English and Scottish Ballads, Volume IV

Linenotes have been grouped at the end of each ballad or ballad section. Linenote anchors have been added to the text which provide a link to the appropriate note.
EDITED BY FRANCIS JAMES CHILD.
VOLUME IV.
BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY. M.DCCC.LX.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857 by Little, Brown and Company, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.
RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.
CONTINUED.


An inspection of the first hundred lines of Robert of Gloucester's Life and Martyrdom of Thomas Beket , (edited for the Percy Society by W. H. Black, vol. xix,) will leave no doubt that the hero of this ancient and beautiful tale is veritably Gilbert Becket, father of the renowned Saint Thomas of Canterbury. Robert of Gloucester's story coincides in all essential particulars with the traditionary legend, but Susie Pye is, unfortunately, spoken of in the chronicle by no other name than the daughter of the Saracen Prince Admiraud.
English broadside (at p. 95 of the collection just cited); and Young Bondwell , published from Buchan's MS. in Scottish Traditionary Versions of Ancient Ballads , p. 1, (Percy Soc. vol. xvii.) identical, we suppose, with the copy referred to by Motherwell in Scarce Ancient Ballads , Peterhead, 1819. There is a well-known burlesque of the ordinary English ballad, called The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman , with comical illustrations by Cruikshank. On this was founded a burlesque drama, produced some years ago at the Strand Theatre, London, with great applause.
This ballad, and that which succeeds it in this collection, (both on the same subject,) are given from copies taken from Mrs. Brown's recitation, collated with two other copies procured from Scotland, one in MS., another very good one printed for the stalls; a third, in the possession of the late Reverend Jonathan Boucher of Epsom, taken from recitation in the North of England; and a fourth, about one third as long as the others, which the Editor picked off an old wall in Piccadilly.