eir own offspring. The
more cultured and highly-developed products of a national literature,
however healthy, however strong and beautiful, must always owe much to
neighbouring and to universal influences. Like the language and manners
of the educated classes of a nation, they conform more or less to models
of world-wide and age-long acceptance among educated men. But in the
ballad one goes to the root of national character, to the pith and
marrow of national life and history.

What then, thus questioned, do the Scottish ballads teach us of Scotland
and the Scots? Surely much to be proud of. They are among the most
precious, as they are among the oldest, of our possessions as a people.
Nay, it may be held that they are the best and choicest of all the
contributions that Scotland has made to poetry and story. They are
written in her heart's blood. Even the songs of Burns and the tales of
Scott must take second rank after the ballads; their purest inspiration
was drawn from those rude old lays. In this field of national
literature, at least, we need not fear comparison with any other land
and people. Our ballads are distinctly different, and in the opinion of
unbiassed literary judges, also distinctly superior to the rich and
beautiful ballad-lore of the Southern Kingdom. One can even note an
expressive diversity of style and spirit in the ballads originating on
the North and on the South margin of the Border line. The latter do not
yield in rough vigour and blunt manliness to the ballads grown on the
northern slope of Cheviot. _Chevy Chase_ may challenge comparison with
_The Battle of Otterburn_, and come at least as well out of the contest
as the Percy did from his meeting with the Douglas; and in many other
ballads which the two nations have in common--_The Heir of Linn_, for
example--the English may fairly be held to bear away the bell from the
Scottish version. We do not possess a group of ballads pervaded so
thoroughly with the freedom and delight of living under 'the leaves
greene' as those of the Robin Hood Cycle; although we also have our
songs of the 'gay greenwood'; although bows twanged as keenly in Ettrick
Forest and in Braidislee Wood as in Sherwood itself, and we can even
claim, partly, perhaps, as a relic of the days when the King of Scotland
was Prince of Cumbria and Earl of Huntingdon, the bold Robin and his
merry men among the heroes of our ballad literature.

But, on the whole, mirth and light-hearted