hat it would have been a calamity to
lose. What may almost be described as the 'classical text' of some of
the finest of our ballads, is that obtained by collation of the Brown
'sets,' of which the fullest is that originally owned by Robert
Jamieson, which reappears in revised form in one of the copies possessed
by Miss Tytler. From the circumstances of its origin, this text has
something of a North Country cast, even where it deals with a South
Country theme. But the three divisions of the land, the North, the
Centre, and the South, bear a share of the credit of its preservation.
The ballads were gathered by Deeside; they were sung and recited under
Lomond Law; they were brought before the world by a Borderer.

No such 'finds' are to be looked for any longer. The ground has been for
the most part well reaped and gleaned. Only a few ears are to be picked
up that have escaped the notice of previous collectors; although, within
the last quarter of a century, in quiet corners like the Enzie and
Buchan and the Cabrach, the late Dean Christie was still able to gather
from the lips of old peasant and fisher women specimens both of ballads
and ballad airs that had never been in print. The chief work for half a
century has been that of comparing, collating, and critically annotating
the materials already found, and reference need only be made to the
monumental work in eight volumes of Professor Child, in which the
subject of the origins, affinities, variants and genuine text of both
the Scottish and English ballads has been thoroughly worked out and
brought nearly down to date.

The Ballads themselves have done a greater work. They have permeated and
revived the poetry and literature of the century like a draught of rare
old wine. The greatest of our modern poets have been proud to
acknowledge what they owe to the forgotten minstrels who have not sent
down to us out of the darkness, along with their song, so much as their
name. Wordsworth, as well as Scott, pored entranced over Percy's
_Reliques_. Coleridge, Tennyson, Browning, Swinburne, and a host
besides, have drunk delight and found inspiration in the Scottish ballad
minstrelsy; and it has awakened a responsive chord in the lyre of the
poets of America. As enthusiastic old Christopher North wrote, 'Perhaps
none of us ever wrote verses of any worth who had not been more or less
readers of our old ballads.'

'The Bards are lost,
The song is saved.'

E