So thus did both these nobles die, * He had a bow bent in his hand, Against Sir Hugh Mountgomery The grey-goose wing that was thereon The fight did last from break of day 'Till setting of the sun; For when they rung the evening-bell The battle scarce was done. * "Of all the descriptive parts of this song, there are none more beautiful than the four following stanzas, which have a great force and spirit in them, and are filled with very natural circumstances. The thought in the third stanza was never touched by any other poet, and it is such a one as would have shined in Homer or Virgil."-ADDISON. In the old ballad, instead of "goose wing," it is "swan feather," a much more poetical expression. We read of arrows furnished with peacocks' feathers, in Chaucer, &c.-See WARTON, i. 450. + An ell. In the old ballad it is " Eveng-song (i. e. vesper) bell," which was rung at six o'clock the action also here is much extended. "This battell began in Chyviat, An owar (hour) befor the none, "They tooke on, on eithar hand, "That it was formerly looked upon as an uncommon, and perhaps irreligious circumstance, for a Christian army to continue engaged after the ringing of this bell, appears from a similar passage in the ancient Spanish romance of Tirant lo Blanc'-i. e. Tirant the White.-Vide Don Quixote, ch. vi., (where the Licentiate passes a high encomium on it.-ED.) Barcelona, 1497, where it is said,- E continuant toste 'ps la batailla, era ia quasi hor a de With stout Earl Percy there was slain Sir Roger Ratcliffe and Sir John, Sir James that bold Baron : And with Sir George, and good Sir James, For Witherington needs must I wail, For when his legs were smitten off, And with Earl Douglas there was slain, Sir Charles Murray, that from the field ་ Sir Charles Murray, of Ratcliffe too, Sir David Lamb, so well esteemed, Yet saved could not be. And the Lord Maxwell, in like case, vespres,' &c. chap. 157, (i. e. And the battle still continuing, it was the hour that there should have been vespers."-ED.) RITSON. The commencement of the battle is here also properly stated at "eleven" o'clock in the forenoon, previous to which they had taken their dinner, which, however strange it may appear to us, answers faithfully to the manners of the times. They had risen probably at three or four, and taken their breakfast soon after. The author of the later ballad is guilty of a flagrant oversight here, as he had before declared that it was after dinner that the approach of the Douglas was announced. * The names are here given from the researches of Dr. Percy, and are improvements on the text of both ballads. It should be observed, that in Of fifteen-hundred Englishmen The rest were slain in Chevy-Chace, Next day did many widows come, They washed their wounds in brinish tears, Their bodies, bathed in purple gore, They bore with them away; They kissed them, dead, a thousand times, This news was brought to Edenborrow, the more ancient, no flight is attributed to the Scots: it merely mentions the numbers that went away on either side. The stanza on Witheringion, or Widdrington, is much superior to the modern, and has nothing of that familiar, and all but burlesque, appearance. "For Weihairyngton my hart was wo That ever he slay a shold be! For when both his leggis wear heun in to (iwo,, "In the catalogue of the slain, the author has followed the example of the greatest ancient poets, not only in giving a long list of the dead, bot by diversifying it with little characters of paiticalar persons. * * *The O last verses, 'So well esteemed,' &c., look almost like a translation of Virgil." Cadit et Riphers, jostissimus unus, Qui fuit in Teocris et servantissimes æqui, Diis aliter visum est."----Æn. ii. v. 426.-ADDISON. To which he might have added another passage in the same book Nec te tua plurima Pantheu Labentem pietas, nec Apollinis infula tegit. O, heavy news! King James did say; I have not any captain more Like tidings to King Henry came, Within as short a space, That Percy of Northumberland Now God be with him, said our king, I trust I have within my realm Yet shall not Scots nor Scotland say And be revenged on them all, For brave Earl Percy's sake. This vow full well the king performed, * James I. of Scotland is probably here meant, who began to reign in 1424. If, therefore, this skirmish is supposed to have taken place near the time of the battle of Otterburne, the introduction of King James is a grievous anachronism. + The battle of Humbledowne was fought in 1402, which again throws back the date of this skirmish to a period nearly cotemporary with the battle of Otterbourne. The number of knights in the old ballad is "thirty-six.”— Humbledon is one mile distant from the town of Woller, in Northumberland, where a stone pillar marks the site of the engagement, to this day. The conclusion of the old ballad is very unconnected, and confounds with the present occasion several circumstances of the battle of Otterbourne.-As the very learned and industrious Editor of the Reliques' was unable to reconcile all the chronological differences which attend this subject, the attempt may be reasonably excused here. It will perhaps be sufficient for the general reader to learn, that Chevy-Chase is founded on many facts, which remain uncontroverted: that it contains a faithful representation of the manners of And of the rest, of small account, ---Thus endeth the hunting of Chevy-Chace, God save our King, and bless this land In plenty, joy, and peace! And grant, henceforth, that foul debate "Twixt noblemen may cease. the age, and that it was composed at a period approaching very nearly to the events. If more be required to give it interest, it may be remembered that it has been, for nearly four centuries, the admiration of our forefathers of all ages and characters; that childhood has heard it ever with eagerness and delight; and that mature age has looked back upon it with complacency and fondness, as the delight of childhood. |