1894.] English Folk Song. 287 



" When I was a small boy, just fifteen, then very little Greek I 

 knew." The song writers of the end of last century and the 

 beginning of this took many of our folk airs, altered them slightly, 

 and adapted to them humorous songs of their own composition. 

 Such were Clifton, Beuler, Hudson, Sam Co well, &c. Good old 

 English airs were vulgarised to such words as " Villikins and his 

 Dinah," and " Billy Barlow," and " Ben was a Hackney-coachman 

 rare." 



It is in vain to look through the printed music that issued from 

 the press from the time of Tom Durfey to find the melodies most 

 dear to the hearts of the old singers in country places. Some of 

 their airs are older than any that have been published. One man I 

 know sings nothing that is not in an old church mode — a hypo- 

 Dorian or mixolydian melody suits him down to the ground. He 

 cannot abide a tune of the modern sort. But it is not so with all. 

 They have had to accommodate themselves to the altered taste of the 

 times, and they sing songs of all dates. 



In my Introduction to " Songs of the West " I expressed a doubt 

 whether the melodies were not heirlooms from a cultured past. 

 I doubted their being genuine productions of the folk muse. 

 Mr. Sheppard differed from me, and further consideration and 

 research induce me to modify my opinion. 



It is the impossibility of tracing these airs, either in the printed 

 or the engraved songs of the past, that makes me think that a good 

 many of them may have originated among the people themselves. 

 Their melodies are of all ages and styles. There are those that 

 savour of the Elizabethan madrigal, there are others distinctly earlier, 

 old minstrel-ballad melodies. There are tunes that bear the impress 

 of the age of Purcell and Arne and Green, and others that are 

 Dibdinian. Yet none of these can be found among compositions of 

 these masters. 



The words are those of the peasant poet. We can find them in 

 the halfpenny broadside, often grossly mutilated, for the broadside 

 ballad is the echo, not the original. It is therefore likely that the 

 airs as well sprang spontaneously from the joyous or sad hearts of 

 the people. Their sorrows and their mirth found natural expression 

 in song. They were like the birds of the air, they sang because it 

 was a necessity to sing. 



But then they sang according to the style of singers in vogue, as 

 they talked and dressed in the prevailing fashion, perhaps always a 

 little after a fashion had passed. Now and then they accepted songs 

 that had been composed for them, not often, but occasionally, and 

 sometimes songs that never had been intended for them, but which 

 hit their fancy. When such came to them and were accepted, they 

 generally modified them after their own taste. 



There is one feature in our English peasant song which makes it 

 essentially worth preservation, This is its entire genuineness. The 

 French chanson poptdaire, according to M. Loquin, is entirely 



