_Henry and the Nut-brown Maid._--SEARCH would be obliged for any
information as to the authorship of this beautiful ballad.

[Mr. Wright, in his handsome black-letter reprint, published by
Pickering in 1836, states, that "it is impossible to fix the
date of this ballad," and has not attempted to trace the
authorship. We shall be very glad if SEARCH's Query should
produce information upon either of these points.]

* * * * *


REPLIES.

FRENCH POEM BY MALHERBE.

The two stanzas your correspondent E.R.C.B. has cited (Vol. ii., p. 71.)
are from an elegiac poem by MALHERBE (who died in 1628, at the good old
age of seventy-three), which is entitled _Consolation à Monsieur Du
Perrier sur la Mort de sa Fille_. It has always been a great favorite of
mine; for, like Gray's Elegy and the celebrated _Coplas_ of Jorge
Manrique on the death of his father, beside its philosophic moralising
strain, it has that pathetic character which makes its way at once to
the heart. I will transcribe the first four stanzas for the sake of the
beauty of the fourth:--

"Ta douleur, Du Perrier, sera done éternelle,
Et les tristes discours
Que te met en l'esprit l'amitié paternelle
L'augmenteront toujours.