The rise of the ballad in the eighteenth century . , ran through four editions from 1699 to 1720;a collection of Old Ballads, 3 vols. 1723. 1725; AllanRamsays The Evergreen, 1724, and The Tea-Table Miscellany,3 vols., 1729. 1733, 1740, 1750, 1763; Thomsons OrpheusCaledonius, 1725, 1733; and the separate ballads ofWaters, and Edom of Gordon, printed in Glasgow in 1755,are all the volumes which preceed. Bishop Percys the Reliques, there were fifteen stall copiesor o-arlands, David Herds collections of ancient andModern Scotch Jongs, 1769, 1776; John Pinkertons ScottishBallads, 17
The rise of the ballad in the eighteenth century . , ran through four editions from 1699 to 1720;a collection of Old Ballads, 3 vols. 1723. 1725; AllanRamsays The Evergreen, 1724, and The Tea-Table Miscellany,3 vols., 1729. 1733, 1740, 1750, 1763; Thomsons OrpheusCaledonius, 1725, 1733; and the separate ballads ofWaters, and Edom of Gordon, printed in Glasgow in 1755,are all the volumes which preceed. Bishop Percys the Reliques, there were fifteen stall copiesor o-arlands, David Herds collections of ancient andModern Scotch Jongs, 1769, 1776; John Pinkertons ScottishBallads, 1781, 1783; James Johnsons Six Hundred ScotsSongs, 1787-1803; and Joseph Hitsons collections, 1783,1784, 1790, 1792, 1793, bring us to 1803 v/hen we reach theculmination of ballad collecting in Scotts work. The prevailing spirit of the eighteenthcentury v/as classical, and thus it was not an age forenthusiasm in ballads. The generalizing tendency ledinto ethical and didactic verse, and hence, littlelyrical verse was written. This would naturally be. -10- truQ, for the song, either in the lyric or ballad v/as prim-itive and spontaneous. Beers says, V/hatever else the poetsof Popes time could do, they could not sing.^ Theirphraseology, also, would not be suitable for ballads, forthey had substituted 2eiier^li^iGS and second-hand allusionsfor simple phrasing. V/e have said, too, that the balladslingered among the common people. When v;e remember theprofound contempt of the classicists for the xmconventional,for the country or outward nature, for the life of remotetimes and places, we may readily understand why the ballad, except for its value to the antiquary, v/as lost sight of 2 until about the middle of the eighteenth century. Beerssays, Outside of Chaucer, and except among anticiuarians andprofessional scholars, there v;as no remembrance of thewhole corpus poetarum of the Snglish Middle ^ige; none ofthe metrical romances, rhyrned chronicles, saints legends,miracle plays, minstre
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjecttheses, bookyear1911
