Oscar Wilde hard labour, the maximum penalty, and was jailed from 1895 to 1897. During his last year in prison, he wrote "De Profundis" (published posthumously in 1905), a long letter which discusses his spiritual journey through his trials, forming a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. On his release, he left immediately for France, never to return to Ireland or Britain. There he wrote his last work, "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" (1898), a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life. He died destitute in Paris at the age of 46. Oscar Wilde was born at 21
The Ballad of Chevy Chase and in it the ballad is called "The Hunting of Cheviot", while the first manuscript version of the ballad was written ca. 1550 (MS Ashmole 48, Bodleian Library). In the seventeenth century, the tune was licensed in 1624 and again in 1675. Sir Philip Sidney said of this early ballad: In 1711 Joseph Addison wrote in "The Spectator", The old song of "Chevy-Chase" is the favourite ballad of the common people of England, and Ben Jonson used to say he had rather have been the author of it than of all his works. Sir Philip Sidney, in his discourse of