Some curious wooden engravings accompany this poem, from which it would seem that the ancient Irish dress was (the bonnet excepted) very similar to that of the Scottish Highlanders. The want of a covering on the head was supplied by the mode of plaiting and arranging the hair, which was called the glibbe. These glibbes, according to Spenser, were fit marks for a thief, since, when he wished to disguise himself, he could either cut it off entirely, or so pull it over his eyes as to render it very hard to recognise him. This, however, is nothing to the reprobation with which the same poet regards that favourite part of the Irish dress, the mantle.

"It is a fit house for an outlaw, a meet bed for a rebel, and an apt cloke for a thief. First, the outlaw being for his many erimes and villanyes banished from the townes and houses of honest men, and wandring in waste places far from danger of law, maketh his mantle his house, and under it covereth himself from the wrath of heaven, from the offence of the earth, and from the sight of men. When it raineth, it is his pent-house; when it bloweth, it is his tent; when it freezeth, it is his tabernacle. In summer he can wear it loose, in winter he can wrap it close; at all times he can use it; never heavy, never cumbersome. Likewise for a rebel it is as serviceable; for in his warre that he maketh, (if at least it deserve the name of warre,) when he still flyeth from his foe, and lurketh in the thicke woods and straite passages, waiting for advantages, it is his bed, yea, and almost his household stuff. For the wood is his house against all weathers, and his mantle is his couch to sleep in. Therein he wrappeth himself round, and coucheth himself strongly against the gnats, which, in that country doe more annoy the naked rebels while they keep the woods, and doe more sharply wound them, than all their enemies swords or speares, which can seldom come nigh them: yea, and oftentimes their mantle serveth them when they are neere driven, being wrapped about their left arme, instead of a target, for it is hard to cut thorough with a sword; besides, it is light to beare, light to throw away, and being (as they commonly are) naked, it is to them all in all. Lastly, for a thiefe it is so handsome as it may seem it was first invented for him; for under it he may

cleanly convey any fit pillage that cometh handsomely in his way, and when he goeth abroad in the night in freebooting, it is his best and surest friend; for lying, as they often do, two or three nights together abroad to watch for their booty, with that they can prettily shroud themselves under a bush or bankside till they may conveniently do their errand; and when all is over, he can in his mantle passe through any town or company, being close hooded over his head, as he useth, from knowledge of any to whom he is indangered. Besides this, he or any man els that is disposed to mischief or villany, may, under his mantle, goe privily armed without suspicion of any, carry his head-piece, his skean, or pistol, if he please, to be always in readiness."-SPENSER'S View of the State of Ireland, apud Works, ut supra, viii. 367.

The javelins, or darts, of the Irish, which they threw with great dexterity, appear, from one of the prints already mentioned, to have been about four feet long, with a strong steel head and thick knotted shaft.

"O'Neale commendeth him unto you, Morish Fitz-Thomas; O'Neale requesteth you, in God's name, to take part with him, and fight for your conscience and right; and in so doing, O'Neale will spend to see you righted in all your affaires, and will help you. And if you come not at O'Neale betwixt this and to-morrow at twelve of the clocke, and take his part, O'Neale is not beholding to you, and will doe to the uttermost of his power to overthrow you, if you come not to him at furthest by Satturday at noone. From Knocke Dumayne in Calrie, the fourth of February, 1599.

"O'Neale requesteth you to come speake with him, and doth giue you his word that you shall receive no harme neither in comming nor going from him, whether you be friend or not, and bring with you to O'Neale Gerat Fitzgerald.

Nor did the royalty of O'Neale consist in words alone. Sir John Harrington paid him a visit at the time of his truce with Essex, and, after mentioning his "fern table, and fern forms, spread under the stately canopy of heaven," he notices what constitutes the real power of every monarch, the love, namely, and allegiance of his subjects. "His guards, for the most part, were beardless boys without shirts; who in the frost wade as familiarly through rivers as water-spaniels. With what charm such a master makes them love him, I know not; but if he bid come, they come; if go, they do go; if he say do this, they do it."-Nuga Antiquæ. Lond. 1784, 8vo, vol. i. p. 251.

NOTE 2 T.

His foster father was his guide.-P. 318.

There was no tie more sacred among the Irish than that which connected the foster-father, as well as the nurse herself, with the child they brought up.

"Foster-fathers spend much more time, money, and affec tion on their foster-children than their own; and in return take from them clothes, money for their several professions, and arms, and, even for any vicious purposes, fortunes and cattle, not so much by a claim of right as by extortion; and they will even carry those things off as plunder. All who have been nursed by the same person preserve a greater mutual affection and confidence in each other than if they were natural brothers, whom they will even hate for the sake of these. When chid by their parents, they fly to their fosterfathers, who frequently encourage them to make open war on their parents, train them up to every excess of wickedness, and make them most abandoned miscreants; as, on the other hand, the nurses make the young women, whom they bring up for every excess. If a foster child is sick, it is incredible how soon the nurses hear of it, however distant, and with what solicitude they attend it by day and night."-Giraldus Cambrensis, quoted by Camden, iv. 368.

This custom, like many other Irish usages, prevailed till of late in the Scottish Highlands, and was cherished by the chiefs as an easy mode of extending their influence and connexion; and even in the Lowlands, during the last century, the connexion between the nurse and foster-child was seldom dissolved but by the death of one party.

NOTE 2 S.

With wild majestic port and tone,

Like envoy of some barbarous throne.-P. 318.

The Irish chiefs, in their intercourse with the English, and with each other, were wont to assume the language and style of independent royalty. Morrison has preserved a summons from Tyrone to a neighbouring chieftain, which runs in the following terms:

NOTE 2 U.

Great Nial of the Pledges Nine.-P. 320.

Neal Naighvallach, or Of the Nine Hostages, is said to have been Monarch of all Ireland, during the end of the fourth or

Or manners, more to the harmony of nature,
Than in the nurseries of nobility?

"Host. Ay, that was when the nursery's self was noble, And only virtue made it, not the market,

That titles were not vented at the drum,

Or common outery. Goodness gave the greatness,

And greatness worship: every house became

An academy of honour; and those parts

We see departed, in the practice, now,
Quite from the institution.

"Lovell. Why do you say so?

Or think so enviously? Do they not still

Learn there the Centaur's skill, the art of Thrace,
To ride? or, Pollux' mystery, to fence?
The Pyrrhic gestures, both to dance and spring
In armour, to be active in the wars?

To study figures, numbers, and proportions,
May yield them great in counsels, and the arts
Grave Nestor and the wise Ulysses practised?
To make their English sweet upon their tongue,
As reverend Chaucer says?

"Host. Sir, you mistake;

To play Sir Pandarus, my copy hath it,

And carry messages to Madame Cressida ;
Instead of backing the brave steed o' mornings,
To court the chambermaid; and for a leap

O' the vaulting horse, to ply the vaulting house:
For exercise of arms, a bale of dice,

Or two or three packs of cards to show the cheat,
And nimbleness of hand; mistake a cloak
Upon my lord's back, and pawn it; ease his pocket
Of a superfluous watch; or geld a jewel

Of an odd stone or so; twinge two or three buttons
From off my lady's gown: These are the arts

Or seven liberal deadly sciences

Of pagery, or rather paganism,

As the tides run; to which if he apply him,
He may perhaps take a degree at Tyburn
A year the earlier; come to take a lecture
Upon Aquinas at St. Thomas a Watering's,
And so go forth a laureat in hemp circle!"

BEN JONSON's New Inn, Act I. Scene III.

NOTE 2 Z.

Seem'd half abandon'd to decay.-P. 325.

The ancient castle of Rokeby stood exactly upon the site of the present mansion, by which a part of its walls is enclosed. It is surrounded by a profusion of fine wood, and the park in which it stands is adorned by the junction of the Greta and of the Tees. The title of Baron Rokeby of Armagh was, in 1777, conferred on the Right Reverend Richard Robinson, Primate of Ireland, descended of the Robinsons, formerly of Rokeby, in Yorkshire.

NOTE 3 A.

Rokeby's lords of martial fume,

I can count them name by name.-P. 326.

The following brief pedigree of this very ancient and once powerful family, was kindly supplied to the author by Mr. Rokeby of Northamptonshire, descended of the ancient Barons of Rokeby :

1 Lisle. 2 Temp. Edw. 2di. 3 Temp. Edw. 3tii. Temp. Henr. 7mi, and from him is the house of Skyers, of a fourth brother.

.

"Pedigree of the House of Rokeby.

1. Sir Alex. Rokeby, Knt. married to Sir Hump. Liftle's daughter.

2. Ralph Rokeby, Esq. to Tho. Lumley's daughter.

3. Sir Tho. Rokeby, Knt. to Tho. Hubborn's daughter. 4. Sir Ralph Rokeby, Knt. to Sir Ralph Biggot's daughter 5. Sir Thos. Rokeby, Knt. to Sir John de Melsass' daughter of Bennet-Hall, in Holderness.

6. Ralph Rokeby, Esq. to Sir Brian Stapleton's daughter of Weighill.

7. Sir Thos. Rokeby, Knt. to Sir Ralph Ury's daughter. 8. Ralph Rokeby, Esq. to daughter of Mansfield, heir of

bondage, should, at Dun-Bretton, have been brought up under a Rokeby, captain then of the place; and as he walked on a cliff, should thrust him on a sudden into the sea, and thereby have gotten that hold, which, I think, was about the 33d of Edw. I. or before. Thus, leaving our ancestors of record, we must also with them leave the Chronicle of Malmesbury Abbey, called Eulogium Historiarum, out of which Mr. Leland reporteth this history, and coppy down unwritten story, the which have yet the testimony of later times, and the fresh memory of men yet alive, for their warrant and creditt, of whom I have learned it, that in K. Henry the 7th's reign, one Ralph Rokeby, Esq. was owner of Morton, and I guess that this was he that deceived the fryars of Richmond with his felon swine, on which a jargon was made."

the assumed circumstances of chivalry; or, as in the Hunting of the Hare, (see Weber's Metrical Romances, vol. iii.), persons of the same description following the chase, with all the grievous mistakes and blunders incident to such unpractised sportsmen. The idea, therefore, of Don Quixote's frenzy, although inimitably embodied and brought out, was not, perhaps, in the abstract, altogether original. One of the very best of these mock romances, and which has no small portion of comic humour, is the Hunting of the Felon Sow of Rokeby by the Friars of Richmond. Ralph Rokeby, who (for the jest's sake apparently) bestowed this intractable animal on the convent of Richmond, seems to have flourished in the time of Henry VII., which, since we know not the date of Friar Theobald's wardenship, to which the poem refers us, may indicate that of the composition itself. Morton, the Mortham of the

To what metrical Scottish tradition Parson Blackwood alluded, it would be now in vain to enquire. But in Blind Harry's History of Sir William Wallace, we find a legend of one Rukbie, whom he makes keeper of Stirling Castle under the English usurpation, and whom Wallace slays with his own hand:

"In the great press Wallace and Rukbie met, With his good sword a stroke upon him set; Derfly to death the old Rukbie he drave,

But his two sons escaped among the lave."

These sons, according to the romantic Minstrel, surrendered the castle on conditions, and went back to England, but returned to Scotland in the days of Bruce, when one of them became again keeper of Stirling Castle. Immediately after this achievement follows another engagement, between Wallace and those Western Highlanders who embraced the English interest, at a pass in Glendonchart, where many were precipitated into the lake over a precipice. These circumstances may have been confused in the narrative of Parson Blackwood, or in the recollection of Mr. Rokeby.

In the old ballad of Chevy Chase, there is mentioned, among the English warriors, "Sir Raff the ryche Rugbe," which may apply to Sir Ralph Rokeby, the tenth baron in the pedigree. The more modern copy of the ballad runs thus:

"Good Sir Ralph Raby ther was slain, Whose prowess did surmount.'

This would rather seem to relate to one of the Nevilles of Raby. But, as the whole ballad is romantic, accuracy is not to be looked for.

NOTE 3 B.

The Felon Sow.-P. 327.

The ancient minstrels had a comic as well as a serious strain of romance; and although the examples of the latter are by far the most numerous, they are, perhaps, the less valuable. The comic romance was a sort of parody upon the usual subjects of minstrel poetry. If the latter described deeds of heroic achievement, and the events of the battle, the tourney, and the chase, the former, as in the Tournament of Tottenham, introduced a set of clowns debating in the field, with all

1 Both the MS. and Mr. Whitaker's copy read ancestors, evidently a corruption of aunters, adventures, as corrected by Mr. Evans.-2 Sow, according to provincial pronunciation. -3 So; Yorkshire dialect.-4 Fele, many; Sax.-5 A corrup

dence; accordingly, Leland notices, that "Mr. Rokeby hath a place called Mortham, a little beneath Grentey-bridge, almost on the mouth of Grentey." That no information may be lacking which is in my power to supply, I have to notice, that the Mistress Rokeby of the romance, who so charitably refreshed the sow after she had discomfited Friar Middleton and his auxiliaries, was, as appears from the pedigree of the Rokeby family, daughter and heir of Danby of Yafforth.

This curious poem was first published in Mr. Whitaker's History of Craven, but, from an inaccurate manuscript, not corrected very happily. It was transferred by Mr. Evans to the new edition of his Ballads, with some well-judged conjectural improvements. I have been induced to give a more authentic and full, though still an imperfect, edition of this humoursome composition, from being furnished with a copy from a manuscript in the possession of Mr. Rokeby, to whom I have acknowledged my obligations in the last Note. It has three or four stanzas more than that of Mr. Whitaker, and the language seems, where they differ, to have the more ancient and genuine readings.

The Felon Sow of Rokeby and the Friars of Richmond.

Ye men that will of aunters winne, That late within this land hath beene, Of one I will you tell;

And of a sew 2 that was sea 3 strang, Alas! that ever she lived sae lang, For fell folk did she whell.5

She was mare 6 than other three,
The grisliest beast that ere might be,
Her head was great and gray:
She was bred in Rokeby wood,
There were few that thither goed,7
That came on live 8 away.

Her walk was endlong9 Greta side;
There was no bren 10 that durst her bide,
That was froe 11 heaven to hell;
Nor never man that had that might,
That ever durst come in her sight,
Her force it was so fell.

Ralph of Rokeby, with good will,
The Fryers of Richmond gave her till, 12
Full well to garre 13 them fare
Fryar Middleton by his name,
He was sent to fetch her hame,
That rued him sine 14 full sare.

tion of quell, to kill.-6 More, greater.-7 Went.-8 Alive.9 Along the side of Greta.-10 Barn, child, man in general-→ 11 From.-12 To.-13 Make.-14 Since.

1 Fierce as a bear. Mr. Whitaker's copy reads, perhaps in consequence of mistaking the MS., "Tother was Bryan of Bear."-2 Need were. Mr. Whitaker reads musters.-3 Lying.

A fierce countenance or manner.-5 Saw.-6 Wight, brave. The Rokeby MS. reads incounters, and Mr. Whitaker, auncestors.-7 Boldly.-8 On the beam above.-9 To prevent.10 Assaulted.-1 Rope.-12 Watling Street. See the sequel. 13 Dare.-14 Rushed.-15 Leave it.-16 Pulls.-17 This line is wanting in Mr. Whitaker's copy, whence it has been conjectured that something is wanting after this stanza, which now there is no occasion to suppose.-18 Evil device.-19 Blessed. Fr.-20 Lost his colour.-21 Sheltered himself.-22 Fierce. -23 The MS. reads, to labour weere. The text seems to mean,

that all their labour to obtain their intended meat was of no use to them. Mr Whitaker reads, "She was brim as any boar,

And gave a grisly hideous roar,

To them it was no boot."

Besides the want of connection between the last line and the two former, the second has a very modern sound, and the reading of the Rokeby MS. with the slight alteration in the text, is much better.

24 Mad.-25 Torn, pulled.-26 Knew-27 Combat, perilous fight.-28 This stanza, with the two following, and the fragment of a fourth, are not in Mr. Whitaker's edition.-29 The rope about the sow's neck.-30 Knew.