CHEVY CHASE, che'vi chas, the name of a celebrated border ballad probably founded on some actual encounter occurring between Percy and Douglas, although the incidents mentioned in it are not historical. It is this ballad that Sir Philip Sydney speaks of when he says, in his (Defense of Poetry,' I never heard the old song of Percie and Douglas that I found not my heart moved more than with a trum pet"; and which is made the subject of a critique by Addison in Nos. 70 and 74 of the Spectator. On account of the similarity of the incidents in this ballad to those of (The Battle of Otterbourne,' the two ballads have often been confounded; but the probability is that if any historical event is celebrated at all in the ballad of Chevy Chase, it is different from that celebrated in (The Battle of Otter bourne,' and that the similarity is to be ex plained by supposing that tke incidents were borrowed.
There are two versions of the ballad bearing the name of Chevy Chase, an older one and a more modern one. The older version is some times called the
As for the author, it is true that a manuscript of the ballad contained in the Ashmolean col lection at Oxford is subscribed by one Rychard Sheale, but it is likely that this litychard Sheale was merely one who had frequently recited the ballad, and perhaps the person who committed this old version to paper. This is probably the version with which Sir Philip Sydney was ac quainted, since he speaks of it as ((evil apparelled in the dust and cobweb of an uncivil age.* The age of the more modern version is no better known than that of the older one, but it is said by Dr. Rimbault to be no later than the reign of Charles II. This is the version which forms the subject of the critique by Addison in the above-mentioned numbers of the Spec tator. The following is the opening stanza as given in Percy's 'Reliques' : " God prosper long our noble king,
Our lives and safetyes all; A woefull hunting once there did In Chevy-Chace befall."