Which if we could not find,

a Pistol cock'd streightway, Presented at their Breast, to make

them shew us where it lay: No Tongue nor Pen can tell, &c.

54

The Bloud which I have spilt,

now on my Conscience lies,

The heavy dreadfull thought of Guilt

58

The thoughts of Death I fear,

my Senses do's surprize;

although a just Reward,

As knowing that I must appear,
before the living Lord,

No Tongue nor Pen can tell, &c.

I solemnly declare,

who am to Justice brought,

All kinds of wicked Sins that are,
I eagerly have wrought;

No Villains are more rife,

than those which I have bred; And thus a most perfidious Life

I in this World have led:

No Tongue nor Pen can tell, &c.

Long have I liv'd you see,

by this unlawful Trade,

And at the length am brought to be

76

a just Example made:

Good God, my Sins forgive,

whose Laws I did offend,

Printed for P. Brooksby, J. Deacon, J. Blare, and J. Back.

[In Black-letter. Date, 1690-1.]

The Mariner's Misfortune.

Sing the dangers of the Sea."-The Storm: by G. A. Stevens. 1754.

WITH this tale of a shipwrecked sailor and his love, we begin

a valuable group of sea-songs, naval victories, and disasters. We lose a certain amount of congruity, in the grouping of ballads according to their class of subject, owing to the necessary omission of such as are common to our own Bagford Collection and to the Roxburghe. In the first volume of Bagford, it is true, there had evidently been little or no attempt made at arrangement. Ballads and fragmentary pages of books (more or less poetical) were inserted at hap-hazard. But in the second volume (with which our Part II. and the greater portion of Part III. correspond), there had evidently been essayed a classification, although not carried out elaborately, or consistently. This will be made more clear by perusal of our complete list of the Bagford Collection, first lines, at beginning of this volume, following the Introduction. Early comes a group of Scriptural subjects, commencing with David and Bathsheba (before which is the Swimming Lady, or Bathing Nymph: suggested by association of ideas with Bathsheba !), two on Solomon, his sentences and his sacrifice, the Constancy of Susanna, and the apocryphal fisherman Tobias or Tobit. This brings us naturally to the Wandering Jew, and he leads in Ulysses as "The Wandering Prince of Troy." Titus Andronicus, the Wife of Bath, King Arthur, St. George and the Dragon, Sir Eglamour, Robin Hood, Patient Griselda, the Prince of England who wooed a King of France's daughter, King Henry II. and the Miller of Mansfield, Queen Eleanor, King John and the Abbot of Canterbury, the fair Maid of Dunsmore, Jane Shore, the Lady Arabella Stuart and Seymour, the Cripple of Cornwall, the Earl of Essex, the Rich English Merchant born at Chichester, Maudlin of Bristol, the Spanish Lady with her love, Percy and Douglas at Chevy Chase, and Thomas Stukely: all worthies, come in immediate sequence, and precede our "Beautie's Warning Piece," of p. 148 (Bagford Coll., ii. 38, verso).

By this time Bagford had evidently got himself immersed in a bundle of "Lamentable" and moralizing ditties. For there follow next, Armstrong and Musgrave's Duel, Pride's Fall, An Hundred Godly Lessons, the Sorrowful Complaint of Mrs. Page, a Warning for Maidens, or, Young Bateman, the Children in the Wood, the Dead Man's Song, and (this we give on p. 154) The True Lovers' Lamentable Overthrow. But the doleful list is not

ended. William Gismond gives his murder-tale of 1650, and a Godly Song precedes "Hubert's Ghost," and "A True Sense of Sorrow" (our pp. 160, 167). England's New Bellman then sounds his awakening alarum, and a Warning to all Lewd Livers is given on the other side of our "Chamberlain's Tragedy" (p. 174), and probably by the same author (? Laurence Price). The Unnatural Son, and Strange and True News from Westmoreland intervene before "The Weeping Lady" (our p. 181).

As in Roman-Catholic countries there is a merry pause at Mi-Carême, so Bagford seems to have thought it necessary to interpose the fun of "The Country Man's Calendar" (our p. 186), John Wade's "Heavy Heart and Light Purse," "The Jovial Crew" (our p. 195), and "Jack Hadland's Lamentation," before drawing any cheque on our banked-up capital of tears. We suspect the "Answer to the Cookmaid's Tragedy " (our p. 200) need not be considered very grievous. It is followed by "The Ranting Rambler," and "The Beggars' Chorus " (pp. 205, and 216); both of which are rollicking and noisy enough to suit the Carnival proper, let alone" the Little Carnival"

of Mid-Lent:

:

'Tis known, at least it should be, that throughout
All countries of the Catholic persuasion,
Some weeks before Shrove Tuesday comes about,
The people take their fill of recreation,
And buy repentance, ere they grow devout,

However high their rank, or low their station,
With fiddling, feasting, dancing, drinking, masking,
And other things that may be had for asking.

This feast is named the Carnival, which being
Interpreted, implies farewell to flesh :'
So call'd, because the name and thing agreeing,
Through Lent they live on fish both salt and fresh.
But why they usher Lent with so much glee in,
Is more than I can tell, although I guess
'Tis as we take a glass with friends at parting,
In the stage-coach or packet, just at starting.

(Beppo, 1817-8.)

We get back to the doleful ditties in "The West-Country Miser," and "The Sinner's Care to Repent" (our pp. 221, and 227). These are followed by the Distressed Virgin, the lamentable ballad of Little Musgrave and the Lady Barnet (or Barnard: which suggested his Douglas" to John Home, whereupon a storm of bigotry and persecution arose against him in the Scottish Presbyteries, for having dared to write a stage play, so that he was excommunicated, ostracised, and deposed). Other tragedies and laments follow: The Lady Isabella, The godly Maid of Leicester, A Mournful Carol on Franklin and Cordelius, William Gismond's

Downfall, John Musgrave who was executed at Kendal, Luke Hutton, our "Francis Winter," and our "Golden Farmer" (pp. 236, 244); and so, having had five Hanging-Verses in succession, we are allowed to taste a fresh tap. For "yet we are not happy!" It is to the Sea we now turn attention. Here ensues an interesting group of seamen's ditties, naval victories, shipwrecks, and amatory adventures in which Jack-Tar plays his part. Several of these are not found elsewhere, but unique specimens adorn the Bagford Collection. Leading off with the story of "Young Palmus the Ferryman and the Fair Sheldra," we come to the Famous Fight at Malago (Percy Soc. Naval Bds., ii. 64), Sir Andrew Barton (Ibid. 4), Captain Ward and the Rainbow (Ibid. 55), and Constance and Anthony. The next after these is the ballad which we are about to reprint, "The Mariner's Misfortune." The tune named, to which this ballad is to be sung, is "The Souldier's Departure." We find the words in Bagford Collection, ii. 99, and we give them on a later page: they begin, "Now my Love has crost the ocean."

A copy of "The Mariner's Misfortune" is in Pepys Collection, iv. 187. It has been already reprinted, in the Percy Society's second vol.; p. 81, of Halliwell's Naval Ballads, 1841.

Our present original is printed at the back of a copy of the amusing song on a Winchester Wedding, 1684, "At Winchester there was a wedding" (which is also in Pills to P. Mel., i. 276), with its truly charming woodcut. We regret that it comes not to us (being in Roxb. Coll., iii. 314). A sequel to it (1685) begins, "The Sun had loosed his weary team," etc., Pills, i. 321. Both were written by Tom D'Urfey.

[Bagford Collection, II. 80.]

The Mariners Misfortune;

Or,

The Unfortunate Voyage of two Constant Lovers. Being an Account of a faithful Seaman, who going to take his Farewel of his Sweetheart, she resolved come Life, or come Death, to Sail with him; and putting her self into Mans Apparel, went the Voyage with him, but by distress of weather, coming home were cast away, the constant Seaman having no other help, betook himself to swimming, and having got his Sweetheart upon his back, swam till he was almost tyred, but was at last taken up by an Algerine, who carryed them to Algiers, where being brought before the Governour, she confessed her selfe to be a Female, which so astonished the Governour, that he in requital of her constancy, set them both free, who are happily Arrived in England again.

TUNE OF, [The] Souldiers Departure.