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he besieged a fort garrisoned by the English, which commanded the passes into his country.

ceed him in the said captainry, if he live thereunto.
«Eudox. Do they not use any ceremony in this elec
tion, for all barbarous nations are commonly great ob
servers of ceremonies and superstitious rites?

thrice forwards and thrice backwards.

«Eudox. But how is the Tanist chosen?

<< The captaine and his few warders did with no less courage suffer hunger, and, having eaten the few horses they had, lived vpon hearbes growing in the << Iren. They use to place him that shall be their ditches and wals, suffering all extremities, till the lord captaine upon a stone, always reserved to that purlieutenant, in the moneth of August, sent Sir Henry pose, and placed commonly upon a hill. In some of Bagnal, marshall ́of Ireland, with the most choice com- which I have seen formed and engraven a foot, which panies of foote and horse troopes of the English army, they say was the measure of their first captaine's foot; to victual this fort, and to raise the rebels siege. When whereupon hee standing, receives an oath to preserve the English entered the place and thicke woods beyond all the auncient former customes of the countrey inArmagh, on the east side, Tyrone (with all the rebels violable, and to deliver up the succession peaceable to assembled to him) pricked forward with rage, enuy, his Tanist, and then hath a wand delivered unto him and settled rancour against the marshal, assayled the by some whose proper office that is; after which, deEnglish, and turning his full force against the mar-scending from the stone, he turneth himself round, shall's person, had the successe to kill him valiantly fighting among the thickest of the rebels. Whereupon the English being dismayed with his death, the rebels obtained a great victory against them. I terme it great, since the English, from their first arriuall in that kingdome, neuer had receiued so great an ouerthrow as this, commonly called the Defeat of Blackwater; thirteene valiant captaines and 1500 common souldiers (whereof many were of the old companies which had serued in Britanny vnder General Norreys) were slain in the field. The yielding of the fort of Blackwater followed this disaster, when the assaulted guard saw no hope of relief; but especially vpon messages sent to Captaine Williams from our broken forces, retired to Armagh, professing that all their safety depended vpon his yielding the fort into the hands of Tyrone, without which danger Captaine Williams professed that no want or miserie should have induced him thereunto.>> -FYNES MORYSON's Itinerary, London, 1617, fol. part H. p. 24.

Tyrone is said to have entertained a personal animosity against the knight-marshal, Sir Henry Bagnal, whom he accused of detaining the letters which he sent to Queen Elizabeth, explanatory of his conduct, and of fering terms of submission. The river, called by the English Blackwater, is termed, in Irish, Avon-Duff, which has the same signification. Both names are mentioned by Spenser in his « Marriage of the Thames and the Medway.» But I understand that his verses relate not to the Blackwater of Ulster, but to a river of the same name in the south of Ireland :

Swift Avon-Duff, which of the Englishmen

Is called Black-water

Note 6. Stanza vi.

The Tanist he to great O'Neale.

<< Eudox. What is this which you call Tanist and Tanistry? These be names and terms never heard of nor known to us.

« Iren. It is a custome amongst all the Irish, that, presently after the death of one of their chiefe lords or captaines, they doe presently assemble themselves to a place generally appointed and knowne unto them, to choose another in his stead, where they doe nominate and elect, for the most part, not the eldest sonne, nor any of the children of the lord deceased, but the next to him in blood, that is the eldest and worthiest, as commonly the next brother unto him, if he have any, or the next cousin, or so forth, as any is elder in that kindred or sept; and then next to him doe they choose the next of the blood to be Tanist, who shall next suc

« Iren. They say he setteth but one foot upon the stone, and receiveth the like oath that the captaine did.» SPENSER'S View of the State of Ireland, apud Works, Lond. 1805, 8vo. vol. VIII. P. 306.

The Tanist, therefore, of O'Neale, was the heir-spparent of his power. This kind of succession appears also to have regulated, in very remote times, the succes sion to the crown of Scotland. It would have been imprudent, if not impossible, to have asserted a minor's right of succession in those stormy days, when the principles of policy were summed up in my friend Mr Wordsworth's lines:

the good old rule

Sufficeth them; the simple plan,

That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can.

Note 7. Stanza viii.

His plaited hair in elf-locks spread, etc.
There is here an attempt to describe the ancient
Irish dress, of which a poet of Queen Elizabeth's day
has given us the following particulars:

I mervallde in my mynde,
and thereupon did muse,
To see a bride of heavenlie bewe
an ouglie fere to chuse.
This bride it is the soile,

the bridegroom is the karne,

With writhed glibbes, like wicked spirits,
with visage rough and stearne;

With sculles upon their poales,

instead of civill cappes;

With spears in hand, and swordes by sides,

to beare of after clappes;

With jackettes long and large

which shroud simplicitie,

Though spitfull dartes which they do beare
importe iniquitie.

Their shirtes be very strange,

not reaching past the thie;
With pleates on pleates thei pleated are
as thicke as pleates may lye.
Whose sleaves hang trailling doune,
almost unto the shoe;
And with a mantell commoplie

the Irish karne do goe.
Now some amongst the resto

doe use another weede;

A coate, I meane, of strange devise,
which fancie first did breade.
His skirts be very shorte,

with pleates set thick about,
And Irish trouzes moe to put
their strange protactours out.

Dannica's Image of Ireland, apud Soxes' Tract
Lond. 1809, 4to. vol. I, p. 585,

Note 8. Stanza viii.

With wild majestic port and tone,

Like envoy of some barbarous throne.

The Irish chiefs, in their intercourse with the Eng

Some curious wooden engravings accompany this
poem, from which it would seem that the ancient Irish
dress was (the bonnet excepted) very similar to that of
the Scottish Highlanders. The want of a covering on
the head was supplied by the mode of plaiting and ar-lish, and with each other, were wont to assume the lan-
ranging their hair, which was called the glibbe. These guage and style of independent royalty. Morrison has
gabbes, according to Spenser, were fit masks for a thief, preserved a summons from Tyrone to a neighbouring
since, when he wished to disguise himself, he could ei-chieftain, which runs in the following terms:-
ther cut it off entirely, or so pull it over his eyes as to
render it very hard to recognize him. This, however,
is nothing to the reprobation with which the same poet
regards that favourite part of the Irish dress, the man-
de.-

1 « It is a fit house for an outlaw, a meet bed for a
rebel, and an apt cloke for a thiefe. First, the outlaw
I being for his many crimes and villanyes banished from
the townes and houses of honest men, and wandring in
waste places far from danger of law, maketh his man-
de his house, and under it covereth himself from the
wrath of heaven, from the offence of the earth, and
from the sight of men.
When it raineth, it is his
penthouse; when it bloweth, it is his tent; when it
freezeth, it is his tabernacle. In sommer he can wear
it loose, in winter he can wrap it close: at all times he
Likewise
can use it; never heavy, never cumbersome.

«O'Neale commendeth him unto you, Morish Fitz Thomas; O'Neale requesteth you, in God's name, to take part with him, and fight for your conscience and right; and in so doing, O'Neale will spend to see you righted in all your affaires, and will help you. And if you come not at O'Neale betwixt this and to-morrow at twelve of the cloke, and take his part, O'Neale is not beholding to you, and wille doe to the uttermost of his power to overthrow you if you come not to him at furthest by Satturday noone. From Knocke Dumayne in Calrie, the fourth of February, 1599.

«O'Neale requesteth you come to speake with him, and doth giue you his word that you shall receive no harme neither in comming nor going from him, whether you be friend or not, and bring with you to O'Neale Gerat Fitzgerald.

«Subscribed O'Neale.»

Nor did the royalty of O'Neale consist in words alone. Sir John Harrington paid him a visit at the time of his truce with Essex, and after mentioning «his fern table, and fern forms, spread under the stately canopy of heaven,» he notices what constitutes the real power of every monarch, the love, namely, and allegiance of his subjects. « His guard, for the most part, were beardless boys without shirts; who in the frost wade as familiarly through rivers as water-spaniels. With what charm such a master makes them love him, I know not, but if he bid come, they come; if go, they do go; if he say do this, they do it.»-Nuga Antiquæ, Lond. 1784, 8vo. vol. I. 351.

P.

Note 9.

Stanza x.

His foster-father was his guide.

There was no tie more sacred among the Irish than that which connected the foster-father, as well as the nurse herself, with the child they brought up.

for a rebel it is as serviceable: for in his warre that he maketh (if at least it deserve the name of warre), when he still flyeth from his foe, and hurketh in the thicke woods and straite passages, waiting for advantages, it is his bed, yea, and almost his household stuff. For the wood is his house against all weathers, and his mantle is his couch to sleep in. Therein he wrapeth himself round, and coucheth himselfe strongly against the gnats, which, in that country, doe more annoy the naked rebels while they keep the woods, and doe more sharply wound them, then all their enemies swords or spears, which can seldom come nigh them: yea, and oftentimes their mantle serveth them when they are neere driven, being wrapped about their left arme, instead of a target, for it is hard to cut thorough with a sword; besides it is lighte to beare, light to throw away, and being (as they commonly are) naked, it is to them all in all. Lastly, for a thiefe it is so handsome as it may seem it was first invented for him, for under it he may cleanly convey any fit pillage that cometh handsomely in his way, and when he goeth abroad in the sight in free-booting, it is his best and surest friend; for lying, as they often do, two or three nights together abroad to watch for their booty, with that they can prettily shroud themselves under a bush or bankside till they may conveniently do their errand; and when all is over, he can in his mantle passe through any town or company, being close-hooded over his head, as he useth, from knowledge of any to whom he is indan-brothers, whom they will even hate for the sake of these. When chid by their parents, they fly to their gered. Besides this, he, or any man els that is disposed to mischief or villany, may, under his mantle, goe pri-foster-fathers, who frequently encourage them to make vily armed without suspicion of any, carry his head-open war on their parents, train them up to every excess of wickedness, and make them most abandoned piece, his skean, or pistol, if he please, to be always in readiness.-SPENSER'S View of the State of Ireland, miscreants: as, on the other hand, the nurses make the young women, whom they bring up for apud Works, ut supra, VIII, 367. If a foster-child is sick, it is incredible how soon the nurses hear of it, however distant, and with what solicitude they attend it by day and night.»>-GIRALDUS CAMBRENSIS, quoted by Camden, IV, 368.

The javelins, or darts, of the Irish, which they threw with great dexterity, appear, from one of the prints already mentioned, to have been about four feet long, with a strong steel head and thick knotted shaft.

« Foster-fathers spend much more time, money, and affection on their foster-children than their own; and in return take from them clothes, money for their several professions, and arms, and even for any vicious purposes; fortunes and cattle, not so much by a claim carry those of right as by extortion; and they will even things off as plunder. All who have been nursed by the same person preserve a greater mutual affection and confidence in each other than if they were natural

every excess.

This custom, like many other Irish usages, prevailed till of late in the Scottish Highlands, and was cherished

by the chiefs as an easy mode of extending their influence and connexion: and even in the Lowlands, during the last century, the connexion between the nurse and foster-child was seldom dissolved but by the death of one party.

Note 10. Stanza xiv.

Great Nial of the Pledges Nine.

Neill Naighvallach, or Of the Nine Hostages, is said to have been monarch of all Ireland, during the end of the fourth or beginning of the fifth century. He exercised a predatory warfare on the coast of England and of Bretagne, or Armorica; and from the latter country brought off the celebrated Saint Patrick, a youth of sixteen, among other captives, whom he transported to Ireland. Neal derived his epithet from nine nations, or tribes, whom he held under his subjection, and from whom he took hostages. From one of Neal's sons were derived the Kineleoguin, or Race of Tyrone, which afforded monarchs both to Ireland and to Ulster. Neill (according to O'Flaherty's Ogygia) was killed by a poisoned arrow, in one of his descents on the coast of Bretagne.

Note 11. Stanza xiv. Shane-Dymas wild—— This Shane-Dymas, or John the Wanton, held the title and power of O'Neale in the earlier part of Eliza'beth's reign, against whom he rebelled repeatedly.

tates.»-CAMDEN'S Britannia, by Gough, Lond. 1806, fol. vol. IV. p. 442.

When reduced to extremity by the English, and for saken by his allies, this Shane-Dymas fled to Clandeboy, then occupied by a colony of Scottish Highlanders of the family of Mac-Donell. He was at first courteously received, but by degrees they began to quarrel about the slaughter of some of their friends, whom ShaneDymas had put to death, and, advancing from words to deeds, fell upon him with their broadswords, and cu! him to pieces. After his death a law was made that none should presume to take the name and title of O'Neale. Note 12. Stanza xiv. ———Geraldine.

The O'Neales were closely allied with this powerful and warlike family, for Henry Owen O'Neale married the daughter of Thomas Earl of Kildare, and their son Con-More married his cousin-german, a daughter of Gerald Earl of Kildare. This Con-More cursed any of

his posterity who should learn the English language, sow corn, or build houses, so as to invite the English to settle in their country. Others ascribe this anathema to his son Con-Bacco. Fearflatha O'Gnive, bard to the O'Neales of Clannaboy, complains in the same spirit of disfigured the fair sporting fields of Erin.-See WALKER'S the towers and ramparts with which the strangers had Irish Bards, p. 140.'

Note 13. Stanza xvi.

He chose that honour'd flag to bear.

Lacy informs us, in the old play already quoted, how the cavalry raised by the country gentlemen for Charles's service were usually officered. You, cornet, have a name that's proper for all cornets to be called by, for they are all beardless boys in our army. The most part of our horse were raised thus:-The honest country gentleman raises the troop at his own charge: then be gets a low-country lieutenant to fight his troop safely; then he sends for his son from school to be his cornet. and then he puts off his child's coat to put on a buff coat; and this is the constitution of our army.>> Note 14. Stanza xvi.

his page, the next degree In that old time to chivalry.

« This chieftain is handed down to us as the most proud and profligate man on earth. He was immoderately addicted to women and wine. He is said to have had 200 tuns of wine at once in his cellar at Dandram, but usquebaugh was his favourite liquor. He spared neither age nor condition of the fair sex. Altho' so il literate that he could not write, he was not destitute of address; his understanding was strong, and his courage daring. He had 600 men for his guard, 4000 foot, 1000 horse for the field. He claimed superiority over all the lords of Ulster, and called himself king thereof. When commissioners were sent to treat with him, he said, "That, tho' the queen were his sovereign lady, he never made peace with her but at her lodging; that she had made a wise Earl of Macartymore, but that he kept as good a man as he; that he cared not for so mean a title as earl; that his blood and power were better than the best; that his ancestors were kings of Originally the order of chivalry embraced three Ulster; and that he would give place to none.' His ranks:-1. The Page; 2. The Squire: 3. The Knight;— kinsman, the Earl of Kildare, having persuaded him of a gradation which seems to have been imitated in the the folly of contending with the crown of England, he mystery of free-masonry. But before the reign of resolved to attend the queen, but in a style suited to Charles I. the custom of serving as a squire had fallen his princely dignity. He appeared in London with a into disuse, though the order of the page was still, to magnificent train of Irish Gailoglasses, arrayed in the a certain degree, in observance. This state of servitude richest habiliments of their country, their heads bare, was so far from inferring any thing degrading, that it their hair flowing on their shoulders, with their long was considered as the regular school for acquiring every and open sleeves dyed with saffron. Thus dressed, quality necessary for future distinction. The proper and surcharged with military harness, and armed with nature, and the decay of the institution, are pointed out battle-axes, they afforded an astonishing spectacle to by old Ben Jonson, with his own forcible moral colourthe citizens, who regarded them as the intruders of ing. The dialogue occurs between Lovel, «a compleat some very distant part of the globe. But at court his gentleman, a soldier, and a scholar, known to have versatility now prevailed; his title to the sovereignty of been page to the old Lord Beaufort, and so to have folTyrone was pleaded from English laws and Irish insti-lowed him in the French wars, after companion of his tutions, and his allegations were so specious, that the queen dismissed him with presents and assurances of favour. In England this transaction was looked on as the humiliation of a repenting rebel; in Tyrone it was considered as a treaty of peace between two poten

studies, and left guardian to his son,» and the facetious Good-stock, host of the Light Heart. Lovel had offered to take Good-stock's son for his page, which the latter, in reference to the recent abuse of the establishment. declares as «a desperate course of life:»>

Lovel. Call you that desperate, which by a line

Of institution, from our ancestors

Hath been derived down to us, and received
In a succession, for the noblest way

Of breeding up our youth, in letters, arms,
Fair mien, discourses, civil exercise,
And all the blazon of a gentleman?

Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence,
To move his body gracefully; to speak

His language purer; or to tune his mind,

Or manners, more to the harmony of nature,

Than in the nurseries of nobility?

Hest. Ay, that was when the nursery's self was noble,

And only virtue made it, not the market;

The titles were not vented at the drum,

Or common outcry goodness gave the greatness,

And greatness worship: every house became

An academy of honour; and those parts

We see departed, in the practice, now,
Quite from the institution.

Lovel. Why do you say so,

Or think so enviously do they not still

Learn there the Centaur's skill, the art of Thrace,
Te ride? or, Pollux' mystery, to fence?
The Pyrrhic gestures, both to dance and spring
la armour, to be active in the wars?
To study figures, numbers, and proportions,
May yield'em great in counsels, and the arts
Grave Nestor and the wise Ulysses practised
To make their English sweet upon their tongue,
As reverend Chaucer says?

Host. Sir, you mistake;

To play Sir Pandarus my copy hath it,
And carry messages to Madam Cressida ;
Instead of backing the brave steed o' mornings,
Te court the chambermaid; and for a leap

O' the vaulting horse to ply the vaulting house:
For exercise of arms a bale of dice,

Or two or three packs of cards to show the cheat,
And nimbleness of hand; mistake a cloak

Upon my lord's back, and pawn it; ease his pocket
Of a superfluous watch; or geld a jewel

Of an odd stone or so; twinge two or three buttons
From off my lady's gown: these are the arts
Or seven liberal deadly sciences,

Of pagery, or rather paganism,

As the tides run; to which if he apply him,

He may perhaps take a degree at Tyburn
A year the earlier; come to take a lecture
Upon Aquinas at St Thomas a Waterings,
And so go forth a laureat in hemp circle!

BEN Jonson's New Inn, Act. I. Scene III.

CANTO V.

Note 1. Stanza ii. Rokeby

The ancient castle of Rokeby stood exactly upon the site of the present mansion, by which a part of its walls is inclosed. It is surrounded by a profusion of fine wood, and the park in which it stands is adorned by the junction of the Greta and of the Tees. The title of Baron Rokeby of Armagh was, in 1777, conferred on the Right Reverend Richard Robinson, Primate of Ireland, descended of the Robinsons, formerly of Rokeby, in Yorkshire.

Note 2. Stanza ix. Rokeby's lords of martial fame,

I can count them name by name.

The following brief pedigree of this very ancient and once powerful family, was kindly supplied to the author by Mr Rokeby of Northamptonshire, descended of the ancient Barons of Rokeby:

Pedigree of the House of Rokeby.

1. Sir Alex. Rokeby, Knight, married to Sir Hump. Liftle's daughter.

2. Ralph Rokeby, Esq. to Tho. Lumley's daughter. 3. Sir Tho. Rokeby, Knt. to Tho. Hubborn's daughter. 4. Sir Ralph Rokeby, Knt. to Sir Ralph Biggott's daughter.

5. Sir Tho. Rokeby, Knt. to Sir John de Melsass' daughter, of Bennet-Hall in Holderness.

6. Ralph Rokeby, Esq. to Sir Bryan Stapleton's daughter of Weighill.

7. Sir Thomas Rokeby, Knt. to Sir Ralph Ury's daughter. 3

8. Ralph Rokeby, Esq. to the daughter of Mansfield,

heir of Morton. 3

9. Sir Tho. Rokeby, Knt. to Stroode's daughter and

heir.

10. Sir Ralph Rokeby, Knt. to Sir Jas. Strangwayes

daughter.

11. Sir Thomas Rokeby, Knt. to Sir John Hotham's daughter.

12. Ralph Rokeby, Esq. to Danby of Yafforth's daughter and heir. 4

13. Tho. Rokeby, Esq. to Rob. Constable's daughter, of Cliff, serjt. at law.

14. Christopher Rokeby, Esq. to Lasscells of Brackenburgh's daughter. 5

15. Tho. Rokeby, Esq. to the daughter of Thweng. 16. Sir Thomas Rokeby, Knt. to Sir Ralph Lawson's daughter, of Brough.

17. Frans. Rokeby, Esq. to Faucett's daughter, citizen of London.

18. Thos. Rokeby, Esq. to the daughter of Wicliffe of Gales.

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Hen. Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon, tenth baron in the pedigree. The more modern copy
Ld President.
of the ballad runs thus:

Jo. Rokeby, Esq. one of the Council. Jo. Rokeby, L. L. D. ditto.

Ralph Rokeby, Esq. one of the Se

cretaries.

Jo. Rokeby, Precentor of York. 7 Will. 3. Sir J. Rokeby, Knt. one of the Justices of the King's Bench.

The family of De Rokeby came over with the Conqueror. The old motto belonging to the family is In Bivio Dextra. The arms, argent, cherron sable, between three rooks

proper.

«There is somewhat more to be found in our family in the Scottish history about the affairs of Dun-Bretton town, but what it is, and in what time, I know not, nor can have convenient leisure to search. But Parson Blackwood, the Scottish chaplain to the Lord of Shrewsbury, recited to me once a piece of a Scottish song, wherein was mentioned that William Wallis, the great deliverer of the Scots from the English bondage, should, at Dun-Bretton, have been brought up under a Rokeby, captain then of that place; and as he walked on a cliff, should thrust him on a sudden into the sea, and thereby have gotten that hold, which, I think, was about the 33d of Edw. I. or before. Thus, leaving our ancestors of record, we must also with them leave the Chronicle of Malmesbury Abbey, called Eulogium Historiarum, out of which Mr Leland reporteth this history, and coppy down unwritten story, the which have yet the testimony of later times, and the fresh memory of men yet alive, for their warrant and creditt, of whom I have learned it, that in K. Henry the 7th's reign, one Ralph Rokeby, Esq. was owner of Morton, and I Guess that this was he that deceived the fryars of Richmond with his felon swine, on which a jargon was

made.>>>

The above is a quotation from a manuscript written by Ralph Rokeby: when he lived is uncertain.

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Good Sir Ralph Raby there was slain,
Whose prowess did surmount.

This would rather seem to relate to one of the Nevilles of Raby, but as the old ballad is romantic, accuracy is not to be looked for.

Note 3. Stanza ix. the Felon Sow.

The ancient minstrels had a comic as well as a serious strain of romance, and although the examples of the latter are by far the most numerous, they are, perhaps, The comic romance was a sort of the less valuable.

parody upon the usual subjects of minstrel poetry. If the latter described deeds of heroic achievement, and the events of the battle, the tourney, and the chase, the former, as in the tournament of Tottenham, introduced a set of clowns debating in the field, with all the assumed circumstances of chivalry; or, as in the Hunting of the Ilare (see Weber's Metrical Romances, vol. Ill , persons of the same description following the chase, with all the grievous mistakes and blunders incident to such unpractised sportsmen. The idea, therefore, of Don Quixote's frenzy, although inimitably embodied and brought out, was not perhaps in the abstract altogether original. One of the very best of these mock romances, and which has no small portion of comic humour, is the Hunting of the Felon Sow of Rokeby by the Friars of Richmond. Ralph Rokeby, who (for the jest's sake apparently) bestowed this intractable animal on the convent of Richmond, seems to have flourished in the time of Henry VII., which, since we know not the date of Friar Theobald's Wardenship, to which the poem refers us, may indicate that of the composition itself. Morton, the Mortham of the text, is mentioned as being this faceous baron's place of residence; accordingly Leland notices that « Mr Rokeby hath a place called Mortham, a little beneth Gretneybridge, almost on the mouth of Gretney.» That no information may be lacking which is in my power to

the romance, who so charitably refreshed the sow after she had discomfited Friar Middleton and his auxiliaries, was, as appears from the pedigree of the Rokeby family, daughter and heir of Danby of Yafforth.

To what metrical Scottish tradition Parson Black-supply, I have to notice, that the Mistress Rokeby of wood alluded, it would be now in vain to inquire. But in Blind Harry's history of Sir William Wallace, we find a legend of one Rukbie, whom he makes keeper of Stirling Castle under the English usurpation, and whom Wallace slays with his own hand:

In the great press Wallace and Rukbie met,
With his good sword a stroke upon him set;
Derfly to death the old Rukbie he drave,

But his two sons scaped among the lave.

These sons, according to the romantic minstrel, surrendered the castle on conditions, and went back to England, but returned to Scotland in the days of Bruce, when one of them became again keeper of Stirling Castle. Immediately after this achievement follows another engagement, between Wallace and those Western Highlanders who embraced the English interest, at a pass in Glendochart, where many were precipitated into the lake over a precipice. These circumstances may have been confused in the narrative of Parson Blackwood, or in the recollection of Mr Rokeby.

In the old ballad of Chevy Chace, there is mentioned, among the English warriors, «Sir Raff the ryche Rugbe,» which may apply to Sir Ralph Rokeby, the

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This curious poem was first published in Mr Whitaker's History of Craven, but from an inaccurate manuscript, not corrected very happily. It was transferred by Mr Evans to the new edition of his ballads, with some welljudged conjectural improvements. I have been induced to give a more authentic and full, though still an imperfect, edition of this humorous composition, from being furnished with a copy from a manuscript in the possession of Mr Rokeby, to whom I have acknowledged my obligations in the last note. It has three or four stanzas more than that of Mr Whitaker, and the language seems, where they differ, to have the more ancient and genuine readings.

The Felon Sow of Rokeby and the Friars of Richmond.
Yɛ men that will of aunters' winne,
That late within this land hath beene,
Of one I will you tell;

Both the MS. and Mr Whitaker's copy read ancestors, evidently a corruption of aunters, adventures, as corrected by Mr Evans.

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