• Tell your beads, (quoth the priest) and be fairly truss'd

up;

For you surely to-night shall in Paradise sup.'

Derry down, &c.

'Alas! (quoth the squire) howe'er sumptuous the treat,

'Parbleu! I shall have little stomach to eat :

'I should therefore esteem it great favour and grace, 'Would you be so kind as to go in my place.'

Derry down, &c.

That I would, (quoth the father) and thank you to

boot;

'But our actions, you know, with our duty must suit : The feast I propos'd to you, I cannot taste;

For this night, by our order, is mark'd for a fast.'
Derry down, &c.

Then, turning about to the hangman, he said,
'Dispatch me, I prithee, this troublesome blade :
For thy cord and my cord both equally tie;

' And we live by the gold for which other men die."
Derry down, down, hey derry down.

SONG LXII.

IN Tyburn-road a man there liv'd
A just and honest life;

And there he might have lived still,
If so had pleas'd his wife.

But she, to vicious ways inclin'd,
A life most wicked led;
With tailors, and with tinkers too,

She oft defil'd his bed.

Full twice a day to church he went,
And so devout would be,
Sure never was a saint on earth,
If that no saint was he.

This vex'd his wife unto the heart;
She was of wrath so full,
That, finding no hole in his coat,
She pick'd one in his scull.

But then her heart 'gan to relent,
And griev'd she was full sore;
That, quarter to him for to give,
She cut him into four.

All in the dark and dead of night
These quarters she convey'd,
And in a ditch, at Marybone,

His marrowbones she laid.

His head, at Westminster, she threw
All in the Thames so wide;

Says she, my dear, the wind sets fair,
And you may have the tide.

But Heav'n, whose pow'r no limit knows, On earth, or in the main ;

Soon caus'd this head for to be thrown

Upon the land again.

This head being found, the justices
Their heads together laid;

And all agreed, there must have been
Some body to this head.

But, since no body could be found,

High mounted on a shelf
They e'en set up this head to be

A witness for itself.

Next, that it no self-murder was,
The case itself explains ;

For no man could cut off his head,
And throw it in the Thames.

Ere many days had gone and pass'd,
The deed, at length, was known ;
And Kath'rine she confess'd, at last,
The fact to be her own.

God prosper long our noble king,
Our lives and safeties all;
And grant that we may take advice
By Kath'rine Hayes's fall. *

* She was burned alive for this murder, 9th May, 1726. The ballad will scarcely be thought void of merit: but it is to be hoped that its author is the only one who ever attempted to be witty on so shocking a subject.

Tune-' Come and listen to my ditty.'

As near Porto-Bello lying

On the gently-swelling flood,
At midnight, with streamers flying,
Our triumphant navy rode;
There while Vernon sate all-glorious
From the Spaniards' late defeat,
And his crews, with shouts victorious,
Drank success to England's fleet;

On a sudden, shrilly sounding,

Hideous yells and shrieks were heard;
Then, each heart with fear confounding,
A sad troop of ghosts appear'd;
All in dreary hammocks shrouded,
Which for winding-sheets they wore,
And, with looks by sorrow clouded,
Frowning on that hostile shore.

* These elegant stanzas were written (chiefly, perhaps, with a design to incense the public against the mal-administration of Sir Robert Walpole) on the taking of Porto-Bello from the Spaniards, by admiral Vernon, in 1739. The circumstances attending the death of admiral Hosier, which happened in those parts, 1726, are recorded in history nearly in the same manner as they are repre. sented in the song.

On them gleam'd the moon's wan lustre,
When the shade of Hosier brave

His pale bands was seen to muster,
Rising from their wat❜ry grave:
O'er the glimmering wave he hied him,
Where the Burford rear'd her sail,
With three thousand ghosts beside him,
And in groans did Vernon hail.

▾ Heed, oh! heed our fatal story;
'I am Hosier's injur'd ghost;
'You who now have purchas'd glory
'At this place where I was lost,
'Though in Porto-Bello's ruin

'You now triumph, free from fears,
• When you think on my undoing,
'You will mix your joys with tears.

Whose wan cheeks are stain'd with weeping;

'These were English captains brave :

'Mark those numbers, pale and horrid,
'Who were once my sailors bold;
Lo! each hangs his drooping forehead,
'While his dismal tale is told.

'I, by twenty sail attended,

Did this Spanish town affright, 'Nothing then its wealth defended, 'But my orders, not to fight: 'Oh! that in this rolling ocean I had cast them with disdain, VOL. II.