II.-JOHN ANDERSON MY JO.

A SCOTTISH SONG.

WHILE in England verse was made the vehicle of controversy, and Catholicism was attacked in it by logical argument or stinging satire, we may be sure the zeal of the Scottish Reformers would not suffer their pens to be idle, but many a pasquil was discharged at the priests, and their encroachments on property.

It is a received tradition in Scotland, that at the time of the Reformation, ridiculous and obscene songs were composed to be sung by the rabble to the tunes of the most favourite hymns in the Latin service. Green Sleeves and Pudding Pies (designed to ridicule the Catholic clergy) is said to have been one of these metamorphosed hymns; Maggy Lauder was another; John Anderson my Jo was a third. The original music of all these burlesque sonnets was very fine. To give a specimen of their manner, we have inserted one of the least offensive.

In the present edition this song is much improved by some new readings communicated by a friend, who thinks by the "seven bairns "in the second stanza are meant the seven sacraments, five of which were the spurious offspring of mother Church, as the first stanza contains a satirical allusion to the luxury of the popish clergy.

We have here a witty libel on the Reformation under King Edward VI., written about the year 1550, and preserved in the Pepys Collection, British Museum, and Strype's Memoirs of Cranmer. The author artfully declines entering into the merits of the cause, and wholly reflects on the lives and actions of many of the Reformed.

The reader will remark the fondness of our satirist for alliteration: in this he was guilty of no affectation or singularity; his versification is that of Pierce Plowman's Visions, in which a recurrence of similar letters is essential: to this he has only superadded rhyme, which in his time began to be the general practice.

IN december, when the dayes draw to be short,

After november, when the nights wax noysome and long :

As I past by a place privily at a

port,

I saw

one sit by himself making a song:

That few were fast i' th' faith. I freyned Our suffrages, and services, with many a

Our service to be said in our seignours And in brawling about baudery, Gods tongue;

If thou company with them, they wil currishly carp, and not care

According to their foolish fantacy; but fast wil they naught :

Thus in no place, this Nobody, in no time
I met,

Where no man, "ne" nought was, nor
nothing did appear;

Prayer with them is but prating; there- Through the sound of a synagogue for

IV.-QUEEN ELIZABETH'S VERSES, WHILE PRISONER AT

WOODSTOCK,

WRIT WITH CHARCOAL ON A SHUTTER,

ARE preserved by Hentzner, in that part of his Travels which has been reprinted in so elegant a manner at Strawberry Hill. The old orthography, and one or two ancient readings of Hentzner's copy, are here restored.

OH, Fortune! how thy restless wavering state

Hath fraught with cares my troubled witt!

Witnes this present prisonn, whither fate
Could beare me, and the joys I quit.
Thou causedest the guiltie to be losed

From bandes, wherein are innocents inclosed:

Causing the guiltles to be straite reserved,

And freeing those that death hath well deserved.
But by her envie can be nothing wroughte,
So God send to my foes all they have thoughte.
A.D. MDLV.

ELIZABETHE, PRISONNER.

V. THE HEIR OF LINNE.

THE original of this ballad is found in the Editor's folio MS., the breaches and defects in which rendered the insertion of supplemental stanzas necessary. These it is hoped the reader will pardon, as indeed the completion of the story was suggested by a modern ballad on a similar subject.

From the Scottish phrases here and there discernible in this poem, it should seem to have been originally composed beyond the Tweed.

The Heir of Linne appears not to have been a Lord of Parliament, but a Laird, whose title went along with his estate.

PART THE FIRST.

LITHE and listen, gentlemen,
To sing a song I will beginne:
It is of a lord of faire Scotland,
Which was the unthrifty heire of Linne.

His father was a right good lord,

His mother a lady of high degree; But they, alas! were dead, him froe, And he lov'd keeping companie.

To spend the daye with merry cheare,
To drinke and revell every night,
To card and dice from eve to morne,
It was, I ween, his hearts delighte.

To ride, to runne, to rant, to roare,

To alwaye spend and never spare, I wott, an' it were the king himselfe, Of gold and fee he mote be bare.

Soe fares the unthrifty lord of Linne

Till all his gold is gone and spent ;
And he maun sell his landes so broad,
His house, and landes, and all his rent.

His father had a keen stewàrde,

And John o' the Scales was called hee : But John is become a gentel-man,

And John has gott both gold and fee.

Sayes, Welcome, welcome, lord of Linne,
Let nought disturb thy merry cheere;
Iff thou wilt sell thy landes soe broad,

Good store of gold Ile give thee heere.

Thus he hath sold his land soe broad,

Both hill and holt, and moore and fenne, All but a poore and lonesome lodge, That stood far off in a lonely glenne.

For soe he to his father hight.

My sonne, when I am gonne, sayd hee, Then thou wilt spend thy lande so broad, And thou wilt spend thy gold so free:

But sweare me nowe upon the roode,

That lonesome lodge thou'lt never spend; For when all the world doth frown on thee, Thou there shalt find a faithful friend.

*i.e. earnest - money; from the French Denier à Dieu. At this day, when application is made to the Dean and Chapter of Carlisle to accept an exchange of the tenant under one of their leases, a piece of silver is presented by the new tenant, which is still called a God's-penny.