"Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, and William of Cloudeslie" was first printed by Copland about 1550. A fragment has been found of an earlier impression. Laneham, in 1575, in his Kenilworth Letter, included "Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, and William of Cloudeslie" among the light reading of Captain Cox. In the books of the Stationers' Company (for the printing and editing of which we are deeply indebted to Professor Arber), there is an entry between July 1557 and July 1558, "To John kynge to prynte this boke Called Adam Bell etc. and for his lycense he giveth to the howse." On the 15th of January 1581-2 "Adam Bell" is included in a list of forty or more copyrights transferred from Sampson Awdeley to John Charlewood; "A Hundred Merry Tales" and Gower's "Confessio Amantis" being among the other transfers. On the 16th of August 1586 the Company of Stationers "Alowed vnto Edward white for his copies these fyve ballades so that they be tollerable:" four only are named, one being "A ballad of William Clowdisley, never printed before." Drayton wrote in the "Shepheard's Garland" in 1593:-- "Come sit we down under this hawthorn tree, The morrow's light shall lend us day enough-- And tell a tale of Gawain or Sir Guy, Of Robin Hood, or of good Clem of the Clough." Ben Jonson, in his "Alchemist," acted in 1610, also indicates the current popularity of this tale, when Face, the housekeeper, brings Dapper, the lawyer's clerk, to Subtle, and recommends him with-- "'slight, I bring you No cheating Clim o' the Clough or Claribel." "Binnorie," or "The Two Sisters," is a ballad on an old theme popular in Scandinavia as well as in this country. There have been many versions of it. Dr. Rimbault published it from a broadside dated 1656. The version here given is Sir Walter Scott's, from his "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," with a few touches from other versions given in Professor Francis James Child's noble edition of "The English and Scottish Popular Ballads," which, when complete, will be the chief storehouse of our ballad lore. "King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid" is referred to by Shakespeare in "Love's Labour's Lost," Act iv. sc I; in "Romeo and Juliet," Act ii. sc. I; and in "II. Henry IV.," Act iii. sc. 4. It was first printed in 1612 in Richard Johnson's "Crown Garland of Goulden Roses gathered out of England's Royall Garden. Being the Lives and Strange Fortunes of many Great Personages of this Land, set forth in many pleasant new Songs and Sonnets never before imprinted." "Take thy Old Cloak about thee," was published in 1719 by Allan Ramsay in his "Tea-Table Miscellany," and was probably a sixteenth century piece retouched by him. Iago sings the last stanza but one--"King Stephen was a worthy peer," etc.--in "Othello," Act ii. sc. 3. In "Othello," Act iv. sc. 3, there is also reference to the old ballad of "Willow, willow, willow."