O bide wi' me, my twa bonnie bairns,
I'll cleid ye rich and fine,

And instead o' the blaeberries o' the wood,
Yese hae white bread and wine.

She heard a voice, a sweet low voice,

Say "Weans, ye tarry lang ;

She stretched her hand to the youngest bairn,
"Kiss me before ye gang."

She sought to take a lily hand,

And kiss a rosy chin

O naught sae pure can bide the touch
Of a hand red-wet wi' sin!

The stars were shooting to and fro,
And wild fire filled the air,

As that lady followed thae bonnie bairns
For three lang hours and mair.

O! where dwell ye my ain sweet bairns ?
I'm woe and weary grown;

Oh lady, we live where woe never is,
In a land to flesh unknown.

There came a shape which seemed to her
As a rainbow mang the rain,

And sair these sweet babes pled for her,
And they pled and pled in vain.

And O! and O! said the youngest babe,
My mother maun come in :

And O! and O! said the eldest babe,
Wash her two hands frae sin.

And O! and O! said the youngest babe,
She nursed me on her knee.

And O! and O! said the eldest babe,

She's a mother yet to me.

And O! and O! said the babies baith,

Take her where waters rin,

And white as the milk o' her white breast

Wash her two hands frae sin.

Thus far the general question of ballads. I have not time to trace at length the ballad spirit in modern litera

ture. In Sir Walter Scott, however, we shall find abundance of such illustration; and Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome," Aytoun's "Lays of Scottish Cavaliers," and many others, I might also cite as pure ballads. I may say, in passing, however, that I consider Browning, of all living poets, the pre-eminent possessor of this ballad spirit. In no country has more of the ballad spirit been preserved than in Germany. Bürger, Klopstock, Rückert, and above all, Schiller, would overwhelm us with examples of the vigour in this direction of this most vigorous branch of the Teutonic stock. One of the best of Bürger's has been brought before us by Sir Walter Scott, in his translation, entitled "William and Helen." Another excellent example of the modern ballad is Schiller's " "Diver." It will compare not unfavourably, I think, with any ancient specimen even, and with it I leave this part of my subject.

Many other points I must pass over. Much might have been said, for instance, concerning nationality in ballads. It would have been interesting could we have discerned what is that part of the Teuton's nature which renders him so fond of this literature, or that causes his favourites in it to be of so grim and weird a stamp. The Celt is less prone in his ballads to the terror and ghastliness so loved by the Teuton. He is fiercer when aroused; but he is softer when he rests. The longing of the Fingalian chiefs to return from the wars with their fame, their passion for celebrity in the songs of the bards, are different in kind from the exultation wherewith the sons of Odin prepare to feed the ravens that follow them to battle. And different in this, they are no less different in their tenderness. The invocation of Cuchullin to his fardistant spouse is quite unlike the Teutonic manner :

Strike the harp in praise of Bragela, of her that I left in the Isle of Mist, the spouse of Semo's son. Dost thou raise thy fair face from

the rock to find the sails of Cuchullin? The sea is rolling far distant, and its white foam shall deceive thee for my sails. Retire, for it is night, my love, and the dark winds sigh in thy hair. Retire to the halls of my feasts, and think of the times that are past, for I will not return till the storm of war is ceased.

Parallel to the difference between the Celtic and Teutonic ballads, is the difference between the ballads of the north and of the south of England. With the northern ballads we must include the Scottish ballads: the two are identical in kind, and very similar in dialect as well. But they are very unlike the softer and more polished verses that were most current in the more civilised south. Of the northern ballads you may take “The Twa Corbies," or "Helen of Kirconnell," already quoted, as samples. "The Nut-Brown Maid " is of the southern type, and so is that ballad entitled "The Spanish Lady's Love," and beginning:

Would you hear a Spanish lady,

How she wooed an Englishman ?
Garments gay and rich as may be,

Decked with jewels she had on:

Of a comely countenance and grace was she,
And by birth and parentage of high degree.

"The

The ballad proceeds in the same gentle strain. Merchant's Daughter of Bristow," and "Patient Grissel,” are but the first recalled out of many similar in kind.

Pursuing the question of nationality, the songs of France, so gay and light-hearted, or the romances of Spain, tinctured with the gorgeousness of Eastern imagination, and telling in that tincture of the Moorish conquest, might well have detained us. Connected with that question, too, of nationality, it would have been very interesting to analyse the saying, quoted by old Fletcher of Saltoun, "Give me to make the songs of a country, and I care not who makes its laws." However, it is impossible for

me to undertake at present the examination of the relation between a nation's lyrics and its political history. That some relation exists is very evident witness the proverbial sturm und drang-the storm and impulse period in Germany, and the revolutionary time in France; a time which, beginning with the joyous, hopeful strains of the Ca Ira, was destined to end, in saddest diapason, with the terrible Marseillaise.

Some consideration, too, might well be given to the men who preserved for us this class of literature, and who in some degree created it. Long before the printing press began to throw off the broadsheet ballads which, in the seventeenth century, we find pasted on the walls of livingrooms in country houses of the yeoman sort, there was made welcome at the same houses, and at those of higher and of lower degree, the class of minstrels long so popular and so powerful. Of all ranks were these minstrels : now appearing as the knightly minne, or love-singer; now represented by the plebeian jongleur; now like the "blind crowder" of whom Sidney speaks, and now like the chivalrous Taillefer, who, we are told, charged at the head of the Norman host with the Conqueror, and who died at Hastings, singing with his latest breath the famous "Chanson de Roland."

I have purposely refrained from discussing the remaining section of our Ballad Literature romances. A few general remarks must suffice under this head. Lengthened literary criticism is, however, needless, as the simplest, and indeed the most correct way wherein we can regard these romances is to consider them as simply aggregations of ballads. That is believed to be the manner in which the Romance Literature had its origin; and an illustration and proof of this we have in the tendency, so marked in ballads, to crystallize and arrange themselves round a central figure. The Homeric heroes round Achilles, the

characters of the "Nibelungen Lied " round Siegfried, are illustrations of this tendency; and more familiar ones we may find in the numerous romances relating to the knights of Charlemagne, to the knights of the Round Table, and to Robin Hood.

These romances, too, are interesting in another aspect. Often we have in them beautiful allegories and lessons. The legends relating to the Quest of the San Greal involve no mean moral-a moral, too, universally applicable to those who leave behind the things which are seen and temporal, and who strive after the things which are unseen and eternal. Many, again, of the chivalrous romances are simply disguised myths of a very much older date; and some day, when the twin sciences of comparative philology, whereof we have now only the primer, and of comparative mythology, whereof we yet have hardly an alphabet— some day, I say, when these sciences shall have been built up a little, men shall have, I feel confident, in the revelations of connections in history that shall then be laid bare, another commentary on the old text, "God made of one blood all the kindreds and people of the earth.” Connected with such mythological romances are the "Legends of the Saints," so greatly abounding in old monkish manuscripts. Some of these legends are puerile enough, while some are of surpassing beauty, containing poetry in the very highest form; some again, uniting both the gold and the clay, are valuable for their quaintness. Such is the old "Legend of St. Brandan." St. Brandan was an Irish saint, who sailed for many days westward into the ocean, and there saw many wonderful things in islands of the deep and on the ocean. Now they for he had a crew with him of monks—now they heard birds of marvellous colour sing, in articulate words and with surpassing sweetness, an Easter hymn; and now they hold converse with Judas Iscariot, and procure an intercession for twenty-four hours