On the 19th of July of that year Belisarius was restored by Justinian to all his honours. Some months of cool reflection had convinced the emperor, that the extorted evidence of a few dependents against an opposition leader, ought not not to outweigh the testimony of a long life of unstained loyalty. The remainder of that life was passed in tranquillity; and in the month of March of the year 565, the patrician Belisarius terminated his glorious career, and his fortune reverted to the imperial treasury. Such is the brief account which we possess of the last days of the conqueror of the Vandals and the Goths—the restorer of the spoils of Jerusalem—the deposer of a Pope—the destroyer of the tomb of Hadrian—and the last of the Romans who triumphed, leading kings captive in his train.[40] Antonina survived her husband, and lived in retirement with Vigilantia, the sister of Justinian, but in the enjoyment of wealth. Before her death she reconstructed the church of St Procopius, which had been destroyed by fire; and it received, from her affection for Justinian's sister, the name of Vigilantia.[41]

We must now notice the accounts of the modern Byzantine writers. George Cedrenus was a monk of the eleventh century, who has left us a history of the world to the year 1057. It contains many popular stories, but often transcribes or abridges official documents as well as ancient historians. In this work we might expect to find any fable, generally accredited, concerning Belisarius; but the account of his latter days is in exact conformity with those of Theophanes and Malalas.[42]

John Zonaras had been Grand Drungary, or First Lord of the Admiralty at Constantinople, before he retired to end his days in a monastery on Mount Athos. His Chronicle extends from the Creation to the year 1118, and contains much information not found elsewhere. He is considered as among the most valuable of the Byzantine historians. He mentions that Belisarius was compromised in the plot against the life of Justinian; that he was deprived of his guards and kept prisoner in his house; and that, when he died, his fortune was taken by the imperial treasury.[43] Consequently Belisarius was in possession of his fortune at the time of his death, and it is possible that Justinian may have been his legal heir.[44]

The chronicle published under the name of Leo Grammaticus, which dates from the twelfth century, states that Belisarius, having been accused of plotting against the Emperor Justinian, died of grief.[45]

Such are the historical accounts which the annals of the Byzantine empire furnish concerning the fate of Belisarius. But, attached to the collection of Justinian's laws, there is a rescript, which would alone afford conclusive evidence of the restoration of Belisarius to all his honours, if we could place implicit reliance on the date it bears. Unfortunately, however, for our purpose, the authority on which Cujacius published it, is not sufficiently established to give satisfactory authenticity to its date. This date is 565, and in the month of March of this year Belisarius died; and in the month of November Justinian also followed him. The rescript speaks of Belisarius incidentally as "our most glorious patrician;" an expression incompatible with his having suffered any great indignity, or remained in permanent disgrace.[46]

We must now turn from examining public history, to consider popular feeling. Belisarius, as we have already observed, was the hero of the Roman world; but another society existed in the very heart of that world, which hated every thing Roman. This society was Greek; it had its own feelings, its own literature, and its own church. Of its literature, Procopius has left us a curious specimen in his Secret History, where the facts of his public Roman history are presented to the discontented Greeks, richly spiced with calumny and libels on the Roman administration. Peculiar circumstances gave the reign of Justinian a prominent position in the history of the world, as the last great era of Roman history, and its memory was long cherished with a feeling of wonder and awe.[47] We must, however, remark, that from the death of Justinian to the accession of Leo III. the Isaurian, the government of the Eastern empire was strictly Roman. From the reign of Leo III. to that of Basil I. the Macedonian (867) if not quite Roman, it was very far from Greek.

Three centuries after the death of Belisarius and Justinian, new feelings arose. The Greeks then looked back on the authentic history of Belisarius as they did on that of Scipio and Sylla,—as a history unconnected with their own national glory, but marking the last conquests which illustrated the annals of the Roman empire, and affording one of those mighty names admirably adapted

"To point a moral, or adorn a tale."

We must now endeavour to prove that its use for this purpose, in the manner transmitted to us, was subsequent to the accession of Basil the Macedonian.

We believe that the blindness and beggary of Belisarius, as recorded in the Greek romance, of which the memory has become a part of the tradition of Western Europe, was suggested to the novelist by the fate of Symbat, an Armenian noble in the Byzantine service, who married the daughter of the Caesar Bardas, the uncle of the Emperor Michael III. The catastrophe of the romance is mentioned by two writers of the twelfth century. One is the anonymous author of a description of Constantinople, who was a cotemporary of Zonaras. The other is John Tzetzes, who wrote a rambling work consisting of mythological and historical notices in Greek political, civil, or profane verse, as it may be called, (versus politici)—the epic poetry of modern Greece; correctly compared by Lord Byron to the heroic strain of

"A captain bold of Halifax who lived in country quarters."

This poet flourished at the end of the twelfth century.

The anonymous Guide-Book, relates that Justinian, envying the glory of Belisarius, put out his eyes, and ordered him to be placed in the Lauron with a bowl of earthenware in his hand, that the charitable might bestow on him an obolus.[48] Tzetzes repeats the same story in his learned doggrel, only he gives Belisarius a wooden dish in his hand, and stations him to beg in the Milion or Stadium of Constantinople. But Tzetzes, who piqued himself on his historical knowledge, candidly tells his readers, that other chronicles say that Belisarius was restored to all his former honours.[49]

The notices of a Greek guide-book, and the tales of a popular versifier, concerning a Roman general, ought certainly to be received with great caution, when they are found to be at variance with all historical evidence. In this case, tradition cannot be admitted to have had any existence for many centuries after the death of Belisarius. The supposed tradition is Greek,—the authentic history is Roman. But historical evidence exists to show that all the details concerning the blindness and beggary of Belisarius have been copied by the author of the romance, from circumstances which occurred at Constantinople in the year 866.

In that year, the Armenian, Symbat, after assisting his wife's cousin the Emperor Michael III. (who rejoiced in the jolly epithet of the Drunkard,) and the future emperor Basil the Macedonian, (who subsequently murdered his patron the Drunkard,) to assassinate his own father-in-law Caesar Bardas, rebelled against his connexion the Drunkard.[50] He engaged Peganes, the general of the theme of Opsikion, or the provinces on the Asiatic shore of the Hellespont, in his rebellion. Peganes was soon taken prisoner by the imperial troops, and the Drunkard ordered his eyes to be put out and his nose to be cut off, and he then sent him to stand in the Milion for three days successively, with a bowl in his hand, to solicit alms. A month after, the news that Symbat was captured was brought to the emperor, while he was feasting in the palace of St Mamas. He ordered Peganes to be led out to meet the new prisoner, that Symbat might be conducted into Constantinople with every possible indignity. The blind and mutilated Peganes was compelled to walk before his friend, with a bowl of earthenware in the form of a censer, filled with sulphur, as if burning incense to perfume him. The right eye of Symbat was put out, and his right hand cut off, and in this state he was placed in the Lauron, like a beggar, with a bowl hung before his breast to receive charity. Three days after, the two rebels were allowed to return to their houses, where they were kept prisoners. Symbat regained possession of his sequestered fortune when Basil the Macedonian became emperor.

Now, even if we admit the possibility of the politic Justinian having treated Belisarius as Michael the Drunkard treated the unprincipled Symbat, still it is impossible to compare the words in which the Guide-book and Tzetzes commemorate the misfortunes of the hero with the narratives of the punishment of Peganes and Symbat, without feeling that the former are transcribed from the latter.

To prove this, if necessary, we could quote the words of our authorities. The earliest account of the punishment of Peganes and Symbat is given by George the Monk, a Byzantine writer whose chronicle ends with the year 920. The chronicle of Simeon Metaphrastes, which also belongs to the tenth century, and that of Leo Grammaticus, give the same account, almost in the same words. There can be no doubt that they are all copied from official documents; the style is a rich specimen of the monastic state-paper abridgment.[51]

The state-paper style was retained in the romance from which the Guide-book was copied, to impress the feeling of reality on the minds of the people; while the mention of the obolus, an ancient coin, marked the antique dignity with which the tale was invested. The obolus had been, for centuries, unknown in the coinage of Constantinople; and the word was no longer in use in the public markets of Greece. But besides this, if the Guide-book is to be admitted as an authority for a historical fact, it very soon destroys the value of its own testimony concerning the blindness and beggary of Belisarius; for, only a few lines after recording his disgrace, it mentions a gilt statue of the hero as standing near the palace of Chalce.

Such is fame. The real Belisarius, the hero of the history and the libels of Procopius, being a Roman general, owes his universal reputation to the creation of an imaginary Belisarius by some unknown Greek romance-writer or ballad-singer. The interest of mankind in the conquests and records of Byzantine Rome has become torpid; but the feelings of humanity, in favour of the victims of courtly ingratitude, are immortal. The unextinguishable aversion of the Hellenic race to tyranny and oppression, has given a degree of fame to the name of Belisarius which his own deeds, great as they were, would never have conferred. This is but one proof of the singular influence exercised by the Hellenic mind over the rest of the world during the middle ages. It may be continually traced in the literature both of the east and the west. Whenever the sympathies are awakened by general sentiments of philanthropy among the emirs of the east, or the barons of the west, there is reason to suspect that the origin of the tale must be sought in Greece. Europe has been guided by the mind of Hellas in every age, from the days of Homer to those of Tzetzes; and its power has been maintained by addressing the feelings common to the whole human race—feelings long cherished in Greece after they had been banished from western society by Goths, Franks, and Normans.[52]

There is yet one important reflection which, if the study of the age of Belisarius and Justinian does not suggest, we have failed to comprehend its true spirit. In spite of its glory—of its legislative, its legal, its military, its administrative, its architectural, and its ecclesiastical greatness, it was destitute of that spiritual power which rules and guides the souls of men. It was an age entirely material and selfish. Religion was a mere formula: Christianity slept victorious amidst the ruins of extinguished paganism. Belisarius could depose one Pope, and sell the chair and the keys of St Peter to another, without rousing the indignation of the Christian world. Liberty was an incomprehensible term. That energy of individual independence and physical force which excited the barbarians of the north to conquer the western empire, and enabled the Romans of Byzantium to save the eastern, was sinking into lethargy. Patriotism was an unknown feeling. Indeed, what idea of nationality or love of country could be formed by the privileged classes of Constantinople? Their successors the Turks may be taken as interpreters of the sentiments of the Byzantine Romans on this subject, who, while vegetating in Stamboul, gravely tell you that Mecca is their country.

In short, the spirit of liberty and religion was torpid in the empire of Justinian, and perhaps in the soul of Belisarius. These two remarkable men were both governed by the material impulses of military discipline and systematic administration. Verily, the mission of Mahomet was necessary to awaken mankind, and rouse the Christian world from its lethargy to the great mental struggle which, from the hour of the unfolding of the banner of Islam, has left the minds of men no repose; and will henceforth compel them to unite the spirit of religion with all their restless endeavours to realise each successive dream of social improvement that the human soul shall dare to conceive.

Athens, March 20, 1847.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Procopius de Bello Vandalico, lib. i. c. 11. GIBBON (vol. vii. p. 161. note e) says that he could not find the Germania, a metropolis of Thrace, mentioned by Alemanni, in any civil or ecclesiastical lists of the provinces and cities. Alemanni's authority may be found in Notitiae Graecorum Episcopatuum, where Germania is the sixty-seventh metropolitan see dependent on the Patriarch of Constantinople.—(Codinus de officiis Magnae Ecclesiae et Aulae Constantinopolitanae, p. 380, ed. Paris.) It is probable that the city Germane of the Edifices of Procopius (iv. 3) is the same as Germania. There was a fort in its territory, called Germas. De AEdif. iii. 4. Germanos is still a favourite ecclesiastical name with the Greeks. There is a place on the Gulf of Corinth, in the territory of Megara, with splendid remains of the military architecture of an ancient burgh, now called Porto Germano, the ancient AEgosthenae.—(Leake's Travels in Northern Greece, vol. i. p. 405.) Herodotus mentions Germanii, [Greek: Germanioi], as an agricultural tribe of Persians in the time of Cyrus.—(Clio, 125.) These various Germans and Germanians can hardly be blood relations of our Germany or Deutschland.

[10] Lord Mahon's Life of Belisarius, p. 3. Procopius de Bello Vand. ii. 6.

[11] Procopius de Bello Persico, i. 12. Clinton's Fasti Romani. From this time Procopius was the official secretary of Belisarius.

[12] A good soldier can only be formed from men between eighteen and forty years of age. In ancient times it required more strength to make a soldier than in modern. The demand for such men, in an improving state of society, makes them too valuable to be expended on the game of war, and hence despots in civilised ages are compelled to use an inferior class. Good troops must always be highly paid. A good heavy-armed soldier, in ancient Greece, had half the pay of his captain. The pay of the celebrated English archers, in the middle ages, was extremely high; as it required the service of a brave and vigorous yeomanry to give that corps the efficiency it displayed in so many hard-fought battles—(Hallam's Constitutional History of England, ch. ix. vol. 2.) Lord Brougham, however, overrates the pay of a mounted archer, in making it "equal to thirty shillings of our money" a-day.—(Political Philosophy, part iii. p. 237.)

[13] Gibbon's Decline and Fall, vii. 166. It is impossible to resist transcribing Gibbon's note.

[Greek: Neuren men mazo pelasen toxo de sideron. Linxe bios, neure de meg' iachen achto d' oistos.]

Iliad, iv. 124-125.

"How concise—how just—how beautiful is the whole picture! I see the attitudes of the archer—I hear the twanging of the bow." The figures of the archers in the AEginetan marbles at Munich, admirably illustrate the genius of Homer and the taste of Gibbon.

[14] Procopius de Bello Gotthico, i. c. 18.

[15] Procopius de Bello Gotthico, i. c. 21.

[16] Ibid. 28-29.

[17] This singular military manoeuvre was repeated more than once by Roman generals, and shows how admirably the troops were drilled in what are called the degenerate days of the Roman armies.—(Finlay's Greece under the Romans, p. 246.)

[18] The best edition of the works of Procopius is that published at Bonn in the new Corpus Scriptorum Byzantinae Historiae commenced under the auspices of Niebuhr. It is edited by W. Dindorff, and contains a corrected text with various readings, and a reprint of the notes of Alemanni on the Secret History. 3 vols. 8vo. 1833-8.

[19] Procopius de Bello Vandalico, ii. c. 9.

[20] Procopius de Bello Gotthico, ii. c. 28. [Greek: Basilia t*s Espirias Bilisariei as*ipin *giksat]

[21] Life of Belisarius, p. 1.

[22] Decline and Fall, vol. vii. 161.

[23] Crassus was in the habit of saying, that no man was rich who could not maintain an army.

[24] Procopius de Bello Gotthico, iii. 1.

[25] Compare Procopius de Bello Gotthico, i. c. 25, with Anastasius de Vitis Pontificum Romanorum, p. 38, ed., Paris.

[26] De Bello Gotthico, ii. c. 8.

[27] Ibid. i. 22.

[28] There is a touch of the malicious spirit of the Secret History in the narration of Procopius, caused probably by some recollection of the ridiculous though dangerous position of Belisarius in avoiding the stab aimed at him by Konstantinos. The whole scene could hardly fail to produce a profound impression on the coolest spectator, even in that age, when men were more accustomed to stabbing than in our delicate days of gunshot wounds. [Greek: Ho de (Belisarios) kataplageis opiso te apeste kai Bissa ingus tou estkati periplakeis diaphygein ischyos]—(De Bello Gotthico, ii. 8.) Bessas was as great an extortioner as Konstantinos. (See Ibid. iv. 13.)

[29] Ildiger, doubtless a barbarian, from his name, was married to a daughter of Antonina by her first husband.—(De Bello Vandalico, ii. 8.) Valerian was also probably a barbarian, as he commanded a division of federate cavalry in the African war. He was general of the right wing of the Roman army under Narses at the battle of Taginas or Lentagio, which put an end to the life of the gallant Totila, and gave the mortal wound to the monarchy of the Ostrogoths.—(De Bello Gotthico, iv. 31.)

[30] Procopius would lead us to believe that a fine of 300 lbs. of gold (upwards of L140,000 in specie, and twice that sum in value) extorted from Belisarius in 543, was the produce of his profits during the Asiatic campaigns of 541 and 542. But it is difficult to know what confidence ought to be placed in the details of the Secret History.—C. 4, p. 32, l. 1, ed. Bonn. Clinton's Fasti Romani, p. 780.

[31] Anastasius, or the Memoirs of a Greek, by Thomas Hope, vol. ii. 393., first edition. The writer of these pages remembers reading Anastasius with singular pleasure, at the time of its publication. Now, after four-and-twenty years' intimate acquaintance with the East, and with the representatives of most of the classes of men depicted in the novel, he finds that its correctness of description and truth of character give it all the inexhaustible freshness of actual life.

[32] Historia Arcana, c. 4. Tom. iii. p. 34, ed. Bonn.

[33] Ibid, Tom. iii. p. 31.

[34] De Bello Gotthico, iii. 35.

[35] Agathias, lib. v. c. 6, p. 159, ed. Paris.—The conversion of royal guards into cheesemongers is by no means a very uncommon corruption. The dreaded janissaries degenerated into a corporation of hucksters and green-grocers. The Hellenic kingdom, founded as an incorporation of the spirit of anarchy and despotism, by the grace of the foreign secretaries of the three great powers of Europe, possesses a more singular body of military than even the defunct Ottoman corps of green-grocers. It consists of officers without troops. Its inventor, Armansperg, the quintessence of Bavarian corruption in Greece, called it the Phalanx.

[36] Agathias, v. ii. p. 161, ed. Paris.

[37] The authentic history of the last events of the life of Belisarius must be gathered from Theophanes, p. 201, John Malalas, p. 239, and Cedrenus, p. 387. Though, perhaps, Cedrenus may be objected to as living too long after these events. Theophanes died in 817 at the age of 60. His chronography ends with the year 813. John Malalas lived in the ninth century. The chronicle of Cedrenus ends with the year 1057.

[38] Pandects, xlvii. tit. 18. 1, s. 23.—Quaestioni fidem non semper, nec tamen nunquam habendum, constitutionibus declaratur; etenim res est fragilis, et periculosa, et quae veritatem fallat.—Every one conversant with the social condition of the people of the East, (and probably it is the case under all despotic governments,) knows the extreme difficulty of obtaining judicial evidence that can be relied on, and the temptation judges incur to sanction torture. Hence the common assertion of public functionaries, that torture is absolutely necessary to secure the administration of justice; and of course people who require torture to persuade them to speak the truth, are unfit for self-government and constitutional liberty. Thus falsehood and oppression are perpetuated, and truth kept perpetually at bay.

[39] Joannis Antiocheni cognomenti Malalae Historia Chronica. Pars altera, p. 84, ed. Venet.

[40] Theophanis Chronographia, p. 201, ed. Paris. The accounts of Theophanes and Malalas must be compared together, as the comparison establishes the fact that they were both drawn from official sources. See also p. 202, 203, and note.

[41] Georgius Codinus de Originibus Constantinopolitanis, p. 54.

[42] Georgii Cedreni Compendium Historiarum, p. 387.

[43] Joannis Zonarae Annales, tom. ii. p. 69. ed. Paris.

[44] This may have resulted from the marriage of Joanna, the daughter of Belisarius, with Anastasius, the grandson of Theodora.—Procopii Arcana, c. 4, p. 34.

[45] Leonis Grammatici Chronographia, p. 132. Bonnae: 1842. 8vo.

[46] Corpus Juris Civilis. Aliae aliquot Constitutiones. Tom. ii. p. 511, ed. ster. 4to. Privilegium pro Titionibus ex Cujac. Obss. lib. x. c. 12. In a new edition of the Corpus there is the following note:—Hoc privilegium editum est in Cujac. Obss., sed ex quo fonte desumptum sit, non indicatur, nisi quod Cujacius a P. Galesio Hispano se id decepisse dicat. Non sine ratione addidit Beck. qui in App. Corp. Juris Civ. hanc constitutionem recepit, an genuina sit, dubio non carere.

[47] Greece under the Romans, p. 229.—If the writer of this article may presume to refer to his own authority.

[48] Imperium Orientale: studio A. Banduri. Tom. i. pars tertia. Antiquitatum Constantinopolitanarum, p. 7. ed. Paris.

[49] Joannis Tzetzae Historiarum Variarum Chiliades, p. 94, ed. Kiesslingii, Lipsiae, 1826, 8vo.

[50] Basil the Macedonian was originally a groom, and owed his first step in the imperial favour of the Drunkard to his powers as a whisperer. He broke an ungovernable horse belonging to the emperor, by the exercise of this singular quality, and rendered it, to the amazement of the whole court, as tame as a sheep. Leo Grammaticus says, [Greek: Te men mia cheiri ton chalinon kratesas, te de hetera tou otos draxamenos eis eme*rot*eta probatou metebalon].—P. 230, ed. Bonn.

[51] Georgius Monachus, p. 540. Simeon Metaph. p. 449. Scriptores post Theophanem, ed. Paris. Leo Gramm., p. 469, ed. Paris, p. 247, ed. Bonn.

[52] Things have not changed in our day. Capodistrias lighted his pipe with Canning's treaties and King Leopold's renunciation; and Colettis makes game of the feeble acts and strong expressions of Viscount Palmerston.



ANCIENT AND MODERN BALLAD POETRY.[53]

The first day of April is a festival too prominent in the Kalendar of Momus to be passed over without due commemoration. The son of Nox, who, according to that prince of heralds, Hesiod, presides especially over the destinies of reviewers, demands a sacrifice at our hands; and as, in the present state of the provision market, we cannot afford to squander a steer, we shall sally forth into the regions of rhyme and attempt to capture a versifier.

The time has been when such a task was, to say the least of it, very simple. Each successive spring, at the season when "a livelier iris glows upon the burnished dove," Parnassus sent forth its leaves, and the voices of many cuckoos were heard throughout the land. Small difficulty then, either to flush or to bag sufficient game. But, somehow or other, of late years there has been a sort of panic among the poets. The gentler sort have either been scared by the improvisatore warblings of Mr Wakley, or terrified into silence by undue and undeserved apprehensions of the Knout. Seldom now are they heard to chirrup except under cover of the leaves of a sheltering magazine; and although we do occasionally detect a thin and ricketty octavo taking flight from the counter of some publisher, it is of so meek and inoffensive a kind that we should as soon think of making prize of a thrush in a bed of strawberries. We are much afraid that the tendency of the present age towards the facetious has contributed not a little to the dearth of sonnets and the extermination of the elegiac stanza. So long as friend Michael Angelo Titmarsh has the privilege of frequenting the house of Mrs Perkins and other haunts of fashionable and literary celebrity, Poseidon Hicks will relapse into gloomy silence, and Miss Bunion refrain from chanting her Lays of the Shattered Heart-strings. It a hard thing that a poet may not protrude his gentle sorrows for our commiseration, mourn over his blighted hopes, or rejoice the bosom of some budding virgin by celebrating her, in his Tennysonian measure, as the light-tressed Ianthe or sleek-haired Claribel of his soul, without being immediately greeted by a burst of impertinent guffaws, and either wantonly parodied or profanely ridiculed to his face. So firm is our belief in the humanising influence of poetry that we would rather, by a thousand times, that all the reviews should perish, and all the satirists be consigned to Orcus, than behold the total cessation of song throughout the British Islands. And if we, upon any former occasion, have spoken irreverently of the Nincompoops, we now beg leave to tender to that injured body our heartfelt contrition for the same; and invite them to join with us in a pastoral pilgrimage to Arcadia, where they shall have the run of the meadows, with a fair allowance of pipes and all things needful—where they may rouse a satyr from every bush, scamper over the hills in pursuit of an Oread, or take a sly vizzy at a water-nymph arranging her tresses in the limpid fountains of the Alpheus. What say you, our masters and mistresses, to this proposal for a summer ramble?

Hitherto we have spoken merely of the gentler section of the bards. But there is another division of that august body by no means quite so diffident. Since our venerated Father Christopher paid, some four years ago, a merited tribute to the genius of Mr Macaulay, commenting upon the thews and sinews of his verse, and the manly vigour of his Lays of Ancient Rome—ballad poetry in all its forms and ramifications has become inconceivably rampant. The Scottish poetry also, which from time to time has appeared in MAGA, seems to have excited, in certain quarters, a spirit of larcenous admiration; and not long ago it was our good fortune to behold in the Quarterly Review a laudation of certain lines which are neither more nor less than a weak dilution of a ballad composed by one of our contributors. It would be well, however, had we nothing more to complain of than this. But the ballad fever has got to such a height that it may be necessary to make an example. Our young English poets are now emulating in absurdity those German students, who dress after the costume of the middle ages as depicted by Cornelius, and terrify the peaceful Cockney on the Rhine by apparitions of Goetz of Berlichingen. They are no longer Minnesingers, but warriors of sanguineous complexion. They are all for glory, blood, chivalry, and the deeds of their ancestors. They cut, thrust, and foin as fiercely as fifty Francalanzas, and are continually shouting on Saint George. Dim ideas of the revival of the Maltese Order seem to float before their excited imaginations; and, were there the slightest spark of genuine feeling in their enthusiasm, either Abd-el-Kader or Marshal Bugeaud would have had by this time some creditable recruits. But the fact is, that the whole system is a sham. Our young friends care about as much for Saint George as they do for Saint Thomas Aquinas; they would think twice before they permitted themselves to be poked at with an unbuttoned foil; and as for the deeds of their ancestors, a good many of them would have considerable difficulty in establishing their descent even from a creditable slop-seller—"the founder of our family"—in the reign of George the Third. It is therefore a mystery to us why they should persevere in their delusion. What—in the name of the Bend Sinister—have they to do with the earlier Harrys or Edwards, or the charge of the Templars at Ascalon, or the days of the Saxon Heptarchy? Are they called upon by some irrepressible impulse to ransack the pages of English history for a "situation," or to crib from the Chronicles of Froissart? Cannot they let the old warriors rest in peace, without summoning them, like the Cid, from their honoured graves, again to put on harness and to engage in feckless combat? For oh!—weak and most washy are the battles which our esteemed young friends describe! Their war-horses have for the most part a general resemblance to the hacks hired out at seven-and-sixpence for the Sunday exhibition in the Park. Their armour is of that kind more especially in vogue at Astley's, in the composition of which tinfoil is a principal ingredient, and pasteboard by no means awanting. Their heroes fight, after preliminary parley which would do credit to the chivalry of the Hippodrome; and their lances invariably splinter as frush as the texture of the bullrush. Their dying chiefs all imitate Bayard, as we once saw Widdecomb do it, when struck down by the infuriated Gomersal; and the poem generally concludes with a devout petition to "Our Ladye," not only to vouchsafe her grace to the defunct champion, but to grant that the living minstrel may experience the same end—a prayer which, for the sake of several respectable young members of society, we hope may be utterly disregarded.

The truth is, that instead of being the easiest, the ballad is incomparably the most difficult kind of all poetical composition. Many men, who were not poets in the highest sense of the word, because they wanted the inventive faculty, have nevertheless, by dint of perseverance, great accomplishment, and dexterous use of those materials which are ready to the hand of every artificer, gained a respectable name in the roll of British literature—but never, in any single instance, by attempting the construction of a ballad. That is the Shibboleth, by which you can at once distinguish the true minstrel from mere impostor or pretender. It is the simplest, and at the same time the sublimest form of poetry, nor can it be written except under the influence of that strong and absorbing emotion, which bears the poet away far from the present time, makes him an actor and a participator in the vivid scenes which he describes, and which is, in fact, inspiration of the very loftiest kind. The few who enjoy the glorious privilege, not often felt, nor long conferred, of surrendering themselves to the magic of that spell, cease for the time to be artists; they take no thought of ornament, or of any rhetorical artifice, but throw themselves headlong into their subject, trusting to nature for that language which is at once the shortest and the most appropriate to the occasion; spurning all far-fetched metaphors aside, and ringing out their verse as the iron rings upon the anvil! It was in this way that Homer, the great old ballad-maker of Greece, wrote—or rather chanted, for in his day pens were scarce, wire-wove unknown, and the pride of Moseley undeveloped. God had deprived the blind old man of sight; but in his heart still burned the fury of the fight of Troy; and trow ye not, that to him the silent hills of Crete many a time became resonant with the clang of arms, and the shouts of challenging heroes, when not a breath of wind was stirring, and the ibex stood motionless on its crag? What a difference between Homer and Virgil! Moeonides goes straight to work, like a marshal calling out his men. He moves through the encampment of the ships, knowing every man by headmark, and estimating his capabilities to a buffet. No metaphor or nonsense in the combats that rage around the sepulchre of Ilus—good hard fighting all of it, as befits barbarians, in whose veins the blood of the danger-seeking demigods is seething: fierce as wild beasts they meet together, smite, hew, and roll over in the dust. Jove may mourn for Sarpedon, or Andromache tear her hair above the body of her slaughtered Hector; but not one whit on that account abstain their comrades from the banquet, and on the morrow, under other leaders, they will renew the battle—for man is but as the leaves of the forest, whilst glory abideth for ever.

Virgil, on the contrary, had but little of the ballad-maker in his composition. He was always thinking of himself, and of his art, and the effect which his AEneid would produce,—nay, we are even inclined to suspect that at times he was apt to deviate into a calculation of the number of sestertia which he might reasonably reckon to receive from the bounty of the Emperor. The AEneid is upon the whole a sneaking sort of a poem. The identity of AEneas with Augustus, and the studied personification of every leading character, is too apparent to be denied. It is therefore less an epic than an allegory; and—without questioning the truth of Hazlitt's profound apothegm, that allegories do not bite—we confess that, in general, we have but small liking to that species of composition. For in the first place, the author of an allegory strips himself of the power of believing it. He can have no faith in the previous existence of heroes whom he is purposely portraying as shadows, and he must constantly be put to shifts, in order to adapt his story, during its progress, to the circumstances which he attempts to typify. And, in the second place, he commits the error, equally palpable, of disenchanting the eyes of his reader. For the very essence of that pleasure which we all derive from fiction, lies in our overcoming to a certain extent the idea of its actual falsity, and in our erecting within ourselves a sort of secondary belief, to which, accordingly, our sympathies are submitted. Every thing, therefore, which interferes with this fair and legitimate credulity is directly noxious to the effect of the poem; it puts us back one stage further from the point of absolute faith, and materially diminishes the interest which we take in the progress of the piece. Spenser's Faerie Queen is a notable example of this. Could we but think that Una was intended, though only by the poet's fancy, to be the portraiture of a mortal virgin, unfriended and alone amidst the snares and enchantments of the world, would we not tremble for her sweet sake, knowing that some as innocent and as fair as she have fallen victims to jealousy less dark than Duessa's, and wiles less skilfully prepared than those of the hoary Archimage? But Una never for one moment appears to us as a woman. From the first we feel that she is there, not exposed to temptation, but as a pure and holy spirit, in whose presence hypocrisy is unmasked, and all sin and iniquity unveiled. Nor fear we for the Red-Cross Knight, even when he seems to go astray, and turns from the side of her whom he had sworn to protect and guard; for he bears a talisman upon his shield and his bosom, expressive of his origin, and able to resist for ever the fiery darts of the wicked. Never rode knight and lady through earthly wilderness as these two journey together. For them we have no human interest—not even such tears as we might shed for the lapse of an erring angel. They have not put on mortality, nor do they meet or combat with mortal foes. Truth will do much for us, even in poetry where the mortal interest is most largely intermingled with the supernatural. Some belief we have even in the wildest flights of Ariosto. Astolfo does not cease to be one of ourselves when traversing the regions of air on his hippogriff, or conversing on the mount of terrestial Paradise with the beloved Apostle John. But which of us even in fancy can ride with the Red-Cross warrior, penetrate with Guyon into the cave of Mammon, or realise the dreary pageant that issued from the House of Pride?

Spenser's is the purer allegory—Virgil's but a secondary one. The AEneid is a hybrid poem, wherein the real and the ideal mingle. There is sufficient of the first to preserve for us some epic interest, and enough of the latter at times to stagger our belief. But apart from this, how inferior is the AEneid in interest to the masterpiece of Homer! It consists, epically speaking, of three divisions—the landing at Carthage, the Sicilian visit to Acestes, and the final campaign of Italy—and the two first of these have no bearing at all upon the third, and even that third is incomplete. Whatever homage we may be compelled to pay to the sweetness of Virgil's muse, and his marvellous power of melody, this at least is undeniable, that in inventive genius he falls immeasurably short of the Greek, and that his scenes of action are at once both tinselled and tame. One magnificent exception, it is true, we are bound to make from such a censure. The second book of the AEneid stands out in strong and vivid contrast from the rest; and few poets, whether ancient or modern, have written aught like the conflagration of Troy. Nor shall we, with the severer critics, darkly hint of works which had gone before, but of which the substance long ago has perished—of the Cyclic poem of Arctinus, said to have been of all others the nearest in point of energy to the Iliad, or of the songs of Lesches and Euphorion. Rather let us be thankful for this one episode, without which the great tale of Ilium would have been incomplete, and the lays of Demodocus in the Odyssey remained mere hints of the woful catastrophe of Priam. But if you wish to see how Homer could handle a ballad, turn up the eighth book of your Odyssey until you come to the Minstrel's son—or if haply you are somewhat rusted in your Greek, and yearn for the aid of Donnegan, listen to the noble version of Maginn, who alone of all late translators has caught the true fire and spirit of Moeonides.

"The Minstrel began as the Godhead inspired: He sang how their leaguer the Argives had fired, And over the sea in trim barks bent their course, While their chiefs with Odysseus were closed in the horse, Mid the Trojans who had that fell engine of wood Dragged on, till in Troy's inmost turret it stood; There long did they ponder in anxious debate What to do with the steed as around it they sate.

Then before them three several counsels were laid: Into pieces to hew it by the edge of the blade; Or to draw it forth thence to the brow of the rock, And downward to fling it with shivering shock; Or, shrined in the tower, let it there make abode As an offering to ward off the anger of God. The last counsel prevail'd; for the moment of doom, When the town held the horse, upon Ilium had come.

The Argives in ambush awaited the hour When slaughter and death on their foes they should shower. When it came, from their hollow retreat rushing down The sons of th' Achivi smote sorely the town. Then, scattered, on blood and on ravaging bent, Through all parts of the city chance-guided they went. And he sung how Odysseus at once made his way To where the proud towers of Deiphobus lay.

With bold Menelaus he thitherward strode, In valour in equal to War's fiery god, Then fierce was the fight—dread the deeds that were done, Till, aided by Pallas, the battle he won. So sung the rapt Minstrel the blood-stirring tale, But the check of Odysseus waxed deadly and pale; While the song warbled on of the days that were past, His eyelids were wet with the tears falling fast.[54]"

If we go on twaddling thus about the Greeks and Romans, we shall lose the thread of our discourse, and possibly be found tripping on the subject of Wolf's Prolegomena. Let us, therefore, get back as fast as we can to the Moderns.

Unless the poet is imbued with a deep sympathy for his subject, we would not give sixpence for his chance of producing a tolerable ballad. Nay, we go further, and aver that he ought when possible to write in the unscrupulous character of a partisan. In historical and martial ballads, there always must be two sides; and it is the business of the poet to adopt one of these with as much enthusiasm and prejudice, as if his life and fortunes depended upon the issue of the cause. For the ballad is the reflex of keen and rapid sensation, and has nothing to do with judgment or with calm deliberative justice. It should embody, from beginning to end, one fiery absorbing passion, such as men feel when their blood is up, and their souls thoroughly roused within them; and we should as soon think of moralising in a ballad as in the midst of a charge of cavalry. If you are a Cavalier, write with the zeal of a Cavalier combating for his king at Naseby, and do not disgust us with melancholy whinings about the desolate hearths of the Ironsides. Forget for a time that you are a shareholder in a Life Assurance Company, and cleave to your immediate business of emptying as many saddles as possible. If you are out—as perhaps your great-grandfather was—with Prince Charles at Prestonpans, do not, we beseech you, desert the charging column of the Camerons, to cry the coronach over poor old Colonel Gardiner, fetched down from his horse by the Lochaber axe of the grim Miller of Invernahyle. Let him have the honourable burial of a brave man when the battle is over; but—whilst the shouts of victory are ringing in our ears, and the tail of Cope's horse is still visible over the knowe which rises upon the Berwick road—leave the excellent Seceder upon the sod, and toss up your bonnet decorated with the White Rose, to the glory and triumph of the clans! If you are a Covenanter and a Whig, we need not entreat you to pepper Claverhouse and his guardsmen to the best of your ability at Drumclog. You are not likely to waste much of your time in lamentations over the slaughtered Archbishop: and if you must needs try your hand at the execution of Argyle, do not mince the matter, but make a regular martyr of him at once. In this way should all ballads be written; and such indeed is the true secret of the craft as transmitted to us by the masters of old.

We have warned you against moralising: let us now say a word or two on the subjects of description and declamation. Upon one or other of these rocks, have most of our modern ballad-writers struck and foundered. What can be in worse taste than the introduction of an elaborate landscape into the midst of a poem of action, or an elaborate account of a man's accoutrements when he is fighting for life or death? A single epithet, if it be a choice one, can indicate the scene of action as vividly and far more effectively than ten thousand stanzas; and, unless you are a tailor and proud of your handiwork, what is the use of dilating upon the complexion of a warrior's breeches, when the claymore is whistling around his ears? Nevertheless, even our best ballad-writers, when their soul was not in their task, have fallen into this palpable error. None of Sir Walter's ballads commences more finely than "The Gray Brother,"—none has been more spoiled in its progress by the introduction of minute description. We pass from the high altar of Saint Peter to the bank of the Eske, and there we are regaled with a catalogue of the modern seats and villas, utterly out of place and inconsistent with the solemn nature of the theme. But "The Gray Brother" is a mere fragment which Scott never would complete—owing, perhaps, to a secret consciousness, that he had already marred the unity of the poem by sketching in a modern landscape behind his antique figures. Give him, however, a martial subject—let his eye but once kindle, and his cheek flush at the call of the trumpet, and we defy you to find his equal. Read—O ye poetasters who are now hammering at Crecy—read the "Bonnets of Dundee," and then, if you have a spark of candour left, you will shove your foolscap into the fire. Or tell us if you really flatter yourselves that, were your lives prolonged to the perpetuity of the venerable Parr, you ever would produce ten stanzas worthy of being printed in the same volume with these:—

"The Coronach's cried on Bennachie, And down the Don and a', And Hieland and Lawland may mournfu' be, For the sair field of Harlaw.

They saddled a hundred milk-white steeds, They hae saddled a hundred black, With a chafron of steel on each horse's head, And a good knight upon his back.

They hadna ridden a mile, a mile, A mile, but barely ten, When Donald came branking down the brae, Wi' twenty thousand men.

Their tartans they were waving wide, Their glaives were glancing clear, The pibrochs rung frae side to side, Would deafen you to hear.

The great Earl in his stirrups stood, That Highland host to see; 'Now here a knight that's stout and good, May prove a jeopardie.

'What would ye do, my squire so gay, That rides beside my rein, Were ye Glenallan's Earl this day, And I were Roland Cheyne?

'To turn the rein were sin and shame, To fright were wondrous peril: What would ye do now, Roland Cheyne, Were ye Glenallan's Earl?'

'Were I Glenallan's Earl this tide, And ye were Roland Cheyne, The spear should be in my horse's side, The bridle upon his mane.

'If they hae twenty thousand blades, And we twice ten times ten, Yet they hae but their tartan plaids, And we are mail-clad men.

'My horse shall ride through ranks sae rude, As through the moorland fern, Then ne'er let gentle Norman blude Grow cauld for Hieland kerne!'"

Scott was no declaimer. Although bred a barrister, he estimated the faculty of speech at its proper value, and never thought of making his heroes, on the eve of battle, address their soldiery in a harangue which would do credit to a President of the Speculative Society. In certain positions, eloquence is not only thrown away, but is felt to be rank impertinence. No need of rhetorical artifice to persuade the mob to the pumping of a pickpocket, or, in case of a general row, to the assault of an intoxicated policeman. Such things come quite naturally to their hands without exhortation, and it is dangerous to interfere with instinct. The Homeric heroes are, of any thing, a little too much given to talking. You observe two hulking fellows, in all their panoply of shield and armour, drawing nigh to one another at the fords of the Scamander, each with a spear about the size of a moderate ash-tree across his shoulder. The well-greaved Greek, you already know, is deep in the confidences of Minerva; the hairy Trojan, on the contrary, is protected by the Lady Venus. You expect an immediate onslaught; when, to your astonishment, the Greek politely craves some information touching a genealogical point in the history of his antagonist's family; whereat the other, nothing loath, indulges him with a yarn about Assaracus. Tros being out of breath, the Argive can do nothing less than proffer a bouncer about Hercules; so that, for at least half an hour, they stand lying like a brace of Sinbads—whilst Ajax, on the right, is spearing his proportion of the Dardans, and Sarpedon doing equal execution among the unfortunate Achivi on the left. Nor, until either warrior has exhausted his patriarchal reminiscences, do they heave up the boss and the bull-hide, or make play for a thrust at the midriff. Now, unless the genealogy of their opponents was a point of honour with the ancients—which it does not appear to have been—these colloquies seem a little out of place. In the middle ages, a knight would not enter the lists against an opponent of lesser rank; and in such a case, explanation is intelligible. But in battle there was no distinction of ranks, and no man cared a stiver about the birth and parentage of another. Genealogies, in fact, are awkward things, and should be eschewed by gentlemen in familiar discourse, as tending much less towards edification than offence. Many people are absurdly jealous on the subject of their coffined sires; nor is it wise in convivial moments to strike up an ancestral ditty to the tune of—

"Green grows the grass o'er the graves of my governors."

It was an unfortunate accident of this kind which led to the battle of the Reidswire.

"Carmichael bade him speak out plainly, And cloke no cause for ill nor gude; The other, answering him as vainly, Began to reckon kin and blude. He rase, and raxed him, where he stude, And bade him match him with his marrows: Then Tynedale heard them reason rude, And they loot off a flight of arrows."

Scott's heroes are unusually terse and taciturn. They know their business better than to talk when they should be up and doing; and accordingly, with them, it is just a word and a blow.

"But no whit weary did he seem, When, dancing in the sunny beam, He marked the crane on the Baron's crest; For his ready spear was in its rest. Few were the words, and stern and high, That marked the foemen's feudal hate; For question fierce and proud reply, Gave signal soon of dire debate. Their very coursers seem'd to know, That each was other's mortal foe, And snorted fire, when wheel'd around, To give each knight his vantage ground.

In rapid round the Baron bent; He sighed a sigh, and pray'd a prayer; The prayer was to his patron saint— The sigh was to his ladye fair. Stout Deloraine nor sigh'd nor pray'd, Nor saint nor ladye called to aid; But he stoop'd his head, and couch'd his spear, And spurr'd his stead to full career. The meeting of these champions proud Seem'd like the bursting thunder-cloud."

This, you observe, is practical eloquence,—the perfect pantomime of rhetoric; and, when your eyes have recovered the dazzling shock of the encounter, you shall see William of Deloraine lying on the green sward, with the Baron's spear-head sunk a foot within his bosom. Nothing, in short, can be more conclusive or satisfactory.

Let us now take an instance to the contrary. Few men have written with more fire and energy than Mr Macaulay; and, in the heart of a battle, he handles his falchion like a Legionary. Still, every now and then, the rhetorician peeps out in spite of himself, and he goes through the catalogue of the topics. Nothing can be better or more ballad-like than the blunt declaration by Horatius of his readiness to keep the bridge:—

"Then out spoke bold Horatius, The captain of the gate: 'To every man upon this earth Death cometh soon or late; And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his gods?'"

Not one other word should stout old Cocles have uttered, of apology for claiming to himself the post of danger and of death. No higher motive need he have assigned than those contained in the last two lines, which must have gone home at once to the heart of every Roman. But the poet will not leave him there. He interpolates another stanza, which has the effect of diluting the strength of the passage.

"'And for the tender mother Who dandled him to rest, And for the wife who nurses Her baby at her breast; And for the holy maidens Who feed the eternal flame, To save them from false Sextus That wrought the deed of shame?'"

The whole of this stanza is bad;—the last four lines of it simply and purely execrable. Mr Macaulay is far too judicious a critic not to be fully aware of the danger of any weak passage in a short poem of incident; and we trust, in the next edition, to see this palpable eye-sore removed. But it is in the ballad of Virginia that his besetting tendency towards declamation becomes most thoroughly apparent. You are to suppose yourself in the market-place of Rome;—the lictors of Claudius have seized upon the daughter of the centurion; the people have risen in wrath at the outrage; and, for a moment, there is hope of deliverance. But the name of the decemvir still carries terror with it, and the commons waver at the sound. In this crisis, Icilius, the betrothed of the virgin, appears, and delivers a long essay of some fifty double lines, upon the spirit and tendency of the Roman constitution. This is a great error. Speeches, when delivered in the midst of a popular tumult, must be pithy in order to be effective: nor was Appius such an ass as to have lost the opportunity afforded him by this dialectic display, of effectually securing his captive.

There is no literary legacy the people of Scotland ought to be so thankful as for their rich inheritance of national ballads. In this respect they stand quite unrivalled in Europe; for, although the Scandinavian peninsula has a glorious garland of its own, and Spain and England are both rich in traditionary story, our northern ballad poetry is wider in its compass, and far more varied in the composition of its material. The high and heroic war-chant, the deeds of chivalrous emprise, the tale of unhappy love, the mystic songs of fairy-land,—all have been handed down to us, for centuries, unmutilated and unchanged, in a profusion which is almost marvellous, when we reflect upon the great historic changes and revolutions which have agitated the country. For such changes, though tending essentially towards the production of the ballad, especially in the historical department, cannot possibly be favourable to its preservation; and no stronger proof of the intense nationality of the people of Scotland can be found than this—that the songs commemorative of our earlier heroes have outlived the Reformation, the union of the two crowns, the civil and religious wars of the revolution, and the subsequent union of the kingdoms; and, at a comparatively late period, were collected from the oral traditions of the peasantry. Time had it not in its power to chill the memories which lay warm at the nation's heart, or to efface the noble annals of its long and eventful history. There is a spell of potency still in the names of the Bruce and the Douglas.

By whom those ballads were written, is a question beyond solution. A large portion of them were, we know, composed long before the Press was in existence—some, probably, may date so far back as the reign of Alexander the Third—and to their own intrinsic merit are they indebted for preservation. But we are in ignorance of the authorship even of those which are much nearer to our own immediate period. Much of the Jacobite minstrelsy, and of the songs commemorative, of the Fifteen and the Forty-five, is anonymous; and we cannot tell whether those ditties, which have still the power to thrill our hearts so strangely, were written by gentle or by simple, in the hall or by the cottage fire. After all, it matters not. The poet of Otterbourne will be greater without a name, than fifty modern versifiers whom it would be odious to particularise, notwithstanding the blazon of their Christian and patronymic prefix. Better to live for ever innominate in a song, than to be quoted for a life-time by one's friends, as a self-marked and immolated driveller.

"Give me," said Fletcher of Saltoun, "the making of a nation's ballads, and I will let you make its laws." This was, in our opinion, a speech of considerable boldness; and if Fletcher really made it, he must have had a high estimate of his own poetical powers. Why then, in the name of Orpheus, did he not set about it incontinently? We presume that there was nothing whatever to have prevented him from concocting as many ballads as he chose; or from engaging, as engines of popular promulgation, the ancestors of those unshaven and raucous gentlemen, to whose canorous mercies we are wont, in times of political excitement, to intrust our own personal and patriotic ditties. Seldom, indeed, have we experienced a keener sense of our true greatness as a poet, than when we encountered, on one occasion, a peripatetic minstrel, deafening the Canongate with the notes of our particular music, and surrounded by an eager crowd demanding the halfpenny broadsheet. "This is fame!" we exclaimed to a legal friend who was beside us; and, with a glow of triumph on our countenance, we descended the North Bridge, to indite another of the same. Notwithstanding this, we cannot aver from experience that our ballads have wrought any marked effect in modifying the laws of the country. We cannot even go the length of asserting that they have once turned an election; and therefore it is not unnatural that we should regard the dogma of Fletcher with distrust. The truth is, that a nation is the maker of its own ballads. You cannot by any possibility contrive to sway people from their purpose by a song; but songs—ballads especially—are the imperishable records of their purpose. And therefore it is that they survive, because they are real and not ideal. It is no feigned passion which they convey, but the actual reflex of that which has arisen, and wrought, and expended itself; and each historical ballad is, in fact, a memorial of a national impulse; and wo be to the man who would attempt to illustrate the past, if he cannot again create within himself the sympathies and the motives which led to the deeds he must celebrate. Wo be to him, we say—for as sure as there is truth in the retributive justice of posterity, he will attain an eminent position, not in the roll of beatified bards, but in that of the British blockheads, and be elected by unanimous consent as a proper Laureate for the Fogie Club.

It is now a good many years since Sir Walter Scott compiled his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Previous to the publication of that work, several excellent collections of the older Scottish ballads had been made, and industrious gleaners have since gathered up every stray traditionary ear of corn which still lay unnoticed in the furrow. Our excellent friend Robert Chambers, availing himself of all these labours, has given, in a popular form, the essence and spirit of the whole; nor does there, we believe, exist a single fragment of the least merit which has escaped so rigorous a search. We understood that the English ballads had long ago been collected. These were neither so numerous nor so romantic as ours; but they had fallen at a much earlier date into the hands of the antiquaries, and we hardly expected in our day to be told of a considerable addition. Therefore it was with no little astonishment, and some curiosity, that we perused the announcement of a new work entitled, "The Minstrelsy of the English Border; being a collection of ballads, ancient, remodelled, and original—founded on well-known Border legends. With illustrative notes by Frederick Sheldon."

Predisposed though we certainly were to do every justice to the original strains of Mr Sheldon, he will forgive us when we own that the ancient ballads were the primary objects of our quest. We were eager to discover what kind of materials—what snatches of antique song, he had rescued from oblivion among the wild moors of Northumberland; and his preface gave us ample hope of the choice nature of his budget.

"No doubt," says Mr Sheldon, alluding to Sir Walter's literary researches upon the Border—"no doubt many ballads did escape, and still remain scattered up and down the country side, existing, probably, in the recollection of many a sun-browned shepherd, or the weather-beaten brains of ancient hinds, or 'eldern' women; or in the well-thumbed and nearly illegible leaves of some old book or pamphlet of songs, snugly resting on the 'pot-head,' or sharing their rest with the 'great ha' bible,' 'Scott's Worthies,' or 'Blind Harry's' lines. The parish dominie, or pastor of some obscure village amid the many nooks and corners of the Borders, possesses, no doubt, treasures in the ballad ware, that would have gladdened the heart of a Ritson, a Percy, or a Surtees; in the libraries, too, of many an ancient descendant of a Border family, some black-lettered volume of ballads doubtlessly slumbers in hallowed and unbroken dust. From such sources I have obtained many of the ballads in the present collection. Those to which I have stood godfather, and so baptised and remodelled, I have mostly met with in the 'broadside' ballads, as they are called; but notwithstanding their fire and pathos, I found so much obscenity and libertinism mingled with their beauties, that I was compelled with a rash hand to pluck the nettles away that choked the healthy growth of the young, fresh, and budding flowers; preserving, as nearly as I could, their ancient simplicity and diction. Others, by local and nameless poets, I have given as I found them. Those ballads, virtually my own, are stated to be so in the notes, and these, with great fear and tribulation, I hang as a votive wreath on the altar of the Muses." This is explicit and satisfactory, and we shall now proceed to see how our author has redeemed his promise.

We have read every one of the thirty-seven ballads contained in this volume, and the following is our synoptical view. Of "original" ballads—by which Mr Sheldon means those which must be attributed to his own inspired pen, and which constitute, as aforesaid, his votive wreath—there are no less than thirteen; four ballads are taken from the works of Messrs Mackay, Wilson, Telfer, and Hall—bards who have flourished during the last twenty years upon the Border; four are "remodelled" by Mr Sheldon; and sixteen, having no other distinguishing mark upon them, must be set down as "ancient" compositions. The man who can bestow upon us at the present time sixteen authentic and hitherto unknown ballads, is indeed a public benefactor!

Out of courtesy to Mr Sheldon, we shall, in the first instance, dispose of his own particular garland; and as it would be a pity to dismember such a posy, we shall merely lay before our readers the following morceau from the ballad of "Seton's Sons."

"Seton he gaspit and he girn'd, And showed his teeth sae whyte, His een were glaikit like a man's That's strycken wi' affryghte.

Quo' he, 'Lorde Percy, dinna think I speak your lugs to blaw; But let him spare my twa brave sonnes And at his feet I'll fa!

'And wat them wi' these happing tears That wash my auld, auld een,— That channel down these wrynkelets, Gin he will list bedeen.'

'My bairnies,' quo' the mother then, 'That I have kist sae aft, Canna we save them frae their death, But sic a pryce we coft?

'Thare pretty necks I've slibbered sae Ah! Percy, gentil lord, To hae them raxed upon a tree, And strangled wi' a cord!'"

Admirers of the ancient ballad—what do you say to that? There is the fine old Scots dialect in all its purity with a vengeance! In what part of the island such a jargon is spoken, we are fortunately at present unaware. Certain we are that our fathers never heard it; and as for ourselves, though reasonably cognizant of the varieties of speech which are current in Gilmerton, Aberdeen, the Crosscauseway and the Gorbals, we protest that we never yet met with any thing so cacophonous as this. It is impossible, however, to deny Mr Sheldon the merit of pure originality. Nobody but himself could have written the first glorious stanza, which embodies so perfect a picture of despair, or the second, in which the old familiar phrase of "blawing intill his lug" is so appositely adapted to verse, and put into the mouth of a knightly Scottish commander. Lady Seton, too, is exquisite in her way. The "slibbering" reminiscence—which, we presume, is equivalent to slobbering—is one of those natural touches which, once uttered, can never be forgotten.

It will, we opine, be sufficient to quench the curiosity of our readers, when we state that the above is a fair average specimen of Mr Sheldon's original productions. We presume that few will thirst for another draught from this pitcherful of the Border Helicon; and—as time presses—we shall now push forward to the consideration of the remodelled poetry. The first of these is called "Halidon Hill," and, as we are informed in the notes, it dates back to the respectable antiquity of 1827. The following magnificent stanzas will convey some idea of the spirit and style of that production.

Glower'd the Scot down on his foe: 'Ye coof, I cam not here to ride; But syne it is so, give me a horse, I'll curry thee thine English hide.'

Quod Benhal, 'I cam to fight a man And not a blude mastyff,— Were ye a man and no a pup, Saint Bride I had as lief.'

'Foam not, or fret, thou baby knicht, Put some food in thy wame, For thou art but the champion Of some fond Norfolk dame.

'My dog shall shake thy silken hide, Thy brainis prove his fee, Gif in that bagie skull of thine There any brainis be.'

'Thou art a bragging piece of clay, Sae fyrst wise prove thy threat;' Loud geckit Trummall as he cried, 'I'll mak' thee haggish meat!!'"

Yes, reader—you may well stare! but such is absolutely the rubbish which has been shot from the Chiswick Press. Next—hear it, ye powers of impudence!—Allan Cunningham's beautiful ballad of Lady Anne, makes its appearance as "Lady Nell." We need scarcely add that in such hands the virgin degenerates into a drab. The other remodelments are trash. The "Merchant's Garland" is a new version by Sheldon of a street ditty called the "Factor's Garland," of which we happen to have a copy in a collection of penny histories. It is as much an ancient ballad as the Murder of William Weare—is dear at the ransom of a brass farthing—and commences thus:

"Behold, here's a ditty that's new, and no jest, Concerning a young gentleman in the East, Who, by his great gaming came to poverty, And afterwards went many voyages to sea.

Being well educated, and one of great wit, Three merchants of London, they all thought it fit, To make him their captain, and factor also, And for them to Turkey a voyage he did go."

This is sorry enough doggrel, as every one who has the capacity of reckoning feet upon his fingers must allow; but Sheldon fairly trumps it. In a fit of enthusiasm, he has enlisted the name of a friend in the service, and that gentleman must doubtless feel infinitely obliged for the honour of such immortalisation.

"Syr Carnegie's gane owre the sea, And's plowing thro' the main, And now must make a lang voyage, The red gold for to gain.

Now woe befall the cogging die, And weary the painted beuks, A Christian curse go with all naigs, And eke all hounds and cocks.

Three merchants of great London town, To save the youth were bent, And they sent him as factor to Turkish ground, For the gaming has hym shent."

Poets of the Isle of Muck, did ye ever listen to such a strain? Now let us take a look at the works of the ancients. The first in point of order is the "Laidley Worm of Spindleston Heugh," touching which Mr Sheldon gives us the following information. "This ballad was made by the old mountain bard, Duncan Fraser of Cheviot, who lived A.D. 1320, and, was first printed some years ago, from an ancient MS., by Robert Lambe, vicar of Norham." We do not know what exact time maybe meant by the phrase "some years ago," but the fact is that the "Laidley Worm,"—which is neither more nor less than a very poor version of the old Scots Ballad, "Kempion"—was, according to Sir Walter Scott, "either entirely composed, or rewritten, by the Rev. Mr Lamb of Norham," and had been so often published, that it was not thought worth while to insert it in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. For the same reason, and for its inferior quality, it was kept out of Mr S. C. Hall's "Book of British Ballads." Intrinsically it is so bad, that Mr Sheldon himself might have written it in a moment of extraordinary inspiration; indeed the following three verses, are in every way worthy of his pen;—

"He sprinkled her with three drops o' the well, In her palace where she stood; When she grovelled down upon her belly, A foul and loathsome toad.

And on the lands, near Ida's towers, A loathsome toad she crawls, And venom spits on every thing, Which cometh to the walls.

The virgins all of Bamborough town, Will swear that they have seen This spiteful toad of monstrous size, Whilst walking in the green."

We are now coolly asked to believe that this stuff was written in the fourteenth century, and reprinted, seven years ago, from an ancient manuscript. But we must not be surprised at any thing from a gentleman who seems impressed with the idea that the Chronicles of Roger Hoveden are written in the English language.

We next come to a ballad entitled "The Outlandish Knight," whereof Mr Sheldon gives us the following history. "This ballad I have copied from a broadsheet, in the possession of a gentleman of Newcastle; it has also been published in 'Richardson's Table Book.' The verses with inverted commas, I added at the suggestion of a friend, as it was thought that the Knight was not rendered sufficiently odious, without this new trait of his dishonour."

So far well; but Mr Sheldon ought, at the same time, to have had the candour to tell us the source from which he pilfered those verses. His belief in the ignorance and gullibility of the public must indeed be unbounded, if he expected to pass off without discovery a vamped version of "May Collean." That fine ballad is to be found in the collections of Herd, Sharpe, Motherwell, and Chambers; and seldom, indeed, have we met with a case of more palpable cribbage, as the following specimen will demonstrate:—

MAY COLLEAN.

"'Loup off your steed,' says fause Sir John, 'Your bridal bed you see— Here have I drowned eight ladies fair, The ninth one you shall be.

'Cast off,' says he, 'thy jewels fine, Sae costly and sae brave; They are ower gude, and ower costly, To throw in the sea-wave.

'Cast off, cast off, your Holland smock, And lay it on this stone; It is ower fine and ower costly, To rot in the saut sea-foam.'

'Oh! Turn ye then about, Sir John, And look to the leaf of the tree,— It is not comely for a man A naked woman to see.'

He turned himself straight round about, To look to the leaf o' the tree; She has twined her arms about his waist, And thrown him into the sea."

OUTLANDISH KNIGHT.

"'Alight thee, from thy milk-white steed, And deliver it unto me; Six maids have I drowned where the billows sound, And the seventh one thou shalt be.

'But first pull off thy kirtle fine, And deliver it unto me; Thy kirtle of green is too rich I ween To rot in the salt, salt sea.

'Pull off, pull off thy bonny green plaid, That floats in the breeze so free, It is woven fine with the silver twine, And comely it is to see.'

'If I must pull off my bonny silk plaid, Oh turn thy back to me, And gaze on the sun which has just begun To peer owre the salt, salt sea.'

He turned his back on the fair damselle, And looked upon the beam,— She grasped him tight with her arms so white And plunged him in the stream."

This, it must be acknowledged, is, to use the mildest phrase, an instance of remarkable coincidence.

Notwithstanding the glibness of his preface, and the scraps of antique information which he is constantly parading, Mr Sheldon absolutely knows less about ballad poetry than any writer who has yet approached the subject. As an editor, he was in duty bound to have looked over former collections, and to have ascertained the originality of the wares which he now proffers for our acceptance. He does not seem, however, to have read through any one compilation of the Scottish ballads, and is perpetually betraying his ignorance. For example, he gives us a ballad called "The Laird of Roslin's daughter," and speaks thus of it in his preface:-"This is a fragment of an apparently ancient ballad, related to me by a lady of Berwick-on-Tweed, who used to sing it in her childhood. I have given all that she was able to furnish me with. The same lady assures me that she never remembers having seen it in print, and that she had learnt it from her nurse, together with the ballad of Sir Patrick Spens, and several Irish legends, since forgotten."

This is a beautiful instance of the discovery of a mare's nest! Mr Sheldon's fragment is merely an imperfect version of "Captain Wedderburn's Courtship"—one of the raciest and wittiest of the Scottish ballads, which has been printed over and over again, and is familiar to almost every child in the country. It is given at full length by Robert Chambers, in his collection, with this note appended to it:—"This very ingenious and amusing poem, which has been long popular all over Scotland, first appeared in the 'New British Songster,' a collection published at Falkirk in 1785. The present copy is taken directly from Jamieson's 'Popular Ballads,' with the advantage of being collated with one taken from recitation by Mr Kinloch." Such are the consequences of relying upon the traditions of "eldern women!"

We, have, moreover, a version of "Johnny Faa," of which ballad Mr Sheldon seems to consider himself the sole discoverer—at least he does not say one word of its notable existence elsewhere. And we are the more disposed to give him credit for this ignorance, as he hazards an opinion that "the incidents recorded in this ballad must have occurred in the reign of James the Fifth of Scotland, or possibly in that of his father James the Fourth, the King of the Commons;" whereas the story is an historical one, and took place in the times of the Covenant. Be that as it may, Sheldon's version is certainly the worst that we have seen; and the new stanzas which he has introduced are utterly loathsome and vulgar. Only think of the beautiful Lady Cassilis who eloped with a belted knight, being reduced to the level of a hedge-tramper, and interchanging caresses with a caird!

"The Countess went down to the ha' To hae a crack at them, fairly, O; 'And och,' she cried, 'I wad follow thee To the end o' the world or nearly, O.'

He kist the Countess' lips sae red, And her jimp white waist he cuddled, O; She smoothed his beard wi' her lovely hand, And a' for her Gipsy laddie, O."

Really we do not think that we ever read any thing in print so intensely abominable as this.

We have no intention of wading through much more of Sheldon's lucubrations—nor is it necessary, as, after a close examination, we cannot discover one single ancient ballad which is new to us in the whole collection. One or two, as we have already shown, are old friends in filthy garments, whose acquaintance we accordingly repudiate. Two or three, such as "Sir John le Sprynge," are mere reprints, and the remainder may be shortly characterised as unmitigated trash. It is rather too much that ditties still redolent of ardent spirits, and distinctly traceable in their authorship to a drunken horse-couper in Hawick, should be presented to the public as genuine Border ballads. For example, we are favoured with an effusion called "Loudon Jock's Courtship," which Mr Sheldon avers to be "a very old ballad, now for the first time published," and states that he took it down "from the recital of an old drover, called A. Pringle, who attended Kelso market." We do not for a moment doubt that this valuable lay was actually pronounced by the baked lips of Sandy, over half-a-mutchkin of aqua-vitae in a toll-house; but we decline to register it as ancient upon the authority of such a Pisistratus. On the contrary, the beast who composed it was manifestly free of the Vennel, acquainted with every nauseous close in the old town of Edinburgh, and frequently found at full length upon the Bridge, in a state of brutal intoxication. The localities are quite unequivocal, and mark the date of its composition. The "brig," unfortunately for Mr Sheldon, is by no means an ancient structure. No doubt the ditty is graphic in its way, and full-flavoured enough to turn the stomach of a Gilmerton carter, as the following specimen will testify:

"Jock lifted and fought, gat in mony a scrape, But it was all the same thing to that rattling chiel, He wad aye spoil the horn, or else mak' a spoon, The crown o' the causey, a kirk or a mill.

He rade into Embro' wi' gowd in his pouch, To look at the ferlies and houses sae grand; The Castle and Holyrood, the lang walk o' Leith, Great joy for his coming soon Loudon Jock fand.

'Twas first hae this gill, and then aye anither, Syne bottles o' sma' yill, and baups for his kite; And then cam' the feyther o't, sister and brither, And Jock stoited awa' at the heel o' the night.

Jock met wi' a hizzy upon the high brig, That looks o'er the yard as he stoited away; Jock aye lo'ed a blink o' a bonnie girl's eye, And she speer'd at the reiver his fortune to spae.

But Jock cam' to questions, and being a fallow Stout, buirdly and sonsy, he soon pleased her taste, And awa' went the twasome, haup-jaup in their daffin', Thro' wynds and blind alleys no time for to waste."

Ancient ballad indeed! the minstrel who would venture to chant such a ditty in the Cowgate, would be cheaply let off with a month's solitary imprisonment on a diet of bread and water.

We pass with pleasure from this medley of balderdash and drivel to the more sober tome of Mr Collier, because we know that whatever he gives us will at least have the merit of being genuine. Out of the thousand black-letter broadsides which constitute the Roxburghe collection, the editor has selected upwards of fifty, and thus states the object of their publication:—"The main purpose of the ensuing collection is to show, in their most genuine state, the character and quality of productions written expressly for the amusement of the lower orders, in the reign of Elizabeth, James, and Charles. Our volume consists of such ordinary materials as formed the stock of the English ballad-singer, during a period not far short of a century. Many traces will be found in them of the modes in which they were rendered acceptable to the crowd, when sung in our most frequented thoroughfares." We need hardly say that the volume is got up with great care; and it will doubtless be an acceptable addition to the libraries of our literary epicures: nevertheless, we are free to confess that we were somewhat disappointed with its contents. We did not, it is true, expect to find, in this quarto, any new historical, or even romantic ballads of the first or highest class. The literature of Elizabeth and James is remarkably sterile in productions of this nature; and the few which are intrinsically excellent have long since become familiar and have lost the gloss of novelty. But the didactic ballad and the canzonet were then extensively practised, and, with the fugitive poetry of Peele, Marlowe, Greene, and Lodge in our recollection, we had hoped to recover some valuable specimens of their more obscure contemporaries. In the voluminous records of the Elizabethan era, we find mention of many poets who enjoyed a reasonable celebrity at the time, but whose works, devoid of buoyancy, have since settled into oblivion. We find the names of some of these persons, such as Thomas Churchyard, who is spoken of in "The Return from Parnassus," attached to poems in Mr Collier's collection; but we are compelled on perusal to acknowledge that there is much justice in the critical decrees of time, and that very little which is at all worthy of preservation has been silently permitted to perish. In an aesthetical point of view, therefore, we cannot expect to derive much advantage from this reprint of the Roxburghe broadsides. But the antiquary, who has a natural taste for the cast-off raiment of the world, will doubtless fasten upon the volume; and the critical commentator may glean from it some scraps of obsolete information. To them accordingly we leave it, and pass into the glades of Sherwood.

We wonder whether "Robin Hood, that archer good," is as great a favourite in the nursery now as he was in our younger days? We are afraid not. Our Robin was a mysterious sort of personage, something between an outlaw and an earl,—a kind of Judge Lynch, who distributed arbitrary justice beneath the shade of an enormous oak-tree, and who was perpetually confiscating the moveables of abbots for the exclusive benefit of the poor. Maid Marian we could never distinctly realise. Sometimes she appeared to us as a soft flaxen-haired beauty, not unlike a lay-figure, once the property of Mr Giannetti, which we loved in our youth, and to whose memory we still are constant. Green as emerald was the garb she wore, and the sun loved to shine upon her as she glided from the shadow of the trysting-tree. But then this fairy personage did not tally well with the other figures of the group. We could not conceive her associating familiarly with the gaunt but good-natured Scathelock, and Mutch the miller's son. Summer, too, must pass away from Sherwood as it does from every sublunary scene. The leaves fall—the birds are mute—the grass has withered down—and there is snow lying two feet deep in the forest,—and then, wo is me for poor Marian, shivering in her slight silken kirtle in the midst of a faded bower! So that we were sometimes compelled per-force to change our fancy, metamorphose Marian into a formidable Girzy, and provide her with a suit of linsey-woolsey against the weather, and a pair of pattens big enough to have frightened all the fallow-deer of the forest with their clatter.

Ivanhoe, however, has played the deuce with our ideal creations, and Robin Hood is now fixed to us for ever in the guise of the yeoman Locksley. We do not like him half so well as we did before. He has, in some degree, compromised his character as an outlaw, by entering into an arrangement with him of the Lion-heart, and he now shoots deer under cover of the kingly license. The old warfare between Little John and the Sheriff of Nottingham is over, and the amicable diacylon conceals the last vestige of their feud. Allan-a-Dale has become a gentleman, and Friar Tuck laid down the quarter-staff, if he has not taken up the breviary.

But if any one wants to know bold Robin as he really was, let him straightway possess himself of those two delightful volumes for which we are indebted to Mr Gutch. We have here not only the consecutive series of ballads known as "The Lytell Geste of Robin Hode," but every ballad, tale, and song, relating to the famous outlaw; and the whole are beautifully illustrated. Mr Gutch thoroughly understands the duty of an editor, and has applied himself heart and soul to the task: in consequence, he has given us by far the best collection of English ballads which for years has issued from the press.

We have said that the English ballads, as a whole, are decidedly inferior to the Scottish. They are neither, in their individual kinds, so stirring, so earnest, so plaintive, nor so imaginative, and Chevy Chase is a tame concern when weighed against the Battle of Otterbourne. But many of them are of great merit, and amongst the very best are those which relate to Robin Hood, and the three stout bowmen of the North, Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, and William of Cloudeslee. Robin has a fair right to be considered the yeoman hero of England, and the representative of what must have been a tolerably large class of persons throughout the wars of the Roses. In his history, we can trace a kind of tacit protest against absolute despotism and feudal oppression. He is the daring freeman of the soil, who will not live under arbitrary law, and who, in consequence, ends by setting all laws whatever at defiance. He is not a thief, but a free-booter, and is entitled to receive from posterity whatever credit may be attachable to such a character. His is, in many respects, a parallel case to that of Rob Roy Macgregor, though there is far more of deep tragedy as well as of patriotism, interwoven with the history of the Highland outlaw. Robin asserts no tangible principles beyond active opposition to the church, and determined hostility to the game-laws. For the first of these tenets Baines would have fallen down and worshipped him: for the second, John Bright would have clothed his whole company gratuitously in drab. He is fond of fighting, and ready to take up the cudgels with any chance customer; but, somehow or other, he has invariably the worst of the encounter. Tinker, beggar-man, tanner, shepherd, and curtail friar, in succession, bring him to his knees, and his life would have been many times a forfeit, but for the timely assistance of his horn, which brought Little John and the rest to the rescue. Guy of Gisborne was, we believe, the only champion whom he slew unaided, and even in that meeting he was placed in sore jeopardy.

"Robin was reachless on a root, And stumbled at that tide, And Guy was quick and nimble withall, And hit him upon the side.

Oh dear Ladye! said Robin Hood, That art both mother and may, I think it was never man's destiny To dye before his day.

Robin thought on our Ladye dear, And soon leapt up againe, And straight he came with a backward stroke And he Sir Guy hath slaine."

But there is a fine jovial rollocking spirit about the outlawed hero of Sherwood, which endears Robin to the popular heart of England: and we firmly believe that Shakspeare, when he went out poaching of a moonlight night, was more actuated by poetical precept and impulse than by any sensual covetise for the venison of old Sir Thomas Lucy.

Many ingenious persons—nay many excellent poets, have in modern times attempted to imitate the ancient Scottish ballad, but in no single case has there been a perfect fac-simile produced. The reason of the failure is obvious. An ingenious person, who is not a poet, could not for the dear life of him construct a ditty which, in order to resemble its original, must embody a strain of music, and a burst of heroic or of plaintive passion. It is not, however, by any means so difficult to imitate the diction: of which we have a notable example in the ballad of "Childe Ether," which is included in several of the collections. "Childe Alcohol," perhaps, would have been the better name, if all the circumstances which we have heard relating to its composition be true; nevertheless it is undeniable that our facetious friends who are chargeable with this literary sin, have succeeded in producing a very passable imitation, and that their phraseology at least is faultless. A poet, again, neither can nor ought to imitate, and when he is writing in earnest the attempt is absolutely hopeless. For every poet has his own style, and his own unmistakeable manner of thought and of expression, which he cannot cast off at will. If he imitates, he ceases for the time to be a poet, degenerates into a rhymster, and his flowers upon close inspection will be found to have been fabricated from muslin.

Very blind indeed must be the man who could mistake "Sir James the Rose" for an ancient Scottish ballad. Michael Bruce, the author, was more than an ingenious person: he was also a poet, and had he lived a little longer, and at a period when simplicity in composition was rated at its true value, he would in all probability have executed something better. But he wanted power, and that pathos which is indispensable for the composition of a perfect ballad. Even Scott, when he attempted too close an imitation, failed. The glorious fragment which we have already quoted, "The Eve of Saint John," "Lochinvar," and others, are not to be considered in the light of imitations, but as pure outbursts of his own high chivalrous and romantic imagination. But the third part of "Thomas the Rhymer" is an adaptation to, or continuation of the ancient fragment, with which, however, in no respect can it possibly compare. Indeed the old ballad stands almost isolated in poetry, for its wild imaginative strain.

"She's mounted on her milk-white steed, She's ta'en true Thomas up behind; And aye, whene'er her bridle rung, The steed flew swifter than the wind.

O they rade on, and further on; The steed gaed swifter than the wind, Until they reached a desart wide, And every land was left behind.

"Light down, light down, now, true Thomas, And lean your head upon my knee, Abide and rest a little space, And I will show you ferlies three.

"O see ye not yon narrow road, So thick beset with thorns and briers? That is the path of righteousness Tho' after it but few inquires.

"And see ye not that braid, braid road, That lies across the lily leven? That is the path of wickedness, Tho' some call it the road to heaven.

"And see ye not that bonny road That winds about the fernie brae? That is the road to fair Elf land, Where thou and I this night maun gae.

"But, Thomas, ye maun hold your tongue, Whatever ye may hear or see; For if ye speak word in Elfin land Ye'll ne'er get back to your ain countrie."

O they rade on and farther on, And they waded through rivers aboon the knee, And they saw neither the sun nor moon, But they heard the roaring of the sea.

It was mirk mirk night, and there was nae stern-light, And they waded through red blude to the knee, For a' the blude that's shed on earth Rins through the springs o' that countrie."