IV.

_The English and Scottish Popular Ballads_ of 1882-1898 has naturally superseded the _English and Scottish Ballads_ of 1857-1859, and Professor Child himself shared the general tendency to underestimate the real value of the earlier collection. It was of course made on a different plan; its limits were not so clearly defined, and it did not attempt to give every version of every known ballad. Many of the sources, moreover, were not yet open. One is, then, surprised to find that, of the three hundred and five ballads printed in the later collection, only ninety are new; and these are, for the most part, unimportant additions to the body of ballad literature. They are distributed as follows: 15 in volume I, 16 in II, 11 in III, 25 in IV, 23 in V. Thus 59 of the 90 occur in the last three volumes; of these there is not one of first importance. Of the remaining 31 not more than 10 can be regarded as really valuable additions, though such an estimate must of necessity be based more or less upon personal impression. Some of these were already accessible, in Buchan’s versions, or elsewhere: _Willie’s Lyke-Wake_ (25), _Lizie Wan_ (51), _The King’s Dochter Lady Jean_ (52), _Brown Robyn’s Confession_ (57), _Fair Mary of Wallington_(91). These, doubtless, were omitted because of the nature of their subject-matter; it was only in the later collection that Professor Child “had no discretion.”[344] Other important ballads were not yet accessible, or not yet discovered: _St. Stephen and Herod_ (22), _The Laily Worm and the Machrel of the Sea_ (36), _The Queen of Elfan’s Nourice_ (40), _The Unquiet Grave_ (78), _The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry_ (113). Of the ten, only four are included in Professor Gummere’s collection. The main addition of the later collection is thus rather in the way of new versions of important ballads, or of more authentic versions based directly upon the manuscripts; in the citation of a larger number of foreign parallels; and, generally, in the matter contained in the introductions.

The _Ballads_ contained 115 pieces which do not appear in the later collection. The nature of such material, since it is excluded from the “complete” _English and Scottish Popular Ballads_, is significant as throwing some additional light upon Professor Child’s conception. In many cases the reason for exclusion is made clear by Professor Child himself, in comments in the earlier or in the later collection. Of the whole group of lays and romances contained in Book I of the _Ballads_, he says: “Some of the longer pieces in this book are not of the nature of ballads, and require an apology. They were admitted before the limits of the work had been determined with exactness.”[345] If such pieces as these do not fulfil the lyrical requirement of the true ballad, others cannot fulfil the requirement of plot, and the songs, of the _Ballads_, like _A Lyke Wake Dirge_, _Fair Helen of Kirconnel_, or _The Lowlands of Holland_[346] find no place in the later collection. The _Ballads_ contains also translations from the Danish, and the original and translation of a modern Greek parallel of the Lenore story; these are naturally not included in _The English and Scottish Popular Ballads_.

The later collection is much more chary of the admission of broadsides or sheet-ballads: in many cases they are relegated to introductions or appendices; in many more, omitted. _William Guiseman_ is cited merely, under _Brown Robin’s Confession_ (57), as “a copy, improved by tradition, of the ‘lament’ in ‘William Grismond’s Downfal,’ a broadside of 1650.”[347] _The Lament of the Border Widow_, which occurs in Book VI of the _Ballads_, “shows broader traces of the sheet-ballad,” and is quoted in the introduction to No 106 for “those who are interested in such random inventions (as, under pardon, they must be called).”[348] Of _The Lady Isabella’s Tragedy_ Professor Child says in the later collection: “Though perhaps absolutely the silliest ballad that ever was made, and very far from silly sooth, the broadside was traditionally propagated in Scotland without so much change as is usual in such cases.”[349] Even in the _Ballads_ one finds this comment: “The three following pieces [_The Spanish Virgin_, _Lady Isabella’s Tragedy_, _The Cruel Black_] are here inserted merely as specimens of a class of tales, horrible in their incidents but feeble in their execution, of which whole dreary volumes were printed and read about two centuries ago. They were all of them, probably, founded on Italian novels.”[350] Although the _Ballads_ includes _Macpherson’s Rant_, it is declared “worthy of a hangman’s pen.”[351] A number of tales which employ a highly artificial stanza, such as _The Fray of Suport_, _The Raid of the Reidswire_, or _The Flemish Insurrection_, do not find their way into the later collection.

Traces of the modern editor or author become less common in the later collection. Versions “modernized and completed by Percy” (Book I, Nos. 1 b and 5 b) are excluded. The cynical _Twa Corbies_ appears only in the introduction to _The Three Ravens_; and Motherwell’s edition, declared already in the _Ballads_ to be a “modernized version,”[352] does not appear at all. Motherwell’s _Bonnie_ _George Campbell_ suffers a like fate, and this, we infer, because “Motherwell made up his ‘Bonnie George Campbell’ from B, C, D.”[353] As, no doubt, not merely modernized but modern, _Sir Roland_ is excluded. “This fragment, Motherwell tells us, was communicated to him by an ingenious friend, who remembered having heard it sung in his youth. He does not vouch for its antiquity, and we have little or no hesitation in pronouncing it a modern composition.”[354] Similarly, _Lady Anne_ “is on the face of it a modern composition, with extensive variations, on the theme of the popular ballad.”[355] It is printed in the appendix to No 20. _Earl Richard_ is “an entirely modern composition, excepting only the twenty lines of Herd’s fragment.”[356] Of _Auld Maitland_ Professor Child says: “Notwithstanding the authority of Scott and Leyden, I am inclined to agree with Mr Aytoun, that this ballad is a modern imitation, or if not that, a comparatively recent composition. It is with reluctance that I make for it the room it requires.”[357] The essential anonymity of the ballad, in Professor Child’s final conception, naturally excludes pieces like Henryson’s _Robene and Makyne_ and _The Bludy Serk_, which had found their way into the _Ballads_.[358]

There are but few instances of definite praise, as ballads, of pieces included in the earlier collection and excluded from the later. _The Children in the Wood_ is said to be “perhaps the most popular of all English ballads. Its merit is attested by the favor it has enjoyed with so many generations, and was vindicated to a cold and artificial age by the kindly pen of Addison.”[359] We must not forget, however, that Professor Child was fifty years nearer the kindly pen of Addison. The cold and artificial age, moreover, was also sentimental and moral; and why, with it, this ballad was so popular, a single stanza will show:

You that executors be made, And overseers eke Of children that be fatherless, And infants mild and meek; Take you example by this thing, And yield to each his right, Lest God with such like miserye Your wicked minds requite (vv. 153 ff.).

_The Blind Beggar’s Daughter of Bednall’s Green_ is said to be printed from a modern broadside, yet it is characterized as “this favorite popular ballad.”[360] _The Nutbrowne Maid_ is “this matchless poem,” “this beautiful old ballad.”[361] Yet, clearly, it is not a popular ballad at all.

On the whole, it is not difficult to see why the 115 ballads are excluded from the later collection; and one gets the impression that, had Professor Child chosen to enforce the conception of the ballad which he already had in mind, most of them would have been excluded from the earlier collection as well. This impression is deepened by an examination of the comments scattered through the _Ballads_.

He already regarded the ballad as inimitable:[362] “The exclusion of the ‘Imitations’ ... may possibly excite the regret of a few.... Whatever may be the merit of the productions in question, they are never less likely to obtain credit for it, than when they are brought into comparison with their professed models.”[363] Again, _Sir Patrick Spence_, “if not ancient, has been always accepted as such by the most skilful judges, and is a solitary instance of a successful imitation, in manner and spirit, of the best specimens of authentic minstrelsy.”[364]

Professor Child had already fallen foul of the editors, and their alterations and interpolations.[365] It is interesting to see how, in many cases, he anticipated the corrections and comments made possible, for the later collection, by access to the manuscripts. Of _The Child of Elle_ he says: “So extensive are Percy’s alterations and additions, that the reader will have no slight difficulty in detecting the few traces that are left of the genuine composition.”[366] Compare: “So much of Percy’s ‘Child of Elle’ as was genuine, which, upon the printing of his manuscript, turned out to be one fifth.”[367] Again, Percy acknowledges interpolations, which “might with some confidence be pointed out. Among them are certainly most, if not all, of the last twelve stanzas of the Second Part, which include the catastrophe to the story.”[368] In Percy, he says in the later collection, _Sir Cawline_ “is extended to nearly twice the amount of what is found in the manuscript, and a tragical turn is forced upon the story.”[369] Again: “We have given _Gil Morrice_ as it stands in the _Reliques_ (iii. 132,) degrading to the margin those stanzas which are undoubtedly spurious.”[370] The stanzas thus degraded turned out to be actually spurious.[371] Condemnation of Buchan is scattered throughout the _Ballads_. Thus: “Some resolution has been exercised, and much disgust suppressed, in retaining certain pieces from Buchan’s collections, so strong is the suspicion that, after having been procured from very inferior sources, they were tampered with by the editor.”[372] Again: “One uncommonly tasteless stanza [41, A, 53], the interpolation of some nursery-maid,[373] is here omitted. Too many of Buchan’s ballads have suffered in this way, and have become both prolix and vulgar.”[374] Even in the _Ballads_ Professor Child placed “no confidence in any of Allan Cunningham’s _souvenirs_ of Scottish song,”[375] and his early suspicions[376] of the character of Cunningham’s version of Gil Brenton are confirmed in the later collection.[377] _King Henry_, printed in the earlier collection “without the editor’s [Jamieson’s] interpolations,”[378] appears in the same form in the later, except that stanza 14 is printed in small type, as not being in the Jamieson-Brown MS. Again, in _The Bonny Birdy_, “the lines supplied by Jamieson have been omitted.”[379] There is an interesting comment on these lines in the later collection.[380]

Professor Child was already aware that change of nationality was accompanied by change of the scene of action.[381] He quoted Scott’s account of the locality of _The Douglas Tragedy_ [==_Earl Brand_ (7, B)], and added: “After so circumstantial a description of the scene, ... the reader may be amused to see the same story told in various Scandinavian ballads, with a no less plausible resemblance to actual history. This, as has already been pointed out under _Guy of Warwick_ and _Kempion_,[382] is an ordinary occurrence in the transmission of legends.”[383]

He noted, too, the tendency of ballads to combine: “The natural desire of men to hear more of characters in whom they have become strongly interested, has frequently stimulated the attempt to continue successful fictions.”[384] _Sweet William’s Ghost_ is often made the sequel to other ballads.[385]

So far as subject-matter is concerned, we find in the _Ballads_ the same conception of the relation of ballad and fact. _Jane Shore_ “adheres to matter of fact with a fidelity very uncommon,”[386] and this is, perhaps, one reason why it does not find a place in the later collection.[387] We may contrast, on the other hand, the two statements in regard to the relation of _Hind Horn_ and the romance: “Metrical romances ... are known in many cases to have been adapted for the entertainment of humbler hearers, by abridgment in the form of ballads.” He regards _Hind Horn_ as a case of this sort.[388]

Style and plot, finally, are a test of genuineness: “I cannot assent to the praise bestowed by Scott on _The Outlaw Murray_. The story lacks point and the style is affected--not that of the unconscious poet of the real _traditional_ ballad.”[389] Though there without comment, it is placed at the very end of the later collection.

From a comment like this it is obvious that Professor Child already had in mind the conception of “a real _traditional_ ballad,” a “specimen of authentic minstrelsy.”[390] Although he admitted to the earlier collection lays, romances, songs, broadsides and sheet-ballads, as well as modern or modernized compositions, yet he was aware that all these differed from the true ballad. This true ballad, he conceived, was inimitable, in matter and manner. In transmission it might suffer, from the invention of a nursery-maid, from Buchan’s beggar, from a “hangman’s pen,” from the modern editors. It drew its subject-matter from fact (to which it was not loyal), from romances, from other ballads. In quality the subject-matter was not “horrible.” In style the true ballad was not feeble in execution, not prolix and vulgar, and not affected. The earlier conception was not as complete as the later, and it was by no means so rigorously enforced. In regard to specific compositions, there was, as is to be expected, some change of opinion. But the significant fact is that for at least forty years Professor Child retained without essential change his conception of the traditional ballad as a distinct literary type.