This will remind the reader of the livery and device of Charles Bran. don, a private gentleman, who married the Queen-dowager of France, sister of Henry VIII. At a tournament which he held at his wedding, the trappings of his horse were half cloth of gold, and half frieze, with the following motto:

"Cloth of Gold, do not despise,

Tho' thou art matcht with Cloth of Frize;
Cloth of Frize, be not too bold,

Tho' thou art matcht with Cloth of Gold."

See Sir W. Temple's Misc. vol. iii. p. 356.

XVIII.

The Sweet Neglect.

This little madrigal (extracted from Ben Jonson's Silent Woman, act i. sc. 1, first acted in 1609) is in imitation of a Latin poem printed at the end of the variorum edit. of Petronius, beginning, "Semper munditias, semper Basilissa, decoras," &c. See Whalley's Ben Jonson, vol. ii. p. 420.

STILL to be neat, still to be drest,
As you were going to a feast;
Still to be poud'red, still perfum'd;
Lady, it is to be presum'd,

Though art's hid causes are not found,

All is not sweet, all is not sound.

Give me a looke, give me a face
That makes simplicitie a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, haire as free:
Such sweet neglect more taketh me
Than all th' adulteries of art

That strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

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XIX.

The Children in the Wood.

The subject of this very popular ballad (which has been set in so favourable a light by the Spectator, No. 85) seems to be taken from an old play, entitled, "Two lamentable Tragedies; the one of the murder of Maister Beech, a chandler in Thames-streete, &c. The other of a young child murthered in a wood by two ruffins with the consent of his unkle. By Rob, Yarrington, 1601, 4to." Our balladmaker has strictly followed the play in the description of the father and mother's dying charge: in the uncle's promise to take care of their issue: his hiring two ruffians to destroy his ward, under pretence of sending him to school: their choosing a wood to perpetiate the murder in: one of the ruffians relenting, and a battle ensuing, &c. In other respects he has departed from the play. In the latter, the scene is laid in Padua: there is but one child, which is murdered by a sudden stab of the unrelenting ruffian: he is slain himself by his less

VOL. II.

bloody companion; but ere he dies he gives the other a mortal wound : the latter living just long enough to impeach the uncle; who, in consequence of this impeachment, is arraigned and executed by the hand of justice, &c. Whoever compares the play with the ballad, will nave no doubt but the former is the original: the language is far more obsolete, and such a vein of simplicity runs through the whole performance, that, had the ballad been written first, there is no doubt but every circumstance of it would have been received into the drama: whereas this was probably built on some Italian novel. Printed from two ancient copies, one Pepys collection. Its title at large is or, the Norfolk Gentleman's Last Will Rogero, &c."

of them in black-letter in the "The Children in the Wood: and Testament: to the tune of

But if the children chance to dye,

Ere they to age should come,

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Their uncle should possesse their wealth;
For so the wille did run.

They kist their children small :

"God bless you both, my children deare;"

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With that the teares did fall.

These speeches then their brother spake

"The keeping of your little ones,

To this sicke couple there :

Sweet sister, do not feare.

God never prosper me nor mine,
Nor aught else that I have,

If I do wrong your children deare,
When you are layd in grave."

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