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That Lucy will be there.

"Then bear my corse, ye comrades, bear,

The bridegroom blithe to meet;

He in his wedding-trim so gay,

I in my winding-sheet."

She spoke, she died;--her corse was borne,

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He in his wedding-trim so gay,

The bridegroom blithe to meet;

She in her winding-sheet.

Then what were perjur'd Colin's thoughts?
How were those nuptials kept?

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The bride-men flock'd round Lucy dead,
And all the village wept.

Confusion, shame, remorse, despair,
At once his bosom swell;

The damps of death bedew'd his brow,
He shook, he groan'd, he fell.

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From the vain bride (ah, bride no more!)

The varying crimson fled,

When, stretch'd before her rival's corse,
She saw her husband dead.

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And plighted maid are seen;

With garlands gay and true-love knots
They deck the sacred green.

The Boy and the Mantle.

AS REVISED AND ALTERED BY A MODERN HAND.'

Mr. Warton, in his ingenious observations on Spenser, has given his opinion, that the fiction of the Boy and the Mantle is taken from an old French piece entitled, Le Court Mantel, quoted by M. de St. Palaye, in his curious "Mémoires sur l'ancienne Chevalerie," Paris, 1759, 2 tom. 12mo; who tells us the story resembles that of Ariosto's enchanted cup. "Tis possible our English poet may have taken the hint of this subject from that old French romance; but he does not appear to have copied it in the manner of execution: to which (if one may judge from the specimen given in the Mémoires) that of the ballad does not bear the least resemblance. After all, 'tis most likely that all the old

1 The "modern hand" was Percy's.-Editor.

stories concerning King Arthur are originally of British growth; and that what the French and other southern nations have of this kind were at first exported from this island. See Mémoires de l'Acad. des Inscrip. tom. xx, p. 352.

In the Fabliaux ou Contes, 1781, 5 tom. 12mo, of M. Le Grand (tom. i. p. 54), is printed a modern version of the old tale Le Court Mantel, under a new title, Le Manteau maltaillé, which contains the story of this ballad much enlarged, so far as regards the mantle, but without any mention of the knife or the horn.

IN Carleile dwelt King Arthur,

A prince of passing might;

And there maintain'd his Table Round,
Beset with many a knight.

And there he kept his Christmas

With mirth and princely cheare,

When, lo! a straunge and cunning boy
Before him did appeare.

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And first came Lady Guenever,

The mantle she must trye:

This dame, she was new-fangled,
And of a roving eye.

When she had tane the mantle,
And all was with it cladde,
From top to toe it shiver'd down,
As tho' with sheers beshradde.

One while it was too long,
Another while too short,
And wrinkled on her shoulders
In most unseemly sort.

Now green, now red it seemed,
Then all of sable hue:

"Beshrew me," quoth King Arthur,
"I think thou beest not true."

Down she threw the mantle,
Ne longer would not stay;

But storming like a fury,

To her chamber flung away.

Beneath the green-wood tree,

Than here, base king, among thy groomes,
The sport of them and thee.'

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Sir Kay call'd forth his lady,
And bade her to come near :
"Yet, dame, if thou be guilty,
I pray thee now forbear."
This lady, pertly gigling,

With forward step came on,
And boldly to the little boy
With fearless face is gone.

When she had tane the mantle,
With purpose for to wear,
It shrunk up to her shoulder,
And left her b**side bare.

Then every merry knight,

That was in Arthur's court, Gib'd, and laught, and flouted,

To see that pleasant sport.

Downe she threw the mantle,

No longer bold or gay,

But with a face all pale and wan,
To her chamber slunk away.

Then forth came an old knight,

A pattering o'er his creed, And proffer'd to the little boy Five nobles to his meed;

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