A Bundle of Ballads | Page 5

is referred to by Shakespeare in

"Love's Labour's Lost," Act iv. sc I; in "Romeo and Juliet," Act ii. sc. I;
and in "II. Henry IV.," Act iii. sc. 4. It was first printed in 1612 in
Richard Johnson's "Crown Garland of Goulden Roses gathered out of
England's Royall Garden. Being the Lives and Strange Fortunes of
many Great Personages of this Land, set forth in many pleasant new
Songs and Sonnets never before imprinted."
"Take thy Old Cloak about thee," was published in 1719 by Allan
Ramsay in his "Tea-Table Miscellany," and was probably a sixteenth
century piece retouched by him. Iago sings the last stanza but
one--"King Stephen was a worthy peer," etc.--in "Othello," Act ii. sc. 3.
In "Othello," Act iv. sc. 3, there is also reference to the old ballad of
"Willow, willow, willow."
"The Little Wee Man" is a wee ballad that is found in many forms with
a little variation. It improves what was best in the opening of a longer
piece which introduced popular prophecies, and is to be found in
Cotton MS. Julius A. v. It was printed by Thomas Wright in his edition
of Langtoft's Chronicle (ii. 452).
"The Spanish Lady's Love" was printed by Thomas Deloney in "The
Garland of Goodwill," published in the latter half of the sixteenth
century. The hero of this ballad was probably one of Essex's
companions in the Cadiz expedition, and various attempts have been
made to identify him, especially with a Sir John Bolle of Thorpe Hall,
Lincolnshire.
"Edward, Edward," is from Percy's "Reliques." Percy had it from Lord
Hailes.
"Robin Hood" is the "Lytell Geste of Robyn Hood," printed in London
by Wynken de Worde, and again in Edinburgh by Chepman and Myllar
in 15O8, in the first year of the establishment of a printing-press in
Scotland.
"King Edward IV. and the Tanner of Tamworth" is a ballad of a kind
once popular; there were "King Alfred and the Neatherd," "King Henry

and the Miller," "King James I. and the Tinker," "King Henry VII. and
the Cobbler," with a dozen more. "The Tanner of Tamworth" in another,
perhaps older, form, as "The King and the Barker," was printed by
Joseph Ritson in his "Ancient Popular Poetry."
"Sir Patrick Spens" was first published by Percy in his "Reliques of
Ancient English Poetry" (1757). It was given by Sir Walter Scott in his
"Minstrelsy of the Border," and with more detail by Peter Buchan in his
"Ancient Ballads of the North." Buchan took it from an old blind
ballad-singer who had recited it for fifty years, and learnt it in youth
from another very old man. The ballad is upon an event in Scottish
history of the thirteenth century, touching marriage of a Margaret,
daughter of the King of Scotland, to Haningo, son of the King of
Norway. The perils of a winter sea-passage in ships of the olden time
were recognised by an Act of the reign of James III. of Scotland,
prohibiting all navigation "frae the feast of St. Simon's Day and Jude
unto the feast of the Purification of our Lady, called Candlemas."
"Edom o' Gordon" was first printed at Glasgow by Robert and Andrew
Foulis in 1755. Percy ascribed its preservation to Sir David Dalrymple,
who gave it from the memory of a lady. The incident was transferred to
the border from the North of Scotland. Edom o' Gordon was Sir Adam
Gordon of Auchindown, Lieutenant-Depute for Queen Mary in the
North in 1571. He sent Captain Ker with soldiers against the Castle of
Towie, which was set on fire, and the Lady of Towie, with twenty-six
other persons, "was cruelly brint to the death." Other forms of the
ballad ascribe the deed, with incidents of greater cruelty, to Captain
Carr, the Lord of Estertowne.
"The Children in the Wood" was entered in the books of the Stationers'
Company on the 15th of October 1595 to Thomas Millington as,
"for his Copie vnder th[e h]andes of bothe the wardens a ballad
intituled, The Norfolk gent his will and Testament and how he
Commytted the keepinge of his Children to his owne brother whoe
delte moste wickedly with them and howe God plagued him for it."
It
was printed as a black-letter ballad in 167O. Addison wrote a paper on

it in "The Spectator" (No. 85), praising it as "one of the darling songs
of the common people."
"The Blind Beggar of Bednall Green" is in many collections, and was
known in Elizabeth's time, another Elizabethan ballad having been set
to the tune of it. "This very house," wrote Samuel Pepys in June 1663
of Sir William Rider's house at Bethnal Green, "was built by the blind
beggar of Bednall Green, so much talked of and sung in ballads; but
they say it was only some