But though no one can, I think, pretend that science does not concern itself, and properly concern itself, with facts which are not to all appearance illustrations of law, it is undoubtedly true that for those who desire to extract the greatest pleasure from science, a knowledge, however elementary, of the leading principles of investigation and the larger laws of nature, is the acquisition most to be desired. To him who is not a specialist, a comprehension of the broad outlines of the universe as it presents itself to his scientific imagination is the thing most worth striving to attain. But when we turn from science to what is rather vaguely called history, the same principles of study do not, I think, altogether apply, and mainly for this reason: that while the recognition of the reign of law is the chief amongst the pleasures imparted by science, our inevitable ignorance makes it the least among the pleasures imparted by history.

It is no doubt true that we are surrounded by advisers who tell us that all study of the past is barren, except in so far as it enables us to determine the principles by which the evolution of human societies is governed. How far such an investigation has been up to the present time fruitful in results, it would be unkind to inquire. That it will ever enable us to trace with accuracy the course which States and nations are destined to pursue in the future, or to account in detail for their history in the past, I do not in the least believe. We are borne along like travelers on some unexplored stream. We may know enough of the general configuration of the globe to be sure that we are making our way towards the ocean. We may know enough, by experience or theory, of the laws regulating the flow of liquids, to conjecture how the river will behave under the varying influences to which it may be subject. More than this we cannot know. It will depend largely upon causes which, in relation to any laws which we are even likely to discover may properly be called accidental, whether we are destined sluggishly to drift among fever-stricken swamps, to hurry down perilous rapids, or to glide gently through fair scenes of peaceful cultivation.

But leaving on one side ambitious sociological speculations, and even those more modest but hitherto more successful investigations into the causes which have in particular cases been principally operative in producing great political changes, there are still two modes in which we can derive what I may call "spectacular" enjoyment from the study of history. There is first the pleasure which arises from the contemplation of some great historic drama, or some broad and well-marked phase of social development. The story of the rise, greatness, and decay of a nation is like some vast epic which contains as subsidiary episodes the varied stories of the rise, greatness, and decay of creeds, of parties, and of statesmen. The imagination is moved by the slow unrolling of this great picture of human mutability, as it is moved by the contrasted permanence of the abiding stars. The ceaseless conflict, the strange echoes of long-forgotten controversies, the confusion of purpose, the successes in which lay deep the seeds of future evils, the failures that ultimately divert the otherwise inevitable danger, the heroism which struggles to the last for a cause foredoomed to defeat, the wickedness which sides with right, and the wisdom which huzzas at the triumph of folly,—fate, meanwhile, amidst this turmoil and perplexity, working silently towards the predestined end,—all these form together a subject the contemplation of which need surely never weary.

But yet there is another and very different species of enjoyment to be derived from the records of the past, which requires a somewhat different method of study in order that it may be fully tasted. Instead of contemplating as it were from a distance the larger aspects of the human drama, we may elect to move in familiar fellowship amid the scenes and actors of special periods. We may add to the interest we derive from the contemplation of contemporary politics, a similar interest derived from a not less minute, and probably more accurate, knowledge of some comparatively brief passage in the political history of the past. We may extend the social circle in which we move, a circle perhaps narrowed and restricted through circumstances beyond our control, by making intimate acquaintances, perhaps even close friends, among a society long departed, but which, when we have once learnt the trick of it, we may, if it so pleases us, revive.

It is this kind of historical reading which is usually branded as frivolous and useless; and persons who indulge in it often delude themselves into thinking that the real motive of their investigation into bygone scenes and ancient scandals is philosophic interest in an important historical episode, whereas in truth it is not the philosophy which glorifies the details, but the details which make tolerable the philosophy. Consider, for example, the case of the French Revolution. The period from the taking of the Bastile to the fall of Robespierre is about the same as that which very commonly intervenes between two of our general elections. On these comparatively few months, libraries have been written. The incidents of every week are matters of familiar knowledge. The character and the biography of every actor in the drama has been made the subject of minute study; and by common admission there is no more fascinating page in the history of the world. But the interest is not what is commonly called philosophic, it is personal. Because the Revolution is the dominant fact in modern history, therefore people suppose that the doings of this or that provincial lawyer, tossed into temporary eminence and eternal infamy by some freak of the revolutionary wave, or the atrocities committed by this or that mob, half drunk with blood, rhetoric, and alcohol, are of transcendent importance. In truth their interest is great, but their importance is small. What we are concerned to know as students of the philosophy of history is, not the character of each turn and eddy in the great social cataract, but the manner in which the currents of the upper stream drew surely in towards the final plunge, and slowly collected themselves after the catastrophe again, to pursue at a different level their renewed and comparatively tranquil course.

Now, if so much of the interest of the French Revolution depends upon our minute knowledge of each passing incident, how much more necessary is such knowledge when we are dealing with the quiet nooks and corners of history; when we are seeking an introduction, let us say, into the literary society of Johnson, or the fashionable society of Walpole. Society, dead or alive, can have no charm without intimacy, and no intimacy without interest in trifles which I fear Mr. Harrison would describe as "merely curious." If we would feel at our ease in any company, if we wish to find humor in its jokes, and point in its repartees, we must know something of the beliefs and the prejudices of its various members, their loves and their hates, their hopes and their fears, their maladies, their marriages, and their flirtations. If these things are beneath our notice, we shall not be the less qualified to serve our Queen and country, but need make no attempt to extract pleasure from one of the most delightful departments of literature.

That there is such a thing as trifling information I do not of course question; but the frame of mind in which the reader is constantly weighing the exact importance to the universe at large of each circumstance which the author presents to his notice, is not one conducive to the true enjoyment of a picture whose effect depends upon a multitude of slight and seemingly insignificant touches, which impress the mind often without remaining in the memory. The best method of guarding against the danger of reading what is useless is to read only what is interesting; a truth which will seem a paradox to a whole class of readers, fitting objects of our commiseration, who may be often recognized by their habit of asking some adviser for a list of books, and then marking out a scheme of study in the course of which all are to be conscientiously perused. These unfortunate persons apparently read a book principally with the object of getting to the end of it. They reach the word Finis with the same sensation of triumph as an Indian feels who strings a fresh scalp to his girdle. They are not happy unless they mark by some definite performance each step in the weary path of self-improvement. To begin a volume and not to finish it would be to deprive themselves of this satisfaction; it would be to lose all the reward of their earlier self-denial by a lapse from virtue at the end. To skip, according to their literary code, is a species of cheating; it is a mode of obtaining credit for erudition on false pretenses; a plan by which the advantages of learning are surreptitiously obtained by those who have not won them by honest toil. But all this is quite wrong. In matters literary, works have no saving efficacy. He has only half learnt the art of reading who has not added to it the even more refined accomplishments of skipping and of skimming; and the first step has hardly been taken in the direction of making literature a pleasure until interest in the subject, and not a desire to spare (so to speak) the author's feelings, or to accomplish an appointed task, is the prevailing motive of the reader.

I have now reached, not indeed the end of my subject, which I have scarcely begun, but the limits inexorably set by the circumstances under which it is treated. Yet I am unwilling to conclude without meeting an objection to my method of dealing with it, which has I am sure been present to the minds of not a few who have been good enough to listen to me with patience. It will be said that I have ignored the higher functions of literature; that I have degraded it from its rightful place, by discussing only certain ways in which it may minister to the entertainment of an idle hour, leaving wholly out of sight its contributions to what Mr. Harrison calls our "spiritual sustenance." Now, this is partly because the first of these topics and not the second was the avowed subject of my address; but it is partly because I am deliberately of opinion that it is the pleasures and not the profits, spiritual or temporal, of literature which most require to be preached in the ear of the ordinary reader. I hold indeed the faith that all such pleasures minister to the development of much that is best in man—mental and moral; but the charm is broken and the object lost if the remote consequence is consciously pursued to the exclusion of the immediate end. It will not, I suppose, be denied that the beauties of nature are at least as well qualified to minister to our higher needs as are the beauties of literature. Yet we do not say we are going to walk to the top of such and such a hill in order to drink in "spiritual sustenance." We say we are going to look at the view. And I am convinced that this, which is the natural and simple way of considering literature as well as nature, is also the true way. The habit of always requiring some reward for knowledge beyond the knowledge itself, be that reward some material prize or be it what is vaguely called self-improvement, is one with which I confess I have little sympathy, fostered though it is by the whole scheme of our modern education. Do not suppose that I desire the impossible. I would not if I could destroy the examination system. But there are times, I confess, when I feel tempted somewhat to vary the prayer of the poet, and to ask whether Heaven has not reserved, in pity to this much-educating generation, some peaceful desert of literature as yet unclaimed by the crammer or the coach; where it might be possible for the student to wander, even perhaps to stray, at his own pleasure without finding every beauty labeled, every difficulty engineered, every nook surveyed, and a professional cicerone standing at every corner to guide each succeeding traveler along the same well-worn round. If such a wish were granted, I would further ask that the domain of knowledge thus "neutralized" should be the literature of our own country. I grant to the full that the systematic study of some literature must be a principal element in the education of youth. But why should that literature be our own? Why should we brush off the bloom and freshness from the works to which Englishmen and Scotchmen most naturally turn for refreshment,—namely, those written in their own language? Why should we associate them with the memory of hours spent in weary study; in the effort to remember for purposes of examination what no human being would wish to remember for any other; in the struggle to learn something, not because the learner desires to know it, because he desires some one else to know that he knows it? This is the dark side of the examination system; a system necessary and therefore excellent, but one which does, through the very efficiency and thoroughness of the drill by which it imparts knowledge, to some extent impair the most delicate pleasures by which the acquisition of knowledge should be attended.

How great those pleasures may be, I trust there are many here who can testify. When I compare the position of the reader of to-day with that of his predecessor of the sixteenth century. I am amazed at the ingratitude of those who are tempted even for a moment to regret the invention of printing and the multiplication of books. There is now no mood of mind to which a man may not administer the appropriate nutriment or medicine at the cost of reaching down a volume from his bookshelf. In every department of knowledge infinitely more is known, and what is known is incomparably more accessible, than it was to our ancestors. The lighter forms of literature, good, bad, and indifferent, which have added so vastly to the happiness of mankind, have increased beyond powers of computation; nor do I believe that there is any reason to think that they have elbowed out their more serious and important brethren. It is perfectly possible for a man, not a professed student, and who only gives to reading the leisure hours of a business life, to acquire such a general knowledge of the laws of nature and the facts of history that every great advance made in either department shall be to him both intelligible and interesting; and he may besides have among his familiar friends many a departed worthy whose memory is embalmed in the pages of memoir or biography. All this is ours for the asking. All this we shall ask for, if only it be our happy fortune to love for its own sake the beauty and the knowledge to be gathered from books. And if this be our fortune, the world may be kind or unkind, it may seem to us to be hastening on the wings of enlightenment and progress to an imminent millennium, or it may weigh us down with the sense of insoluble difficulty and irremediable wrong; but whatever else it be, so long as we have good health and a good library, it can hardly be dull.



THE BALLAD

(Popular or Communal)

BY F.B. GUMMERE

The popular ballad, as it is understood for the purpose of these selections, is a narrative in lyric form, with no traces of individual authorship, and is preserved mainly by oral tradition. In its earliest stages it was meant to be sung by a crowd, and got its name from the dance to which it furnished the sole musical accompaniment. In these primitive communities the ballad was doubtless chanted by the entire folk, in festivals mainly of a religious character. Explorers still meet something of the sort in savage tribes: and children's games preserve among us some relics of this protoplasmic form of verse-making, in which the single poet or artist was practically unknown, and spontaneous, improvised verses arose out of the occasion itself; in which the whole community took part; and in which the beat of foot—along with the gesture which expressed narrative elements of the song—was inseparable from the words and the melody. This native growth of song, in which the chorus or refrain, the dance of a festal multitude, and the spontaneous nature of the words, were vital conditions, gradually faded away before the advance of cultivated verse and the vigor of production in what one may call poetry of the schools. Very early in the history of the ballad, a demand for more art must have called out or at least emphasized the artist, the poet, who chanted new verses while the throng kept up the refrain or burden. Moreover, as interest was concentrated upon the words or story, people began to feel that both dance and melody were separable if not alien features; and thus they demanded the composed and recited ballad, to the harm and ultimate ruin of that spontaneous song for the festal, dancing crowd. Still, even when artistry had found a footing in ballad verse, it long remained mere agent and mouthpiece for the folk; the communal character of the ballad was maintained in form and matter. Events of interest were sung in almost contemporary and entirely improvised verse; and the resulting ballads, carried over the borders of their community and passed down from generation to generation, served as newspaper to their own times and as chronicle to posterity. It is the kind of song to which Tacitus bears witness as the sole form of history among the early Germans; and it is evident that such a stock of ballads must have furnished considerable raw material to the epic. Ballads, in whatever original shape, went to the making of the English 'Beowulf,' of the German 'Nibelungenlied.' Moreover, a study of dramatic poetry leads one back to similar communal origins. What is loosely called a "chorus,"—originally, as the name implies, a dance—out of which older forms of the drama were developed, could be traced back to identity with primitive forms of the ballad. The purely lyrical ballad, even, the chanson of the people, so rare in English but so abundant among other races, is evidently a growth from the same root.

If, now, we assume for this root the name of communal poem, and if we bear in mind the dominant importance of the individual, the artist, in advancing stages of poetry, it is easy to understand why for civilized and lettered communities the ballad has ceased to have any vitality whatever. Under modern conditions the making of ballads is a closed account. For our times poetry means something written by a poet, and not something sung more or less spontaneously by a dancing throng. Indeed, paper and ink, the agents of preservation in the case of ordinary verse, are for ballads the agents of destruction. The broadside press of three centuries ago, while it rescued here and there a genuine ballad, poured out a mass of vulgar imitations which not only displaced and destroyed the ballad of oral tradition, but brought contempt upon good and bad alike. Poetry of the people, to which our ballad belongs, is a thing of the past. Even rude and distant communities, like those of Afghanistan, cannot give us the primitive conditions. The communal ballad is rescued, when rescued at all, by the fragile chances of a written copy or of oral tradition; and we are obliged to study it under terms of artistic poetry,—that is, we are forced to take through the eye and the judgment what was meant for the ear and immediate sensation. Poetry for the people, however, "popular poetry" in the modern phrase, is a very different affair. Street songs, vulgar rhymes, or even improvisations of the concert-halls, tawdry and sentimental stuff,—these things are sundered by the world's width from poetry of the people, from the folk in verse, whether it echo in a great epos which chants the clash of empires or linger in a ballad of the countryside sung under the village linden. For this ballad is a part of the poetry which comes from the people as a whole, from a homogeneous folk, large or small; while the song of street or concert-hall is deliberately composed for a class, a section, of the community. It would therefore be better to use some other term than "popular" when we wish to specify the ballad of tradition, and so avoid all taint of vulgarity and the trivial. Nor must we go to the other extreme. Those high-born people who figure in traditional ballads—Childe Waters, Lady Maisry, and the rest—do not require us to assume composition in aristocratic circles; for the lower classes of the people in ballad days had no separate literature, and a ballad of the folk belonged to the community as a whole. The same habit of thought, the same standard of action, ruled alike the noble and his meanest retainer. Oral transmission, the test of the ballad, is of course nowhere possible save in such an unlettered community. Since all critics are at one in regard to this homogeneous character of the folk with whom and out of whom these songs had their birth, one is justified in removing all doubt from the phrase by speaking not of the popular ballad but of the communal ballad, the ballad of a community.

With regard to the making of a ballad, one must repeat a caution, hinted already, and made doubly important by a vicious tendency in the study of all phases of culture. It is a vital mistake to explain primitive conditions by exact analogy with conditions of modern savagery and barbarism. Certain conclusions, always guarded and cautious to a degree, may indeed be drawn; but it is folly to insist that what now goes on among shunted races, belated detachments in the great march of culture, must have gone on among the dominant and mounting peoples who had reached the same external conditions of life. The homogeneous and unlettered state of the ballad-makers is not to be put on a level with the ignorance of barbarism, nor explained by the analogy of songs among modern savage tribes. Fortunately we have better material. The making of a ballad by a community can be illustrated from a case recorded by Pastor Lyngbye in his invaluable account of life on the Faroe Islands a century ago. Not only had the islanders used from most ancient times their traditional and narrative songs as music for the dance, but they had also maintained the old fashion of making a ballad. In the winter, says Lyngbye, dancing is their chief amusement and is an affair of the entire community. At such a dance, one or more persons begin to sing; then all who are present join in the ballad, or at least in the refrain. As they dance, they show by their gestures and expression that they follow with eagerness the course of the story which they are singing. More than this, the ballad is often a spontaneous product of the occasion. A fisherman, who has had some recent mishap with his boat, is pushed by stalwart comrades into the middle of the throng, while the dancers sing verses about him and his lack of skill,—verses improvised on the spot and with a catching and clamorous refrain. If these verses win favor, says Lyngbye, they are repeated from year to year, with slight additions or corrections, and become a permanent ballad. Bearing in mind the extraordinary readiness to improvise shown even in these days by peasants in every part of Europe, we thus gain some definite notion about the spontaneous and communal elements which went to the making of the best type of primitive verse; for these Faroe islanders were no savages, but simply a homeogeneous and isolated folk which still held to the old ways of communal song.

Critics of the ballad, moreover, agree that it has little or no subjective traits,—an easy inference from the conditions just described. There is no individuality lurking behind the words of the ballad, and above all, no evidence of that individuality in the form of sentiment. Sentiment and individuality are the very essence of modern poetry, and the direct result of individualism in verse. Given a poet, sentiment—and it may be noble and precious enough—is sure to follow. But the ballad, an epic in little, forces one's attention to the object, the scene, the story, and away from the maker.

"The king sits in Dumferling town."

begins one of the noblest of all ballads; while one of the greatest of modern poems opens with something personal and pathetic, key-note to all that follows:—

"My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense ..."

Even when a great poet essays the ballad, either he puts sentiment into it, or else he keeps sentiment out of it by a tour de force. Admirable and noble as one must call the conclusion of an artistic ballad such as Tennyson's 'Revenge,' it is altogether different from the conclusion of such a communal ballad as 'Sir Patrick Spens.' That subtle quality of the ballad which lies in solution with the story and which—as in 'Child Maurice' or 'Babylon' or 'Edward'—compels in us sensations akin to those called out by the sentiment of the poet, is a wholly impersonal if strangely effective quality, far removed from the corresponding elements of the poem of art. At first sight, one might say that Browning's dramatic lyrics had this impersonal quality. But compare the close of 'Give a Rouse,' chorus and all, with the close of 'Child Maurice,' that swift and relentless stroke of pure tragedy which called out the enthusiasm of so great a critic as Gray.

The narrative of the communal ballad is full of leaps and omissions; the style is simple to a fault; the diction is spontaneous and free. Assonance frequently takes the place of rhyme, and a word often rhymes with itself. There is a lack of poetic adornment in the style quite as conspicuous as the lack of reflection and moralizing in the matter. Metaphor and simile are rare and when found are for the most part standing phrases common to all the ballads; there is never poetry for poetry's sake. Iteration is the chief mark of ballad style; and the favorite form of this effective figure is what one may call incremental repetition. The question is repeated with the answer; each increment in a series of related facts has a stanza for itself, identical, save for the new fact, with the other stanzas. 'Babylon' furnishes good instances of this progressive iteration. Moreover, the ballad differs from earlier English epics in that it invariably has stanzas and rhyme; of the two forms of stanza, the two-line stanza with a refrain is probably older than the stanza with four or six lines.

This necessary quality of the stanza points to the origin of the ballad in song; but longer ballads, such as those that make up the 'Gest of Robin Hood,' an epic in little, were not sung as lyrics or to aid the dance, but were either chanted in a monotonous fashion or else recited outright. Chappell, in his admirable work on old English music ('Music of the Olden Time,' ii. 790), names a third class of "characteristic airs of England,"—the "historical and very long ballads, ... invariably of simple construction, usually plaintive.... They were rarely if ever used for dancing." Most of the longer ballads, however, were doubtless given by one person in a sort of recitative; this is the case with modern ballads of Russia and Servia, where the bystanders now and then join in a chorus. Precisely in the same way ballads were divorced from the dance, originally their vital condition; but in the refrain, which is attached to so many ballads, one finds an element which has survived from those earliest days of communal song.

Of oldest communal poetry no actual ballad has come down to us. Hints and even fragments, however, are pointed out in ancient records, mainly as the material of chronicle or legend. In the Bible (Numbers xxi. 17), where "Israel sang this song," we are not going too far when we regard the fragment as part of a communal ballad. "Spring up, O well: sing ye unto it: the princes digged the well, the nobles of the people digged it, by the direction of the lawgiver, with their staves." Deborah's song has something of the communal note; and when Miriam dances and sings with her maidens, one is reminded of the many ballads made by dancing and singing bands of women in mediaeval Europe,—for instance, the song made in the seventh century to the honor of St. Faro, and "sung by the women as they danced and clapped their hands." The question of ancient Greek ballads, and their relation to the epic, is not to be discussed here; nor can we make more than an allusion to the theory of Niebuhr that the early part of Livy is founded on, old Roman ballads. A popular discussion of this matter may be found in Macaulay's preface to his own 'Lays of Ancient Rome.' The ballads of modern Europe are a survival of older communal poetry, more or less influenced by artistic and individual conditions of authorship, but wholly impersonal, and with an appeal to our interest which seems to come from a throng and not from the solitary poet. Attention was early called to the ballads of Spain; printed at first as broadsides, they were gathered into a volume as early as 1550. On the other hand, ballads were neglected in France until very recent times; for specimens of the French ballad, and for an account of it, the reader should consult Professor Crane's 'Chansons Populaires de France,' New York, 1891. It is with ballads of the Germanic race, however, that we are now concerned. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, the Faroe Islands; Scotland and England; the Netherlands and Germany: all of these countries offer us admirable specimens of the ballad. Particularly, the great collections of Grundtvig ('Danmarks Gamle Folkeviser') for Denmark, and of Child ('The English and Scottish Popular Ballads') for our own tongue, show how common descent or borrowing connects the individual ballads of these groups. "Almost every Norwegian, Swedish, or Icelandic ballad," says Grundtvig, "is found in a Danish version of Scandinavian ballads; moreover, a larger number can be found in English and Scottish versions than in German or Dutch versions." Again, we find certain national preferences in the character of the ballads which have come down to us. Scandinavia kept the old heroic lays (Kaempeviser); Germany wove them into her epic, as witness the Nibelungen Lay; but England and Scotland have none of them in any shape. So, too, the mythic ballad, scantily represented in English, and practically unknown in Germany, abounds in Scandinavian collections. The Faroe Islands and Norway, as Grundtvig tells us, show the best record for ballads preserved by oral tradition; while noble ladies of Denmark, three or four centuries ago, did high service to ballad literature by making collections in manuscript of the songs current then in the castle as in the cottage.

For England, one is compelled to begin the list of known ballads with the thirteenth century. 'The Battle of Maldon,' composed in the last decade of the tenth century, though spirited enough and full of communal vigor, has no stanzaic structure, follows in metre and style the rules of the Old English epic, and is only a ballad by courtesy; about the ballads used a century or two later by historians of England, we can do nothing but guess; and there is no firm ground under the critic's foot until he comes to the Robin Hood ballads, which Professor Child assigns to the thirteenth century. 'The Battle of Otterburn' (1388) opens a series of ballads based on actual events and stretching into the eighteenth century. Barring the Robin Hood cycle,—an epic constructed from this attractive material lies before us in the famous 'Gest of Robin Hood,' printed as early as 1489,—the chief sources of the collector are the Percy Manuscript, "written just before 1650,"—on which, not without omissions and additions, the bishop based his 'Reliques,' first published in 1765,—and the oral traditions of Scotland, which Professor Child refers to "the last one hundred and thirty years." Information about the individual ballads, their sources, history, literary connections, and above all, their varying texts, must be sought in the noble work of Professor F.J. Child. For present purposes, a word or two of general information must suffice. As to origins, there is a wide range. The church furnished its legend, as in 'St. Stephen'; romance contributed the story of 'Thomas Rymer'; and the light, even cynical fabliau is responsible for 'The Boy and the Mantle.' Ballads which occur in many tongues either may have a common origin or else may owe their manifold versions, as in the case of popular tales, to a love of borrowing; and here, of course, we get the hint of wider issues. For the most part, however, a ballad tells some moving story, preferably of fighting and of love. Tragedy is the dominant note; and English ballads of the best type deal with those elements of domestic disaster so familiar in the great dramas of literature, in the story of Orestes, or of Hamlet, or of the Cid. Such are 'Edward,' 'Lord Randal,' 'The Two Brothers,' 'The Two Sisters,' 'Child Maurice,' 'Bewick and Graham,' 'Clerk Colven,' 'Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard,' 'Glasgerion,' and many others. Another group of ballads, represented by the 'Baron of Brackley' and 'Captain Car,' give a faithful picture of the feuds and ceaseless warfare in Scotland and on the border. A few fine ballads—'Sweet William's Ghost,' 'The Wife of Usher's Well'—touch upon the supernatural. Of the romantic ballads, 'Childe Waters' shows us the higher, and 'Young Beichan' the lower, but still sound and communal type. Incipient dramatic tendencies mark 'Edward' and 'Lord Randal'; while, on the other hand, a lyric note almost carries 'Bonnie George Campbell' out of balladry. Finally, it is to be noted that in the 'Nut-Brown Maid,' which many would unhesitatingly refer to this class of poetry, we have no ballad at all, but a dramatic lyric, probably written by a woman, and with a special plea in the background.



ROBIN HOOD AND GUY OF GISBORNE[8]

1. When shawes[9] beene sheene[10], and shradds[11] full fayre, And leeves both large and longe, It is merry, walking in the fayre forrest, To heare the small birds' songe.

2. The woodweele[12] sang, and wold not cease, Amongst the leaves a lyne[13]; And it is by two wight[14] yeomen, By deare God, that I meane.

* * * * *

3. "Me thought they[15] did me beate and binde, And tooke my bow me fro; If I bee Robin alive in this lande, I'll be wrocken[16] on both them two."

4. "Sweavens[17] are swift, master," quoth John, "As the wind that blowes ore a hill; For if it be never soe lowde this night, To-morrow it may be still."

5. "Buske ye, bowne ye[18], my merry men all, For John shall go with me; For I'll goe seeke yond wight yeomen In greenwood where they bee."

6. They cast on their gowne of greene, A shooting gone are they, Until they came to the merry greenwood, Where they had gladdest bee; There were they ware of a wight yeoman, His body leaned to a tree.

7. A sword and a dagger he wore by his side, Had beene many a man's bane[19], And he was cladd in his capull-hyde[20], Topp, and tayle, and mayne.

8. "Stand you still, master," quoth Litle John, "Under this trusty tree, And I will goe to yond wight yeoman, To know his meaning trulye."

9. "A, John, by me thou setts noe store, And that's a farley[21] thinge; How offt send I my men before, And tarry myselfe behinde?"

10. "It is noe cunning a knave to ken, And a man but heare him speake; And it were not for bursting of my bowe, John, I wold thy head breake."

11. But often words they breeden bale, That parted Robin and John; John is gone to Barnesdale, The gates[22] he knowes eche one.

12. And when hee came to Barnesdale, Great heavinesse there hee hadd; He found two of his fellowes Were slaine both in a slade[23],

13. And Scarlett a foote flyinge was, Over stockes and stone, For the sheriffe with seven score men Fast after him is gone.

14. "Yet one shoote I'll shoote," sayes Litle John, "With Crist his might and mayne; I'll make yond fellow that flyes soe fast To be both glad and faine."

15. John bent up a good veiwe bow[24], And fetteled[25] him to shoote; The bow was made of a tender boughe, And fell downe to his foote.

16. "Woe worth[26] thee, wicked wood," sayd Litle John, "That ere thou grew on a tree! For this day thou art my bale, My boote[27] when thou shold bee!"

17. This shoote it was but looselye shott, The arrowe flew in vaine, And it mett one of the sheriffe's men; Good William a Trent was slaine.

18. It had beene better for William a Trent To hange upon a gallowe Then for to lye in the greenwoode, There slaine with an arrowe.

19. And it is sayed, when men be mett, Six can doe more than three: And they have tane Litle John, And bound him fast to a tree.

20. "Thou shalt be drawen by dale and downe," quoth the sheriffe[28], "And hanged hye on a hill:" "But thou may fayle," quoth Litle John "If it be Christ's owne will."

21. Let us leave talking of Litle John, For hee is bound fast to a tree, And talke of Guy and Robin Hood In the green woode where they bee.

22. How these two yeomen together they mett, Under the leaves of lyne, To see what marchandise they made Even at that same time.

23. "Good morrow, good fellow," quoth Sir Guy; "Good morrow, good fellow," quoth hee; "Methinkes by this bow thou beares in thy hand, A good archer thou seems to bee."

24. "I am wilfull of my way[29]," quoth Sir Guy, "And of my morning tyde:" "I'll lead thee through the wood," quoth Robin, "Good fellow, I'll be thy guide."

25. "I seeke an outlaw," quoth Sir Guy, "Men call him Robin Hood; I had rather meet with him upon a day Then forty pound of golde."

26. "If you tow mett, it wold be seene whether were better Afore yee did part awaye; Let us some other pastime find, Good fellow, I thee pray."

27. "Let us some other masteryes make, And we will walke in the woods even; Wee may chance meet with Robin Hood At some unsett steven[30]."

28. They cutt them downe the summer shroggs[31] Which grew both under a bryar, And sett them three score rood in twinn[32], To shoote the prickes[33] full neare.

29. "Leade on, good fellow," sayd Sir Guye, "Leade on, I doe bidd thee:" "Nay, by my faith," quoth Robin Hood, "The leader thou shalt bee."

30. The first good shoot that Robin ledd, Did not shoote an inch the pricke froe, Guy was an archer good enoughe, But he could neere shoote soe.

31. The second shoote Sir Guy shott, He shott within the garlande[34], But Robin Hoode shott it better than hee, For he clove the good pricke-wande.

32. "God's blessing on thy heart!" sayes Guye, "Goode fellow, thy shooting is goode; For an thy hart be as good as thy hands, Thou were better than Robin Hood."

33. "Tell me thy name, good fellow," quoth Guye, "Under the leaves of lyne:" "Nay, by my faith," quoth good Robin, "Till thou have told me thine."

34. "I dwell by dale and downe," quoth Guye, "And I have done many a curst turne; And he that calles me by my right name, Calles me Guye of good Gysborne."

35. "My dwelling is in the wood," sayes Robin; "By thee I set right nought; My name is Robin Hood of Barnesdale, A fellow thou hast long sought."

36. He that had neither beene a kithe nor kin Might have seene a full fayre sight. To see how together these yeomen went, With blades both browne and bright.

37. To have seene how these yeomen together fought Two howers of a summer's day; It was neither Guy nor Robin Hood That fettled them to flye away.

38. Robin was reacheles[35] on a roote, And stumbled at that tyde, And Guy was quicke and nimble with-all, And hitt him ore the left side.

39. "Ah, deere Lady!" sayd Robin Hoode, "Thou art both mother and may[36]! I thinke it was never man's destinye To dye before his day."

40. Robin thought on Our Lady deere, And soone leapt up againe, And thus he came with an awkwarde[37] stroke; Good Sir Guy hee has slayne.

41. He tooke Sir Guy's head by the hayre, And sticked it on his bowe's end: "Thou has beene traytor all thy life, Which thing must have an ende."

42. Robin pulled forth an Irish kniffe, And nicked Sir Guy in the face, That he was never on[38] a woman borne Could tell who Sir Guye was.

43. Saies, Lye there, lye there, good Sir Guye, And with me not wrothe; If thou have had the worse stroakes at my hand, Thou shalt have the better cloathe.

44. Robin did off his gowne of greene, Sir Guye he did it throwe; And he put on that capull-hyde That clad him topp to toe.

45. "Tis bowe, the arrowes, and litle horne, And with me now I'll beare; For now I will goe to Barnesdale, To see how my men doe fare."

46. Robin sett Guye's horne to his mouth, A lowd blast in it he did blow; That beheard the sheriffe of Nottingham, As he leaned under a lowe[39].

47. "Hearken! hearken!" sayd the sheriffe, "I heard noe tydings but good; For yonder I heare Sir Guye's horne blowe, For he hath slaine Robin Hoode."

48. "For yonder I heare Sir Guye's horne blowe, It blowes soe well in tyde, For yonder conies that wighty yeoman Cladd in his capull-hyde."

49. "Come hither, thou good Sir Guy, Aske of mee what thou wilt have:" "I'll none of thy gold," sayes Robin Hood, "Nor I'll none of it have."

50. "But now I have slaine the master," he sayd, "Let me goe strike the knave; This is all the reward I aske, Nor noe other will I have."

51. "Thou art a madman," said the sheriffe, "Thou sholdest have had a knight's fee; Seeing thy asking hath beene soe badd, Well granted it shall be."

52. But Litle John heard his master speake, Well he knew that was his steven[40]; "Now shall I be loset," quoth Litle John, "With Christ's might in heaven."

53. But Robin hee hyed him towards Litle John, Hee thought hee wold loose him belive; The sheriffe and all his companye Fast after him did drive.

54. "Stand abacke! stand abacke!" sayd Robin; "Why draw you mee soe neere? It was never the use in our countrye One's shrift another should heere."

55. But Robin pulled forth an Irysh kniffe, And losed John hand and foote, And gave him Sir Guye's bow in his hand, And bade it be his boote.

56. But John tooke Guye's bow in his hand (His arrowes were rawstye[41] by the roote); The sherriffe saw Litle John draw a bow And fettle him to shoote.

57. Towards his house in Nottingham He fled full fast away, And so did all his companye, Not one behind did stay.

58. But he cold neither soe fast goe, Nor away soe fast runn, But Litle John, with an arrow broade, Did cleave his heart in twinn.

[Footnote 8: This ballad is a good specimen of the Robin Hood Cycle, and is remarkable for its many proverbial and alliterative phrases. A few lines have been lost between stanzas 2 and 3. Gisborne is a "market-town in the West Riding of the County of York, on the borders of Lancashire." For the probable tune of the ballad, see Chappell's 'Popular Music of the Olden Time,' ii. 397.]

[Footnote 9: Woods, groves.—This touch of description at the outset is common in our old ballads, as well as in the mediaeval German popular lyric, and may perhaps spring from the old "summer-lays" and chorus of pagan times.]

[Footnote 10: Beautiful; German, schoen.]

[Footnote 11: Coppices or openings in a wood.]

[Footnote 12: In some glossaries the woodpecker, but here of course a song-bird,—perhaps, as Chappell suggests, the woodlark.]

[Footnote 13: A, on; lyne, lime or linden.]

[Footnote 14: Sturdy, brave.]

[Footnote 15: Robin now tells of a dream in which "they" (=the two "wight yeomen," who are Guy and, as Professor Child suggests, the Sheriff of Nottingham) maltreat him; and he thus foresees trouble "from two quarters."]

[Footnote 16: Revenged.]

[Footnote 17: Dreams.]

[Footnote 18: Tautological phrase,—"prepare and make ready."]

[Footnote 19: Murder, destruction.]

[Footnote 20: Horse's hide.]

[Footnote 21: Strange.]

[Footnote 22: Paths.]

[Footnote 23: Green valley between woods.]

[Footnote 24: Perhaps the yew-bow.]

[Footnote 25: Made ready.]

[Footnote 26: "Woe be to thee." Worth is the old subjunctive present of an exact English equivalent to the modern German werden.]

[Footnote 27: Note these alliterative phrases. Boote, remedy.]

[Footnote 28: As Percy noted, this "quoth the sheriffe," was probably added by some explainer. The reader, however, must remember the license of slurring or contracting the syllables of a word, as well as the opposite freedom of expansion. Thus in the second line of stanza 7, man's is to be pronounced man-es.]

[Footnote 29: I have lost my way.]

[Footnote 30: At some unappointed time,—by chance.]

[Footnote 31: Stunted shrubs.]

[Footnote 32: Apart.]

[Footnote 33: "Prickes seem to have been the long-range targets, butts the near."—Furnivall.]

[Footnote 34: Garlande, perhaps "the ring within which the prick was set"; and the pricke-wande perhaps a pole or stick. The terms are not easy to understand clearly.]

[Footnote 35: Reckless, careless.]

[Footnote 36: Maiden.]

[Footnote 37: Dangerous, or perhaps simply backward, backhanded.]

[Footnote 38: On is frequently used for of.]

[Footnote 39: Hillock.]

[Footnote 40: Voice.]

[Footnote 41: Rusty]

THE HUNTING OF THE CHEVIOT

[This is the older and better version of the famous ballad. The younger version was the subject of Addison's papers in the Spectator.]

1. The Percy out of Northumberlande, and a vowe to God mayd he That he would hunte in the mountayns of Cheviot within days thre, In the magger[42] of doughty Douglas, and all that ever with him be.

2. The fattiste hartes in all Cheviot he sayd he would kyll, and cary them away: "Be my feth," sayd the doughty Douglas agayn, "I will let[43] that hontyng if that I may."

3. Then the Percy out of Banborowe cam, with him a myghtee meany[44], With fifteen hondred archares bold of blood and bone; they were chosen out of shyars thre.

4. This began on a Monday at morn, in Cheviot the hillys so he; The chyld may rue that ys unborn, it was the more pitte.

5. The dryvars thorowe the woodes went, for to reas the deer; Bowmen byckarte uppone the bent[45] with their browd arrows cleare.

6. Then the wyld thorowe the woodes went, on every syde shear; Greahondes thorowe the grevis glent[46], for to kyll their deer.

7. This begane in Cheviot the hyls abone, yerly on a Monnyn-day; Be that it drewe to the hour of noon, a hondred fat hartes ded ther lay.

8. They blewe a mort[47] uppone the bent, they semblyde on sydis shear; To the quyrry then the Percy went, to see the bryttlynge[48] of the deere.

9. He sayd, "It was the Douglas promys this day to met me hear; But I wyste he wolde faylle, verament;" a great oth the Percy swear.

10. At the laste a squyar of Northumberlande lokyde at his hand full ny; He was war a the doughtie Douglas commynge, with him a myghte meany.

11. Both with spear, bylle, and brande, yt was a myghte sight to se; Hardyar men, both of hart nor hande, were not in Cristiante.

12. They were twenty hondred spear-men good, withoute any fail; They were borne along be the water a Twyde, yth bowndes of Tividale.

13. "Leave of the brytlyng of the deer," he said, "and to your bows look ye tayk good hede; For never sithe ye were on your mothers borne had ye never so mickle nede."

14. The doughty Douglas on a stede, he rode alle his men beforne; His armor glytteyrde as dyd a glede[49]; a boldar barne was never born.

15. "Tell me whose men ye are," he says, "or whose men that ye be: Who gave youe leave to hunte in this Cheviot chays, in the spyt of myn and of me."

16. The first man that ever him an answer mayd, yt was the good lord Percy: "We wyll not tell the whose men we are," he says, "nor whose men that we be; But we wyll hounte here in this chays, in spyt of thyne and of the."

17. "The fattiste hartes in all Cheviot we have kyld, and cast to carry them away:" "Be my troth," sayd the doughty Douglas agayn, "therefor the tone of us shall die this day."

18. Then sayd the doughte Douglas unto the lord Percy, "To kyll alle thes giltles men, alas, it wear great pitte!"

19. "But, Percy, thowe art a lord of lande, I am a yerle callyd within my contre; Let all our men uppone a parti stande, and do the battell of the and of me."

20. "Nowe Cristes curse on his crowne," sayd the lord Percy, "whosoever thereto says nay; Be my troth, doughty Douglas," he says, "thow shalt never se that day."

21. "Nethar in Ynglonde, Skottlonde, nor France, nor for no man of a woman born, But, and fortune be my chance, I dar met him, one man for one."

22. Then bespayke a squyar of Northumberlande, Richard Wytharyngton was his name: "It shall never be told in Sothe-Ynglonde," he says, "To Kyng Kerry the Fourth for shame."

23. "I wat youe byn great lordes twa, I am a poor squyar of lande: I wylle never se my captayne fyght on a fylde, and stande my selffe and looke on, But whylle I may my weppone welde, I wylle not fayle both hart and hande."

24. That day, that day, that dredfull day! the first fit here I fynde[50]; And you wyll hear any more a the hountyng a the Cheviot yet ys ther mor behynde.

25. The Yngglyshe men had their bowys ybent, ther hartes were good yenoughe; The first of arrows that they shote off, seven skore spear-men they sloughe.

26. Yet bides the yerle Douglas upon the bent, a captayne good yenoughe, And that was sene verament, for he wrought hem both wo and wouche.

27. The Douglas partyd his host in thre, like a chief chieftain of pryde; With sure spears of myghtty tre, they cum in on every syde:

28. Throughe our Yngglyshe archery gave many a wounde fulle wyde; Many a doughty they garde to dy, which ganyde them no pryde.

29. The Ynglyshe men let ther bowes be, and pulde out brandes that were brighte; It was a heavy syght to se bryght swordes on basnites lyght.

30. Thorowe ryche male and myneyeple[51], many sterne they strocke down straight; Many a freyke[52] that was fulle fre, there under foot dyd lyght.

31. At last the Douglas and the Percy met, lyk to captayns of myght and of mayne; The swapte together tylle they both swat, with swordes that were of fine milan.

32. These worthy freckys for to fyght, ther-to they were fulle fayne, Tylle the bloode out off their basnetes sprente, as ever dyd hail or rayn.

33. "Yield thee, Percy," sayd the Douglas, "and i faith I shalle thee brynge Where thowe shalte have a yerls wagis of Jamy our Scottish kynge."

34. "Thou shalte have thy ransom fre, I hight[53] the here this thinge; For the manfullyste man yet art thow that ever I conqueryd in fielde fighttynge."

35. "Nay," sayd the lord Percy, "I tolde it thee beforne, That I wolde never yeldyde be to no man of a woman born."

36. With that ther came an arrow hastely, forthe off a myghtty wane[54]; It hath strekene the yerle Douglas in at the brest-bane.

37. Thorowe lyvar and lunges bothe the sharpe arrowe ys gane, That never after in all his lyfe-days he spayke mo wordes but ane: That was, "Fyghte ye, my myrry men, whyllys ye may, for my lyfe-days ben gane."

38. The Percy leanyde on his brande, and sawe the Douglas de; He tooke the dead man by the hande, and said, "Wo ys me for thee!"

39. "To have savyde thy lyfe, I would have partyde with my landes for years three, For a better man, of hart nor of hande, was not in all the north contre."

40. Of all that see a Scottish knyght, was callyd Sir Hewe the Monggombyrry; He saw the Douglas to the death was dyght, he spendyd a spear, a trusti tree.

41. He rode upon a corsiare throughe a hondred archery; He never stynttyde nor never blane[55], till he came to the good lord Percy.

42. He set upon the lorde Percy a dynte that was full sore; With a sure spear of a myghtte tree clean thorow the body he the Percy ber[56],

43. A the tother syde that a man might see a large cloth-yard and mare; Two better captayns were not in Cristiante than that day slain were there.

44. An archer off Northumberlande saw slain was the lord Percy; He bore a bende bowe in his hand, was made of trusti tree;

45. An arrow, that a cloth-yarde was long, to the harde stele halyde he; A dynt that was both sad and soar he set on Sir Hewe the Monggombyrry.

46. The dynt yt was both sad and sore, that he of Monggombyrry set; The swane-fethars that his arrowe bar with his hart-blood they were wet.

47. There was never a freak one foot wolde flee, but still in stour[57] dyd stand, Hewyng on eache other, whyle they myghte dree, with many a balefull brande.

48. This battell begane in Cheviot an hour before the none, And when even-songe bell was rang, the battell was not half done.

49. They took ... on either hande by the lyght of the mone; Many hade no strength for to stande, in Cheviot the hillys abon.

50. Of fifteen hundred archers of Ynglonde went away but seventy and three; Of twenty hundred spear-men of Scotlonde, but even five and fifty.

51. But all were slayne Cheviot within; they had no strength to stand on by; The chylde may rue that ys unborne, it was the more pitte.

52. There was slayne, withe the lord Percy, Sir John of Agerstone, Sir Rogar, the hinde Hartly, Sir Wyllyam, the bold Hearone.

53. Sir George, the worthy Loumle, a knyghte of great renown, Sir Raff, the ryche Rugbe, with dyntes were beaten downe.

54. For Wetharryngton my harte was wo, that ever he slayne shulde be; For when both his leggis were hewyn in to, yet he kneeled and fought on hys knee.

55. There was slayne, with the doughty Douglas, Sir Hewe the Monggombyrry, Sir Davy Lwdale, that worthy was, his sister's son was he.

56. Sir Charles a Murre in that place, that never a foot wolde fie; Sir Hewe Maxwelle, a lorde he was, with the Douglas dyd he die.

57. So on the morrowe they mayde them biers off birch and hasell so gray; Many widows, with weepyng tears, came to fetch ther makys[58] away.

58. Tivydale may carpe of care, Northumberland may mayk great moan, For two such captayns as slayne were there, on the March-parti shall never be none.

59. Word ys commen to Eddenburrowe, to Jamy the Scottische kynge, That doughty Douglas, lyff-tenant of the Marches, he lay slean Cheviot within.

60. His handdes dyd he weal and wryng, he sayd, "Alas, and woe ys me! Such an othar captayn Skotland within," he sayd, "i-faith should never be."

61. Worde ys commyn to lovely Londone, till the fourth Harry our kynge. That lord Percy, leyff-tenante of the Marchis he lay slayne Cheviot within.

62. "God have merci on his soule," sayde Kyng Harry, "good lord, yf thy will it be! I have a hondred captayns in Ynglonde," he sayd, "as good as ever was he: But Percy, and I brook my lyfe, thy deth well quyte shall be."

63. As our noble kynge mayd his avowe, lyke a noble prince of renown, For the deth of the lord Percy he dyd the battle of Hombyll-down:

64. Where syx and thirty Skottishe knyghtes on a day were beaten down: Glendale glytteryde on their armor bryght, over castille, towar, and town.

65. This was the hontynge of the Cheviot, that tear[59] begane this spurn; Old men that knowen the grownde well enoughe call it the battell of Otterburn.

66. At Otterburn begane this spume upon a Monnynday; There was the doughty Douglas slean, the Percy never went away.

67. There was never a tyme on the Marche-partes sen the Douglas and the Percy met, But yt ys mervele and the rede blude ronne not, as the rain does in the stret.

68. Jesus Christ our bales[60] bete, and to the bliss us bring! Thus was the hunting of the Cheviot; God send us alle good ending!

[Footnote 42: 'Maugre,' in spite of.]

[Footnote 43: Hinder.]

[Footnote 44: Company.]

[Footnote 45: Skirmished on the field.]

[Footnote 46: Ran through the groves.]

[Footnote 47: Blast blown when game is killed.]

[Footnote 48: Quartering, cutting.]

[Footnote 49: Flame.]

[Footnote 50: Perhaps "finish."]

[Footnote 51: "A gauntlet covering hand and forearm."]

[Footnote 52: Man.]

[Footnote 53: Promise.]

[Footnote 54: Meaning uncertain.]

[Footnote 55: Stopped.]

[Footnote 56: Pierced.]

[Footnote 57: Stress of battle.]

[Footnote 58: Mates.]

[Footnote 59: That there (?).]

[Footnote 60: Evils.]

JOHNIE COCK

1. Up Johnie raise[61] in a May morning, Calld for water to wash his hands, And he has called for his gude gray hounds That lay bound in iron bands, bands, That lay bound in iron bands.

2. "Ye'll busk[62], ye'll busk my noble dogs, Ye'll busk and make them boun[63], For I'm going to the Braidscaur hill To ding the dun deer doun."

3. Johnie's mother has gotten word o' that, And care-bed she has ta'en[64]: "O Johnie, for my benison, I beg you'l stay at hame; For the wine so red, and the well-baken bread, My Johnie shall want nane."

4. "There are seven forsters at Pickeram Side, At Pickeram where they dwell, And for a drop of thy heart's bluid They wad ride the fords of hell."

5. But Johnie has cast off the black velvet, And put on the Lincoln twine, And he is on the goode greenwood As fast as he could gang.

6. Johnie lookit east, and Johnie lookit west, And he lookit aneath the sun, And there he spied the dun deer sleeping Aneath a buss o' whun[65].

7. Johnie shot, and the dun deer lap[66], And she lap wondrous wide, Until they came to the wan water, And he stem'd her of her pride.

8. He has ta'en out the little pen-knife, 'Twas full three quarters[67] long, And he has ta'en out of that dun deer The liver but and[68] the tongue.

9. They eat of the flesh, and they drank of the blood, And the blood it was so sweet, Which caused Johnie and his bloody hounds To fall in a deep sleep.

10. By then came an old palmer, And an ill death may he die! For he's away to Pickeram Side As fast as he can drie[69].

11. "What news, what news?" says the Seven Forsters, "What news have ye brought to me?" "I have no news," the palmer said, "But what I saw with my eye."

12. "As I came in by Braidisbanks, And down among the whuns, The bonniest youngster e'er I saw Lay sleepin amang his hunds."

13. "The shirt that was upon his back Was o' the holland fine; The doublet which was over that Was o' the Lincoln twine."

14. Up bespake the Seven Forsters, Up bespake they ane and a': "O that is Johnie o' Cockleys Well, And near him we will draw."

15. O the first stroke that they gae him, They struck him off by the knee, Then up bespake his sister's son: "O the next'll gar[70] him die!"

16. "O some they count ye well wight men, But I do count ye nane; For you might well ha' waken'd me, And ask'd gin I wad be ta'en."

17. "The wildest wolf as in a' this wood Wad not ha' done so by me; She'd ha' wet her foot i' the wan water, And sprinkled it o'er my brae, And if that wad not ha' waken'd me, She wad ha' gone and let me be."

18. "O bows of yew, if ye be true, In London, where ye were bought, Fingers five, get up belive[71], Manhuid shall fail me nought."

19. He has kill'd the Seven Forsters, He has kill'd them all but ane, And that wan scarce to Pickeram Side, To carry the bode-words hame.

20. "Is there never a [bird] in a' this wood That will tell what I can say; That will go to Cockleys Well, Tell my mither to fetch me away?"

21. There was a [bird] into that wood, That carried the tidings away, And many ae[72] was the well-wight man At the fetching o' Johnie away.

[Footnote 61: Rose.]

[Footnote 62: Prepare.]

[Footnote 63: Ready.]

[Footnote 64: Has fallen ill with anxiety.]

[Footnote 65: Bush of whin, furze.]

[Footnote 66: Leaped.]

[Footnote 67: Quarter—the fourth part of a yard.]

[Footnote 68: "But and"—as well as.]

[Footnote 69: Bear, endure.]

[Footnote 70: Make, cause.]

[Footnote 71: Quickly.]

[Footnote 72: One.]

SIR PATRICK SPENS

1. The king sits in Dumferling toune, Drinking the blude-reid wine: "O whar will I get guid sailor, To sail this ship of mine?"

2. Up and spak an eldern knight, Sat at the kings right kne: "Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor, That sails upon the sea."

3. The king has written a braid letter[73], And sign'd it wi' his hand, And sent it to Sir Patrick Spens, Was walking on the sand.

4. The first line that Sir Patrick read, A loud laugh laughed he; The next line that Sir Patrick read, The tear blinded his ee.

5. "O wha is this has done this deed, This ill deed done to me, To send me out this time o' the year, To sail upon the sea!"

6. "Make haste, make haste, my mirry men all, Our guide ship sails the morne:" "O say na sae, my master dear, For I fear a deadlie storme."

7. "Late, late yestreen I saw the new moone[74], Wi' the auld moone in hir arme, And I fear, I fear, my dear master, That we will come to harme"

8. O our Scots nobles were right laith To weet their cork-heeled shoone; But lang owre a' the play wer play'd, Their hats they swam aboone.

9. O lang, lang may their ladies sit, Wi' their fans into their hand, Or e'er they see Sir Patrick Spens Cum sailing to the land.

10. O lang, lang may the ladies stand, Wi' their gold kerns[75] in their hair, Waiting for their ain dear lords, For they'll se thame na mair.

11. Half owre, half owre to Aberdour, It's "fiftie fadom deep, And their lies guid Sir Patrick Spens, Wi' the Scots lords at his feet."

[Footnote 73: "A braid letter, open or patent, in opposition to close rolls."—Percy.]

[Footnote 74: Note that it is the sight of the new moon late in the evening which makes a bad omen.]

[Footnote 75: Combs.]

THE BONNY EARL OF MURRAY[76]

1. Ye highlands, and ye Lowlands, Oh where have you been? They have slain the Earl of Murray, And they layd him on the green.

2. "Now wae be to thee, Huntly! And wherefore did you sae? I bade you bring him wi' you, But forbade you him to slay."

3. He was a braw gallant, And he rid at the ring[77]; And the bonny Earl of Murray, Oh he might have been a king!

4. He was a braw gallant, And he play'd at the ba'; And the bonny Earl of Murray Was the flower amang them a'.

5. He was a braw gallant, And he play'd at the glove[78]; And the bonny Earl of Murray, Oh he was the Queen's love!

6. Oh lang will his lady Look o'er the Castle Down, E'er she see the Earl of Murray Come sounding thro the town!

[Footnote 76: James Stewart, Earl of Murray, was killed by the Earl of Huntly's followers, February, 1592. The second stanza is spoken, of course, by the King.]

[Footnote 77: Piercing with the lance a suspended ring, as one rode at full speed, was a favorite sport of the day.]

[Footnote 78: Probably this reference is to the glove worn by knights as a lady's favor.]

MARY HAMILTON

1. Word's gane to the kitchen, And word's gane to the ha', That Marie Hamilton has born a bairn To the highest Stewart of a'.

2. She's tyed it in her apron And she's thrown it in the sea; Says, "Sink ye, swim ye, bonny wee babe, You'll ne'er get mair o' me."

3. Down then cam the auld Queen, Goud[79] tassels tying her hair: "O Marie, where's the bonny wee babe That I heard greet[80] sae sair?"

4. "There was never a babe intill my room, As little designs to be; It was but a touch o' my sair side, Came o'er my fair bodie."

5. "O Marie, put on your robes o' black, Or else your robes o' brown, For ye maun gang wi' me the night, To see fair Edinbro town."

6. "I winna put on my robes o' black, Nor yet my robes o' brown; But I'll put on my robes o' white, To shine through Edinbro town."

7. When she gaed up the Cannogate, She laugh'd loud laughters three; But when she cam down the Cannogate The tear blinded her ee.

8. When she gaed up the Parliament stair, The heel cam aff her shee[81]; And lang or she cam down again She was condemn'd to dee.

9. When she cam down the Cannogate, The Cannogate sae free, Many a ladie look'd o'er her window, Weeping for this ladie.

10. "Make never meen[82] for me," she says, "Make never meen for me; Seek never grace frae a graceless face, For that ye'll never see."

11. "Bring me a bottle of wine," she says, "The best that e'er ye hae, That I may drink to my weil-wishers, And they may drink to me."

12. "And here's to the jolly sailor lad That sails upon the faem; But let not my father nor mother get wit But that I shall come again."

13. "And here's to the jolly sailor lad That sails upon the sea; But let not my father nor mother get wit O' the death that I maun dee."

14. "Oh little did my mother think, The day she cradled me, What lands I was to travel through, What death I was to dee."

15. "Oh little did my father think, The day he held up[83] me, What lands I was to travel through, What death I was to dee."

16. "Last night I wash'd the Queen's feet, And gently laid her down; And a' the thanks I've gotten the nicht To be hangd in Edinbro town!"

17. "Last nicht there was four Maries, The nicht there'll be but three; There was Marie Seton, and Marie Beton, And Marie Carmichael, and me."

[Footnote 79: Gold.]

[Footnote 80: Weep.]

[Footnote 81: Shoe.]

[Footnote 82: Moan.]

[Footnote 83: Held up, lifted up, recognized as his lawful child,—a world-wide and ancient ceremony.]

BONNIE GEORGE CAMPBELL

1. High upon Highlands, and low upon Tay, Bonnie George Campbell rade out on a day.

2. Saddled and bridled and gallant rade he; Hame cam his guid horse, but never cam he.

3. Out cam his auld mither greeting fu' sair, And out cam his bonnie bride riving her hair.

4. Saddled and bridled and booted rade he; Toom[84] hame cam the saddle, but never came he.

5. "My meadow lies green, and my corn is unshorn, My barn is to build, and my babe is unborn."

6. Saddled and bridled and booted rade he; Toom hame cam the saddle, but never cam he.

[Footnote 84: Empty.]

BESSIE BELL AND MARY GRAY[85]

1. O Bessie Bell and Mary Gray, They war twa bonnie lasses! They biggit[86] a bower on yon burn-brae[87], And theekit[88] it oer wi rashes.

2. They theekit it oer wi' rashes green, They theekit it oer wi' heather: But the pest cam frae the burrows-town, And slew them baith thegither.

3. They thought to lie in Methven kirk-yard Amang their noble kin; But they maun lye in Stronach haugh, To biek forenent the sin[89].

4. And Bessie Bell and Mary Gray, They war twa bonnie lasses; They biggit a bower on yon burn-brae, And theekit it oer wi' rashes.

THE THREE RAVENS[90]

1. There were three ravens sat on a tree, Downe a downe, hay down, hay downe[91], There were three ravens sat on a tree, With a downe. There were three ravens sat on a tree, They were as blacke as they might be. With a downe derrie, derrie, derrie, downe, downe.

2. The one of them said to his mate, "Where shall we our breakfast take?"

3. "Downe in yonder greene field There lies a knight slain under his shield."

4. His hounds they lie down at his feete, So well they can their master keepe[92].

5. His haukes they flie so eagerly, There's no fowle dare him come nie.

6. Downe there comes a fallow doe, As great with young as she might goe.

7. She lift up his bloudy head, And kist his wounds that were so red.

8. She got him up upon her backe, And carried him to earthen lake[93].

9. She buried him before the prime, She was dead herselfe ere even-song time.

10. God send every gentleman Such haukes, such hounds, and such a leman[94].

[Footnote 85: Founded on an actual event of the plague, near Perth, in 1645. See the interesting account in Professor Child's 'Ballads,' Part VII, p. 75f.]

[Footnote 86: Built.]

[Footnote 87: A hill sloping down to a brook.]

[Footnote 88: Thatched.]

[Footnote 89: To bake in the rays of the sun.]

[Footnote 90: The counterpart, or perhaps parody, of this ballad, called 'The Twa Corbies,' is better known than the exquisite original.]

[Footnote 91: The refrain, or burden, differs in another version of the ballad.]

[Footnote 92: Guard.]

[Footnote 93: Shroud of earth, burial.]

[Footnote 94: Sweetheart, darling, literally 'dear-one' (liefman). The word had originally no offensive meaning.]

LORD RANDAL

1. Where hae ye been, Lord Randal, my son? O where hae ye been, my handsome young man? "I hae been to the wild wood; mother, make my bed soon, For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain wald lie down."

2. "Where gat ye your dinner, Lord Randal, my son? Where gat ye your dinner, my handsome young man?" "I din'd wi' my true-love; mother, make my bed soon, For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain wald lie down."

3. "What gat ye to your dinner, Lord Randal, my son? What gat ye to your dinner, my handsome young man?" "I gat eels boiled in broo[95]; mother, make my bed soon, For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain wald lie down."

4. "What became o' your bloodhounds, Lord Randal, my son? What became' o' your bloodhounds, my handsome young man?" "O they swell'd and they died; mother, make my bed soon, For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain wald lie down."

5. "O I fear you are poison'd, Lord Randal, my son! O I fear you are poison'd, my handsome young man!" "O yes! I'm poison'd; mother, make my bed soon, For I'm sick at the heart, and I fain wald lie down[96]."

[Footnote 95: Broth.]

[Footnote 96: Frogs, toads, snakes, and the like were often served for fish, and of course were supposed to act as a poison. One variant has a verse to elaborate this:—

"Where gat she those eels, Lord Randal, my son? Where gat she those eels, my handsome young man?" "'Neath the bush o' brown bracken; mother, make my bed soon, For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain wald lie down." ]

EDWARD[97]

1. "Why dois your brand sae drap wi bluid, Edward, Edward, Why dois your brand sae drap wi bluid, And why sae sad gang yee O?" "O I hae killed my hauke sae guid, Mither, mither, O I hae killed my hauke sae guid, And I had nae mair hot hee O."

2. "Your haukis bluid was nevir sae reid, Edward, Edward, Your haukis bluid was nevir sae reid, My deir son I tell thee O." "O I hae killed my reid-roan steid, Mither, mither, O I hae killed my reid-roan steid, That erst was sae fair and frie O."

3. "Your steid was auld, and ye hae gat mair, Edward, Edward, Your steid was auld, and ye hae gat mair, Sum other dule ye drie O[98]." "O I hae killed my fadir deir, Mither, mither, O I hae killed my fadir deir, Alas, and wae is mee O!"

4. "And whatten penance wul ye drie, for that, Edward, Edward, And whatten penance wul ye drie, for that? My deir son, now tell me O." "I'll set my feit in yonder boat, Mither, mither, I'll set my feit in yonder boat, And I'll fare over the sea O."

5. "And what wul ye doe wi' your towers and your ha', Edward, Edward, And what wul ye doe wi' your towers and your ha', That were sae fair to see O?" "I'll let them stand till they doun fa', Mither, mither, I'll let them stand till they doun fa', For here nevir mair maun I bee O."

6. "And what wul ye leive to your bairns and your wife, Edward, Edward, And what wul ye leive to your bairns and your wife, When ye gang over the sea O?" "The warldis room; let them beg thrae life, Mither, mither, The warldis room; let them beg thrae life, For them never mair wul I see O."

7. "And what wul ye leive to your ain mither dear, Edward, Edward, And what will ye leive to your ain mither dear? My dear son, now tell me O." "The curse of hell frae me sall ye beir, Mither, mither, The curse of hell frae me sall ye beir, Sic counsels ye gave to me O."

[Footnote 97: One of the finest of our ballads. It was sent from Scotland to Percy by David Dalrymple.]

[Footnote 98: You suffer some other sorrow.]

THE TWA BROTHERS

1. There were twa brethren in the north, They went to the school thegither; The one unto the other said, "Will you try a warsle[99] afore?"

2. They warsled up, they warsled down, Till Sir John fell to the ground, And there was a knife in Sir Willie's pouch, Gied him a deadlie wound.

3. "Oh brither dear, take me on your back, Carry me to yon burn clear, And wash the blood from off my wound, And it will bleed nae mair."

4. He took him up upon his back, Carried him to yon burn clear, And washed the blood from off his wound, But aye it bled the mair.

5. "Oh brither dear, take me on your back, Carry me to yon kirk-yard, And dig a grave baith wide and deep. And lay my body there."

6. He's taen him up upon his back, Carried him to yon kirk-yard, And dug a grave baith deep and wide, And laid his body there.

7. "But what will I say to my father dear, Gin he chance to say, Willie, whar's John?" "Oh say that he's to England gone, To buy him a cask of wine."

8. "And what will I say to my mother dear, Gin she chance to say, Willie, whar's John?" "Oh say that he's to England gone, To buy her a new silk gown."

9. "And what will I say to my sister dear, Gin she chance to say, Willie, whar's John?" "Oh say that he's to England gone, To buy her a wedding ring."

10. "But what will I say to her you loe[100] dear, Gin she cry, Why tarries my John?" "Oh tell her I lie in Kirk-land fair, And home again will never come."

[Footnote 99: Wrestle.]

[Footnote 100: Love.]

BABYLON; OR THE BONNIE BANKS O' FORDIE

1. There were three ladies lived in a bower, Eh vow bonnie, And they went out to pull a flower On the bonnie banks o' Fordie.

2. They hadna pu'ed a flower but ane, When up started to them a banisht man.

3. He's ta'en the first sister by her hand, And he's turned her round and made her stand.

4. "It's whether will ye be a rank robber's wife, Or will ye die by my wee pen-knife?"

5. "It's I'll not be a rank robber's wife, But I'll rather die by your wee pen-knife!"

6. He's killed this may, and he's laid her by, For to bear the red rose company.

7. He's taken the second ane by the hand, And he's turned her round and made her stand.

8. "It's whether will ye be a rank robber's wife, Or will ye die by my wee pen-knife?"

9. "I'll not be a rank robber's wife, But I'll rather die by your wee pen-knife."

10. He's killed this may, and he's laid her by, For to bear the red rose company.

11. He's taken the youngest ane by the hand, And he's turned her round and made her stand.

12. Says, "Will ye be a rank robber's wife, Or will ye die by my wee pen-knife?"

13. "I'll not be a rank robber's wife, Nor will I die by your wee pen-knife."

14. "For I hae a brother in this wood, And gin ye kill me, it's he'll kill thee."

15. "What's thy brother's name? Come tell to me." "My brother's name is Baby Lon."

16. "O sister, sister, what have I done! O have I done this ill to thee!"

17. "O since I've done this evil deed, Good sall never be seen o' me."

18. He's taken out his wee pen-knife, And he's twyned[101] himsel o' his own sweet life.

[Footnote 101: Parted, deprived.]

CHILDE MAURICE[102]

1. Childe Maurice hunted i' the silver wood, He hunted it round about, And noebodye that he found therein, Nor none there was without.

2. He says, "Come hither, thou little foot-page, That runneth lowlye by my knee, For thou shalt goe to John Steward's wife And pray her speake with me."

3. ".... .... I, and greete thou doe that ladye well, Ever soe well fro me."

4. "And, as it falls, as many times As knots beene knit on a kell[103], Or marchant men gone to leeve London Either to buy ware or sell."

5. "And, as it falles, as many times As any hart can thinke, Or schoole-masters are in any schoole-house Writing with pen and inke: For if I might, as well as she may, This night I would with her speake."

6. "And heere I send her a mantle of greene, As greene as any grasse, And bid her come to the silver wood, To hunt with Child Maurice."

7. "And there I send her a ring of gold, A ring of precious stone, And bid her come to the silver wood, Let[104] for no kind of man."

8. One while this little boy he yode[105], Another while he ran, Until he came to John Steward's hall, I-wis[106] he never blan[107].

9. And of nurture the child had good, He ran up hall and bower free, And when he came to this ladye faire, Sayes, "God you save and see[108]!"

10. "I am come from Child Maurice, A message unto thee; And Child Maurice, he greetes you well, And ever soe well from me."

11. "And as it falls, as oftentimes As knots beene knit on a kell, Or marchant men gone to leeve London Either for to buy ware or sell."

12. "And as oftentimes he greetes you well As any hart can thinke, Or schoolemasters are in any schoole, Wryting with pen and inke."

13. "And heere he sends a mantle of greene[109], As greene as any grasse, And he bids you come to the silver wood, To hunt with Child Maurice."

14. "And heere he sends you a ring of gold, A ring of the precious stone; He prayes you to come to the silver wood, Let for no kind of man."

15. "Now peace, now peace, thou little foot-page, For Christes sake, I pray thee! For if my lord heare one of these words, Thou must be hanged hye!"

16. John Steward stood under the castle wall, And he wrote the words everye one, .... ....

17. And he called upon his hors-keeper, "Make ready you my steede!" I, and soe he did to his chamberlaine, "Make ready thou my weede[110]!"

18. And he cast a lease[111] upon his backe, And he rode to the silver wood, And there he sought all about, About the silver wood.

19. And there he found him Child Maurice Sitting upon a blocke, With a silver combe in his hand, Kembing his yellow lockes. ....

20. But then stood up him Child Maurice, And sayd these words trulye: "I doe not know your ladye," he said, "If that I doe her see."

21. He sayes, "How now, how now, Child Maurice? Alacke, how may this be? For thou hast sent her love-tokens, More now then two or three;"

22. "For thou hast sent her a mantle of greene, As greene as any grasse, And bade her come to the silver woode To hunt with Child Maurice."

23. "And thou hast sent her a ring of gold, A ring of precyous stone, And bade her come to the silver wood, Let for no kind of man."

24. "And by my faith, now, Child Maurice, The tone[112] of us shall dye!" "Now be my troth," sayd Child Maurice, "And that shall not be I."

25. But he pulled forth a bright browne[113] sword, And dryed it on the grasse, And soe fast he smote at John Steward, I-wisse he never did rest.

26. Then he[114] pulled forth his bright browne sword, And dryed it on his sleeve, And the first good stroke John Stewart stroke, Child Maurice head he did cleeve.

27. And he pricked it on his sword's poynt, Went singing there beside, And he rode till he came to that ladye faire, Whereas this ladye lyed[115].

28. And sayes, "Dost thou know Child Maurice head, If that thou dost it see? And lap it soft, and kisse it oft, For thou lovedst him better than me."

29. But when she looked on Child Maurice head, She never spake words but three:— "I never beare no childe but one, And you have slaine him trulye."

30. Sayes[116], "Wicked be my merrymen all, I gave meate, drinke, and clothe! But could they not have holden me When I was in all that wrath!"

31. "For I have slaine one of the curteousest knights That ever bestrode a steed, So[117] have I done one of the fairest ladyes That ever ware woman's weede!"

[Footnote 102: It is worth while to quote Gray's praise of this ballad:—"I have got the old Scotch ballad on which 'Douglas' [the well-known tragedy by Home] was founded. It is divine.... Aristotle's best rules are observed in a manner which shows the author never had heard of Aristotle."—Letter to Mason, in 'Works,' ed. Gosse, ii. 316.]

[Footnote 103: That is, the page is to greet the lady as many times as there are knots in nets for the hair (kell), or merchants going to dear (leeve, lief) London, or thoughts of the heart, or schoolmasters in all schoolhouses. These multiplied and comparative greetings are common in folk-lore, particularly in German popular lyric.]

[Footnote 104: Let (desist) is an infinitive depending on bid.]

[Footnote 105: Went, walked.]

[Footnote 106: Certainly.]

[Footnote 107: Stopped.]

[Footnote 108: Protect.]

[Footnote 109: These, of course, are tokens of the Childe's identity.]

[Footnote 110: Clothes.]

[Footnote 111: Leash.]

[Footnote 112: That one = the one. That is the old neuter form of the definite article. Cf. the tother for that other.]

[Footnote 113: Brown, used in this way, seems to mean burnished, or glistening, and is found in Anglo-Saxon.]

[Footnote 114: He, John Steward.]

[Footnote 115: Lived.]

[Footnote 116: John Steward.]

[Footnote 117: Compare the similar swiftness of tragic development in 'Babylon.']

THE WIFE OF USHER'S WELL

1. There lived a wife at Usher's Well, And a wealthy wife was she; She had three stout and stalwart sons, And sent them o'er the sea.

2. They hadna been a week from her, A week but barely ane, When word came to the carlin[118] wife That her three sons were gane.

3. They hadna been a week from her, A week but barely three, When word came to the carlin wife That her sons she'd never see.

4. "I wish the wind may never cease, Nor fashes[119] in the flood, Till my three sons come hame to me, In earthly flesh and blood."

5. It fell about the Martinmass[120], When nights are lang and mirk, The carlin wife's three sons came hame, And their hats were o' the birk[121].

6. It neither grew in syke[122] nor ditch, Nor yet in ony sheugh[123], But at the gates o' Paradise, That birk grew fair eneugh.

* * * * *

7. "Blow up the fire, my maidens! Bring water from the well! For a' my house shall feast this night, Since my three sons are well."

8. And she has made to them a bed, She's made it large and wide, And she's ta'en her mantle her about, Sat down at the bed-side.

* * * * *

9. Up then crew the red, red cock[124], And up and crew the gray; The eldest to the youngest said, "'Tis time we were away."

10. The cock he hadna craw'd but once, And clapp'd his wing at a', When the youngest to the eldest said, "Brother, we must awa'."

11. "The cock doth craw, the day doth daw. The channerin[125] worm doth chide; Gin we be mist out o' our place, A sair pain we maun bide."

12. "Fare ye weel, my mother dear! Fareweel to barn and byre! And fare ye weel, the bonny lass That kindles my mother's fire!"

[Footnote 118: Old woman.]

[Footnote 119: Lockhart's clever emendation for the fishes of the Ms. Fashes = disturbances, storms.]

[Footnote 120: November 11th. Another version gives the time as "the hallow days of Yule."]

[Footnote 121: Birch.]

[Footnote 122: Marsh.]

[Footnote 123: Furrow, ditch.]

[Footnote 124: In folk-lore, the break of day is announced to demons and ghosts by three cocks,—usually a white, a red, and a black; but the colors, and even the numbers, vary. At the third crow, the ghosts must vanish. This applies to guilty and innocent alike; of course, the sons are "spirits of health."]

[Footnote 125: Fretting.]

SWEET WILLIAM'S GHOST

1. Whan bells war rung, an mass was sung, A wat[126] a' man to bed were gone, Clark Sanders came to Margret's window, With mony a sad sigh and groan.

2. "Are ye sleeping, Margret," he says, "Or are ye waking, presentlie? Give me my faith and trouth again, A wat, true-love, I gied to thee."

3. "Your faith and trouth ye's never get, Nor our true love shall never twin[127], Till ye come with me in my bower, And kiss me both cheek and chin."

4. "My mouth it is full cold, Margret, It has the smell now of the ground; And if I kiss thy comely mouth, Thy life-days will not be long."

5. "Cocks are crowing a merry mid-larf[128], I wat the wild fule boded day; Give me my faith and trouth again, And let me fare me on my way."

6. "Thy faith and trouth thou shall na get, Nor our true love shall never twin, Till ye tell me what comes of women A wat that dy's in strong traveling[129]."

7. "Their beds are made in the heavens high, Down at the foot of our good Lord's knee, Well set about wi' gilly-flowers, A wat sweet company for to see."

8. "O cocks are crowing a merry mid-larf, A wat the wild fule boded day; The salms of Heaven will be sung, And ere now I'll be missed away."

9. Up she has taen a bright long wand, And she has straked her trouth thereon[130]; She has given it him out at the shot-window, Wi mony a sad sigh and heavy groan.

10. "I thank you, Margret, I thank you, Margret, And I thank you heartilie; Gin ever the dead come for the quick, Be sure, Margret, I'll come again for thee."

11. It's hose and shoon an gound[131] alane She clame the wall and followed him, Until she came to a green forest, On this she lost the sight of him.

12. "Is there any room at your head, Sanders? Is there any room at your feet? Or any room at your twa sides? Where fain, fain woud I sleep."

13. "There is nae room at my head, Margret, There is nae room at my feet; There is room at my twa sides, For ladys for to sleep."

14. "Cold meal[132] is my covering owre, But an[133] my winding sheet: My bed it is full low, I say, Among hungry worms I sleep."

15. "Cold meal is my covering owre, But an my winding sheet: The dew it falls nae sooner down Than ay it is full weet."

[Footnote 126: "I wot," "I know," = truly, in sooth. The same in 5-2, 6-4, 7-4, 8-2.]

[Footnote 127: Part, separate. She does not yet know he is dead.]

[Footnote 128: Probably the distorted name of a town; a = in. "Cocks are crowing in merry—, and the wild-fowl announce the dawn."]

[Footnote 129: That die in childbirth.]

[Footnote 130: Margaret thus gives him back his troth-plight by "stroking" it upon the wand, much as savages and peasants believe they can rid themselves of a disease by rubbing the affected part with a stick or pebble and flinging the latter into the road.]

[Footnote 131: Gown.]

[Footnote 132: Mold, earth.]

[Footnote 133: But and==also.]



HONORE DE BALZAC

(1799-1850)

BY WILLIAM P. TRENT

Honore de Balzac, by common consent the greatest of French novelists and to many of his admirers the greatest of all writers of prose fiction, was born at Tours, May 16th, 1799. Neither his family nor his place of birth counts for much in his artistic development; but his sister Laure, afterwards Madame Surville,—to whom we owe a charming sketch of her brother and many of his most delightful letters,—made him her hero through life, and gave him a sympathy that was better than any merely literary environment. He was a sensitive child, little comprehended by his parents or teachers, which probably accounts for the fact that few writers have so well described the feelings of children so situated [See 'Le lys dans la vallee' (The Lily in the Valley) and 'Louis Lambert']. He was not a good student, but undermined his health by desultory though enormous reading and by writing a precocious Treatise on the Will, which an irate master burned and the future novelist afterwards naively deplored. When brought home to recuperate, he turned from books to nature, and the effects of the beautiful landscape of Touraine upon his imagination are to be found throughout his writings, in passages of description worthy of a nature-worshiper like Senancour himself. About this time a vague desire for fame seems to have seized him,—a desire destined to grow into an almost morbid passion; and it was a kindly Providence that soon after (1814) led his family to quit the stagnant provinces for that nursery of ambition, Paris. Here he studied under new masters, heard lectures at the Sorbonne, read in the libraries, and finally, at the desire of his practical father, took a three years' course in law.



He was now at the parting of the ways, and he chose the one nearest his heart. After much discussion, it was settled that he should not be obliged to return to the provinces with his family, or to enter upon the regular practice of law, but that he might try his luck as a writer on an allowance purposely fixed low enough to test his constancy and endurance. Two years was the period of probation allotted, during which time Balzac read still more widely and walked the streets studying the characters he met, all the while endeavoring to grind out verses for a tragedy on Cromwell. This, when completed, was promptly and justly damned by his family, and he was temporarily forced to retire from Paris. He did not give up his aspirations, however, and before long he was back in his attic, this time supporting himself by his pen. Novels, not tragedies, were what the public most wanted, so he labored indefatigably to supply their needs and his own necessities; not relinquishing, however, the hope that he might some day watch the performance of one of his own plays. His perseverance was destined to be rewarded, for he lived to write five dramas which fill a volume of his collected works; but only one, the posthumous comedy 'Mercadet', was even fairly successful. Yet that Balzac had dramatic genius his matured novels abundantly prove.

The ten romances, however, that he wrote for cheap booksellers between 1822 and 1829 displayed so little genius of any sort that he was afterwards unwilling to cover their deficiencies with his great name. They have been collected as youthful works ('Oeuvres de jeunesse'), and are useful to a complete understanding of the evolution of their author's genius; but they are rarely read even by his most devoted admirers. They served, however, to enable him to get through his long and heart-rending period of apprenticeship, and they taught him how to express himself; for this born novelist was not a born writer and had to labor painfully to acquire a style which only at rare moments quite fitted itself to the subject he had in hand.

Much more interesting than these early sensational romances were the letters he wrote to his sister Laure, in which he grew eloquent over his ambition and gave himself needed practice in describing the characters with whom he came in contact. But he had not the means to wait quietly and ripen, so he embarked in a publishing business which brought him into debt. Then, to make up his losses, he became partner in a printing enterprise which failed in 1827, leaving him still more embarrassed financially, but endowed with a fund of experience which he turned to rich account as a novelist. Henceforth the sordid world of debt, bankruptcy, usury, and speculation had no mystery for him, and he laid it bare in novel after novel, utilizing also the knowledge he had gained of the law, and even pressing into service the technicalities of the printing office [See 'Illusions perdues' (Lost Illusions)]. But now at the age of twenty-eight he had over 100,000 francs to pay, and had written nothing better than some cheap stories; the task of wiping out his debts by his writings seemed therefore a more hopeless one than Scott's. Nothing daunted, however, he set to work, and the year that followed his second failure in business saw the composition of the first novel he was willing to acknowledge, 'Les Chouans.' This romance of Brittany in 1799 deserved the praise it received from press and public, in spite of its badly jointed plot and overdrawn characters. It still appeals to many readers, and is important to the 'Comedie humaine' as being the only novel of the "Military Scenes.". The 'Physiology of Marriage' followed quickly (1829-30), and despite a certain pruriency of imagination, displayed considerable powers of analysis, powers destined shortly to distinguish a story which ranks high among its author's works, 'La Maison du chat-qui-pelote' (1830). This delightful novelette, the queer title of which is nearly equivalent to 'At the Sign of the Cat and the Racket,' showed in its treatment of the heroine's unhappy passion the intuition and penetration of the born psychologist, and in its admirable description of bourgeois life the pictorial genius of the genuine realist. In other words the youthful romancer was merged once for all in the matured novelist. The years of waiting and observation had done their work, and along the streets of Paris now walked the most profound analyst of human character that had scrutinized society since the days when William Shakespeare, fresh from Stratford, trod the streets and lanes of Elizabethan London.