MS.) by the same writer, of which the following are

extracts.

An Epilogue of the Dethe off the Ryghte Honorable Margrete Countes of Darbe wch departyde the 19th of Jany. & was buryede the 23d of Phebruary, In anno Dni 1558, on whosse soll God have m'cye. Amen quothe Rycharde Sheale.

"O Latham! Latham! thowe maste lamente,

For thowe haste loste a flowar.

For Margrete the Countess of Darbe

In the yerthe hathe bylte her bowar.
Dethe the messengere of Gode

On her hathe wroughte his wyll,
Whom all creatures must nedys obey
Whethar they be good or ylle.

*

When thys good Ladye dyd perseve

Fro hence she schuld departe,

"Farewell my good Lorde and husbande" sayde she,
"Farewell with all my hart.

"The noble Yerle of Darbe,

"God keep the bothe nyghte and daye.

"On syghte of the wolde I myghte see,

"Or I went hence awaye.

"Fache me the laste tokene quothe she
"That he unto me sente,

"To kys hyte now or I departe

"Hite ys my wholl intente.

*

*

*

Which Joye that we may all unto

God graunt us of his grace

When that we shall wende hence away.

In Heaven to have a place.

Amen quothe Rychard Sheale.

We may fairly therefore assume the same author to have written his Chevy Chace before the year 1560, an antiquity somewhat greater than that which has been attributed to it by Hearne, who was probably misled by the occurrence of the date 1588, on one of the leaves

*of

of the MS, from which these extracts have been made. It appears to me to be the date of their transcription only. That comparative rudeness, which induced Percy and Ritson to refer its composition to an earlier period may, perhaps, be equally well accounted for by the supposition that its author wrote in the north of England, where our language had retained a more unpolished character than in the southern districts. Sheale's Epilogue on the Countess of Derby does not appear less simple or void of refinement than the Chevy Chase, and his equal right to the authorship of both appears to me incontrovertible.

C.

Richard Sheale.

The curious manuscript volume of English poetry, mentioned in the preceding article as containing, together with the older poem of Chevy Chace, several other productions of the author, whose claim to the composition of that once popular ballad I there endeavoured to establish, has, since making that communication, been examined by an ingenious friend with greater accuracy than circumstances would, at that time, permit me to bestow on it. I am indebted to him for directing my attention to the annexed poem, which, while it fully proves Sheale to have been a minstrel by profession, affords a characteristic, though melancholy, picture of the degraded state to which that class of men, once the welcome guests of the nobility and the favourites of royalty itself, were reduced by the decay of feudal magnificence, and the introduction of a more refined and classical standard of public taste.

I have already ventured to attribute the rude and barbarous phraseology of Sheale rather to the influence of a provincial dialect and education, than to the antiquity which it had been supposed to indicate.

It

† Bishop Percy has noticed this circumstance in the remarks prefixed to his edition of Chevy Chase, but without professing to regard it as capable of accounting for the apparent antiquity of the ballad.

will be seen by the present communication that he resided at what in those times must have been esteemed a very considerable distance from the metropolis (114 miles); this, together with the evident meanness of his situation in life, may perhaps be regarded as satisfactorily accounting for the uncouth style of his minstrelsy.

Bishop Percy has argued against Sheale's claims, upon the supposition that he wrote about the year 1580, whereas the ballad of Chevy Chase was in existence at the time of the publication of The Complaynte of Scotlande, (as he conjectures in 1540). But the ascribing so late a period as the former to any of Sheale's works arose from a mistake of Hearne's, (as I have already shewn,) and the Complaynte was not in fact composed till 1548. Now the date of Sheale's Epilogue, as he calls it, on the death of the Countess of Derby is 1558, and we may not unfairly suppose him to have written Chevy Chase even 20 or 30 years before that time. After all, it is possible that some earlier ballad on the subject may have existed, from which Sheale, as was by no means unusual with the minstrels, borrowed his story, and even some passages of his poem, although upon comparing it with the others attributed to him in the Ashmole MS. I cannot but still retain my opinion that the greater part of it is his own production.

The Chaunt of Richard Sheale.

O God! what a world ys this now to se,
Ther is no man content with his degre.

I can cum in no company be nyght nor be day,
But all men lacke mony, me thinkes I her them say.
Whiche things for to hear makys myn ears weary,
For with out mony men cannot be myrry,
For wher thei have no mony in store,

That's tyme for the mynstrell to gete out at the dore.
The day hathe ben I have ben myrry and glade,
And nowe to se the worlde that makys me as sade.
And why I am sade I shall mak declaracion,

As well as I can, aftar a rude facion.

For to tell youe the trewthe nowe I wyll not lete,

Be the occasion of a Robbery I am fallen in greate dete.

Whiche thing doth trobble my hede very sore,
Hit hathe grevide me moche, but shall grive me no mor.
After my Robbery my memory was so decayde,

That I colde neathar syng nore talke, my wytts wer so dismayde.

My audacitie was gone, & all my myrry tawk,

Ther ys sum heare have sene me as myrry as a hawke,
But nowe I am so trublyde with phansis in my mynde,

That I cannot play the myrry knave, accordyng to my kynd.
Yet to tak thought, I perseve, ys not the next waye
To bryng me out of det, my creditors to paye.

I may well say that I hade but ivell hape,
For to lose above threscore pounde at a clape.
The losse of my mony dyde not greve me so sore,
But the talke of the pyple dyd greve me moch mor.
Sum sayde I was not robde, I was but a lyeng knave,
Yt was not possyble for a mynstrell so much mony to have.
In dede, to say the truthe, that ys ryght well knowene
That I never had so moche mony of myn owene.
But I had frendds in London, whos namys I can declare,
That at all tymys wolde lende me cc lds. worth of ware,
And with sum agayn such frendship I founde,
That thei wold lend me in mony a nyn or tene pownde.
The occasion why I cam in dete I shall make relacion,
My wyff in dede ys a sylke woman be her occupacion,
And lynen cloths most chefly was here greatyste trayd,
And at faris and merkytts she solde sale-ware that she made,
As shertts, smockys, partlytts, hede clotthes, & othar thinggs,
As sylk thredd, & eggyngs, skirrts bandds and strings,
At Lychfelde merkyte and Addarston,† good customars she
founde,

And also in Tamworth, wher I dwell she took many a pounde,

And indede when I had gett my mony togethar, my detts to have payd,

This sad mischance on me dyd fall, that cannot be denayde,
I thought to have payde all my detts, & to have set me cler.
And then what yvell dyde ensewe, ye shall herafter hear,
Becaus my carryage shulde be lyght, I put my mony ynto golde,
And without company I ryde alone, thus was I folishe bolde,
I thought, be the reason of my harpe, no man wold me suspect.
For minstrels offt with mony the be not moche infecte.
*Neck-kerchiefs, from the French Portelet. Minshew.
+ Atherston on the Stour, Warwickshire.

On the borders of Staffordshire and Warwickshire.

iiij theves for me theilay in wayt not far from *Donsmore hethe, Wher many a man for las mony hath ofte tymys cought his deth.

I skapyd wythe my lyffe, but indede I lost my purs,

And seyng yt was my chance, I thank god yt was no wors For mony may be gotten, and lyff cannote be bought.

Yet yf good counsell hade not ben, I hade kyld myselffe with thought.

Hit grevyde me so, for yt well nyghe kylde my hart,

Be caus hit was my fortune to play so folish a part.

Ther ys an old proverbe had, "The wyste comis ever to lat" Thus, throughe myn owene neclygence, I am brought to por

estate.

After this my robbery, the truth as I youe tell,

I took my hors and ryde home to Tamworth wher I dwell,
When I cam unto my wy ffe my sorrowe dyd incresse,
To se her mak such lamentacion I cold do no lesse.

I sent to the bays of the towne in all the hast I myght, Desyrynge them to mak serche who lay yn the towne that nyght.

For the iiij thevis that rohde me playnly to me dyd say
That I had one my botts ready to ryde by nine a clock that
daye,

And yt was seven a clock at nyght or ever I cam thethar.
So uppone ther sayngs thus moch I dyd gethare,

That out of Tamworth off me thei had some prevye gyde,
Whiche knew of all my gold and whiche way that I wold ryde.
But hetherto, be no shifte that ever I cold make,

I cold never prove what thei war that my pors from me dyd take.

Therior with my losses I must nedis be contente,

For now yt is to lat for me to repente.

Ther is no man lyvyng, that in this world doth well,

But misfortune on him may fall, thoughe he gyd him never

so well.

Many a man hath ben on don for speakyng of a worde,
And som hath lost their lyfe for the strock off a sworde,
Som hathe ben on don be the cassaltye of fyare,

And sum,
both hors & man, hath perished in the myare,
Aud sum throughe suretishipe hath brought themselves in
band,

And sum throughe gammyng hath lost both howsse & lande.

* Well known as the residence of the dun cow, said to have been destroyed by Guy, Earl of Warwick, Knowledge comes too late.