Share page | Visit Us On FB |
TANNER. OF TAMTVOKTH. 23 |
||
guished during such excursions by the travelling name of the Goodman of Ballengeigh, as the Commander of the Faithful, when he desired to be incognito, was known by that of II Bondocani."
The King and the Barker is printed in Ritson's Anc. Pop. Poetry, p. 61; the modern ballad of King Alfred and the Shepherd, in Old Ballads, i. 41; King James and the Tinkler, in Kichardson's Borderer's Table Book, vii. 8, and in the Percy Soc. Publications, vol. xvii., Ancient Poems, Ifc. p. 109.
" The following text is selected (with such other corrections as occurred) from two copies in black letter. The one in the Bodleian library, entitled A mer-rie, pleasant, and delectable historic betweene King Edward the Fourth, and a Tanner of Tamworth, Sfc, printed at London by John Danter; 1596. This copy, ancient as it now is, appears to have been modernized and altered at the time it was published ; and many vestiges of the more ancient readings were recovered from another copy (though more recently printed) in one sheet folio, without date, in the Pepys collection." Percy's Reliques, ii. 87.
The old copies, according to Bitson, contain a great many stanzas which Percy " has not injudiciously suppressed." King Henry the Fourth and the Tanner of Tamworth stands in the Registers of the Stationers' Company, as licensed in 1564-5. The Tanner of Tamworth is introduced into the First Part of Hey-wood's play of Edward the Fourth.
In summer time, when leaves grow greene,
And blossoms bedecke the tree, King Edward wolde a hunting ryde,
Some pastime for to see. |
||