Now to zee the tombs was my desire, Ize Then through the roomes the fellow me led, "Here lyes," quoth he, quoth he, "Henry the Third ;' "Thou ly's like a knave, he zays never a word.” "And here lyes Richard the Second interr'd, And here stands good King Edward's sword. "And under the chair lyes Jacob's stone, The very same stone is now in the chair:" "A very good jest, had Jacob but one? How got he so many sons without a pair ?" Iz' staid not there, but down with the tide When I'ze came there I was in a rage, Then through the bridge to the Tower Iz' went, With much ado Ize ent❜rd in, And after a penny that I had spent, One with a loud voice did thus begin : "This lion's the kings, and that is the queens, And this is the prince's that stands here by." With that I went near to look in the den. "Gods body!" quoth he, "why come ye so nigh ?" Ize made great hast unto my inn, Iz' zupt, and I went to bed betimes, LVII. A Song for Autolycus. (FROM THE SAME MS.) THIS Song is evidently much older than the date of the MS. from which it is taken. The allusion in the last line but one, to the Sussex Serpent, fixes the period of its popularity to have been after 1614. In that year there was a Discourse published of a strange monstrous Serpent in St. Leonard's Forest, in Sussex, which was discovered in the month of August, in 1614. The relation is set forth with an air of great sincerity, and attested by eye-witnesses living on the spot. The Tract may be seen in the third volume of the Harleian Miscellany. The Sussex Serpent is also mentioned in Ben Jonson's World in the Moon, and in Fletcher's Wit without Money. Braithwaite, in his character of "A Ballad Monger," says: "Hee has a singular gift of imagination, for hee can descant on a man's execution long before his confession. Nor comes his invention far short of his imagination; for want of truer relations, for a neede he can find you out a Sussex Dragon, some sea or inland monster, drawne out by some Shoe-lane man, in a Gorgon-like feature, to enforce more horror in the beholder."-Whimzies, or, a New Cast of Characters, 1631. WILL you buy a new merry booke, Here's a proper ballet, Most fit for the pallet 'Tis call'd A Warning for Youth: Therefore quickly come and buy, and read for your penny, Come, my hearts, 'tis as good a bargain as e're you had any; Here's no Sussex Serpent to fright you here in my bundle, Nor was it ever printed for the widdow Trundle. 21 21 The widdow of John Trundle, "neere the Hospital Gate in Smithfield," a celebrated printer of Ballads, before the year 1598. The Elder Knowell in Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour, says, “Well, if I read this with patience, I'll *** troll ballads for Maister John Trundle, yonder, the rest of my mortality." LVIII. Ballad on Symon Wadloe. FROM Catch that Catch can, or A Choice Collection of Catches, Rounds, and Canons, for 3 or 4 Voyces. Collected and Published by John Hilton, Batch in Musick. Printed for John Benson, &c. 1652. Old Simon Wadloe kept the Devil Tavern in Fleet Street, at the time when Ben Jonson and the wits of the Apollo Club met there. GOOD Symon, how comes it your nose looks so red, And your cheeks and lips looke so pale? Sure the heat of the toast, Your nose did so roast, When they were both sous't in ale. It shows like the spire Of Paul's steeple on fire, Each ruby darts forth such flashes; While your face looks as dead As if it were lead; And cover'd all over with ashes. |