"Besides, I had such a flattering tongue, The ladies laughed whene'er I sung; I had a voice so sweet and fine That every lady's heart was mine." 118. THE OLD MAN CAN'T KEEP HIS WIFE AT HOME. The curious rugged melody was taken down from a very old fiddler named William Andrews, at Sheepstor, by Mr. Bussell. The old fellow did not recall all the words, but remembered the story. According to his account this was a dance tune to which the performers sang in accompaniment to the music and tramp of feet. I have had to re-compose the ballad from the fragment and the story. It bears a family resemblance to "The Old Couple" given in "The Garland of Country Song," p. 100. In the story the old man locks his wife out. She threatens to drown herself, and throws a stone into the well. The old man, when he hears the splash, descends, opens the door, and goes forth to see whether his wife really has drowned herself. At once she slips in at the open door and locks him out. The story is very ancient. It occurred in the lost Sanscrit book of tales of which Persian and Arabic and Turkish versions exist, and which filtered into Europe through Greek and Latin and Hebrew translations. This story came into Dolopathos and the Seven Wise Masters. The French and Latin versions were made in the 13th century. But the story had already got to Europe through the converted Jew, Peter Alphonsus, who inserted it in his "Disciplina Clericalis," written in 1062. From this it got into some of the versions of the "Gesta Romanorum," and finally into Boccaccio's "Decameron," seventh day, tale 4. To give the whole story in ballad form would have made the ballad too long; I have therefore reduced it to three verses, and have given it, from the man's point of view, a happier termination. The tune is clearly a bagpipe air with drone. 119. SWEET, FAREWELL. Taken down from Samuel Fone, of Mary Tavy, in 1889, the music noted by Mr. Bussell. Fone had forgotten the two last lines of verse 1 and the two first of verse 2. The air is pleasant, but the words are naught. 120. OLD ADAM, THE POACHER. This curious melody was taken down by Mr. Bussell from the fiddling of William Andrews, Sheepstor. We saw the old man a little over a year before his death. He brought out and lent us a collection of MS. violin tunes, but all of these were well-known, old-fashioned dance airs. Then he played to us several not in his book that were traditional at Sheepstor. This was one of them, a dance tune; but he could not recall the words, only he knew that they told of the adventures of "Old Adam, the Poacher." Mr. Sheppard arranged this for "English Minstrelsy," but did not perceive that the first four lines of air have to be repeated to complete the tune; and in taking the melody from the fiddler, one could not detect at first, not knowing the words, where the tune precisely ended. It seems, however, obvious that there is a repeat of the first strain. I wrote the words.