1035. b. weres.
1036. b. And shewe thie mersye one the Earle of Derby.
104–121 wanting.
169
JOHNIE ARMSTRONG
A. a. ‘A Northern Ballet,’ Wit Restord in severall Select Poems not formerly publisht, London, 1658, p. 30, in Facetiæ, London, 1817, I, 132. b. ‘A Northern Ballad,’ Wit and Drollery, London, 1682, p. 57.
B. a. ‘John Arm-strongs last Good - Night,’ etc., Wood, 401, fol. 93 b, Bodleian Library. b. Pepys Ballads, II, 133, No 117. c. ‘Johnny Armstrongs last Good-Night,’ Old Ballads, 1723, I, 170.
C. ‘Johnie Armstrang,’ The Ever Green, 1724, II, 190.
A b is not found in Wit and Drollery, 1661; it is literally repeated in Dryden’s Miscellanies, 1716, III, 307. B is in the Roxburghe collection, III, 513, the Bagford, I, 64, II, 94, and no doubt in others. It was printed by Evans, 1777, II, 64, and by Ritson, English Songs, 1783, II, 322. C was printed by Herd, 1769, p. 260, 1776 (with spelling changed), I, 13; by Ritson, Scotish Songs, 1794, II, 7; by Scott, 1802, I, 49, 1833, I, 407 (with a slight change or two).
‘Ihonne Ermistrangis dance’ is mentioned in The Complaynt of Scotland, 1549, ed. Murray, p. 66. The tune of C is No 356 of Johnson’s Museum; see further Stenhouse, in the edition of 1853, IV, 335 f.
Of his copy C, Ramsay says: “This is the true old ballad, never printed before.... This I copied from a gentleman’s mouth of the name of Armstrang, who is the sixth generation from this John. He tells me this was ever esteemd the genuine ballad, the common one false.” Motherwell remarks, Minstrelsy, p. lxii, note 3: “The common ballad alluded to by Ramsay [A, B] is the one, however, which is in the mouths of the people. His set I never heard sung or recited; but the other frequently.” A manuscript copy of B, entitled Gillnokie, communicated to Percy by G. Paton, Edinburgh, December 4, 1778, which has some of the peculiar readings of B a, introduces the 27th stanza of C[[225]] in place of 12, and has ‘Away, away, thou traitor strong’ for 121. A copy in Buchan’s MSS, I, 61, ‘The Death of John Armstrong,’ has the first half of C 18 and also of C 19 (with very slight variations). Another Scottish copy, which was evidently taken from recitation, introduces C 23 after 14.[[226]]