Reliques of ancient English poetry: consisting of old heroic ballads ...

296
ANCIENT SONGS
Then clafping both her new-found fons,
She bath'd their cheeks with tears ;
And foon towards her brother's court
Her joyful courfe ihe fleers.
What pen can paint king Pepin's joy, 22$
His filter thus reftor'd !
And foon a meifenger was fent
To chear her drooping lord :
Who came in hafle with all his peers,
To fetch her home to Greece ;
Where many happy years they reign'd
In perfeft love and peace.
To them fir Urfine did fucceed,
And long the fcepter bare.
250
Sir Valentine he ftay'd in France, 235
And was his uncle's heir.
***
XIII.
THE DRAGON OF WANTLEY.
T'his humorous fong (as a former Editor f has voell ob-
ferved) is to old metrical romances and ballads of chivalry,
nvhat Don Quixote is to profe narratives of that kind
-—a lively fatire on their extravagant fictions. But althd i
thefatire is thus general ; the jubjetl of this balladfesms
local and peculiar ;
mour a,re lojl for ivant of our knowing the particular fails
•f-
Jo that many ofthefnejljlrokes of hu-
Collection of Hiftorlcal Ballads in 3 vol. 172.7.
: