strike on,

rping do

roke goes o'

s my hear

nki

t have suffered most from neglect and from alteration. Notation of the simple and plaintive and sweet old melodies appropriated in the ears and lips of the people to the words of particular ballads came long after the transcribing of the words themselves. There are other elements of perplexity and difficulty in ballad music which require an expert to unravel and explain, and which cannot be

essence of the tale that it is impossible to think of them apart. The analogy of the Scottish psalmody may, perhaps, be used in illustration. In it, also, there is a 'common measure' that can be fitted at will to the common metre-in the psalms, as in the ballads, the alternation of lines of four and three accented syllables. In the one case, as in the other, there is a certain family resemblance, in the melody as in the theme, that to the untrained and unaccustomed ear may convey an impression of monotony. But to each balla

ells us, from his experience, that 'the differences in the versions of the Romantic Ballads, as sung in the different counties, may be taken as a proof of their antiquity.' He had 'seldom heard two ballad-singers sing a ballad in the same way, either in words or music'; and he holds it 'almost impossible to find the true set of any traditional air, unless the set can be traced genuinely to its composer,' a task, it need hardly be said, still more difficult than that of tracing the ballad words to the original balladist. It is also the opinion of this au

refrains that have lost, if they ever possessed, any definite or intelligible meaning to the ear-may be relics not merely of ancient song, but of ancient rites and incantations, and of a forgotten speech. Attempts have been made to interpret, for instance, the familiar 'Down, down, derry down,' as a Celtic inv

Chaucer's. Still others have the effect upon us of the rhyming prattle invented by children at play. They are cries, na?ve or wild, from the age of innocence-cries extracted from the children of nature by the beauty of the world or the sharp and relentless stroke of fate. Of such are 'The broom, the bonnie, bonnie broom,' 'Hey wi' the rose and the lindie o',' 'Blaw, blaw, ye cauld winds blaw,' and their congeners. These sweet and idyllic notes are often interposed in some of the very grimmest of our ballads. They suggest a harping interlude between lines that, without this relief, would be weighted with an intolerable load of horror or sorrow. There are refrain lines-'Bonnie St. Johnston stands fair upon Tay' is an example-which seem to hint that they may have been borrowed from some old ballad that

d him no more than repeating himself. He lived and sang in times before the literary conscience had been awakened or the literary canon had been laid down-or at least in places and among company where the fear of these, and of the critic, had never penetrated; and he borrowed, copied, adapted, without any sense of shame or remorse, because without any sense of sin. He has his conventional manner of opening, and his established formula for closing his tale. In portraiture, in scenery, in costume, he is simplicit

vils the

will to gre

are made blessed and undone. Like Celia and Oliver in the Forest of Arden they no sooner look than they sigh; they no sooner sigh than they ask the reason; and as soon as t

ree ladies pla

rose and t

night and play

imrose bloom

e looted to

rose and t

oungest he b

imrose bloom

ear, through the guard of 'bauld barons' and

came to b

his bow

came to gr

his fee

came to the

ther to ch

bent bow t

tly lap

nvious step-dame, angry brother, or false squire, is watching and listening. Six perils may go past, but the seventh is sure to strike its mark. Even should the course of true love run smoothly almost to the chu

s spoke a w

et took

degroom. Her girdle is of gold and her skirts of the cramoisie. Four-and-twenty comely knights ride at her side, and four-and-twenty fair maidens in her tr

ift o' the

kle ane

oyage is

re a' o' the

ils o' the

, we may feel sure, never tired of hearing them. But they knew that calamity was

gue, a

but bare

hape of storm or flo

ter 's ru

Annie 's won

. The knight had perhaps forgotten when he came courting his love to 'spier at her brither John'; and when she stoops from horseback to kiss this sinister kinsman at parting, he thrusts his sword into her heart.

was dead lang

illiam lan

m their graves, as has happened in all the bal

one a bonn

the other

' knot in emblem of the immortality o

to the genius of our own land and our own ballad literature; and, as has been said, one can with no great difficulty note the characteristic marks of the song of a particular district and even of an individual singer. The romantic ballads of the North, for example, although in no way behind those of the Border in strength and in tenderness, are commonly of rougher texture. They lack often the grace which, in the versions sung in the South, the minstrel knew how to combine with th

ard last century as improvements upon the rude old lays, may best be seen, perhaps, by laying the old and the new 'set' of Sir James the Rose side by side, or comparing verse by verse David Mallet's much vaunted William and Margaret, with the beautiful old ballad, There came a ghost to Marg'ret's door. There is indeed no comparison. The changes made are nearly all either tinsel ornaments or mutilations of the tradit

faults, it never has the taint of the vulgar; it avoids the suggestive with the same instinct with which it avoids the vapid adjective; it

e lee, ye

's I hear

n

tide you,

l death m

verse or couplet he has dashed into the middle of his theme, and his characters are already in dramatic parley, exchanging words like sword-thrusts. Take th

en, drinkin

hey paid t

combat th

it e'er t

example, the n

ts in Dunfer

the blood

ll I find a s

his ship

r James

heard o' Sir

laird o' B

slain a gal

ds are out

, as in that widely-known and multiform legend of the Twa Sisters whic

eldest wi' glo

e, O Bi

the youngest

e mill dams

g picture is called up before o

d wild like a

e that fai

led in t

t her bow

shone lik

te banes when

all sigh fo

strains of Scotland have reached, what master of modern realism has surpa

forth his brig

t it on

h Clerk Sa

t cauld i

n

between her

d drumly we

n Pluto's cheek, that ruth has taken so grim a form as that of Edom

r breast

e spared tha

e man's d

ming-a revelation that in its succinct and despairing candour goes so str

s as fu' o'

is wi' th

and sunk in the thraldom of the vulgar, the formal, and the commonplace; and never without receiving their rich reward and testifying their gratitude by fresh gifts of song and story, fresh harpings on the old lyre that moved the hearts of men to tears and laughter long before they kne