This is sorry enough doggrel, as every one who has the capacity of reckoning feet upon his fingers must allow; but Sheldon fairly trumps it. In a fit of enthusiasm, he has enlisted the name of a friend in the service, and that gentleman must doubtless feel infinitely obliged for the honour of such immortalisation.
"Syr Carnegie's gane owre the sea,
And's plowing thro' the main,
And now must make a lang voyage,
The red gold for to gain.
Now woe befall the cogging die,
And weary the painted beuks,
A Christian curse go with all naigs,
And eke all hounds and cocks.
Three merchants of great London town,
To save the youth were bent,
And they sent him as factor to Turkish ground,
For the gaming has hym shent."
Poets of the Isle of Muck, did ye ever listen to such a strain? Now let us take a look at the works of the ancients. The first in point of order is the "Laidley Worm of Spindleston Heugh," touching which Mr Sheldon gives us the following information. "This ballad was made by the old mountain bard, Duncan Fraser of Cheviot, who lived a.d. 1320, and, was first printed some years ago, from an ancient MS., by Robert Lambe, vicar of Norham." We do not know what exact time maybe meant by the phrase "some years ago," but the fact is that the "Laidley Worm,"—which is neither more nor less than a very poor version of the old Scots Ballad, "Kempion"—was, according to Sir Walter Scott, "either entirely composed, or rewritten, by the Rev. Mr Lamb of Norham," and had been so often published, that it was not thought worth while to insert it in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. For the same reason, and for its inferior quality, it was kept out of Mr S. C. Hall's "Book of British Ballads." Intrinsically it is so bad, that Mr Sheldon himself might have written it in a moment of extraordinary inspiration; indeed the following three verses, are in every way worthy of his pen;—
"He sprinkled her with three drops o' the well,
In her palace where she stood;
When she grovelled down upon her belly,
A foul and loathsome toad.
And on the lands, near Ida's towers,
A loathsome toad she crawls,
And venom spits on every thing,
Which cometh to the walls.
The virgins all of Bamborough town,
Will swear that they have seen
This spiteful toad of monstrous size,
Whilst walking in the green."
We are now coolly asked to believe that this stuff was written in the fourteenth century, and reprinted, seven years ago, from an ancient manuscript. But we must not be surprised at any thing from a gentleman who seems impressed with the idea that the Chronicles of Roger Hoveden are written in the English language.
We next come to a ballad entitled "The Outlandish Knight," whereof Mr Sheldon gives us the following history. "This ballad I have copied from a broadsheet, in the possession of a gentleman of Newcastle; it has also been published in 'Richardson's Table Book.' The verses with inverted commas, I added at the suggestion of a friend, as it was thought that the Knight was not rendered sufficiently odious, without this new trait of his dishonour."