Who will not regret, with the editor, that compositions of such interest and antiquity should be now irrecoverable? But it is the nature of popular poetry, as of popular applause, perpetually to shift with the objects of the time; and it is the frail chance of recovering some old manuscript, which can alone gratify our curiosity regarding the earlier efforts of the border muse. Some of her later strains, composed during the sixteenth century, have survived even to the present day; but the recollection of them has, of late years, become like that of "a tale which was told." In the sixteenth century, these northern tales appear to have been popular even in London; for the [cxxvi] learned Mr. Ritson has obligingly pointed out to me the following passages, respecting the noted ballad of Dick o' the Cow (p. 157); "Dick o' the Cow, that mad demi-lance northern borderer, who plaid his prizes with the lord Jockey so bravely."—Nashe's Have with you to Saffren-Walden, or Gabriell Harvey's Hunt is up.—1596, 4to. Epistle Dedicatorie, sig. A. 2. 6. And in a list of books, printed for, and sold by, P. Brocksby (1688), occurs "Dick-a-the-Cow, containing north country songs[[62]]." Could this collection have been found, it would probably have thrown much light on the present publication: but the editor has been obliged to draw his materials chiefly from oral tradition.
Something may be still found in the border cottages resembling the scene described by Pennycuik.
On a winter's night, my grannam spinning,
To mak a web of good Scots linnen;
Her stool being placed next to the chimley,
(For she was auld, and saw right dimly,)
My lucky dad, an honest whig,
Was telling tales of Bothwell-brigg;
He could not miss to mind the attempt,