« 



336 FRANCIS JAMES CHILD. 



work. But a more important piece of work, one of original investiga 

 tiou and displaying " wonderful industry, acuteness, and accuracy," 

 was the treatise issued in the Memoirs of our Academy in 1862 under 

 the modest title of " Observations on the Language of Chaucer," f 

 which was followed in 1868 by a Supplement, entitled "Observations 

 on the Language of Gower's Confessio Amantis." t " It is dilficult 

 at the present day," says Professor Kittredge, " to imagine the state of 

 Chaucer philology at the moment when this paper appeared. Scarcely 

 anything, we may say, was known of Chaucer's grammar and metre 

 in a sure and scientific way. Indeed, the difficulties to be solved had 

 not even been clearly formulated. . . . Mr. Child not only defined the 

 problems, but provided for most of them a solution which the researches 

 of younger scliolars have only served to substantiate. He also gave a 

 perfect model of the method proper to such investigations, — a method 

 simple, laborious, and exact." § 



For many years after this Mr. Child published little, but with steady 

 purjaose devoted such leisure as his incessant professional task allowed to 

 the extension of the vast stores of his learning, and to the accumulation 

 of the material for the main work of his life, a complete critical edition 

 of " The English and Scottish Ballads." At length in 1882 appeared 

 the first part of his work. The character of the undertaking was set 

 forth in a prospectus. The popular Ballads existing in the English lan- 

 guage had never been collected into one body ; a large portion of the 

 remains of the ballads was unprinted ; the text of much that was in print 

 was vitiated by editorial changes ; it was now proposed to publish all in 

 their entirety and their purity ; to include every independent version of 

 every ballad, and to record all important variations of different copies, 

 both printed and manuscript ; each ballad was to have a proper Preface, 

 and in the case of those ballads which the English have in common with 

 other nations an account was to be given of related traditions. The 

 work was to be completed by a general introduction, a glossary, and in- 

 dexes. The vast scale of this matured design became obvious on the 

 publication of the first part. The large range of the themes of the bal- 

 lads, the immense variety of local, histoi'ical, and romantic tradition 



* These are the terms used by Mr. A. J. Ellis, the learned author of the History 

 of English Pronunciation. 



t Memoirs of the American Academy, New Series, Vol. VIII. pp. 445-502. 



t Ihid., Vol. IX. pp. 2G5-315. 



§ From the admirable appreciation of Professor Child's character and works in 

 the Atlantic Monthly for December, 1896. 



