Love every where will find us.
I livde in fielde and towne, and so did he,
I got me to the woods, Love followed me.
Hey jolly Robin.
V. A MERRY WEDDING; OR, O BRAVE ARTHUR OF BRADLEY.
This old ballad, referred to in p. [158] of the present volume, is given from a black letter copy in a private collection, compared with and very much corrected by “An antidote against melancholy: made up in pills, compounded of witty ballads, jovial songs, and merry catches, 1661.” The running title of the volume is “Pills to purge melancholy,” which was afterward borrowed by Durfey. {360}
There is a different, but probably much more modern, ballad upon this popular subject, in the same measure, intitled “Arthur o’ Bradley,” and beginning,
“All in the merry month of May.”
In Jonson’s “Bartholomew Fair,” Moon-calf addresses Justice Overdo by this name: “O lord! do you not know him, mistress? ’tis mad Arthur of Bradley that makes the orations. Brave master, old Arthur of Bradley, how do you do? welcome to the fair, when shall we hear you again to handle your matters with your back against a booth, ha? I ha’ been one o’ your little disciples, i’ my days!”
In “The Honest Whore,” by Decker, 1604, Bellafront, on the Duke’s assurance that Matthio shall make her amends and marry her, replies, “Shall he? O brave Arthur of Bradley then!”