111. THE MARIGOLD. This ballad was first taken down by Davies Gilbert in 1830 from an old man named John Hockin, in his eighty-sixth year, at St. Erth, Cornwall. The melody, which is very early, was, curiously enough, used by William Aggett for Hook's song, "On board the ninety-eight." Hook was born in 1746, and the melody is probably two centuries earlier than his time. There was another Bristol ballad, "The Honour of Bristol, showing how the Angel Gabriel of Bristol fought with three Spanish Ships, who boarded us Seven times, wherein we cleared our Decks, and killed Five hundred of their men, and wounded many more, and made them flye into Cales when we lost but three men, to the Honour of the Angel Gabriel of Bristol," priced in Russell Smith's Catalogue at £2, 12s. 6d. We have taken down the ballad, "Come all ye worthy Christian men," to this melody, which is in the Dorian mode. A fragment of this latter ballad is given in _Folk-Song Journal_, vol. i. p. 74, taken down in Sussex, in five verses. We have had it twice: once from J. Dingle, Coryton, and once as learned in 1820 by George Radford, from a blind fiddler at Washfield, near Tiverton, and "pricked down" by H. Pinkney, gardener, Washfield. Mr. Sharp has also met with it in Rackenford, N. Devon. The air in Sussex is not the same. In "Hakluyt's Voyages," vol. iii. (1600), is an account of "The Voyage of the ship called the Marigold of Mr. Hill of Redrife unto Cape Breton and beyond, to the latitude of 44 degrees and a half, 1593, written by Rd. Fisher, Master Hille's man of Redriffe." So also Hakluyt mentions "the Marigold 70 tunnes in burthen, furnished with 20 men, whereof ten were mariners," which is stated to have "departed out of Falmouth, the 1st June, 1593," commanded by Richard Strong, "bound for an island within the straights of S. Peter on the backe side of Newfoundland to the S.W. in the lat. of 47 degrees." In Latimer's 17th century "Annals of Bristol" is mention made of a ship "The Marigold," under the date 1627-8, of seventy tons, owned by Mr. Ellis. It was granted letters of marque to prey upon the enemy's commerce; but no mention is made of Sir Thomas Merrifield. The _Redrife_ above is Redcliffe, Bristol. Bristol was spelled _Bristow_ in maps of the city published in 1568 and 1610, but in one of 1671 it is spelled Bristoll. I have been unable to find Sir Thomas Merrifield in any lists of knights; but before the reign of James I. no official record of knights was kept.