At laft my royall king did dye,

And then my dayes of woe grew nighe;

When crook-back Richard got the crowne,
King Edwards friends were foon put downe.

I then was punifht for my fin,
That I fo long had lived in ;

Yea, every one that was his friend,
This tyrant brought to fhamefull end.

Then for my lewd and wanton life,
That made a ftrumpet of a wife,
I penance did in Lombard - street,
In fhamefull manner in a fheet.

75

80

Where many thousands did me viewe,],

85

Who late in court my credit knewe;

Which made the teares run down my face,
To thinke upon my foul disgrace.

In hope therebye to cafe my want,

When riches fail'd, and love grew feant.

But she denyed to me the fame
When in my need for them I came;
To recompence my former love,

Out of her doores fhee did me shove,

95

100

So

So love did vanifh with my state,
Which now my foul repents too late;
Therefore example take by mee,
For friendship parts in povertìe.

But yet one friend among the rest,
Whom I before had feen distrest,
And fav'd his life, condemn'd to die,
Did give me food to fuccour me.

For which, by lawe, it was decreed
That he was hanged for that deed;
His death did grieve me fo much more,
Than had I dyed myself therefore.

Then thofe to whom I had done good,
Durft not afford mee any food;

Whereby I begged all the day,
And ftill in ftreets by night I lay..

My gowns befet with pearl and gold,
Were turn'd to fimple garments' old;
My chains and gems and golden rings,
To filthy rags and loathsome things.

Thus was I fcorn'd of maid and wife,
For leading fuch a wicked life;

Both fucking babes, and children small,
Did make their paftime at my fall.

I could not get one bit of bread,

125

Whereby my hunger might be fed,

Nor drink, but fuch as channels yield,
Or ftinking ditches in the field.

Thus,

You hufbands, match not but for love,
Left fome difliking after prove;
Women be warn'd when you are wives,
What plagues are due to finful lives:

Then maids and wives in time amend,
For love and beauty will have end.

145

* But it had this name long before; being fo called from its being a common SEWER (vulgarly SHORE) or drain. See Stow.

THE END OF THE SECOND BOOK.

ANCIENT

SONGS AND BALLADS,

c.

SERIES THE SECOND.

BOOK III.

I.

THE COMPLAINT OF CONSCIENCE.

The following old allegoric Satire is printed from the editor's folio MS. This manner of moralizing, if not first adopted by the author of PIERCE PLOWMAN'S VISIONS, was at least chiefly brought into repute by that ancient satirift. It is not fo generally known that the kind of verse used in this ballad bath any affinity with the peculiar metre of

that

that writer, for which reason I shall throw together Some curfory remarks on that very fingular Species of verfification, the nature of which has been fo little understood.

ON THE METRE

OF

PIERCE PLOWMAN'S VISIONS.

We learn from Wormius*, that the ancient Iflandic poets used a great variety of measures: he mention 136 different kinds, without including RHYME, or a correspondence of final fyllables: yet this was occafionally used, as appears from the Ode of Egil, which Wormius hath inferted in his book.

He bath analysed the structure of one of these kinds of verse, the harmony of which neither depended on the quantity of the fyllables, like that of the ancient Greeks and romans; nor on the rhymes at the end, as in modern poetry: but confifted altogether in alliteration, or a certain artful repetition of the Sounds in the middle of the verses. This was adjusted according to certain rules of their profody, one of which was that every distich should contain at least three words beginning with the fame letter or found. Two of theSe correfpondent founds might be placed either in the first, or fecond line of the distich, and one in the other: but all three were not regularly to be crowded into one line. This will be best understood by the following examples **

"Meire

The

* Literatura Runica. Hafnia 1636. 4to. 1651. fol.
ISLANDIC language is of the fame origin as our ANGLO-
SAXON, being both dialects of the ancient GOTHIC OF
TEUTONIC. See "Five pieces of Runic poetry trans-
"lated from the Iflandic language, 1763. 800.
**d. Hickes Antiq. Literatur. Septentrional. Tom. I.
p. 217.