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not pretend to determine. The despotism of the government; the trading habits of the people; the long peace they have enjoyed; and their want of intercourse with other nations, may all have had their share. The fact, however, we take to be undoubted; and it both explains and justifies the chief deformities in the code we have now been considering. If such a code could be imposed by force upon an honourable and generous people, it would be the most base and cruel of all atrocities to impose it. But it is good

enough for a race to whose habits it was originally adapted, and who have quietly submitted to it for two thousand years. When governments begin to think it a duty to exalt and improve the condition of their subjects, the Chinese government will have more to do than any other; but while the object is merely to keep their subjects in order, and to repress private outrages and injuries to individuals, they may boast of having as effectual provisions for that purpose, as any other people.

FROM THE QUARTERLY REVIEW,

Old Ballads, Historical, &c. By Thomas Evans. Revised, &c. by his son, R. H. Evans. 4 vols. cr. 8vo. pp. 1504. London. 1810.

Essays on Song Writing, &c. By John Aikin. A new edition, with Additions and Corrections, and a Supplement By R. H, Evans. cr. 8vo. pp. 380. London. 1810. Vocal Poetry, or a Select Collection of English Songs. To which is prefixed, an Essay on Song Writing. By John Aikin, M. D. post 8vo. pp. 304. London. 1810.

WE class these publications together, as being a species which characteristick simplicity and the powerful union of musick render generally acceptable, as well to high-born dames in bower and hall, as to "the free maids that weave their thread with bones."

The reviver of minstrel poetry in Scotland, was the venerable bishop of Dromore, who, in 1765, published his elegant collection of heroick ballads, songs, and pieces of early poets, under the title of Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. The plan of the work was adjusted in concert with Mr. Shenstone, but we own we cannot regret that the execution of it devolved upon Dr. Percy alone. It was divided into three volumes, each forming a distinct series of ancient poetry, selected with classical elegance, and interspersed with modern imitations and specimens of lyrick composition. The various subdivisions of the work were prefaced by critical and cu

rious dissertations upon subjects connected with or tending to elucidate the ancient ballads which they preceded. The arrangement of the specimens was so managed as to exhibit the gradation of language, the progress of popular opinions, the manners and customs of former ages, and the obscure passages of our earlier classical poets. The plan of this publication was eminently calculated to remove the principal obstacle which the taste of the period offered to its success. To bring Philosophy from heaven to dwell among men, it was necessary to devest her of some of her more awful attributes, to array her doctrines in familiar language, and render them evident by popular illustration. But Dr. Percy had a different course to pursue when conducting Legendary Lore from stalls, and kitchens, and cottage chimneys, or at best, from the dust, moths, and mould of the Pepysian or Pearsonian collections, to be an inmate of the drawing

foom and the study. The attempt was entirely new, and the difficulties attending it arose from the fastidious taste of an age which was accustomed to receive nothing under the denomination of poetry, unrecommend ed by flowing numbers and elaborate expression. To soften these difficulties Dr. Percy availed himself, to a considerable extent, of his own poetical talent, to alter, amend, and decorate the rude, popular rhymes which, if given to the publick with scrupulous fidelity, would probably have been rejected with contempt and disgust. It was not then so much the question whether an ancient poem was authentick, according to the letter, as whether it was, or could be rendered, worth reading; and it might be said of Dr. Percy's labours as an editor, nihil quod tetigit non ornavit. It may be asked by the severer antiquary of the present day, why an editor, thinking it necessary to introduce such alterations, in order to bring forth a new, beautiful, and interesting sense from a meagre or corrupted original, did not, in good faith to his readers, acquaint them with the liberties he had taken, and make them judges whether, in so doing, he transgressed his limits. We answer, that unquestionably such would be the express duty of a modern editor; but such were not the rules of the service when Dr. Percy first opened the campaign. His avowal of alterations, additions, and conjectural emendations, at the bottom of each page, would have only led his readers to infer that his originals were good for nothing; not to mention that a great many of those additions derived their principal merit from being supposed ancient. In short, a certain conformity with the general taste was necessary to introduce a relish for the subject; accuracy, and minute investigation of the original state of the ballads, was likely to follow, and did follow VOL. V

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so soon as the publick ear had been won by the more elegant and polished edition of Dr. Percy. It had been well if the industrious Ritson, and other minute and accurate labourers in the mine of antiquity, had contented themselves with exhibiting specimens of the ore in its original state, without abusing the artist who had made the vein worth digging, by showing to what its produce might be refined.

The Reliques of Ancient English Poetry seem, shortly after their publication, to have exceeded even the expectation of the editor in giving a strong and determined impulse to publick taste and curiosity, the effects of which have only abated within these very few years. Mr. Thomas Evans, bookseller, was the first who endeavoured to avail himself of the taste which they had excited, by publishing the collection of which his son has now given us a second edition.

This publication, although intended as a supplement to the Reliques of Ancient Poetry, cannot be considered as continued upon the same plan. There are no dissertations prefixed, and the preliminary matter which prefaces the ballads, is but meagre. The ballads themselves are chiefly such as the more cautious taste of Dr. Percy had left unpublished, either because their rude structure was incapable of decoration, or because they were so well known as to render decoration unadvisable. The principal source from which they were taken, is a small publication in three vols. 12mo. entitled: "A Collection of old Ballads, corrected from the best and most ancient Copies extant, with Introductions, historical, critical, or humorous: illustrated with copperplates." It is now, we believe, extremely rare, and sells at a price very disproportionate to its size. The volumes appeared separately, and from the edition now before us,

the first seems to have been reprinted in 1723, the second in the same year, the third in 1725. The editor was an enthusiast in the cause of old poetry, and selected his matter without much regard to decency, as will appear from the following singular preface to one or two indelicate pieces of humour. "One of the greatest complaints made by the ladies against the first volume of our collection, and, indeed, the only one which has reached my ears, is the want of merry songs. I be lieve I may give a pretty good guess at what they call mirth in such pieces as these, and shall endeavour to satisfy them, though I have very little room to spare." From this fountain, the late Mr. Evans, seems to have drawn such supplies as it afforded. Most of his historical ballads are taken from it, and many of the Tales of Robin Hood, although he probably used some of the Garlands respecting the hero of Sherwood, in correcting and completing that series. In the present edition these are materially improved by comparison with, and reference to, the black-letter copies.

But, although Mr. Evans did not imitate Dr. Percy in the more learned and critical department of his labour, and although he stands acquitted of having taken the same license with originals of acknowledged antiquity; yet he not only followed his plan in admitting the compositions of modern authors in imitation of the ancient ballad, but the third and fourth volumes of his works contain also some pieces presented as ancient, which, from the orthography, language, sentiments, and numbers, are evidently spurious. These ballads, which we have always considered as the most valuable part of Mr. Evans's collection, as far as poetry is concerned, are Bishop Thurston and the King of Scots, Battle of Cuton Moor, Murder of Prince Arthur, Prince Edward and Adam Gordon, Cumnor Hall, Ara

bella Stuart, Anna Bullen, The Lady and the Palmer, The Fair Maniack, The Bridal Bed, The Lordling Peasant, the Red-Cross Knight, The Wandering Maid, The Triumph of Death, Julia, The Fruits of Jealousy, The Death of Allen. These seventeen ballads, which we believe have never been published except in this work, have a sort of family resemblance which indicates a common parent. The antique colouring in all of them originally consisted in the adoption of a species of orthography embar rassed with an unusual number of letters, and regular exchaungynge the i for the y in the participle, which is, for farther dignity, graced, uniformly, with a final e. These injudicious marks of imitation, which can no more render a modern ballad like an ancient, than a decoction of walnuts can convert the features of a European into those of an Asiatick, are rejected by the present editor, Mr. R. H. Evans, who thus leads us to infer that he does not consider the poems we have enumerated, as authentick remnants of antiquity. We wish he had favoured us with some light upon their history. They appear to us to be the work of an author endowed with no small portion of poetical genius. Many marks of haste appear in the composition, which the writer probably considered as of little importance, since he never intended to be responsible for his offspring. But there are touches of great beauty of description, and an expression of sentiment peculiarly soft, simple, and affecting, in almost every one

of these neglected legends. The knowledge of history, too, which they display, argues that the author mingled the pursuits of the antiquary with those of the poet, and was enabled, by the information so collected, to realize and verify the conceptions of his imagination when employed upon the actual manners and customs of the feudal

ages. To vindicate our eulogium we beg leave to quote a few stanzas from the tale entitled the Bridal Bed.

"It was a maid of low degree

Sat on her true-love's grave,

And with her tears most piteously
The green turf she did lave;

And theu shalt flaunt in robes of gold,
A lady rich and fair:

Thou shalt have halls and castles fair,
And when, sweet maid, we wed,
O thou shalt have much costly gear,
To deck thy bridal bed.'

"Oh hold thy peace, thou cruel knight, Nor urge me to despair;

She strew'd the flow'rs, she pluck'd the With thee my troth I will not plight,

weed,

And show'rs of tears she shed: Sweet turf,' she cried, by fate decreed To be my bridal bed!

'I've set thee, flow'r, for that the flow'r

Of manhood lieth there;

And water'd thee with plenteous show'r
Of many a briny tear?

And still she cried, 'Oh stay, my love,
My true-love stay for me;
Stay till I've deck'd my bridal bed,
And I will follow thee.

Sweet turf, thy green more green ap pears,

Tears make thy verdure grow,
Then still I'll water thee with tears,
That thus profusely flow.

Oh stay for me, departed youth,
My true-love, stay for me;
Stay till I've deck'd my bridal bed,
And I will follow thee,

'This is the flow'ry wreath he wove,

To deck his bride, dear youth!
And this the ring with which my love
To me did plight his trotli;
And this dear ring I was to keep,

And with it to be wed;
But here, alas! I sigh and weep
To deck my bridal bed.'

A blithsome knight came riding by,
And, as the bright moon shone,
He saw her on the green turf lie,

And heard her piteous moan;
For loud she cried, 'O stay, my love,
My true-love, stay for me;
Stay till I've deck'd my bridal bed,
And I will follow thee.'

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For all thy proffers fair:

But I will die with my own true-love;

My true-love stay for me;
Stay till I've deck'd my bridal bed,
And I will follow thee.

Thy halls and castles I despise;
This turf is all I crave;
For all my hopes, and all my joys,
Lie buried in this grave;

I want not gold, nor costly gear,
Now my true-love is dead;
But with fading flow'r and scalding tear
I deck my bridal bed."

'Oh! be my bride, thou weeping fair,
O! be my bride, I pray;

And I will build a tomb most rare,
Where thy true love shall lay;'
But still with tears she cried, My love,
My true-love, stay for me;

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Stay till I've deck'd my bridal bed,

And I will follow thee.

'My love needs not a tomb so rare,
In a green grave we'll lie;

Our carved works, these flow'rets fair;
Our canopy, the sky.

Now go, sir knight, now go thy ways;
Full soon I shall be dead;

And then return, in some few days,
And deck my bridal bed.

And strew the flow'r, and plutk the thorn,

And cleanse the turf, I pray;

So may some hand thy turf adorn,
When thou in grave shalt lay.

But stay, oh thou whom dear I love,
My true-love, stay for me;

Stay till I've deck'd my bridal bed,
And I will follow thee."

This dirge is certainly not ancient; but it is no treason to say it is better than if it were. We cannot suppress a suspicion that these legendary pieces flowed from the pen of a poet to whom neither his own nor this generation has been altogether just. We mean William Julius Mickle,

the translator of the Lusiad. His Sir Martyn, written in imitation of Spenser's manner, with much of the copious and luxuriant description of his original, shows his attachment to the study of the ancient poetry of Britain; and his two beautiful ballads, entitled Hengist and Mey, and the Sorceress, have the same harmony of versification, the same simple and affecting turn of expression, with the imitations of the heroick legend which we are now considering. If Mr. Mickle should have been a friend of the elder Mr. Evans, as we believe, we consider that circumstance, joined to internal evidence, as sufficient to ascertain his property in the ballads in question.

We have also to complain, that in publishing some other imitations of the ancient ballads, the authors' names have been withheld, where, perhaps, they were more easily attainable than in the case just stated. Thus the ingenious Mr Henry Mackenzie (author of the Man of Feeling) is well known to have written the beautiful Scottish ballad entitled Kenneth; and Michael Bruce that of Sir John the Ross. The ballad of the Laidley Worm of Spindleston Heughs, is also known to have been, in a very great measure, the production of the rev. Mr. Lambe, late vicar of Norham, and editor of the Battle of Flodden-field. It is founded upon a prevailing tradition in Bamboroughshire, and the author has interwoven a few stanzas of the original song concerning it, which begins,

"Bambro' castle's built full high,
It's built of marble stone,
And lang lang may the lady wait

For her father's coming home," &c.

In revising his father's publications, Mr. R. Evans has, with great judgment, discarded a number of sing-song imitations of the ancient ballad by Jerningham, Robinson, and other flimsy pretenders, who,

seduced by the apparent ease of the task, ventured to lay their hand upon the minstrel lyre. For a different reason, he has omitted the contributions which his father levied upon Goldsmith, Gray, and other eminent moderns, whose works are in every one's hand. By this exclusion he has made room for a selection of genuine ancient poetry, compiled, by his own industry, from the hoarded treasures of black-letter ballads.

It is no disgrace to Mr. Evans, that these veterans, whom he has introduced to recruit his diminished ranks, are, generally speaking, more respectable for their antiquity, than for any thing else. Percy, Ellis, and other editors of taste and genius, had long ago anticipated Mr. Evans's labours, and left him but the refuse of the market. Some of the ballads, indeed, exhibit such wretched doggrel, as serves, more than the dissertations of ten thousand Ritsons, to degrade the character of our ancient song-inditers.

The "Warning to Youth," for example, " showing the lewd life of a merchant's sonne of London, and the misery that at the last he sustained by his notoriousnesse," might, notwithstanding the valuable moral attached to it, have been left, without injury to the publick, to ❝ dust and mere oblivion." Had we known Mr. Evans's curiosity in such matters, we could have supplied him with as much stale poetry of a similar description as would have made his four volumes twenty.

But although Mr. Evans's love of antiquity has occasionally seduced him into publishing what is no otherwise valuable than as it is old, a prejudice by which all antiquarian editors are influenced in a greater or lesser degree, we have to applaud the diligence with which he has traced and recovered some beautiful, and some curious pieces of poetry which possess intrinsick merit and interest. Among the former we dis

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