he that cannot hear Pasta or Sontag, would be little solaced for the absence of these sirens, by the strains of a crackvoiced ballad-singer. Nay, on the contrary, the offer of such inadequate compensation, would only be regarded as an insult, and resented accordingly.

The theatre affords the most appropriate example of what we mean. The first circles in society are open to persons eminently distinguished in the drama; and their rewards are, in proportion to those who profess the useful arts, incalculably higher. But those who lag in the rear of the dramatic art, are proportionally poorer and more degraded than those who are the lowest of a useful trade or profession. These instances will enable us readily to explain why the greater part of the minstrels, practising their profession in scenes of vulgar mirth and debauchery, humbling their art to please the ears of drunken clowns, and living with the dissipation natural to men whose precarious subsistence is, according to the ordinary phrase, from hand to mouth only, should fall under general contempt, while the stars of the profession, to use a modern phrase, looked down on them from the distant empyrean, as the planets do upon those shooting exhalations arising from gross vapours in the nether atmosphere.

The debate, therefore, resembles the apologue of the gold and silver shield. Dr. Percy looked on the minstrel in the palmy and exalted state to which, no doubt, many were elevated by their talents, like those who possess excellence in the fine arts in the present day; and Ritson considered the reverse of the medal, when the poor and wandering glee-man was glad to purchase his bread by singing his ballads at the alehouse, wearing a fantastic habit, and latterly sinking into a mere crowder upon an untuned fiddle, accompanying his rude strain with a ruder ditty, the helpless associate of drunken revellers, and marvellously afraid of the constable and parish-beadel. The difference betwixt those holding the extreme positions of highest and lowest in such a profession, cannot surely be more marked than that which separated David Garrick or John Kemble from the outcasts of a strolling company, exposed to penury, indigence, and persecution according to law. a

I

Fiddler. The landing of the Spaniards at Bow,
With the bloody battle at Mile-end.""

The poor minstrel is described as accompanying the young rake in his revels. Launcelot describes

"The gentleman himself, young Monsieur Thomas,
Errant with his furious myrmidons;

The fiery fiddler and myself-now singing,
Now beating at the doors," etc.

[The Song of the Traveller," an ancient piece lately discovered in the Cathedral Library of Exeter, and published by the Rev. Mr. Coneybeare, in his Illustrations of Anglo-Saxon Poetry (4826), furnishes a most curious picture of the life of the Northern Scald, or Minstrel, in the high and palmy state of the profession. The reverend editor thus translates the closing lines:

"Ille est carissimus Terræ incolis

Cui Deus addidit Hominum imperium gerendum, Quum ille eos [bardos] habeat caros.

former, as a poet and a man of taste, was tempted to take such freedoms with his original ballads, as might enable him to please a more critical age than that in which they were composed. Words were thus altered, phrases improved, and whole verses were inserted or omitted at pleasure. Such freedoms were especially taken with the poems published from a folio manuscript in Dr. Percy's own possession, very curious from the miscellaneous nature of its contents, but unfortunately having many of the leaves mutilated, and injured in other respects, by the gross carelessness and ignorance of the transcriber. Anxious to avail himself of the treasures which this manuscript contained, the editor of the Reliques did not hesitate to repair and renovate the songs which he drew from this corrupted yet curious source, and to accommodate them with such emendations as might recommend them to the modern taste.

For these liberties with his subject, Ritson censured Dr. Percy in the most uncompromising terms, accused him, in violent language, of interpolation and forgery, and insinuated that there existed no such thing in rerum natura as that folio manuscript, so often referred to as the authority of originals inserted in the Reliques. In this charge, the eagerness of Ritson again betrayed him farther than judgment and discretion, as well as courtesy, warranted. It is no doubt highly desirable that the text of ancient poetry should be given untouched and uncorrupted. But this is a point which did not occur to the editor of the Reliques in 1765, whose object it was to win the favour of the public, at a period when the great difficulty was not how to secure the very words of old ballads, but how to arrest attention upon the subject at all. That great and important service to national literature would probably never have been attained without the work of Dr. Percy; a work which first fixed the consideration of general readers on ancient poetry, and made it worth while to enquire how far its graces were really antique, or how far derived from the taste with which the publication had been superintended and revised. The object of Dr. Percy was certainly intimated in several parts of his work, where he ingenuously acknowledges, that certain ballads have received emendations, and that others are not of pure and unmixed antiquity; that the beginning of some and end of others have been supplied; and upon the

Ita comeantes cum cantilenis feruntur
Bardi bominum per terras multas;

Simul eos remuneratur ob cantilenas pulchras,
Muneribus immensis, ille qui ante nobiles

Vult judicium suum extollere, dignitatem sustinere.
Ilabet ille sub cœlo stabilem famam."-P. 22.

Mr. Coneybeare contrasts this "flattering picture" with the following "melancholy specimen" of the Minstrel life of later times-contained in some verses by Richard Sheale (the alleged author of the old Chevy Chase }, which are preserved in one of the Ashmolean MSS.

"Now for the good cheere that I have had here,

I give you hearty thanks with bowing of my shankes,
Desiring you by petition to grant me such commission-
Because my name is Sheale, that both for meat and meale,
To you I may resort sum tyme for my comforte.
For I perceive here at all tymes is goode cheere,
Both ale, wyne, and beere, as byt doth now appere,

I perceive without fable ye keepe a good table.

I can be contente, if byt be out of Len',

A piece of beefe to take my honger to aslake,

Both mutton and veale is goode fcr Rycharde Sheale;
Though I looke so grave, I were a veri knave,
If I wold thinke skorne ether evenynge or morne,
Beyng in honger, of fressbe samon or kongar,

I can fynde in my hearte, with my frendis to take a parte
Of such as Godde shal sende, and thus I make an ende.
Now farewel, good myn Hoste, I thank youe for youre coste,
Untyl another tyme, and thus do I ende my rymne."
.-P. 28.1

whole, that he has, in many instances, decorated the ancient ballads with the graces of a more refined period.

This system is so distinctly intimated, that if there be any critic still of opinion, like poor Ritson, whose morbid temperament led him to such a conclusion, that the crime of literary imitation is equal to that of commercial forgery, he ought to recollect that guilt, in the latter case, does not exist without a corresponding charge of uttering the forged | document, or causing it to be uttered, as genuine, without which the mere imitation is not culpable, at least not criminally so. This quality is totally awanting in the accusation so roughly brought against Dr. Percy, who avowedly indulged in such alterations and improvements upon his materials, as might adapt them to the taste of an age not otherwise disposed to bestow its attention on them.

We have to add, that, in the fourth edition of the Reliques, Mr. Thomas Percy of St. John's College, Oxford, pleading the cause of his uncle with the most gentlemanlike moderation, and with every respect to Mr. Ritson's science and talents, has combated the critic's opinion, without any attempt to retort his injurious language.

It would be now, no doubt, desirable to have had some more distinct account of Dr. Percy's folio manuscript and its contents; and Mr. Thomas Percy, accordingly, gives the original of the Marriage of Sir Gawain, and collates it with the copy published in a complete state by his uncle, who has on this occasion given entire rein to his own fancy, though the rude origin of most of his ideas is to be found in the old ballad. There is also given a copy of that elegant metrical tale, "The Child of Elle," as it exists in the folio manuscript, which goes far to show it has derived all its beauties from Dr. Percy's poetical powers. Judging from these two specimens, we can easily conceive why the Reverend Editor of the "Reliques" should have declined, by the production of the folio manuscript, to furnish his severe Aristarch with weapons against him, which he was sure would be unsparingly used. Yet it is certain, the manuscript contains much that is really excellent, though mutilated and sophisticated. A copy of the fine ballad of "Sir Caulin" is found in a Scottish shape, under the name of "King Malcolm and Sir Colvin," in Buchan's North Country Ballads, to be presently mentioned. It is, therefore, unquestionably ancient, though possibly retouched, and perhaps with the addition of a second part, of which the Scottish copy has no vestiges. It would be desirable to know exactly to what extent Dr. Percy had used the license of an editor, in these and other cases; and certainly, at this period, would be only a degree of justice due to his memory.

On the whole, we may dismiss the "Reliques of Ancient Poetry" with the praise and censure conferred on it by a gentleman, himself a valuable labourer in the vineyard of antiquities. "It is the most elegant compilation of the early poetry that has ever appeared in any age or country. But it must be frankly added, that so numerous are the alterations and corrections, that the severe antiquary, who

desires to see the old English ballads in a genuine state, must consult a more accurate edition than this celebrated work." I

Of Ritson's own talents as an editor of ancient poetry, we shall have occasion to speak hereafter. The first collector who followed the example of Dr. Percy, was Mr. T. Evans, bookseller, father of the gentleman we have just quoted. His "Old Ballads, historical and narrative, with some of modern date," appeared in two volumes, in 1777, and were eminently successful. In 1784, a second edition appeared, extending the work to four volumes. In this collection, many ballads found acceptance, which Bishop Percy had not considered as possessing sufficient merit to claim admittance into the Reliques. The 8vo Miscellany of 1723 yielded a great part of the materials. The collection of Evans contained several modern pieces of great merit, which are not to be found elsewhere, and which are understood to be the productions of William Julius Mickle, translator of the Lusiad, though they were never claimed by him, nor received among his works. Amongst them is the elegiac poem of Cummor Hall, which suggested the fictitious narrative entitled Kenilworth. The Red-Cross Knight, also by Mickle, which has furnished words for a beautiful glee, first occurred in the same collection. As Mickle, with a vein of great facility, united a power of verbal melody which might have been envied by bards of much greater renown, he must be considered as very successful in these efforts, if the ballads be regarded as avowedly modern. If they are to be judged of as accurate imitations of ancient poetry, they have less merit; the deception being only maintained by a huge store of double consonants, strewed at random into ordinary words, resembling the real fashion of antiquity as little as the niches, turrets, and tracery of plaster stuck upon a modern front. In the year 1810, the four volumes of 1784 were republished by Mr. R. HI. Evans, the son of the original editor, with very considerable alterations and additions. In this last edition, the more ordinary modern ballads were judiciously retrenched in number, and large and valuable additions made to the ancient part of the collection. Being in some measure a supplement to the Reliques of Ancient Poetry, this miscellany cannot be dispensed with on the shelves of any bibliomaniac who may choose to emulate Captain Cox of Coventry, the prototype of all collectors of popular poetry.

་་

While Dr. Percy was setting the example of a classical publication of ancient English poetry, the late David Herd was, in modest retirement, compiling a collection of Scottish Songs, which he has happily described as the poetry and music of the heart." The first part of his Miscellany contains heroic and historical ballads, of which there is a respectable and well-chosen selection. Mr. Herd, 3 an aecountant, as the profession is called in Edinburgh, was known and generally esteemed for his shrewd, manly common sense and antiquarian science, mixed with much goodnature and great modesty. His hardy and antique mould

* Introduction to Evans's Ballads, 1810. New edition, enlarged, etc.

* In evidence of what is above stated, the author would quote the introductory stanza to a forgotten poem of Mickle, originally published under the Lajudicious and equivocal title of "The Concubine," but in subsequent editions called, "Sir Martyn, or The Progress of Dissipation.”

"Awake, ye west winds, through the lonely dale,
And, Fancy, to thy faery bower betake;
Even now, with balmy sweetness breathes the gale,
Dimpling with downy wing the stilly lake;
Through the pale willows flattering whispers wake,
And evening comes with locks bedropp'd with dew;
On Desmond's mouldering turrets slowly shake

The wither'd ryegrass, and the hairbell blue, And ever and anon sweet Mulla's plaints renew." Mickle's facility of versification was so great, that, being a printer by profession, he frequently put his lines into types without taking the trouble previously to put them into writing; thus uulting the composition of the author with the mechanical operation which typographers call by the samo

name.

3 [ David Nerd was a native of St. Cyrus, in Kincardineshire, and though often termed a writer, he was only a clerk in the office of Mr. David Rassell, accountant in Edinburgh. He died, aged 78, in 1810, and left a very curious library, which was dispersed by auction. Herd by no means inerited the character, given him by Pinkerton, of “an illiterate and injudicious compiler."-Es.]

had taken similar liberties is considered, infers as much audacity as the studied and laboured defence of obscenity with which he disgraced the same pages.

John Pinkerton, a man of considerable learning, and some severity as well as acuteness of disposition, was now endeavouring to force himself into public attention; and his collection of Select Ballads, London, 1783, contains sufficient evidence that he understood, in an extensive sense, Horace's maxim, quidlibet audendi. As he was possessed of considerable powers of poetry, though not equal to what he was willing to take credit for, he was resolved to enrich his collection with all the novelty and interest which it could derive from a liberal insertion of pieces dressed in the garb of antiquity, but equipped from the wardrobe of the editor's imagination. With a boldness, suggested perhaps by the success of Mr. Macpherson, he included, within a collection amounting to only twenty-one tragic ballads, no less than five, of which he afterwards owned himself to have been altogether, or in great part, the author. The most remarkable article in this Miscellany was, a second part to the noble ballad of Hardyknute, which has some good verses. It labours, however, under this great defect, that, in order to append his own conclusion to the original tale, Mr. Pinkerton found himself under the necessity of altering a leading circumstance in the old ballad, which would have rendered his catastrophe inapplicable. With such license, to write continuations and conclusions would be no difficult task. In the second volume of the Select Ballads, consisting of comic pieces, a list of fifty-two articles contained nine written entirely by the editor himself. Of the manner in which these supposititious compositions are executed, it may be briefly stated, that they are the work of a scholar much better acquainted with ancient books and manuscripts, than with oral tradition and popular legends. The poetry smells of the lamp; and it may be truly said, that if ever a ballad had existed in such quaint language as the author employs, it could never have been so popular as to be preserved by oral tradition. The glossary displays a much greater acquaintance with learned lexicons, than with the familiar dialect still spoken by the Lowland Scottish, and it is, of course, full of errors. * Neither was Mr. Pinkerton more happy in the way of conjectural illustration. He chose to fix on Sir John Bruce of Kinross, the paternity of the ballad of Hardyknute, and of the fine poem called the Vision. The first is due to Mrs. Halket of Wardlaw, the second to Allan Ramsay, although, it must be owned, it is of a character superior to his ordinary poetry. Sir John Bruce was a brave, blunt soldier, who made no pretence whatever to literature, though his daughter, Mrs. Bruce of Arnot, had much talent, a circumstance which may perhaps have misled the antiquary.

Mr. Pinkerton read a sort of recantation, in a List of Scottish Poets, prefixed to a Selection of Poems from the Maitland Manuscript, vol. i. 1786, in which he acknowledges, as his own composition, the pieces of spurious antiquity included in his "Select Ballads," with a coolness

In the meantime, Joseph Ritson, a man of diligence and acumen equal to those of Pinkerton, but of the most laudable accuracy and fidelity as an editor, was engaged in various publications respecting poetical antiquities, in which he employed profound research. A select collection of English Songs was compiled by him, with great care and considerable taste, and published at London, 1783. A new edition of this has appeared since Ritson's death, sanctioned by the name of the learned and indefatigable antiquary, Thomas Park, and augmented with many original pieces, and some which Ritson had prepared for publication.

Ritson's Collection of Songs was followed by a curious volume, entitled, "Ancient Songs from the time of Henry III. to the Revolution," 1790; "Pieces of Ancient Popular Poetry," 1792; and "A collection of Scottish Songs, with the genuine music," London, 1794. This last is a genuine, but rather meagre collection of Caledonian popular songs. Next year Mr. Ritson published "Robin Hood," 2 vols., 1795, being "A Collection of all the Ancient Poems, Songs, and Ballads now extant, relative to that celebrated Outlaw." This work is a notable illustration of the excellences and defects of Mr. Ritson's system. It is almost impossible to conceive so much zeal, research, and industry bestowed on a subject of antiquity. There scarcely occurs a phrase or word relating to Robin Hood, whether in history or poetry, in law books, in ancient proverbs, or common parlance, but it is here collected and explained. At the same time, the extreme fidelity of the editor seems driven to excess, when we find him pertinaciously retaining all the numerous and gross errors which repeated recitations have introduced into the text, and regarding it as a sacred duty to prefer the worst to the better readings, as if their inferiority was a security for their being genuine. In short, when Ritson copied from rare books, or ancient manuscripts, there could not be a more accurate editor; when taking his authority from oral tradition, and judging between two recited copies, he was apt to consider the worst as most genuine, as if a poem was not more likely to be deteriorated than improved by passing through the mouths of many reciters. In the Ballads of Robin Hood, this superstitious scrupulosity was especially to be regretted, as it tended to enlarge the collection with a great number of doggerel compositions, which are all copies of each other, turning on the same idea of Bold Robin meeting with a shepherd, a tinker, a mendicant, a tanner, etc. etc., by each and all of whom he is soundly thrashed, and all of whom he receives into his band. The tradition, which avers that it was the brave outlaw's custom to try a bout at quarter-staff with his young recruits, might indeed have authorized one or two such tales, but the greater part ought to have been rejected as modern imitations of the most paltry kind, composed probably about the age of James I. of England. By adopting this spurious trash as part of Robin Hood's history, he is represented as the best cudgelled hero, Don Quixote excepted, that ever was celebrated in prose or rhyme. Ritson also published several garlands of North Country songs.

Looking on this eminent antiquary's labours in a general point of view, we may deprecate the eagerness and severity of his prejudices, and feel surprise that he should have shown so much irritability of disposition on such a topic as

a collection of old ballads, which certainly have little in them to affect the passions; and we may be sometimes provoked at the pertinacity with which he has preferred bad readings to good. But while industry, research, and antiquarian learning, are recommendations to works of this nature, few editors will ever be found so competent to the task as Joseph Ritson. It must also be added to his praise, that although not willing to yield his opinion rashly, yet if he saw reason to believe that he had been mistaken in any fact or argument, he resigned his own opinion with a candour equal to the warmth with which he defended himself while confident he was in the right. Many of his works are now almost out of print, and an edition of them in common orthography, and altering the bizarre spelling and character which his prejudices induced the author to adopt, would be, to antiquaries, an acceptable present.

We have now given a hasty account of various collections of popular poetry during the eighteenth century; we have only further to observe, that, in the present century, this species of lore has been sedulously cultivated. The present Collection first appeared in 1802, in two volumes; and what may appear a singular coincidence, it was the first work printed by Mr. James Ballantyne, (then residing at Kelso,) as it was the first serious demand which the present author made on the patience of the public. The Border Minstrelsy, augmented by a third volume, came to a second edition in 1803. In 1803, Mr. John Grahame Dalzell, to whom his country is obliged for his antiquarian labours, published "Scottish Poems of the Sixteenth Century," which, among other subjects of interest, contains a curious contemporary ballad of Belrinnes, which has some stanzas of considerable merit. '

The year 1806 was distinguished by the appearance of "Popular Ballads and Songs, from Traditions, Manuscripts, and Scarce Editions, with Translations of Similar Pieces from the Ancient Danish Language, and a few Originals by the Editor, Robert Jamieson, A. M., and F. A.S.” This work, which was not greeted by the public with the attention it deserved, opened a new discovery respecting the original source of the Scottish ballads. Mr. Jamieson's extensive acquaintance with the Scandinavian literature, enabled him to detect not only a general similarity betwixt these and the Danish ballads preserved in the "Kiempe Viser," an early collection of heroic ballads in that language, but to demonstrate that, in many cases, the stories and songs were distinetly the same, a circumstance which no antiquary had hitherto so much as suspected. Mr. Jamieson's annotations are also very valuable, and preserve some curious illustrations of the old poets. His imitations, though he is not entirely free from the affectation of using rather too many obsolete words, are generally highly interesting. The work fills an important place in the collections of

3

those who are addicted to this branch of antiquarian study. Mr. John Finlay, a poet whose career was cut short by a premature death, 3 published a short collection of "Scottish Historical and Romantic Ballads," in 1808. The beauty of some imitations of the old Scottish ballad, with the good sense, learning, and modesty of the preliminary dissertations, must make all admirers of ancient lore regret the early loss of this accomplished young man.

Various valuable collections of ancient ballad-poetry have appeared of late years, some of which are illustrated with learning and acuteness, as those of Mr. Motherwell 4 and of Mr. Kinloch intimate much taste and feeling for this species of literature. Nor is there any want of editions of ballads, less designed for public sale, than to preserve floating pieces of minstrelsy which are in immediate danger of perishing. Several of those, edited, as we have occasion to know, by men of distinguished talent, have appeared in a smaller form and more limited edition, and must soon be among the introuvables of Scottish typography. We would particularize a duodecimo, under the modest title of a "Ballad Book," without place or date annexed, which indicates, by a few notes only, the capacity which the editor possesses for supplying the most extensive and ingenious illustrations upon antiquarian subjects. Most of the ballads are of a comic character, and some of them admirable specimens of Scottish dry humour. Another collection which calls for particular distinction, is in the same size, or nearly so, and bears the same title with the preceding one, the date being, Edinburgh, 1827. But the contents are announced as containing the budget, or stock-in-trade, of an old Aberdeenshire minstrel, the very last, probably, of the race, who, according to Percy's definition of the profession, sung his own compositions, and those of others, through the capital of the county, and other towns in that country of gentlemen. This man's name was Charles Leslie, but he was known more generally by the nickname of Musselmou'd Charlie, from a singular projection of his under lip. His death was thus announced in the newspaper for October, 1792:-"Died at Old Rain, in Aberdeenshire, aged one hundred and four years, Charles Leslie, a hawker, or ballad-singer, well known in that country by the name of Mussel-mou'd Charlie. He followed his occupation till within a few weeks of his death." Charlie was a devoted Jacobite, and so popular in Aberdeen, that he enjoyed in that city a sort of monopoly of the minstrel calling, no other person being allowed, under any pretence, to chant ballads on the causeway, or plain-stanes, of "the brave burgh." Like the former collection, most of Mussel-mou'd Charlie's songs were of a jocose character.

But the most extensive and valuable additions which have been of late made to this branch of ancient literature, are the collections of Mr. Peter Buchan of Peterhead, a person

* The first opening of the ballad has much of the martial strain with which a pibroch commences. Properat in medias res-according to the classical admonition.

2

"MacCalanmore came from the west
With many a bow and brand;

To waste the Rinues be thought it best,
The Earl of Huntly's land."

[After the completion of the Border Minstrelsy, and nearly three years previous to the publication of his own Collection, Mr. Jamieson printed in the Scots Magazine, (October 1803,) a List of desiderata in Scottish Song. His communication to the Editor of that work contains the following paragraph :-"I am now writing out for the press a Collection of popular Ballads and Songs from tradition, MSS., and scarce publications, with a few of modern date, which have been written for, and are exclusively dedicated to my collection. As many of the pieces were common property, I have heretofore waited for the completion of Mr. Walter Scott's Work, with more anxiety for the cause in general, than for any particular and selfish interest

of my own; as I was sure of having the satisfaction of seeing such pieces. as that gentleman might choose to adopt, appear with every advantage which 1, partial as I was, could wish them. The most sanguine expectations of the public have now been amply gratified; and much curious and valuable matter is still left for me by Mr. Scott, to whom I am much indebted for many acts of friendship, and much liberality and good will shown towards me and my undertaking."-ED.]

3 [Mr Finlay, best known by his "Wallace, or The Vale of Ellerslie," died in 1810, in his twenty-eighth year. An affectionate and elegant tribute to

his memory from the pen of Professor Wilson appeared in Blackwood's. Magazine, November, 1817.-ED.]

4 [Minstrelsy: Ancient and Modern, with an Historical Introduction and Notes. By William Motherwell. 4to. Glasg. 1827.]

5 [ Ancient Scottish Ballads, recovered from Tradition, and never before published; with Notes, Historical and Explanatory, and an Appendix, containing the Airs of several of the ballads. Svo. Edia. 1827.]