Imitators and Forgers.

'My hounds they all ran masterless,My hawks they flee from tree to tree;My youngest brother will heir my lands,And fair England again I'll never see.Oh were I free as I hae been,And my ship swimming once more on sea;I'd turn my face to fair England,And sail no more to a strange countrie.'

'My hounds they all ran masterless,My hawks they flee from tree to tree;My youngest brother will heir my lands,And fair England again I'll never see.

Oh were I free as I hae been,And my ship swimming once more on sea;I'd turn my face to fair England,And sail no more to a strange countrie.'

'Now the cruel Moor had a beautiful daughter, called Susan Pye, who was accustomed to take a walk every morning in her garden, and as she was walking ae day she heard the sough o' Beichan's sang, coming, as it were, from below the ground,'" &c.[8]

The contrast between the construction of minstrel ballads and those of the ballad-mongers who arose as a class in the reign of Elizabeth is very marked. The ballad-singers who succeeded the minstrels were sufficiently wise not to reject the treasures of their predecessors, and many of the old songs were rewrittenand lengthened to suit their purpose.Sir PatrickSpencewould perhaps be the best of the minstrel ballads to oppose to one of the best of the later ballads, such as theBeggar's Daughter of Bednall Green; but as its authenticity has been disputed, it will be well to choose another, andCaptaine Carre, which Ritson allows to have been one of the few minstrel ballads he acknowledges, will do well for the purpose. As both these poems are before our readers, it will only be necessary to quote the first stanzas of each. The version in the folio MS. ofCaptain Carrecommences abruptly thus:—

"ffaith maister, whither you will,whereas you like the best,unto the castle of Bitton's borrow,and there to take your rest."[9]

This is a remarkable contrast to the opening of theBeggar's Daughter:—

"Itt was a blind beggar, had long lost his sight,He had a faire daughter of bewty most bright;And many a gallant brave suiter had shee,For none was soe comelye as pretty Bessee."[10]

Some may think, however, that this ballad is an adaptation by the ballad-monger from an older original, so that perhaps a still better instance of the great change in form that the ballads underwent will be found in theChildren in the Wood.[11]This favourite ballad is one of the best specimens of that didactic style which is so natural in the hands of the master, but degenerates into such tedious twaddle when copied by the pupil. The first stanza is:—

"Now ponder well, you parents deare,These wordes, which I shall write;A doleful story you shall heare,In time brought forth to light.A gentleman of good accountIn Norfolke dwelt of late,Who did in honour far surmountMost men of his estate."

To put the matter simply, we may say that the writer of the old minstrel ballad expected an unhesitating belief for all his statements. "If fifteen stalwart foresters are slain by one stout knight, single-handed, he never steps out of his way to prove the truth of such an achievement by appealing to the exploits of some other notable manslayer."[12]On the other hand the professional ballad-writer gives a reason for everything he states, and in consequence fills his work with redundancies. Percy understood the characteristics of the older ballads, and explained the difference between the two classes of ballads in hisEssay onthe Ancient Minstrels,[13]but unfortunately he did not bear the distinction in mind when he altered some of the ballads in the folio MS. So that we find it to have been his invariable practice to graft the prettinesses and redundancies of the later writers upon the simplicity of the earlier. For instance, in his version ofSir Caulinehe inserts such well-worn saws as the following:—

"Everye white will have its blacke,And everye sweete its sowre:This founde the ladye CristabelleIn an untimely howre."[14]

Ritson also remarks upon the distinctive styles of the ancient and modern writers, but, as observed above, he had the bad taste to prefer the work ofthe later ballad-writer. His opinion is given in the following passage:—"These songs [of the minstrels] from their wild and licentious metre were incapable of any certain melody or air; they were chanted in a monotonous stile to the harp or other instrument, and both themselves and the performers banished by the introduction of ballad-singers without instruments, who sung printed pieces to fine and simple melodies, possibly of their own invention, most of which are known and admired at this day. The latter, owing to the smoothness of their language, and accuracy of their measure and rime, were thought to be more poetical than the old harp or instrument songs; and though critics may judge otherwise, the people at large were to decide, and did decide: and in some respects, at least, not without justice, as will be evident from a comparison of the following specimens.

"The first is from the oldChevy Chase, a very popular minstrel ballad in the time of Queen Elizabeth:—

'The Persé owt of Northombarlande,And a vowe to God mayd he,' &c.[15]

How was it possible that this barbarous language, miserably chanted 'by some blind crowder with no rougher voice than rude stile,' should maintain its ground against such lines as the following, sung to a beautiful melody, which we know belongs to them?—

'When as king Henry rul'd the land,The second of that name,Besides the queen he dearly lov'd,A fair and comely dame,' &c.[16]

The minstrels would seem to have gained little by such a contest. In short, they gave up the oldChevyChaseto the ballad-singers, who, desirous, no doubt, to avail themselves of so popular a subject, had it new written, and sung it to the favourite melody just mentioned. The original, of course, became utterly neglected, and but for its accidental discovery by Hearne, would never have been known to exist."[17]

Percy held the view, which was afterwards advocated by Scott, that the Borders were the true home of the romantic ballad, and that the chief minstrels originally belonged either to the north of England or the south of Scotland;[18]but later writers have found the relics of a ballad literature in the north of Scotland. The characteristics of the ballad doubtless varied to some extent in different parts of the country, but there is no reason to believe that the glory of being its home can be confined to any one place. Unfortunately this popular literature was earlier lost in the plains than among the hills, while the recollection of the fatal fields of Otterburn, Humbledon, Flodden, Halidon, Hedgeley, Hexham, &c., would naturally keep it alive longer among the families of the Border than elsewhere.

Before proceeding further, it may be as well to say a few words upon the wordballad. The strong line of demarcation that is now drawn between an ordinary song and a ballad is a late distinction, and even Dr. Johnson's only explanation of the word "ballad" in hisDictionaryis "a song." One of his quotations is taken from Watts, to the effect that "ballad once signified a solemn and sacred song, as well as trivial, when Solomon's Song was called the ballad of ballads; but now it is applied to nothing but trifling verse." The "balade" as used by Chaucer and others was a song written in a particular rhythm, but later writersusually meant by a ballad a song that was on the lips of the people.

It is not necessary to enlarge here upon the change of meaning that the word has undergone, nor to do more than mention the relation that it bears to the word ballet. As aballadis now a story told in verse, so aballetis now a story told in a dance. Originally the two were one, and the ballad was a song sung while the singers were dancing.

When Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun wrote, "I knew a very wise man, so much of Sir Christopher's sentiment that he believed if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation," he referred to the popular songs of the people, but, in point of fact, a nation makes its own ballads, which do not become current coin until stamped with public approval. No song will change a people's purpose, but the national heart will be found written in a country's songs as a reflection of what has happened.

The successful ballad-writer requires a quick eye and ear to discern what is smouldering in the public mind, and then if his words fall in with the humour of the people his productions will have a powerful influence, and may set the country in a blaze.Çairaand theCarmagnolehad much influence on the progress of the great French Revolution, asMourir pour la Patriehad upon that of 1848.Lilliburlerogave the finishing stroke to the English Revolution of 1688, and its author (Lord Wharton) boasted that he had rhymed King James out of his dominions.

The old ballad filled the place of the modern newspaper, and history can be read in ballads by those who try to understand them; but the type is often blurred, and in attempting to make out their meaning, we must be careful not to see too much,for the mere fact of the existence of a ballad does not prove its popularity or its truth.

Literature is often presumed to assert a larger influence over a nation than it really does, and there is little doubt that literature is more a creation of the people than the people are a creation of literature. Where a healthy public opinion exists, people are less affected to action by what is written than is sometimes supposed, but still there is an important reflex action, and—

"Words are things, and a small drop of inkFalling like dew upon a thought, producesThat which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think."

There are recorded instances of the powerful influence of ballads, and we know how much Dibdin's sea songs did for the British navy, when they placed before the sailor an ideal of his own feelings, and painted men he wished to be like.

The songs of a country are the truly natural part of its poetry, and really the only poetry of the great body of the people. Percy, in the dedication to hisReliques, calls ballads the "barbarous productions of unpolished ages." Nevertheless they are instinct with life, and live still, while much of the polished poetry of his age, which expelled nature from literature, is completely dead. Nature is the salt that keeps the ballad alive, and many have maintained a continuance of popularity for several centuries.

A good ballad is not an easy thing to write, and many poets who have tried their hand at composition in this branch of their art have signally failed, as may be seen by referring to some of the modern pieces in this book, which Percy hoped would "atone for the rudeness of the more obsolete poems."

The true ballad is essentially dramatic, and one that is to make itself felt should be all action, withoutany moralizing padding, for it is a narrative in verse meant for the common people. James Hogg, himself a successful ballad-writer, has something to say about a good song: "A man may be sair mista'en about many things, sic as yepics, an' tragedies, an' tales, an' even lang set elegies about the death o' great public characters, an' hymns, an' odes, an' the like, but he canna be mista'en about a sang. As sune as it's down on the sclate I ken whether it's gude, bad, or middlin'. If any of the two last I dight it out wi' my elbow; if the first, I copy it o'er into writ and then get it aff by heart, when it's as sure o' no' being lost as if it war engraven on a brass plate. For though I hae a treacherous memory about things in ordinar', a' my happy sangs will cleave to my heart to my dying day, an' I should na wonder gin I war to croon a verse or twa frae some o' them on my deathbed."

All ballads are songs, but all songs are not ballads, and the difference between a ballad and a song is something the same as that between a proverb and an apophthegm, for the ballad like the proverb should be upon many lips. A poet may write a poem and call it a ballad: but it requires the public approval before it becomes one in fact.

The objects of the minstrel and the ballad-singer were essentially different: thus the minstrel's stock of ballads usually lasted him his lifetime, and as his living depended upon them they were jealously guarded by him from others. Nothing he objected to more than to see them in print. The chief aim of the ballad-singer, on the other hand, was to sell his collection of printed broadsides, and to obtain continually a new stock, so as to excite the renewed attention of his customers.

Henry Chettle mentions in hisKind Hart's Dream, 1592, the sons of one Barnes, who boasted that theycould earn twenty shillings a day by singing ballads at Bishop's Stortford and places in the neighbourhood. The one had a squeaking treble, the other "an ale-blown bass."

One of the most popular singers of the early time was a boy named Cheeke, and nicknamed "Outroaring Dick." He was originally a mechanic, but renounced that life for ballad-singing, by which occupation he earned ten shillings a day. He was well known in Essex, and was not missed for many years from the great fair at Braintree. He had a rival in Will Wimbars, who sung chiefly doleful tragedies. Mat Nash, a man from the "North Countrie," made the Border ballads his own by his manner of singing them, in which he accompanied his voice by dramatic action.Chevy Chasewas histour de force. Lord Burghley was so pleased with his singing that he enabled him to retire from his occupation. The gipsies have furnished many female singers, and one of them, named Alice Boyce, who came to London in Elizabeth's reign, paid the expenses of her journey up to London by singing the whole way. She had the honour of singing, "O, the broom" and "Lady Green Sleeves" before the queen. Gravelot, the portrait painter in the Strand, had several sittings from ballad-singers; and Hogarth drew the famous "Philip in the Tub" in his Wedding of theIndustriousApprentice.

Street singing still continues, and one of the songs of thirty years ago tells of "the luck of a cove wot sings," and how many friends he has. One of the verses is as follows:—

"While strolling t'other night,I dropped in a house, d'ye see;The landlord so polite,Insisted on treating me;I called for a glass of port,When half-a-bottle he brings;'How much?'—'Nothing of the sort,'Says he, 'you're a cove wot sings.'"

Mr. Chappell gives a large number of early quotations relating to ballad-singing, in his interestingHistoryof Ballad Literature, and observes that "some idea of the number of ballads that were printed in the early part of the reign of Elizabeth may be formed from the fact that seven hundred and ninety-six ballads left for entry at Stationers' Hall remained in the cupboard of the Council Chamber of the Company at the end of the year 1560, to be transferred to the new Wardens, and only forty-four books."[19]Some of the old writers, like Shakspere's Mopsa, loved "a ballad in print;" but more of them disliked the new literature that was rising up like a mushroom, and took every opportunity of having a fling at it.

Webbe, in hisDiscourse of English Poetrie(1586), refers to "the un-countable rabble of ryming ballet-makers and compylers of senseless sonnets;" and Chettle complains inKind Hart's Dream(1592), that "now ballads are abusively chanted in every street; and from London, this evil has overspread Essex and the adjoining counties. There is many a tradesman of a worshipful trade, yet no stationer, who after a little bringing up apprentices to singing brokery, takes into his shop some fresh men, and trusts his servants of two months' standing with a dozen groats' worth of ballads, in which, if they prove thrifty, he makes them pretty chapmen, able to spread more pamphlets by the State forbidden than all the booksellers in London." Bishop Hall (1597) does not forget to satirize ballad-writing among other things more worthy of censure.

"Some drunken rhymer thinks his time well spent,If he can live to see his name in print;Who, when he is once fleshed to the presse,And sees his handsell have such faire successeSung to the wheele and sung unto the payle,He sends forth thraves of ballads to the sale."

That is, by the spinsters and milkmaids. Shakspere also refers to the love which women at work have for a ballad inTwelfth Night(act i. sc. 4):

"The spinsters and knitters in the sun,And the free maids that weave their thread with bonesDo use to chant it."

The larger number of ballads are anonymous, but we are told that in the reign of Henry VIII., "the most pregnant wits" were employed in writing them, and that the king himself set the example. The ballad, however, here referred to probably only meant an ordinary song. In course of time rhymesters succeeded poets, because, as the world becomes more educated, the poet confines himself to the refined, and the people have to content themselves with poor poetasters. Stirring times will, however, always give birth to some real poetry among the masses, because whatever is true and earnest must find an echo in many hearts. In Elizabeth's reign, as we have already seen, the ballad-writer had sunk very low in public esteem. In further illustration of this we find inMartin Mar-sixtus(1592) the following diatribe: "I lothe to speak it, every red-nosed rhymester is an auther, every drunken man's dream is a book; and he whose talent of little wit is hardly worth a farthing, yet layeth about him so outrageously as if all Helicon had run through his pen. In a word, scarce a cat can look out of a gutter, but out starts a halfpenny chronicler, and presently a proper new ballet of a strange sight is indited." The producer and the producthad not greatly changed in forty years, for we find the following character in the curious little book, entitledWhimzies, or a New Cast of Characters(1631):

"A ballad-monger is the ignominious nickname of a penurious poet, of whom he partakes in nothing but in povertie. He has a singular gift of imagination, for he can descant on a man's execution long before his confession. Nor comes his invention far short of his imagination. For want of truer relations, for a neede, he can finde you out a Sussex dragon, some sea or inland monster, drawne out by some Shoe-lane man in a Gorgon-like feature, to enforce more horror in the beholder."

The chief of the ballad-writers were William Elderton, Thomas Deloney, Richard Johnson, and Anthony Munday. Elderton was known as the prince of ballad-mongers; but, unfortunately, he was as notorious for his love of the bottle, and he is said to have drunk himself to death before the year 1592. Camden tells us that "he did arm himself with ale (as old Father Ennius did with wine) when he ballated," and two epitaphs made upon him are registered in theRemaines, the Latin one of which is also printed at p. 221 of vol. ii., with Oldys's translation, and the following:—

"Here is Elderton lying in dust,Or lying Elderton; chuse which you lust.Here he lies dead, I do him no wrong,For who knew him standing, all his life long?"

Nash asserts that "Elderton consumed his alecrammed nose to nothing in bear-bayting" an enemy "with whole bundells of ballets;"[20]and Gabriel Harvey attacks "Father Elderton and his son Greene as the ringleaders of the riming and scribbling crew."

According to Stow, Elderton was an attorney in the Sheriffs' Courts of the City of London, and wrote some verses on the new porch and stone statues at Guildhall. Ritson does not think that his poetical powers are to be compared with those of Deloney and Johnson. Drayton also appears to have had a low opinion of him, for he writes:—

"I scorn'd your ballad then, though it were doneAnd had for finis, William Elderton,"

but Benedick, inMuch Ado about Nothing(act v. sc. 2) does him the honour of singing one of his songs:—

"The god of loveThat sits above,And knows me, and knows meHow pitiful I deserve."

Thomas Deloney, the shoemaker's historiographer, was a voluminous writer of ballads, which he himself collected into Garlands, with different taking titles. Several of his pieces are printed in these volumes. Nash calls him "the balleting silk-weaver of Norwich;" and in hisHave with you to Saffron Walden, he remarks on the ballad-maker's change of style: "He hath rhyme enough for all miracles, and wit to make aGarland of Good Will, &c., but whereas his muse, from the first peeping forth, hath stood at livery at an ale-house wisp, never exceeding a penny a quart, day or night—and this dear year, together with the silencing of his looms, scarce that—he is constrained to betake himself to carded ale, whence it proceedeth that, since Candlemas, or his jigg ofJohn for theKing, not one merry ditty will come from him; nothing butThe Thunderbolt against Swearers;Repent,England, Repent, and theStrange Judgments of God." Kemp, the comic actor and morris-dancer, was particularly angry with the ballad-makers in general, andDeloney in particular, and addresses them in the following terms:—

"Kemp's humble request to the impudent generation of Ballad-makers and their coherents, that it would please their rascalities to pitty his paines in the great journey he pretends, and not fill the country with lyes of his never done actes as they did in his lateMorrice to Norwich. I knowe the best of ye, by the lyes ye writ of me, got not the price of a good hat to cover your brainless heds. If any of ye had come to me, my bounty should have exceeded the best of your good masters the ballad-buiers. I wold have apparrelled your dry pates in party-coloured bonnets, and bestowed a leash of my cast belles to have crown'd ye with cox-combs.

"I was told it was the great ballet-maker, T. D., alias Tho. Deloney, chronicler of the memorable lives of the 6 yeamen of the West, Jack of Newbery, the Gentle-Craft, and such like honest men, omitted by Stow, Hollinshead, Grafton, Hal, Froysart, and the rest of those wel deserving writers."[21]

Richard Johnson, the author of theSeven Championsof Christendom, like Deloney, collected his own ballads into a book, and hisCrown Garland of GoldenRoseswas once highly popular.

Anthony Munday, a draper in Cripplegate, and a member of the Drapers' Company, has the fame of being a voluminous writer of ballads, but none of his productions are known to exist. Kemp calls him "Elderton's immediate heir," but he does not seem to have walked in his predecessor's disreputable steps, but to have lived respected to the good age of eighty. He died Aug. 10, 1633, and was buried in St. Stephen's, Coleman-street, where a monument with an inscription in praise of his knowledge as an antiquary waserected. He wrote many of the annual city pageants, besides plays, which caused Meres to call him "the best plotter" of his age.

Chettle disguised Munday as Anthony Now-Now, and Ben Jonson ridiculed him inThe Case isAltered, as Antonio Balladino, the pageant poet. To the question, "You are not the pageant poet to the city of Milan, are you?" he is made to answer, "I supply the place, sir, when a worse cannot be had, sir." He had several enemies who ran him down, but he also had friends who stood up for him. William Webbe, in hisDiscourse of English Poetrie, describes Munday as "an earnest traveller in this art," and says that he wrote "very excellent works, especially upon nymphs and shepherds, well worthy to be viewed and to be esteemed as rare poetry."

Thomas Middleton, the dramatic poet, who produced the Lord Mayor's pageant for the mayoralty of his namesake, Sir Thomas Middleton (TheTriumphs of Truth), in 1613, attacks poor Munday most viciously. On the title-page he declares his pageant to have been "directed, written, and redeem'd into forme, from the ignorance of some former times and their common writer," and in his book he adds:—"The miserable want of both [art and knowledge] which in the impudent common writer hath often forced from me much pity and sorrow, and it would heartily grieve any understanding spirit to behold many times so glorious a fire in bounty and goodness offering to match itselfe with freezing art, sitting in darknesse with the candle out, looking like the picture of Blacke Monday."

When the civil war broke out, the majority of the poets were ready to range themselves on the side of the King. Alexander Brome was the most voluminous writer of royalist songs, but Martin Parker, thewriter ofThe King shall enjoy his own again, must take rank as the leading ballad-writer of his time. This was one of those songs that cheer the supporters of a losing cause, and help them to win success in the end. It is supposed to have formed a by no means unimportant item in the causes that brought about the Restoration. Parker is said to have been the leading spirit in a society of ballad-writers; he certainly was not the "Grub Street scribbler" that Ritson has called him. The Puritans hated this "ballad-maker laureat of London," and lost no opportunity of denouncing him and his works. Mr. Chappell has written an interesting notice of him in hisPopular Music of the OldenTime, where he mentions some other royalist ballad writers, as John Wade, the author ofThe RoyalOak, Thomas Weaver, the author of aCollection ofSongs, in which he ridiculed the Puritans so effectually that the book was denounced as a seditious libel against the Government, and John Cleveland, who, according to Anthony Wood, was the first to come forth as a champion of the royal cause. The last of these was one of the very few ballad writers whose names are enrolled in the list of British poets.

In December, 1648, Captain Betham was appointed Provost Marshal, with power to seize upon all ballad-singers, and five years from that date there were no more entries of ballads at Stationers' Hall, but when Cromwell became Protector he removed the ban against ballads and ballad-singers. After the Restoration, the courtier poets wrote for the streets, and therefore most of the ballads were ranged on the side of the Court. After a time, however, the Court fell into popular disfavour, and it was then discovered that ballad-singers and pamphleteers had too much liberty. Killigrew, the Master of the Revels to Charles II., licensed allsingers and sellers of ballads, and John Clarke, a London bookseller, rented of Killigrew this privilege for a period, which expired in 1682. Besides licensers of the singers and sellers, there were licensers of the ballads themselves. These were Sir Roger L'Estrange, from 1663 to 1685, Richard Pocock, from 1685 to 1688, J. Fraser, from 1689 to 1691, and Edmund Bohun, who died in 1694, the year that the licensing system also expired.

When James, Duke of York, went to Scotland to seek for that popularity which he had lost in England, he is supposed to have taken with him an English ballad-maker to sing his praises, and this man is believed to have producedThe Banishmentof Poverty by H. R. H. James, Duke of Albany. Ballad-singing was very much out of favour among the authorities in the eighteenth century, and in 1716 the Middlesex grand jury denounced the singing of "scandalous" ballads about the streets as a common nuisance, tending to alienate the minds of the people. In July, 1763, we are told that "yesterday evening two women were sent to Bridewell by Lord Bute's order for singing political ballads before his lordship's door in South Audley Street."

Ballads were then pretty much the same kind of rubbish that they are now, and there was little to show that they once were excellent. The glorious days when—

"Thespis, the first professor of our art,At country wakes sung ballads from a cart,"[22]

had long ago departed. There are but few instances of true poets writing for the streets in later times, but we have one in Oliver Goldsmith. In his early life in Dublin, when he often felt the want of a meal, he wroteballads, which found a ready customer at five shillings each at a little bookseller's shop in a by-street of the city. We are informed that he was as sensitive as to the reception of these children of his muse as in after years he was of his more ambitious efforts; and he used to stroll into the street to hear his ballads sung, and to mark the degrees of applause with which they were received. Most of the modern ballad-writers have been local in their fame, as Thomas Hoggart, the uncle of Hogarth the painter, whose satiric lash made him a power in his native district of Cumberland, dreaded alike by fools and knaves.

The chief heroes of the older ballads were King Arthur and his knights, Robin Hood, and Guy of Warwick. The ballads relating to the first of these appear to have been chiefly chipped off from the great cycle of Arthurian romances. The popularity of Robin Hood was at one time so great that Drayton prophesied in hisPolyolbion:—

"In this our spacious isle I think there is not oneBut he hath heard some talk of him, and little John,And to the end of time the tales shall ne'er be doneOf Scarlock, George a Green, and Much the Miller's son.Of Tuck the merry Friar, which many a sermon madeIn praise of Robin Hood, his outlaws, and their trade."

From a local hero he grew into national fame, and superseded Arthur in popular regard. He then sunk into a mere highwayman, to be again raised into fame by literary men, Ritson being the chief of these. Wakefield is still proud of its Pinder, who was one of Robin Hood's company—

"In Wakefield there lives a jolly Pinder;In Wakefield all on a green,"

and one of the thoroughfares of that place is now called Pinder Field Road. Robin Hood was a purelyEnglish hero, but Guy of Warwick was almost as popular in foreign countries as in his own land. The earliest of English political ballads was an outcome of the Barons' wars in the reign of Henry III.,[23]and each period of political excitement since then has been represented in ballads. The controversies between Protestant and Papist were carried on in verse, and Laud and his clergy were attacked by the ballad-writers of the Puritan party.

No attempt was made to produce false antique ballads until the true antiques had again risen in public esteem, and one of the first to deceive the connoisseurs was Lady Wardlaw, who was highly successful in her object when she gaveHardyknuteto the world (see vol. ii. p. 105). She seems to have been quite contented with the success which attended the mystification, and does not appear to have taken any particular pains to keep her secret close. Suspicions were rife long before the publication of theReliques, but when they appeared the whole truth came out. With regard to the other ballads, to which she had added verses, there does not appear to have been any attempt at concealment. The recent endeavour to attribute a large number of the romantic ballads of Scotland to her pen will be considered further on.

A large number of poets have imitated the old ballad, but very few have been successful in the attempt to give their efforts the genuine ring of the original. Tickell and Goldsmith entered into the spirit of their models, but Scott succeeded best inold Elspeth's fragment of a chant (the Battle of Harlaw) in theAntiquary. W. J. Mickle, the translator of theLusiad, contributed several imitations to Evans'sCollection of Old Ballads, but although these are beautiful poems in themselves, their claim to antiquity was made to rest chiefly upon a distorted spelling. One of the most remarkably successful imitations of modern times is the ballad ofTrelawny, which the late Rev. R. S. Hawker, of Morwenstow, wrote to suit the old burden of "And shall Trelawny die." This spirited ballad deceived Scott, Macaulay, and Dickens, who all believed it to be genuine, and quoted it as such. In 1846 it was actually printed by J. H. Dixon in his "Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England, taken down from oral tradition, and transcribed from private manuscripts, rare broadsides, and scarce publications," published by the Percy Society. Mr. Dixon was probably deceived by Davies Gilbert, who sent the ballad to theGentleman's Magazinein 1827, and said that it formerly "resounded in every house, in every highway, and in every street." In 1832 Hawker had, however, himself acknowledged the authorship. He wrote in hisRecords of the Western Shore(p. 56), "With the exception of the chorus contained in the last two lines, this song was written by me in the year 1825. It was soon after inserted in a Plymouth paper. It happened to fall into the hands of Davies Gilbert, Esq., who did me the honour to reprint it at his private press at East Bourne, under the impression, I believe, that it is an early composition of my own. The two lines above-mentioned formed, I believe, the burthen of the old song, and are all that I can recover."[24]Hawker was fond of these mystifications, and although he did not care to lose thecredit of his productions, he was amused to see another of his ballads,Sir Beville, find its way into a collection of old ballads.

A far more beautiful ballad thanHardyknuteisAuld Robin Gray, in which a lady of rank caught the spirit of the tender songs of peasant life with excellent effect. Lady Anne Barnard kept her secret for fifty years, and did not acknowledge herself the author of it until 1823, when she disclosed the fact in a letter to Sir Walter Scott.

These were harmless attempts to deceive, such as will always be common among those who take a pleasure in reducing the pride of the experts; and when they were discovered no one was found to have been injured by the deceit. It is far different, however, when a forgery is foisted in among genuine works, because when a discovery is made of its untrustworthiness, the reputation of the true work is injured by this association with the false. Pinkerton inserted a large number of his own poems in his edition ofSelect Scottish Ballads(1783), which poems he alleged to be ancient. He was taken severely to task by Ritson on account of these fabrications, and he afterwards acknowledged his deceit.[25]

One of the most barefaced of literary deceptions was the work published in 1810 by R. H. Cromek, under the title ofRemains of Nithsdale and GallowaySong. Although the ballads contained in these volumes are very varied in their subject, they were almost entirely composed by Allan Cunningham, who produced whatever was required of him by his employer.

Poets are often the worst of editors, as they find the temptation to "improve" their originals too strong to resist. Allan Cunningham published in1826 a collection of theSongs of Scotland, in which he availed himself so largely of this license that Motherwell felt called upon to reprobate the work in the strongest terms. He observes: "While thus violating ancient song, he seems to have been well aware of the heinousness of his offending. He might shudder and sicken at his revolting task indeed! To soothe his own alarmed conscience, and, if possible, to reconcile the mind of his readers to his wholesale mode of hacking and hewing and breaking the joints of ancient and traditionary song; and to induce them to receive with favour the conjectural emendations it likes him to make, he, in the course of his progress, not unfrequently chooses to sneer at those, and to underrate their labours, who have used their best endeavours to preserve ancient song in its primitive and uncontaminated form."[26]These are by no means the hardest words used by Motherwell in respect to theSongs of Scotland.

The worst among the forgers, however, was a man who ought to have been above such dishonourable work, viz., Robert Surtees, the author of theHistoryof the County Palatine of Durham, in whose honour the Surtees Society was founded. In Scott'sMinstrelsy of the Scottish Borderwill be found three ballads—The Death of Featherstonhaugh,Lord Ewrie, andBartram's Dirge, which are treated by Sir Walter as true antiques, and of the genuine character of which he never had a doubt. They are all three, however, mere figments of Surtees's imagination. Each of the ballads was accompanied by fictitious historical incidents, to give it an extra appearance of authenticity.Featherstonhaughwas said to be "taken down from the recitation of a woman eighty years of age, mother of one of the miners in Alston Moor;"Lord Ewriewas obtained from "Rose Smith, of Bishop Middleham, a woman aged upwards of ninety-one;" andBartram's Dirgefrom "Anne Douglas, an old woman who weeded in his (Surtees's) garden." On other occasions Sir Walter Scott was deluded by his friend with false information. Mr. George Taylor makes the following excuse in hisLife of Surtees(p. 25): "Mr. Surtees no doubt had wished to have the success of his attempt tested by the unbiassed opinion of the very first authority on the subject, and the result must have been gratifying to him. But at a later period of their intimacy, when personal regard was added to high admiration for his correspondent, he probably would not have subjected him to the mortification of finding that he could be imposed on in a matter where he had a right to consider himself as almost infallible. And it was most likely from this feeling that Mr. Surtees never acknowledged the imposition: for so late as the year 1830, in which Scott dates his introduction to the edition of theMinstrelsy, published in 1831, the ballad of theDeathof Featherstonhaughretains its place (vol. i. p. 240) with the same expressions of obligation to Mr. Surtees for the communication of it, and the same commendation of his learned proofs of its authenticity." In spite of this attempted justification, we cannot fail to stigmatize Surtees's forgery as a crime against letters which fouls the very wells of truth.

As was to be expected, the existence of the forgeries just referred to caused several persons to doubt the genuineness of many of the true ballads. Finlay wrote, in 1808, "the mention ofhatsandcork-heeledshoon(in the ballad ofSir Patrick Spence) would leadus to infer that some stanzas are interpolated, or that its composition is of a comparatively modern date;"[27]and, in 1839, the veteran ballad-collector, Mr. David Laing, wrote as follows: "Notwithstanding the great antiquity that has been claimed forSir Patrick Spence, one of the finest ballads in our language, very little evidence would be required to persuade me but that we were also indebted for it to Lady Wardlaw (Stenhouse'sIllustrations of the Lyric Poetry and Musicof Scotland, with additional notes to Johnson'sScotsMusical Museum, p.320[27])." At p.457[27]of the same book, Mr. Laing, after quoting from Finlay, made the following further observations: "Bishop Percy also remarks that 'an ingenious friend thinks the author ofHardyknutehas borrowed several expressions and sentiments from the foregoing and other old Scottish songs in this collection.' It was this resemblance with the localities Dunfermline and Aberdour, in the neighbourhood of Sir Henry Wardlaw's seat, that led me to throw out the conjecture, whether this much-admired ballad might not also have been written by Lady Wardlaw herself, to whom the ballad ofHardyknuteis now universally attributed."[28]

Mr. J. H. Dixon, in 1845, considered that the suspicion had become a certainty, and wrote of Lady Wardlaw as one "who certainly appears to have beena great adept at this species of literary imposture." "This celebrated lady isnow knownto be the author ofEdward! Edward!and ofSir Patrick Spence, in addition toHardyknute."[29]Mr. Dixon and the late Mr. Robert Chambers have also thrown out hints of their disbelief in the authenticity of the recitations of Mrs. Brown of Falkland.

These, however, were mere skirmishing attacks, but in 1859 Robert Chambers marshalled his forces, and made a decisive charge in his publication entitledTheRomantic Scottish Ballads, their Epoch and Authorship. He there explains his belief as follows:—

"Upon all these considerations I have arrived at the conclusion that the high-class romantic ballads of Scotland are not ancient compositions—are not older than the early part of the eighteenth century—and are mainly, if not wholly, the production of one mind. Whose was this mind is a different question, on which no such confident decision may, for the present, be arrived at; but I have no hesitation in saying that, from the internal resemblance traced on fromHardyknutethroughSir Patrick SpenceandGil Morriceto the others, there seems to be a great likelihood that the whole were the composition of the authoress of that poem, namely, Elizabeth Lady Wardlaw of Pitreavie."

Scotsmen were not likely to sit down tamely under an accusation by which their principal ballad treasures were thus stigmatized as false gems, and we find that several writers immediately took up their pens to refute the calumny. It will be seen that the charge is divided into two distinct parts, and it will be well to avoid mixing them together, and to consider each part separately.

I. Certain ballads, generally supposed to be genuine, were really written by one person, in imitation of the antique.

II. The author of this deceit was Lady Wardlaw, the writer ofHardyknute.

I. The ballads in theReliques, which are instanced by Chambers, are as follows:—

Two of these (2 and 7) are in the Folio MS., which was written before Lady Wardlaw was born;Edomo' Gordonalso exists in another old MS. copy;Gilderoy(5) is known to have been a street ballad, and the remainder are found in other copies. It is not necessary to discuss each of these cases separately, and we shall therefore reserve what we have to say for the special consideration ofSir Patrick Spence.

Before proceeding, we must first consider how far Chambers's previous knowledge of ballad literature prepared him for this inquiry; and we cannot rate that knowledge very highly, for in hisCollection ofScottish Songs, he actually attributes Wotton'sYeMeaner Beautiesto Darnley, and supposes Mary Queen of Scots to have been the subject of the author's praises. At this period also his scepticism had not been aroused, for all the ballads that he thought spurious in 1859 had been printed by him in 1829 as genuine productions.

To return to the main Point at issue. Chambers writes:—

"It is now to be remarked of the ballads published by the successors of Percy, as of those which he published, that there is not a particle of positive evidence for their having existed before the eighteenth century. Overlooking the one given by Ramsay in hisTea-table Miscellany, we have neither print nor manuscript of them before the reign of George III. They are not in the style of old literature. They contain no references to old literature. As little does old literature contain any references to them. They wholly escaped the collecting diligence of Bannatyne. James Watson, who published a collection of Scottish poetry in 1706-1711, wholly overlooks them. Ramsay, as we see, caught up only one."

Mr. Norval Clyne (Ballads from Scottish History, 1863, p. 217) gives a satisfactory answer to the above. He writes:—

"The want of any ancient manuscript can be no argument against the antiquity of a poem, versions of which have been obtained from oral recitation, otherwise the great mass of ballads of all kinds collected by Scott, and by others since his time, must lie under equal suspicion. Bannatyne, in the sixteenth century, and Allan Ramsay, in the early part of the eighteenth, were not collectors of popular poetry in the same sense as those who have since been so active in that field. The former contented himself, for the most part, with transcribing the compositions of Dunbar, Henrysone, and other "makers," well known by name, and Ramsay took the bulk of hisEvergreenfrom Bannatyne's MS. That a great many poems of the ballad class, afterwards collected and printed, must have been current among the people when theEvergreenwas published, no one that knows anything of the subject will deny." The old ballads lived on the tongues of the people, and a small percentage of them only were ever committed to writing,so that a fairer test of authenticity is the existence of various versions. Of known forgeries no varieties exist, but several versions ofSir Patrick Spencehave been rescued from oblivion.

It is not probable that any fresh ballads will be obtained from recitation, but it is in some degree possible, as may be seen from an instance of a kindred nature in the field of language. We know that local dialects have almost passed away, and yet some of the glossaries of them lately issued contain words that explain otherwise dark passages in manuscripts of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

Chambers further affirms that the sentiment of these ballads is not congenial to that of the peasantry—"it may be allowably said, there is a tone ofbreedingthroughout these ballads, such as is never found in the productions of rustic genius." This, however, is begging the question, for it does not follow that the songs of the peasantry were written by the peasantry. It is they who have remembered them, and held to them with greater tenacity than the educated classes.

We now come to the text that bears specially uponSir Patrick Spence, and we will give it in Chambers's own words:—"The Scottish ladies sit bewailing the loss of Sir Patrick Spence's companions 'wi' the gowd kaims in their hair.' Sir Patrick tells his friends before starting on his voyage, 'Our ship must sail the faem;'[30]and in the description of the consequences of his shipwreck, we find 'Mony was the feather-bed that flattered on the faem.'[30]No old poet would usefaemas an equivalent for the sea; but it was just such a phrase as a poet of the era of Pope would use in that sense." In the first place, we should be justified in saying that this test is not afair one, because no one will contend that the ballads have not been altered in passing from hand to hand, and new words inserted; but Mr. Norval Clyne has a complete answer for this particular objection; he writes: "Bishop Gawin Douglas completed his translation of Virgil's Æneid on 22nd July, 1513, and in his Prologue to the twelfth book are these lines:—

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