Barnw. Lift up your dying eyes, and view your Nephew in your Murderer.-Act III. Scene the last.

Learn to be wise from others harm

And you shall do full well

Old Ballad of the Lady's Fall.

1

THE

BALLAD

OF

GEORGE BARNWELL,

Collated by Dr. Thomas Percy, Bishop of Dromore, with a copy in the Ashmole collection at Oxford; entitled, "An excellent Ballad of George Barn"well, an apprentice of London who thrice robb'd "his master & murdered his uncle in Ludlow"

The Tune is "The Merchant"

The Bishop observes, "The Ballad was printed at "least as early as the middle of the 17th Century: "the tragical narrative seems to relate a real fact; "but when it happened I have not been able to "discover."

The stanza wherein George Barnwell is said to have visited Millwood on Sunday "Having a mighty

sum of money in my hand" seems to fix the period of writing the ballad some time previous to the Civil Wars, before which Sunday was not strictly observed in England.

THE FIRST PART.

"All Youths of Fair England"
"That dwell both far & near,"
"Regard my story that I tell,"
"And to my song give ear."
"A London lad I was,"

"A Merchants 'prentice bound;"

'

My name George Barnwell; that did spend"

My Master many a pound."

8

"Take heed of harlots then,"

"And their enticing trains;"

"For by that means I have been brought" "To hang alive in chains."

12