not any longer refrain from rest: then called Friar Bacon his man Miles, and told him that it was not unknown to him what pains Friar Bungay and himself had taken for three weeks' space, only to make and to hear the brazen head speak, which if they did not, then had they lost all their labour, and all England had a great loss thereby: therefore he entreated Miles that he would watch whilst that they slept, and call them if the head speak. [Miles then begins his watch, and keeps himself from sleeping by merrily singing.]

After some noise the head spake these two words,-Time is. Miles hearing it to speak no more, thought his master would be angry if he waked him for that, and therefore he let them both sleep, and began to mock the head.

*

*

*

After half an hour had passed, the head did speak again two words, which were these,-Time was. Miles respected these words as little as he did the former, and would not wake them, but still scoffed at the brazen head, that it had learned no better words, and have such a tutor as his master.

*

Thus Miles talked and sung till another half-hour was gone: then the brazen head spake again these words,-Time is past; and therewith fell down, and presently followed a terrible noise, with strange flashes of fire, so that Miles was half dead with fear: at this noise the two friars awaked, and wondered to see the whole room so full of smoke; but that being vanished, they might perceive the brazen head broken and lying on the ground. At this sight they grieved, and called Miles to know how this came. Miles, half dead with fear, said that it fell down of itself, and that with the noise and fire that followed he was almost frightened out of his wits. Friar Bacon asked him if he did not speak? Yes (quoth Miles), it spake, but to no purpose. I'll have a parrot speak better in that time that you have been teaching this brazen head. Out on thee, villain! (said Friar Bacon) thou hast undone us both; hadst thou but called us when it did speak, all England had been walled round with brass, to its glory, and our eternal fames. What were the words it spake? Very few (said Miles), and those were none of the wisest that I have heard, neither: first, he said, Time is. Hadst thou called us then (said Friar Bacon), we had been made for ever. Then (said Miles) half an hour after it spake again, and said, Time was. And wouldst thou not call us then (said Bungay)? Alas (said Miles), I thought he would have told me some long tale, and then I proposed to have called you: then half an hour after he cried, Time is past, and made such a noise, that he hath waked you himself, methinks. At this, Friar Bacon was in such a rage, that he would have beaten his man, but he was restrained by Bungay; but, nevertheless, for his punishment, he with his art struck him dumb for one whole month's space. Thus the great work of these learned friars was overthrown (to their great griefs) by this simple fellow.

ROBIN GOODFELLOW.

[PERCY, in giving this song, prefixes the following remarks: Robin Goodfellow, alias Puck, alias Hobgoblin, in the creed of ancient superstition, was a kind of merry sprite, whose character and achievements are recorded in this ballad, and in those well-known lines of Milton's L'Allegro, which the antiquarian Peck supposes to be owing to it:

"Tells how the drudging goblin sweat

To earn his cream-bowl duly set;
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn
That ten day-labourers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubber fiend,
And, stretched out all the chimney length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength,

And crop-full out of doors he flings,
Ere the first cock his matins rings."

The reader will observe that our simple ancestors had reduced all these whimsies to a kind of system-as regular, and perhaps more consistent, than many parts of classic mythology: a proof of the extensive influence and vast antiquity of these superstitions. Mankind, and especially the common people, could not everywhere have been so unanimously agreed concerning these arbitrary notions, if they had not prevailed among them for many ages. Indeed, a learned friend in Wales assures the Editor, that the existence of Fairies and Goblins is alluded to by the most ancient British Bards, who mention them under various names, one of the most common of which signifies, "The spirits of the mountains."

This song (which Peck attributes to Ben Jonson, though it is not found among his works) is chiefly printed from an ancient black-letter copy in the British Museum. It seems to have been originally intended for some Masque.]

Whene'er such wanderers I meet,

As from their night-sports they trudge home, With counterfeiting voice I greet,

And call them on, with me to roam

Thro' woods, thro' lakes,

Thro' bogs, thro' brakes,

Or else, unseen, with them I go,
All in the nick

To play some trick,

And frolic it, with ho, ho, ho!

Sometimes I meet them like a man;

Sometimes an ox; sometimes a hound

And to a horse I turn me can,

To trip and trot about them round,
But if, to ride,

My back they stride,

More swift than wind away I go,
O'er hedge and lands,
Thro' pools and ponds,

I whirry, laughing, ho, ho, ho!

When lads and lasses merry be,

With possets and with juncates fine
Unseen of all the company,

I eat their cakes and sip their wine;
And, to make sport,

I cough and snort;

And out the candles I do blow:
The maids I kiss ;

They shriek, Who's this?

I answer nought, but ho, ho, ho!

When men do traps and engines set

In loop-holes, where the vermin creep, Who, from their folds and houses, get

Their ducks and geese, and lambs and sheep:

I spy

the gin,

And enter in,

And seem a vermin taken so;

But when they there

Approach me near,

I leap out laughing, ho, ho, ho!

By wells and rills, in meadow green,
We nightly dance our hey-day guise;
And to our fairy king, and queen,
We shout our moonlight minstrelsies.
When larks 'gin sing,
Away we fling;

And babes new-born steal as we go,
And elf in bed

We leave instead,

And wend us laughing, ho, ho, ho!

From hag-bred Merlin's time have I
Thus nightly revelled to and fro:
And for my pranks men call me by
The name of Robin Goodfellow.

Fiends, ghosts, and sprites,
Who haunt the nights,

The hags and goblins, do me know;
And beldames old

My feats have told.

So vale! vale! ho, ho, ho!