["J.W." (Norwich), and "A.R." (Kenilworth), have each kindly
sent us a copy of the ballad. "F.M." informs us that it exists
as a broadside, printed and sold in Aldermary Church-yard, Bow
Lane, London, under the title of "King Henry V., his Conquest of
France, in Revenge for the Affront offered him by the French
King, in sending him (instead of the tribute due) a ton of
tennis balls." And, lastly, the "Rev. J.R. WREFORD" has called
our attention to the fact that it is printed in the collection
of _Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of
England_, edited by Mr. Dixon for the Percy Society in 1846.
Mr. Dixon's version was taken down from the singing of an
eccentric character, known as the "Skipton Minstrel," and who
used to sing it to the tune of "_The Bold Pedlar and Robin
Hood_."]
_Monody on the Death of Sir John Moore_ (No. 20. p. 320.).--This Query
has brought us a number of communications from "A.G.," "J.R.W.,"
"G.W.B.," "R.S.," and "The Rev. L. COOPER," who writes as follows:--
"The undoubted author is the late Rev. Charles Wolfe, a young
Irishman, curate of Donoughmore, diocese of Armagh, who died
1823, in the 32nd year of his age. His _Life and Remains_ were
edited by the Archdeacon of Clogher; and a _fifth_ edition of
the vol., which is an 8vo., was published in 1832 by Hamilton,
Adams, and Co., Paternoster Row. At the 25th page of the Memoir
there is the narration of an interesting discussion between Lord
Byron, Shelley, and others, as to the most perfect ode that had
ever been produced. Shelley contended for Coleridge's on
Switzerland; others named Campbell's Hohenlinden and Lord
Byron's Invocation in Manfred. But Lord Byron left the
dinner-table before the cloth was removed, and returned with a
magazine, from which he read this monody, which just then
appeared anonymously. After he had read it, he repeated the
third stanza, and pronounced it perfect, and especially the
lines:-- {446}
"'But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him.'
"'I should have taken the whole,' said Shelley, 'for a rough
sketch of Campbell's.'
"'No,' replied Lord Byron, 'Campbell would have claimed it, had
it been his.'
"The Memoir contains the fullest details on the subject of the
authorship, Mr. Wolfe's claim to which was also fully
established by the Rev. Dr. Miller, late Fellow of Trinity,
Dublin, and author of _Lectures on the Philosophy of Modern
History_."
[With regard to the French translation, professing to be a
monody on Lally Tollendal, and to be found in the Appendix to
his Memoirs, it was only a clever hoax from the ready pen of
Father Prout, and first appears in Bentley's _Miscellany_. No
greater proof of the inconvenience of facetiæ of this peculiar
nature can be required than the circumstance, that the
_fiction_, after a time, gets mistaken for a fact: and, as we
learn in the present case, the translation has been quoted in a
French newspaper as if it was really what it pretends to be.]
* * * * *