“A man in your likeness, With long yellow hair, _Did_ once come a-courting My father’s grey mare.” “Eggs in the basket,” narrating the adventures of two sailors, of which there are several versions in the _Folk-Song Journal_, comes under the category of humorous songs, and the Devonshire song “Widdicombe Fair” has, since its publication in _Songs of the West_, met with wide appreciation. Songs in dispraise of a married life are not frequent in folk-song, but there is a well-known one in “Advice to Bachelors,” in Dr Barrett’s _English Folk-Songs_, that appears to be a genuine folk-song. Its end verse contains the gist of the story. A criminal under the gallows is offered free pardon if he will marry, but— “He pondered deep, for life is dear, But still he thought without a fear That wives are cheap, and he knew well How much his sorrows one might swell. There’s people here of every sort, And why should I prevent their sport? The bargain’s hard in every part; But the woman’s the worst— Drive on the cart!” XIV. HIGHWAYMAN AND POACHER SONGS If the pressgang was an unpleasant factor in eighteenth century life, so also were the footpad and highwayman. The highwayman generally claimed the sympathy of the folk-song maker on the ground that— “He never robbed a poor man upon the King’s highway,” and that his takings from the rich were distributed among the poor. This atoned for all crimes against person and property that were committed by such men as “Brennan on the Moor,” the hero of a very favourite ballad. Sometimes these highwayman songs take a more moral tone, and the criminal, in the condemned cell, offers his fate as a warning to others. Charles Reilly, for example, sings— “Adieu, adieu, I must meet my fate, I was brought up in a tender state, Until bad counsel did me entice To leave off work, and follow vice. Which makes me to lament and say, As in my doleful cell I lay, ‘Pity the fall of young fellows all; Ah well a day! Ah well a day!’ At seventeen I took a wife; She was the joy of all my life, And to maintain her rich and gay, I went to rob on the King’s highway, Which makes me to lament and say,” etc. Poaching was a matter so near the class that sang folk-songs that as a subject it could not fail in interest. If the folk-singer was not himself a poacher he was sufficiently in touch to feel a brotherly sympathy with him in his misfortunes, and in his triumphs, over the gamekeeper. As a consequence there are many poaching songs well known in rural districts, as—“Young Henry the poacher,” “The Sledmere poachers,” “The death of Bill Brown,” “Hares in the old plantation,” etc.