Instead of 14:
The sister she fled beyond the seas,
And died an old maid among black savagees.
So I've ended my tale of the west countree,
And they calls it the Barkshire Tragedee.
[S].
12. MS. Or less (?).
[T].
"Sung to a peculiar and beautiful air." Allingham, p. xxxiii.
FOOTNOTES:
[126] Campbell's Popular Tales of the West Highlands, IV, 126, 1862.
[127] Jamieson, in his Popular Ballads, II, 315, prints the ballad, with five inconsiderable variations from the broadside, as from Musarum Deliciæ, 2d edition, 1656. The careful reprint of this book, and of the same edition, in "Facetiæ," etc., 1817, does not contain this piece, and the first edition, of 1655, differed in no respect as to contents, according to the editor of "Facetiæ." Still it is hardly credible that Jamieson has blundered, and we may suppose that copies, ostensibly of the same edition, varied as to contents, a thing common enough with old books.