The melody was almost certainly originally in the Æolian mode, but has got altered.
[8.] Roving Jack. Taken down, words and melody, from William Aggett, Chagford, and from James Parsons, Lew Down. An inferior version of the words is to be found among Catnach's Broadsheets, Ballads, B.M. (1162, b, vol. vii.), also one printed in Edinburgh, Ballads (1750-1840), B.M. (1871, f). Note what has been said relative to this tune, which is in the Æolian mode, under [1], "By chance it was," with which it is closely related.
[9.] Brixham Town. Words taken down from Jonas Coaker, aged 85, and blind. The melody was given us by Mr. John Webb, who had heard him sing it in former years. Another version to the same air was obtained from North Tawton. Again, another was given me by the Hon. A.F. Northcote, who took it down in 1877 from an itinerant pedlar of 90 years at Buckingham.
The words and tune were clearly composed at the time of the Commonwealth, 1649-1661.
[10.] Green Broom. Words and melody taken down from John Woodrich, blacksmith; he learned both from his grandmother when he was a child. The Hon. J.S. Northcote sent me another version taken down from an old woman at Upton Pyne. Again, another from Mr. James Ellis of Chaddlehanger, Lamerton; another from Bruce Tyndall, Esq., of Exmouth, as taken down from a Devonshire cook in 1839 or 1840. This, the same melody as that from Upton Pyne. Woodrich's tune is the brightest, the other the oldest. The same ballad to different tune in "Northumbrian Minstrelsy," 1882, p. 98. The song is in D'Urfey's "Pills to Purge Melancholy," 1720, vi. p. 100, in 14 verses, with a different conclusion. Broadside versions by Disley and Such. Also in "The Broom Man's Garland," in "LXXXII. Old Ballads" collected by J. Bell, B.M. (11,621, c 2). Bell was librarian to the Society of Antiquaries, Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1810-20. Mr. Kidson has obtained a version in North Yorkshire. Another is in "English County Songs," p. 88. In "Gammer Gurton's Garland," circ. 1783, are three verses.
[11.] As Johnny Walked Out. Words and melody from James Parsons. The original words are in six stanzas, and these I have compressed. The words with some verbal differences as "set by Mr. Dunn" are in "Six English Songs and Dialogues, as they are performed in the Public Gardens," N.D., but about 1750. Then in The London Magazine, 1754; in "Apollo's Cabinet," Liverpool, 1757; in "Clio and Euterpe," London, 1758. Our melody was obtained also by Mr. T.S. Cayzer, at Post Bridge, in 1849, and we have taken down four or five versions. The tune is totally different from that by "Mr. Dunn."
[12.] The Miller and his Sons. Taken down, music and words, from J. Helmore, miller, South Brent. The words occur in the Roxburgh Collection, iii. p. 681. It is included in Bell's "Songs of the English Peasantry," p. 194; and is in the "Northumbrian Minstrelsy," Newcastle, 1882. In the North of England it is sung to the air of "The Oxfordshire Tragedy," Chappell, p. 191. Our air bears no resemblance to this.
[13.] Ormond the Brave. This very interesting Ballad was taken down, words and music, from J. Peake, tanner, Liskeard; it was sung by his father about 1830. It refers to the Duke of Ormond's landing in Devon in 1714. Ormond fled to France in the first days of July, "a duke without a duchy," as Lord Oxford termed him, when it was manifest that the country was resolved on having the Hanoverian Elector as King, and was unwilling to summon the Chevalier of St. George to the throne. At the end of October the Duke of Ormond landed in Devon at the head of a few men, hoping that the West would rise in the Jacobite cause, but not a single adherent joined his standard, and he returned to France. The Devonshire squires were ready to plant Scotch pines in token of their Jacobite sympathies, but not to jeopardise their heads and acres in behalf of a cause which their good sense told them was hopeless. I have met with the ballad in a Garland, B.M. (11,621, b 16). This, however, is imperfect. It runs thus—
"I am Ormond the brave, did you ever hear of me?
Who lately was banished from my own country.
They sought for my life and plundered my estate,
For being so loyal to Queen Anne the Great.
I am Ormond, etc.
"Says Ormond, If I did go, with Berwick I stood,
And for the Crown of England I ventured my blood,
To the Boyne I advanced, to Tingney (Quesnoy?) also,
I preserved King William from Berwick his foe.
"I never sold my country as cut-purses do,
Nor never wronged my soldiers of what was their due.
Such laws I do hate, you're witness above,
I left my estate for the country I love.
"Although they degrade me, I value it not a straw,
Some call me Jemmy Butler, I'm Ormond you know.
(Rest of verse missing.)
"But in the latter days our late Mistress Anne,
Disprove my loyalty if you can,
I was Queen Anne's darling, old England's delight,
Sacheverel's friend, and Fanatic's spite."
When Peake sang the song to Mr. Sheppard and me, he converted German Elector into German lecturers.