I follow'd them all down the floor,

And O but I had drouth

To touch his cheek, to touch his hand, To kiss Rafe's velvet mouth!

But I knew such was not for me.

They went straight from the door; We saw them fade within the mist, And never saw them more.

NOTES.

The history of our traditional ballad poetry is very succinctly and exactly given by Mr. Allingham. It was " composed by unlearned men for popular audiences, passing from mouth to mouth and generation to generation of singers and reciters, dull and clever, undergoing numerous alterations by reason of slips of memory, personal tastes, local adaptations and prejudices, additions, omissions, patches, and lucky thoughts," -and later it was 'transferred into the editorial laboratories, there sifted, mixed, shaken, clarified, improved (or the contrary), no one can ever tell how much."

44

First in such editorial importance (though Allan Ramsay set the work agoing in his Tea-Table Miscellany so early as 1724) is Bishop Percy, who accidentally came into possession of a certain FOLIO MANUSCRIPT (transcriber unknown, but the copy guessed to be of the date of 1650, or thereabout), a “ scrubby, shabby paper " book, "used to light the fire," and picked up from the floor of a friend's house, said MS. containing nearly two hundred old ballads and songs, some whole, some mutilated. So possessed, he conceived the idea of publication, and accordingly in 1765 brought out three volumes-" Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, consisting of old heroic Ballads, Songs, and other pieces of our earlier Poets: with some few of later date": a very miscellaneous gathering of one hundred and seventy-six pieces, of which forty-five were taken from the Folio MS., not without patches, emendations, additions, and adaptations to the taste of the period. The fashion taking, he was followed by other collecting editors; by Herd in 1769; Pinkerton, 1781; Sir Walter Scott (Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border), 1802; Jamieson, 1806; and a host of others, Motherwell, Cunningham, Finlay, Kinloch, Buchan, Chambers, etc. All these editors, without exception, were more or less menders and improvers, collating the various anonymous writings or

oral transmissions that came within the scope of their research, associating (as Robert Chambers says of his own procedure) the best stanzas and the best lines, nay, even the best words of the various copies extant" ("some of them in no fewer than six different forms "); making as free with the texts before them as if the ballads had been of their own writing, and often not hesitating to insert their own as ancient originals.

Allan Ramsay, says Professor Aytoun, "never felt any hesitation in altering, retouching, and adding"; Burns did as pleased him with the ancient songs he contributed to Johnson's Scots' Musical Museum; even Sir Walter's Minstrelsy is not authentic, though it may be that the ballads "have gained by his treatment"; Jamieson "put in many stanzas," says Allingham; and Herd's is "an indiscriminate gathering " -“no authorities given; of Pinkerton's Tragic Ballads Ritson declares that " systematic forgery pervades the whole; Buchan, "a most daring forger," says Dyce, has scarcely anything to be trusted as genuine"; Professor Child has no confidence" in the "souvenirs" of Allan Cunningham; and most industrious and sceptical Robert Chambers owns to altering "for the sake of completing the narrative in a consistent manner." Our one valuable edition is that in eight volumes (Boston, 1864) by Professor Francis James Child, and he had to build with the scattered bricks and rubble within his reach. It was only in 1867, then mainly through his persistent urging, that the famous Folio Manuscript was put in print, edited by Messrs. Hales and Furnival; and we could see at least some veritable remains, or ruins, of old time.

But the Folio itself is by an illiterate writer, and of none of the ballads, there or elsewhere, can we obtain anything better than a very doubtful text. In the present selection the principle adopted has been as far as possible to choose a single likeliest version rather than to make patchwork from various editings; and the spelling (very careless in all the originals") has been corrected and modernized, except in doubtful words, or where rhyme or rhythm or dialectic flavour forbade an alteration.

THOMAS THE RHYMER. From Sir Walter Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Given by him from a copy obtained from a lady, "corrected and enlarged" by another MS. Thomas the Rhymer, or Thomas of Ercildoun, is the Scottish Merlin, whose prophecies, supposed to have been learned by him in Fairy-land, were household words throughout Scotland. Eildon (or Ercildoun) is the name of a hill near Melrose.

KEMPION. Scott's Minstrelsy. Kempion is Champion, There is a Danish ballad essentially the same. The characteristic incident of the story (a maiden transformed into some kind of monster, and only to be

restored to her proper shape by the kiss of a knight) is, says Professor Child, "as common in the popular fiction of the North as Scott asserts it to be in chivalrous romance." Estmere, the opposite of West-mere-land, seems to locate the story to the rocky coast of Northumberland.

THE BOY AND THE MANTLE. From the Percy Folio: omitting some later stanzas, describing further tests of chastity by means of a knife and a drinking-horn, which have a look of additions to the story.

KING ARTHUR'S DEATH. From the Percy Folio. Prefixed to the ballad in our text the Folio has ninety-six lines, in which Arthur, in his own person, recounts his former battles; and following our text are other stanzas telling what became of the Duke. Neither prefix nor appendix appears to fairly belong to the Death of Arthur.

KING ESTMERE. Given by Percy in the Reliques "from two copies, one of them in the Folio, but which contained very great variations." Neither copy exists, and Percy owns to having torn up that in the Folio. There is no knowing therefore how much of the present version may be his own. In the eighth stanza, he prints

"Thus the renisht them to ryde

and a later stanza has

Of twoe good renisht steeds,"

"And thus they renisht them to ryde

On tow good renish steedes."

So literatim. Taking into account this manifest incapacity for spelling, and in the absence of any explanation of the word renisht, furnish'd may perhaps be allowed as a possible reading.

SIR CAWLINE. From the Percy Folio. It is worth giving in the frag- . mentary state in which it there appears, if only to show the condition in which many of our old ballads have come into the hands of editors. Great must have been the temptation to restore, if not to amend! In the first edition of Percy's Reliques the two hundred and one lines are increased to three hundred and ninety-two, with a tragic and sentimental ending. Failing to find the meaning of swire (neck) Percy invented a squire (a dwarf) to carry the five heads for the Giant. He has omitted the adventure with the lion. Very probably it does not belong to it. For means yet, in the line

For some deeds of arms fain would I do.