[L]. 'Lord Barnett and Little Munsgrove,' Buchan's MSS, I, 27: Scottish Traditional Versions of Ancient Ballads, Percy Society, XVII, 21.
[M]. 'Little Mushiegrove,' Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Appendix, p. xx, XXI, one stanza.
[N]. 'Little Massgrove,' communicated by Miss Reburn, as learned in County Meath, Ireland, two stanzas.
A copy of this ballad in Dryden's Miscellany, III, 312, 1716, agrees with the one in Wit and Drollery. That in Ritson's Select Collection of English Songs, II, 215, 1783, agrees with Dryden's save in two or three words. The broadside C a was printed for Henry Gosson, who is said by Chappell to have published from 1607 to 1641. If the lower limit be correct, this is the earliest impression known.[136] The other broadsides, C b-e, are later, but all of the seventeenth century. Percy inserted the ballad in his Reliques, III, 67, 1765, making a broadside in the British Museum his basis, and correcting as usual.
Percy remarks: This ballad is ancient, and has been popular; we find it quoted in many old plays. Cases cited by him are: Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle, v, 3, Dyce II, 223, of about 1611:
And some they whistled, and some they sung,
Hey down, down
And some did loudly say,
Ever as the lord Barnet's horn blew,
Away, Musgrave, away!
Again, Sir William Davenant's play 'The Wits,' where Sir Thwack boasts, "I sing Musgrove, and for the Chevy Chase no lark comes near me," Act III, p. 194, of ed. 1672; and 'The Varietie,' a comedy, Act IV, 1649. In Beaumont and Fletcher's 'Bonduca,' V, 2, Dyce, V, 88, dating before March, 1619, we find this stanza, which is perhaps A 26, loosely remembered:
She set the sword unto her breast,
Great pity it was to see
That three drops of her life-warm blood
Run trickling down her knee.
And two stanzas in Fletcher's 'Monsieur Thomas,' IV, 11, Dyce VII, 375, earlier than 1639, may well be A 11, 12 parodied:
If this be true, thou little tiny page,
This tale that thou tellst me,
Then on thy back will I presently hang
A handsome new livery.