Having thus made some remarks on early poetry in general, and on that of Scotland in particular, the Editor's purpose is, to mention the fate of some previous attempts to collect ballad poetry, and the principles of selection and publication which have been adopted by various editors of learning and information; and although the present work chiefly regards the Ballads of Scotland, yet the investigation must necessarily include some of the principal collections among the English also. preserved on the Border than in the interior of the of an anonymous editor of three 12mo volumes, which country. appeared in London, with engravings. These volumes came out in various years, in the beginning of the 18th century. The editor writes with some flippancy, but with the air of a person superior to the ordinary drudgery of a mere collector. His work appears to have been got up at considerable expense, and the general introductions and historical illustrations which are prefixed to the various ballads, are written with an accuracy of which such a subject had not till then been deemed worthy. The principal part of the collection consists of stall-ballads, neither possessing much poetical merit, nor any particular rarity or curiosity. Still this original Miscellany holds a considerable value amongst collectors; and as the three volumes-being published at different times-are seldom found together, they sell for a high price when complete. Of manuscript records of ancient ballads, very few have been yet discovered. It is probable that the minstrels, seldom knowing either how to read or write, trusted to their well-exercised memories. Nor was it a difficult task to acquire a sufficient stock in trade for their purpose, since the Editor has not only known many persons capable of retaining a very large collection of legendary lore of this kind, but there was a period in his own life, when a memory that ought to | have been charged with more valuable matter, enabled him to recollect as many of these old songs as would have occupied several days in the recitation. The press, however, at length superseded the necessity of such exertions of recollection, and sheafs of ballads issued from it weekly, for the amusement of the sojourners at the alehouse, and the lovers of poetry in grange and hall, where such of the audience as could not read, had at least read unto them. These fugitive leaves, generally printed upon broadsides, or in small miscellanies called Garlands, and circulating amongst persons of loose and careless habits-so far as books were concerned-were subject to destruction from many causes; and as the editions in the early age of printing were probably much limited, even those published as chap-books in the early part of the 18th century, are rarely met with. Some persons, however, seem to have had what their contemporaries probably thought the bizarre taste of gathering and preserving collections of this fugitive poetry. Hence the great body of ballads in the Pepysian collection at Cambridge, made by that Secretary Pepys, whose Diary is so very amusing; and hence the still more valuable deposit, in three volumes folio, in which the late Duke John of Roxburghe took so much pleasure, that he was often found enlarging it with fresh acquisitions, which he pasted in and registered with his own hand. The first attempt, however, to reprint a collection of ballads for a class of readers distinct from those for whose use the stall-copies were intended, was that We may now turn our eyes to Scotland, where the facility of the dialect, which cuts off the consonants in the termination of the words, so as greatly to simplify the task of rhyming, and the habits, dispositions, and manners of the people, were of old so favourable to the composition of ballad-poetry, that, had the Scottish songs been preserved, there is no doubt a very curious history might have been composed by means of minstrelsy only, from the reign of Alexander III. in 1285, down to the close of the Civil Wars in 1745. That materials for such a collection existed, cannot be disputed, since the Scottish historians often refer to old ballads as authorities for general tradition. But their regular preservation was not to be hoped for or expected. Successive garlands of song sprung, flourished, faded, and were forgotten, in their turn; and the names of a few specimens are only preserved, to show us how abundant the display of these wild flowers had been. Like the natural free gifts of Flora, these poetical garlands can only be successfully sought for where the land is uncultivated; and civilisation and increase of learning are sure to banish them, as the plough of the agriculturist bears down the mountain daisy. Yet it is to be recorded with some interest, that the earliest surviving specimen of the Scottish press, is a Miscellany of Millar and Chapman, which preserves a considerable fund of Scottish popular poetry, and among other things, no bad specimen of the gests of Robin Hood, "the English ballad-maker's joy," and whose renown seems to have been as freshly preserved in the north as on the southern shores of the Tweed. There were probably several collections of Scottish ballads and metrical pieces during the seventeenth century. A very fine one, belonging to Lord Montagu, "A Collection of Old Ballads, collected from the best and most ancient Copies extant, with Introductions, Historical and Critical, illustrated with copperplates." This anonymous collection, first published in 1723, was so well received, that it soon passed to a second edition, and two more volumes were added in 1723 and 1725. The third edition of the first "olume is dated 1727.-ED. 2 A facsimile reprint, in black-letter, of the Original Tracts which issued from the press of Walter Chepman and Andro Myllar at Edinburgh, in the year 1508, was published under the title of "The Knightly Tale of Golagrus and Gawane, and other Ancient Poems," in 1827, 4to. The "litil geste" of Robin Hood, referred to in the text, is a fragment of a piece contained in Ritson's Collection.-ED. perished in the fire which consumed Ditton House, about twenty years ago. The most formidable of these were directed by Joseph Ritson, a man of acute observation, profound research, and great labour. These valuable attributes were unhappily combined with an eager irritability of temper, which induced him to treat antiquarian trifles with the same seriousness which men of the world re drive controversies into personal quarrels, by neglecting, in literary debate, the courtesies of ordinary society. It ought to be said, however, by one who knew him well, that this irritability of disposition was a constitutional and physical infirmity; and that Ritson's extreme attachment to the severity of truth, corresponded to the rigour of his criticisms upon the labours of others. He seems to have attacked Bishop Percy with the greater animosity, as bearing no goodwill to the hierarchy, in which that prelate held a distinguished place. James Watson, in 1706, published, at Edinburgh, a miscellaneous collection in three parts, containing some ancient poetry. But the first editor who seems to have made a determined effort to preserve our ancient popular poetry, was the well-known Allan Ram-serve for matters of importance, and disposed him to say, in his Evergreen, containing chiefly extracts from the ancient Scottish Makers, whose poems have been preserved in the Bannatyne Manuscript, but exhibiting amongst them some popular ballads. Amongst these is the Battle of Harlaw, apparently from a modernized copy, being probably the most ancient Scottish historical ballad of any length now in existence. He also inserted in the same collection, the genuine Scottish Border ballad of Johnnie Armstrong, copied from the recitation of a descendant of the unfortunate hero, in the sixth generation. This poet also included in the Evergreen, Hardyknute, which, though evidently modern, is a most spirited and beautiful imitation of the ancient ballad. In a subsequent collection of lyrical pieces, called the Tea-Table Miscellany, Allan Ram-order and office of minstrels, which Ritson considered say inserted several old ballads, such as Cruel Barbara Allan, The Bonnie Earl of Murray, There came a Ghost to Margaret's door, and two or three others. But his unhappy plan of writing new words to old tunes, without at the same time preserving the ancient verses, led him, with the assistance of "some ingenious young gentlemen," to throw aside many originals, the preservation of which would have been much more interesting than any thing which has been substituted in their stead. Ritson's criticism, in which there was too much horse-play, was grounded on two points of accusation. The first point regarded Dr. Percy's definition of the as designedly overcharged, for the sake of giving an undue importance to his subject. The second objection respected the liberties which Dr. Percy had taken with his materials, in adding to, retrenching, and improving them, so as to bring them nearer to the taste of his own period. We will take some brief notice of both topics. that in many instances the persons of these minstrels had been honoured and respected, their performances applauded and rewarded by the great and the courtly, and their craft imitated by princes themselves. First, Dr. Percy, in the first edition of his work, certainly laid himself open to the charge of having given an inaccurate, and somewhat exaggerated acIn fine, the task of collecting and illustrating an- count, of the English Minstrels, whom he defined to cient popular poetry, whether in England or Scot- be an "order of men in the middle ages, who subsistland, was never executed by a competent person, pos- ed by the arts of poetry and music, and sung to the sessing the necessary powers of selection and annota- | harp the verses which they themselves composed." tion, till it was undertaken by Dr. Percy, afterwards The reverend editor of the Reliques produced in supBishop of Dromore in Ireland. This reverend gen-port of this definition many curious quotations, to show tleman, himself a poet, and ranking high among the literati of the day, commanding access to the individuals and institutions which could best afford him materials, gave the public the result of his researches in a work entitled "Reliques of Ancient English Poe- Against both these propositions, Ritson made a detry," in three volumes, published in London 1765, termined opposition. He contended, and probably which has since gone through four editions.3 The with justice, that the minstrels were not necessarily taste with which the materials were chosen, the ex- poets, or in the regular habit of composing the verses treme felicity with which they were illustrated, the which they sung to the harp; and indeed, that the display at once of antiquarian knowledge and classi-word minstrel, in its ordinary acceptation, meant no cal reading which the collection indicated, render it more than musician. difficult to imitate, and impossible to excel, a work which must always be held among the first of its class in point of merit, though not actually the foremost in point of time. But neither the high character of the work, nor the rank and respectability of the author, could protect him or his labours, from the invidious attacks of criticism. 1 See Appendix, Note A. 2 See Appendix, Note B. & Sir Walter Scott corresponded frequently with the Bishop Dr. Percy, from an amended edition of his Essay on Minstrelsy, prefixed to the fourth edition of the Reliques of Ancient Poetry, seems to have been, to a certain point, convinced by the critic's reasoning; for he has extended the definition impugned by Ritson, and the minstrels are thus described as singing verses "composed by themselves or others." This we of Dromore, at the time when he was collecting the materials of the Border Minstrelsy."- Ed. 4 See Appendix, Note C. apprehend to be a tenable position; for, as on the one hand it seems too broad an averment to say that all minstrels were by profession poets, so on the other, it is extravagant to affirm, that men who were constantly in the habit of reciting verse, should not frequently have acquired that of composing it, especially when their bread depended on giving pleasure; and to have the power of producing novelty, is a great step towards that desirable end. No unprejudiced reader, therefore, can have any hesitation in adopting Bishop Percy's definition of the minstrels, and their occupation, as qualified in the fourth edition of his Essay, implying that they were sometimes poets, sometimes the mere reciters of the poetry of others. On the critic's second proposition, Dr. Percy successfully showed, that at no period of history was the word minstrel applied to instrumental music exclusively; and he has produced sufficient evidence, that the talents of the profession were as frequently employed in chanting or reciting poetry as in playing the mere tunes. There is appearance of distinction being sometimes made between minstrel recitations and minstrelsy of music alone; and we may add a curious instance, to those quoted by the Bishop. It is from the singular ballad respecting Thomas of Erceldoune,' which announces the proposition, that tongue is chief of minstrelsy. We may also notice, that the word minstrel being in fact derived from the Minné-singer of the Germans, means, in its primary sense, one who sings of love, a sense totally inapplicable to a mere instrumental musician. A second general point on which Dr. Percy was fiercely attacked by Mr. Ritson, was also one on which both the parties might claim a right to sing Te Deum. It respected the rank or status which was held by the minstrels in society during the middle ages. On this point the editor of the Reliques of Ancient Poetry had produced the most satisfactory evidence, that, at the courts of the Anglo-Norman princes, the professors of the gay science were the favourite solacers of the leisure hours of princes, who did not themselves disdain to share their tuneful labours, and imitate their compositions. Mr. Ritson replied to this with great ingenuity, arguing, that such instances of respect paid to French minstrels reciting in their native language in the court of Norman monarchs, though held in Britain, argued nothing in favour of English artists professing the same trade; and of whose compositions, and not of those existing in the French language, Dr. Percy professed to form his collection. The reason of 1 Select Remains of Popular Pieces of Poetry. Edinburgh, 1822. 2 That monarch first used the vernacular English dialect in a motto which he displayed on his shield at a celebrated tournament. The legend which graced the representation of a white swan on the king's buckler, ran thus: "Ha! ha! the whyte swan! By Goddis soule I am thy man." the distinction betwixt the respectability of the French minstrels, and the degradation of the same class of men in England, Mr. Ritson plausibly alleged to be, that the English language, a mixed speech betwixt Anglo-Saxon and Norman-French, was not known at the court of the Anglo-Norman kings until the the reign of Edward III. ; and that, therefore, until a very late period, and when the lays of minstrelsy were going out of fashion, English performers in that capacity must have confined the exercise of their talents to the amusement of the vulgar. Now, as it must be conceded to Mr. Ritson, that almost all the English metrical romances which have been preserved till the present day, are translated from the French, it may also be allowed, that a class of men employed chiefly in rendering into English the works of others, could not hold so high a station as those who aspired to original composition; and so far the critic has the best of the dispute. But Mr. Ritson has over-driven his argument, since there was assuredly a period in English history, when the national minstrels, writing in the national dialect, were, in proportion to their merit in their calling, held in honour and respect. Thomas the Rhymer, for example, a minstrel who flourished in the end of the twelfth century, was not only a man of talent in his art, but of some rank in society; the companion of nobles, and himself a man of landed property. He, and his contemporary Kendal, wrote, as we are assured by Robert de Brunne, in a passage already alluded to, a kind of English, which was designed for "pride and nobleye,"3 and not for such inferior persons as Robert himself addressed, and to whose comprehension he avowedly lowered his language and structure of versification. There existed, therefore, during the time of this historian, a more refined dialect of the English language, used by such composers of popular poetry as moved in a higher circle; and there can be no doubt, that while their productions were held in such high esteem, the authors must have been honoured in proportion. The education bestowed upon James I. of Scotland, when brought up under the charge of Henry IV., comprehended both music and the art of vernacular poetry; in other words, Minstrelsy in both branches. That poetry, of which the King left several specimens, was, as is well known, English; nor is it to be supposed that a prince, upon whose education such sedulous care was bestowed, would have been instructed in an art which, if we are to believe Mr. Ritson, was degraded to the last degree, and discreditable to its professors. The same argument is strengthened by the poetical exercises of the Duke of Orleans, in English, written during his captivity after the battle of Agincourt. It could not be supposed that the noble prisoner was to solace his hours of imprisonment with a degrading and vulgar species of composition. greater part of the minstrels, practising their profes sion 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 We could produce other instances to show that this phrase, from hand to mouth only, should fall under acute critic has carried his argument considerably too general contempt, while the stars of the profession, to far. But we prefer taking a general view of the sub- use a modern phrase, looked down on them from the ject, which seems to explain clearly how contradic-distant empyrean, as the planets do upon those shoottory evidence should exist on it, and why instances of ing exhalations arising from gross vapours in the great personal respect to individual minstrels, and a nether atmosphere. high esteem of the art, are quite reconcilable with much contempt thrown on the order at large. All professors of the fine arts-all those who contribute, not to the necessities of life, but to the enjoyments of society, hold their professional respectability by the severe tenure of exhibiting excellence in their department. We are well enough satisfied with the tradesman who goes through his task in a workmanlike manner, nor are we disposed to look down upon the divine, the lawyer, or the physician, unless they display gross ignorance of their profession: we hold it enough, that if they do not possess the highest knowledge of their respective sciences, they can at least instruct us on the points we desire to know. But "mediocribus esse poetis Non di, non homines, non concessere columnæ." The same is true respecting the professors of painting, of sculpture, of music, and the fine arts in general. If they exhibit paramount excellence, no situation in society is too high for them which their manners enable them to fill; if they fall short of the highest point of aim, they degenerate into sign-painters, stonecutters, common crowders, doggrel rhymers, and so forth, the most contemptible of mankind. The reason of this is evident. Men must be satisfied with such a supply of their actual wants as can be obtained in the circumstances, and should an individual want a coat, he must employ the village tailor, if Stultze is not to be had. But if he seeks for delight, the case is quite different; and he that cannot hear Pasta or Sontag, would be little solaced for the absence of these sirens, by the strains of a crack-voiced balladsinger. 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 1 See the edition printed by Mr. Watson Taylor, for the Roxburghe Club. 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 strains with a ruder ditty, the helpless associate of drunken revellers, and marvellously afraid of the constable and parish-beadle. 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.3 There was still another and more important subject of debate between Dr. Percy and his hostile critic. The 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 2 See Appendix, Note D. 3 See Appendix, Note E. 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 inquire 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 whole, that he has, in many instances, decorated the ancient ballads with the graces of a more refined period. 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." 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 gentle. man we have just quoted. His "Old Ballads, histo 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 sorical and narrative, with some of modern date," aproughly 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. Introduction to Evans's Ballads, 1810. New edition, enlarged, &c. peared 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 Cumnor Hall, which suggested the fictitious narrative entitled Kenilworth. The RedCross 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 an 2 See Appendix, Note F. |