, bear like sway.

* * * * *

All such as study fraud, and practise evil,
Do only starve themselves to plumpe the devill.
_Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels,_ p. 577.

ERLINTON. NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED.

This ballad is published from the collation of two copies, obtained from
recitation. It seems to be the rude original, or perhaps a corrupted
and imperfect copy, of _The Child of Elle_, a beautiful legendary tale,
published in the _Reliques of Ancient Poetry_. It is singular, that
this charming ballad should have been translated, or imitated, by the
celebrated Buerger, without acknowledgment of the English original. As
_The Child of Elle_ avowedly received corrections, we may ascribe its
greatest beauties to the poetical taste of the ingenious editor. They
are in the truest stile of Gothic embellishment. We may compare, for
example, the following beautiful verse, with the same idea in an old
romance:

The baron stroked his dark-brown cheek,
And turned his face aside,
To wipe away the starting tear,
He proudly strove to hide!
_Child of Elle._

The heathen Soldan, or Amiral, when about to slay two lovers, relents in
a similar manner:

Weeping, he turned his heued awai,
And his swerde hit fel to grounde.
_Florice and Blauncheflour._

ERLINTON.

Erlinton had a fair daughter,
I wat he weird her in a great sin,[A]
For he has built a bigly bower,
An' a' to put that lady in.

An' he has warn'd her sisters six,
An' sae has he her brethren se'en,
Outher to watch her a' the night,
Or else to seek her morn an' e'en.

She hadna been i' that bigly bower,
Na not a night, but barely ane,
Till there was Willie, her ain true love,
Chapp'd at the door, cryin', "Peace within!"

"O whae is this at my bower door,
"That chaps sae late, nor kens the gin?"[B]
"O it is Willie, your ain true love,
"I pray you rise an' let me in!"

"But in my bower there is a wake,
"An' at the wake there is a wane;[C]
"But I'll come to the green-wood the morn,
"Whar blooms the brier by mornin' dawn."

Then she's gane to her bed again,
Where she has layen till the cock crew thrice,
Then she said to her sisters a',
"Maidens, 'tis time for us to rise."

She pat on her back a silken gown,
An' on her breast a siller pin,
An' she's tane a sister in ilka hand,
An' to the green