Note Note — No 59 THE SIMPLE PLOUGHBOY

59. The Simple Ploughboy. This charming ballad was taken down, words and music, from J. Masters, Bradstone. The Broadside versions that were published by Fortey, Hodges, Taylor of Spitalfields, Ringham of Lincoln, and Pratt of Birmingham, are all very corrupt. The version of old Masters is given exactly as he sang it, and it is but one instance out of many of the superiority of the ballads handed down traditionally in the country by unlettered men, to those picked up from the ballad-mongers employed by the Broadside publishers.