A Paper was read by the Rev. A. Hume, D.C.L., LL.D., of which 

 the following is an abstract : — 



NOTES ON ENGLISH POPULAR LITERATURE. 



In the days of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, and subsequently in the 

 Norman times of England, there was a literature, but it could not be 

 called popular. To the masses of the people it was known only by 

 report ; and some even of the *' learned clerks" had but a small amount 

 of knowledge, and scanty materials on which to operate. Before the art 

 of printing was made known to the world, it was a natural and almost a 

 necessaiy consequence that knowledge should be wanting in the common 

 people. 



One of the most marked effects of the printing press was, that it 

 created a literature for the people. It furnished reading for the learned, 

 and reading for the unlearned ; and thus it divided the literary stream 

 into two distinct channels. For the higher orders there were books, for 

 the lower there were '* broadsides " — the latter being somewhat like our 

 common ballads, but printed in black letter. The books again differed 

 according to the parties addressed, as they do now ; some delighting in 

 the Scriptures, others in breviaries and lives of the saints, and some no 

 doubt preferring to these the " royal game of chess." But the stout 

 yeomanr}' and artisans, the worthy guilds and corporations, the villagers 

 at ale-house or market-place, and the good wives all over the country, 

 were contented with a smaller amount of intellectual food. They sang the 

 traditional songs of jolly Robin Hood, and they rejoiced that such could 

 now be more perfectly preserved than when they passed from mouth to 

 mouth. They could sympathise, too, with the outlaw ; for young and 

 old were familiar with the green wood, and almost every grown man was 

 practised in the broad-sword exercise, the quarter-staff, and the long-bow. 

 They refreshed their minds respecting the history of their country by 

 scraps from the ancient chronicles, or by legends of former kings and 

 queens ; and they increased the glow of their patriotism by ballads like 

 " Chevy Chase," which contrasted them with the Scotch, or the " Tribute 

 Money," written against the French. Many of these are still in 

 existence ; and they constitute a storehouse for the antiquary, furnishing, 

 as they do, curious pictures of society in the days of those who used 

 them. 



Between that period and the present occurred a sort of mediaeval sera 

 in our popular literature. The proportion of uneducated was gradually 

 diminishing, and the learned were becoming less exclusive. In the days 

 of Shakspeare, the principal facts of ancient history were made current 

 through the means of small cheap tracts; and the lessons which he 



