A.D. MDLV.
Elizabethe, Prisonner.
FOOTNOTES:
[538] Ver. 4. "Could beare," is an ancient idiom, equivalent to "did bear" or "hath borne." See below the Beggar of Bednal Green, Book 2, No. x. v. 57. "Could say."
V.
THE HEIR OF LINNE.
The original of this ballad is found in the Editor's folio MS., the breaches and defects in which rendered the insertion of supplemental stanzas necessary. These, it is hoped, the reader will pardon, as indeed the completion of the story was suggested by a modern ballad on a similar subject.
From the Scottish phrases here and there discernible in this poem, it should seem to have been originally composed beyond the Tweed.
The Heir of Linne appears not to have been a Lord of Parliament, but a Laird, whose title went along with his estate.