86 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



But poets have clone more than acknowledge the power of folksong ; 

 they have felt its inspiration and transformed its spirit into their own 

 creations. Its influence may be seen throughout the whole of Homer. 

 One of its saddest tales has been retold by Victor Hugo in the 

 story of " Petit Paul," who, with Dante's Anselmuccio and Shake- 

 speare's Arthur will live forever in the poetry of pity. Its ballads of the 

 Borders have inspired Scott, Eossetti, Swinburne, William Morris and 

 many another ; the ballad of Chevy Chase stirred Sidney — the flower of 

 Elizabethan Chivalry — more than the trumpet-call to arms ; and the 

 greatest writer of the centuiy bears witness to the hold its vivid simplicity 

 had upon his imagination : " the unsophisticated man." says Goethe, '' is 

 more the master of direct, etfective expression in few words than he who 

 has received a regular literary education." Everyone knows the folk- 

 song, Avhieh in dialect begins 



Min moder de mi slach't, 

 that Gretchen sings in prison ; and it is not hard to see that Goethe has 

 poured the essence of the true German rolJisIied into her spinning-song — 



Meine Ruh' ist hin, 

 Mein Herz ist schvver ; 

 Ich flnde sie ninimer 

 Und nimmerniehr. 



We may find plenty of apt examples of the comparative treatment of a 



common theme by folksong and by lettered poetry in France. The Locers' 



metainorj^hoses is an interesting case in point ; for here Ave can set our 



Canadian variants -^ beside the French ones,^^ and then compare both 



with the poetry of Mistral and the muvsic of Gounod. 



But we need not push ovir investigations on this head any further, 

 especially as no one denies the influence which folksong has always had 

 upon the poetry of art. Before leaving this part of my subject, however, 

 I should like to recommend anyone desiring an object lesson on the in- 

 spiration of folksong, to read the last six pages of Part I. in M. Tiersot's 

 "Histoire de la Chanson Populaire," for in them he will find all that is 

 necessary to prove that the JLn-seillaise, both in words and music, is, 

 in i-eality, nothing else than a folksong •' writ large." 



Turning noAv to the different forms of folksong, we naturally begin 



with the nursery. Here we find the truest of all conservatives in the 



children. Avho hand down the traditional rhymes from generation to 



generati(jn, with u marvellous fidelity unknown to their elders. The most 



primitive forms of folkverse are probably of onomatopoeic origin, and the 



little folks, who could almost make a whole nursery rhyme out of this 



one portentous word, preserve the traces of this origin at every turn : 



with their poets the sound is an echo to itself — 



Un i, un 1— Ma tante Michel ; 

 Un i, nn um— Cagi, Ca.jnm : 

 Ton pled bourdon,— José Simon ; 

 Griffor, Pandor,— Ton nez dehors.sf 



