#a.# Roxburghe Ballads, I, 190, in the Ballad Society’s reprint, ed.
W. Chappell, I, 587. #b.# Rawlinson Ballads, 566, fol. 205.
#a# WAS printed at London for F. Coules, who, according to Mr Chappell,
flourished during the last five years of James First’s reign and
throughout that of Charles First: dated by Mr Bullen, 1640. #b# was
printed for F. Coles, T. Vere, and J. Wright, 1655–80 (Chappell). There
is another copy in the Euing collection, No 166, printed for Francis
Coles in the Old Bayly, who may be the same person as the printer of
#a#; and a fourth in the Douce collection, II, 137, _verso_, without
printer’s name. A copy differing from #a# by only three words is given
by R. H. Evans, Old Ballads, 1810, I, 88.
Burton, in the fifth edition of his Anatomy of Melancholy, Oxford, 1638,
p. 536, says: “The very rusticks and hog-rubbers ... have their ballads,
country tunes, O the broome, the bonny, bonny broome,” etc. (Chappell).
This remark is not found in the fourth edition, Oxford, 1632, p. 544.
Concerning the air, see Chappell’s Popular Music, pp. 458–61, 613, 783.