myslykeng his lybertie soughte his owne bondage through his owne folly." No. 6 begins,
The life that erst thou ledst my friend,
was pleasant to thine eies:
But now the losse of libertie,
thou seemest to despise,
and evidently appeared shortly after the original "newe ballet." Both ballads were probably suggested by one beginning,
My frynd, the lyf I lead at all
By thes fewe wordes perceave youe shall,
which was registered (Trans., I, 306) a few days before "A newe ballet" and which is preserved in Bodleian MS. Ashmole 48 (ed. Wright, p. 38). It seems certain that No. 6 had appeared before the 1566 Pleasant Sonnets was compiled, and that the ballad of "The Louer wounded with his Ladies beauty craueth mercy, to the Tune of where is the life that late I led," printed in the Gorgious Gallery, 1578 (Collier's reprint, p. 51), is an imitation of it, not vice versa. The tune of "Where is the life that late I led" was, as No. 23 below shows, exactly the same as "Appelles," an additional proof of the priority of the Handfull ballad over the Gallery one.
7. "A new Courtly Sonet, of the Lady Green sleeues. To the new tune of Greensleeues."
Chappell (Popular Music, I, 228) believed that the tune of Green Sleeves must belong to Henry VIII's reign; but the name occurs in the Stationers' Registers for the first time on September 3, 1580(Trans., II, 376), when Richard Jones licensed "A newe northen Dittye of ye Ladye greene sleves." Several other "Green Sleeves" ballads were licensed within a short space (Trans., II, 378, 384, 388, 400). No. 7, then, as Arber suggested, must have been added to the 1584 edition of the Handfull.
8. "A proper sonet, wherin the Louer dolefully sheweth his grief. . . . To the tune of, Row wel ye Marriners."
The tune is noted in Popular Music, I, 112. A ballad called "Roowe well ye marynors &c" was licensed by W. Pekering in 1565–66, and was widely imitated and moralized in the months that followed (Trans., I, 305, 340, 342, 355, 360, 362, 401). No. 8, it seems reasonable to assume, was written in 1565–66,
