1595 to Thomas Millington as, "for his
Copie vnder th[e h]andes of bothe the wardens a ballad intituled, The
Norfolk gent his will and Testament and how he Commytted the keepinge of
his Children to his owne brother whoe delte moste wickedly with them and
howe God plagued him for it." It was printed as a black-letter ballad in
1670. Addison wrote a paper on it in "The Spectator" (No. 85), praising
it as "one of the darling songs of the common people."

"The Blind Beggar of Bednall Green" is in many collections, and was
known in Elizabeth's time, another Elizabethan ballad having been set
to the tune of it. "This very house," wrote Samuel Pepys in June 1663
of Sir William Rider's house at Bethnal Green, "was built by the blind
beggar of Bednall Green, so much talked of and sung in ballads; but they
say it was only some outhouses of it." The Angels that abounded in the
Beggar's stores were gold coins, so named from the figure on one side of
the Archangel Michael overcoming the Dragon. This coin was first struck
in 1466, and it was used until the time of Charles the First.

"The Bailiff's Daughter of Islington," or "True Love Requited," is a
ballad in Pepys's collection, now in the Bodleian. The Islington of the
Ballad is supposed to be an Islington in Norfolk.

"Barbara Allen's Cruelty" was referred to by Pepys in his Diary, January
2, 1665-6 as "the little Scotch song of Barbary Allen." It was first
printed by Allan Ramsay (in 1724) in his "Tea-Table Miscellany." In the
same work Allan Ramsay was also the first printer of "Sweet William's
Ghost."

Fragments of "The Braes o' Yarrow" are in old collections. The ballad
has been given by Scott in his "Minstrelsy of the Border," and another
version is in Peter Buchan's "Ancient Ballads of the North."

"Kemp Owyne" is here given from Buchan's "Ballads of the North
of Scotland." Here also Professor F. J. Child has pointed to many
Icelandic, Danish, and German analogies. Allied to "Kemp Owyne" is
the modern ballad of "The Laidley Worm of Spindleston Heughs," written
before 1778 by the Rev. Mr. Lamb of Norham; but the "Laily Worm and the
Machrel of the Sea" is an older cousin to "Kemp Owyne."

"O'er the Water to Charlie" is given by Buchan as the original form
of this one of the many songs made when Prince Charles Edward made his
attempt in 1745-6. The songs worked scraps of lively old tunes, with
some old words of ballad, into declaration of goodwill to the Pretender.

"A