Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 03

by Unknown

THE PLEASURES OF READING

From his Rectorial Address before the University of Glasgow

I confess to have been much perplexed in my search for a topic on which I could say something to which you would have patience to listen, or on which I might find it profitable to speak. One theme however there is, not inappropriate to the place in which I stand, nor I hope unwelcome to the audience which I address. The youngest of you have left behind that period of youth during which it seems inconceivable that any book should afford recreation except a story-book. Many of you are just reaching the period when, at the end of your prescribed curriculum, the whole field and compass of literature lies outspread before you; when, with faculties trained and disciplined, and the edge of curiosity not dulled or worn with use, you may enter at your leisure into the intellectual heritage of the centuries.

Now the question of how to read and what to read has of late filled much space in the daily papers, if it cannot strictly speaking be said to have profoundly occupied the public mind. But you need be under no alarm. I am not going to supply you with a new list of the hundred books most worth reading, nor am I about to take the world into my confidence in respect of my "favorite passages from the best authors." Nor again do I address myself to the professed student, to the fortunate individual with whom literature or science is the business as well as the pleasure of life. I have not the qualifications which would enable me to undertake such a task with the smallest hope of success. My theme is humble, though the audience to whom I desire to speak is large: for I speak to the ordinary reader with ordinary capacities and ordinary leisure, to whom reading is, or ought to be, not a business but a pleasure; and my theme is the enjoyment--not, mark you, the improvement, nor the glory, nor the profit, but the enjoyment--which may be derived by such an one from books.

It is perhaps due to the controversial habits engendered by my unfortunate profession, that I find no easier method of making my own view clear than that of contrasting with it what I regard as an erroneous view held by somebody else; and in the present case the doctrine which I shall choose as a foil to my own, is one which has been stated with the utmost force and directness by that brilliant and distinguished writer, Mr. Frederic Harrison. He has, as many of you know, recently given us, in a series of excellent essays, his opinion on the principles which should guide us in the choice of books. Against that part of his treatise which is occupied with specific recommendations of certain authors I have not a word to say. He has resisted all the temptations to eccentricity which so easily beset the modern critic. Every book which he praises deserves his praise, and has long been praised by the world at large. I do not, indeed, hold that the verdict of the world is necessarily binding on the individual conscience. I admit to the full that there is an enormous quantity of hollow devotion, of withered orthodoxy divorced from living faith, in the eternal chorus of praise which goes up from every literary altar to the memory of the immortal dead. Nevertheless every critic is bound to recognize, as Mr. Harrison recognizes, that he must put down to individual peculiarity any difference he may have with the general verdict of the ages; he must feel that mankind are not likely to be in a conspiracy of error as to the kind of literary work which conveys to them the highest literary enjoyment, and that in such cases at least securus judicat orbis terrarum.

But it is quite possible to hold that any work recommended by Mr. Harrison is worth repeated reading, and yet to reject utterly the theory of study by which these recommendations are prefaced. For Mr. Harrison is a ruthless censor. His index expurgatorius includes, so far as I can discover, the whole catalogue of the British Museum, with the exception of a small remnant which might easily be contained in about thirty or forty volumes. The vast remainder he contemplates with feelings apparently not merely of indifference, but of active aversion. He surveys the boundless and ever-increasing waste of books with emotions compounded of disgust and dismay. He is almost tempted to say in his haste that the invention of printing has been an evil one for humanity. In the habits of miscellaneous reading, born of a too easy access to libraries, circulating and other, he sees many soul-destroying tendencies; and his ideal reader would appear to be a gentleman who rejects with a lofty scorn all in history that does not pass for being first-rate in importance, and all in literature that is not admitted to be first-rate in quality.

Now, I am far from denying that this theory is plausible. Of all that has been written, it is certain that the professed student can master but an infinitesimal fraction. Of that fraction the ordinary reader can master but a very small part. What advice, then, can be better than to select for study the few masterpieces that have come down to us, and to treat as non-existent the huge but undistinguished remainder? We are like travelers passing hastily through some ancient city; filled with memorials of many generations and more than one great civilization. Our time is short. Of what may be seen we can only see at best but a trifling fragment. Let us then take care that we waste none of our precious moments upon that which is less than the most excellent. So preaches Mr. Frederic Harrison; and when a doctrine which put thus may seem not only wise but obvious, is further supported by such assertions that habits of miscellaneous reading "close the mind to what is spiritually sustaining" by "stuffing it with what is simply curious," or that such methods of study are worse than no habits of study at all because they "gorge and enfeeble" the mind by "excess in that which cannot nourish," I almost feel that in venturing to dissent from it, I may be attacking not merely the teaching of common sense but the inspirations of a high morality.

Yet I am convinced that for most persons the views thus laid down by Mr. Harrison are wrong; and that what he describes, with characteristic vigor, as "an impotent voracity for desultory information," is in reality a most desirable and a not too common form of mental appetite. I have no sympathy whatever with the horror he expresses at the "incessant accumulation of fresh books." I am never tempted to regret that Gutenberg was born into the world. I care not at all though the "cataract of printed stuff," as Mr. Harrison calls it, should flow and still flow on until the catalogues of our libraries should make libraries themselves. I am prepared, indeed, to express sympathy almost amounting to approbation for any one who would check all writing which was not intended for the printer. I pay no tribute of grateful admiration to those who have oppressed mankind with the dubious blessing of the penny post. But the ground of the distinction is plain. We are always obliged to read our letters, and are sometimes obliged to answer them. But who obliges us to wade through the piled-up lumber of an ancient library, or to skim more than we like off the frothy foolishness poured forth in ceaseless streams by our circulating libraries? Dead dunces do not importune us; Grub Street does not ask for a reply by return of post. Even their living successors need hurt no one who possesses the very moderate degree of social courage required to make the admission that he has not read the last new novel or the current number of a fashionable magazine.

But this is not the view of Mr. Harrison. To him the position of any one having free access to a large library is fraught with issues so tremendous that, in order adequately to describe it, he has to seek for parallels in two of the most highly-wrought episodes in fiction: the Ancient Mariner, becalmed and thirsting on the tropic ocean; Bunyan's Christian in the crisis of spiritual conflict. But there is here, surely, some error and some exaggeration. Has miscellaneous reading all the dreadful consequences which Mr. Harrison depicts? Has it any of them? His declaration about the intellect being "gorged and enfeebled" by the absorption of too much information, expresses no doubt with great vigor an analogy, for which there is high authority, between the human mind and the human stomach; but surely it is an analogy which may be pressed too far. I have often heard of the individual whose excellent natural gifts have been so overloaded with huge masses of undigested and indigestible learning that they have had no chance of healthy development. But though I have often heard of this personage, I have never met him, and I believe him to be mythical. It is true, no doubt, that many learned people are dull; but there is no indication whatever that they are dull because they are learned. True dullness is seldom acquired; it is a natural grace, the manifestations of which, however modified by education, remain in substance the same. Fill a dull man to the brim with knowledge, and he will not become less dull, as the enthusiasts for education vainly imagine; but neither will he become duller, as Mr. Harrison appears to suppose. He will remain in essence what he always has been and always must have been. But whereas his dullness would, if left to itself, have been merely vacuous, it may have become, under cureful cultivation, pretentious and pedantic.

I would further point out to you that while there is no ground in experience for supposing that a keen interest in those facts which Mr. Harrison describes as "merely curious" has any stupefying effect upon the mind, or has any tendency to render it insensible to the higher things of literature and art, there is positive evidence that many of those who have most deeply felt the charm of these higher things have been consumed by that omnivorous appetite for knowledge which excites Mr. Harrison's especial indignation. Dr. Johnson, for instance, though deaf to some of the most delicate harmonies of verse, was without question a very great critic. Yet in Dr. Johnson's opinion, literary history, which is for the most part composed of facts which Mr. Harrison would regard as insignificant, about authors whom he would regard as pernicious, was the most delightful of studies. Again, consider the case of Lord Macaulay. Lord Macaulay did everything Mr. Harrison says he ought not to have done. From youth to age he was continuously occupied in "gorging and enfeebling" his intellect, by the unlimited consumption of every species of literature, from the masterpieces of the age of Pericles to the latest rubbish from the circulating library. It is not told of him that his intellect suffered by the process; and though it will hardly be claimed for him that he was a great critic, none will deny that he possessed the keenest susceptibilities for literary excellence in many languages and in every form. If Englishmen and Scotchmen do not satisfy you, I will take a Frenchman. The most accomplished critic whom France has produced is, by general admission, Ste.-Beuve. His capacity for appreciating supreme perfection in literature will be disputed by none; yet the great bulk of his vast literary industry was expended upon the lives and writings of authors whose lives Mr. Harrison would desire us to forget, and whose writings almost wring from him the wish that the art of printing had never been discovered.

I am even bold enough to hazard the conjecture (I trust he will forgive me) that Mr. Harrison's life may be quoted against Mr. Harrison's theory. I entirely decline to believe, without further evidence, that the writings whose vigor of style and of thought have been the delight of us all are the product of his own system. I hope I do him no wrong, but I cannot help thinking that if we knew the truth, we should find that he followed the practice of those worthy physicians who, after prescribing the most abstemious diet to their patients, may be seen partaking freely, and to all appearances safely, of the most succulent and the most unwholesome of the forbidden dishes.

It has to be noted that Mr. Harrison's list of the books which deserve perusal would seem to indicate that in his opinion, the pleasures to be derived from literature are chiefly pleasures of the imagination. Poets, dramatists, and novelists form the chief portion of the somewhat meagre fare which is specifically permitted to his disciples. Now, though I have already stated that the list is not one of which any person is likely to assert that it contains books which ought to be excluded, yet, even from the point of view of what may be termed aesthetic enjoyment, the field in which we are allowed to take our pleasures seems to me unduly restricted.

Contemporary poetry, for instance, on which Mr. Harrison bestows a good deal of hard language, has and must have, for the generation which produces it, certain qualities not likely to be possessed by any other. Charles Lamb has somewhere declared that a pun loses all its virtues as soon as the momentary quality of the intellectual and social atmosphere in which it was born has changed its character. What is true of this, the humblest effort of verbal art, is true in a different measure and degree of all, even of the highest, forms of literature. To some extent every work requires interpretation to generations who are separated by differences of thought or education from the age in which it was originally produced. That this is so with every book which depends for its interest upon feelings and fashions which have utterly vanished, no one will be disposed, I imagine, to deny. Butler's 'Hudibras,' for instance, which was the delight of a gay and witty society, is to me at least not unfrequently dull. Of some works, no doubt, which made a noise in their day it seems impossible to detect the slightest race of charm. But this is not the case with 'Hudibras.' Its merits are obvious. That they should have appealed to a generation sick of the reign of the "Saints" is precisely what we should have expected. But to us, who are not sick of the reign of the Saints, they appeal but imperfectly. The attempt to reproduce artificially the frame of mind of those who first read the poem is not only an effort, but is to most people, at all events, an unsuccessful effort. What is true of 'Hudibras' is true also, though in an inconceivably smaller degree, of those great works of imagination which deal with the elemental facts of human character and human passion. Yet even on these, time does, though lightly, lay his hand. Wherever what may be called "historic sympathy" is required, there will be some diminution of the enjoyment which those must have felt who were the poet's contemporaries. We look, so to speak, at the same splendid landscape as they, but distance has made it necessary for us to aid our natural vision with glasses, and some loss of light will thus inevitably be produced, and some inconvenience from the difficulty of truly adjusting the focus. Of all authors, Homer would, I suppose, be thought to suffer least from such drawbacks. But yet in order to listen to Homer's accents with the ears of an ancient Greek, we must be able, among other things, to enter into a view about the gods which is as far removed from what we should describe as religious sentiment, as it is from the frigid ingenuity of those later poets who regarded the deities of Greek mythology as so many wheels in the supernatural machinery with which it pleased them to carry on the action of their pieces. If we are to accept Mr. Herbert Spencer's views as to the progress of our species, changes of sentiment are likely to occur which will even more seriously interfere with the world's delight in the Homeric poems. When human beings become so nicely "adjusted to their environment" that courage and dexterity in battle will have become as useless among civic virtues as an old helmet is among the weapons of war; when fighting gets to be looked upon with the sort of disgust excited in us by cannibalism; and when public opinion shall regard a warrior much in the same light that we regard a hangman,--I do not see how any fragment of that vast and splendid literature which depends for its interest upon deeds of heroism and the joy of battle is to retain its ancient charm.

About these remote contingencies, however, I am glad to think that neither you nor I need trouble our heads; and if I parenthetically allude to them now, it is merely as an illustration of a truth not always sufficiently remembered, and as an excuse for those who find in the genuine, though possibly second-rate, productions of their own age, a charm for which they search in vain among the mighty monuments of the past.

But I leave this train of thought, which has perhaps already taken me too far, in order to point out a more fundamental error, as I think it, which arises from regarding literature solely from this high aesthetic standpoint. The pleasures of imagination, derived from the best literary models, form without doubt the most exquisite portion of the enjoyment which we may extract from books; but they do not, in my opinion, form the largest portion if we take into account mass as well as quality in our calculation. There is the literature which appeals to the imagination or the fancy, some stray specimens of which Mr. Harrison will permit us to peruse; but is there not also the literature which satisfies the curiosity? Is this vast storehouse of pleasure to be thrown hastily aside because many of the facts which it contains are alleged to be insignificant, because the appetite to which they minister is said to be morbid? Consider a little. We are here dealing with one of the strongest intellectual impulses of rational beings. Animals, as a rule, trouble themselves but little about anything unless they want either to eat it or to run away from it. Interest in and wonder at the works of nature and the doings of man are products of civilization, and excite emotions which do not diminish but increase with increasing knowledge and cultivation. Feed them and they grow; minister to them and they will greatly multiply. We hear much indeed of what is called "idle curiosity"; but I am loth to brand any form of curiosity as necessarily idle. Take, for example, one of the most singular, but in this age one of the most universal, forms in which it is accustomed to manifest itself: I mean that of an exhaustive study of the contents of the morning and evening papers. It is certainly remarkable that any person who has nothing to get by it should destroy his eyesight and confuse his brain by a conscientious attempt to master the dull and doubtful details of the European diary daily transmitted to us by "Our Special Correspondent." But it must be remembered that this is only a somewhat unprofitable exercise of that disinterested love of knowledge which moves men to penetrate the Polar snows, to build up systems of philosophy, or to explore the secrets of the remotest heavens. It has in it the rudiments of infinite and varied delights. It can be turned, and it should be turned into a curiosity for which nothing that has been done, or thought, or suffered, or believed, no law which governs the world of matter or the world of mind, can be wholly alien or uninteresting.

Truly it is a subject for astonishment that, instead of expanding to the utmost the employment of this pleasure-giving faculty, so many persons should set themselves to work to limit its exercise by all kinds of arbitrary regulations. Some there are, for example, who tell us that the acquisition of knowledge is all very well, but that it must be useful knowledge; meaning usually thereby that it must enable a man to get on in a profession, pass an examination, shine in conversation, or obtain a reputation for learning. But even if they mean something higher than this, even if they mean that knowledge to be worth anything must subserve ultimately if not immediately the material or spiritual interests of mankind, the doctrine is one which should be energetically repudiated. I admit, of course, at once, that discoveries the most apparently remote from human concerns have often proved themselves of the utmost commercial or manufacturing value. But they require no such justification for their existence, nor were they striven for with any such object. Navigation is not the final cause of astronomy, nor telegraphy of electro-dynamics, nor dye-works of chemistry. And if it be true that the desire of knowledge for the sake of knowledge was the animating motive of the great men who first wrested her secrets from nature, why should it not also be enough for us, to whom it is not given to discover, but only to learn as best we may what has been discovered by others?

Another maxim, more plausible but equally pernicious, is that superficial knowledge is worse than no knowledge at all. That "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" is a saying which has now got currency as a proverb stamped in the mint of Pope's versification; of Pope, who with the most imperfect knowledge of Greek translated Homer, with the most imperfect knowledge of the Elizabethan drama edited Shakespeare, and with the most imperfect knowledge of philosophy wrote the 'Essay on Man.' But what is this "little knowledge" which is supposed to be so dangerous? What is it "little" in relation to? If in relation to what there is to know, then all human knowledge is little. If in relation to what actually is known by somebody, then we must condemn as "dangerous" the knowledge which Archimedes possessed of mechanics, or Copernicus of astronomy; for a shilling primer and a few weeks' study will enable any student to outstrip in mere information some of the greatest teachers of the past. No doubt, that little knowledge which thinks itself to be great may possibly be a dangerous, as it certainly is a most ridiculous thing. We have all suffered under that eminently absurd individual who on the strength of one or two volumes, imperfectly apprehended by himself, and long discredited in the estimation of everyone else, is prepared to supply you on the shortest notice with a dogmatic solution of every problem suggested by this "unintelligible world" or the political variety of the same pernicious genus, whose statecraft consists in the ready application to the most complex question of national interest of some high-sounding commonplace which has done weary duty on a thousand platforms, and which even in its palmiest days was never fit for anything better than a peroration. But in our dislike of the individual, do not let us mistake the diagnosis of his disease. He suffers not from ignorance but from stupidity. Give him learning and you make him not wise, but only more pretentious in his folly.

I say then that so far from a little knowledge being undesirable, a little knowledge is all that on most subjects any of us can hope to attain; and that, as a source not of worldly profit but of personal pleasure, it may be of incalculable value to its possessor. But it will naturally be asked, "How are we to select from among the infinite number of things which may be known, those which it is best worth while for us to know?" We are constantly being told to concern ourselves with learning what is important, and not to waste our energies upon what is insignificant. But what are the marks by which we shall recognize the important, and how is it to be distinguished from the insignificant. A precise and complete answer to this question which shall be true for all men cannot be given. I am considering knowledge, recollect, as it ministers to enjoyment; and from this point of view each unit of information is obviously of importance in proportion as it increases the general sum of enjoyment which we obtain, or expect to obtain, from knowledge. This, of course, makes it impossible to lay down precise rules which shall be an equally sure guide to all sorts and conditions of men; for in this, as in other matters, tastes must differ, and against real difference of taste there is no appeal.

There is, however, one caution which it may be worth your while to keep in view:--Do not be persuaded into applying any general proposition on this subject with a foolish impartiality to every kind of knowledge. There are those who tell you that it is the broad generalities and the far-reaching principles which govern the world, which are alone worthy of your attention. A fact which is not an illustration of a law, in the opinion of these persons appears to lose all its value. Incidents which do not fit into some great generalization, events which are merely picturesque, details which are merely curious, they dismiss as unworthy the interest of a reasoning being. Now, even in science this doctrine in its extreme form does not hold good. The most scientific of men have taken profound interest in the investigation of facts from the determination of which they do not anticipate any material addition to our knowledge of the laws which regulate the Universe. In these matters, I need hardly say that I speak wholly without authority. But I have always been under the impression that an investigation which has cost hundreds of thousands of pounds; which has stirred on three occasions the whole scientific community throughout the civilized world; on which has been expended the utmost skill in the construction of instruments and their application to purposes of research (I refer to the attempts made to determine the distance of the sun by observation of the transit of Venus),--would, even if they had been brought to a successful issue, have furnished mankind with the knowledge of no new astronomical principle. The laws which govern the motions of the solar system, the proportions which the various elements in that system bear to one another, have long been known. The distance of the sun itself is known within limits of error relatively speaking not very considerable. Were the measuring rod we apply to the heavens based on an estimate of the sun's distance from the earth which was wrong by (say) three per cent., it would not to the lay mind seem to affect very materially our view either of the distribution of the heavenly bodies or of their motions. And yet this information, this piece of celestial gossip, would seem to have been the chief astronomical result expected from the successful prosecution of an investigation in which whole nations have interested themselves.

But though no one can, I think, pretend that science does not concern itself, and properly concern itself, with facts which are not to all appearance illustrations of law, it is undoubtedly true that for those who desire to extract the greatest pleasure from science, a knowledge, however elementary, of the leading principles of investigation and the larger laws of nature, is the acquisition most to be desired. To him who is not a specialist, a comprehension of the broad outlines of the universe as it presents itself to his scientific imagination is the thing most worth striving to attain. But when we turn from science to what is rather vaguely called history, the same principles of study do not, I think, altogether apply, and mainly for this reason: that while the recognition of the reign of law is the chief amongst the pleasures imparted by science, our inevitable ignorance makes it the least among the pleasures imparted by history.

It is no doubt true that we are surrounded by advisers who tell us that all study of the past is barren, except in so far as it enables us to determine the principles by which the evolution of human societies is governed. How far such an investigation has been up to the present time fruitful in results, it would be unkind to inquire. That it will ever enable us to trace with accuracy the course which States and nations are destined to pursue in the future, or to account in detail for their history in the past, I do not in the least believe. We are borne along like travelers on some unexplored stream. We may know enough of the general configuration of the globe to be sure that we are making our way towards the ocean. We may know enough, by experience or theory, of the laws regulating the flow of liquids, to conjecture how the river will behave under the varying influences to which it may be subject. More than this we cannot know. It will depend largely upon causes which, in relation to any laws which we are even likely to discover may properly be called accidental, whether we are destined sluggishly to drift among fever-stricken swamps, to hurry down perilous rapids, or to glide gently through fair scenes of peaceful cultivation.

But leaving on one side ambitious sociological speculations, and even those more modest but hitherto more successful investigations into the causes which have in particular cases been principally operative in producing great political changes, there are still two modes in which we can derive what I may call "spectacular" enjoyment from the study of history. There is first the pleasure which arises from the contemplation of some great historic drama, or some broad and well-marked phase of social development. The story of the rise, greatness, and decay of a nation is like some vast epic which contains as subsidiary episodes the varied stories of the rise, greatness, and decay of creeds, of parties, and of statesmen. The imagination is moved by the slow unrolling of this great picture of human mutability, as it is moved by the contrasted permanence of the abiding stars. The ceaseless conflict, the strange echoes of long-forgotten controversies, the confusion of purpose, the successes in which lay deep the seeds of future evils, the failures that ultimately divert the otherwise inevitable danger, the heroism which struggles to the last for a cause foredoomed to defeat, the wickedness which sides with right, and the wisdom which huzzas at the triumph of folly,--fate, meanwhile, amidst this turmoil and perplexity, working silently towards the predestined end,--all these form together a subject the contemplation of which need surely never weary.

But yet there is another and very different species of enjoyment to be derived from the records of the past, which requires a somewhat different method of study in order that it may be fully tasted. Instead of contemplating as it were from a distance the larger aspects of the human drama, we may elect to move in familiar fellowship amid the scenes and actors of special periods. We may add to the interest we derive from the contemplation of contemporary politics, a similar interest derived from a not less minute, and probably more accurate, knowledge of some comparatively brief passage in the political history of the past. We may extend the social circle in which we move, a circle perhaps narrowed and restricted through circumstances beyond our control, by making intimate acquaintances, perhaps even close friends, among a society long departed, but which, when we have once learnt the trick of it, we may, if it so pleases us, revive.

It is this kind of historical reading which is usually branded as frivolous and useless; and persons who indulge in it often delude themselves into thinking that the real motive of their investigation into bygone scenes and ancient scandals is philosophic interest in an important historical episode, whereas in truth it is not the philosophy which glorifies the details, but the details which make tolerable the philosophy. Consider, for example, the case of the French Revolution. The period from the taking of the Bastile to the fall of Robespierre is about the same as that which very commonly intervenes between two of our general elections. On these comparatively few months, libraries have been written. The incidents of every week are matters of familiar knowledge. The character and the biography of every actor in the drama has been made the subject of minute study; and by common admission there is no more fascinating page in the history of the world. But the interest is not what is commonly called philosophic, it is personal. Because the Revolution is the dominant fact in modern history, therefore people suppose that the doings of this or that provincial lawyer, tossed into temporary eminence and eternal infamy by some freak of the revolutionary wave, or the atrocities committed by this or that mob, half drunk with blood, rhetoric, and alcohol, are of transcendent importance. In truth their interest is great, but their importance is small. What we are concerned to know as students of the philosophy of history is, not the character of each turn and eddy in the great social cataract, but the manner in which the currents of the upper stream drew surely in towards the final plunge, and slowly collected themselves after the catastrophe again, to pursue at a different level their renewed and comparatively tranquil course.

Now, if so much of the interest of the French Revolution depends upon our minute knowledge of each passing incident, how much more necessary is such knowledge when we are dealing with the quiet nooks and corners of history; when we are seeking an introduction, let us say, into the literary society of Johnson, or the fashionable society of Walpole. Society, dead or alive, can have no charm without intimacy, and no intimacy without interest in trifles which I fear Mr. Harrison would describe as "merely curious." If we would feel at our ease in any company, if we wish to find humor in its jokes, and point in its repartees, we must know something of the beliefs and the prejudices of its various members, their loves and their hates, their hopes and their fears, their maladies, their marriages, and their flirtations. If these things are beneath our notice, we shall not be the less qualified to serve our Queen and country, but need make no attempt to extract pleasure from one of the most delightful departments of literature.

That there is such a thing as trifling information I do not of course question; but the frame of mind in which the reader is constantly weighing the exact importance to the universe at large of each circumstance which the author presents to his notice, is not one conducive to the true enjoyment of a picture whose effect depends upon a multitude of slight and seemingly insignificant touches, which impress the mind often without remaining in the memory. The best method of guarding against the danger of reading what is useless is to read only what is interesting; a truth which will seem a paradox to a whole class of readers, fitting objects of our commiseration, who may be often recognized by their habit of asking some adviser for a list of books, and then marking out a scheme of study in the course of which all are to be conscientiously perused. These unfortunate persons apparently read a book principally with the object of getting to the end of it. They reach the word Finis with the same sensation of triumph as an Indian feels who strings a fresh scalp to his girdle. They are not happy unless they mark by some definite performance each step in the weary path of self-improvement. To begin a volume and not to finish it would be to deprive themselves of this satisfaction; it would be to lose all the reward of their earlier self-denial by a lapse from virtue at the end. To skip, according to their literary code, is a species of cheating; it is a mode of obtaining credit for erudition on false pretenses; a plan by which the advantages of learning are surreptitiously obtained by those who have not won them by honest toil. But all this is quite wrong. In matters literary, works have no saving efficacy. He has only half learnt the art of reading who has not added to it the even more refined accomplishments of skipping and of skimming; and the first step has hardly been taken in the direction of making literature a pleasure until interest in the subject, and not a desire to spare (so to speak) the author's feelings, or to accomplish an appointed task, is the prevailing motive of the reader.

I have now reached, not indeed the end of my subject, which I have scarcely begun, but the limits inexorably set by the circumstances under which it is treated. Yet I am unwilling to conclude without meeting an objection to my method of dealing with it, which has I am sure been present to the minds of not a few who have been good enough to listen to me with patience. It will be said that I have ignored the higher functions of literature; that I have degraded it from its rightful place, by discussing only certain ways in which it may minister to the entertainment of an idle hour, leaving wholly out of sight its contributions to what Mr. Harrison calls our "spiritual sustenance." Now, this is partly because the first of these topics and not the second was the avowed subject of my address; but it is partly because I am deliberately of opinion that it is the pleasures and not the profits, spiritual or temporal, of literature which most require to be preached in the ear of the ordinary reader. I hold indeed the faith that all such pleasures minister to the development of much that is best in man--mental and moral; but the charm is broken and the object lost if the remote consequence is consciously pursued to the exclusion of the immediate end. It will not, I suppose, be denied that the beauties of nature are at least as well qualified to minister to our higher needs as are the beauties of literature. Yet we do not say we are going to walk to the top of such and such a hill in order to drink in "spiritual sustenance." We say we are going to look at the view. And I am convinced that this, which is the natural and simple way of considering literature as well as nature, is also the true way. The habit of always requiring some reward for knowledge beyond the knowledge itself, be that reward some material prize or be it what is vaguely called self-improvement, is one with which I confess I have little sympathy, fostered though it is by the whole scheme of our modern education. Do not suppose that I desire the impossible. I would not if I could destroy the examination system. But there are times, I confess, when I feel tempted somewhat to vary the prayer of the poet, and to ask whether Heaven has not reserved, in pity to this much-educating generation, some peaceful desert of literature as yet unclaimed by the crammer or the coach; where it might be possible for the student to wander, even perhaps to stray, at his own pleasure without finding every beauty labeled, every difficulty engineered, every nook surveyed, and a professional cicerone standing at every corner to guide each succeeding traveler along the same well-worn round. If such a wish were granted, I would further ask that the domain of knowledge thus "neutralized" should be the literature of our own country. I grant to the full that the systematic study of some literature must be a principal element in the education of youth. But why should that literature be our own? Why should we brush off the bloom and freshness from the works to which Englishmen and Scotchmen most naturally turn for refreshment,--namely, those written in their own language? Why should we associate them with the memory of hours spent in weary study; in the effort to remember for purposes of examination what no human being would wish to remember for any other; in the struggle to learn something, not because the learner desires to know it, because he desires some one else to know that he knows it? This is the dark side of the examination system; a system necessary and therefore excellent, but one which does, through the very efficiency and thoroughness of the drill by which it imparts knowledge, to some extent impair the most delicate pleasures by which the acquisition of knowledge should be attended.

How great those pleasures may be, I trust there are many here who can testify. When I compare the position of the reader of to-day with that of his predecessor of the sixteenth century. I am amazed at the ingratitude of those who are tempted even for a moment to regret the invention of printing and the multiplication of books. There is now no mood of mind to which a man may not administer the appropriate nutriment or medicine at the cost of reaching down a volume from his bookshelf. In every department of knowledge infinitely more is known, and what is known is incomparably more accessible, than it was to our ancestors. The lighter forms of literature, good, bad, and indifferent, which have added so vastly to the happiness of mankind, have increased beyond powers of computation; nor do I believe that there is any reason to think that they have elbowed out their more serious and important brethren. It is perfectly possible for a man, not a professed student, and who only gives to reading the leisure hours of a business life, to acquire such a general knowledge of the laws of nature and the facts of history that every great advance made in either department shall be to him both intelligible and interesting; and he may besides have among his familiar friends many a departed worthy whose memory is embalmed in the pages of memoir or biography. All this is ours for the asking. All this we shall ask for, if only it be our happy fortune to love for its own sake the beauty and the knowledge to be gathered from books. And if this be our fortune, the world may be kind or unkind, it may seem to us to be hastening on the wings of enlightenment and progress to an imminent millennium, or it may weigh us down with the sense of insoluble difficulty and irremediable wrong; but whatever else it be, so long as we have good health and a good library, it can hardly be dull.

---

THE BALLAD

(Popular or Communal)

BY F.B. GUMMERE

he popular ballad, as it is understood for the purpose of these selections, is a narrative in lyric form, with no traces of individual authorship, and is preserved mainly by oral tradition. In its earliest stages it was meant to be sung by a crowd, and got its name from the dance to which it furnished the sole musical accompaniment. In these primitive communities the ballad was doubtless chanted by the entire folk, in festivals mainly of a religious character. Explorers still meet something of the sort in savage tribes: and children's games preserve among us some relics of this protoplasmic form of verse-making, in which the single poet or artist was practically unknown, and spontaneous, improvised verses arose out of the occasion itself; in which the whole community took part; and in which the beat of foot--along with the gesture which expressed narrative elements of the song--was inseparable from the words and the melody. This native growth of song, in which the chorus or refrain, the dance of a festal multitude, and the spontaneous nature of the words, were vital conditions, gradually faded away before the advance of cultivated verse and the vigor of production in what one may call poetry of the schools. Very early in the history of the ballad, a demand for more art must have called out or at least emphasized the artist, the poet, who chanted new verses while the throng kept up the refrain or burden. Moreover, as interest was concentrated upon the words or story, people began to feel that both dance and melody were separable if not alien features; and thus they demanded the composed and recited ballad, to the harm and ultimate ruin of that spontaneous song for the festal, dancing crowd. Still, even when artistry had found a footing in ballad verse, it long remained mere agent and mouthpiece for the folk; the communal character of the ballad was maintained in form and matter. Events of interest were sung in almost contemporary and entirely improvised verse; and the resulting ballads, carried over the borders of their community and passed down from generation to generation, served as newspaper to their own times and as chronicle to posterity. It is the kind of song to which Tacitus bears witness as the sole form of history among the early Germans; and it is evident that such a stock of ballads must have furnished considerable raw material to the epic. Ballads, in whatever original shape, went to the making of the English 'Béowulf,' of the German 'Nibelungenlied.' Moreover, a study of dramatic poetry leads one back to similar communal origins. What is loosely called a "chorus,"--originally, as the name implies, a dance--out of which older forms of the drama were developed, could be traced back to identity with primitive forms of the ballad. The purely lyrical ballad, even, the chanson of the people, so rare in English but so abundant among other races, is evidently a growth from the same root.

If, now, we assume for this root the name of communal poem, and if we bear in mind the dominant importance of the individual, the artist, in advancing stages of poetry, it is easy to understand why for civilized and lettered communities the ballad has ceased to have any vitality whatever. Under modern conditions the making of ballads is a closed account. For our times poetry means something written by a poet, and not something sung more or less spontaneously by a dancing throng. Indeed, paper and ink, the agents of preservation in the case of ordinary verse, are for ballads the agents of destruction. The broadside press of three centuries ago, while it rescued here and there a genuine ballad, poured out a mass of vulgar imitations which not only displaced and destroyed the ballad of oral tradition, but brought contempt upon good and bad alike. Poetry of the people, to which our ballad belongs, is a thing of the past. Even rude and distant communities, like those of Afghanistan, cannot give us the primitive conditions. The communal ballad is rescued, when rescued at all, by the fragile chances of a written copy or of oral tradition; and we are obliged to study it under terms of artistic poetry,--that is, we are forced to take through the eye and the judgment what was meant for the ear and immediate sensation. Poetry for the people, however, "popular poetry" in the modern phrase, is a very different affair. Street songs, vulgar rhymes, or even improvisations of the concert-halls, tawdry and sentimental stuff,--these things are sundered by the world's width from poetry of the people, from the folk in verse, whether it echo in a great epos which chants the clash of empires or linger in a ballad of the countryside sung under the village linden. For this ballad is a part of the poetry which comes from the people as a whole, from a homogeneous folk, large or small; while the song of street or concert-hall is deliberately composed for a class, a section, of the community. It would therefore be better to use some other term than "popular" when we wish to specify the ballad of tradition, and so avoid all taint of vulgarity and the trivial. Nor must we go to the other extreme. Those high-born people who figure in traditional ballads--Childe Waters, Lady Maisry, and the rest--do not require us to assume composition in aristocratic circles; for the lower classes of the people in ballad days had no separate literature, and a ballad of the folk belonged to the community as a whole. The same habit of thought, the same standard of action, ruled alike the noble and his meanest retainer. Oral transmission, the test of the ballad, is of course nowhere possible save in such an unlettered community. Since all critics are at one in regard to this homogeneous character of the folk with whom and out of whom these songs had their birth, one is justified in removing all doubt from the phrase by speaking not of the popular ballad but of the communal ballad, the ballad of a community.

With regard to the making of a ballad, one must repeat a caution, hinted already, and made doubly important by a vicious tendency in the study of all phases of culture. It is a vital mistake to explain primitive conditions by exact analogy with conditions of modern savagery and barbarism. Certain conclusions, always guarded and cautious to a degree, may indeed be drawn; but it is folly to insist that what now goes on among shunted races, belated detachments in the great march of culture, must have gone on among the dominant and mounting peoples who had reached the same external conditions of life. The homogeneous and unlettered state of the ballad-makers is not to be put on a level with the ignorance of barbarism, nor explained by the analogy of songs among modern savage tribes. Fortunately we have better material. The making of a ballad by a community can be illustrated from a case recorded by Pastor Lyngbye in his invaluable account of life on the Faroe Islands a century ago. Not only had the islanders used from most ancient times their traditional and narrative songs as music for the dance, but they had also maintained the old fashion of making a ballad. In the winter, says Lyngbye, dancing is their chief amusement and is an affair of the entire community. At such a dance, one or more persons begin to sing; then all who are present join in the ballad, or at least in the refrain. As they dance, they show by their gestures and expression that they follow with eagerness the course of the story which they are singing. More than this, the ballad is often a spontaneous product of the occasion. A fisherman, who has had some recent mishap with his boat, is pushed by stalwart comrades into the middle of the throng, while the dancers sing verses about him and his lack of skill,--verses improvised on the spot and with a catching and clamorous refrain. If these verses win favor, says Lyngbye, they are repeated from year to year, with slight additions or corrections, and become a permanent ballad. Bearing in mind the extraordinary readiness to improvise shown even in these days by peasants in every part of Europe, we thus gain some definite notion about the spontaneous and communal elements which went to the making of the best type of primitive verse; for these Faroe islanders were no savages, but simply a homeogeneous and isolated folk which still held to the old ways of communal song.

Critics of the ballad, moreover, agree that it has little or no subjective traits,--an easy inference from the conditions just described. There is no individuality lurking behind the words of the ballad, and above all, no evidence of that individuality in the form of sentiment. Sentiment and individuality are the very essence of modern poetry, and the direct result of individualism in verse. Given a poet, sentiment--and it may be noble and precious enough--is sure to follow. But the ballad, an epic in little, forces one's attention to the object, the scene, the story, and away from the maker.

"The king sits in Dumferling town."

begins one of the noblest of all ballads; while one of the greatest of modern poems opens with something personal and pathetic, key-note to all that follows:--

"My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense ..."

Even when a great poet essays the ballad, either he puts sentiment into it, or else he keeps sentiment out of it by a tour de force. Admirable and noble as one must call the conclusion of an artistic ballad such as Tennyson's 'Revenge,' it is altogether different from the conclusion of such a communal ballad as 'Sir Patrick Spens.' That subtle quality of the ballad which lies in solution with the story and which--as in 'Child Maurice' or 'Babylon' or 'Edward'--compels in us sensations akin to those called out by the sentiment of the poet, is a wholly impersonal if strangely effective quality, far removed from the corresponding elements of the poem of art. At first sight, one might say that Browning's dramatic lyrics had this impersonal quality. But compare the close of 'Give a Rouse,' chorus and all, with the close of 'Child Maurice,' that swift and relentless stroke of pure tragedy which called out the enthusiasm of so great a critic as Gray.

The narrative of the communal ballad is full of leaps and omissions; the style is simple to a fault; the diction is spontaneous and free. Assonance frequently takes the place of rhyme, and a word often rhymes with itself. There is a lack of poetic adornment in the style quite as conspicuous as the lack of reflection and moralizing in the matter. Metaphor and simile are rare and when found are for the most part standing phrases common to all the ballads; there is never poetry for poetry's sake. Iteration is the chief mark of ballad style; and the favorite form of this effective figure is what one may call incremental repetition. The question is repeated with the answer; each increment in a series of related facts has a stanza for itself, identical, save for the new fact, with the other stanzas. 'Babylon' furnishes good instances of this progressive iteration. Moreover, the ballad differs from earlier English epics in that it invariably has stanzas and rhyme; of the two forms of stanza, the two-line stanza with a refrain is probably older than the stanza with four or six lines.

This necessary quality of the stanza points to the origin of the ballad in song; but longer ballads, such as those that make up the 'Gest of Robin Hood,' an epic in little, were not sung as lyrics or to aid the dance, but were either chanted in a monotonous fashion or else recited outright. Chappell, in his admirable work on old English music ('Music of the Olden Time,' ii. 790), names a third class of "characteristic airs of England,"--the "historical and very long ballads, ... invariably of simple construction, usually plaintive.... They were rarely if ever used for dancing." Most of the longer ballads, however, were doubtless given by one person in a sort of recitative; this is the case with modern ballads of Russia and Servia, where the bystanders now and then join in a chorus. Precisely in the same way ballads were divorced from the dance, originally their vital condition; but in the refrain, which is attached to so many ballads, one finds an element which has survived from those earliest days of communal song.

Of oldest communal poetry no actual ballad has come down to us. Hints and even fragments, however, are pointed out in ancient records, mainly as the material of chronicle or legend. In the Bible (Numbers xxi. 17), where "Israel sang this song," we are not going too far when we regard the fragment as part of a communal ballad. "Spring up, O well: sing ye unto it: the princes digged the well, the nobles of the people digged it, by the direction of the lawgiver, with their staves." Deborah's song has something of the communal note; and when Miriam dances and sings with her maidens, one is reminded of the many ballads made by dancing and singing bands of women in mediæval Europe,--for instance, the song made in the seventh century to the honor of St. Faro, and "sung by the women as they danced and clapped their hands." The question of ancient Greek ballads, and their relation to the epic, is not to be discussed here; nor can we make more than an allusion to the theory of Niebuhr that the early part of Livy is founded on, old Roman ballads. A popular discussion of this matter may be found in Macaulay's preface to his own 'Lays of Ancient Rome.' The ballads of modern Europe are a survival of older communal poetry, more or less influenced by artistic and individual conditions of authorship, but wholly impersonal, and with an appeal to our interest which seems to come from a throng and not from the solitary poet. Attention was early called to the ballads of Spain; printed at first as broadsides, they were gathered into a volume as early as 1550. On the other hand, ballads were neglected in France until very recent times; for specimens of the French ballad, and for an account of it, the reader should consult Professor Crane's 'Chansons Populaires de France,' New York, 1891. It is with ballads of the Germanic race, however, that we are now concerned. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, the Faroe Islands; Scotland and England; the Netherlands and Germany: all of these countries offer us admirable specimens of the ballad. Particularly, the great collections of Grundtvig ('Danmarks Gamle Folkeviser') for Denmark, and of Child ('The English and Scottish Popular Ballads') for our own tongue, show how common descent or borrowing connects the individual ballads of these groups. "Almost every Norwegian, Swedish, or Icelandic ballad," says Grundtvig, "is found in a Danish version of Scandinavian ballads; moreover, a larger number can be found in English and Scottish versions than in German or Dutch versions." Again, we find certain national preferences in the character of the ballads which have come down to us. Scandinavia kept the old heroic lays (Kaempeviser); Germany wove them into her epic, as witness the Nibelungen Lay; but England and Scotland have none of them in any shape. So, too, the mythic ballad, scantily represented in English, and practically unknown in Germany, abounds in Scandinavian collections. The Faroe Islands and Norway, as Grundtvig tells us, show the best record for ballads preserved by oral tradition; while noble ladies of Denmark, three or four centuries ago, did high service to ballad literature by making collections in manuscript of the songs current then in the castle as in the cottage.

For England, one is compelled to begin the list of known ballads with the thirteenth century. 'The Battle of Maldon,' composed in the last decade of the tenth century, though spirited enough and full of communal vigor, has no stanzaic structure, follows in metre and style the rules of the Old English epic, and is only a ballad by courtesy; about the ballads used a century or two later by historians of England, we can do nothing but guess; and there is no firm ground under the critic's foot until he comes to the Robin Hood ballads, which Professor Child assigns to the thirteenth century. 'The Battle of Otterburn' (1388) opens a series of ballads based on actual events and stretching into the eighteenth century. Barring the Robin Hood cycle,--an epic constructed from this attractive material lies before us in the famous 'Gest of Robin Hood,' printed as early as 1489,--the chief sources of the collector are the Percy Manuscript, "written just before 1650,"--on which, not without omissions and additions, the bishop based his 'Reliques,' first published in 1765,--and the oral traditions of Scotland, which Professor Child refers to "the last one hundred and thirty years." Information about the individual ballads, their sources, history, literary connections, and above all, their varying texts, must be sought in the noble work of Professor F.J. Child. For present purposes, a word or two of general information must suffice. As to origins, there is a wide range. The church furnished its legend, as in 'St. Stephen'; romance contributed the story of 'Thomas Rymer'; and the light, even cynical fabliau is responsible for 'The Boy and the Mantle.' Ballads which occur in many tongues either may have a common origin or else may owe their manifold versions, as in the case of popular tales, to a love of borrowing; and here, of course, we get the hint of wider issues. For the most part, however, a ballad tells some moving story, preferably of fighting and of love. Tragedy is the dominant note; and English ballads of the best type deal with those elements of domestic disaster so familiar in the great dramas of literature, in the story of Orestes, or of Hamlet, or of the Cid. Such are 'Edward,' 'Lord Randal,' 'The Two Brothers,' 'The Two Sisters,' 'Child Maurice,' 'Bewick and Graham,' 'Clerk Colven,' 'Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard,' 'Glasgerion,' and many others. Another group of ballads, represented by the 'Baron of Brackley' and 'Captain Car,' give a faithful picture of the feuds and ceaseless warfare in Scotland and on the border. A few fine ballads--'Sweet William's Ghost,' 'The Wife of Usher's Well'--touch upon the supernatural. Of the romantic ballads, 'Childe Waters' shows us the higher, and 'Young Beichan' the lower, but still sound and communal type. Incipient dramatic tendencies mark 'Edward' and 'Lord Randal'; while, on the other hand, a lyric note almost carries 'Bonnie George Campbell' out of balladry. Finally, it is to be noted that in the 'Nut-Brown Maid,' which many would unhesitatingly refer to this class of poetry, we have no ballad at all, but a dramatic lyric, probably written by a woman, and with a special plea in the background.

ROBIN HOOD AND GUY OF GISBORNE[8]

1. When shawes[9] beene sheene[10], and shradds[11] full fayre,

And leeves both large and longe,

It is merry, walking in the fayre forrest,

To heare the small birds' songe.

2. The woodweele[12] sang, and wold not cease,

Amongst the leaves a lyne[13];

And it is by two wight[14] yeomen,

By deare God, that I meane.

---

3. "Me thought they[15] did me beate and binde,

And tooke my bow me fro;

If I bee Robin alive in this lande,

I'll be wrocken[16] on both them two."

4. "Sweavens[17] are swift, master," quoth John,

"As the wind that blowes ore a hill;

For if it be never soe lowde this night,

To-morrow it may be still."

5. "Buske ye, bowne ye[18], my merry men all,

For John shall go with me;

For I'll goe seeke yond wight yeomen

In greenwood where they bee."

6. They cast on their gowne of greene,

A shooting gone are they,

Until they came to the merry greenwood,

Where they had gladdest bee;

There were they ware of a wight yeoman,

His body leaned to a tree.

7. A sword and a dagger he wore by his side,

Had beene many a man's bane[19],

And he was cladd in his capull-hyde[20],

Topp, and tayle, and mayne.

8. "Stand you still, master," quoth Litle John,

"Under this trusty tree,

And I will goe to yond wight yeoman,

To know his meaning trulye."

9. "A, John, by me thou setts noe store,

And that's a farley[21] thinge;

How offt send I my men before,

And tarry myselfe behinde?"

10. "It is noe cunning a knave to ken,

And a man but heare him speake;

And it were not for bursting of my bowe,

John, I wold thy head breake."

11. But often words they breeden bale,

That parted Robin and John;

John is gone to Barnesdale,

The gates[22] he knowes eche one.

12. And when hee came to Barnesdale,

Great heavinesse there hee hadd;

He found two of his fellowes

Were slaine both in a slade[23],

13. And Scarlett a foote flyinge was,

Over stockes and stone,

For the sheriffe with seven score men

Fast after him is gone.

14. "Yet one shoote I'll shoote," sayes Litle John,

"With Crist his might and mayne;

I'll make yond fellow that flyes soe fast

To be both glad and faine."

15. John bent up a good veiwe bow[24],

And fetteled[25] him to shoote;

The bow was made of a tender boughe,

And fell downe to his foote.

16. "Woe worth[26] thee, wicked wood," sayd Litle John,

"That ere thou grew on a tree!

For this day thou art my bale,

My boote[27] when thou shold bee!"

17. This shoote it was but looselye shott,

The arrowe flew in vaine,

And it mett one of the sheriffe's men;

Good William a Trent was slaine.

18. It had beene better for William a Trent

To hange upon a gallowe

Then for to lye in the greenwoode,

There slaine with an arrowe.

19. And it is sayed, when men be mett,

Six can doe more than three:

And they have tane Litle John,

And bound him fast to a tree.

20. "Thou shalt be drawen by dale and downe," quoth the sheriffe[28],

"And hanged hye on a hill:"

"But thou may fayle," quoth Litle John

"If it be Christ's owne will."

21. Let us leave talking of Litle John,

For hee is bound fast to a tree,

And talke of Guy and Robin Hood

In the green woode where they bee.

22. How these two yeomen together they mett,

Under the leaves of lyne,

To see what marchandise they made

Even at that same time.

23. "Good morrow, good fellow," quoth Sir Guy;

"Good morrow, good fellow," quoth hee;

"Methinkes by this bow thou beares in thy hand,

A good archer thou seems to bee."

24. "I am wilfull of my way[29]," quoth Sir Guy,

"And of my morning tyde:"

"I'll lead thee through the wood," quoth Robin,

"Good fellow, I'll be thy guide."

25. "I seeke an outlaw," quoth Sir Guy,

"Men call him Robin Hood;

I had rather meet with him upon a day

Then forty pound of golde."

26. "If you tow mett, it wold be seene whether were better

Afore yee did part awaye;

Let us some other pastime find,

Good fellow, I thee pray."

27. "Let us some other masteryes make,

And we will walke in the woods even;

Wee may chance meet with Robin Hood

At some unsett steven[30]."

28. They cutt them downe the summer shroggs[31]

Which grew both under a bryar,

And sett them three score rood in twinn[32],

To shoote the prickes[33] full neare.

29. "Leade on, good fellow," sayd Sir Guye,

"Leade on, I doe bidd thee:"

"Nay, by my faith," quoth Robin Hood,

"The leader thou shalt bee."

30. The first good shoot that Robin ledd,

Did not shoote an inch the pricke froe,

Guy was an archer good enoughe,

But he could neere shoote soe.

31. The second shoote Sir Guy shott,

He shott within the garlande[34],

But Robin Hoode shott it better than hee,

For he clove the good pricke-wande.

32. "God's blessing on thy heart!" sayes Guye,

"Goode fellow, thy shooting is goode;

For an thy hart be as good as thy hands,

Thou were better than Robin Hood."

33. "Tell me thy name, good fellow," quoth Guye,

"Under the leaves of lyne:"

"Nay, by my faith," quoth good Robin,

"Till thou have told me thine."

34. "I dwell by dale and downe," quoth Guye,

"And I have done many a curst turne;

And he that calles me by my right name,

Calles me Guye of good Gysborne."

35. "My dwelling is in the wood," sayes Robin;

"By thee I set right nought;

My name is Robin Hood of Barnesdale,

A fellow thou hast long sought."

36. He that had neither beene a kithe nor kin

Might have seene a full fayre sight.

To see how together these yeomen went,

With blades both browne and bright.

37. To have seene how these yeomen together fought

Two howers of a summer's day;

It was neither Guy nor Robin Hood

That fettled them to flye away.

38. Robin was reacheles[35] on a roote,

And stumbled at that tyde,

And Guy was quicke and nimble with-all,

And hitt him ore the left side.

39. "Ah, deere Lady!" sayd Robin Hoode,

"Thou art both mother and may[36]!

I thinke it was never man's destinye

To dye before his day."

40. Robin thought on Our Lady deere,

And soone leapt up againe,

And thus he came with an awkwarde[37] stroke;

Good Sir Guy hee has slayne.

41. He tooke Sir Guy's head by the hayre,

And sticked it on his bowe's end:

"Thou has beene traytor all thy life,

Which thing must have an ende."

42. Robin pulled forth an Irish kniffe,

And nicked Sir Guy in the face,

That he was never on[38] a woman borne

Could tell who Sir Guye was.

43. Saies, Lye there, lye there, good Sir Guye,

And with me not wrothe;

If thou have had the worse stroakes at my hand,

Thou shalt have the better cloathe.

44. Robin did off his gowne of greene,

Sir Guye he did it throwe;

And he put on that capull-hyde

That clad him topp to toe.

45. "Tis bowe, the arrowes, and litle horne,

And with me now I'll beare;

For now I will goe to Barnesdale,

To see how my men doe fare."

46. Robin sett Guye's horne to his mouth,

A lowd blast in it he did blow;

That beheard the sheriffe of Nottingham,

As he leaned under a lowe[39].

47. "Hearken! hearken!" sayd the sheriffe,

"I heard noe tydings but good;

For yonder I heare Sir Guye's horne blowe,

For he hath slaine Robin Hoode."

48. "For yonder I heare Sir Guye's horne blowe,

It blowes soe well in tyde,

For yonder conies that wighty yeoman

Cladd in his capull-hyde."

49. "Come hither, thou good Sir Guy,

Aske of mee what thou wilt have:"

"I'll none of thy gold," sayes Robin Hood,

"Nor I'll none of it have."

50. "But now I have slaine the master," he sayd,

"Let me goe strike the knave;

This is all the reward I aske,

Nor noe other will I have."

51. "Thou art a madman," said the sheriffe,

"Thou sholdest have had a knight's fee;

Seeing thy asking hath beene soe badd,

Well granted it shall be."

52. But Litle John heard his master speake,

Well he knew that was his steven[40];

"Now shall I be loset," quoth Litle John,

"With Christ's might in heaven."

53. But Robin hee hyed him towards Litle John,

Hee thought hee wold loose him belive;

The sheriffe and all his companye

Fast after him did drive.

54. "Stand abacke! stand abacke!" sayd Robin;

"Why draw you mee soe neere?

It was never the use in our countrye

One's shrift another should heere."

55. But Robin pulled forth an Irysh kniffe,

And losed John hand and foote,

And gave him Sir Guye's bow in his hand,

And bade it be his boote.

56. But John tooke Guye's bow in his hand

(His arrowes were rawstye[41] by the roote);

The sherriffe saw Litle John draw a bow

And fettle him to shoote.

57. Towards his house in Nottingham

He fled full fast away,

And so did all his companye,

Not one behind did stay.

58. But he cold neither soe fast goe,

Nor away soe fast runn,

But Litle John, with an arrow broade,

Did cleave his heart in twinn.

[8] This ballad is a good specimen of the Robin Hood Cycle, and is remarkable for its many proverbial and alliterative phrases. A few lines have been lost between stanzas 2 and 3. Gisborne is a "market-town in the West Riding of the County of York, on the borders of Lancashire." For the probable tune of the ballad, see Chappell's 'Popular Music of the Olden Time,' ii. 397.

[9] Woods, groves.--This touch of description at the outset is common in our old ballads, as well as in the mediæval German popular lyric, and may perhaps spring from the old "summer-lays" and chorus of pagan times.

[10] Beautiful; German, schön.

[11] Coppices or openings in a wood.

[12] In some glossaries the woodpecker, but here of course a song-bird,--perhaps, as Chappell suggests, the woodlark.

[13] A, on; lyne, lime or linden.

[14] Sturdy, brave.

[15] Robin now tells of a dream in which "they" (=the two "wight yeomen," who are Guy and, as Professor Child suggests, the Sheriff of Nottingham) maltreat him; and he thus foresees trouble "from two quarters."

[16] Revenged.

[17] Dreams.

[18] Tautological phrase,--"prepare and make ready."

[19] Murder, destruction.

[20] Horse's hide.

[21] Strange.

[22] Paths.

[23] Green valley between woods.

[24] Perhaps the yew-bow.

[25] Made ready.

[26] "Woe be to thee." Worth is the old subjunctive present of an exact English equivalent to the modern German werden.

[27] Note these alliterative phrases. Boote, remedy.

[28] As Percy noted, this "quoth the sheriffe," was probably added by some explainer. The reader, however, must remember the license of slurring or contracting the syllables of a word, as well as the opposite freedom of expansion. Thus in the second line of stanza 7, man's is to be pronounced man-ës.

[29] I have lost my way.

[30] At some unappointed time,--by chance.

[31] Stunted shrubs.

[32] Apart.

[33] "Prickes seem to have been the long-range targets, butts the near."--Furnivall.

[34] Garlande, perhaps "the ring within which the prick was set"; and the pricke-wande perhaps a pole or stick. The terms are not easy to understand clearly.

[35] Reckless, careless.

[36] Maiden.

[37] Dangerous, or perhaps simply backward, backhanded.

[38] On is frequently used for of.

[39] Hillock.

[40] Voice.

[41] Rusty

[8] This ballad is a good specimen of the Robin Hood Cycle, and is remarkable for its many proverbial and alliterative phrases. A few lines have been lost between stanzas 2 and 3. Gisborne is a "market-town in the West Riding of the County of York, on the borders of Lancashire." For the probable tune of the ballad, see Chappell's 'Popular Music of the Olden Time,' ii. 397.

[9] Woods, groves.--This touch of description at the outset is common in our old ballads, as well as in the mediæval German popular lyric, and may perhaps spring from the old "summer-lays" and chorus of pagan times.

[10] Beautiful; German, schön.

[11] Coppices or openings in a wood.

[12] In some glossaries the woodpecker, but here of course a song-bird,--perhaps, as Chappell suggests, the woodlark.

[13] A, on; lyne, lime or linden.

[14] Sturdy, brave.

[15] Robin now tells of a dream in which "they" (=the two "wight yeomen," who are Guy and, as Professor Child suggests, the Sheriff of Nottingham) maltreat him; and he thus foresees trouble "from two quarters."

[16] Revenged.

[17] Dreams.

[18] Tautological phrase,--"prepare and make ready."

[19] Murder, destruction.

[20] Horse's hide.

[21] Strange.

[22] Paths.

[23] Green valley between woods.

[24] Perhaps the yew-bow.

[25] Made ready.

[26] "Woe be to thee." Worth is the old subjunctive present of an exact English equivalent to the modern German werden.

[27] Note these alliterative phrases. Boote, remedy.

[28] As Percy noted, this "quoth the sheriffe," was probably added by some explainer. The reader, however, must remember the license of slurring or contracting the syllables of a word, as well as the opposite freedom of expansion. Thus in the second line of stanza 7, man's is to be pronounced man-ës.

[29] I have lost my way.

[30] At some unappointed time,--by chance.

[31] Stunted shrubs.

[32] Apart.

[33] "Prickes seem to have been the long-range targets, butts the near."--Furnivall.

[34] Garlande, perhaps "the ring within which the prick was set"; and the pricke-wande perhaps a pole or stick. The terms are not easy to understand clearly.

[35] Reckless, careless.

[36] Maiden.

[37] Dangerous, or perhaps simply backward, backhanded.

[38] On is frequently used for of.

[39] Hillock.

[40] Voice.

[41] Rusty

THE HUNTING OF THE CHEVIOT

[This is the older and better version of the famous ballad. The younger version was the subject of Addison's papers in the Spectator.]

1. The Percy out of Northumberlande,

and a vowe to God mayd he

That he would hunte in the mountayns

of Cheviot within days thre,

In the magger[42] of doughty Douglas,

and all that ever with him be.

2. The fattiste hartes in all Cheviot

he sayd he would kyll, and cary them away:

"Be my feth," sayd the doughty Douglas agayn,

"I will let[43] that hontyng if that I may."

3. Then the Percy out of Banborowe cam,

with him a myghtee meany[44],

With fifteen hondred archares bold of blood and bone;

they were chosen out of shyars thre.

4. This began on a Monday at morn,

in Cheviot the hillys so he;

The chyld may rue that ys unborn,

it was the more pittë.

5. The dryvars thorowe the woodës went,

for to reas the deer;

Bowmen byckarte uppone the bent[45]

with their browd arrows cleare.

6. Then the wyld thorowe the woodës went,

on every sydë shear;

Greahondës thorowe the grevis glent[46],

for to kyll their deer.

7. This begane in Cheviot the hyls abone,

yerly on a Monnyn-day;

Be that it drewe to the hour of noon,

a hondred fat hartës ded ther lay.

8. They blewe a mort[47] uppone the bent,

they semblyde on sydis shear;

To the quyrry then the Percy went,

to see the bryttlynge[48] of the deere.

9. He sayd, "It was the Douglas promys

this day to met me hear;

But I wyste he wolde faylle, verament;"

a great oth the Percy swear.

10. At the laste a squyar of Northumberlande

lokyde at his hand full ny;

He was war a the doughtie Douglas commynge,

with him a myghtë meany.

11. Both with spear, bylle, and brande,

yt was a myghtë sight to se;

Hardyar men, both of hart nor hande,

were not in Cristiantë.

12. They were twenty hondred spear-men good,

withoute any fail;

They were borne along be the water a Twyde,

yth bowndës of Tividale.

13. "Leave of the brytlyng of the deer," he said,

"and to your bows look ye tayk good hede;

For never sithe ye were on your mothers borne

had ye never so mickle nede."

14. The doughty Douglas on a stede,

he rode alle his men beforne;

His armor glytteyrde as dyd a glede[49];

a boldar barne was never born.

15. "Tell me whose men ye are," he says,

"or whose men that ye be:

Who gave youe leave to hunte in this Cheviot chays,

in the spyt of myn and of me."

16. The first man that ever him an answer mayd,

yt was the good lord Percy:

"We wyll not tell the whose men we are," he says,

"nor whose men that we be;

But we wyll hounte here in this chays,

in spyt of thyne and of the."

17. "The fattiste hartës in all Cheviot

we have kyld, and cast to carry them away:"

"Be my troth," sayd the doughty Douglas agayn,

"therefor the tone of us shall die this day."

18. Then sayd the doughtë Douglas

unto the lord Percy,

"To kyll alle thes giltles men,

alas, it wear great pittë!"

19. "But, Percy, thowe art a lord of lande,

I am a yerle callyd within my contrë;

Let all our men uppone a parti stande,

and do the battell of the and of me."

20. "Nowe Cristes curse on his crowne," sayd the lord Percy,

"whosoever thereto says nay;

Be my troth, doughty Douglas," he says,

"thow shalt never se that day."

21. "Nethar in Ynglonde, Skottlonde, nor France,

nor for no man of a woman born,

But, and fortune be my chance,

I dar met him, one man for one."

22. Then bespayke a squyar of Northumberlande,

Richard Wytharyngton was his name:

"It shall never be told in Sothe-Ynglonde," he says,

"To Kyng Kerry the Fourth for shame."

23. "I wat youe byn great lordës twa,

I am a poor squyar of lande:

I wylle never se my captayne fyght on a fylde,

and stande my selffe and looke on,

But whylle I may my weppone welde,

I wylle not fayle both hart and hande."

24. That day, that day, that dredfull day!

the first fit here I fynde[50];

And you wyll hear any more a the hountyng a the Cheviot

yet ys ther mor behynde.

25. The Yngglyshe men had their bowys ybent,

ther hartes were good yenoughe;

The first of arrows that they shote off,

seven skore spear-men they sloughe.

26. Yet bides the yerle Douglas upon the bent,

a captayne good yenoughe,

And that was sene verament,

for he wrought hem both wo and wouche.

27. The Douglas partyd his host in thre,

like a chief chieftain of pryde;

With sure spears of myghtty tre,

they cum in on every syde:

28. Throughe our Yngglyshe archery

gave many a wounde fulle wyde;

Many a doughty they garde to dy,

which ganyde them no pryde.

29. The Ynglyshe men let ther bowës be,

and pulde out brandes that were brighte;

It was a heavy syght to se

bryght swordes on basnites lyght.

30. Thorowe ryche male and myneyeple[51],

many sterne they strocke down straight;

Many a freyke[52] that was fulle fre,

there under foot dyd lyght.

31. At last the Douglas and the Percy met,

lyk to captayns of myght and of mayne;

The swapte together tylle they both swat,

with swordes that were of fine milan.

32. These worthy freckys for to fyght,

ther-to they were fulle fayne,

Tylle the bloode out off their basnetes sprente,

as ever dyd hail or rayn.

33. "Yield thee, Percy," sayd the Douglas,

"and i faith I shalle thee brynge

Where thowe shalte have a yerls wagis

of Jamy our Scottish kynge."

34. "Thou shalte have thy ransom fre,

I hight[53] the here this thinge;

For the manfullyste man yet art thow

that ever I conqueryd in fielde fighttynge."

35. "Nay," sayd the lord Percy,

"I tolde it thee beforne,

That I wolde never yeldyde be

to no man of a woman born."

36. With that ther came an arrow hastely,

forthe off a myghtty wane[54];

It hath strekene the yerle Douglas

in at the brest-bane.

37. Thorowe lyvar and lungës bothe

the sharpe arrowe ys gane,

That never after in all his lyfe-days

he spayke mo wordës but ane:

That was, "Fyghte ye, my myrry men, whyllys ye may,

for my lyfe-days ben gane."

38. The Percy leanyde on his brande,

and sawe the Douglas de;

He tooke the dead man by the hande,

and said, "Wo ys me for thee!"

39. "To have savyde thy lyfe, I would have partyde with

my landes for years three,

For a better man, of hart nor of hande,

was not in all the north contrë."

40. Of all that see a Scottish knyght,

was callyd Sir Hewe the Monggombyrry;

He saw the Douglas to the death was dyght,

he spendyd a spear, a trusti tree.

41. He rode upon a corsiare

throughe a hondred archery;

He never stynttyde nor never blane[55],

till he came to the good lord Percy.

42. He set upon the lorde Percy

a dynte that was full sore;

With a sure spear of a myghttë tree

clean thorow the body he the Percy ber[56],

43. A the tother syde that a man might see

a large cloth-yard and mare;

Two better captayns were not in Cristiantë

than that day slain were there.

44. An archer off Northumberlande

saw slain was the lord Percy;

He bore a bende bowe in his hand,

was made of trusti tree;

45. An arrow, that a cloth-yarde was long,

to the harde stele halyde he;

A dynt that was both sad and soar

he set on Sir Hewe the Monggombyrry.

46. The dynt yt was both sad and sore,

that he of Monggombyrry set;

The swane-fethars that his arrowe bar

with his hart-blood they were wet.

47. There was never a freak one foot wolde flee,

but still in stour[57] dyd stand,

Hewyng on eache other, whyle they myghte dree,

with many a balefull brande.

48. This battell begane in Cheviot

an hour before the none,

And when even-songe bell was rang,

the battell was not half done.

49. They took ... on either hande

by the lyght of the mone;

Many hade no strength for to stande,

in Cheviot the hillys abon.

50. Of fifteen hundred archers of Ynglonde

went away but seventy and three;

Of twenty hundred spear-men of Scotlonde,

but even five and fifty.

51. But all were slayne Cheviot within;

they had no strength to stand on by;

The chylde may rue that ys unborne,

it was the more pittë.

52. There was slayne, withe the lord Percy,

Sir John of Agerstone,

Sir Rogar, the hinde Hartly,

Sir Wyllyam, the bold Hearone.

53. Sir George, the worthy Loumle,

a knyghte of great renown,

Sir Raff, the ryche Rugbe,

with dyntes were beaten downe.

54. For Wetharryngton my harte was wo,

that ever he slayne shulde be;

For when both his leggis were hewyn in to,

yet he kneeled and fought on hys knee.

55. There was slayne, with the doughty Douglas,

Sir Hewe the Monggombyrry,

Sir Davy Lwdale, that worthy was,

his sister's son was he.

56. Sir Charles a Murrë in that place,

that never a foot wolde fie;

Sir Hewe Maxwelle, a lorde he was,

with the Douglas dyd he die.

57. So on the morrowe they mayde them biers

off birch and hasell so gray;

Many widows, with weepyng tears,

came to fetch ther makys[58] away.

58. Tivydale may carpe of care,

Northumberland may mayk great moan,

For two such captayns as slayne were there,

on the March-parti shall never be none.

59. Word ys commen to Eddenburrowe,

to Jamy the Scottische kynge,

That doughty Douglas, lyff-tenant of the Marches,

he lay slean Cheviot within.

60. His handdës dyd he weal and wryng,

he sayd, "Alas, and woe ys me!

Such an othar captayn Skotland within,"

he sayd, "i-faith should never be."

61. Worde ys commyn to lovely Londone,

till the fourth Harry our kynge.

That lord Percy, leyff-tenante of the Marchis

he lay slayne Cheviot within.

62. "God have merci on his soule," sayde Kyng Harry,

"good lord, yf thy will it be!

I have a hondred captayns in Ynglonde," he sayd,

"as good as ever was he:

But Percy, and I brook my lyfe,

thy deth well quyte shall be."

63. As our noble kynge mayd his avowe,

lyke a noble prince of renown,

For the deth of the lord Percy

he dyd the battle of Hombyll-down:

64. Where syx and thirty Skottishe knyghtes

on a day were beaten down:

Glendale glytteryde on their armor bryght,

over castille, towar, and town.

65. This was the hontynge of the Cheviot,

that tear[59] begane this spurn;

Old men that knowen the grownde well enoughe

call it the battell of Otterburn.

66. At Otterburn begane this spume

upon a Monnynday;

There was the doughty Douglas slean,

the Percy never went away.

67. There was never a tyme on the Marche-partës

sen the Douglas and the Percy met,

But yt ys mervele and the rede blude ronne not,

as the rain does in the stret.

68. Jesus Christ our bales[60] bete,

and to the bliss us bring!

Thus was the hunting of the Cheviot;

God send us alle good ending!

[42] blaugre,' in spite of.

[43] Hinder.

[44] Company.

[45] Skirmished on the field.

[46] Ran through the groves.

[47] Blast blown when game is killed.

[48] Quartering, cutting.

[49] Flame.

[50] Perhaps "finish."

[51] "A gauntlet covering hand and forearm."

[53] Promise.

[54] Meaning uncertain.

[55] Stopped.

[56] Pierced.

[57] Stress of battle.

[58] Mates.

[59] That there (?).

[60] Evils.

[42] blaugre,' in spite of.

[43] Hinder.

[44] Company.

[45] Skirmished on the field.

[46] Ran through the groves.

[47] Blast blown when game is killed.

[48] Quartering, cutting.

[49] Flame.

[50] Perhaps "finish."

[51] "A gauntlet covering hand and forearm."

[53] Promise.

[54] Meaning uncertain.

[55] Stopped.

[56] Pierced.

[57] Stress of battle.

[58] Mates.

[59] That there (?).

[60] Evils.

JOHNIE COCK

1. Up Johnie raise[61] in a May morning,

Calld for water to wash his hands,

And he has called for his gude gray hounds

That lay bound in iron bands, bands,

That lay bound in iron bands.

2. "Ye'll busk[62], ye'll busk my noble dogs,

Ye'll busk and make them boun[63],

For I'm going to the Braidscaur hill

To ding the dun deer doun."

3. Johnie's mother has gotten word o' that,

And care-bed she has ta'en[64]:

"O Johnie, for my benison,

I beg you'l stay at hame;

For the wine so red, and the well-baken bread,

My Johnie shall want nane."

4. "There are seven forsters at Pickeram Side,

At Pickeram where they dwell,

And for a drop of thy heart's bluid

They wad ride the fords of hell."

5. But Johnie has cast off the black velvet,

And put on the Lincoln twine,

And he is on the goode greenwood

As fast as he could gang.

6. Johnie lookit east, and Johnie lookit west,

And he lookit aneath the sun,

And there he spied the dun deer sleeping

Aneath a buss o' whun[65].

7. Johnie shot, and the dun deer lap[66],

And she lap wondrous wide,

Until they came to the wan water,

And he stem'd her of her pride.

8. He has ta'en out the little pen-knife,

'Twas full three quarters[67] long,

And he has ta'en out of that dun deer

The liver but and[68] the tongue.

9. They eat of the flesh, and they drank of the blood,

And the blood it was so sweet,

Which caused Johnie and his bloody hounds

To fall in a deep sleep.

10. By then came an old palmer,

And an ill death may he die!

For he's away to Pickeram Side

As fast as he can drie[69].

11. "What news, what news?" says the Seven Forsters,

"What news have ye brought to me?"

"I have no news," the palmer said,

"But what I saw with my eye."

12. "As I came in by Braidisbanks,

And down among the whuns,

The bonniest youngster e'er I saw

Lay sleepin amang his hunds."

13. "The shirt that was upon his back

Was o' the holland fine;

The doublet which was over that

Was o' the Lincoln twine."

14. Up bespake the Seven Forsters,

Up bespake they ane and a':

"O that is Johnie o' Cockleys Well,

And near him we will draw."

15. O the first stroke that they gae him,

They struck him off by the knee,

Then up bespake his sister's son:

"O the next'll gar[70] him die!"

16. "O some they count ye well wight men,

But I do count ye nane;

For you might well ha' waken'd me,

And ask'd gin I wad be ta'en."

17. "The wildest wolf as in a' this wood

Wad not ha' done so by me;

She'd ha' wet her foot i' the wan water,

And sprinkled it o'er my brae,

And if that wad not ha' waken'd me,

She wad ha' gone and let me be."

18. "O bows of yew, if ye be true,

In London, where ye were bought,

Fingers five, get up belive[71],

Manhuid shall fail me nought."

19. He has kill'd the Seven Forsters,

He has kill'd them all but ane,

And that wan scarce to Pickeram Side,

To carry the bode-words hame.

20. "Is there never a [bird] in a' this wood

That will tell what I can say;

That will go to Cockleys Well,

Tell my mither to fetch me away?"

21. There was a [bird] into that wood,

That carried the tidings away,

And many ae[72] was the well-wight man

At the fetching o' Johnie away.

[61] Rose.

[62] Prepare.

[63] Ready.

[64] Has fallen ill with anxiety.

[65] Bush of whin, furze.

[66] Leaped.

[67] Quarter--the fourth part of a yard.

[68] "But and"--as well as.

[69] Bear, endure.

[70] Make, cause.

[71] Quickly.

[72] One.

[61] Rose.

[62] Prepare.

[63] Ready.

[64] Has fallen ill with anxiety.

[65] Bush of whin, furze.

[66] Leaped.

[67] Quarter--the fourth part of a yard.

[68] "But and"--as well as.

[69] Bear, endure.

[70] Make, cause.

[71] Quickly.

[72] One.

SIR PATRICK SPENS

1. The king sits in Dumferling toune,

Drinking the blude-reid wine:

"O whar will I get guid sailor,

To sail this ship of mine?"

2. Up and spak an eldern knight,

Sat at the kings right kne:

"Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor,

That sails upon the sea."

3. The king has written a braid letter[73],

And sign'd it wi' his hand,

And sent it to Sir Patrick Spens,

Was walking on the sand.

4. The first line that Sir Patrick read,

A loud laugh laughed he;

The next line that Sir Patrick read,

The tear blinded his ee.

5. "O wha is this has done this deed,

This ill deed done to me,

To send me out this time o' the year,

To sail upon the sea!"

6. "Make haste, make haste, my mirry men all,

Our guide ship sails the morne:"

"O say na sae, my master dear,

For I fear a deadlie storme."

7. "Late, late yestreen I saw the new moone[74],

Wi' the auld moone in hir arme,

And I fear, I fear, my dear master,

That we will come to harme"

8. O our Scots nobles were right laith

To weet their cork-heeled shoone;

But lang owre a' the play wer play'd,

Their hats they swam aboone.

9. O lang, lang may their ladies sit,

Wi' their fans into their hand,

Or e'er they see Sir Patrick Spens

Cum sailing to the land.

10. O lang, lang may the ladies stand,

Wi' their gold kerns[75] in their hair,

Waiting for their ain dear lords,

For they'll se thame na mair.

11. Half owre, half owre to Aberdour,

It's "fiftie fadom deep,

And their lies guid Sir Patrick Spens,

Wi' the Scots lords at his feet."

[73] "A braid letter, open or patent, in opposition to close rolls."--Percy.

[74] Note that it is the sight of the new moon late in the evening which makes a bad omen.

[75] Combs.

[73] "A braid letter, open or patent, in opposition to close rolls."--Percy.

[74] Note that it is the sight of the new moon late in the evening which makes a bad omen.

[75] Combs.

THE BONNY EARL OF MURRAY[76]

1. Ye highlands, and ye Lowlands,

Oh where have you been?

They have slain the Earl of Murray,

And they layd him on the green.

2. "Now wae be to thee, Huntly!

And wherefore did you sae?

I bade you bring him wi' you,

But forbade you him to slay."

3. He was a braw gallant,

And he rid at the ring[77];

And the bonny Earl of Murray,

Oh he might have been a king!

4. He was a braw gallant,

And he play'd at the ba';

And the bonny Earl of Murray

Was the flower amang them a'.

5. He was a braw gallant,

And he play'd at the glove[78];

And the bonny Earl of Murray,

Oh he was the Queen's love!

6. Oh lang will his lady

Look o'er the Castle Down,

E'er she see the Earl of Murray

Come sounding thro the town!

[76] James Stewart, Earl of Murray, was killed by the Earl of Huntly's followers, February, 1592. The second stanza is spoken, of course, by the King.

[77] Piercing with the lance a suspended ring, as one rode at full speed, was a favorite sport of the day.

[78] Probably this reference is to the glove worn by knights as a lady's favor.

[76] James Stewart, Earl of Murray, was killed by the Earl of Huntly's followers, February, 1592. The second stanza is spoken, of course, by the King.

[77] Piercing with the lance a suspended ring, as one rode at full speed, was a favorite sport of the day.

[78] Probably this reference is to the glove worn by knights as a lady's favor.

MARY HAMILTON

1. Word's gane to the kitchen,

And word's gane to the ha',

That Marie Hamilton has born a bairn

To the highest Stewart of a'.

2. She's tyed it in her apron

And she's thrown it in the sea;

Says, "Sink ye, swim ye, bonny wee babe,

You'll ne'er get mair o' me."

3. Down then cam the auld Queen,

Goud[79] tassels tying her hair:

"O Marie, where's the bonny wee babe

That I heard greet[80] sae sair?"

4. "There was never a babe intill my room,

As little designs to be;

It was but a touch o' my sair side,

Came o'er my fair bodie."

5. "O Marie, put on your robes o' black,

Or else your robes o' brown,

For ye maun gang wi' me the night,

To see fair Edinbro town."

6. "I winna put on my robes o' black,

Nor yet my robes o' brown;

But I'll put on my robes o' white,

To shine through Edinbro town."

7. When she gaed up the Cannogate,

She laugh'd loud laughters three;

But when she cam down the Cannogate

The tear blinded her ee.

8. When she gaed up the Parliament stair,

The heel cam aff her shee[81];

And lang or she cam down again

She was condemn'd to dee.

9. When she cam down the Cannogate,

The Cannogate sae free,

Many a ladie look'd o'er her window,

Weeping for this ladie.

10. "Make never meen[82] for me," she says,

"Make never meen for me;

Seek never grace frae a graceless face,

For that ye'll never see."

11. "Bring me a bottle of wine," she says,

"The best that e'er ye hae,

That I may drink to my weil-wishers,

And they may drink to me."

12. "And here's to the jolly sailor lad

That sails upon the faem;

But let not my father nor mother get wit

But that I shall come again."

13. "And here's to the jolly sailor lad

That sails upon the sea;

But let not my father nor mother get wit

O' the death that I maun dee."

14. "Oh little did my mother think,

The day she cradled me,

What lands I was to travel through,

What death I was to dee."

15. "Oh little did my father think,

The day he held up[83] me,

What lands I was to travel through,

What death I was to dee."

16. "Last night I wash'd the Queen's feet,

And gently laid her down;

And a' the thanks I've gotten the nicht

To be hangd in Edinbro town!"

17. "Last nicht there was four Maries,

The nicht there'll be but three;

There was Marie Seton, and Marie Beton,

And Marie Carmichael, and me."

[79] Gold.

[80] Weep.

[81] Shoe.

[82] Moan.

[83] Held up, lifted up, recognized as his lawful child,--a world-wide and ancient ceremony.

[79] Gold.

[80] Weep.

[81] Shoe.

[82] Moan.

[83] Held up, lifted up, recognized as his lawful child,--a world-wide and ancient ceremony.

BONNIE GEORGE CAMPBELL

1. High upon Highlands,

and low upon Tay,

Bonnie George Campbell

rade out on a day.

2. Saddled and bridled

and gallant rade he;

Hame cam his guid horse,

but never cam he.

3. Out cam his auld mither

greeting fu' sair,

And out cam his bonnie bride

riving her hair.

4. Saddled and bridled

and booted rade he;

Toom[84] hame cam the saddle,

but never came he.

5. "My meadow lies green,

and my corn is unshorn,

My barn is to build,

and my babe is unborn."

6. Saddled and bridled

and booted rade he;

Toom hame cam the saddle,

but never cam he.

[84] Empty.

[84] Empty.

BESSIE BELL AND MARY GRAY[85]

1. O Bessie Bell and Mary Gray,

They war twa bonnie lasses!

They biggit[86] a bower on yon burn-brae[87],

And theekit[88] it oer wi rashes.

2. They theekit it oer wi' rashes green,

They theekit it oer wi' heather:

But the pest cam frae the burrows-town,

And slew them baith thegither.

3. They thought to lie in Methven kirk-yard

Amang their noble kin;

But they maun lye in Stronach haugh,

To biek forenent the sin[89].

4. And Bessie Bell and Mary Gray,

They war twa bonnie lasses;

They biggit a bower on yon burn-brae,

And theekit it oer wi' rashes.

THE THREE RAVENS[90]

1. There were three ravens sat on a tree,

Downe a downe, hay down, hay downe[91],

There were three ravens sat on a tree, With a downe.

There were three ravens sat on a tree,

They were as blacke as they might be.

With a downe derrie, derrie, derrie, downe, downe.

2. The one of them said to his mate,

"Where shall we our breakfast take?"

3. "Downe in yonder greene field

There lies a knight slain under his shield."

4. His hounds they lie down at his feete,

So well they can their master keepe[92].

5. His haukes they flie so eagerly,

There's no fowle dare him come nie.

6. Downe there comes a fallow doe,

As great with young as she might goe.

7. She lift up his bloudy head,

And kist his wounds that were so red.

8. She got him up upon her backe,

And carried him to earthen lake[93].

9. She buried him before the prime,

She was dead herselfe ere even-song time.

10. God send every gentleman

Such haukes, such hounds, and such a leman[94].

[85] Founded on an actual event of the plague, near Perth, in 1645. See the interesting account in Professor Child's 'Ballads,' Part VII, p. 75f.

[86] Built.

[87] A hill sloping down to a brook.

[88] Thatched.

[90] The counterpart, or perhaps parody, of this ballad, called 'The Twa Corbies,' is better known than the exquisite original.

[91] The refrain, or burden, differs in another version of the ballad.

[92] Guard.

[93] Shroud of earth, burial.

[94] Sweetheart, darling, literally 'dear-one' (liefman). The word had originally no offensive meaning.

[85] Founded on an actual event of the plague, near Perth, in 1645. See the interesting account in Professor Child's 'Ballads,' Part VII, p. 75f.

[86] Built.

[87] A hill sloping down to a brook.

[88] Thatched.

[90] The counterpart, or perhaps parody, of this ballad, called 'The Twa Corbies,' is better known than the exquisite original.

[91] The refrain, or burden, differs in another version of the ballad.

[92] Guard.

[93] Shroud of earth, burial.

[94] Sweetheart, darling, literally 'dear-one' (liefman). The word had originally no offensive meaning.

LORD RANDAL

1. Where hae ye been, Lord Randal, my son?

O where hae ye been, my handsome young man?

"I hae been to the wild wood; mother, make my bed soon,

For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain wald lie down."

2. "Where gat ye your dinner, Lord Randal, my son?

Where gat ye your dinner, my handsome young man?"

"I din'd wi' my true-love; mother, make my bed soon,

For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain wald lie down."

3. "What gat ye to your dinner, Lord Randal, my son?

What gat ye to your dinner, my handsome young man?"

I gat eels boiled in broo[95]; mother, make my bed soon,

For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain wald lie down."

4. "What became o' your bloodhounds, Lord Randal, my son?

What became' o' your bloodhounds, my handsome young man?"

"O they swell'd and they died; mother, make my bed soon,

For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain wald lie down."

5. "O I fear you are poison'd, Lord Randal, my son!

O I fear you are poison'd, my handsome young man!"

"O yes! I'm poison'd; mother, make my bed soon,

For I'm sick at the heart, and I fain wald lie down[96]."

[95] Broth.

[96] Frogs, toads, snakes, and the like were often served for fish, and of course were supposed to act as a poison. One variant has a verse to elaborate this:--
"Where gat she those eels, Lord Randal, my son?
Where gat she those eels, my handsome young man?"
"'Neath the bush o' brown bracken; mother, make my bed soon,
For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain wald lie down."

[95] Broth.

[96] Frogs, toads, snakes, and the like were often served for fish, and of course were supposed to act as a poison. One variant has a verse to elaborate this:--
"Where gat she those eels, Lord Randal, my son?
Where gat she those eels, my handsome young man?"
"'Neath the bush o' brown bracken; mother, make my bed soon,
For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain wald lie down."

EDWARD[97]

1. "Why dois your brand sae drap wi bluid,

Edward, Edward,

Why dois your brand sae drap wi bluid,

And why sae sad gang yee O?"

"O I hae killed my hauke sae guid,

Mither, mither,

O I hae killed my hauke sae guid,

And I had nae mair hot hee O."

2. "Your haukis bluid was nevir sae reid,

Edward, Edward,

Your haukis bluid was nevir sae reid,

My deir son I tell thee O."

"O I hae killed my reid-roan steid,

Mither, mither,

O I hae killed my reid-roan steid,

That erst was sae fair and frie O."

3. "Your steid was auld, and ye hae gat mair,

Edward, Edward,

Your steid was auld, and ye hae gat mair,

Sum other dule ye drie O[98]."

"O I hae killed my fadir deir,

Mither, mither,

O I hae killed my fadir deir,

Alas, and wae is mee O!"

4. "And whatten penance wul ye drie, for that,

Edward, Edward,

And whatten penance wul ye drie, for that?

My deir son, now tell me O."

"I'll set my feit in yonder boat,

Mither, mither,

I'll set my feit in yonder boat,

And I'll fare over the sea O."

5. "And what wul ye doe wi' your towers and your ha',

Edward, Edward,

And what wul ye doe wi' your towers and your ha',

That were sae fair to see O?"

"I'll let them stand till they doun fa',

Mither, mither,

I'll let them stand till they doun fa',

For here nevir mair maun I bee O."

6. "And what wul ye leive to your bairns and your wife,

Edward, Edward,

And what wul ye leive to your bairns and your wife,

When ye gang over the sea O?"

"The warldis room; let them beg thrae life,

Mither, mither,

The warldis room; let them beg thrae life,

For them never mair wul I see O."

7. "And what wul ye leive to your ain mither dear,

Edward, Edward,

And what will ye leive to your ain mither dear?

My dear son, now tell me O."

"The curse of hell frae me sall ye beir,

Mither, mither,

The curse of hell frae me sall ye beir,

Sic counsels ye gave to me O."

[97] One of the finest of our ballads. It was sent from Scotland to Percy by David Dalrymple.

[98] You suffer some other sorrow.

[97] One of the finest of our ballads. It was sent from Scotland to Percy by David Dalrymple.

[98] You suffer some other sorrow.

THE TWA BROTHERS

1. There were twa brethren in the north,

They went to the school thegither;

The one unto the other said,

"Will you try a warsle[99] afore?"

2. They warsled up, they warsled down,

Till Sir John fell to the ground,

And there was a knife in Sir Willie's pouch,

Gied him a deadlie wound.

3. "Oh brither dear, take me on your back,

Carry me to yon burn clear,

And wash the blood from off my wound,

And it will bleed nae mair."

4. He took him up upon his back,

Carried him to yon burn clear,

And washed the blood from off his wound,

But aye it bled the mair.

5. "Oh brither dear, take me on your back,

Carry me to yon kirk-yard,

And dig a grave baith wide and deep.

And lay my body there."

6. He's taen him up upon his back,

Carried him to yon kirk-yard,

And dug a grave baith deep and wide,

And laid his body there.

7. "But what will I say to my father dear,

Gin he chance to say, Willie, whar's John?"

"Oh say that he's to England gone,

To buy him a cask of wine."

8. "And what will I say to my mother dear,

Gin she chance to say, Willie, whar's John?"

"Oh say that he's to England gone,

To buy her a new silk gown."

9. "And what will I say to my sister dear,

Gin she chance to say, Willie, whar's John?"

"Oh say that he's to England gone,

To buy her a wedding ring."

10. "But what will I say to her you loe[100] dear,

Gin she cry, Why tarries my John?"

"Oh tell her I lie in Kirk-land fair,

And home again will never come."

[99] Wrestle.

[100] Love.

[99] Wrestle.

[100] Love.

BABYLON; OR THE BONNIE BANKS O' FORDIE

1. There were three ladies lived in a bower,

Eh vow bonnie,

And they went out to pull a flower

On the bonnie banks o' Fordie.

2. They hadna pu'ed a flower but ane,

When up started to them a banisht man.

3. He's ta'en the first sister by her hand,

And he's turned her round and made her stand.

4. "It's whether will ye be a rank robber's wife,

Or will ye die by my wee pen-knife?"

5. "It's I'll not be a rank robber's wife,

But I'll rather die by your wee pen-knife!"

6. He's killed this may, and he's laid her by,

For to bear the red rose company.

7. He's taken the second ane by the hand,

And he's turned her round and made her stand.

8. "It's whether will ye be a rank robber's wife,

Or will ye die by my wee pen-knife?"

9. "I'll not be a rank robber's wife,

But I'll rather die by your wee pen-knife."

10. He's killed this may, and he's laid her by,

For to bear the red rose company.

11. He's taken the youngest ane by the hand,

And he's turned her round and made her stand.

12. Says, "Will ye be a rank robber's wife,

Or will ye die by my wee pen-knife?"

13. "I'll not be a rank robber's wife,

Nor will I die by your wee pen-knife."

14. "For I hae a brother in this wood,

And gin ye kill me, it's he'll kill thee."

15. "What's thy brother's name? Come tell to me."

"My brother's name is Baby Lon."

16. "O sister, sister, what have I done!

O have I done this ill to thee!"

17. "O since I've done this evil deed,

Good sall never be seen o' me."

18. He's taken out his wee pen-knife,

And he's twyned[101] himsel o' his own sweet life.

[101] Parted, deprived.

[101] Parted, deprived.

CHILDE MAURICE[102]

1. Childe Maurice hunted i' the silver wood,

He hunted it round about,

And noebodye that he found therein,

Nor none there was without.

2. He says, "Come hither, thou little foot-page,

That runneth lowlye by my knee,

For thou shalt goe to John Steward's wife

And pray her speake with me."

3. " . . . .

. . . .

I, and greete thou doe that ladye well,

Ever soe well fro me."

4. "And, as it falls, as many times

As knots beene knit on a kell[103],

Or marchant men gone to leeve London

Either to buy ware or sell."

5. "And, as it falles, as many times

As any hart can thinke,

Or schoole-masters are in any schoole-house

Writing with pen and inke:

For if I might, as well as she may,

This night I would with her speake."

6. "And heere I send her a mantle of greene,

As greene as any grasse,

And bid her come to the silver wood,

To hunt with Child Maurice."

7. "And there I send her a ring of gold,

A ring of precious stone,

And bid her come to the silver wood,

Let[104] for no kind of man."

8. One while this little boy he yode[105],

Another while he ran,

Until he came to John Steward's hall,

I-wis[106] he never blan[107].

9. And of nurture the child had good,

He ran up hall and bower free,

And when he came to this ladye faire,

Sayes, "God you save and see[108]!"

10. "I am come from Child Maurice,

A message unto thee;

And Child Maurice, he greetes you well,

And ever soe well from me."

11. "And as it falls, as oftentimes

As knots beene knit on a kell,

Or marchant men gone to leeve London

Either for to buy ware or sell."

12. "And as oftentimes he greetes you well

As any hart can thinke,

Or schoolemasters are in any schoole,

Wryting with pen and inke."

13. "And heere he sends a mantle of greene[109],

As greene as any grasse,

And he bids you come to the silver wood,

To hunt with Child Maurice."

14. "And heere he sends you a ring of gold,

A ring of the precious stone;

He prayes you to come to the silver wood,

Let for no kind of man."

15. "Now peace, now peace, thou little foot-page,

For Christes sake, I pray thee!

For if my lord heare one of these words,

Thou must be hanged hye!"

16. John Steward stood under the castle wall,

And he wrote the words everye one,

. . . .

. . . .

17. And he called upon his hors-keeper,

"Make ready you my steede!"

I, and soe he did to his chamberlaine,

"Make ready thou my weede[110]!"

18. And he cast a lease[111] upon his backe,

And he rode to the silver wood,

And there he sought all about,

About the silver wood.

19. And there he found him Child Maurice

Sitting upon a blocke,

With a silver combe in his hand,

Kembing his yellow lockes.

---

20. But then stood up him Child Maurice,

And sayd these words trulye:

"I doe not know your ladye," he said,

"If that I doe her see."

21. He sayes, "How now, how now, Child Maurice?

Alacke, how may this be?

For thou hast sent her love-tokens,

More now then two or three;"

22. "For thou hast sent her a mantle of greene,

As greene as any grasse,

And bade her come to the silver woode

To hunt with Child Maurice."

23. "And thou hast sent her a ring of gold,

A ring of precyous stone,

And bade her come to the silver wood,

Let for no kind of man."

24. "And by my faith, now, Child Maurice,

The tone[112] of us shall dye!"

"Now be my troth," sayd Child Maurice,

"And that shall not be I."

25. But he pulled forth a bright browne[113] sword,

And dryed it on the grasse,

And soe fast he smote at John Steward,

I-wisse he never did rest.

26. Then he[114] pulled forth his bright browne sword,

And dryed it on his sleeve,

And the first good stroke John Stewart stroke,

Child Maurice head he did cleeve.

27. And he pricked it on his sword's poynt,

Went singing there beside,

And he rode till he came to that ladye faire,

Whereas this ladye lyed[115].

28. And sayes, "Dost thou know Child Maurice head,

If that thou dost it see?

And lap it soft, and kisse it oft,

For thou lovedst him better than me."

29. But when she looked on Child Maurice head,

She never spake words but three:--

"I never beare no childe but one,

And you have slaine him trulye."

30. Sayes[116], "Wicked be my merrymen all,

I gave meate, drinke, and clothe!

But could they not have holden me

When I was in all that wrath!"

31. "For I have slaine one of the curteousest knights

That ever bestrode a steed,

So[117] have I done one of the fairest ladyes

That ever ware woman's weede!"

[102] It is worth while to quote Gray's praise of this ballad:--"I have got the old Scotch ballad on which 'Douglas' [the well-known tragedy by Home] was founded. It is divine.... Aristotle's best rules are observed in a manner which shows the author never had heard of Aristotle."--Letter to Mason, in 'Works,' ed. Gosse, ii. 316.

[103] That is, the page is to greet the lady as many times as there are knots in nets for the hair (kell), or merchants going to dear (leeve, lief) London, or thoughts of the heart, or schoolmasters in all schoolhouses. These multiplied and comparative greetings are common in folk-lore, particularly in German popular lyric.

[104] Let (desist) is an infinitive depending on bid.

[105] Went, walked.

[106] Certainly.

[107] Stopped.

[108] Protect.

[109] These, of course, are tokens of the Childe's identity.

[110] Clothes.

[111] Leash.

[112] That one = the one. That is the old neuter form of the definite article. Cf. the tother for that other.

[113] Brown, used in this way, seems to mean burnished, or glistening, and is found in Anglo-Saxon.

[114] He, John Steward.

[115] Lived.

[116] John Steward.

[117] Compare the similar swiftness of tragic development in 'Babylon.'

[102] It is worth while to quote Gray's praise of this ballad:--"I have got the old Scotch ballad on which 'Douglas' [the well-known tragedy by Home] was founded. It is divine.... Aristotle's best rules are observed in a manner which shows the author never had heard of Aristotle."--Letter to Mason, in 'Works,' ed. Gosse, ii. 316.

[103] That is, the page is to greet the lady as many times as there are knots in nets for the hair (kell), or merchants going to dear (leeve, lief) London, or thoughts of the heart, or schoolmasters in all schoolhouses. These multiplied and comparative greetings are common in folk-lore, particularly in German popular lyric.

[104] Let (desist) is an infinitive depending on bid.

[105] Went, walked.

[106] Certainly.

[107] Stopped.

[108] Protect.

[109] These, of course, are tokens of the Childe's identity.

[110] Clothes.

[111] Leash.

[112] That one = the one. That is the old neuter form of the definite article. Cf. the tother for that other.

[113] Brown, used in this way, seems to mean burnished, or glistening, and is found in Anglo-Saxon.

[114] He, John Steward.

[115] Lived.

[116] John Steward.

[117] Compare the similar swiftness of tragic development in 'Babylon.'

THE WIFE OF USHER'S WELL

1. 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.

2. They hadna been a week from her,

A week but barely ane,

When word came to the carlin[118] wife

That her three sons were gane.

3. They hadna been a week from her,

A week but barely three,

When word came to the carlin wife

That her sons she'd never see.

4. "I wish the wind may never cease,

Nor fashes[119] in the flood,

Till my three sons come hame to me,

In earthly flesh and blood."

5. It fell about the Martinmass[120],

When nights are lang and mirk,

The carlin wife's three sons came hame,

And their hats were o' the birk[121].

6. It neither grew in syke[122] nor ditch,

Nor yet in ony sheugh[123],

But at the gates o' Paradise,

That birk grew fair eneugh.

---

7. "Blow up the fire, my maidens!

Bring water from the well!

For a' my house shall feast this night,

Since my three sons are well."

8. And she has made to them a bed,

She's made it large and wide,

And she's ta'en her mantle her about,

Sat down at the bed-side.

---

9. Up then crew the red, red cock[124],

And up and crew the gray;

The eldest to the youngest said,

"'Tis time we were away."

10. The cock he hadna craw'd but once,

And clapp'd his wing at a',

When the youngest to the eldest said,

"Brother, we must awa'."

11. "The cock doth craw, the day doth daw.

The channerin[125] worm doth chide;

Gin we be mist out o' our place,

A sair pain we maun bide."

12. "Fare ye weel, my mother dear!

Fareweel to barn and byre!

And fare ye weel, the bonny lass

That kindles my mother's fire!"

[118] Old woman.

[119] Lockhart's clever emendation for the fishes of the Ms. Fashes = disturbances, storms.

[120] November 11th. Another version gives the time as "the hallow days of Yule."

[121] Birch.

[122] Marsh.

[123] Furrow, ditch.

[124] In folk-lore, the break of day is announced to demons and ghosts by three cocks,--usually a white, a red, and a black; but the colors, and even the numbers, vary. At the third crow, the ghosts must vanish. This applies to guilty and innocent alike; of course, the sons are "spirits of health."

[125] Fretting.

[118] Old woman.

[119] Lockhart's clever emendation for the fishes of the Ms. Fashes = disturbances, storms.

[120] November 11th. Another version gives the time as "the hallow days of Yule."

[121] Birch.

[122] Marsh.

[123] Furrow, ditch.

[124] In folk-lore, the break of day is announced to demons and ghosts by three cocks,--usually a white, a red, and a black; but the colors, and even the numbers, vary. At the third crow, the ghosts must vanish. This applies to guilty and innocent alike; of course, the sons are "spirits of health."

[125] Fretting.

SWEET WILLIAM'S GHOST

1. Whan bells war rung, an mass was sung,

A wat[126] a' man to bed were gone,

Clark Sanders came to Margret's window,

With mony a sad sigh and groan.

2. "Are ye sleeping, Margret," he says,

"Or are ye waking, presentlie?

Give me my faith and trouth again,

A wat, true-love, I gied to thee."

3. "Your faith and trouth ye's never get,

Nor our true love shall never twin[127],

Till ye come with me in my bower,

And kiss me both cheek and chin."

4. "My mouth it is full cold, Margret,

It has the smell now of the ground;

And if I kiss thy comely mouth,

Thy life-days will not be long."

5. "Cocks are crowing a merry mid-larf[128],

I wat the wild fule boded day;

Give me my faith and trouth again,

And let me fare me on my way."

6. "Thy faith and trouth thou shall na get,

Nor our true love shall never twin,

Till ye tell me what comes of women

A wat that dy's in strong traveling[129]."

7. "Their beds are made in the heavens high,

Down at the foot of our good Lord's knee,

Well set about wi' gilly-flowers,

A wat sweet company for to see."

8. "O cocks are crowing a merry mid-larf,

A wat the wild fule boded day;

The salms of Heaven will be sung,

And ere now I'll be missed away."

9. Up she has taen a bright long wand,

And she has straked her trouth thereon[130];

She has given it him out at the shot-window,

Wi mony a sad sigh and heavy groan.

10. "I thank you, Margret, I thank you, Margret,

And I thank you heartilie;

Gin ever the dead come for the quick,

Be sure, Margret, I'll come again for thee."

11. It's hose and shoon an gound[131] alane

She clame the wall and followed him,

Until she came to a green forest,

On this she lost the sight of him.

12. "Is there any room at your head, Sanders?

Is there any room at your feet?

Or any room at your twa sides?

Where fain, fain woud I sleep."

13. "There is nae room at my head, Margret,

There is nae room at my feet;

There is room at my twa sides,

For ladys for to sleep."

14. "Cold meal[132] is my covering owre,

But an[133] my winding sheet:

My bed it is full low, I say,

Among hungry worms I sleep."

15. "Cold meal is my covering owre,

But an my winding sheet:

The dew it falls nae sooner down

Than ay it is full weet."

[126] "I wot," "I know," = truly, in sooth. The same in 5-2, 6-4, 7-4, 8-2.

[127] Part, separate. She does not yet know he is dead.

[128] Probably the distorted name of a town; a = in. "Cocks are crowing in merry--, and the wild-fowl announce the dawn."

[129] That die in childbirth.

[130] Margaret thus gives him back his troth-plight by "stroking" it upon the wand, much as savages and peasants believe they can rid themselves of a disease by rubbing the affected part with a stick or pebble and flinging the latter into the road.

[131] Gown.

[132] Mold, earth.

[133] But and==also.

[126] "I wot," "I know," = truly, in sooth. The same in 5-2, 6-4, 7-4, 8-2.

[127] Part, separate. She does not yet know he is dead.

[128] Probably the distorted name of a town; a = in. "Cocks are crowing in merry--, and the wild-fowl announce the dawn."

[129] That die in childbirth.

[130] Margaret thus gives him back his troth-plight by "stroking" it upon the wand, much as savages and peasants believe they can rid themselves of a disease by rubbing the affected part with a stick or pebble and flinging the latter into the road.

[131] Gown.

[132] Mold, earth.

[133] But and==also.

---

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

(1799-1850)

BY WILLIAM P. TRENT

onoré de Balzac, by common consent the greatest of French novelists and to many of his admirers the greatest of all writers of prose fiction, was born at Tours, May 16th, 1799. Neither his family nor his place of birth counts for much in his artistic development; but his sister Laure, afterwards Madame Surville,--to whom we owe a charming sketch of her brother and many of his most delightful letters,--made him her hero through life, and gave him a sympathy that was better than any merely literary environment. He was a sensitive child, little comprehended by his parents or teachers, which probably accounts for the fact that few writers have so well described the feelings of children so situated [See 'Le lys dans la vallée' (The Lily in the Valley) and 'Louis Lambert']. He was not a good student, but undermined his health by desultory though enormous reading and by writing a precocious Treatise on the Will, which an irate master burned and the future novelist afterwards naïvely deplored. When brought home to recuperate, he turned from books to nature, and the effects of the beautiful landscape of Touraine upon his imagination are to be found throughout his writings, in passages of description worthy of a nature-worshiper like Senancour himself. About this time a vague desire for fame seems to have seized him,--a desire destined to grow into an almost morbid passion; and it was a kindly Providence that soon after (1814) led his family to quit the stagnant provinces for that nursery of ambition, Paris. Here he studied under new masters, heard lectures at the Sorbonne, read in the libraries, and finally, at the desire of his practical father, took a three years' course in law.

He was now at the parting of the ways, and he chose the one nearest his heart. After much discussion, it was settled that he should not be obliged to return to the provinces with his family, or to enter upon the regular practice of law, but that he might try his luck as a writer on an allowance purposely fixed low enough to test his constancy and endurance. Two years was the period of probation allotted, during which time Balzac read still more widely and walked the streets studying the characters he met, all the while endeavoring to grind out verses for a tragedy on Cromwell. This, when completed, was promptly and justly damned by his family, and he was temporarily forced to retire from Paris. He did not give up his aspirations, however, and before long he was back in his attic, this time supporting himself by his pen. Novels, not tragedies, were what the public most wanted, so he labored indefatigably to supply their needs and his own necessities; not relinquishing, however, the hope that he might some day watch the performance of one of his own plays. His perseverance was destined to be rewarded, for he lived to write five dramas which fill a volume of his collected works; but only one, the posthumous comedy 'Mercadet', was even fairly successful. Yet that Balzac had dramatic genius his matured novels abundantly prove.

The ten romances, however, that he wrote for cheap booksellers between 1822 and 1829 displayed so little genius of any sort that he was afterwards unwilling to cover their deficiencies with his great name. They have been collected as youthful works ('Oeuvres de jeunesse'), and are useful to a complete understanding of the evolution of their author's genius; but they are rarely read even by his most devoted admirers. They served, however, to enable him to get through his long and heart-rending period of apprenticeship, and they taught him how to express himself; for this born novelist was not a born writer and had to labor painfully to acquire a style which only at rare moments quite fitted itself to the subject he had in hand.

Much more interesting than these early sensational romances were the letters he wrote to his sister Laure, in which he grew eloquent over his ambition and gave himself needed practice in describing the characters with whom he came in contact. But he had not the means to wait quietly and ripen, so he embarked in a publishing business which brought him into debt. Then, to make up his losses, he became partner in a printing enterprise which failed in 1827, leaving him still more embarrassed financially, but endowed with a fund of experience which he turned to rich account as a novelist. Henceforth the sordid world of debt, bankruptcy, usury, and speculation had no mystery for him, and he laid it bare in novel after novel, utilizing also the knowledge he had gained of the law, and even pressing into service the technicalities of the printing office [See 'Illusions perdues' (Lost Illusions)]. But now at the age of twenty-eight he had over 100,000 francs to pay, and had written nothing better than some cheap stories; the task of wiping out his debts by his writings seemed therefore a more hopeless one than Scott's. Nothing daunted, however, he set to work, and the year that followed his second failure in business saw the composition of the first novel he was willing to acknowledge, 'Les Chouans.' This romance of Brittany in 1799 deserved the praise it received from press and public, in spite of its badly jointed plot and overdrawn characters. It still appeals to many readers, and is important to the 'Comédie humaine' as being the only novel of the "Military Scenes.". The 'Physiology of Marriage' followed quickly (1829-30), and despite a certain pruriency of imagination, displayed considerable powers of analysis, powers destined shortly to distinguish a story which ranks high among its author's works, 'La Maison du chat-qui-pelote' (1830). This delightful novelette, the queer title of which is nearly equivalent to 'At the Sign of the Cat and the Racket,' showed in its treatment of the heroine's unhappy passion the intuition and penetration of the born psychologist, and in its admirable description of bourgeois life the pictorial genius of the genuine realist. In other words the youthful romancer was merged once for all in the matured novelist. The years of waiting and observation had done their work, and along the streets of Paris now walked the most profound analyst of human character that had scrutinized society since the days when William Shakespeare, fresh from Stratford, trod the streets and lanes of Elizabethan London.

The year 1830 marks the beginning not merely of Balzac's success as the greatest of modern realists, but also of his marvelous literary activity. Novel after novel is begun before its predecessor is finished; short stories of almost perfect workmanship are completed; sketches are dashed off that will one day find their appropriate place in larger compositions, as yet existing only in the brain of the master. Nor is it merely a question of individual works: novels and stories are to form different series,--'Scenes from Private Life,' 'Philosophical Novels and Tales,'--which are themselves destined to merge into 'Studies of Manners in the Nineteenth Century,' and finally into the 'Comédie humaine' itself. Yet it was more than a swarm of stories that was buzzing in his head; it was a swarm of individuals often more truly alive to him than the friends with whom he loved to converse about them. And just because he knew these people of his brain, just because he entered into the least details of their daily lives, Balzac was destined to become much more than a mere philosopher or student of society; to wit, a creator of characters, endowed with that "absolute dramatic vision" which distinguishes Homer and Shakespeare and Chaucer. But because he was also something of a philosopher and student of sociology, he conceived the stupendous idea of linking these characters with one another and with their several environments, in order that he might make himself not merely the historian but also the creator of an entire society. In other words, conservative though he was, Balzac had the audacity to range himself by the side of Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, and to espouse the cause of evolution even in its infancy. The great ideas of the mutability of species and of the influence of environment and heredity were, he thought, as applicable to sociology as to zoölogy, and as applicable to fiction as to either. So he meditated the 'Comédie humaine' for several years before he announced it in 1842, and from being almost the rival of Saint-Hilaire he became almost the anticipator of Darwin.

But this idea of evolution was itself due to the evolution of his genius, to which many various elements contributed: his friendships and enmities with contemporary authors, his intimacies with women of refinement and fashion, his business struggles with creditors and publishers, his frequent journeys to the provinces and foreign countries; and finally his grandiose schemes to surround himself with luxury and the paraphernalia of power, not so much for his own sake as for the sake of her whose least smile was a delight and an inspiration. About each of these topics an interesting chapter might be written, but here a few words must suffice.

After his position as an author was more or less assured, Balzac's relations with the leaders of his craft--such as Victor Hugo, Théophile Gautier, and George Sand--were on the whole cordial. He had trouble with Sainte-Beuve, however, and often felt that his brother-writers begrudged his success. His constant attacks on contemporary journalists, and his egotistic and erratic manners naturally prejudiced the critics, so that even the marvelous romance entitled 'La Peau de chagrin' (The Magic Skin: 1831),--a work of superb genius,--speedily followed as it was by 'Eugénie Grandet' and 'Le Père Goriot,' did not win him cordial recognition. One or two of his friendships, however, gave him a knowledge of higher social circles than he was by birth entitled to, a fact which should be remembered in face of the charge that he did not know high life, although it is of course true that a writer like Balzac, possessing the intuition of genius, need not frequent salons or live in hovels in order to describe them with absolute verisimilitude.

With regard to Balzac's debts, the fact should be noted that he might have paid them off more easily and speedily had he been more prudent. He cut into the profits of his books by the costly changes he was always making in his proof-sheets,--changes which the artist felt to be necessary, but against which the publishers naturally protested. In reality he wrote his books on his proof-sheets, for he would cut and hack the original version and make new insertions until he drove his printers wild. Indeed, composition never became easy to him, although under a sudden inspiration he could sometimes dash off page after page while other men slept. He had, too, his affectations; he must even have a special and peculiar garb in which to write. All these eccentricities and his outside distractions and ambitions, as well as his noble and pathetic love affair, entered into the warp and woof of his work with effects that can easily be detected by the careful student, who should remember, however, that the master's foibles and peculiarities never for one moment set him outside the small circle of the men of supreme genius. He belongs to them by virtue of his tremendous grasp of life in its totality, his superhuman force of execution and the inevitableness of his art at its best.

The decade from 1830 to 1840 is the most prolific period of Balzac's genius in the creation of individual works; that from 1840 to 1850 is his great period of philosophical co-ordination and arrangement. In the first he hewed out materials for his house; in the second he put them together. This statement is of course relatively true only, for we owe to the second decade three of his greatest masterpieces: 'Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes,' and 'La Cousine Bette' and 'Le Cousin Pons,' collectively known as 'Les Parents pauvres' (Poor Relations). And what a period of masterful literary activity the first decade presents! For the year 1830 alone the Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul gives seventy-one entries, many of slight importance, but some familiar to every student of modern literature, such as 'El Verdugo,' 'La Maison du chat-qui-pelote,' 'Gobseck,' 'Adieu,' 'Une Passion dans le desert' (A Passion in the Desert), 'Un Épisode sous la Terreur' (An Episode of the Terror). For 1831 there are seventy-six entries, among them such masterpieces as 'Le Réequisitionnaire' (The Conscript), 'Les Proscrits' (The Outlaws), 'La Peau de chagrin,' and 'Jésus-Christ en Flandre.' In 1832 the number of entries falls to thirty-six, but among them are 'Le Colonel Chabert,' 'Le Curé de Tours' (The Priest of Tours), 'La Grande Bretèche,' 'Louis Lambert,' and 'Les Marana.' After this year there are fewer short stories. In 1833 we have 'Le Médecin de campagne' (The Country Doctor), and 'Eugénie Grandet,' with parts of the 'Histoire des treize' (Story of the Thirteen), and of the 'Contes drolatiques' (Droll Tales). The next year gives us 'La Recherche de l'absolu' (Search for the Absolute) and 'Le Père Goriot' (Old Goriot) and during the next six there were no less than a dozen masterpieces. Such a decade of accomplishment is little short of miraculous, and the work was done under stress of anxieties that would have crushed any normal man.

But anxieties and labors were lightened by a friendship which was an inspiration long before it ripened into love, and were rendered bearable both by Balzac's confidence in himself and by his ever nearer view of the goal he had set himself. The task before him was as stupendous as that which Comte had undertaken, and required not merely the planning and writing of new works but the utilization of all that he had previously written. Untiring labor had to be devoted to this manipulation of old material, for practically the great output of the five years 1829-1834 was to be co-ordinated internally, story being brought into relation with story and character with character. This meant the creation and management of an immense number of personages, the careful investigation of the various localities which served for environments, and the profound study of complicated social and political problems. No wonder, then, that the second decade of his maturity shows a falling off in abundance, though not in intensity of creative power; and that the gradual breaking down of his health, under the strain of his ceaseless efforts and of his abnormal habits of life, made itself more and more felt in the years that followed the great preface which in 1842 set forth the splendid design of the 'Comédie humaine.'

This preface, one of the most important documents in literary history, must be carefully studied by all who would comprehend Balzac in his entirety. It cannot be too often repeated that Balzac's scientific and historical aspirations are important only in so far as they caused him to take a great step forward in the development of his art. The nearer the artist comes to reproducing for us life in its totality, the higher the rank we assign him among his fellows. Tried by this canon, Balzac is supreme. His interweaving of characters and events through a series of volumes gives a verisimilitude to his work unrivaled in prose fiction, and paralleled only in the work of the world-poets. In other words, his use of co-ordination upon a vast scale makes up for his lack of delicacy and sureness of touch, as compared with what Shakespeare and Homer and Chaucer have taught us to look for. Hence he is with them even if not of them.

This great claim can be made for the Balzac of the 'Comédie humaine' only; it could not be made for the Balzac of any one masterpiece like 'Le Père Goriot,' or even for the Balzac of all the masterpieces taken in lump and without co-ordination. Balzac by co-ordination has in spite of his limitations given us a world, just as Shakespeare and Homer have done; and so Taine was profoundly right when he put him in the same category with the greatest of all writers. When, however, he added St. Simon to Shakespeare, and proclaimed that with them Balzac was the greatest storehouse of documents that we have on human nature, he was guilty not merely of confounding genres of art, but also of laying stress on the philosophic rather than on the artistic side of fiction. Balzac does make himself a great storehouse of documents on human nature, but he also does something far more important, he sets before us a world of living men and women.

To have brought this world into existence, to have given it order in the midst of complexity, and that in spite of the fact that death overtook him before he could complete his work, would have been sufficient to occupy a decade of any other man's life; but he, though harassed with illness and with hopes of love and ambition deferred, was strong enough to do more. The year 1840 saw the appearance of 'Pierrette,' and the establishment of the ill-fated 'Revue parisienne.' The following year saw 'Ursule Mirouet,' and until 1848 the stream of great works is practically unbroken. The 'Splendeurs et misères' and the 'Parents pauvres' have been named already, but to these must be added 'Un Ménage de garçon' (A Bachelor's House-keeping), 'Modeste Mignon,' and 'Les Paysans' (The Peasants). The three following years added nothing to his work and closed his life, but they brought him his crowning happiness. On March 14th, 1850, he was married to Mme. Hanska, at Berditchef; on August 18th, 1850, he died at Paris.

Madame Evelina de Hanska came into Balzac's life about 1833, just after he had shaken off the unfortunate influence of the Duchesse de Castries. The young Polish countess was much impressed, we are told, by reading the 'Scènes de la vie privée' (Scenes of Private Life), and was somewhat perplexed and worried by Balzac's apparent change of method in 'La Peau de chagrin.' She wrote to him over the signature "L'Étrangère" (A Foreigner), and he answered in a series of letters recently published in the Revue de Paris. Not long after the opening of this correspondence the two met, and a firm friendship was cemented between them. The lady was about thirty, and married to a Russian gentleman of large fortune, to whom she had given an only daughter. She was in the habit of traveling about Europe to carry on this daughter's education, and Balzac made it his pleasure and duty to see her whenever he could, sometimes journeying as far as Vienna. In the interim he would write her letters which possess great charm and importance to the student of his life. The husband made no objection to the intimacy, trusting both to his wife and to Balzac; but for some time before the death of the aged nobleman, Balzac seems to have distrusted himself and to have held slightly aloof from the woman whom he was destined finally to love with all the fervor of his nature. Madame Hanska became free in the winter of 1842-3, and the next summer Balzac visited St. Petersburg to see her. His love soon became an absorbing passion, but consideration for her daughter's future withheld the lady's consent to a betrothal till 1846. It was a period of weary waiting, in which our sympathies are all on one side; for if ever a man deserved to be happy in a woman's love, it was Balzac. His happiness came, but almost too late to be enjoyed. His last two years, which he spent in Poland with Madame de Hanska, were oppressed by illness, and he returned to his beloved Paris only to die. The struggle of thirty years was over, and although his immense genius was not yet fully recognized, his greatest contemporary, Victor Hugo, was magnanimous enough to exclaim on hearing that he was dying, "Europe is on the point of losing a great mind." Balzac's disciples feel that Europe really lost its greatest writer since Shakespeare.

In the definitive edition of Balzac's writings in twenty-four volumes, seventeen are occupied by the various divisions of the 'Comédie humaine.' The plays take up one volume; and the correspondence, not including of course the letters to "L'Étrangère," another; the 'Contes drolatiques' make still another; and finally we have four volumes filled with sketches, tales, reviews, and historical and political articles left uncollected by their author.

The 'Contes' are thirty in number, divided into "dixains," each with its appropriate prologue and epilogue. They purport to have been collected in the abbeys of Touraine, and set forth by the Sieur de Balzac for the delight of Pantagruelists and none others. Not merely the spirit but the very language of Rabelais is caught with remarkable verve and fidelity, so that from the point of view of style Balzac has never done better work. A book which holds by Rabelais on the one hand and by the Queen of Navarre on the other is not likely, however, to appeal to that part of the English and American reading public that expurgates its Chaucer, and blushes at the mention of Fielding and Smollett. Such readers will do well to avoid the 'Contes drolatiques;' although, like 'Don Juan,' they contain a great deal of what was best in their author, of his frank, ebullient, sensuous nature, lighted up here at least by a genuine if scarcely delicate humor. Of direct suggestion of vice Balzac was, naturally, as incapable as he was of smug puritanism; but it must be confessed that as a raconteur his proper audience, now that the monastic orders have passed away, would be a group of middle-aged club-men.

The 'Comédie humaine' is divided into three main sections: first and most important, the 'Études de moeurs' (Studies of Manners), second the 'Études philosophiques' (Philosophic Studies), and finally the 'Études analytiques' (Analytic Studies). These divisions, as M. Barrière points out in his 'L'Oeuvre de H. de Balzac' (The Work of Balzac), were intended to bear to one another the relations that moral science, psychology, and metaphysics do to one another with regard to the life of man, whether as an individual or as a member of society. No single division was left complete at the author's death; but enough was finished and put together to give us the sense of moving in a living, breathing world, no matter where we make our entry. This, as we have insisted, is the real secret of his greatness. To think, for example, that the importance of 'Séraphita' lies in the fact that it gives Balzac's view of Swedenborgianism, or that the importance of 'Louis Lambert' lies in its author's queer theories about the human will, is entirely to misapprehend his true position in the world of literature. His mysticism, his psychology, his theories of economics, his reactionary devotion to monarchy, and his idealization of the Church of Rome, may or may not appeal to us, and have certainly nothing that is eternal or inevitable about them; but in his knowledge of the human mind and heart he is as inevitable and eternal as any writer has ever been, save only Shakespeare and Homer.

The 'Études de moeurs' were systematically divided by their author into 'Scenes of Private Life,' 'Scenes of Provincial Life,' 'Scenes of Country Life,' 'Scenes of Parisian Life,' 'Scenes of Political Life,' and 'Scenes of Military Life,'--the last three divisions representing more or less exceptional phases of existence. The group relating to Paris is by far the most important and powerful, but the provincial stories show almost as fine workmanship, and furnish not a few of the well-known masterpieces. Less interesting, though still important, are the 'Scenes of Private Life,' which consist of twenty-four novels, novelettes, and tales, under the following titles: 'Béatrix,' 'Albert Savarus,' 'La Fausse maitresse' (The False Mistress), 'Le Message' (The Message), 'La Grande Bretèche,' 'Étude de femme' (Study of Woman), 'Autre étude de femme' (Another Story of Woman), 'Madame Firmiani,' 'Modeste Mignon,' 'Un Début dans la vie' (An Entrance upon Life), 'Pierre Grassou,' 'Mémoires de deux jeunes mariées' (Recollections of a Young Couple), 'La Maison du chat-qui-pelote,' 'Le Bal de Sceaux' (The Ball of Sceaux), 'Le Contrat de mariage' (The Marriage Contract), 'La Vendetta,' 'La Paix du ménage' (Household Peace), 'Une Double famille' (A Double Family), 'Une Fille d'Éve' (A Daughter of Eve), 'Honorine,' 'La Femme abandonnée' (The Abandoned Wife), 'La Grenadière,' 'La Femme de trente ans' (The Woman of Thirty).

Of all these stories, hardly one shows genuine greatness except the powerful tragic tale 'La Grande Bretèche,' which was subsequently incorporated in 'Autre étude de femme,' This story of a jealous husband's walling up his wife's lover in a closet of her chamber is as dramatic a piece of writing as Balzac ever did, and is almost if not quite as perfect a short story as any that has since been written in France. 'La Maison du chat-qui-pelote' has been mentioned already on account of its importance in the evolution of Balzac's realism, but while a delightful novelette, it is hardly great, its charm coming rather from its descriptions of bourgeois life than from the working out of its central theme, the infelicity of a young wife married to an unfaithful artist. 'Modeste Mignon' is interesting, and more romantic than Balzac's later works were wont to be; but while it may be safely recommended to the average novel-reader, few admirers of its author would wish to have it taken as a sample of their master. 'Béatrix' is a powerful story in its delineation of the weakness of the young Breton nobleman, Calyste du Guénie. It derives a factitious interest from the fact that George Sand is depicted in 'Camille Maupin,' the nom de plume of Mlle. des Touches, and perhaps Balzac himself in Claude Vignon, the critic. Less factitious is the interest derived from Balzac's admirable delineation of a doting mother and aunt, and from his realistic handling of one of the cleverest of his ladies of light reputation, Madame Schontz; his studies of such characters of the demi-monde--especially of the wonderful Esther of the 'Splendeurs et misères'--serving plainly, by the way, as a point of departure for Dumas fils. Yet 'Béatrix' is an able rather than a truly great book, for it neither elevates nor delights us. In fact, all the stories in this series are interesting rather than truly great; but all display Balzac's remarkable analytic powers. Love, false or true, is of course their main theme; wrought out to a happy issue in 'La Bourse,' a charming tale, or to a death of despair in 'La Grenadière' The childless young married woman is contrasted with her more fortunate friend surrounded by little ones ('Mémoires de deux jeunes mariées'), the heartless coquette flirts once too often ('Le Bal de Sceaux'), the eligible young man is taken in by a scheming mother ('Le Contrat du mariage'), the deserted husband labors to win back his wife ('Honorine'), the tempted wife learns at last the real nature of her peril ('Une Fille d'Éve'); in short, lovers and mistresses, husbands and wives, make us participants of all the joys and sorrows that form a miniature world within the four walls of every house.

The 'Scenes of Provincial Life' number only ten stories, but nearly all of them are masterpieces. They are 'Eugénie Grandet,' 'Le Lys dans la vallée,' 'Ursule Mirouet,' 'Pierrette,' 'Le Curé de Tours,' 'La Rabouilleuse,' 'La Vielle fille' (The Old Maid), 'Le Cabinet des antiques' (The Cabinet of Antiques), 'L'Illustre Gaudissart' (The Illustrious Gaudissart), and 'La Muse du département' (The Departmental Muse). Of these 'Eugénie Grandet' is of course easily first in interest, pathos, and power. The character of old Grandet, the miserly father, is presented to us with Shakespearean vividness, although Eugénie herself has, less than the Shakespearean charm. Any lesser artist would have made the tyrant himself and his yielding wife and daughters seem caricatures rather than living people. It is only the Shakespeares and Balzacs who are able to make their Shylocks and lagos, their Grandets and Philippe Brideaus, monsters and human beings at one and the same time. It is only the greater artists, too, who can bring out all the pathos inherent in the subjection of two gentle women to a tyrant in their own household. But it is Balzac the inimitable alone who can portray fully the life of the provinces, its banality, its meanness, its watchful selfishness, and yet save us through the perfection of his art from the degradation which results from contact with low and sordid life. The reader who rises unaffected from a perusal of 'Eugénie Grandet' would be unmoved by the grief of Priam in the tent of Achilles, or of Othello in the death-chamber of Desdemona.

'Le Lys dans la vallée' has been pronounced by an able French critic to be the worst novel he knows; but as a study of more or less ethereal and slightly morbid love it is characterized by remarkable power. Its heroine, Madame Mortsauf, tied to a nearly insane husband and pursued by a sentimental lover, undergoes tortures of conscience through an agonizing sense of half-failure in her duty. Balzac himself used to cite her when he was charged with not being able to draw a pure woman; but he has created nobler types. The other stories of the group are also decidedly more interesting. The distress of the abbé Birotteau over his landlady's treatment, and the intrigues of the abbé Troubert ('Le Curé de Tours') absorb us as completely as the career of Caesar himself in Mommsen's famous chapter. The woes of the little orphan subjected to the tyranny of her selfish aunt and uncle ('Pierrette'), the struggles of the rapacious heirs for the Mirouet fortune ('Ursule Mirouet,') a story which gives us one of Balzac's purest women, treats interestingly of mesmerism (and may be read without fear by the young), the siege of Mlle. Cormon's mature affections by her two adroit suitors ('Une Vielle fille'), the intrigues against the peace of the d'Esgrignons and the sublime devotion to their interests of the notary Chesnel ('Le Cabinet des antiques'), and finally the ignoble passions that fought themselves out around the senile Jean Jacques Rouget, under the direction of the diabolical ex-soldier Philippe Brideau ('La Rabouilleuse,' sometimes entitled 'Un Ménage de Garcon'), form the absorbing central themes of a group of novels--or rather stories, for few of them attain considerable length--unrivaled in the annals of realistic fiction.

The 'Scenes of Country Life,' comprising 'Les Paysans,' 'Le Médecin de campagne,' and 'Le Curé de village' (The Village Priest), take high rank among their author's works. Where Balzac might have been crudely naturalistic, he has preferred to be either realistic as in the first named admirable novel, or idealistic as in the two latter. Hence he has created characters like the country physician, Doctor Benassis, almost as great a boon to the world of readers as that philanthropist himself was to the little village of his adoption. If Madame Graslin of 'Le Curé de village' fails to reach the height of Benassis, her career has at least a sensational interest which his lacked; and the country curate, the good abbé Bonnet, surely makes up for her lack on the ideal side. This story, by the way, is important for the light it throws on the workings of the Roman Church among the common people; and the description of Madame Graslin's death is one of Balzac's most effective pieces of writing.

We are now brought to the 'Parisian Scenes,' and with the exception of 'Eugénie Grandet,' to the best-known masterpieces. There are twenty titles; but as two of these are collective in character, the number of novels and stories amounts to twenty-four, as follows:--'Le Père Goriot,' 'Illusions perdues,' 'Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes,' 'Les Secrets de la princesse de Cadignan' (The Secrets of the Princess of Cadignan), 'Histoire des treize' [containing 'Ferragus,' 'La Duchesse de Langeais,' and 'La Fille aux yeux d'or' (The Girl with the Golden Eyes)], 'Sarrasine,' 'Le Colonel Chabert,' 'L'lnterdiction' (The Interdiction), 'Les Parents pauvres' (Poor Relations, including 'La Cousine Bette' and 'Le Cousin Pons'), 'La Messe de l'athée' (The Atheist's Mass), 'Facino Cane,' 'Gobseck,' 'La Maison Nucingen,' 'Un Prince de la Bohème' (A Prince of Bohemia), 'Esquisse d'homme d'affaires' (Sketch of a Business man), 'Gaudissart II.' 'Les Comédiens sans le savoir' (The Unconscious Humorists), 'Les Employés' (The Employees), 'Histoire de César Birotteau,' and 'Les Petits bourgeois' (Little Bourgeois). Of these twenty-four titles six belong to novels, five of which are of great power, nine to novelettes and short stories too admirable to be passed over without notice, eight to novelettes and stories of interest and value which need not, however, detain us, and one, 'Les Petits bourgeois', to a novel of much promise unfortunately left incomplete. 'Les Secrets de la princesse de Cadignan' is remarkable chiefly as a study of the blind passion that often overtakes a man of letters. Daniel d'Arthez, the author, a fine character and a favorite with Balzac, succumbs to the wiles of the Princess of Cadignan (formerly the dashing and fascinating Duchesse de Maufrigneuse) and is happy in his subjection. The 'Histoire des treize' contains three novelettes, linked together through the fact that in each a band of thirteen young men, sworn to assist one another in conquering society, play an important part. This volume is the most frankly sensational of Balzac's works. 'La Duchesse de Langeais' however, is more than sensational: it gives perhaps Balzac's best description of the Faubourg St. Germain and one of his ablest analyses of feminine character, while in the description of General Montriveau's recognition of the Duchess in the Spanish convent the novelist's dramatic power is seen at its highest. 'La Fille aux yeux d'or,' which concludes the volume devoted to the mysterious brotherhood, may be considered, with 'Sarrasine,' one of the dark closets of the great building known as the 'Comédie humaine.' Both stories deal with unnatural passions, and the first is one of Balzac's most effective compositions. For sheer voluptuousness of style there is little in literature to parallel the description of the boudoir of the uncanny heroine. Very different from these stories is 'Le Colonel Chabert,' the record of the misfortunes of one of Napoleon's heroic soldiers, who after untold hardships returns to France to find his wife married a second time and determined to deny his existence. The law is invoked, but the treachery of the wife induces the noble old man to put an end to the proceedings, after which he sinks into an indigent and pathetic senility. Balzac has never drawn a more heart-moving figure, nor has he ever sounded more thoroughly the depths of human selfishness. But the description of the battle of Eylau and of Chabert's sufferings in retreat would alone suffice to make the story memorable. 'L'Interdiction' is the proper pendant to the history of this unfortunate soldier. In it another husband, the Marquis d'Espard, suffers from the selfishness of his wife, one of the worst characters in the range of Balzac's fiction. That she may keep him from alienating his property to discharge a moral obligation she endeavors to prove him insane. The legal complications which ensue bring forward one of Balzac's great figures, the judge of instruction, Popinot; but to appreciate him the reader must go to the marvelous book itself. 'Gobseck' is a study of a Parisian usurer, almost worthy of a place beside the description of old Grandet; while 'Les Employés' is a realistic study of bureaucratic life, which, besides showing a wonderful familiarity with the details of a world of which Balzac had little personal experience, contains several admirably drawn characters and a sufficient amount of incident. But it is time to leave these sketches and novels in miniature, and to pass by the less important 'Scenes' of this fascinating Parisian life, in order to consider in some detail the five novels of consummate power.

First of these in date of composition, and in popular estimation at least among English readers, comes, 'Le Père Goriot.' It is certainly trite to call the book a French "Lear," but the expression emphasizes the supreme artistic power that could treat the motif of one of Shakespeare's plays in a manner that never forces a disadvantageous comparison with the great tragedy. The retired vermicelli-maker is not as grand a figure as the doting King of Britain, but he is as real. The French daughters, Anastasie, Countess de Restaud, and Delphine, Baroness de Nucingen, are not such types of savage wickedness as Regan and Goneril, but they fit the nineteenth century as well as the British princesses did their more barbarous day. Yet there is no Cordelia in 'Le Père Goriot,' for the pale Victorine Taillefer cannot fill the place of that noblest of daughters. This is but to say that Balzac's bourgeois tragedy lacks that element of the noble that every great poetic tragedy must have. The self-immolation of old Goriot to the cold-hearted ambitions of his daughters is not noble, but his parental passion touches the infinite, and so proves the essential kinship of his creator with the creator of Lear. This touch of the infinite, as in 'Eugénie Grandet,' lifts the book up from the level of a merely masterly study of characters or a merely powerful novel to that of the supreme masterpieces of human genius. The marvelously lifelike description of the vulgar Parisian boarding-house, the fascinating delineation of the character of that king of convicts, Vautrin, and the fine analysis of the ambitions of Rastignac (who comes nearer perhaps to being the hero of the 'Comédie humaine' than any other of its characters, and is here presented to us at the threshold of his successful career) remain in the memory of every reader, but would never alone have sufficed to make Balzac's name worthy of immortality. The infinite quality of Goriot's passion would, however, have conferred this honor on his creator had he never written another book.

'Illusions perdues' and 'Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes' might almost be regarded as one novel in seven parts. More than any other of his works they show the sun of Balzac's genius at its meridian. Nowhere else does he give us plots so absorbing, nowhere else does he bring us so completely in contact with the world his imagination has peopled. The first novel devotes two of its parts to the provinces and one to Paris. The provincial stories centre around two brothers-in-law, David Séchard and Lucien de Rubempré, types of the practical and the artistic intellect respectively. David, after struggling for fame and fortune, succumbs and finds his recompense in the love of his wife Eve, Lucien's sister, one of Balzac's noble women. Lucien, on the other hand, after some provincial successes as a poet, tries the great world of Paris, yields to its temptations, fails ignominiously, and attempts suicide, but is rescued by the great Vautrin, who has escaped from prison and is about to renew his war on society disguised as a Spanish priest. Vautrin has conceived the idea that as he can take no part in society, he will have a representative in it and taste its pleasures through him. Lucien accepts this disgraceful position and plunges once more into the vortex, supported by the strong arm of the king of the convicts. His career and that of his patron form the subject of the four parts of the 'Splendeurs et misères' and are too complicated to be described here. Suffice it to say that probably nowhere else in fiction are the novel of character and the novel of incident so splendidly combined; and certainly nowhere else in the range of his work does Balzac so fully display all his master qualities. That the story is sensational cannot be denied, but it is at least worthy of being called the Iliad of Crime. Nemesis waits upon both Lucien and Vautrin, and upon the poor courtesan Esther whom they entrap in their toils, and when the two former are at last in custody, Lucien commits suicide. Vautrin baffles his acute judge in a wonderful interview; but with his cherished hope cut short by Lucien's death, finally gives up the struggle. Here the novel might have ended; yet Balzac adds a fourth part, in order to complete the career of Vautrin. The famous convict is transformed into a government spy, and engages to use his immense power against his former comrades and in defense of the society he has hitherto warred upon. The artistic propriety of this transformation may be questioned, but not the power and interest of the novel of which it is the finishing touch.

Many readers would put the companion novels 'La Cousine Bette' and 'Le Cousin Pons' at the head of Balzac's works. They have not the infinite pathos of 'Le Père Goriot,' or the superb construction of the first three parts of the 'Splendeurs et misères,' but for sheer strength the former at least is unsurpassed in fiction. Never before or since have the effects of vice in dragging down a man below the level of the lowest brute been so portrayed as in Baron Hulot; never before or since has female depravity been so illustrated as in the diabolical career of Valérie Marneffe, probably the worst woman in fiction. As for Cousine Bette herself, and her power to breed mischief and crime, it suffices to say that she is worthy of a place beside the two chief characters.

'Le Cousin Pons' is a very different book; one which, though pathetic in the extreme, may be safely recommended to the youngest reader. The hero who gives his name to the story is an old musician who has worn out his welcome among his relations, but who becomes an object of interest to them when they learn that his collection of bric-a-brac is valuable and that he is about to die. The intrigues that circulate around this collection and the childlike German, Schmucke, to whom Pons has bequeathed it, are described as only the author of 'Le Curé de Tours' could have succeeded in doing; but the book contains also an almost perfect description of the ideal friendship existing between Pons and Schmucke. One remembers them longer than one does Frazier, the scoundrelly advocate who cheats poor Schmucke; a fact which should be cited against those who urge that Balzac is at home with his vicious characters only.

The last novel of this group, 'César Birotteau,' is the least powerful, though not perhaps the least popular. It is an excellent study of bourgeois life, and therefore fills an important place in the scheme of the 'Comedy,' describing as it does the spreading ambitions of a rich but stupid perfumer, and containing an admirable study of bankruptcy. It may be dismissed with the remark that around the innocent Caesar surge most of the scoundrels that figure in the 'Comédie humaine,' and with the regret that it should have been completed while the far more powerful 'Les Petits bourgeois' was left unfinished.

We now come to the concluding parts of the 'Études de moeurs.' the 'Scenes' describing Political and Military Life. In the first group are five novels and stories: 'L'Envers de l'histoire contemporaine' (The Under Side of Contemporary History, a fine story, but rather social than political), 'Une Ténébreuse affaire' (A Shady Affair), 'Un Épisode sous la Terreur,' 'Z. Marcas,' and 'Le Deputé d'Arcis' (The Deputy of Arcis). Of these the 'Episode' is probably the most admirable, although 'Z. Marcas' has not a little strength. The 'Deputé,' like 'Les Petits bourgeois,' was continued by M. Charles Rabou and a considerable part of it is not Balzac's; a fact which is to be regretted, since practically it is the only one of these stories that touches actual politics as the term is usually understood. The military scenes are only two in number, 'Les Chouans' and 'Une Passion dans le désert.' The former of these has been sufficiently described already; the latter is one of the best known of the short stories, but rather deserves a place beside 'La Fille aux yeux d'or.' Indeed, for Balzac's best military scenes we must go to 'Le Colonel Chabert' or to 'Adieu.'

We now pass to those subterranean chambers of the great structure we are exploring, the 'Études philosophiques.' They are twenty in number, four being novels, one a composite volume of tales, and the rest stories. The titles run as follows:--'La Peau de chagrin,' 'L'Élixir de longue vie' (The Elixir of Life), 'Melmoth réconcilié,' 'Le Chef-d'oeuvre inconnu' (The Anonymous Masterpiece), 'Gambara,' 'Massimila Doni,' 'Le Réquisitionnaire,' 'Adieu,' 'El Verdugo,' 'Les Marana,' 'L'Auberge rouge' (The Red Inn), 'Un Drame au bord de la mer' (A Seaside Drama), 'L'Enfant maudit' (A Child Accursed) 'Maître Cornélius' (Master Cornelius), 'Sur Catherine de Médicis,' 'La Recherche de l'absolu,' 'Louis Lambert,' 'Séraphita,' 'Les Proscrits,' and 'Jésus-Christ en Flandre.'

Of the novels, 'La Peau de chagrin' is easily first. Its central theme is the world-old conflict between the infinite desires and the finite powers of man. The hero, Raphael, is hardly, as M. Barrière asserts, on a level with Hamlet, Faust, and Manfred, but the struggle of his infinite and his finite natures is almost as intensely interesting as the similar struggles in them. The introduction of the talisman, the wild ass's skin that accomplishes all the wishes of its owner, but on condition that it is to shrink away in proportion to the intensity of those wishes, and that when it disappears the owner's life is to end, gave to the story a weird interest not altogether, perhaps, in keeping with its realistic setting, and certainly forcing a disastrous comparison with the three great poems named. But when all allowances are made, one is forced to conclude that 'La Peau de chagrin' is a novel of extraordinary power and absorbing interest; and that its description of its hero's dissipations in the libertine circles of Paris, and its portrayal of the sublime devotion of the heroine Pauline for her slowly perishing lover, are scarcely to be paralleled in literature. Far less powerful are the short stories on similar themes, entitled 'L'Élixir de longue vie,' and 'Melmoth réconcilié' (Melmoth Reconciled), which give us Balzac's rehandling of the Don Juan of Molière and Byron, and the Melmoth of Maturin.

Below the 'Peau de chagrin,' but still among its author's best novels, should be placed 'La Recherche de l'absolu,' which, as its title implies, describes the efforts of a chemist to "prove by chemical analysis the unity of composition of matter." In the pursuit of his philosophic will-o'-the-wisp, Balthazar Claës loses his fortune and sacrifices his noble wife and children. His madness serves, however, to bring into relief the splendid qualities of these latter; and it is just here, in its human rather than in its philosophic bearings, that the story rises to real greatness. Marguerite Claës, the daughter, is a noble heroine; and if one wishes to see how Balzac's characters and ideas suffer when treated by another though an able hand, one has but to read in conjunction with this novel the 'Maître Guérin' of the distinguished dramatist Émile Augier. A proper pendant to this history of a noble genius perverted is 'La Confidence des Ruggieri,' the second part of that remarkable composite 'Sur Catherine de Médicis,' a book which in spite of its mixture of history, fiction, and speculative politics is one of the most suggestive of Balzac's minor productions.

Concerning 'Séraphita' and 'Louis Lambert,' the remaining novels of this series, certain noted mystics assert that they contain the essence of Balzac's genius, and at least suggest the secret of the universe. Perhaps an ordinary critic may content himself with saying that both books are remarkable proofs of their author's power, and that the former is notable for its marvelous descriptions of Norwegian scenery.

Of the lesser members of the philosophic group, nearly all are admirable in their kind and degree. 'Le Chef-d'oeuvre inconnu' and 'Gambara' treat of the pains of the artistic life and temperament. 'Massimila Doni,' like 'Gambara,' treats of music, but also gives a brilliant picture of Venetian life. 'Le réquisitionnaire,' perhaps the best of Balzac's short stories, deals with the phenomenon of second sight, as 'Adieu' does with that of mental alienation caused by a sudden shock. 'Les Marana' is an absorbing study of the effects of heredity; 'L'Auberge rouge' is an analysis of remorse, as is also 'Un Drame au bord de la mer'; while 'L'Enfant maudit' is an analysis of the effects of extreme sensibility, especially as manifested in the passion of poetic love. Finally, 'Maître Cornelius' is a study of avarice, in which is set a remarkable portrait of Louis XI.; 'Les Proscrits' is a masterly sketch of the exile of Dante at Paris; and 'Jésus-Christ en Flandre' is an exquisite allegory, the most delicate flower, perhaps, of Balzac's genius.

It remains only to say a few words about the third division of the 'Comédie humaine,' viz., the 'Études analytiques.' Only two members of the series, the 'Physiologie du mariage' and the 'Petites misères de la vie conjugale,' were ever completed, and they are not great enough to make us regret the loss of the 'Pathology of Social Life' and the other unwritten volumes. For the two books we have are neither novels nor profound studies, neither great fiction nor great psychology. That they are worth reading for their suggestiveness with regard to such important subjects as marriage and conjugal life goes without saying, since they are Balzac's; but that they add greatly to his reputation, not even his most ardent admirer would be hardy enough to affirm.

And now in conclusion, what can one say about this great writer that will not fall far short of his deserts? Plainly, nothing, yet a few points may be accentuated with profit. We should notice in the first place that Balzac has consciously tried almost every form of prose fiction, and has been nearly always splendidly successful. In analytic studies of high, middle, and low life he has not his superior. In the novel of intrigue and sensation he is easily a master, while he succeeds at least fairly in a form of fiction at just the opposite pole from this, to wit, the idyl ('Le Lys dans la vallée'). In character sketches of extreme types, like 'Gobseck,' his supremacy has long been recognized, and he is almost as powerful when he enters the world of mysticism, whither so few of us can follow him. As a writer of novelettes he is unrivaled and some of his short stories are worthy to rank with the best that his followers have produced. In the extensive use of dialect he was a pioneer; in romance he has 'La Peau de chagrin' and 'La Recherche de l'absolu' to his credit; while some of the work in the tales connected with the name of Catherine de Medici shows what he could have done in historical fiction had he continued to follow Scott. And what is true of the form of his fiction is true of its elements. Tragedy, comedy, melodrama are all within his reach; he can call up tears and shudders, laughter and smiles at will. He knows the whole range of human emotions, and he dares to penetrate into the arcana of passions almost too terrible or loathsome for literature to touch.

In style, in the larger sense of the word, he is almost equally supreme. He is the father of modern realism and remains its greatest exponent. He retains always some of the good elements of romance,--that is to say, he sees the thing as it ought to be,--and he avoids the pitfalls of naturalism, being a painter and not a photographer. In other words, like all truly great writers he never forgets his ideals; but he is too impartial to his characters and has too fast a grip on life to fall into the unrealities of sentimentalism. It is true that he lacked the spontaneity that characterized his great forerunner, Shakespeare, and his great contemporary, George Sand; but this loss was made up by the inevitable and impersonal character of his work when once his genius was thoroughly aroused to action. His laborious method of describing by an accumulation of details postponed the play of his powers, which are at their height in the action of his characters; yet sooner or later the inert masses of his composition were fused into a burning whole. But if Balzac is primarily a dramatist in the creation and manipulation of his characters, he is also a supreme painter in his presentation of scenes. And what characters and what scenes has he not set before us! Over two thousand personages move through the 'Comédie humaine,' whose biographies MM. Cerfberr and Christophe have collected for us in their admirable 'Répertoire de la comédie humaine,' and whose chief types M. Paul Flat has described in the first series of his 'Essais sur Balzac.' Some of these personages are of course shadowy; but an amazingly large number live for us as truly as Shakespeare's heroes and heroines do. Nor will any one who has trod the streets of Balzac's Paris, or spent the summer with him at the chateau des Aigues ('Les Paysans'), or in the beautiful valleys of Touraine, ever forget the master's pictures.

Yet the Balzac who with intangible materials created living and breathing men and women and unfading scenes, has been accused of vitiating the French language and has been denied the possession of verbal style. On this point French critics must give the final verdict; but a foreigner may cite Taine's defense of that style, and maintain that most of the liberties taken by Balzac with his native language were forced on him by the novel and far-reaching character of his work. Nor should it be forgotten that he was capable at times of almost perfect passages of description, and that he rarely confounded, as novelists are too apt to do, the provinces of poetry and prose.

But one might write a hundred essays on Balzac and not exhaust him. One might write a volume on his women, a volume to refute the charge that his bad men are better drawn than his good, a volume to discuss Mr. Henry James's epigrammatic declaration that a five-franc piece may be fairly called the protagonist of the 'Comédie humaine.' In short one might go on defending and praising and even criticizing Balzac for a lifetime, and be little further advanced than when one began; for to criticize Balzac, is it not to criticize life itself?