Then clasping both her new-found fons
She bath'd their cheeks with tears;
And foon towards her brother's court
Her joyful courfe fhe fteers.

What pen can paint king Pepin's joy,

225

His fifter thus reftor'd!

And foon a messenger was fent

To chear her drooping lord:

Who came in hafte with all his peers,
To fetch her home to Greece;
Where many happy years they reign'd
In perfect love and peace.

230

*

This humorous fong (as a former Editor has well obServed) is to old metrical romances and ballads of chivalry, what Don Quixote is to profe narratives of that kind: a lively fatire on their extravagant fictions. But altho'

*Collection of Hiftorical Ballads in 3 vol. 1727.

the

the fatire is thus general, the fubject of this ballad is local and peculiar; fo that many of the finest firokes of humour are loft for want of our knowing the minute circumstances to which they allude. Many of them can hardly now be recovered, altho' we have been fortunate enough to learn the general fubject to which the fatire referred, and shall detail the information, with which we have been favoured, in a Separate memoir at the end of the poem.

In handling his subject, the Author has brought in moft of the common incidents which occur in Romance. The deJcription of the dragon-his outrages the people flying to the knight for fuccour-bis care in chufing his armour-his being dreft for fight by a young damfel-and moft of the circumftances of the battle and victory (allowing for the burlesque turn given to them) are what occur in every book of chivalry, whether in profe or verse.

If any one piece, more than other, is more particularly levelled at, it feems to be the old rhiming legend of fir Bevis. There a DRAGON is attacked from a WELL in a manner not very remote from this of the ballad:

There was a well, fo have I wynne,

And Bevis fumbled ryght therein.

Than was he glad without fayle,
And refted a whyle for his avayle;
And dranke of that water his fyll;
And than he lepte out, with good wyll,
And with Morglay his brande
He affayled the dragon, I underftande :
On the dragon be fmote fo fafle,
Where that he hit the fcales brafte:
The dragon then faynted fore,
And caft a galon and more
Out of his mouthe of venim firong,
And on fyr Bevis he it flong :

It was venymous y-wis.

*See above pag. 100, 101. & p. 217.

is ;

This feems to be meant by the Dragon of Wantley's flink, ver. 110. As the politick knight's creeping out, and attacking the dragon, &c. Jeems evidently to allude to the following: Bevis bleffed himfelfe, and forth yode, And lepte out with hafte full good; And Bevis unto the dragon gone And the dragon alfo to Bevis. Longe, and harde was that fyght Betwene the dragon, and that knyght: But ever whan fyr Bevis was hurt fore, He went to the well, and washed him there; He was as hole as any man,

Ever freshe as whan he began.

The dragon fawe it might not avayle
Befyde the well to hold batayle;
He thought he would, wyth fome wyle,
Out of that place Bevis begyle;
He woulde have flowen then awaye,
But Bevis lepte after with good Morglaye,
And byt him under the wynge,
As he was in his flyenge, &c.

Sign. M. jv. L.j. &c. After all, perhaps the writer of this ballad was acquainted with the above incidents only thro' the medium of Spenfer, who has affumed moft of them in his Faery Queen. At leaft fome particulars in the defcription of the Dragon, &c. feem evidently borrowed from the latter. See Book I. Canto 11. where the Dragon's 66 two wynges like fayls-buge

long tayl-with fings-his cruel rending clawes-and yron teeth-his breath of Smothering Smoke and fulphur” and the duration of the fight for upwards of two days, bear a great refemblance to paffages in the following ballad; though it must be confessed that these particulars are common to all old writers of Romance.

Altho' this Ballad must have been written early in the last century, we have met with none but fuch as were comparatively modern copies. It is here printed from one in Roman letter, in the Pepys Collection, collated with fuch others as could be procured.

OLD

LD ftories tell, how Hercules

A dragon flew at Lerna,

With feven heads, and fourteen eyes,

To fee and well difcern-a:

But he had a club, this dragon to drub,
Or he had ne'er done it, I warrant ye:
But More of More-Hall, with nothing at all,
He flew the dragon of Wantley.

This dragon had two furious wings,

Each one upon each shoulder;

With a fting in his tayl, as long as a flayl,

Which made him bolder and bolder.

He had long claws, and in his jaws

5

10

Four and forty teeth of iron;

With a hide as tough, as any buff,

15

Which did him round environ.

Have you not heard how the Trojan horfe
Held feventy men in his belly?
This dragon was not quite fo big,

But very near, I'll tell ye.

Devoured he poor children three,
That could not with him grapple ;
And at one fup he eat them up,

As one would eat an apple.

20

All

All forts of cattle this dragon did eat.

Some fay he ate up trees,

And that the forests fure he would

Devour up by degrees:

25

For houses and churches were to him geefe and turkies;

He ate all, and left none behind,

30

But fome ftones, dear Jack, that he could not crack, Which on the hills you will find.

In Yorkshire, near fair Rotherham,

The place I know it well;

Some two or three miles, or thereabouts,

35

I vow I cannot tell;

But there is a hedge, juft on the hill edge,
And Matthew's houfe hard by it;

O there and then was this dragon's den,

You could not chufe but spy it.

40

Some fay, this dragon was a witch;
Some fay, he was a devil,

For from his nofe a fmoke arofe,

And with it burning fnivel;

Which he caft off, when he did cough,

45

In a well that he did stand by;

Which made it look, juft like a brook

Running with burning brandy,

Ver. 29. were to him gorfe and birches. Other Copies.

Hard