The rise of the ballad in the eighteenth century . yments may be more refined, but they are in-finitely less pleasing. The pleasure the best actor gives,can no v/ay compare to that I have received from a countryway^who imitated a t^uakers sermon. The music of the finestsinger is dissonance to what I felt when our old dairy-maid sung me into tears with Johnny Armstrongs Last Good-night, or the Cruelty of Barbara ^llen. Again, Everycountry has its traditions, which, either too minute or notsufficiently authentic to receive historical sanction, arehanded do^TO among xne vulgar, and serve at once
The rise of the ballad in the eighteenth century . yments may be more refined, but they are in-finitely less pleasing. The pleasure the best actor gives,can no v/ay compare to that I have received from a countryway^who imitated a t^uakers sermon. The music of the finestsinger is dissonance to what I felt when our old dairy-maid sung me into tears with Johnny Armstrongs Last Good-night, or the Cruelty of Barbara ^llen. Again, Everycountry has its traditions, which, either too minute or notsufficiently authentic to receive historical sanction, arehanded do^TO among xne vulgar, and serve at once to instructthem. Of this number, the adventures of Robin Hood, thehunting of Chevy Chase, and the bravery of Johnny Armstrongamong tne English, ^are instances. While he appreciates —0000— 1. Goldsmiths The Vicar of Wakefield. The Atheneum and Company, Boston, 1900. Chapter VIII, pp. 40-46. 2. Ibid. Chapter IV. p. 21. 3. Goldsmiths Essays. First edition, 1765, Vol. III. 4. Goldsmiths works. Edition of 1854, Vol. Ill, p. 56?. -49- Tickells ballad style, it seoms as ir he felt that tobe moved by ballads was raxner a childish tning, onewhich would be natural in the ignorant or in children,but not in a citizen of the world* This same notion of the effect of ballad singingon the common people is brought out in Burkes treatiseOn the Sublime and Beautiful. Among the common sort ofpeople, I never could perceive that painting had much in-fluence on their passions. It is true that the oest sortsof poetry are not much understood in that spnere. Butit is most certain that their passions are very stronglyroused by a fanatic preacher, or by the ballads of Ghevy-Ghase, or The Children in the k7ood, and by other littlepopular poems and tales that are current in that rank oflife. I do not know of any paintings, bad or good, thatproduce the same effect. So that poetry, with all its obscurity, has a more general, as well as a more pov/erful 1 dominion over the passions, than
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