Additional Motes.

Line 5.

VOLUME THE FIRST.

The King and the Barker.

NTRODUCTION. I suspect that this poem, as it has come down to us, exhibits corruptions as regards the arrangement of the lines, and that the rhythm has seriously suffered in consequence. Take the following examples :

"As he rode, he houertoke yn the wey

A tanner of Dautre yn a queynte araye;
Blake kow heydys sat he apon,

The hornys heyng besyde,

The kyng low, and had god game,
To se the tannar reyde.

Howr kyng bad hes men abeyde."

? Rearrange thus:

"As he rode, he houertoke yn the wey

A tanner of Dautre yn a queynte araye;

Blake kow heydys sat he apon, the hornys heyng besyde;

The kyng low, and had god game to se the tannar reyde.
Howr kyng bad hes men abeyde."

Again :

"And he welde sper of hem the wey

Yffe y may her eney now tythyng

Y schall het to yow saye.

Howr kyng prekyd, and seyde: 'ser, god the saffe,'

The tannar seyde: 'well mot yow ffar'-"

Should not the text stand as follows:

"And he welde sper of hem the wey

Yffe y may her eney now tythyng, y schall het to yow

saye.

Howr kyng prekyd, and seyde: 'god the saffe, ser.'
The tannar seyde: 'well mot yow ffar.""

Again, at line 82, ought we not to read the poem thus:

"God felow, with me thow must abeyde,

Seyd our kyng, for thow and y most an hontyng reyde."

A little further on, at line 86, query

"God felow lend thow me theyne,

And hafe her meyne."

At line 89, perhaps the arrangement should be—

Alas, theyn the thanner thowt, he well reyde away

With mey hors; Y well after to get hem, and y mey."

At line 92 et seqq, I am inclined to suggest a redistribution, viz:

"He cast them yn the kyngs schadyll, that was a neys seyte; Tho he satte aboffe them, as y [y]ouw seye;

He prekyd fast after hem, and fond the redey wey;

The hors lokyd about hem, and sey

On euery syde the kow hornes blake and wheyte."

At the same time, there are places where the measure seems incapable of restoration, and it is impossible to be certain whether even the changes suggested above would be authorized by the real original of the poem, if such were ever to come to light. There are many separate editions of this piece, subsequently to Dauter's, in 1596. Three may be mentioned.

A pleasant new Ballad of King Edward the Fourth and a Tanner of Tamworth, as he rode a hunting with his Nobles to Drayton Bassett. To an excellent new Tune. Printed for F. Coles, T. Vere, J. Wright, and J. Clarke. With a cut.

A pleasant new Ballad of King Edward the Fourth and a Tanner of Tamworth. Printed for F. Coles, T. Vere, and W. Gilbertson. With two cuts.

In the 4th Part of Bibl. Heber., No. 1743, was another impression, entitled, "A Merry, Pleasant, and Delectable History between King Edward the Fourth and a Tanner of Tamworth, as he rode upon a time with his Nobles on Hunting toward

Drayton-Basset, very Pleasant and merry to Read. With cuts. Printed for F. Coles, n. d. 8vo.

Of the ed. of 1596, the only copy known to the editor is that in Selden, Arch. 39, 4to; but Percy had the use of a perfect copy. Besides the license of this ballad to William Griffith, in 1564-5, mentioned at p. 2, note, there was an entry of it, with several other articles, to Edward White, in 1585-6. But the earliest printed edition of it now known is that of 1596; for a notice of which, see vol. ii. p. 59, of present work,

The King and the Hermit.

This tale seems to acquire an additional interest and value from the circumstance, or probability rather, that it belongs to the Robin Hood epoch-the reign of Edward II, during which the great Nottinghamshire outlaw is conjectured to have died. In the Lytel Geste, fytte the sixth, ad finem, where Robin has just liberated Sir Richard at the Lee, we read:

"Leve thi hors the behynde,

And lerne for to renne;

Thou shalt with me to grene wode
Through myre, mosse and fenne.

Thou shalt with me to grene wode,
Without any leasynge,
Tyll that I have gete us grace
Of Edwarde our comly Kynge."

Then the 7th Fit begins thus:

"The kynge came to Notynghame,
With knyghtes in grete araye;
For to take that gentyll knyght,
And Robyn Hode, yf he may."

(Ritson's Robin Hood, 1795, i. 62, 3.) It seems far from un-
likely that we ought to place the incident which is narrated in
the King and the Hermyt, therefore, during this Nottinghamshire
progress of Edward II.
Our hermit also made his house in the
then extensive forest of Sherwood, and had something better than
bread and water at need to offer a visitor. We are reminded
strongly, when we peruse this poem, of the noted character of a
similar class, whom Scott has introduced into his Ivanhoe.

The whole of the 7th Fit of the Lytell Geste should be read in connection with the Kyng and the Hermyt.

In Mr. Black's Catalogue of the Ashmol. MSS. fol. 110, this poem is described as "The gest of King Edward and [in ?] the Forest of Shirwood."

The closing lines are printed by Mr. Black in his Catalogue of the Ashmol. MSS., and as that gentleman gives them, they vary in a very few literal minutia from the text given here in accordance with a collation forwarded to the editor by Mr. Waring from Oxford.

Line 77, wylle. Strike out the note upon this word; but the explanation is correct. Be wrozt was a misprint, however, for

he wrozt.

Line 346. Fusty bandyas. The same expression is used by Skelton without any obvious meaning in his Garlande of Laurell, 1523, and in one of his Poems against Garnesche. In the former it is written foisty bawdias, and in the latter fusty bawdias. It would appear to belong to the interjectional vocabulary.

The Thrush and the Nightingale.

Line 1. Somer is comen, &c. The reader may perhaps be reminded of the beautiful and most ancient song in praise of the cuckoo (Ritson's Anc. Songs, i. 10), commencing "Sumer is icumen in." The present is not quite so old, probably, but it is prior to a second piece in the same collection, and the opening lines of the two are almost verbatim identical.

The Fox and the Wolf.

Page 58. A short prose version of a tale similar to this is printed in Mr. Wright's Latin Stories, p. 54, under the title of "Fabula de vulpe et lupo."

Ragman Roll.

This is mentioned by John Heywood in an interlude printed in 1533. It was perhaps printed about that date; but W. de Worde ceased from business in the beginning of 1535.-See Skelton's Garlande of Laurell, 1523, line 1490 (Works, i. 420).

Line 5. In brede. So Skelton, in the Garlande of Laurell, 523:

"Yet now and then

Sum Latin men
May happely loke
Vpon your boke,
And so procede
In you to rede,
That so indede
Your fame may sprede
In length and brede."

The Debate of the Carpenters Tools.

Line 14. Twybylle. Skelton, in one of his Poems against Garnesche, has the word.

Line 303.

"I saye thou madde Marche hare,
I wondre howe ye dare

Open your ianglyng iawes."

Skelton's Works, i. 210.

And in Magnyfycence, the same writer says,

"As mery as a Marche hare."

Colin Blowbols Testament.

Line 391. Atropos. Skelton, in his Elegy on the 4th Earl of Northumberland (Works, i. 11), thus addresses this personage:

"O Atropos, of the fatall systers iii

Goddes most cruell vnto the lyfe of man,

All merciles, in thé is no pite!

O homicide, which sleest all that thou can."

It seems not unlikely that the author of this whimsical piece of extravagance may have seen some such production as the drinking song by Walter Mapes, introduced into Ritson's Ancient Songs, ed. 1829, i. 3, commencing :

"Mihi est propositum in tabernâ mori."

Skelton, in his Diuers Balettys and Dyties Solacyons (Works, i. 23), has the expression "blynkerd blowboll."

Syr Peny.

Syr Peny. Here is the song referred to in the Introduction, under the title of " A Song in praise of Sir Penny:"

"Go bet, Peny, go bet [go],

For thu makyn bothe frynd and fo.

Peny is an hardy knyght,

Peny is mekyl of myght,

Peny of wrong, he makyt ryght,

In every cuntré qwer he goo.
[Go bet, &c.]