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This Bellad, which appears to hav Veen written sarly in the Rsign of Eliza. beth, if not before, has received great improvements from the Editors Joho Ms. Who hire in was consei, copy, which the very incorrect, seemed -vulgar The Patter husbrior to the milyar balled. The latter thing evidently in odernized & bridged from it. The following Jext is however in many places and inded & im proved by the latter schiefly from a as also

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ANCIENT POEMS.

181

men with his whistle, to hold out to the laft; and the two
Scotch fhips with their crews, were carried into the river.
Thames, Aug. 2. 1511.]-
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"This exploit had the more merit, as the two English commanders were in a manner volunteers in the fervice, by their father's order. But it feems to have laid the foundation of Sir Edward's fortune; for on the 7th of April 1512, the king conftituted him (according to Dugdale) admiral of England, Wales, Sc.

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King James' infifted' upon fatisfaction for the death of Barton, and capture of his ship: tho' Henry had generously difmiffed the crews, and even agreed that the parties accufed might appear in his courts of admiralty by their attornies, to vindicate themselves." This affair was in a great meafure the caufe of the battle of Flodden, in which James IV. loft his life.

IN the following ballad will be found perhaps fome ferv deviations from the truth of history: to atone for which it has probably recorded many leffer facts, which history hath not condefcended to relate. I take many of the little circumftances of the story to be real, because I find one of the most unlikely to be not very remote from the truth. In Pt. 2. v. 156. it is faid, that England had before "but two ships of war. Now the GREAT HARRY had been built for seven years before, viz. in 1504: which "was properly speaking the first ship in the English navy. Before this period, "when the prince wanted a fleet, he had no other expedient "but hiring fhips from the merchants."

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The following copy (which is given from the Editor's folio MS. and feems to have been written early in the reign of Elizabeth, if not before,) will be found greatly Aperior the vigar ballad, which is evidently modernized and abridged from me for deficiencies are bou ever supplied from a black-letter copy of the latter in the Pepys collection. ✓ It is however in

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THE FIRST PART.

7HEN Flora with her fragrant flowers
Bedekt the earth fo trim and gaye,
And Neptune with his daintye showers
• Came to prefent the monthe of Maye *;'
King Henrye rode to take the ayre,

Over the river of Thames paft hee;
When eighty merchants of London came,
And downe they knelt upon their knee.

"O yet are welcome, rich merchants ;
Good faylors, welcome unto mee.”

They fwore by the rood, they were faylors good,
But rich merchants they cold not bee:
To France nor Flanders dare we pass:
Nor Bourdeaux voyage dare we fare;
And all for a rover that lyes on the feas,
Who robbs us of our merchant ware."

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King Henrye frownd, and turned him rounde,
And swore by the Lord, that was mickle of might,
"I thought he had not been in the world,

Durft have wrought England fuch unright." 20
The merchants fighed, and faid, alas!

And thus they did their anfwer frame,

He is a proud Scott, that robbs on the feas,

And Sir Andrewe Barton is his name.

From the pr. copy.

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Thou art but yong; the king replyed:
Yond Scott hath numbred manye a yeare.
"Trust me, my liege, lle make him quail,

Or before my prince I will never appeare.”
Then bowemen and gunners thou shalt have,
And chufe them over my realme fo free;
Befides good mariners, and fhipp-boyes,
To guide the great hipp on the fea.

The first man, that lord Howard chofe,
Was the ablest gunner in all the rea'm,
Thoughe he was threescore yeeres and ten t
Good Peter Simon was his name.

Peter, fayd he, I must to the fea,

To bring home a traytor live or dead: Before all others I have chofen thee;

Of a hundred gunners to be head.

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A Ver. 29. Lord Charles Howard. Ms.

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