ons, and dilutions, formed the
staple of romantic fiction in verse in the Dark Ages.

The minor songs and ballads which were called forth by passing events
were usually amorous, sportive, gay, and often gross, yet suited to a
rude age.

Ellis in his specimens of the early English poets has given us sketches
of one hundred and sixty-one writers of songs from the year 1230 to
1650, after a careful search through this whole period for literary
gems. The first edition of his work consisted almost entirely of love
songs and sonnets; the revised edition has greater variety; but our
circle of ideas is so enlarged, our habits are so different from those
of by-gone centuries, that we look over this rare collection of old
poems, rather to learn the manners of the people, than to enjoy the
diction of their songs. We cannot doubt that this species of poetry
excited an important influence when it was the staple of popular
education and amusement.

A maxim is current among us which has been successively ascribed to many
great thinkers, which shows the value usually set on compositions of
this kind. It is this: "Let me make the songs of a people and I care not
who makes their laws."

A ballad is a story in verse whose incidents awaken the sympathies and
excite the passions of those who listen. The song is designed to express
deep emotion, joy or sorrow, hope or fear and appeals directly to the
feelings. Here, often, the singing is more than the sentiment; the tones
of the chanter are often more touching than the thoughts of the Emperor.
A national ode must have a national element in it; it must reflect the
passions that burn in the people's breasts. Local topics, too, may call
forth a general interest when they describe trials or triumphs which all
may share. Says Carlyle: "In a peasant's death-bed there may be the
fifth act of a tragedy. In the ballad which details the adventures and
the fate of a partisan warrior or a love-lorn knight,--the foray of a
border chieftain or the lawless bravery of a forrester; a Douglass, or a
Robin Hood,--there may be the materials of a rich romance. Whatever be
the subject of the song, high or low, sacred or secular, there is this
peculiarity about it, it expresses essentially the popular spirit, the
common sentiment, which the rudest breast may feel, yet which is not
beneath the most cultivated. It is peculiarly the birth of the popular
affections. It celebrates some event which the universal hea