The next two ballads belong to a class of tales extremely numerous in England, in which the sovereign is represented as conversing on terms of good fellowship with one of his humbler subjects who is unacquainted with the royal person. In several of the best of these stories, the monarch is benighted in the forest, and obliged to demand hospitality of the first man he meets. He is at first viewed with suspicion and treated with rudeness, but soon wins favor by his affability and good humor, and is invited to partake of a liberal supper, composed in part of his own venison. In due time the king reveals his true character to his astonished and mortified host, who looks to be punished alike for his familiarity and for deer-stealing, but is pardoned for both, and even handsomely rewarded for his entertainment. The earliest of these stories seems to be that of King Alfred and the Neatherd, in which the herdsman's wife plays the offending part, and the peasant himself is made Bishop of Winchester. Others of very considerable antiquity are the tales of Henry II. and the Cistercian Abbot in the _Speculum Ecclesiæ_ of Giraldus Cambrensis, (an. 1220,) printed in _Reliquiæ Antiquæ_, i. 147; _King Edward and the Shepherd_, and _The King_ [Edward] _and the Hermit_, in Hartshorne's _Metrical Tales_, (p. 35, p. 293, the latter previously in _The British Bibliographer_, iv. 81;) _Rauf Coilzear, how he harbreit King Charlis_, in Laing's _Select Remains; John the Reeve_, an unprinted piece in the Percy MS., founded on an adventure between King Edward I. and one of his bailiffs, which is highly commended by Dr. Percy "for its genuine humor, diverting incidents, and faithful picture of rustic manners;" and _The King and the Barker_, the original of the present ballad. (See also the seventh and eighth fits of the _Little Gest of Robin Hood_.) More recent specimens are the two pieces here given, and others mentioned by Percy: _King Henry and the Soldier_, _King Henry VIII. and the Cobbler_, _King James I. and the Tinker_, _King William and the Forester, &c._ It is obvious that a legend of immemorial antiquity has been transferred by successive minstrels or story-tellers to the reigning monarch of their own times. An anecdote of the same character is related by Mr. Wright of Prince George of Denmark, and a poor artisan of Bristol, (_Essays_, ii. 172.)