[Page 73.] Farre in the Forrest of Arden.
This is one of Michael Drayton’s Pastorals, printed in 1593, in the Third Eclogue, and entitled Dowsabell. See Percy’s Reliques, vol. i. bk. 3, No. 8, 2nd edit. 1767, for remarks on variations, amounting to a remodelling, of this charming poem. We are glad to know that Mr. James Russell Smith is preparing a new edition of Michael Drayton’s voluminous works, to be included in the Library of Old Authors. Drayton suppressed his couplet poem of “Endimion and Phœbe:” Ideas Latmvs. It has no date, but was cited by Lodge in 1595, and has been reprinted by J. P. Collier; one of his handsome and carefully printed quartos, a welcome boon.
[Page 78.] On the twelfth day of December.
This ballad, a very early example of the Down down derry burden, is not yet found elsewhere. It refers to the expedition against Scotland (then in alliance with Henry II. of France) made by the Protector, Edward, Duke of Somerset, in 1547, the first (not “fourth”) year of Edward VIth’s reign. The battle was fought on the “Black Saturday,” as it was long remembered, the tenth day of September (not of “December,” as the ballad mis-states it to have been). Terrible and remorseless was the slaughter of the ill-armed Scots, after they had imprudently abandoned their excellent hilly position, by the well-appointed English horsemen. The prisoners taken amounted to about fifteen hundred (“we found above twenty of their villains to one of their gentlemen,” says Patten), among whom was the Earl of Huntley, Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who on the previous day had sent a personal challenge to Somerset, asking to decide the contest by single combat: an offer which was not unreasonably declined, the Protector declaring that he desired no peace but such as he might win by his sword. “And thou, trumpet,” he told Huntley’s herald, “say to thy master, he seemeth to lack wit to make this challenge to me, being of such estate by the sufferance of God as to have so weighty a charge of so precious a jewel, the government of a King’s person, and then the protection of all his realms.” We learn that the Scots slain were tenfold the number of the prisoners taken. This battle of “Muskleburgh Field” (nearly the same locality as the battle of Prestonpans, wherein Prince Charles Edward in 1745 defeated Colonel Gardiner and his English troops), known also as of Fawside Brae, or of Pinkie, is described with unusual precision by an eye-witness: See The Expedition into Scotland of the most worthily-fortunate Prince Edward Duke of Somerset, uncle to our most noble Sovereign Lord the King’s Majesty Edward the VI., &c., made in the first year of his Majesty’s most prosperous reign, and set out by way of Diary, by W. Patten, Londoner. First published in 1548, this was reprinted in Dalyell’s Fragments of Scottish History, Edinburgh, 1798. This old ballad is not included by Dalyell, who probably knew not of its existence.
[Page 80.] In Celia[’s face] a question did arise.
By Thomas Carew, written before 1638. In Addit. MSS. No. 11,811, fol. 10; No. 22,118, fol. 43; also in Wits Recreations (Repr., p. 19); Roxb. Libr. Carew, p. 6, &c.
[Page 81.] Blacke Eyes, in your dark Orbs doe lye.
By James Howell, Historiographer to Charles II., and author of the celebrated Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ, 1645, 1647, 1650, and 1655. He died in November, 1666; according to Anthony à Wood, (whose account of him in the Athenæ Oxonienses, iii. 744, edit. 1817, is given by Edward Arber in his excellent English Reprints, vol. viii, 1869, with a welcome promise of editing the said Epistolæ). This poem of “Black eyes,” &c., occurs among Howell’s poems collected by Sergeant-Major Peter Fisher, p. 68, 1663; again re-issued (the same sheets) as Mr. Howell’s Poems upon divers Emergent Occasions; Printed by James Cottrel, and dated 1664.” It is also found in C. F.’s “Wit at a Venture; or, Clio’s Privy Garden, containing Songs and Poems on Several Occasions, Never before in Print” (which statement is incorrect, as usual). Our text is the earliest we know in type. The only variations, in Howell’s Poems, are: 1st line, doth lie; 4th verse, And by those spells I am possest.