155

He brought her to his mother,

And above all other

He sett forth this maidens praise.

Long was his heart inflamed,

The left side to behold,

Of woollen cloth still framed hee.*

• This will remind the reader of the livery and device of Charles Brandon, a private gentleman, who married the

Men thereatt did wonder;

175

Golden fame did thunder

This strange deede in every place:

And decke his children there

In costly robes of pearl and gold.

Queen Dowager of France, sister of Henry VIII. At a tournament which he held at his wedding, the trappings of his horse were half cloth of gold, and half frieze, with the following motto:

"Cloth of Gold, do not despise,

"Tho' thou art matcht with Cloth of Frize;

"Cloth of Frize, be not too bold,

"Tho' thou art matcht with Cloth of Gold."

See Sir W. Temple's Misc. vol. III. p. 356.

XVII.

THE SWEET NEGLECT.

This little madrigal (extracted from Ben Jonson's Silent Woman, act 1. sc. 1. first acted in 1609,) is in imitation of a Latin poem printed at the end of the variorum Edit. of Petronius, beginning, "Semper munditias, semper Basilissa, decoras, &c." See Whalley's Ben Jonson, vol. II. p. 420.

STILL to be neat, still to be drest,
As you were going to a feast:
Still to be poud'red, still perfum'd:
Lady, it is to be presum❜d,

Though art's hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound.

Give me a looke, give me a face,
That makes simplicitie a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, haire as free:
Such sweet neglect more taketh me,
Than all th' adulteries of art,

5

10

That strike mine

eyes, but not

my

heart.

XVIII.

THE CHILDREN IN THE WOOD.

The subject of this very popular Ballad (which has been set in so favourable a light by the Spectator, No. 85,) seems to be taken from an old play, intitled, "Two lamentable Tragedies; the one of the murder "of Maister Beech, a chandler in Thames-streete, "&c. The other of a young child murthered in a "wood by two ruffins, with the consent of his unkle. "By Rob. Yarrington, 1601, 4to." Our ballad maker has strictly followed the play in the description of the father and mother's dying charge: in the uncle's promise to take care of their issue: his hiring two ruffians to destroy his ward, under pretence of sending him to school their choosing a wood to perpetrate the murder in one of the ruffians relenting, and a battle ensuing, &c. In other respects he has departed from the play. In the latter the scene is laid in Padua there is but one child: which is murdered by a sudden stab of the unrelenting ruffian: he is slain himself by his less bloody companion: but ere he dies gives the other a mortal wound: the latter living just long enough to impeach the uncle; who, in consequence of this impeachment, is arraigned and executed by the hand of justice, &c. Whoever compares the play with the ballad, will have no doubt but the former is the original: the language is far more obsolete, and such a vein of simplicity runs through the whole performance, that, had the ballad been written first, there is no doubt but every circumstance of it would have been received into the drama : whereas this was probably built on some Italian novel.

Printed from two ancient copies, one of them in black letter in the Pepys collection. Its title at large