Most plainly do appear.
Had not his worship one deer left?
What then? He had a wife.
Took pains enough to find him horns
Should last him all his life.
* Ashmolean MS. same as preceding. Both the above are given
by Mr. Grant White. Shakespeare, vol. I, p. ci.
** This is given to us by Mr. S. W. Fullom (History of
William Shakespeare, Player and Poet; with New Facts and
Traditions. London: Saunders, Oatley & Co., 1864, p. 133,)
with the following note: "The manner in which this fragment
was recovered is not different from that to which we owe so
many local ballads, known only to the common people. About
1690, Joshua Barnes, the Greek Professor at Cambridge, was
in an inn at Stratford, when he heard an old woman singing
these stanzas, and, discerning the association with
Shakespeare, offered her ten guineas to repeat the whole
ballad. This, however, she was unable to do, having
forgotten the remaining portion." Mr. Fullom says these
verses "reveal the Shakespearean touch," and alludes to a
scandal touching Lady Lucy's infidelity to her husband.
The following additional verses were furnished by John
Jordan, who altered the above stanza into the same meter,
and asserted the whole to be Shakespeare, as unearthed and
restored by himself:
He's a haughty, proud, insolent knight of the shire
At home nobody loves, yet there's many that fear;
If Lucy is lowsie, as some volke miscall it—
Synge lowsie Luey, whatever befall it.
To the Sessions he went, and did lowdly complain
His park had been robbed and his deere they were slain;
This Lucy is lowsie, as some volke miseall it—
Synge lowsie Luey, whatever befall it.
He sayd It was a ryot, his men had been beat,
His venison was stol'n and clandestinely eat:
So Lucy is lowsie as some volke miscall it—
Synge lowsie Luey, whatever befall it.
So haughty was he when the fact was confessed
He sayd 'twas a wrong that could not be redressed;
So Luey is lowsie, as some volke miseall it—
Synge lowsie Luey, whatever befall it.
Though luces a dozen he wear on his coat,
His name it shall lowsie for Luey be wrote;
For Luey is lowsie, as some volke miseall it—
We'll sing lowsie Lucy, whatever befall it.
If a juvenile frolic he can not forgive,
We'll sing lowsie Lucy as long as we live;
And Luey the lowsie a libel may call it—
We'll sing lowsie Lucy whatever befall it.
Mr. Collier (Shakespeare, R. G. White, Ed. 1854, p. cciii), gives the following four verses as by William Shakespeare:
ON THE KING.
Crown have their compass, length of days their date,
Triumphs their tomb, Felicity her fate;