wanted to speak with the king, and went to Whitehall; where, returning from his walk in St. James's Park, his majesty must pass; "and there he sat him down like hermit poor.” Among the Poems of Phineas Fletcher, printed at Cambridge in 1633, we find a metaphrase of the forty-second psalm to the tune of "Like hermit poor." That rare old gossip Pepys in his Diary January 12th, 1667, tells us that "He (Sir T. Killigrew) hath ever endeavoured, in the late king's time, and in this, to introduce good musique; but he never could do it, there never having been any musique here better than ballads and songs, Hermitt Poor,' and 'Chevy Chase' was all the musique we had; and yet no ordinary fiddlers get so much money as ours do here, which speaks our rudeness still." Further we meet with an allusion to this song in "Hudibras,” Part i, Canto ii, line 1169.

6

"That done, they ope the trap-door gate,

And let Crowdero down thereat;

Crowdero making doleful face,

Like hermit poor in pensive place.”

LIKE hermit poor in pensive place obscure,
I mean to spend my days of endless doubt;
To wait such woes as time cannot recure,
Where none but love shal ever find me out.

And at my gates despair shall linger still,
To let in death when love and fortune will.

A

gown of gray my body shall attire, My staffe of broken hope whereon I'll stay ; Of late repentance linkt with long desire, The couch is fram'd whereon my limbs I lay. And at my gates, &c.

My food shall be of care and sorrow made,
My drink nought else but tears faln from my eyes;
And for my light in this obscure shade,

The flame may serve which from my heart arise.

And at my gates, &c.

XXXIV.

With my Flockes as walked F.

FROM a MS. Collection of Songs and Music, temp. Elizabeth, in the editor's library. A former possessor of the MS. (Mr. J. Stafford Smith) thought the following ditty was written in praise of Queen Elizabeth.

WITH my flockes as walked I
the plaines and mountaines over,
Late a damsell past me by ;

with an intente to move her,

I stept in her waie, she stept awrie,
but oh! I shall ever love her.

Such a face she had for to

invite any man to love her;

But her coy behaviour taught

that it was but vaine to move hir:

For divers soe, this dame had wrought,

that thaie themselves might woo hir.

Phebus for hir favour spent

his haire, hir faire browes to cover; Venus' cheeke and lippes were sent, that Cupid and Mars might move hir : But Juno alone her nothinge lent

lest Jove himselfe should love hir.

Though shee be so pure and chast,
that nobody can disprove hir;
Soe demure and straightlie cast,
that nobody dare's to move hir :
Yet is shee so fresh and sweetlie faire
that I shall allwaies love hir.

Let her knowe though faire shee be, that ther is a power above hir; Thousand more enamoured shall be though little it will move hir; Shee still doth vow virginitie,

when all the world doth love hir.

XXXV.

The Rose of England.

IN Fletcher's comedy of Monsieur Thomas, 1639 (Act iii, Sc. 3), a fiddler is questioned as to the ballads he is best versed in, and replies:

"Under your mastership's correction, I can sing 'The Duke of Norfolk,' or 'The Merry Ballad of Diverus and Lazarus,' The Rose of England,' In Crete when Dedimus first began,' 'Jonas his crying-out against Coventry.'

دوو

The third ballad above mentioned is undoubtedly that which follows, which is here given from a contemporary musical MS. in the editor's possession. It is not unlikely to be the composition of Thomas Deloney, who inserted it in his Garland of Good-Will. (See edition of 1612, in the Pepysian Library.) Deloney is also the reputed author of "Fair Rosamond," printed in Percy's Reliques, ii, 143, ed. 1794.

AMONGST the princely paragons
Bedeckt with dainty diamonds,

Within mine eye, none doth come nigh,

The sweet Rose of England: