Had this old song been filled with epigrammatical turns and points of wit, it might perhaps have pleased the wrong taste of some readers; but it would never have become the delight of the common people, nor have warmed the heart of Sir Philip Sidney like the sound of a trumpet; it is only nature that can have this effect, and please those tastes which are the most unprejudiced, or the most refined. I must, however, beg leave to dissent from so great an authority as that of Sir Philip Sidney, in the judgment which he has passed as to the rude style and evil apparel of this antiquated song; for there are several parts in it where not only the thought but the language is majestic, and the numbers sonorous; at least the apparel is much more gorgeous than many of the poets made use of in Queen Elizabeth's time, as the reader will see in several of the following quotations. What can be greater than either the thought or the expression in that stanza, To drive the deer with hound and horn Earl Percy took his way; The child may rue that is unborn The hunting of that day! This way of considering the misfortunes which this battle would bring upon posterity, not only on those who were born immediately after the battle, and lost their fathers in it, but on those also who perished in future battles which took their rise from this quarrel of the two earls, is wonderfully beautiful and conformable to the way of thinking among the ancient poets. _Audiet pugnas vitio parentum_. _ Rara juventus_. HOR., _Od._ i. 2, 23. Posterity, thinn'd by their fathers' crimes, Shall read, with grief, the story of their times. What can be more sounding and poetical, or resemble more the majestic simplicity of the ancients, than the following stanzas?-- The stout Earl of Northumberland A vow to God did make, His pleasure in the Scottish woods Three summer's days to take. With fifteen hundred bowmen bold, All chosen men of might, Who knew full well, in time of need, To aim their shafts aright. The hounds ran swiftly through the woods The nimble deer to take, And with their cries the hills and dales An echo shrill did make. --_Vocat ingenti clamore Cithaeron_, _Taygetique canes_, _domitrixque Epidaurus equorum_: _Et vox assensu memorum ingeminata remugit_. VIRG., _Georg._ iii. 43. Cithaeron loudly calls me to my way: Thy hounds, Taygetus, open, and pursue their prey: High Epidaurus urges on my speed, Famed for his hills, and for his horses' breed: From hills and dales the cheerful cries rebound: For Echo hunts along, and propagates the sound. DRYDEN. Lo, yonder doth Earl Douglas come, His men in armour bright; Full twenty hundred Scottish spears, All marching in our sight. All men of pleasant Tividale, Fast by the river Tweed, &c.