rapidity, so to speak, by the ballad of "Helen of Kirconnell "- -a ballad which is the finest example I know of passionate action resulting from strong feeling.

Helen loved Adam Fleming, and as the lovers were together one night, a rival saw them, and fired his arquebus, hoping to kill Fleming. Helen sprang before her lover, received the shot, and fell dead in his arms. It is the lover who speaks and acts:

I wish I were where Helen lies,
Night and day on me she cries;
O that I were where Helen lies,
On fair Kirconnell Lea.

Curst be the heart that thought the thought,
And curst the hand that fired the shot,
When in my arms burd Helen dropt,
And died to succour me !

As I went down the water-side,
None but my foe to be my guide,
None but my foe to be my guide
On fair Kirconnell Lea,

I lighted down my sword to draw,
I hacked him in pieces sma',

I hacked him in pieces sma',

For her sake that died for me.

O Helen fair, O Helen chaste!

If I were with thee I were blest,
Where thou lies low and takes thy rest,

On fair Kirconnell Lea.

O that I were where Helen lies!
Night and day on me she cries;
Out of my bed she bids me rise,

Says Haste, and come to me!

I do not know in literature a more terrible picture than that here drawn of the lover, mad with despair and rage, descending the sides of the rivulet, and, meeting his enemy, literally annihilating him—doing it, moreover, with a dull

sort of recklessness finely indicated by the repetition of the

lines

I hacked him in pieces sma',

I hacked him in pieces sma',

For her sake that died for me.

The simplicity of the machinery of these ballads could find no better illustration than the frequency with which they introduce as actors ghosts and apparitions, and the boldness with which this introduction is effected-a boldness having all the effect of the highest art, so greatly does it add to the eerieness and terror of the apparition described. The “Wife of Usher's Well" may illustrate this: There lived a wife at Usher's well,

And a wealthy wife was she;
She had three stout and stalwart sons,
And sent them o'er the sea.

They hadna' been a week from her,
A week but barely ane,

When word came to the carline wife

The cock doth craw, the day doth daw

The channerin' worm doth chide;
Gin we be missed frae out our place
A sair pain we maun bide.

And they've ta'en up their mother's mantle,
And they've hung it on a pin.

Oh, lang may ye hang, my mother's mantle,
Ere ye hap us again.

Fare ye weel, my mother dear,

Fareweel to barn and byre,

And fare thee weel the bonnie lass

That kindles my mother's fire.

Here the homeliness of the description contrasts strongly and effectively with the weirdness of the subject; and the old superstition that departed spirits wear garlands of green, alluded to in the beginning of the ballad, gains, I think, rather than loses by juxtaposition with the commonplaces of the last two verses.

We have, in the ballad of "Edom o' Gordon," another illustration of the simplicity so apparent in the "Wife of Usher's Well." Gordon besieges a castle kept by a lady. He sets fire to it, and to escape the smoke the lady's daughter is lowered from the top of the wall:

They row'd her in a pair o' sheets,

And bowed her owre the wa',

But on the point o' Gordon's spear
She gat a deidly fa'.

Oh, bonnie, bonnie was her mouth,
And cherry were her cheeks,
And clear, clear was her yellow hair,
Whereon the red blood drips.

Then wi' his spear he turned her owre,

Oh, gin her face was wan!

He said ye are the first that e'er

I wished alive again.

He turned her owre and owre again
Oh, gin her skin was white!

I micht hae spared that bonnie face
To hae been some man's delight.

That touch," he turned her owre and owre again," is finely descriptive of the halting repentance the murderer feels, and its effect, we may notice, depends almost entirely on its homeliness. It is, too-as, in fact, are all the ballads I have quoted—an apt illustration of the objectivity whereof I have said so much to-night.

Thus far, then, we have come to the general conclusion that, while songs express an emotion, ballads relate an action. It will, however, be necessary to modify this last result far enough to include as ballads a certain type of them which describe a suffering and the manner of it. The general characteristics already assigned to ballads may be predicated also of these ballads in the passive voice, if I may be allowed to use a grammatical simile, and I shall content myself with illustrating them by selecting two— one modern and one older. Taking the modern first, we may instance Browning's ballad, called the "Patriot." The stir and action of the patriot's life are over now; the people that yesterday cheered vociferously, to-day as vociferously cry crucify him; and the ballad has only left to utter the thoughts that pass through the hero's mind as he moves to execution:

It was roses-roses-all the way,

With myrtle mixed in my path: like mad
The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,
The church spires flamed, such flags they had

A year ago, this very day.

The air broke into a mist with bells,

The old walls rocked with the crowd and the cries.

Had I said, Good people, mere noise repels,

But give me your sun from yonder skies,

They had answered-and afterward what else!

The older ballad of this kind is one of the most touching I know. It hinges, as many such do, on the superstition that murdered children often reappear to their murderers— appear happy, however, and in the guise of angels. It is entitled "The Bonnie Bairns," and runs thus:

The lady she walk'd in yon wild wood,

'Aneath the hollin tree,

And she was aware of two bonnie bairns
Were running at her knee.

The tane it pulled a red, red rose,

With a hand as soft as silk;

The other it pulled the lily pale,

With a hand mair white than milk.

Now why pull ye the red rose, fair bairns,

And why the white lily?

O! we sue wi' them at the mercy-seat

For thy wicked soul, ladie!