owed to drop into oblivion, without loss to posterity and with gain
to the character and reputation of the 'good old times.' The
balladists--those of the early broadsheets at least--could be gross on
occasion; although, it must be owned, not more gross than the dramatists
of Elizabethan and Restoration times, and even the novelists of last
century, sometimes deigned to be. In particular, they made the mistake,
of venerable date and not quite unknown to this day, of confounding
humour with coarseness. A humorous ballad is usually a thing to be
fingered gingerly. Yet, although (partly for the reason hinted at)
humour has been said not to be a strongly marked element of the flower
of our ballad poetry, there are many of the best of them that have
imbedded in them a rich and genuine vein of comic wit or broad fun; and
there are also what may be classed as Humorous Ballads proper (or
improper as the case may be), which reflect more plainly and frankly,
perhaps, than any other department of our literature, the customs,
character, and amusements of the commonalty, and have exercised an
important influence on the national poets and poetry of a later day.

Of the blending of the humorous with the romantic, an excellent example
is found in the ballad of _Earl Richard and the Carl's Daughter_. The
Princess, disguised in beggar's duds, keeps on the hook the deluded and
disgusted knight, who has unwillingly taken her up behind him, and with
wilful and lively wit draws for him pictures of the squalid home and
fare with which she is familiar, until it is her good time and pleasure
to undeceive him:

'She said, "Good-e'en, ye nettles tall,
Where ye grow at the dyke;
If the auld carline my mother was here
Sae weel 's she wad ye pike.

How she wad stap ye in her poke,
I wot she wadna fail;
And boil ye in her auld brass pan,
And o' ye mak' good kail."

. . . . .

"Awa', awa', ye ill woman,
Your vile speech grieveth me;
When ye hide sae little for yoursel'
Ye 'll hide far less for me."

"Gude-e'en, gude-e'en, ye heather berries,
As ye grow on yon hill;
If the auld carline and her bags were here,
I wot she would get her fill.

Late, late at night I knit our pokes,
Wi' four-and-twenty knots;
And in the morn, at breakfast-time
I 'll carry the keys o' your locks."

. . .