The lines quoted by L. are the first two (a little altered) in the opening
stanza of a ballad entitled _The Berkshire Lady_. The correct version (I
speak on the authority of a copy which I procured nearly thirty years ago
in the great ballad-mart of those days, the Seven Dials) is,--
"Bachelors of every station,
Mark this strange but true relation,
Which in brief to you I bring;
Never was a stranger thing."
The ballad is an account of "love at first sight," inspired in the breast
of a young lady, wealthy and beautiful of course, but who, disdaining such
adventitious aids, achieves at the sword's point, and covered with a mask,
her marriage with the object of her passion. It is much too long, and not
of sufficient merit, for insertion in "N. & Q."