But, madam, said sir Valentine,

And knelt upon his knee;

Know the cloak that wrapt your babe,

you

If you the same should see.

And pulling forth the cloth of gold,

In which himself was found;

The lady gave a sudden shriek,

And fainted on the ground.

But by his pious care reviv'd,
His tale she heard anon;

And soon by other tokens found,

He was indeed her son.

200

205

Then clasping both her new-found sons
She bath'd their cheeks with tears;

And soon towards her brother's court
Her joyful course she steers.

What pen can paint king Pepin's joy,

225

His sister thus restor❜d!

And soon a messenger was sent

To chear her drooping lord:

Who came in haste with all his peers,
To fetch her home to Greece;
Where many happy years they reign'd
In perfect love and peace.

230

XIII.

THE DRAGON OF WANTLEY.

This humorous song (as a former Editor* has well observed) is to old metrical romances and ballads of chivalry, what Don Quixote is to prose narratives of that kinda lively satire on their extravagant fictions. But although the satire is thus general, the subject of this ballad is local and peculiar; so that many of the finest strokes of humour are lost for want of our knowing the minute circumstances to which they allude. Many of them can hardly now be recovered, although we have been fortunate enough to learn the general subject to which the satire referred, and shall detail the information with which we have been favoured, in a separate memoir at the end of the poem.

In handling his subject, the Author has brought in most of the common incidents which occur in Romance. The description of the dragon this outrages the people flying to the knight for succour- -his care in choosing his armour- -his being drest for fight by a young damseland most of the circumstances of the battle and victory (allowing for the burlesque turn given to them) are what occur in every book of chivalry, whether in prose or verse.

If any one piece, more than other, is more particularly levelled at, it seems to be the old rhyming

Collection of Historical Ballads in 3 vol. 1787.
See above, p. 144, 145, and p. 270.

1

legend

legend of sir Bevis. There a DRAGON is attacked from a WELL in a manner not very remote from this of the ballad :

There was a well, so have I wynne,
And Bevis stumbled ryght therein,

*

*

*

Than was he glad without fayle,
And rested a whyle for his avayle;
And dranke of that water his fyll;
And than he lepte out, with good wyll,
And with Morglay his brande

He assayled the dragon, I understande ;
On the dragon he smote so faste,
Where that he hit the scales braste :
The dragon then faynted sore,

And cast a galon and more

Out of his mouthe of venim strong,

And on syr Bevis he it flong:

It was venymous y-wis.

This seems to be meant by the Dragon of Wantley's stink, ver. 110. As the politic knight's creeping out, and attacking the dragon, &c. seems evidently to allude to the following:

Bevis blessed himselfe, and forth yode,
And lepte out with haste full good;
And Bevis unto the dragon gone is ;
And the dragon also to Bevis.
Longe and harde was that fyght

Betwene the dragon and that knyght :

But ever whan syr Bevis was hurt sore,

He went to the well, and washed him thore;

He was as hole as any man,

Ever freshe as whan he began.

The dragon sawe it might not avayle
Besyde the well to hold batayle;

He thought he would, wyth some wyle,
Out of that place Bevis begyle ;

He

He woulde have flowen then awaye,

But Bevis lepte after with good Morglaye,
And hyt him under the wynge,

As he was in his flyenge, &c.

Sign. M. jv. L. j. &c.

After all, perhaps the writer of this ballad was acquainted with the above incidents only through the medium of Spenser, who has assumed most of them in his Faery Queen. At least some particulars in the description of the Dragon, &c. seem evidently borrowed from the latter. See Book I. Canto 11. where the Dragon's "two wynges like sayls huge long tayl-with stings his cruel rending clawes and yron teeth -his breath of smothering smoke and sulphur"and the duration of the fight for upwards of two days, bear a great resemblance to passages in the following ballad; though it must be confessed that these particulars are common to all old writers of Romance.

Although this Ballad must have been written early in the last century, we have met with none but such as were comparatively modern copies. It is here printed from one in Roman letter, in the Pepys Collection, collated with such others as could be procured.

OLD stories tell, how Hercules

A dragon slew at Lerna,

With seven heads, and fourteen eyes,
To see and well discern-a:

But he had a club, this dragon to drub,

Or he had ne'er done it, I warrant ye: But More of More-Hall, with nothing at all, He slew the dragon of Wantley.