t arose, and listened
outside his door. A fit he was in--sure enough--of laughter. He was
sitting up in bed, rocking backwards and forwards, and ever and again
ejaculating, "Why, John bor, yeou must ha' meant to bile yar master
alive." And then he went off into another roar.

IV. CAPTAIN WARD.

"That piece of song,
That old and antique song we heard last night."

--'Twelfth Night,' II. iv.

This old song was lately taken down from the lips of an old Suffolk (Monk
Soham) labourer, who has known it and sung it since he was a boy. The
song is of much repute in the parish where he lives, and may possibly be
already in print. At all events it is a genuine "old and antique" song,
whose hero may have been one of the sea captains or rovers who continued
their privateering in the Spanish Main and elsewhere, and upon all
comers, long after all licence from the Crown had ceased. The Rainbow
was the name of one of the ships which formed the English fleet when they
defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588, and she was re-commissioned,
apparently about 1618. The two verses in brackets are from the version
of another labourer in my parish, who also furnished some minor _variae
lectiones_, as "robber" for "rover," "Blake" for "Wake," &c.

RECTOR.

Come, all ye valiant soldiers
That march to follow the drum,
Let us go meet with Captain Ward
When on the sea he come.

He is as big a rover
As ever you did hear,
Yeou hain't h'ard of such a rover
For many a hundred year.

There was three ships come sailing
From the Indies to the West,
Well loaded with silks and satins
And welwets of the best.

Who should they meet but Captain Ward,
It being a bad meeting,
He robbed them of all their wealth,
Bid them go tell the King.

["Go ye home, go ye home," says Captain Ward,
"And tell your King from me,
If he reign King of the countrie,
I will be King at Sea."]

Away went these three gallant ships,
Sailing down of the main,
Telling to the King the news
That Ward at sea would reign.

The King he did prepare a ship,
A ship of gallant fame,
She's called the gallant Rainbow--
Din't yeou niver hear her name?

She was as well purwided
As e'er a ship could be,
She had three hundred men on board
To bear her company.

Oh then the gallant Rainbow
Sailed where the rover laid;
"Where is the captain of your ship?"
The gallant Rainbow said.

"Here am I,"