they seem to be only less popular than Shakespeare, and every
year sees a fresh output. But of late there has sprung up a custom of
confusing the old with the new, the genuine with the imitation; and the
products of civilised days, 'ballads' by courtesy or convention, are set
beside the rugged and hard-featured aborigines of the tribe, just as the
delicate bust of Clytie in the British Museum has for next neighbour the
rude and bold 'Unknown Barbarian Captive.' To contrast by such enforced
juxtaposition a ballad of the golden world with a ballad by Mr. Kipling
is unfair to either, each being excellent in its way; and the
collocation of _Edward_ or _Lord Randal_ with a ballad of Rossetti's is
only of interest or value as exhibiting the perennial charm of the
_refrain_.

There exist, however, in our tongue--though not only in our
tongue--narratives in rhyme which have been handed down in oral
tradition from father to son for so many ages, that all record of their
authorship has long been lost. These are commonly called the Old
Ballads. Being traditional, each ballad may exist in more than one form;
in most cases the original story is clothed in several different forms.
The present series is designed to include all the best of these ballads
which are still extant in England and Scotland: Ireland and Wales
possess a similar class of popular literature, but each in its own
tongue. It is therefore necessary, in issuing this the first volume of
the series, to say somewhat as to the methods employed in editing and
selecting.

Ballad editors of yore were confronted with perhaps two, perhaps twenty,
versions of each ballad; some unintelligibly fragmentary, some
intelligibly complete; some in print, some in manuscript, some,
perchance, in their own memories. Collating these, they subjected the
text to minute revision, omitting and adding, altering and inserting, to
suit their personal tastes and standards, literary or polite; and having
thus made it over, forgot to record the act, and saw no reason to
apologise therefor.

Pioneers like Thomas Percy, Bishop of Dromore, and Sir Walter Scott, may
well be excused the general censure. The former, living in and pandering
to an age which invented and applied those delightful literary
adjectives 'elegant' and 'ingenious,' may be pardoned with the more
sincerity if one recalls the influence exercised on English letters by
his publication. The latter, who played the part of Percy in the