could not keep it up any longer. The reasons of all this
conjectural criticism are a curious illustration of perverse ingenuity.
Aubrey's manuscript note has shown us that the Bedlam's horn was also a
_drinking-horn_, and Edgar closes his speech in the perfection of the
assumed character, and not as one who had grown weary of it, by making
the mendicant lunatic desirous of departing from a heath, to march, as
he cries, "to wakes, and fairs, and market-towns--Poor Tom! thy horn is
dry!" as more likely places to solicit alms; and he is thinking of his
_drink-money_, when he cries that "_his horn is dry_."

An itinerant lunatic, chanting wild ditties, fancifully attired, gay
with the simplicity of childhood, yet often moaning with the sorrows of
a troubled man, a mixture of character at once grotesque and plaintive,
became an interesting object to poetical minds. It is probable that the
character of Edgar, in the _Lear_ of Shakspeare, first introduced the
hazardous conception into the poetical world. Poems composed in the
character of a Tom o' Bedlam appear to have formed a fashionable class
of poetry among the wits; they seem to have held together their poetical
contests, and some of these writers became celebrated for their
successful efforts, for old Izaak Walton mentions a "Mr. William Basse,
as one who has made the choice songs of 'The Hunter in his career,' and
of 'Tom o' Bedlam,' and many others of note." Bishop Percy, in his
"Reliques of Ancient English Poetry," has preserved six of what he calls
"Mad Songs," expressing his surprise that the English should have "more
songs and ballads on the subject of madness than any of their
neighbours," for such are not found in the collection of songs of the
French, Italian, &c., and nearly insinuates, for their cause, that we
are perhaps more liable to the calamity of madness than other nations.
This superfluous criticism had been spared had that elegant collector
been aware of the circumstance which had produced this class of poems,
and recollected the more ancient original in the Edgar of Shakspeare.
Some of the "Mad Songs" which the bishop has preserved are of too modern
a date to suit the title of his work; being written by Tom D'Urfey, for
his comedies of Don Quixote. I shall preserve one of more ancient date,
fraught with all the wild spirit of this peculiar character.[180]

This poem must not be read without a continued reference to the
personated character. Delirious