Hee played agayne both loud and shrille,

And Adler he did syng,

"O ladye, this is thy owne true love; Noe harper, but a kyng.

O ladye, this is thy owne true love,
As playnlye thou mayest see;
And Ile rid thee of that foule paynìm,
Who partes thy love and thee."

The ladye looked, the ladye blushte,
And blushte and lookt agayne,
While Adler he hath drawne his brandę,
And hath the Sowdan slayne.

Up then rose the kemperye men,

And loud they gan to crye: Ah! traytors, yee have slayne our kyng, And therefore shall dye. yee

Kyng Estmere threwe the harpe asyde,

And swith he drew his brand;.

And Estmere he, and Adler yonge
Right stiffe in stour can stand..

And aye their swordes soe sore can byte,
Throughe help of Gramaryè,

260

This word is derived by the very learned editor of Junius, from the Anglo-Saxon Tyn 255 very, and wagan mighty.-As this word had so sublime a derivation, and was so applicable to the true God, how shall we account for its being so degraded? Perhaps Tyn-magan or Termagant had been a name originally given to some Saxon idol, before our ancestors were converted to Christianity; or had been the peculiar attribute of one of their false deities; and therefore the first Christian missionaries rejected it as profane and improper to be applied to the true God. Afterwards, when the irruptions of the Saracens into Europe, and the Crusades into the East, had brought them acquainted with a new species of unbelievers, our ignorant ancestors, who thought all that did not receive the Christian law were necessarily pagans and idolaters, supposed the Mahometan creed was, in all respects, the same with that of their pagan forefathers, and therefore made no scruple to give the ancient name of Termagant to the God of the Saracens : just in the same man. ner as they afterwards used the name of Sarazen to express any kind of pagan or idolater. In the ancient romance of Merline (in the Editor's folio MS.) the Saxons themselves that came over with Hengist, because they were not Christians, are constantly called Sarazens.

265

270

That soone they have slayne the kempery

men,

Or forst them forth to flee.

Kyng Estmere tooke that fayre ladyè,
And marryed her to his wiffe,
And brought her home to merry England
With her to leade his life.

275

280

However that be, it is certain that, after the times of the Crusades, both Mahound and Termagaunt made their frequent appearance in the pageants and religious interludes of the barbarous ages; in which they were exhibited with gestures so furious and frantic, as to become proverbial. Thus Skelton speaks of Wolsey:

"Like Mahound in a play, No man dare him withsay.” Ed. 1736, p. 158. In like manner Bale, describing the threats used by some papist magistrates to his wife, speaks of them as "grennyng upon her lyke Termagauntes in a playe."-[Actes of Engl. Votaryes, pt. 2, fo. 83, ed. 1550, 12mo.]

*

Accordingly, in a letter of Edward Alleyn, the founder of Dulwich College, to his wife or sister, who, it seems, with all her fellows (the players), had been "by my Lorde Maiors officer [s] mad to rid in a cart," he expresses his concern that she should "fall into the

* See Lysons's "Environs of London, 4to. vol. i.

hands of such Tarmagants." [So the orig. | maker]; yet if one should cal him by his dated May 2, 1593, preserved by the care of the Rev. Thomas Jenyns Smith, Fellow of Dulw. Coll.]-Hence we may conceive the force of Hamlet's expression in Shakspeare, where, condemning a ranting player, he says, "I could have such a fellow whipt for oredoing Termagant: it out-herods Herod." A. iii. sc. 3.-By degrees, the word came to be applied to an outrageous turbulent person, and especially to a violent brawling woman; to whom alone it is now confined, and this the rather as, I suppose, the character of Termagant was anciently represented on the stage after the eastern mode, with long robes or petticoats.

Another frequent character in the old pageants or interludes of our ancestors, was the sowdan, or soldan, representing a grim eastern tyrant this appears from a curious passage in Stow's Annals [p. 458]. In a stageplay, "the people know right well, that he that plaieth the sowdain is percase a sowter [shoe

owne name, while he standeth in his majestie, one of his tormentors might hap to break his head." The soudain or soldan, was a name given to the Sarazen king (being only a more rude pronunciation of the word sultan), as the soldan of Egypt, the soudan of Persia, the sowdan of Babylon, &c., who were generally represented as accompanied with grim Sarazens, whose business it was to punish and torment Christians. I cannot conclude this short memoir, without observing that the French romancers, who had borrowed the word termagant from us, and applied it as we in their old romances, corrupted it into Tervagaunte: and from them La Fontaine took it up, and has used it more than once in his tales.-This may be added to the other proofs adduced in this volume, of the great intercourse that formerly subsisted between the old minstrels and legendary writers of both nations, and that they mutually borrowed each others' romances.

VII.

Sir Patrick Spence,

A SCOTTISH BALLAD,

but whose story hath nothing in common with this of the ballad. As Wood was the most noted warrior of Scotland, it is proba ble that, like the Theban Hercules, he hath engrossed the renown of other heroes.

THE king sits in Dumferling toune,

-is given from two MS. copies, transmit- | who flourished in the time of our Edw. IV, ted from Scotland. In what age the hero of this ballad lived, or when this fatal expedition happened that proved so destructive to the Scots nobles, I have not been able to discover; yet am of opinion, that their catastrophe is not altogether without foundation in history, though it has escaped my own researches. In the infancy of navigation, such as used the northern seas were very liable to shipwreck in the wintry months: hence a law was enacted in the reign of James III. (a law which was frequently repeated after-Up and spak an eldern knicht, wards), "That there be na schip frauched out of the realm, with any staple gudes, fra the feast of Simons-day and Jude, unto the feast of the purification of our lady called Candelmess." Jam. III. Parlt. 2, ch. 15.

Drinking the blude-reid wine:
O quhar will I get guid saildr,
To sail this schip of mine?

Sat at the kings richt kne:
Sir Patrick Spence is the best sailor,
That sails upon the se.

The king has written a braid letter,*
And signd it wi' his hand;

In some modern copies, instead of Patrick
Spence hath been substituted the name of
Sir Andrew Wood, a famous Scottish admiral close Rolls.

5

10

* A braid letter, i. e. open, or patent; in opposition to

all the recesses of those unfrequented solitudes, found it no difficult matter to resist or elude the civil power.

Among all those, none was ever more famous than the hero of this ballad, whose chief residence was in Shirewood forest, in Nottinghamshire; and the heads of whose story, as collected by Stow, are briefly these.

66

The severity of those tyrannical forest-laws, that were introduced by our Norman kings, and the great temptation of breaking them by such as lived near the royal forests, at a time when the yeomanry of this kingdom were every where trained up to the long-bow, and excelled all other nations in the art of shooting, must constantly have occasioned great numbers of outlaws, and especially of such as were the best marksmen. These naturally fled to the woods for shelter; and forming into troops, endeavoured by their numbers to protect themselves from the dreadful penalties of their delinquency. The ancient punishment for killing the king's deer was loss of eyes and castration, a punishment far worse than death. This will easily account for the troops of banditti which formerly which is sometimes denominated De mortuo mari. lurked in the royal forests, and, from their

In this time [about the year 1190, in the reign of Richard I.] were many robbers and outlawes, among the which Robin Hood, and Little John, renowned theeves, continued in woods, despoyling and robbing the goods of the rich. They killed none but such as would invade them, or by resistance for their own defence.

"The saide Robert entertained an hundred tall men and good archers with such spoiles and thefts as he got, upon whom four hundred (were they ever so strong) durst not give

A village lying upon the river Forth, the entrance to

† An ingenious friend thinks the Author of Hardyknute has borrowed several expressions and sentiments from the

superior skill in archery and knowledge of foregoing, and other old Scottish songs in this collection.

with this ballad; which, in this Edition, hath | Ah! John, by me thou settest noe store, been brought nearer to the folio MS.

Ver. 1, For Shaws the MS. has shales: and shradds should perhaps be swards: i. e. the surface of the ground: viz. "when the fields were in their beauty:" or perhaps shades.