Specimens of English literature from the 'Ploughmans crede' to the ...

;X,THE NUT-BROWN MAID.ABOUT A. D. 1500.This ballad is justly styled by ]Mr. Hales (Bishop Percy's FolioMS., vol. iii. p. 174) 'one of the most exquisite pieces of late mediaevalpoetry.' There is a late copy of it in the book just quotedand another copy, from the Balliol MS. 354, is also there printed.But the oldest copy extant (here reprinted) is to be found in'Arnold's Chronicle/ first printed at Antwerp about 1502, andreprinted by Douce in 181 1. It must have been written someyears earlier. From the tone of the last stanza, Bishop Percyconjectured that it was written by a woman. The fourth stanzais still more suggestive on this point. Prior's poem, entitled'Edwin and Emma,' is imitated from ' The Nut-Brown Maid,' andis inferior to it. Warton has some excellent remarks upon it, andcompares a part of it with Prior's poem in his History of English'Poetry,' sect, xliv ; vol. iii. p. 1 2 4, ed. 1840. He :— remarks ' Whatdegree of credit this poem maintained among our earlier ancestors,I cannot determine. I suspect the sentiment was too refinedfor the general taste. Yet it is enumerated among the populartales and ballads by Laneham, in his narrative of queen Elizabeth'sentertainment at Kenilworth Castle in 1575.' See alsoMr. Hales' remarks in his ' Percy Folio ]MS.,' vol. ii. pp. xxviiand 334. A modernized version of a considerable part of it isin 'Chambers' Cyclopaedia of English Literature,' vol. i. p. 57.The reader must observe that, after a short introduction by theauthor, it takes the form of a dialogue between two lovers, inalternate stanzas ; the knight speaks at the end of stanza 3, andin stanzas 5, 7, &c., and the lady at the end of stanza 4, and instanzas 6, 8, &c.