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traditional ballad may be mentioned—“ The Bailiff’s Daughter of 
Islington,” “ Barbara Allen,” “ Early one Morning,” “Sally in our 
Alley,” ‘“‘There was a Jolly Miller,” and “The Three Ravens.” 
No date can be assigned to these; they have been borne to our 
own day on the breath of many a generation, and their merit is 
proved by their vitality. 
When once we know a ballad, it becomes as it were a part of 
our existence, an inheritance of which we cannot be deprived. 
Oliver Goldsmith, a man of musical taste, who worked his way in 
France by means of his flute, says :—“‘The music of the finest 
masters was but as dissonance to what I felt when our old dairy- 
maid sang me into tears with ‘Johnny Armstrong’s Good-night,’ 
or the cruelty of Barbara Allen.” 
We onlyfneed to name Shakspeare to recall a host of fragments 
of ballads, and trivial as many of the words are, they have engaged 
the attention of our best composers. To take one example in the 
“Winter’s Tale.” Autolycus, a rogue, who among other wares 
traded in ballads, meets a clown and two shepherdesses, Mopsa 
and Dorcas. Mopsa begs the clown to buy some ballads. 
‘*T love a ballad in print o’ life,” 
she says; and then adds with Arcadian simplicity, 
«For then we are sure they are true.” 
After one or two have been selected, Autolycus produces another, 
adding, 
- “This is a passing merry one, and goes to the tune of ‘Two Maids 
Wooing a Man’: there’s scarce a maid westward but she sings it.” 
Mopsa: ‘‘ We can both sing it: if thou’lt bear a part thou shalt hear : 
tis in three parts.” 
Dorcas: ‘‘ We had the tune on’t a month ago.” 
AvuToLycus: ‘‘I can bear my part you must know, it is my occupation ; 
have at it with you.” 
And then they “have at it,” no doubt to their great gratification. 
Leaving the time of Shakspeare, when we were indeed a musical 
nation, and reverting to the period of the Restoration, we meet 
with Tom D’Urfey, a great favourite of Charles II. The king 
