The ballad has clearly an Irish origin, what air is used for it in Ireland I am unable to say. It has been generally accepted that the ending of a phrase on the same three notes is characteristic of Irish music. It is not more so than of English folk airs. "Flora, the Lily of the West" was wont to be sung annually at the Revel at St. Breward's on the Bodmin Moors, and can be traced back there to 1839. There Henry Hawken, sexton at Michaelstow, hard by, acquired it, and from him the first melody was taken down as well by the Rev. W.J. Wyon, vicar of St. Issey, in 1899. 59. THE SIMPLE PLOUGHBOY. This charming ballad was taken down, words and music, from J. Masters, Bradstone. The Broadside versions that were published by Fortey, Hodges, Taylor of Spitalfields, Ringham of Lincoln, and Pratt of Birmingham, are all very corrupt. The version of old Masters is given exactly as he sang it, and it is but one instance out of many of the superiority of the ballads handed down traditionally in the country by unlettered men, to those picked up from the ballad-mongers employed by the Broadside publishers. A version of the song, "It's of a Pretty Ploughboy," is given in the _Folk-Song Journal_, vol. i. p. 132, as taken down in Sussex. The words are very corrupt, and they closely resemble those on Broadsides. 60. FAIR LADY PITY ME. Taken down from a labouring man at Exbourne. The melody is ancient and dates from the Tudor period. The words are a fragment from "The Noble Lord's Cruelty," "Roxburgh Ballads," ed. Ebsworth, vi. 681-3. Its date is before 1624. But that was to be sung to the tune, "Dainty come Thou to Me," which is in Chappell, ii. p. 517. A ballad, "The Four Wonders of the Land," printed by P. Brocksby, 1672-95, was set to the tune, "Dear Love Regard My Grief," which are the initial words of this song, and shows that already the long ballad had been broken up. This song has already been given, arranged by Dr. Bussell, who took it down, in "English Minstrelsie," iv. p. 84. 61. THE PAINFUL PLOUGH. Words and melody from Roger Huggins, mason, Lydford. It is in reality a much longer song. Under the title of "The Ploughman's Glory" it runs to 25 verses. Bell gives 9 in his "Ballads of the English Peasantry." It is found on Broadsides. In the original it consists of a contention between a ploughman and a gardener as to which exercises the noblest profession. Our air is not the same as that to which the song is sung in the Midlands and south-east of England. Dr. Barrett gives the song in his "English Folk-Songs," No. 3, to a North Country air.