"Then were we made sure together;
But I, unconstant as the weather,
Did him forsake, I was so nice,

When in the Church [we] were asked thrice.
When that he saw I was unkind,

And that I had a cruel mind,
For love of me he left his life,
Because I would not be his Wife.

"I never car'd what he did say,
But suffered him to pine away;
And when he yielded up his breath,
I quickly had forgot his death:
But in my Bed, upon a time,
As many things came in my mind,
There smiling to my self I said,
'I think that I shall dye a maid!'

"Then many a youth I thought upon,
I lov'd and fancy'd many a one;
I hated some, and some reserv'd,
To like and love as they deserv'd:
But in the midst of all my choice,
I heard a lamentable voice,
With Musick sounding to the ear,
But not to me as did appear.

"For when I heard what it might be
And what was cause of this Melody,
And at my window a voice did cry
'Hugh Hill is dead: fie, Sarah, fie!'
My conscience then tormented me,
Of my false heart and treachery,
And evermore the voice would cry
'Go, pine thy self, repent, and dye!'

"Methought it was the voice of Hugh,
Of good Hugh Hill that was so true,
That was so faithful unto me,
Yet used him most wickedly;
O there he did my faults express,
And I the same must needs confess,

[i.e. hand-fasted.

For I kill'd him with cruelty:

132

[orig. "Whither'd."

My face, that was so fresh and fine,
As clear as is the Claret wine,
Is now transform'd to another hue,
Both grim and loathsome to the view.
flesh is gone,

"My skin is wither'd, my
And nothing left but skin and bone;
And now I pine most dolefully,

Wishing for death, but cannot dye.

Therefore, sweet Maids, that suitors have,

Yeild unto them that true love crave;

O do not cast a man away,

Lest you your selves go to decay.

"If unto you a young man come,
You are so fine you'l ne'r have none;
Until your beauty fade away,

You scorn most men, you are so coy:
Fie! fie! remember what you are,
Do not refuse while you are fair;
Unto your true loves be not coy,

140

'Tis good to take them while you may.

148

"As you be coy, so I have been,
But see the misery I live in ;
That, was it not for my soul's health,
I would be willing to kill my self:
Therefore, fair Maids, amend in time,
Lest that your woes be like to mine,
And pray to God to end my grief.
Or else to rid me of my life.'

156

Printed for F. Coles, T. Vere, J. Wright, J. Clarke, W. Thackeray,

and T. Passinger.

[In Black-letter. One woodcut only, at beginning: but we add another on p. 422. Date, before 1624, but this copy much later; circa 1655–1680.]

The number of obsolete or nearly-obsolete words in this ballad proves it to be of much earlier composition than the date of the present broadsheet (which may be as late as 1670, or even 1682. Thus in line 13, "wight" (used as feminine); 39, "apaid; 46," denay'd;" 116, "pine"=fast or macerate; even 133, the spelling "whithered," is suggestive.

We are glad to be the first to reprint this ballad, which had passed from popular remembrance. There is a similarity between it and the later but more popular "Cruel Barbara Allen," which perhaps has been borrowed partially from it. Not that such ballads were necessarily copied from one another: tales of unrequited love with feminine perversity, fickleness, and remorse when too late to save the life that seemed so precious after it had faded away, were far from uncommon in every country: because the incident itself was not rare.

THE

The Dying Christian's friendly Advice.

"And when the tumult dwindled to a calm
We left him practising the Hundredth Psalm."
-A New Vision of Judgment.

HE dreary platitudes of the pietistic broadside-ballads were sent into the market for profit, like the whining exhortations of the professional tramp, whom we have all heard at Broadstairs: finding himself there too early, before the usual visitors have arrived, he tries to cajole the landladies by uttering sanctimonious prayers underneath their windows, beseeching Heaven to send them a busy season, with all their rooms filled at high prices. The Robert Tippings, George Robins, J. Taylor, "a singer of Israel," and other manufacturers of lugubrious ditties, calculated to the meridian of unctuous Little Bethel, seem to have harvested more successfully than the prosaic tramp aforesaid; chiefly, perhaps, because they chose London alleys, where stray coppers might be gleaned more successfully than from the still-empty pockets of matrons who had ("every man jack of them") "seen better days," and who had ceased to be tender-hearted in consequence.

For such warnings about death and Hell as the pretended "Dying Christian" here gives, in his pennyworth of Advice, there could be no tune more suitable than "Aim not too high" (mentioned already on p. 73; the same tune as "Fortune my Foe," which is given in Mr. Chappell's Popular Music of the Olden Time, p. 162). It lends itself easily to any doleful and interminable ditty, as the tune of "Chevy Chase" had done. With an unhappy auditory (to whom plenty of devils, afflicting other and worse sinners than themselves, was a real luxury), it is no wonder that eighteen verses were provided. Had there been seventy times seven we need not have been surprised. Our ancestors listened to these ballad-singers, and some of us undergo the interminable harangues of Parliamentarian democrats, with their self-conceit and exuberant verbosity. But we scarcely think that we moderns have gained much by the slight exchange, of elevating such street-canters into Cabinet-ministers.

It was by the irony of fate that even the woodcut used for the following ballad has been transferred from a malicious Civil-War tract (intended to lampoon Archbishop Laud, while imprisoned in the Tower, as being visited by the Ghost of Cardinal Wolsey), to illustrate "The Dying Christian." Wolsey's mitre and triple-cross were defaced, to disguise the appropriation, but we make our copy from the original quarto, "Canterburie's Dreame; in which the Apparition of Cardinal Wolsey did present himself unto him on the fourteenth of May past, 1641."

[Roxburghe Collection, II. 128, 129; Pepys, II. 43.]

The

Dying Christian's friendly Advice.

To Sinners all, and every Christian Friend,
This my advice E freely recommend,

And wish them all, while they have time and breath,

To make Provision for to meet with Death.

TO THE TUNE OF, Aim not too high (see p. 73, and vol. i. 106).

This may be Printed, R. L. S.

[To the right, in original, is another woodcut of a skeleton: see p. 456.]

Ou Mortal men, who vainly spend your youth

You

In Sinful pleasure, slighting of the truth,

Repent with speed, the judgement-day draws nigh,
You answer must for all assuredly.

Before the Great Trybunal Bar you must
Give your accounts, before a Judge most just,
Who sees what you in secret often do :
Conscience shall witness bear against you too.

How sad and dreadful for you will it be,
When you Launch forth into eternity;
Except the Lord his anger doth abate,
And Jesus Christ doth prove your advocate.

4

8

12