Concerning Bodleian Ms. Ashmole 48
Hyder E. Rollins
Modern Language Notes, Vol. 34, No. 6 (Jun., 1919), pp. 340-351
CONCERNING BODLEIAN MS. ASHMOLE 48
MS. Ashmole 48, in the Bodleian Library, is well known because it contains the older version of the ballad of " Chevy Chase." The mIs. is described in W. H. Black's Descriptive, Analytical, and Critical Catalogue of thte MSS. bequeathed to Oxford (1845, pp. 83-90), and was edited in 1860 for the Roxburghe Club by Thomas Wright under the title of Songs and Ballads, with Other Short Poems, chiefly of the Reign of Philip and Mary. In his preface Wright showed clearly that a number of the ballads were written circa 1558. He also believed that Richard Sheale actually composed "Chevy Chase," to which his name is signed, that the ms. "was not a mere selection made at the caprice of aln individual, but . . . the collector no doubt entered in it the pieces of poetry of this class which enjoyed the greatest popularity, or, in other words, which he was most frequently called upon by his audience to repeat"; for "this most curious collection of poems was made by Richard Sheale, and . . .the greater part of it is in his handwriting." "We must also bear in mind," urges Wright, "that these poems probably did not exist in printed copies, to which the author might have given his last correction, but that they were transcribed from manuscript copies, often surreptitious and incorrect, or taken down from oral recitation."
Curiously enough, Wright's preface (except for his remarks on Sheale's authorship of "Chevy Chase") has during all these years been accepted as the final word, and nobody has paid any attention to the actual contents of the MS. Professor Child, in his introduction to " Chevy Chase" (No. 162), remarked that the MS. might be dated " 1550 or later"; and this was repeated by the late Professor Flugel (Anglia XXI, 320). The lnotes that follow point out various facts, not hitherto observed, about some of the ballads, throw light on the date of the Mis., and show the vulnerability of Wright's conclusions. The ballads are numbered according to Wright's scheme.
2. A ballad with a refrain variously expressing the thought that God "Sent downe hys only sone to be ower new yers gyfft." Perhaps this is the "new? yeres gyfte made by Leves Evanns " licensed by Owen Rogers in 1561-62 (Arber, Transcript of the Stationers' Registers, I, 177). In 1565-66 T. Purfoote licensed " a newe yeres gyefte " and A. Lacy licensed " a new yeres geyfte made by Barnarde Garter " (Arber, i, 302, 303).
3. A ballad by Harry Spooner showing th;at young girls should be taught music. Spooner was obviously taking part in a ballad controversy. Thomas Brice's " Against filthy writing, and such like delighting" (II. L. Collmann's Ballads and Broadsides, p. 36; Collier's Old Ballads, p. 49), registered in 1561-62, contains the lines,
We are not foes to musicke wee, a mis your man doth take vs
so frendes to thinges corrupt and vile, you all shall neuer make vs.
Brice was attacking two or more unnamed balladists who had exalted love over religion; and possibly Spooner was one of his antagonists. In 1562-63 Thomas Churchyard published a "boke " called " the commendation of musyke " (Arber, I, 205), and shortly afterwards Nicholas Whight's ballad, "A commendation of Musicke, And a confutation of them which disprayse it" (Coll- mann's Ballads, p. 275), was licensed (Arber, I, 209). Richard Edwards's ballad " In commendation of Musick," published about 1562, is preserved in the Paradise of Dainty Devises (Collier's reprint, p. 89). Spooner's ballad, then, must have appeared about 1562.
5. An enormously long ballad satirizing Lent, and written in a curious nine-line stanza. This is probably the "ballett intituled lenton pennaunce " which W. Pekering licensed in 1569-70 (Arber, I, 410) ; for at about the same time Elderton's anti-Lent ballad, No. 60, below, vas licensed. No. 5, however, is clearly much older than this date would indicate. Perhaps it is one of the ballads about which in Edward VI's reign Bishop Gar.dner complained so bitterly; or it may have been written after the statute for a stricter observance of Lent was made in 1562-63 (5 Eliz. c. 5, ? 12).
11. A ballad beginning,
After mydnyght, when dremes dothe fawll,
Sume what before the mornynge gray,
Me thowght a voyce thus dyd me cawll,
" 0 lustye youthe, aryes, I say,"
which is also preserved in B. M. Add. Mrs. 15, 233 (ed. Halliwell- Phillipps, old Shakespeare Society, xxxvii, p. 89). J. P. Collier knew of the existence of the latter but not of the former ballad. In his Extracts from the Stationers' Registers, i, 185 f., he pu-rposed to identify the B. M. MS. ballad with the ballad of " awake out of your slumbre " (licensed by John Alde in 1568-69: Arber, I, 382), which he considered idenatical with the very first entry in the Regis- ters, a ballad of "a Ryse alnd wake." To make this identification more probable (it is false: see No. 52, below), he printed from his much quoted "MS. of the reign of James I " a ballad called " Arise and wake" which he describes as "a more brief, and on some accounts a more correct version," "in some respects modernized from the other " (i. e., is. 15, 233). Evidently Collier's version is a modern fabrication, written to fit not only the 1568-69 entry but also the first entry (1557) made in the Registers. A comparison of the two authentic mis. copies leaves little doubt of this. No. 11 may, or may not, be the ballad that was licensed by Alde in 1568-69: at any rate, it was surely printed and copied into the MS. before that date.
12. Begins " I lothe what I dyd love " and is " The aged louer renounceth loue," by Lord Vaux (?), in Tottel's Miscellany (ed. E. Arber, p. 173). It is signed " Fynys, quod lord Vaws." The Miscellany poem has fourteen, the Mis. poem thirteen stanzas. The MS. omits the thirteenth stanza of the Miscellatny and transposes stanzas eleven and twelve; it also has a number of slightly different readings, though, in the main, it follows the printed poem almost verbatim. Probably the copyist used not Tottel's but a broadside version of the poem. A broadside was issued by Richard Serle in 1563-64 (Arber, I, 235).
13. Begins " The lyf ys longe that lothesumlye dothe last " and is the " Comparison of lyfe and death," by an uncertain author, in Tottel's (p. 129). In the Paradise of Dainty Devises, 1576 (Col- lier's reprint, p. 75), this poem is signed D[r?] S[ands?i. In Nugae Antiquae (ed. T. Park, 1804, ii, 332), by the way, three stanzas of the poem are printed under the title of " Elegy wrote in the Tower by John Haryngton, confined with the Princess Eliza- beth, 1554." The ms. copy follows Tottel's almost verbatim, though the uncertain spelling and occasional variations from the text give it a strange appearance. On the whole, the Ms. copy is more reliable than that in the Paradise, from which in several important respects it varies.
14. Begins " My frynd, the lyf I lead at all," under which title it was registered by Thomas Colwell in 1565-66 (Arber, i, 3.06).
15. This ballad has the refrain, That knowledge wytheowt gracce Ys worece thene yngnorancce, and is probably the " ballett of knowledge " licensed by John Sampson (alias Awdeley), in 1560-61 (Arber, i, 154). The ballad is printed almost verbatim (though its fifth stanza is omitted) in Edward Wollay's prose and verse broadside, " A new yeres Gyft, intituled, A playne Pathway to perfect rest . . . Imprinted at London, by William Howv, for Richard Iohnes . . 1571" (Coll- mann's Ballads, pp. 277-279). This broadside has two introductory and one concluding stanzas not found in the ms. version, but these are not a real part of the ballad. The -s. version is clearly the older. 16. A ballad about wise King Solomon, beginning,
The reare and grettyst gyfte of all
That ever God gave unto mane,
Unto kyng Salomone dyd befawll.
This is very probably the ballad of "kynge Saloman " which Peter Walker registered on March 4, 1559-60 (Arber, i, 127). The first line is the tune of a ballad by " T. Richeson " (i. e., Thomas Rich- ardson, "sometime Student in Cambridge," as he is described in the Handfull of Pleasant Delights), preserved in B. M. iis. Cotton Vesp. A. xxv (ed. Boeddeker, Jhrbuch fur roman. und engl. Sprache, N. F., ii, 362).
19. Begins " Who lovithe to lyve in peas, and merkithe every change," and is the " Descripcion of an vngodly worlde," by an un- certain author, in Tottel's (p. 205). Tottel's version has seventy- four, the Ms. version eighty-two lines. Obviouslv the ms. copy was made from a broadside issue which omnitted certain verses that were in Tottel's, comnbined others, inserted new lines, and concluded with a prayer for " Philepe our kyug and AMary our quyne." W. Pekering licensed a ballad of "Who loveth to leve in peace and marketh every chanche &c " on September 4, 1564 (Arber, i, 263) ; but from the prayer at the end of the -is. copy, one judges that it must have been printed before November, 1558.
22. A ballad, signed T. S. P., warning men to " Give no suLre credence to every hear-saye." Ten stanzas of this ballad, with no indication of their source, are printed in Sir John Hawkins's Gen- eral History of Music (1776), iII, 33-35; and the same ten stanzas are in R. H. Evans's Old Ballads, 1810, iv, 41-42, under the title of " Caveat against Idle Rumours, written about the year 1550." Five of the fourteen stanzas in the ius. are printed in E. F. Rim- bault's Little Book of Songs and Ballads, 1851, pp. 44 ff., with this note: "From an old music-book, temp. Henry VIII, which the Editor purchased at [a then recent sale]. The music was com- posed by Robert Pend, a gentleman- of Henry the Eighth's royal chapel. He may also have been the author of the words." I have not seen the work to which Rimbault referred, but when it is located it may throw light on the date of this ballad and on the nysterious initials T. S. P.
23. Begins " Thoughe weddynge go be destenye," and is a lover's extravagant praise of his lady. Possibly it is the ballad " in the prayse of a serteni Ladye " licensed by Thomas Hackett in 1561-62 (Arber, i, 180), and it may have beeni connected, in one way or another, with the ballad of "The proverbe ys tru yat weddvnge ys Destyne," licensed by Redle and Lant in 1558-59 (Arber, I, 96). These titles would perhaps furnish a more appropriate note on All's WVell That Ends W4ell, I, iii, 63 if., than any yet written: cf. also the sonlg of The Proverb reporteth, no man can deny, That wedding and hanging is destiny, which is given at length in the play of Tom, Tyler and His Wife, sign. A 2 b (Malone Society reprint); and the proverb, " Hanging and nmarryillg goe by de-stinie," inl R. Brathwaite's Strappado for the Devil, 1615 (ed. Ebsworth, p. 112). The proverb is also quoted in Heywood's Proverbs; Jonson's Tale of a Tub, ii, i, 8; Fletcher's Wife for a Month, ii, i, 2-3; Sharpham's Cupid's Whirli- gig (1630), sign. H 4.
25. Begins "Thys myserable world in dede/ This day for to beholde," and contains such lines as For vice dothe more and mor increce, And vertu dothe decaye; Trouthe ys clene thruste owt off the preace, And falsshede bears the swaye. Fewe lyppes or non ar voyde of lyes, Most tonges be full off gyle.... It is signed " Aimen, quoth Harry Sponare," and is almost beyond doubt the ballad of " A lamentationi of the mesyrye of mankylnde " licensed by A. Lacy alonig with two other ballads of Spooner's in 1561-62 (Arber, i, 179). Cf. No. 35, below. Lacy was Spooner's favorite priniter. 30. A song on the bearing of the Cross of Christ, signed " Finis, Sponer." It begins: Awak, all fethfull harttes, awake, And with meeke myndes your selvis prepare The crosse of Criste on youe to take, Whiche all trewe cristiance ought to bare. and was registered as " a frutfull songe of bearynge of Christes Crosse " by A. Lacy in 1568-69 (Arber, i, 387). It is improbable, however, that this was the first issue of the ballad. 31. Begins " When ragyng dethe doth drawe his darte," and is signed " Finis, Sponer." This is a moralization of " When ragyng loue with extreme payne/ Most cruelly distrains my hart," a poem by Surrey in Tottel's (p. 14). Surrey's poem had been imitated as early as 1551 by the ballad-monger who wrote "A newe Balade made by Nicholas Balthorp, which suffered in Calys the xv daie of marche M.D.L." (Collier's Old Ballads, p. 14), a "good-night" beginning, b n When raging death with extreme paine Most cruelly assaultes my lierte; but this good-night was re-issued in 1557 (Arber, i, 76), and Surrey's poem appeared as a broadside ballad also in that year, as well as in 1560-61 and 1561-62 (ibid., pp. 75, 15 4, 177). Spooner's moralization was probably written after onie of these issuies had appeared.
32. A ballad, signed " Finiis, quoth Sponer," with the refrains "That the [y] his name myght lawde and prayce" (used three times), " Godes name for his highe mercy prays," and the like. This is without doubt the ballad called " a songe Exortinge to the laude of God" which William Serys licensed in 1558-59 (Arber, I, 96).
33. A ballad, signed " Amen, quoth Henry Sponar," beginning Awak, rych men, for shame, and here The powars owtcry and playnte, Let mercy ons in youe apear, So eays them of ther streante. It is the ballad of " have pytie on the poore " which Owen Rogers licensed in 1558-59 (Arber, i, 96). 34. "A grace befor dynner," signed "Amen," is by Spooner. Cf. No. 35. 35. " A grace aftare dynnare," signed " Amen, quothe Sponare." Nos. 34 and 35 were registered in 1561-62 (Arber, i, 179): Recevyd of Alexandre lacye for his lycense for pryntinge of serten graces to be sayde before Denner and after Denner/ with a balled intituled A lamentation of the mesyrye of mankynide . . . viija The second ballad was No. 2a, above. It is probable that this was the very first issue of Nos. 25, 34, 35. The Ms. undoubtedly fol- lowed printed copies. The entry in the Registers shows that the two " Graces " were printed on one broadside: the first " Grace," or first part, was signed simply " Amen," the second " Grace " was signed " Amen, quoth Spooner," just as in the -MS. 36. A ballad by John Wallis of the courtship and wedding of "Jocky and Jeniy." This is the liveliest and the best ballad- ignorinag " Chevy Chase "-in the Ms. It begins "Our Jockye sale have our Jenny," and this line is also used as a partial refrain. When the ballad was first printed it is impossible to tell, but it was registered for publication as " A Ballad o-f Jockey and Jenniy " by John Trundle on December 9, 1615 (Arber, in, 579). 40. A coarse ballad signed " Fyniys, quod Johan Walles," the first three lines of which, it seems worth while to note, are imitated by (or imitate) No. 28, a ballad by Spooner.
41. A ballad by John Wallis in which women are extravagantly praised (something quite rare in broadsides!). Perhaps this is the ballad of " the prayse of Women " licensed by Thomas Colwell in 1563-64 (Arber, i, 235).
47. Eight verses, signed " Finis, the autor unsertayn," be- ginning, From a dissimilynge frende unjuste, From a sarvante dowtfull to truste. ... Possibly this formed part of the ballad " agaynste Dyssembelers" which Colwell licensed in 1567-68 (Arber, I: 357).
49. This ballad has the refrain " But I wyll say nothinge," under which title it was registered by Colwell in 1564-65 (Arber, T, 270). 50. This ballad is about a Dearth, possibly that referred to in Stowe's Annals, sub anno 1564. For a ballad on this dearth, regis- tered in 1564, see Arber, i, 262.
52. Begins, Aryse and wak, for Cristis sake, Aryse, I say agayn; Awake, all ye that synfull be, Awak, for fear of payn, and was registered by Pekering in 1557 (Arber, i, 74) as a ballad of " a Ryse and wake." As this was the very first entry made in the Stationers' Registers, the identification is extremely interesting. Cf. No. 11, above.
58. Contains only these verses: My fancie did I fix In faithfull forme and frame, In hope there should no bloustringe blast Have power to move the same; And as the godes do knowe and world can witnesse bere, I never served other saynt nor idole other where. This is the first two stanzas, verbatim, of "An excellent Song of an outcast Louer, to, All in a Garden green," which is preserved in A Handfull of Pleasant Delights. The ballad was apparently written after 1565, when " All in a Garden Green " was printed (Arber, i, 295); but it may have appeared before this, since the poulter's measure of the " Excellent Song " could hardly have been written with the peculiar measure of "The Garden Green" in mind. The tune may be an error made by the publisher.
59. A ballad " To the tune of Lusty gallant," beginning
I rede h-owe that the marbell stone
Tlhrowgholed ys by rany dropps.
A ballad preserved in B. M. Ams. Cotton. Vesp. A. xxv (ed. Boed- deker, loc. cit., I, 88) begins, 'So longe may a droppe fall, p'at it may perse a stone. Both ballads were suggested by the poem "That length of time nonsumeth all thinges" in the second edition (1557) of Tottel's (p. 228), which begins Whlat harder is then stone, what more then water soft? Yet witlh soft water drops, lhard stones be persed softe. 60. " A newve ballad entytuled, Lenton stuff, for a lyttell munny ye maye have inowghe; To the tune of the Crampe . . . . Finis, quothe W. Elderton." W. Pekering licensed a ballad called " lenton stuffe" in 1569-70 (Arber, I, 407), no doubt a re-issue of this ballad. The form in which the title is given suggests that a printed broadside was followed. Of this ballad WVright remarked (p. ix): "This must have been onie of his [Elclerton's] earliest productions. It is known only from its existence in this manuscript. Elderton's earliest printed ballads appeared about the year 1562." As a matter of fact, Elderton's earliest kniown ballad, " The Panges of loue," was printed by Richard Lant in March, 1559-60. No. 60 probably first appeared about 1562-63. Cf. No. 5, above.
63. A ballad on Troilus and Cressida. " To the tune of Fayne woold I fynd sum pretty thynge to geeve unito my lady." This was registered by T. Purfoote in 1565-66 (Arber, i, 300). The ballad fromn which the tune is named is preserved in the Handfull; a nmoralization of the Handfull ballad, " a fayine wolde I have a godly thynge to shewe vnto my ladye," was licensed in 1566-67 (Arber, I, 340). 64. A ballad beginning " Wysdom woold I wyshe to have," under which title it was licensed by John Cherlewood in 1563 and a day or two later relicensed by Thomas Colwell (Arber, i, 231, 232). The ballad tells the story of the judgment of King Solomon. 66. A ballad beginning Wemen to prayse who takes in hand, A number must displayse. It was registered in September, or October, 1564 (Arber, i. 265), in the following fashion: Receaved of NVylliam Pekerynge for his lycense for pryntinge of ij ballettes the one intituled Women to please Who taketh in, hande/ the other anombre miuste Dyspleasse with a Dyaloge vpon Ch7ristes byrth .................. viijd In 1612 this ballad was included almost verbatim (but with an additional second stanza) in Richard Johnson's Crown Garland of Golden Roses (Percy Society ed., p. 52) an interesting example of how ballad-mongers utilized the works of their predecessors.
67. This is apparently a sequel to No. 66, and must have followed closely upon it. No. 67 is signed " Finis, Wylliam Case." Perhaps Case was the writer from whom Johnson appropriated No. 66. 74. This ballad, of six twelve-line stanzas, is evidently the original of " Adewe, Sweete Harte," a ballad of three twelve-line stanzas "imprinted at London . . . by Wylliam Gryffith . . . 1569 " and reprinted in Lilly's Collection of 79 Ballads, pp. 222- 223. These extracts will showv the resemblanice: (No. 74) (Lilly, p. 222) Adew, my pretty pussy, Adewe, swveete harte, adewe! Yow pynche me very nere; Syth we must parte! Yowre sudden parture thus To lose the loue of you Tiath chawnged mu-ch my chere . . . It greues my harte . . . Prynce Arthur cums agayne, sir, Syr Launcelotte comes againe, syr, So tellethe me myne host; So men do saye; Dick Swashe keepes Salesbury Tom Tosse wyll sayle to Spayne, plane, syr, sir, And schowrethe styll the cost. By Tyborne awaye.
75. A ballad beginning "At bewtyse bar, where I dyd stand." This is George Gascoigne's "The arraignment of a Louer": it contains only five stanzas, the second and the last three of the poem as published in the Posies, 1576, being omitted. It wvas reprinted as a broadside ballad on September 3, 1580 (Arber, ii, 376). Hazlitt, in his edition of the Complete Poems (ii, 335), said that the commendatory poems prefixed to Hollyband's French Littelton. 1566, "may be assumed to be the earliest published verses of Gascoigne"; but the verses preserved in this i\is. had not only appeared before 1566 but also show a probability that Gascoigne's earliest work was published as broadside ballads! 76. A ballad beginning " The prymerose in the greene forest," under which title it was registered by Thomas Colwell in 1563-64 (Arber, i, 237). Into it four stanzas of another ballad have been inserted.' One of these is: Have over the water to Floryda, Farewell, gay Lundon, nowe; Throw long deles by land and sese, I am brawght, I cannot tell howe, To Plymwoorthe towne, in a thredbare gowne, And mony never [a] dele. Witlh hy! wunnot a wallet do well? Ebsworth (Roxburghe Ballads, vii, 572) quotes this stanza-in modernized spelling and with the refrain, " Hey trixi trim, go trixi trim, and will not a wallet do well? "-from Simpson's School of Slhakspere (i, 151), with the remark: " This fragment of a ballad relating to the disasters of Stukely in Florida is all that has been preserved." Simpson seems to have got the stanza from Westcote's View of Devonshiiee, a work not accessible to me. Presumably Westcote did not get his verses from the Ashmolean Ais. The four stanzas in the Ms. undoubtedly formed part of " a ballett made by one beyinge greatly impoverysshed by the viage prepared to Terra Floryday &c," which A. Lacy licensed in 1564-65 (Arber, I, 263). The ballad was evidently well known by 1567, when Horestes was printed, for in this interlude (Brandl's Quellen, p. 504) a song is sung " to ye tune of ' haue ouer ye water to floride ' or ' selengers round "'; it was also mentioned in Thomas Nashe's Have With Yout to Saffron Walden, 1596 (Works, ed. McKerrow, iii, 67), and is sunig in Robert Armin's Two 3faids of More-clacke, 1609 (sign. C( 3 b. Tudor Facsimile Texts). The telescoping of the two ballads has played havoc with the refrain. Most of the stanzas end merelv with the phrase " With hy! " but the last stalnza has " With hy! tryksy trym, go tryksy, 'They are reprinted in C. H. Firth's Amnerican Garland, Oxford, 1915, pp. 7-8, under the title of " Have Over the WVater to Florida." Cf. also his notes, pp. 85-86.
wunnot a wallet do well?" Fortunately I have noticed that the first stanza of the "Primrose" ballad is quoted in Thomas Deleney's Gentle Craft, Part ii, circa 1598 (Works, ed. Mann, p. 176): The Primrose in the greene Forrest, the Violets they be gay: The double Dazies and the rest, that trimly decks the way, Doth moue the spirits with braue delights, whose beauties Darlings be: With hey tricksie, trim goe tricksie, vnder the greenewood tree. From Deloney's quotation, it is evident that the "hey tricksie" refrain belonged originally to the " Primrose " ballad arnd that the latter is the original of a ballad included in the Scottisih Gutde and Godlie Ballatis, 1567 (ed. A. F. Mitchell, 1897, Scot. Text Soc., pp. 204 ff.), which begins: The Paip; that Pagane full of pryde, He hes vs blindit lang, For quhair the blind the blind dois gyde, Na wounder baith ga wrang; Lyke Prilnce and King, he led the Regne, Of all Iniquitie: Hay trix, tryme go trix, vnder the grene wod tre. Mitchell was greatly puzzled by the refrain, which he decided must be connected with the Robin Hood ballads. From these notes it appears that Ashmole Ms. 48 was copied during 1557-65. The fact that the last two ballads (No. 76) in the collection were registered in 1563-65 makes it seem probable that Nos. 5, 30, 47, and 60, though entered in the Registers for the first time after 1565, had been printed aild copied into the -MS. before that date. Nos. 12, 13, 15, 19, 22, 58, 66, 75 and parts of 76 are, as I have shown, preserved also in printed copies, with which they agree so closely as to indicate that they were transcribed from print and not, as all previous writers have said, from the recitation of some singer or from manuscript; Nos. 34, 35, and 60 show unmistakable signs of having been copied from print; No. 16 was certainly printed, for otherwise its first line could not have been used as the tune of Thomas Richardson's ballad; and No. 11 is preserved in two manuscript copies with variations due, it seems, to the copyists of the printed text. The fact that other ballads in this collection were entered in the Registers before 156' strengthens the presumption that from printed broadsides the MIs. was compiled. To be sure, some of John Wallis's ballads, especially in their remarkable dependence on alliteration, seem to be much older than the other pieces in the --ts., though Wallis may have purposely affected an antiquated style. Apparently only one (No. 41) of his ballads was printed after 1557 (when the Stationers' Registers begin), but perhaps some of them, as well as other ballads in the Ms. of which I have here taken no notice, were inclnded in the 796 ballads that in 1560 were stored-without having been entered in the Registers-in a cupboard in Stationers' Hall. It is not unreasoniable, then, to suppose that " Chevy Chase" (No. 8) was printed in broadside form under the name of Richard Sheale, and that the "rude style" of which so much has been made 2 was due to Sheale's misunderstanding of the lines, to the ignorance of the ballad-monger who prepared them for the press, and to the copyist who, as was his wont, in the MS. still further corrupted the printed text. It must have been from the lost broadside that " Chevy Chase " finally reached the ear of Sir Philip Sidney, just as it was from a lost broadside (the existence of which has before this time not even been suspected) that No. 66, seventy years after its original publication, made its way into Johnson's frown Garland. Wright's conjecture that this Ams. was Sheale's own work, his book of airs, appears to have no foundation in fact and is not at all probable. Indeed the great care taken by the copyists to sign the ballads with the names of their authors (No. 47 is signed " the author uncertain ") would alone go far towards disproving it, and proving that printed copies were followed. A minstrel of Sheale's type could not possibly have sung more than two or three of the pieces contained in the Ms. Imagine him singing poems by Lord Surrey and George Gascoigne! A few doggerel verses of Sheale's own composition are preserved in the Nis., and show that he was dependent for money, food, and lodging on the good will of his hearers, who wero usually, one judges, like his patron Lord Strange, persons of rank; and it is hardly credible that Sheale hoped to gain this reward by singing these ballads, which every ballad-singer in England, with the modest hope of selling his broadsides for a penny each, was singing free. Minstrels no doubt sang " Chevy Chase " until it was preetmpted by ballad-singers; but they caninot have sunig, NHG. BESCHUPPEN, BESCHUMMELN 351 and copied into a book, " Wisdom Would I Wish to Have," " I Will Say Nothing," or " Women to Praise " without degeneratinig inlto ordinary ballad-singers-and without giving up the " mutton and veal" so eagerly desired by and so "good for Richard Sheale." Sheale's other poems with the exception of an epitaph on the Countess of Derby, which bears every sign of having been composed for publication by the ballad-press-are mere letters in rime, which very likely made their way into the zNs. from his autograph. They may actually have been sent to one of the compilers of the Mis. MIS. Ashmole 48 is not at all the remarkable compilation that Wright called it. To say nothing of the astonishing Percy Folio (astonishing because of its mixture of decent and ribald, pious and maudlin, ultra-broadside and fine traditional ballads), it is perhaps not so remarkable as the British Museum vIs. Cotton Vesp. A. XXV, to which references have been made above, and certainly cannot compare with the Shirburn Ballads, a collection of vulgar and pious, jocular and highly sensational ballads transcribed from printed broadsides into a manuscript of the reign of James I, recently edited by Mr. Andrew Clark.3 Instead, it is merely a commonplace book of a type which Englishmen from the fourteenth century through the nineteeenth have been fond of keeping,-a type ranging from the Vernon and Auchinleck mss. to the ballad collections of Peter Buchan and Sir Walter Scott.
HYDER E. ROLLINS.
Aspermont, Texas.
2 For Professor Child's opinion about the " rude style" see his Ballads, II, 305.
3 Perhaps three-fourths of the Shirburn Ballads were entered for publica- tion at Stationers' Hall, though Clark points out none of the entries. Some of the ballads are as old as 1564; others were copied downi from sheets first published about 1616, the date at which (says Clark) the MS. was com- pleted. Clark thinks that the entire MS. was copied from ballads issued in the years 1585-1616.