is so impressive as absolutely to chill the blood; and the legendary pieces beginning
"Saint Withold footed thrice the wold,"[588:B]
and
"Child Rowland to the dark tower came,"[588:C]
are reliques which well accord with the dreadful peculiarity of his situation. The two subsequent quotations are from pastoral songs, of which the first,
"Come o'er the bourn, Bessy, to me,"[588:D]
as Mr. Malone observes, has a marked propriety, alluding to an association then common; for in a description of beggars, published in 1607, one class of these vagabonds is represented as counterfeiting madness;
———————— "they were so frantique
They knew not what they did, but every day
Make sport with stick and flowers like an antique;—