[641] [affording solace.]
[642] The story of the poem.
XI.
THE CHILD OF ELLE,
Is given from a fragment in the Editor's folio MS. which, tho' extremely defective and mutilated, appeared to have so much merit, that it excited a strong desire to attempt a completion of the story. The Reader will easily discover the supplemental stanzas by their inferiority, and at the same time be inclined to pardon it, when he considers how difficult it must be to imitate the affecting simplicity and artless beauties of the original.
Child was a title sometimes given to a knight.
[The Child of Ell, as it appears in the folio MS., is a fragment without beginning or ending, so that Percy was forced to add some verses in order to fit it for his book, but the above note does not give any adequate notion of his contributions to the ballad. The verses that are entirely due to the bishop's pen are placed between brackets, and it will be seen from the copy of the original printed at the end that the remaining thirty lines are much altered from it. It is unfortunate that Percy's taste was not sufficient to save him from adding sentimental verses so out of character with the directness of the original as—
"Fair Emmeline sighed, fair Emmeline wept,
And aye her heart was woe:
At length he seized her lilly-white hand,
And downe the ladder he drewe."