Out ye Rebellious vipers; I’me come back
From them againe, because there’s no good Sack,
T’other odd cup, &c.
By this we are guided to the true date: between May, 1639, and August, 1640.
Pages 309, 399. Why should we boast.
Compare pp. [129], [315], of present volume, for the Antidote version and note upon it. Brief references must suffice for annotation here. See Mallory’s “Morte d’Arthur,” the French Lancelot du Lac, and Sir Tristram. Three MSS., the Auchinlech, Cambridge University, and Caius College, preserve the romance of Sir Bevis of Hamptoun, with his slaying the wild boar; his sword Morglay is often mentioned, like Arthur’s Excalibur: Ascapard, the thirty-feet-long giant, who after a fierce battle becomes page to Sir Bevis. Caius Coll. MS. and others have the story Richard Cœur de Leon, but the street-ballad served equally to keep alive his fame among the populace, Coll. Old. Bds. iii. 17. Wm. Ellis gives abstracts of romances on Arthur, Guy of Warwick, Sir Bevis, Richard Lion-heart, Sir Eglamour of Artoys, Sir Isumbras, the Seven Wise Masters, Charlemagne and Roland, &c., in his Spec. Early English Metrical Romances; of which J. O. Halliwell writes, in 1848:—“Ellis did for ancient romance what Percy had previously accomplished for early poetry.” In passing, we must not neglect to express the debt of gratitude due to the managers of the E. E. Text Soc., for giving scholarly and trustworthy prints of so many MSS., hitherto almost beyond reach. For Orlando Inamorato and Orlando Furioso we must go to Boiardo and Ariosto, or the translators, Sir John Harrington and W. Stewart Rose. Dunlop’s Hist. of Fiction gives a slight notice of some of this ballad’s heroes, including Huon of Bordeaux, the French Livre de Jason, Prince of the Myrmidons, the Vie de Hercule, the Cléopâtre, &c. Valentine and Orson is said to have been written in the reign of Charles VIII., and first printed at Lyons in 1495. SS. David, James, and Patrick, with the rest of the Seven Champions, like the Four Sons of Aymon, are of easy access. Cp. Warton.
ARTHUR O’BRADLEY.
(Merry Droll., Com., pp. 312, 395; Antidote ag. Mel., 16).
Here is the five years’ earlier Song of “Arthur o’ Bradley,” ([vide ante, pp. 166-175]) never before reprinted, we believe, and not mentioned by J. P. Collier, W. Chappell, &c., when they referred to “Saw ye not Pierce the Piper” of Antidote and M. D., C., 1661. But ours is the earliest-known complete version [before 1642?]:—
A SONG. [p. 81.]