The English Spy, page 569 by Bernard Blackmantle
<< Return to Title Details & Download570
"A right merrie conceit it is," said Blackstrap, "and an excellent memoranda of the eminent book-sellers of the present time." "Ay, sir," continued the veteran; "all our old ballads had the merit of being useful, as well as amusing. There was 'Chevy Chase, and 'King John and his Barons,' and 'Merry Sherwood,' all of them exquisite chants; conveying information to the mind, and relating some grand historical fact, while they charmed the ear. But ~262~~your modern kickshaws are all about 'No, my love, no,' or 'Sigh no more, lady,' or some such silly stuff that nobody cares to learn the words of, or can understand if they did. I remember composing a ballad in this town myself, some few years since, on a very strange adventure that happened to one of our commercial brethren. He had bought an old hunter at Bristol to finish his journey homeward with, on account of his former horse proving lame, and just as he was entering Cheltenham by the turnpike-gate at the end of the town, the whole of the Berkeley Hunt were turning out for a day's run, and having found, shot across the road in full cry. Away went the dogs, and away went the huntsmen, and plague of any other way would the old hunter go: so, despite of the two hundred weight of perfumery samples contained in his saddle-bags, away went Delcroix's deputy over hedge and ditch, and straight forward for a steeple chase up the Cleigh Hills; but in coming down rather briskly, the courage of the old horse gave way, and down he came as groggy before as a Chelsea pensioner, smashing all the appendages of trade, and spilling their contents upon the ground, besides raising such an odoriferous effluvia on the field, that every one present smelt the joke.--But you shall have the song."
THE KNIGHT OF THE SADDLE-BAGS;
A TRUE RELATION OF A TRAVELLER'S ADVENTURE AT CHELTENHAM.
Tune--The Priest of Kajaga.
A knight of the saddle-bags, jolly and gay, Rode near to blithe Cheltenham's town; His coat was a drab, and his w