For Talbot's de dog, and Ja** is de ass.
Lilli, &c.

The foregoing song is attributed to Lord Wharton in a small pamphlet, iritled, A true relation of the several facts and circumstances of the intended riot and tumult on Queen Elizabeth's birthday, &c." third edition, London, 1712, price 2d.— See p. 5, viz. "A late Viceroy [of Ireland,] who has so often boasted himself upon his talent for mischief, invention, lying, and for making a certain Lilliburlero Song; with which, if you will believe himself he sung a deluded prince out of three kingdoms."

-was written by William Hamilton, of Bangour, Esq. who died March 25, 1754, aged 50. It is printed from an elegant edition of his Poems, published at Edinburgh, 1760, 12mo. This song was written in imitation of an old Scottish Ballad on a similar subject, with the same burden to each stanza. A. BUSK ye, busk ye, my bonny bonny bride, Busk ye, busk ye, my winsome marrow, Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny bonny bride, And think nae mair on the Braes of Yarrow.

B. Where gat ye that bonny bonny bride?
Where gat ye that winsome marrow?
4. I gat her where I dare na weil be seen,
Puing the birks on the Braes of Yarrow.
Weep not, weep not, my bonny bonny bride,
Weep not, weep not, my winsome marrow;
Nor let thy heart lament to leive,

Puing the birks on the Braes of Yarrow.

B. Why does she weep, thy bonny bonny bride?
Why does she weep thy winsome marrow ?

And why dare ye nae mair weil be seen
Puing the birks on the Braes of Yarrow?

5

10

15

Upon the duleful Braes of Yarrow.

-was a Party Song written by the ingenious author of "Leonidas", on the taking of Porto Bello from the Spaniards by Admiral Vernon, Nov. 22, 1739.-The case of Hosier, which is here so pathetically represented, was briefly this. In April 1726, that commander was sent with a strong fleet into the Spanish West-Indies, to block up the galleons in the ports of that country, or, should they presume to come out, to seize and carry them into England: he

An ingenious correspondent informs the Editor, that this Ballad hath been also attributed to the late Lord Bath.

accordingly arrived at the Bastimentos near Porto Bello, but being employed rather to overawe than to attack the Spaniards, with whom it was probably not our interest to go to war, he continued long inactive on that station, to his own great regret. He afterwards removed to Carthagena, and remained cruizing in these seas, till far the greater part of his men perished deplorably by the diseases of that unhealthy climate. This brave man, seeing his best officers and men thus daily swept away, his ships exposed to inevitable destruction, and himself made the sport of the enemy, is said to have died of a

James Dawson was one of the Manchester rebels, who was hanged, drawn, and quartered, on Keunington-common, in the county of Surrey, July 30, 1746. This ballad is founded on a remarkable fact, which was reported to have happened at his execution. It was written by the late William Shenstone, Esq. soon after the event, and has been printed amongst his posthumous works, 2 vols. 8vo. It is here given from a MS. which contained some small variations from that printed copy.

COME listen to my mournful tale,

Ye tender hearts, and lovers dear;
Nor will you scorn to heave a sigh,
Nor will you blush to shed a tear.

And thou, dear Kitty, peerless maid,
Do thou a pensive ear incline;
For thou canst weep at every woe,
And pity every plaint, but mine.

Young Dawson was a gallant youth,
A brighter never trod the plain;
And well he lov'd one charming maid,
And dearly was he lov'd again.

One tender maid she lov'd him dear,
Of gentle blood the damsel came,
And faultless was her beauteous form,
And spotless was her virgin fame.

But curse on party's hateful strife,
That led the faithful youth astray
The day the rebel clans appear'd:

O had he never seen that day!

Their colours and their sash he wore,
And in the fatal dress was found;

And now he must that death endure,

Which gives the brave the keenest wound.

How pale was then his true love's cheek When Jemmy's sentence reach'd her ear!

For never yet did Alpine snows

So pale, nor yet so chill appear.

With faltering voice she weeping said,
Oh, Dawson, monarch of my heart,
Think not thy death shall end our loves,
For thou and I will never part.

Yet might sweet mercy find a place, And bring relief to Jemmy's woes, O George, without a prayer for thee My orisons should never close.

5

10

Which she had fondly lov'd so long: And stifled was that tuneful breath, Which in her praise had sweetly sung :

55

And sever'd was that beauteous neck,

15

20

20

ADDISON, in SPECTATOR, No. 70.

I.

The third series being chiefly devoted to romantic! subjects, may not be improperly introduced with a few slight strictures on the old metrical romances : a subject the more worthy attention, as it seems not to have been known to such as have written on the nature and origin of books of chivalry, that the first compositions of this kind were in verse, and usually sung to the harp.

ON THE ANCIENT METRICAL

ROMANCES, &c

I. The first attempts at compositionn among all barbarous nations are ever found to be poetry and song. The praises of their gods, and the achievements of their heroes, are usually chanted at their festival meetings. These are the first rudiments of history. It is in this manner that the savages of North America preserve the memory of pastera and the same method is known to have prevailed among our Saxon ancestors, before they quitted their German forests t. The ancient Britons had their bards, and the Gothic nations their scalds or popular poets, whose business it was to record the victories of their warriors, and the genealogies of their princes, in a kind of narrative songs, which were committed to memory, and delivered down from one reciter to another. So long as poetry continued a distinct profession, and while the bard, or scald, was a regular and stated officer in the prince's court, these men are thought to have perforined the functions of the historian pretty faithfully; for though their narrations would be apt to receive a good deal of embellishment, they are supposed to have had at the bottom so much of truth as to serve for the basis of more regular annals. At least succeeding historians have taken up with the relations of these rude men, and, for want of more authentic records, have agreed to allow them the credit of true history §.

Vid. Lasiteau Mours des Sauvages, t. ii. Dr. Browne's Hist. of the Rise and Progress of Poetry.

+ Germani celebrant carminibus antiquis (quod unum apud illos memoriæ et annaliuin genus est) Tuistonem, &c. Tacit. Germ. c. 2.

Barth. Antiq. Dan. lib. i. cap. 10.-Wormii Literatura Runica, ad finem.

See" Northern Antiquities, or a Description of the Manners, Customs, &c. of the ancient Danes and other northern Nations, translated from the Freach of M Mallet," 1770, 2 vol. Svo (vol. i. p. 49, &c.)

And in

After letters began to prevail, and history assumed a more stable form, by being committed to plain simple prose; these songs of the scalds or bards began to be more amusing than useful. proportion as it became their business chiefly to entertain and delight, they gave more and more into embellishment, and set off their recitals with such marvellous fictions as were calculated to captivate gross and ignorant minds. Thus began stories of adventurers with giants and dragons, and witches and enchanters, and all the monstrous extravagances of wild imagination, unguided by judgment and uncorrected by art. This seems to be the true origin of that species of romance which so long celebrated feats of chivalry, and which at first in metre, and afterwards in prose, was the entertainment of our ancestors, in common with their contemporaries on the Continent, til the satire of Cervantes, or rather the increase of knowledge and classical literature, drove them off the stage, to make room for a more refined species of fiction, under the name of French romances, copied from the Greek t.

That our old romances of chivalry may be derived in a lineal descent from the ancient historical songs of the Gothic bards and scalds, will be shown below, and indeed appears the more evident, as many of those songs are still preserved in the north, which exhibit all the seeds of chivalry before it became a solemn institution ‡. "Chivalry, as a distinct military order, conferred in the way of investiture, and accompanied with the solemnity of an oath, and other ceremonies," was of later date, and sprung out of the feudal constitution, as an elegant writer has clearly shown. But the ideas of chivalry prevailed long before in all the Gothic nations, and may be discovered as in embryo in the customs, manners, and opinions of every branch of that people. That fondness of going in quest of adventures, that spirit of challenging to single combat, and that respectful complaisance shown to the fair sex (so different from the manners of the Greeks and Romans), all are of Gothic origin, and may be traced up to the

Vid. infra, pp. 4, 5, &c.

+ Viz. Astræa, Cassandra, Clelia, &c.

Mallet, vid. Northern Antiquities, vol. i. p. 318, &c vol. ii. p. 234, &c.

§ Letters concerning Chivalry, 8vo. 1763.