XVIII. THE FRIAR OF ORDERS GRAY. DISPERSED through Shakespeare's plays are innumerable little fragments of ancient ballads, the entire copies of which could not be recovered. Many of these being of the most beautiful and pathetic simplicity, the editor was tempted to select some of them, and with a few supplemental stanzas to connect them together, and form them into a little tale, which is here submitted to the reader's candour. Ore small fragment was taken from Beaumont and Fletcher. IT was a friar of orders gray Walkt forth to tell his beades; And he met with a lady faire Clad in a pilgrime's weedes. Now Christ thee save, thou reverend friar, I pray thee tell to me, I ever at yon holy shrine My true love thou didst see, And how should I know your true love O by his cockle hat, and staff, And by his sandal shoone.* But chiefly by his face and mien, *These are the distinguishing marks of a pilgrim. The chief places of devotion being beyond sea, the pilgrims were wont to put cockle shells in their hats to denote the intention or performance of their devotion.Warburton's Shakespeare, vol. viii. p. 224. His flaxen locks that sweetly curl'd, O lady, he is dead and gone! Within these holy cloysters long And 'playning of her pride. Here bore him barefac'd on his bier Within yon kirk-yard wall. And art thou dead, thou gentle youth! Break, cruel heart of stone ! O weep not, lady, weep not soe; Some ghostly comfort seek: Let not vain sorrow rive thy heart, Ne teares bedew thy cheek. O do not, do not, holy friar, My sorrow now reprove; And nowe, alas! for thy sad losse, For thee I wish to dye. Weep no more, lady, weep no more, Our joys as winged dreams doe flyc, O say not soe, thou holy friar; I pray thee, say not soe: For since my true-love dyed for mee, 'Tis meet my tears should flow. And will he ne'er come again? Will he ne'er come again? Ah! no, he is dead and laid in his grave, For ever to remain. His cheek was redder than the rose; The comliest youth was he! But he is dead and laid in his grave; Alas, and woe is me! Sigh no more, lady, sigh no more, Hadst thou been fond, he had been false, Now say not so, thou holy friar, And art thou dead, thou much-lov'd youth, And didst thou dye for mee? But first upon my true-loves grave And thrice I'll kiss the green-grass turf, That wraps his breathless clay. Yet stay, fair lady; rest awhile See through the hawthorn blows the cold wind, And drizzly rain doth fall. O stay me not, thou holy friar; Yet stay, fair lady, turn again, Thy owne true-love appears. Here forc'd by grief, and hopeless love, But haply for my year of grace* Is not yet past away, Might I still hope to win thy love, * The year of probation or noviciate. Now farewell grief, and welcome joy As the foregoing song has been thought to have suggested to Goldsmith the plan of his beautiful ballad of Edwin and Emma (first printed in his Vicar of Wakefield), it is but justice to his memory to declare that his poem was written first, and that if there is any imitation in the case, they will be found both to be indebted to the beautiful old ballad Gentle Herdsman. SERIES THE FIRST.-BOOK III. I. THE MORE MODERN BALLAD OF CHEVY-CHASE. AT the beginning of this volume we gave the old original song of Chevy-Chase. The reader has here the more improved edition of that fine heroic ballad. It will afford an agreeable entertainment to the curious to compare them together, and to see how far the latter bard has excelled his predecessor, and where he has fallen short of him. Some few passages retain more dignity in the ancient copy; for instance, the catastrophe of the gallant Witherington is in the modern copy exprest in terms which never fail at present to excite ridicule: whereas in the original it is related with a plain and pathetic simplicity that is liable to no such unlucky effect. "The old song of Chevy-Chase," says Addison, "is the favourite ballad of the common people of England;" and Ben Jonson used to say he had rather have been the author of it than of all his works. Sir Philip Sydney, in his Discourse of Poetry, speaks of it in the following words: "I never heard the old song of Piercy and Douglas that I found not my heart more stirred than with a trumpet." "An heroic poem should be founded upon some important precept of morality adapted to the constitution of the country in which the poet writes ;" and this keynote of the poem Addison tells us that we have in the first verse, where the author of the ballad desires an ending of the unnatural strife that brought about so many disasters. Prof. Henry Morley says "that the ballad that moved Sir Philip Sydney was written in the fifteenth century, and that this version before us was not composed until after Sydney's death, and after the best of Shakespeare's plays had been written." However, Addison's criticism concerns the present ballad, and we shall append footnotes to some of the verses he particularly admires. From a passage in the Memoirs of Carey, Earl of Monmouth, we learn that it was an ancient custom with the Borderers of the two kingdoms, when they were at peace, to send to the lord wardens of the opposite marches for leave to hunt within their districts. If leave was granted, then towards the end of summer they would come and hunt for several days together "with their greyhounds for deer:" but if they took this liberty unpermitted, then the lord warden of the border so invaded would not fail to interrupt their sport and chastise their boldness. He mentions a remarkable instance that happened while he was warden, when some Scotch gentlemen coming to hunt in defiance of him, there must have ensued such an action as this of ChevyChase, if the intruders had been proportionably numerous and well-armed: for, upon their being attacked by his men-at-arms, he tells us, "some hurt was done, tho' he had given especiall order that they should shed as little blood as possible." They were in effect overpowered and taken prisoners, and only released on their promise to abstain from such licentious sporting for the future. The following text is given from a copy in the Editor's folio MS. compared with two or three others printed in black letter. GOD prosper long our noble king, To drive the deere with hound and horne, The child may rue* that is unborne, The stout Erle of Northumberland His pleasure in the Scottish woods The cheefest harts in Chevy-Chace Who sent Erle Percy present word, He wold prevent his sport. The English Erle, not fearing that, Did to the woods resort With fifteen hundred bow-men bold; The gallant greyhounds swiftly ran, Ere daylight did appeare; And long before high noone they had The bow-men mustered on the hills, Theire backsides all, with speciall care, *The way of considering the misfortune which this battle would bring upon posterity is wonderfully beautiful and conformable to the way of thinking among the ancient poets.-ADDISON. The hounds ran swiftly through the woods, The nimble deere to take,* That with their cryes the hills and dales An eccho shrill did make. Lord Percy to the quarry went, But if I thought he wold not come, With that, a brave younge gentleman Loe, yonder doth Erle Douglas come, All men of pleasant Tivydale, Fast by the river Tweede : O cease your sports, Erle Fercy said, And take your bowes with speede: That ever did on horsebacke come, I durst encounter man for man, Erle Douglas on his milke-white steede *Leyland, in the reign of Henry VIII., thus describes this county: "In Northumberland, as I heare say, be no forests, except Chivet Hills; where is much brushe-wood, and some okke; grownde ovargrowne with I have harde linge, and some with mosse. say that Chivet Hills stretchethe xx miles. There is greate plenté of redde-dere, and roo bukkes." |