My foule into eternal night,

Where it shall ne'er behold bright day.
O doe not frown, thy angry looke
Hath all my foule with horror shooke.

But, woe is me! all is in vaine,
And bootleffe is my difmall crye;
Time will not be recall'd againe,

Nor thou furceafe before I dye.
O let me live, and make antends
To fome of thy moft dearest friends.

But feeing thou obdurate art,

And wilt no pitye on me showe, Becaufe from thee I did depart,

And left unpaid what I did owe:

I must content myself, to take
What lott to me thou wilt partake.

And thus, as one being in a trance,
A multitude of uglye fiends
About this woefull prince did dance;
He had no helpe of any friends:

His body then they tooke away,
And no man knew his dying day,

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XXIII. The

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XXIII.

THE WITCHES' SONG

-From Ben Jonson's Mafque of Queens, prefented at Whitehall, Feb. 2, 1609.

The editor thought it incumbent on him to infert fome old pieces on the popular fuperftition concerning witches, bobgoblins, fairies, and ghofts. The last of these make their appearance in most of the tragical ballads; and in the following Jong's will be found fome defcription of the former.

It is true, this fong of the Witches, falling from the learned pen of Ben Jonfon, is rather an extract from the various incantations of claffic antiquity, than a difplay of the opinions of our own vulgar. But let it be observed, that a parcel of learned wifeacres had just before bufied themselves on this Jubject, with our British Solomon James I. at their head: and thefe had fo ranfacked all writers ancient and modern, and fo blended and kneaded together the feveral fuperftitions of different times and nations, that those of genuine English growth could no longer be traced out and diftinguished.

By good luck the whimsical belief of fairies and goblins could furnish no pretences for torturing our fellow-creatures, and therefore we have this handed down to us pure and unfophifticated.

I Ha

I WITCH.

Have beene all day looking after
A raven reeding upon a quarter;

And foone as she turn'd her beak to the south,

I fnatch'd this morfell out of her mouth.

2 WITCH.

I have beene gathering wolves haires,

5

The mad dogges foame, and adders eares;

The

The spurging of a deadmans eyes:.

And all fince the evening ftarre did rise.

3 WITCH.

I last night lay all alone

O' the ground, to heare the mandrake grone;
And pluckt him up, though he grew full low :
And, as I had done, the cocke did crow.

And, I ha' beene chufing out this fcull,
From charnell houses that were full;

10

Under a cradle I did creepe,

By day; and, when the childe was a-fleepe,
At night, I fuck'd the breath; and rofe,
And pluck'd the nodding nurse by the nose..

6 WITCH.

I had a dagger: what did I with that?
Killed an infant to have his fat.

A piper it got, at a church-ale,

I bade him again blow wind i' the taile.

A murderer, yonder, was hung in chaines,

The funne and the wind had fhrunke his veines.

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25

I bit

I bit off a finew; I clipp'd his haire;

I brought off his ragges, that danc'd i'the ayre.

8 WITCH.

The fcrich-owles egges, and the feathers blacke,
The bloud of the frogge, and the bone in his backe, 30
I have been getting; and made of his skin

A purset, to keepe fir Cranion in.

9 WITCH..

And I ha' beene plucking (plants among)
Hemlock, henbane, adders-tongue,
Night-fhade, moone-wort, libbards-bane;
And twife by the dogges was like to be tane.

10 WITCH.

I from the jawes of a gardiner's bitch

Did snatch these bones, and then leap'd the ditch:
Yet went I back to the house againe,

Kill'd the blacke cat, and here is the braine,

II WITCH.

I went to the toad, breedes under the wall,

I charmed him out, and he came at my call;

I fcratch'd out the eyes of the owle before,

I tore the batts wing: what would you have more?

DAME.

Yes: I have brought, to helpe your vows,
Horned poppie, cypresse boughes,

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45

The

The fig-tree wild, that growes on tombes,
And juice, that from the larch-tree comes,
The bafilifkes bloud, and the vipers skin :
And, now, our orgies let's begin.

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XXIV

ROBIN GOOD-FELLOW,

alias PUCKE, alias HOвGOBLIN, in the creed of ancient fuperftition, was a kind of merry Sprite, whofe character and atchievements are recorded in this ballad, and in those well-known lines of Milton's L'Allegro, which the antiquarian Peck fuppofes to be owing to it;

"Tells how the drudging GOBLIN wet
"To earn his cream-bowle duly fet;
"When in one night, ere glimpse of morne,
"His fhadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn
"That ten day-labourers could not end;
"Then lies him down the lubbar fiend,
"And ftretch'd out all the chimneys length,
Bafks at the fire his hairy ftrength,

"And crop-full out of doors he flings,

"Ere the first cock his matins rings."

The reader will obferve that our fimple ancestors had reduced all thefe whimfies to a kind of fyftem, as regular, and perhaps more confiftent, than many parts of claffic mythology: a proof of the extenfive influence and vaft antiquity of these Juperftitions. Mankind, and especially the common people, could not every where have been jo unanimously agreed concerning thefe arbitrary nations, if they had not prevailed among them for many ages. Indeed, a learned friend in Wales, affures the editor, that the existence of Fairies and Goblins is alluded to by the most ancient British Bards, who mention them under

various