were united, but his first messenger-ship fell into the hands of the English; his second did not reach Tourville until after the battle had been fought unsuccessfully.

James was dogged by ill-fortune. There is something pitiable in his misery and desertion, a second Lear, only too indulgent to his Goneril and Regan (who were both thereafter to sit on the throne from which they drove him), when he wailed forth, on learning Anne's flight in 1688, "God help me! even my own children have forsaken me." Not less touching, to those who are not rendered callous by party spite, was the sorrowful and almost despairing letter he wrote to the King of France, after the end of this very battle in May, 1692, which had destroyed the fleet of his protector. "That he had hitherto, with some constancy and resolution, supported the weight of all his misfortunes, so long as he was the only sufferer; but he acknowledged that this last disaster overwhelmed him, and that he was altogether comfortless, in relation to what concerned his most Christian Majesty, through the great loss, that had befallen his [Lewis's] fleet. That he [James] knew too well, that it was his own unlucky star, which had drawn this misfortune upon his [i.e. the French King's] forces, always victorious, but when they fought for his interests; which plainly let him see, that he no longer merited the support of so great a Monarch, and he therefore intreated his most Christian Majesty, no longer to concern himself for a Prince so unfortunate as himself, but permit him to retire with his family to some corner of the world, where he might cease to obstruct the usual course of his most Christian Majesty's prosperities and conquests," &c. (Boyet, quoted by N. Tindal, in Contin. of Rapin, 1744, iii. 205).

Line 33 of the following ballad is, "At length in Lobs' Pound, Boys, we got 'um."

Lob's Pound corresponds here to "getting his head into chancery." Halliwell tells us it was "an old jocular term for a prison, or any place of confinement." Dict. Archaic, &c. ii. 525, 1874. Nares gives the phrase, To be laid in leb's pound, to be "laid by the heels, or clap'd up in jail."-Old Canting Dictionary. Also, any close or confined place, as, in the following lines, from Massinger, it means behind the arras:

Who forced the gentleman, to save her credit,
To marry her, and say he was the party,
Found in Lob's pound.-Duke of Milan, iii. 2.

In Hudibras (I. iii. 909), used for the stocks,

Crowdero whom, in irons bound,

Thou basely threwst into Lob's pound.

Nares adds, "Who Lob was is as little known as the site of Lipsbury Pinfold." But "Lob" signified a clown, not an individual person: cp. looby, lobcock, lubber, &c., "all denote both inactivity and dullness of mind." "Farewell, thou lob of spirits," says the fairy to Puck (Mids. N. D., ii. 4). Milton has, "Then lies him down, the lubber-fiend."-L'Allegro, 1. 110.

[Bagford Collection, II. 90.]

The Royal Triumph;

The Unspeakable Joy of the three kingdoms, for the Glorious Victory over the FRENCH, by the English and Dutch Fleets; to the Jop and Comfort of all True Subjects.

TUNE IS, Let the Soldiers Rejoyce.

And Triumph now bro. . . . ught from the Ocean;

For the French Mighty Fleet,
Now is Shatter'd and Beat,

And Destruction, Destruction, Boys, will be their portion.

Here's the Jacobite Crew,

Now believe me, 'tis true,

Invited the Fre... nch to this Nation;

Who was crossing the Seas,

With the Teague Rapparees,1

True Cut-Throats, true Cut-Throats, upon my Salvation.

But, alas! they did find,

A true-Protestant Wind,2

Which five Weeks or lon . . . . ger it lasted;

Till the most Royal Fleet,

And the Dutch both compleat,

10

15

They with Thunder, with Thunder, this Project soon blasted.

See infrà, p. 303.

2 See p. 295, on this "True Protestant Wind."

On the Nineteenth of May,

The French Fleet made way,

To make of our Cou.... rage a Tryal;

They suppos'd we'd ne'r Fight,

But they won't in the right,

20

For we show'd them, we show'd them, we were true and Loyal.

Our Admirals bold,

With their brave hearts of Gold,

They fell on like bra. . . . ve Sons of Thunder;

And their Chain-Shot let fly,

As the Fleet they drew nigh,

25

29

Where they tore them, and rent them, and tore them asunder. Our Squadron True-Blew,

Fought their way through and through,

At length in Lobs' Po.... und, Boys, we got 'um;

Where we gave the proud French,

Such a Fiery Drench,

34

That we sent them, we sent them, straight down to the bottom.

Such a Slaughter we made,
While the loud Cannons play'd,

Which laid the poor Mo. . . . nsieurs a bleeding;

Nay, their Chief Admiral,

We did bitterly Maul,

39

And have taught him, have taught him, I hope, better Breeding.

Our brave Admiral,

Being Stout, DELLAVAL,2

Whose actions all M . . .. en may admire;

For the French Rising-Sun,3

Was not able to Run,

Which with seven, with seven more Ships did he Fire.

1 See page 296.

44

48

2 "The English had borne the brunt of the fight. Russell, who commanded in chief, was an Englishman. Delaval, who directed the attack on Cherburg, was an Erglishman. Rooke, who led the flotilla into the Bay of La Hogue, was an Englishman. The only two officers of note who had fallen, Admiral Carter and Captain Hastings of the Sandwich, were Englishmen. . . . The remains of Hastings and Carter were brought on shore with every mark of honour. Carter was buried at Portsmouth, with a great display of military pomp. The corpse of Hastings was carried up to London, and laid, with unusual solemnity, under the pavement of Saint James's Church."-Macaulay's History of England, cap. xviii. iii. 348, edit. 1864.

3 Formerly Tourville's own ship: see our p. 118; later he had removed his flag to the Ambitious.

Close

Valiant Rook Sail'd straightway
Where a French Squadron lay,

amongst the Ro.... cks then for shelter;
But we fell on Gillore,1

And we Fir'd Twelve more,

Thus we Fir'd and Burn'd the French Fleet helter-skelter.

Being Sunk, Took, and Burn'd,
There's not many return'd,

Was this not a wo . . . . full Disaster?

How they far'd on our Coast,
Let 'em Sail Home and boast,

To Old Lewis, Old Lewis, their Fistula-Master.2

When he hears how they sped,
It will strike him near Dead,

Losing what he lo . . . . ng has been getting;
But we'll have him to know,

That we'll still keep him low,

He shall never, shall never, Boys, Conquer Great-Britain. 66

Printed for p. Brooksby, J. Deacon, J. Blare, and J. Back. [In Black-letter. Date, the end of May, 1692.]

1 Gillore is not an uncommon word, with the meaning (as here) plentifully, in plenty or abundance. Thus, in the ballad of Lilli burlero, 1688, we read :—

Now Tyrconnel is come ashore,

And we shall have commissions gillore.

Long before 1689, in the Robin Hood and Little John Ballad, "When Robin," &c., it occurs thus:

To feasting they went, with true merriment,

And tippled strong Liquor gillore.

Again, near the close of the eighteenth century, in Charles Dibdin's song of The Shipwrecked Tar, the mariner desponds not in his tatters, but says:—

Such trifles little matters, I'll soon get Togs galore.

2 King Lewis XIV., of course.

The Protestant Commander.

Father John.

"Full many a dame I've known
Who'd faint and sicken at the sight of blood,
And shriek and wring her hands and rend her hair
To see her lord brought wounded to the door;
And many a one I've known to pine with dread
Of such mishap or worse,-lie down in fear,
The night-mare sole sad partner of her bed,
Rise up in horror to recount bad dreams
And seek [for] witches to interpret them,-
This oft I've known, but never knew I one
Who'd be content her lord should live at home
In love and Christian charity and peace."

Artevelde." And wherefore so?

Because the women's heaven

Is vanity, and that is over all.

What's firiest still finds favour in their eyes;
What's noisiest keeps the entrance of their ears.
The noise and blaze of arms enchants them most,
Wit, too, and wisdom, that's admir'd of all,
They can admire-the glory, not the thing.
An unreflected light did never yet

Dazzle the vision feminine."

Taylor's Philip van Artevelde, Act i. sc. 5.

AMONG the editors of the earlier works published by the

Percy Society, (would that it were still alive and thriving, as it was in past years!) the value of our Bagford Collection of ballads was fairly recognized. By none of them more than T. Crofton Croker, who extracted therefrom, for his "Historical Songs of Ireland," 1841, no less than four of those that we are here giving, verbatim, from the originals which he employed. These are, the Reading Skirmish; Undaunted Londonderry; the Protestant Commander; and, lastly, the Valiant Souldier's Misfortune; or, his Grace the Duke of Schomberg's last farewell (Bagford Collection, ii. 101, 116, 91, 98). Eight others had been extracted from the Bagford (but that name not mentioned, its old press-mark being cited, "643. M."-it is now "Case 39. K") among the "Songs relative to London 'Prentices and Trades; being the second publication of the same year, 1841; Crofton Croker's work being the third. We see him at his best, in the standing portrait drawn by Maclise, and again, among "The Fraserians," 1835. We prize his book on the fairy-lore of his native land. To Crofton Croker, Ballad-editing was a labour of love; in gathering together materials for his various collections of Irish ditties, his miscellaneous "Popular Songs of Ireland,"