Popular Music Of The Olden Time Vol 1

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	172	ENGLISH SONG AND BALLAD MUSIC.
	a craggy rock, a mile distant from Warwick. Tune, Was ever man, &c." Other copies are in the Pepys Collection; Roxburghe, iii. 50 ; and in Percy's Jteliques, series 3, book ii. It is quoted in Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle, act ii., sc. 8; and in The little French Lawyer, act ii., sc. 3. William of Nassyngton (about 1480) mentions stories of Sir Guy as usually sung by minstrels at feasts. (See ante page 45.) Puttenham, in his Art of Poetry, 1589, says they were then commonly sung to the harp at Christmas dinners and bride-ales, for the recreation of the lower classes. And in Dr. King's Dialogues of the Dead, "It is the negligence of our ballad singers that makes us to be talked of less than others: for who, almost, besides St. Gteorge, King Arthur, Bevis, Guy, and Hichathrift, are in the chronicles."—(Vol. i., p. 153.) This tune is from the ballad-opera of Bolin Hood, 1730, called Sir Ghty.