“Oh, most gracious and merciful Lord God,” writes this devoutest of old bucks, “wonderful is Thy providence. I return humble thanks to Thee for care Thou has always taken of me. I continually meet with most signal instances of this, Thy providence, and one act of yesterday, when I unexpectedly met with three old manuscripts, for which in a particular manner I return my thanks, beseeching Thee to continue the same protection to me, a poor, helpless sinner, and that for Jesus Christ, his sake.”

The prayer is extant and may be read at the Bodleian, where Hearne was assistant librarian.

This is the Thomas Hearne previously mentioned, born 1678, died 1735.

The “Hunttis of Chevet” is among the “Songs of Natural Mu- sic, of the Antique,” mentioned as sung by the “Shepherds” in the Complaynte of Scotland, 1549.

It was an old and popular song at the middle of the sixteenth century. “The Battle of Otterburn” and “The Hunting of the Cheviot” appear to be founded upon the same occurrence.

M. S. Ashmore, 48, Bodleian Library, in Skeat’s Specimens of English Literature, 1394-1579, third edition, 1880, p. 67.

The ballad has sixty-eight stanzas. The first is:
The Perse owt off Northombarlonde, and avowe to God mayd he
That he wold hunte in mowntayns off Chyviot within days three,
In the magger of doughte Dogles, and all that ever with him be.

Stanza fifty-two:
Thear was slayne, with the Lord Perse,
Ser Johan of Agerstone,
Ser Rogar, the kinde Hartly,
Ser Wyllyam, the bolde Hearone.

[Continued on page 23]