ey sing,
When they mourned the sad loss of their good little King.

His portrait you must have observed,
In remarkably good preservation,
For his eminent virtues deserved
You'll allow, a conspicuous station:
"The King's Head" still continues his name,
Where full often the people on holidays
As they tipple, still talk of his name,
In lamenting the end of his jolly days.

CHORUS.

"Lack a-day, well-a-day!" thus do they sing.
And mourn for the loss of their good little King.

H.

* * * * *

TO A LADY WHO SAID SHE WAS THE SAME AGE AS HIMSELF.

FROM THE FRENCH OF BERANGER.

(_For the Mirror._)

Our ages are the same, you say,
But know that love believes it not;
The Fates, a wager I would lay,
Our tangled threads shared out by lot;
What part to each they did assign
The world, fair dame, can plainly see;
The Spring and Summer days were thine,
Autumn and Winter came to me. H.

* * * * *

ENGLISH BALLAD SINGING.

(_For the Mirror._)

The minstrels were once a great and flourishing body in England; but
their dignity being interwoven with the illusory splendour of feudal
institutions, declined on the advance of moral cultivation: they became
in time vulgar mountebanks and jugglers, and in the reign of Elizabeth
were _suppressed_ as rogues and vagabonds. Banished from the highways
they betook themselves to alehouses--followed the trade of pipers and
fiddlers--and minstrelsy was no longer known in England.

The suppression of "the order" of minstrels, gave rise to that of the
Ballad-singers, who relied upon the quality of their voices for success.
The subjects of many of the songs handed down by the minstrels were
still held in honour by the ballad-singers. The feats of "Elym of the
Clough," "Randle of Chester," and "Sir Topaz," which had faded under
the kind keeping of the minstrels, were now refreshed and brought more
boldly in the new version before the sense. Robin Hood and Friar Tuck
had their honours enlarged by the new dynasty; more maidens and heroes
were inspired by their misfortunes. Drayton's allusions to the
propagation of Robin's fame may give an idea of the diffusion of the
ballad-singers:

"In this our spacious isle I think there is not one,
But he hath heard some talk of him and Little John;
But to the end of time the tales shall ne'er be done,
Of Scarl