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Introductory Remarks'

ON

Popular Poetry,

AND ON THE

VARIOUS COLLECTIONS OF BALLADS OF BRITAIN, PARTICULARLY THOSE OF SCOTLAND.

THE Introduction originally prefixed to " The Min- | various devices, often more ingenious than elegant, strelsy of the Scottish Border," was rather of a historical than a literary nature; and the remarks which follow have been added, to afford the general reader some information upon the character of Ballad Poetry.

It would be throwing away words to prove, what all must admit, the general taste and propensity of nations in their early state, to cultivate some species of rude poetry. When the organs and faculties of a primitive race have developed themselves, each for its proper and necessary use, there is a natural tendency to employ them in a more refined and regulated manner for purposes of amusement. The savage, after proving the activity of his limbs in the chase or the battle, trains them to more measured movements, to dance at the festivals of his tribe, or to perform obeisance before the altars of his deity. From the same impulse, he is disposed to refine the ordinary speech which forms the vehicle of social communication betwixt him and his brethren, until, by a more ornate diction, modulated by certain rules of rhythm, cadence, assonance of termination, or recurrence of sound or letter, he obtains a dialect more solemn in expression, to record the laws or exploits of his tribe, or more sweet in sound, in which to plead his own cause to his mistress.

that they may establish, if not an absolute claim to originality, at least a visible distinction betwixt themselves and their predecessors. Thus it happens, that early poets almost uniformly display a bold, rude, original cast of genius and expression. They have walked at free-will, and with unconstrained steps, along the wilds of Parnassus, while their followers move with constrained gestures and forced attitudes, in order to avoid placing their feet where their predecessors have stepped before them. The first bard who compared his hero to a lion, struck a bold and congenial note, though the simile, in a nation of hunters, be a very obvious one; but every subsequent poet who shall use it, must either struggle hard to give his lion, as heralds say, with a difference, or lie under the imputation of being a servile imitator.

It is not probable that, by any researches of modern times, we shall ever reach back to an earlier model of poetry than Homer; but as there lived heroes before Agamemnon, so, unquestionably, poets existed before the immortal Bard who gave the King of kings his fame; and he whom all civilized nations now acknowledge as the Father of Poetry, must have himself looked back to an ancestry of poetical predecessors, and is only held original because we know not from whom he copied. Indeed, though much must be as

poetry of Homer argues a degree of perfection in an art which practice had already rendered regular, and concerning which, his frequent mention of the bards, or chanters of poetry, indicates plainly that it was studied by many, and known and admired by all.

This primeval poetry must have one general cha-cribed to the riches of his own individual genius, the racter in all nations, both as to its merits and its imperfections. The earlier poets have the advantage, and it is not a small one, of having the first choice out of the stock of materials, which are proper to the art; and thus they compel later authors, if they would avoid slavishly imitating the fathers of verse, into

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1 These remarks were first appended to the edition of the 'Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," 1830.-ED.

It is indeed easily discovered, that the qualities ne

doubted that the Iliad and Odyssey were substantially the works of one and the same individual. He said of the Wolfian hypothesis, that it was the most irreligious one he had

2 Sir Walter Scott, as this paragraph intimates, never heard of, and could never be believed in by any poet.-ED.

cessary for composing such poems are not the portion different nations differs still more widely in the degree

of every man in the tribe; that the bard, to reach ex- of excellence which it attains. This must depend in cellence in his art, must possess something more than some measure, no doubt, on the temper and manners a full command of words and phrases, and the knack of the people, or their proximity to those spirit-stirring of arranging them in such form as ancient examples events which are naturally selected as the subject of have fixed upon as the recognised structure of na- poetry, and on the more comprehensive or energetic tional verse. The tribe speedily become sensible, that character of the language spoken by the tribe. But besides this degree of mechanical facility, which (like the progress of the art is far more dependent upon making what are called at school nonsense verses) the rise of some highly gifted individual, possessing in may be attained by dint of memory and practice, much a pre-eminent and uncommon degree the powers do higher qualifications are demanded. A keen and manded, whose talents influence the taste of a whole active power of observation, capable of perceiving at a nation, and entail on their posterity and language a glance the leading circumstances from which the in-character almost indelibly sacred. In this respect cident described derives its character; quick and powerful feelings, to enable the bard to comprehend and delineate those of the actors in his piece; and a command of language, alternately soft and elevated, and suited to express the conceptions which he had formed in his mind, are all necessary to eminence in the poetical art.

Homer stands alone and unrivalled, as a light from whose lamp the genius of successive ages, and of distant nations, has caught fire and illumination; and who, though the early poet of a rude age, has purchased for the era he has celebrated, so much reverence, that, not daring to bestow on it the term of barbarous, we distinguish it as the heroic period.

No other poet (sacred and inspired authors excepted) ever did, or ever will, possess the same influence over posterity, in so many distant lands, as has been acquired by the blind old man of Chios; yet we are assured that his works, collected by the pious care of Pisistratus, who caused to be united into their present

Above all, to attain the highest point of his profession, the poet must have that original power of embodying and detailing circumstances, which can place before the eyes of others a scene which only exists in his own imagination. This last high and creative faculty, namely, that of impressing the mind of the hearers with scenes and sentiments having no ex-form those divine poems, would otherwise, if preserved istence save through their art, has procured for the bards of Greece the term of Horns, which, as it singularly happens, is literally translated by the Scottish epithet for the same class of persons, whom they termed the Makers. The French phrase of Trouveurs, or Troubadours, namely, the Finders, or Inventors, has the same reference to the quality of original conception and invention proper to the poetical art, and without which it can hardly be said to exist to any pleasing or useful purpose.

The mere arrangement of words into poetical rhythm, or combining them according to a technical rule or measure, is so closely connected with the art of music, | that an alliance between these two fine arts is very soon closely formed. It is fruitless to enquire which of them has been first invented, since doubtless the precedence is accidental; and it signifies little whether the musician adapts verses to a rude tune, or whether the primitive poet, in reciting his productions, falls naturally into a chant or song. With this additional accomplishment, the poet becomes doidos, or the man of song, and his character is complete when the additional accompaniment of a lute or harp is added to his vocal performance.

Here, therefore, we have the history of early poetry m all nations. But it is evident that, though poetry seems a plant proper to almost all soils, yet not only is it of various kinds, according to the climate and country in which it has its origin, but the poetry of

1 The "Poema del Cid" (of which Mr. Frere has translated some specimens) is, however, considered by every historian et Spanish literature, as the work of one hand; and is evi

at all, have appeared to succeeding generations in the humble state of a collection of detached ballads, connected only as referring to the same age, the same general subjects, and the same cycle of heroes, like the metrical poems of the Cid in Spain, or of Robin Hood in England.

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In other countries, less favoured, either in language or in picturesque incident, it cannot be supposed that even the genius of Homer could have soared to such exclusive eminence, since he must at once have been deprived of the subjects and themes so well adapted for his muse, and of the lofty, melodious, and flexible language in which he recorded them. Other nations, during the formation of their ancient poetry, wanted the genius of Homer, as well as his picturesque scenery and lofty language. Yet the investigation of the early poetry of every nation, even the rudest, carries with it an object of curiosity and interest. It is a chapter in the history of the childhood of society, and its resemblance to, or dissimilarity from, the popular rhymes of other nations in the same stage, must needs illustrate the ancient history of states; their slower or swifter progress towards civilisation; their gradual or more rapid adoption of manners, sentiments, and religion. The study, therefore, of lays rescued from the gulf of oblivion, must in every case possess consider. able interest for the moral philosopher and general historian.

The historian of an individual nation is equally or

dently more ancient than the detached ballads on the Adventures of the Campeador, which are included in the Cancioneros.-ED.

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