Thus the cockney rhyme descends from the
twelfth century.
Such are a few of the curiosities of the ballad. The examples
selected are chiefly chosen for their romantic charm, and for the
spirit of the Border raids which they record. A few notes are
added in an appendix. The text is chosen from among the many
variants in Child's learned but still unfinished collection, and an
effort has been made to choose the copies which contain most poetry
with most signs of uncontaminated originality. In a few cases Sir
Walter Scott's versions, though confessedly "made up," are
preferred. Perhaps the editor may be allowed to say that he does
not merely plough with Professor Child's heifer, but has made a
study of ballads from his boyhood.
This fact may exempt him, even in the eyes of too patriotic
American critics, from "the common blame of a plagiary." Indeed,
as Professor Child has not yet published his general theory of the
Ballad, the editor does not know whether he agrees with the ideas
here set forth.
So far the Editor had written, when news came of Professor Child's
regretted death. He had lived to finish, it is said, the vast
collection of all known traditional Scottish and English Ballads,
with all accessible variants, a work of great labour and research,
and a distinguished honour to American scholarship. We are not
told, however, that he had written a general study of the topic,
with his conclusions as to the evolution and diffusion of the
Ballads: as to the influences which directed the selection of
certain themes of Marchen for poetic treatment, and the processes
by which identical ballads were distributed throughout Europe.
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