The following is selected (like the former) from two copies, which contained great variations; one of them in the Editor's folio MS. In the other copy some of the stanzas at the beginning of this Ballad are nearly the same with what in that MS. are made to begin another Ballad on the escape of the E. of Westmoreland, who got safe into Flanders, and is feigned in the ballad to have undergone a great variety of adventures.
[Percy wrote the following note on the version of this ballad in his folio MS. "To correct this by my other copy which seems more modern. The other copy in many parts preferable to this." It will be seen by comparing the text with the folio MS. copy, now printed at the end, that the alterations are numerous. The first three stanzas are taken with certain changes from the ballad of "The Erle of Westmoreland" (Folio MS. vol. i. p. 300). The alterations made in them are not improvements, as, for instance, the old reading of verse 2 is—
"And keepe me heare in deadlye feare,"
which is preferable to the line below—
"And harrowe me with fear and dread.">[
How long shall fortune faile me nowe,
And harrowe[941] me with fear and dread?
How long shall I in bale[942] abide,
In misery my life to lead?
To fall from my bliss, alas the while!5
It was my sore and heavye lott:
And I must leave my native land,
And I must live a man forgot.