cidents in history and private life, which made an impression on the minds of the populace at the time they happened; and that they may be thus accepted, with slight reservations, as in general forming authentic specimens of the popular poetry of their respective ages. In The Romantic Ballads, which form the third class in this Collection, are different from the two first classes in every respect, except that they are the productions, and form the entertainment, of the same people. strict chronology, perhaps, they ought to have been placed in the first rank; for, while the ballads of the two first classes refer, in general, to incidents, of which there is some collateral and authentic record, these productions seem to have taken their rise in the infancy of society, before any other mode of historical commemoration had yet been discovered. The Romantic Ballads, indeed, bear all the appearance of having been conceived in the very cradle of human nature; they seem to have had their origin while as yet mankind was little more than a single family. Their stories are, in general, only such simple and familiar incidents as take place in a rude state of society: what is more, they are almost all common to every nation in the world. It would be absurd to contend, that these compositions have existed in their present shape for a great length of time. All that can be said in favour of their antiquity, is, that they are the last shape or form into which the stories which amused our earliest ancestors have been resolved. Some of them, moreover, are evidently of a less remote extraction than others- are, indeed, only referable to the earlier ages of our own history. But this, nevertheless, is the proper general account of their origin. As one instance, for all, of the universality of these stories, both as to place and time, it may be mentioned, that the beautiful love tale of "Burd Helen" is the same with one called the Lai le Frêne, preserved in English in the Auchinleck Manuscript, and in Norman in the Lais of Marie, which were written about the year 1250. "Tamlane” may also be referred to the story of Thomas the Rhymer, who flourished in the thirteenth century. The tale of " Fair Annie” is found, with many others, in the great Danish collection called the Kæmpe Viser, which was published in 1593. CONTENTS. THE following List exhibits the TITLES of the Ballads, al- The Bonnie House o' Airly, 92 The Braes of Yarrow, (HAMILTON of Bangour) 167 The Braes of Yarrow, (Rev. J. LOGAN) 173 The Burning of Frendraught, 85 The Clerk's Twa Sons o' Owsenford, 345 The Douglas Tragedy, 111 The Dowie Dens o' Yarrow, 164 The Eve of St John, The Gardener, The Gay Gos Hawk, The Gude Wallace, 388 317 202 8 |