Shirley, the seventeenth century dramatist, a passage from Warner's Albion's England, Lovelace's To Althea from Prison, Verses written by Charles the First in Carisbrook Castle, A Mad Song from Tom D'Urfey, another by Henry Carey, author of "Sally in our Alley ", Raleigh's The Lie, Wither's Shall I wasting in despair, and a score of others well known to readers or singers long before Percy's time. And the absurdity of the common idea, that the Reliques consisted wholly of the poetry of the people, grows more patent when we see cavaliers, noblemen, and even monarchs included in the list of authors.

6. Of the true metal there are not more than thirty or forty. A few of these are evidently from some version of the fourteenth or fifteenth century. The Ancient Ballad of Chevy Chase, The Battle of Otterbourne, and Sir Cauline are too full of obsolete words and phrases to come from any later time. Of the first he also gives a form that has marks of the seventeenth century upon it, the form that Addison refers to. Child's variorum edition of the ballads (about to be finished) shows as we should expect how numerous and varied the versions of each ballad, some fresh from the olden time, others marred by the prosaic spirit of the ballad-hawkers. A large number of them bear the marks of having been composed, or at least entirely recomposed, in feudal or chivalric times. The Arthurian ballads, of course, belong to this class, The Boy and the Mantle, The Marriage of Sir Gawaine, Sir Lancelot du Lak, King Ryence's Challenge. But these are by no means of the best. Others make into romance or doggerel historical incidents, or incidents concerning historical personages, and these are of course not ancient. Fair Rosamond, Jane Shore, King Edward the Fourth and the Tanner of Tamworth, Sir Andrew Barton, Lady Anne Bothwell's Lament, The Bonny Earl of Murray, Mary Ambree, The Brave Lord Willoughby, and Chevy Chase are of this class. Another set, like Gilderoy, the Scotch Robin Hood of the seventeenth century, and George Barnwell, are tales of modern crime and love. A few take themes from the times of the Crusades, like "As ye came from the Holy Land". Some are marred by the controversial spirit of the Reformation, as A Ballad

of Luther, and Little John Nobody. Others are spoiled by abstractions and allegory like The Tower of Doctrine, The Complaint of Conscience, and Plain Truth and Plain Ignorance. Some are burlesques, as The Tournament of Tottenham, The Sale of Rebellious Household Stuff, The Dragon of Wantley, and St. George for England. These three latter classes are not properly ballads, having nothing of romance in them. Another class deal with Gothicised stories from classical literature, Ulysses and the Siren, Constant Penelope, and Queen Dido. A second set of the same type deal with native legend, like St. George and the Dragon, and Legend of Sir Guy. A third versify legends that belong to all Europe, like The Wandering Jew, and King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid.

7. Of course all the ballads have some bases or features that resemble the ballads of other European and especially Aryan nations. Whether these common elements reveal their community of origin, or only the likeness of the climate and nature and circumstances out of which they grew, is a question that is practically insoluble. Those that have their complete story in common with others have their community from migration of legend. As for those that have only a general likeness, there is so much that seems almost automatic in the romance and reflections of human beings that a common stage of development is more often the true solution of the resemblance.

8. In Percy's collection there are few that are connected with the oldest folk-magic, the fairies. "Robin Goodfellow", and "The Fairy Queen are evidently poems from his own time. Ballads there are none like Tamlane, or Thomas of Ercildoune, that narrate stories of the intercourse of fairies and human beings. The only supernatural elements that we have in the true ballads of the collection are the use of magical robes or weapons, as in The Boy and the Mantle, and King Estmere, and the introduction of a ghost as in Sweet William's Ghost, and Margaret's Ghost. But these are rarer than in the Scottish ballads recovered by later collectors.

9. The three great passions of the true ballads are love, war, and adventure, especially adventure in hunting. They

And it was the

They form the very primitivedrew the latter

are the primitive and elemental passions. atmosphere of Ossian too. ness and simplicity of their exhibition that half of the eighteenth century to them. A literature and a civilisation that have become too refined, subtle, and artificial, must decay of exhaustion, unless they recruit themselves at the primal fountains of racial power. Hence the collection in last century all over Europe, not in England alone, of those true products of primitive literary instinct, the ballads. Another reason was that at this time the people in the West were about to enter again into literature and drive out of it the evil spirit of courts and narrow circles; they brought their tales with them. Covered though so many of these ballads in Percy's collection were with eighteenth century stucco, it was little wonder that they became so popular; the new writers felt, as they read or copied them, that they were drinking at the pure fountains of literature.

IO. The most picturesque, vigorous, and stirring of the ballads dealt with war and adventure. And England in our era was almost more than in any age devoted to those pursuits. Englishmen were spreading through all countries of the world and bringing back the romances of their travels; and English arms were busy in every quarter of the globe losing or expanding the empire. Never were the ferocity, the courage, the love of revenge, the passion for slaughter and conquest, that characterise so many of the ballads, more appreciated than now. Border strife, the struggles of chivalry, and the long conflict between the Saracens and the West, had been very fertile themes for the ballad faculty. Chevy Chase, Sir Cauline, and King Estmere were instances of each in the Reliques. Unfortunately it has been found that these and The Child of Elle have been most tampered with; the latter three were only fragments in the folio the folio manuscript; the fortysix stanzas of Sir Cauline in it, for example, were expanded into ninety-two by Percy, and the whole was planed and rounded to make an eighteenth century version of a tale of chivalry. Percy manages the task with great art and a knowledge of ballad language gained by constant reading of

the ballads. An analysis of the additions and changes will throw light on the tastes of the new audience. In the folio manuscript it is less of a unity and more affiliated to the supernatural; the turns in events and emotions are more abrupt and less romantic; and the lady has fewer feelings than in the sentimental revision. Sir Cauline loves the daughter of his king, and falls ill from the passion. The monarch sends the very cause of the illness, who, "is a leech full fine", to attend to him. He confesses his love. And in stanzas that are lost she evidently pleads that she cannot marry him. But she sends him to meet "the eldridge king" on Eldridge Hill, thinking that this finally disposes of him; for

"Never man bare his life away,

Since the day that I was borne ".

He goes at midnight, and meets the furious king, fights with him, and cuts his hands off. The lady that led the eldridge king's horse pleads for him, and gets his life from the knight, who goes off with the eldridge sword and rings, and presents them to the king's daughter. There is a hiatus in the poem; it opens again with the appearance of a giant 66 unmackley made", who bears five heads " upon his squier", drinks the king's wine, "puts the cup in his sleeve " and says he will have the king's daughter, and burn his temples unless a "pear" is found to meet him. The king offers "broad lands", and his daughter to wife to anyone who will be the champion. Sir Cauline stands forth and offers; he arms himself with his " eldridge sword", and the "hend soldan " and he fight" a summer's day ", till at last the terrible enemy is slain. The knight demands the daughter to wife, and his demand is granted. But a "false steward" sets a lion on him when he is weaponless; he takes his "mantle of green", and stuffs it into the mouth of the wild beast, "till the lion's heart did burst".

"Then he did marry the king's daughter
With gold and silver bright,
And fifteen sons this lady bore

To Sir Cauline the knight".

That is the original. Percy adopts the picturesque style that was coming into fashion in the poetry of his day with the growth of the art of painting; slight details are made into

pictures, and he fixes other details with the true ballad instinct; he places the king "in Ireland", and calls his daughter "Christabelle"; and she becomes in his hands, instead of the listless if not cruel leech, who disposes of the awkward lover, a sympathetic, sentimental heroine of the eighteenth century, especially towards the close. So the "eldridge king's " lady appeals to him

"For the maiden's love that most you love "

to spare her lord; and he spares him on condition that "the paynim" becomes a Christian. This makes the elfin less supernatural, and identifies him more with the Saracens than the original. The king's daughter receives her knight with passionate welcome,

"Blushes scarlet red,

And fetches a gentle sigh";

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and he kisses "her lily-white hand" and "the tears starte from his ee'". She could not marry him, but she would marry no other man; and they pass many a pleasant hour", "in love and sweet dalliance", in "a fair arbour ". There the king finds them, "and an angry man was he"; he banishes Sir Cauline never to return on pain of death; and imprisons "Fair Christabelle" in a tower, where she droopeth in her mind", and doth "lament and weep", refusing every suitor, king, duke, or lord. To cheer her, her father proclaims a tournament; and at it, a stranger knight is ever victor, till a giant appears to avenge an affront done him by a knight; he will burn the halls and towers, and take the king's daughter, and cut off the king's head or fight with a peer". The king makes the offer of his daughter's hand to anyone who will champion him. She is woebegone, "casts her thought on her own true love ", and, like the heroine of last century romance, weeps. stranger knight offers;

"The lady sighed a gentle sigh
'That this were my true knight" ";

The

and through six stanzas of the combat, she "deeply sighs and "weeps for woe", and "shrieks loud shriekings three ", weeps again, and at the success of the knight,

"thanks Christ,

That had rescued her from thrall ".