In the Scotch ballads this is usual, in the English rare. We look in vain through Southey's admirable ballads—"Mary the Maid of the Inn," "Jaspar," "Inchcape Rock," "Bishop Hatto," "King Henry V. and the Hermit of Dreux"—for either burden, chorus, or adaptation to music. In the "Battle of Blenheim" there is, however, an occasional burden line; and in the smashing "March to Moscow" there is a great chorusing about—
"Morbleu! Parbleu!
What a pleasant excursion to Moscow."
Coleridge has some skilful repetitions and exquisite versification in his "Ancient Mariner," "Genevieve," "Alice du Clos," but nowhere a systematic burden. Campbell has no burdens in his finest lyric ballads, though the subjects were fitted for them. The burden of the "Exile of Erin" belongs very doubtfully to him.
Macaulay's best ballad, the "Battle of Ivry," is greatly aided by the even burden line; but he has not repeated the experiment, though he, too, makes much use of repeating lines in his Roman Lays and other ballads.
While, then, we counsel burdens in Historical Ballads, we would recognise excepted cases where they may be injurious, and treat them as in no case essential to perfect ballad success. In songs, we would almost always insist either on a chorus, verse, or a burden of some sort. A burden need not be at the end of the verse; but may, with quite equal success, be at the beginning or in the body of it, as may be seen in the Scotch Ballads, and in some of those in the Spirit of the Nation.
The old Scotch and English ballads, and Lockhart's translations from the Spanish, are mostly composed in one metre, though written down in either of two ways. Macaulay's Roman Lays and "Ivry" are in this metre. Take an example from the last:—
"Press where ye see my white plume shine, amid the ranks of war,
And be your Oriflamme to-day the helmet of Navarre."
In the old ballads this would be printed in four lines, of eight syllables and six alternately, and rhyming only alternately, thus:—