THE sentimental beauties of this ancient ballad have always recommended it to readers of taste, notwithstanding the rust of antiquity which obscures the style and expression. Indeed, if it had no other merit than the having afforded the ground-work to Prior's "Henry and Emma," this ought to preserve it from oblivion. That we are able to give it in so correct a manner, is owing to the great care and exectness of the accurate Editor of the "Prolusions," 8vo, 1760; who has formed the text from two copies found in two different editions of Arnolde's Chronicle, a book supposed to be first printed about 1521. From the copy in the Prolusions the following is printed, with a few additional improvements gathered from another edition of Arnolde's book preserved in the Public Library at Cambridge. All the various readings of this copy will be found here, either received into the text, or noted in the margin. The references to the Prolusions will shew where they Occur. In our ancient folio MS. described in the preface, is a very corrupt and defective copy of this ballad, which yet afforded a great improvement in one passage. See v. 310.

It has been a much easier task to settle the text of this poem, than to ascertain its date. The ballad of the Nutbrowne Mayd" was first revived in "The Muses Mercury for June, 1707." 4to. being prefaced with a little Essay on the old English Poets and Poetry:" in which this poem is concluded to be "near 300 years old," upon reasons which, though they appear inconclusive to us now, were sufficient to determine Prior; who, there first met with it. However, this opinion had the approbation of the learned Wanley, an excellent judge of ancient books. For that whatever related to the reprinting of this old piece was referred to Wanley, appears from two letters of Prior's preserved in the British Museum [Harl. MSS. No 3777.] The Editor of the Prolusions thinks it cannot be older than the year 1500, because, in Sir Thomas More's Tale of "The Serjeant," &c. which was written about that time, there appears a sameness of rythmus and orthography, and a very near affinity of words and phrases, with those of this ballad. But this reasoning is not conclusive; for if Sir Thomas More made this ballad his model, as is very likely, that will account for the sameness of measure, and in some respect for that of words and phrases, even though this had been written long before: and, as for the orthography, it is well known that the old printers reduced that of most books to the standard of their own times. deed, it is hardly probable that an antiquary like Arnolde would have inserted it among his historical collections, if it had been then a modern piece; at least, he would have been apt to have named its author. But to show how little can be inferred from a resemblance of rhythmus or style, the editor of these

In

This (which my friend Mr. Farmer supposes to be the first edition) is in folio: the folios are numbered at the bottom of the leaf; the Song begins at tolio 75. The poem has since been collated with a very fine copy that was in the collection of the late James West, Esq.; the readings extracted thence are denoted thus, Mr. W.'

volumes has in his ancient folio MS. a poem on the victory of Floddenfield, written in the same numbers, with the same alliterations, and in orthography, phraseology, and style nearly resembling the Visions of Pierce Plowman, which are yet known to have been composed above 160 years before that battle. As this poem is a great curiosity, we shall give a few of the introductory lines:

"Grant gracious God, grant me this time,

That I may 'say, or I cease, thy selven to please, And Mary his mother, that maketh this world; And all the seemlie saints, that sitten in heaven, I will carpe of kings, that conquered full wide, That dwelled in this land, that was alyes noble, Henry the seventh, that soveraigne lord, &c." With regard to the date of the following ballad, we have taken a middle course, neither placed it so high as Wanley and Prior, nor quite so low as the editor of the Prolusions: we should have followed the latter in dividing every other line into two, but that the whole would then have taken up more room than could be allowed it in this volume,

Be it ryght, or wrong, these men among
On women do complayne* ;
Affyrmynge this, how that it is
A labour spent in vayne,

To love them wele; for never a dele
They love a man agayne:

For late a man do what he can,

Theyr favour to attayne,

Yet, yf a newe do them persue,

Theyr first true lover than

Laboureth for nought: for from her thought

He is a banyshed man.

I say nat nay, but that all day
It is bothe writ and sayd
That womans faith is, as who sayth,
All utterly decayd;

But, neverthelesse ryght good wytnèsse
In this case might be layd,
That they love true, and continue:
Recorde the Not-browne Mayde:
Which, when her love came, her to prove,
To her to make his mone,
Wolde nat depart; for in her hart

She loved but hym alone.

Than betwaine us late us dyscus
What was all the manere
Betwayne them two: we wyll also
Tell all the payne, and fere,
That she was in. Now I begyn,

So that ye me answère;

13

13

20

25

30

Ver. 2, woman. Prolusions, and Mr. West's copy. V. 11 her, i. e. their.

My friend, Mr. Farmer, proposes to read the first lines thus, as a Latinism:

Be it right or wrong, 'tis men among,
On women to complayne.

THE amiable light in which the character of Anthony Widville the gallant Earl Rivers has been placed by the elegant Author of the Catalogue of Noble Writers, interests us in whatever fell from his pen. It is presumed therefore that the insertion of this little Sonnet will be pardoned, though it should not be found to have much poetical merit. It is the only original Poem known of that nobleman's; his inore voluminous works being only translations. And if we consider that it was written during his cruel confinement in Pomfret castle a short time before his execution in 1483, it gives us a fine picture of the composure and steadiness with which this stout Earl beheld his approaching fate.

This ballad we owe to Rouse a contemporary historian, who seems to have copied it from the Earl's own hand writing: In tempore, says this writer, incarcerationis apud Pontem-fractum edidit unum Balet in anglicis, ut mihi monstratum est, quod subsequitur sub his verbis: SUM WHAT MUSING, &c. "Rossi Hist. 8vo. 2 Edit. p. 213." In Rouse the 2d Stanza, &c. is imperfect, but the defects are here supplied from a more perfect copy printed in "Ancient Songs, from the time of King Henry III. to the Revolution." page 87.

This little piece, which perhaps ought rather to have been printed in stanzas of eight short lines, is written in imitation of a poem of Chaucer's, that will be found in Urry's Edit. 1721, p. 555, beginning thus:

"Alone walkyng, In thought plainyng, And sore sighying, All desolate.

My remembrying Of my livyng

My death wishyng Bothe erly and late.

Infortunate Is so my fate

That wote ye what, Out of mesure My life 1 hate; Thus desperate

In such pore estate, Doe I endure, &c."

SUMWHAT musyng, And more mornyng,
In remembring The unstydfastnes;
This world being Of such whelyng,
Me contrarieng, What may I gesse?

I fere dowtles, Remediles,

Is now to sese My wofull chaunce, [For unkyndness, Withouten less,

And no redress, Me doth avaunce,

With displesaunce, To my grevaunce,
And no suraunce Of remedy.]
Lo in this traunce, Now in substaunce,
Such is my dawnce, Wyllyng to dye.

Me thynkys truly, Bowndyn am I, And that gretly, To be content; Seyng playnly, Fortune doth wry All contrary From myn entent.

My lyff was lert Me to on intent,
Hytt is ny spent. Welcome fortune
But I ne went Thus to be shent,
But sho hit ment; such is hur won.

10

15

20

THE Reader will think that infant Poetry grew apace between the times of Rivers and Vaux, though nearly contemporaries; if the following Song is the composition of that Sir Nicholas (afterwards Lord) Vaux, who was the shining ornament of the court of Henry VII. and died in the year 1523.

And yet to his Lord it is attributed by Puttenham in his "Art of Eng. Poesie, 1589. 4to." a writer commonly well informed: take the passage at large. "In this figure [Counterfait Action] the Lord Nicholas Vaux, a noble gentleman and much delighted in vulgar making, and a man otherwise of no great learning, but having herein a marvelous facilitie, made a dittie representing the Battayle and Assault of Cupide, so excellently well, as for the gallant and propre application of his fiction in every part I cannot choose but set downe the greatest part of his ditty, for in truth it cannot be amended. When Cupid Scaled, &c." p. 200.-For a farther account of Nicholas Lord Vaux, see Mr. Walpole's Noble Authors, Vol. I.