O Christ! my very heart doth bleed *
With sorrow for thy sake;

For sure a more redoubted knight
Mischance could never take.

A knight amongst the Scots there was,
Which saw Earl Douglas die,
Who straight in wrath did vow revenge,
Upon the Lord Percy:

Sir Hugh Mountgomery he was called;
Who with a spear most bright,
Well mounted on a gallant steed,
Ran fiercely through the fight:

And passed the English archers all,
Without all dread or fear;

And through Earl Percy's body then
He thrust his hateful spear:

With such a vehement force and might

He did his body gore,

The staff ran through the other side

A large cloth-yard, and more.

respect to the imitation of Virgil by the respective authors, there can be little doubt that the second was able to read it in the original; nor, perhaps, will any reader impute a lower degree of learning to the first. The Editor believes the first translation of Virgil into English to have been that of Gawain Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld, in Scotland, about the year 1510.

* "Earl Piercy's lamentation over his enemy is generous, beautiful, and passionate. I must only caution the reader not to let the simplicity of the style prejudice him against the greatness of the thought. That beau

tiful line Taking the dead man by the hand,' will put the reader in mind of Æneas's behaviour towards Lausus, whom he himself had slain, as he came to the rescue of his aged father.—

"At vero ut vultum vidit morientis, et ora

Ora modis Anchisiades pallentia miris,

Ingemuit, miserans graviter, dextramque tetendit."

En. x. 822.-ADDISON.

So thus did both these nobles die, *
Whose courage none could stain;
An English archer then perceived
The noble Earl was slain;

He had a bow bent in his hand,
Made of a trusty tree;
An arrow of a cloth-yard long t
Up to the head drew he:

Against Sir Hugh Mountgomery
So right the shaft he set,

The grey-goose wing that was thereon
In his heart's-blood was wet.

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,
And when even-song bell was rang,
The battell was not half done.

"They tooke on, on eithar hand,
By the light of the moone."

"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 John of Egerton,

Sir Roger Ratcliffe and Sir John,

Sir James that bold Baron:

And with Sir George, and good Sir James,

Both knights of good account,
Good Sir Ralph Raby there was slain,
Whose prowess did surmount.

For Witherington needs must I wail,
As one in doleful dumps;

For when his legs were smitten off,
He fought upon his stumps.

And with Earl Douglas there was slain,
Sir Hugh Mountgomery:

Sir Charles Murray, that from the field
One foot would never flee.

Sir Charles Murray, of Ratcliffe too,
His sister's son was he;

Sir David Lamb, so well esteemed,
Yet saved could not be.

And the Lord Maxwell, in like case,
Did with Earl Douglas die:*
Of twenty-hundred Scottish spears
Scarce fifty-five did fly.

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

Went home but fifty-three:

The rest were slain in Chevy-Chace,
Under the green-wood tree.

Next day did many widows come,

Their husbands to bewail,

They washed their wounds in brinish tears,
But all would not prevail.

Their bodies, bathed in purple gore,

They bore with them away;

They kissed them, dead, a thousand times,
Ere they were clad in clay.

This news was brought to Edenborrow,
Where Scotland's King did reign,
That brave Earl Douglas suddenly
Was with an arrow slain.

the more ancient, no flight is attributed to the Scots: it merely mentions the numbers that went away on either side. The stanza on Witherington, or Widdrington, is much superior to the modern, and has nothing of that familiar, and all but burlesque, appearance.

"For Wethairyngton my hart was wo

That ever he slayn shuld be!

For when both his leggis wear heun in to (two),

Yet he knyled and fought on his kne."

"In the catalogue of the slain, the author has followed the example of the greatest ancient poets, not only in giving long list of the dead, but by diversifying it with little characters of particular persons. * * * The two last verses, 'So well esteemed,' &c., look almost like a translation of Virgil." Cadit et Ripheus, justissimus unus,

Qui fuit in Teucris et servantissimus æqui,

Diis aliter visum est." -En. 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
Scotland can witness be,

I have not any captain more
Of such account as he.

Like tidings to King Henry came,

Within as short a space,

That Percy of Northumberland
Was slain in Chevy-Chace.

say;

Now God be with him, said our king,
Sith it will no better be;

I trust I have within my realm
Five hundred as good as he:

Yet shall not Scots nor Scotland say
But I will vengeance take;
And be revenged on them all,

For brave Earl Percy's sake.

This vow full well the king performed,
After, on Humbledowne; †

In one day fifty knights were slain,
With lords of great renown:

* 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