and gane!

For a maid again Ise never be.

XIV.

This ballad is given from an old black-letter copy in the Pepys Collection, collated with another in the British Museum, H. 263. folio. It is there intitled, "The Lady Isabella's Tragedy, or the Step-Mother's Cruelty being a relation of a lamentable and cruel murther, committed on the body of the Lady Isabella, the only daughter of a noble Duke, &c. To the tune of, The Lady's Fall." To some copies are annexed eight more modern stanzas, intitled, "The Dutchess's and Cook's Lamentation."

This lord he had a daughter deare,

For pityes sake do not destroye

Whose beauty shone so bright, She was belov'd, both far and neare, Of many a lord and knight.

10

My ladye with your knife; You know shee is her father's joye, For Christes sake save her life.

This song is a kind of Translation of a pretty poem of Tasso's, called Amore fuggitivo, generally printed with his "Aminta," and originally imitated from the first Idyllium of Moschus.

It is extracted from Ben Jonson's Masque at the marriage of Lord Viscount Hadington, on ShroveTuesday 1603. One stanza, full of dry mythology, is here omitted, as it had been dropt in a copy of this song printed in a small volume called "Le Prince d'Amour. Lond. 1660," 8vo.

BEAUTIES, have yee seen a toy,
Called Love, a little boy,
Almost naked, wanton, blinde;
Cruel now, and then as kinde?

If he be amongst yee, say;
He is Venus' run away.

5

Trust him not: his words, though sweet, Seldome with his heart doe meet:

Shee, that will but now discover

All his practice is deceit;

Where the winged wag doth hover, Shall to-night receive a kisse,

How and where herselfe would wish: But who brings him to his mother

10

And most treason's in his teares.