As also an Account of the Justice of God that overtook the Unnatural Unkle; and of the deserved Death of the two murdering Ruffians.

TO WHICH IS ANNEX'D

THE OLD SONG UPON THE SAME

London: Printed by and for W.O., and sold by the Booksellers.

The date given to this rare and most interesting Chap-book is 1700, but though the frontispiece apparently points to an earlier date, it seems to have been executed specially for this work, as the nearest approach to it, a ballad in the Bagford Collection

(British Museum,643 m. 10,
44.),

varies from it in some slight particulars, and this is undoubtedly the finest engraving of the subject extant. Almost all the ballads of the seventeenth, and the Chap-books of the eighteenth, century give a similar treatment: the duel between the ruffians, the birds covering the children with leaves, the deserved chastisement of the good robber, and the fearful punishment that fell upon the wicked uncle thus described in this book. "But tho' he had contriv'd all this so privately, yet Divine vengeance follow'd him; affrighting Dreams terrifying him in his Sleep, and the image of the murther'd children still staring him i' th' Face; and he that egg'd him on to all this wickedness, now in most horrid Shapes appear'd to him, and threat'ning every Moment to destroy him. Besides, most of his Cattle dy'd of the Murrain, his Corn was blasted, and his Barns were fir'd by Lightning; Mildews and Catter-pillars destroy'd all his Fruits; two of his Sons, for whom he coveted his Brother's Lands, were cast away at Sea. His company was hated by all honest Men, and he was forc'd to herd with Rogues and Villains out of meer necessity, amongst whom when he had profusely lavish'd his Estate, he run in Debt, and was cast into Prison, where through Despair and Want he dy'd unpitied."

"The Old Song upon the Same" is identical with the earliest (1640) in the British Museum (Rox. I. 284), and may be considered as the standard ballad. Indeed, another ballad (Rox. III. 588) in the same collection (1720) has been corrected in ink from this model.