MI r.\ 



,. in liis PoljMbfan, 1 peaking erf RoUn Hood and hi 

 fullowm, h* 

 " Tkrtr hUrieh Hi with rtadt, sthwart thrit ehovlden cut. ' 



To which, aadtr their inu, th.tr hf [qlm] wen baekld ul. 

 A fhort reacd at thlr bell." 



The ' Lytdl Oeate of Robyn Hode,' however, makes no mention either 

 of baldrick. or belta. 



BALDWINS I'HOSI'HoUCS. This substance consists of fused 

 nitrate of lira*, which. after exposure to the direct solar rays, continue. 

 to emit* phosphorescent light for several houn after it hu been placed 

 in a darkened n-.m. Thin apparent absorption and subsequent emission 

 of lu-lit U accompanied by no chemical change, and U consequently 

 a purrly physical phenomenon. 



HAI.'EXfC ACID (C^H,,9,HO) , A tatty acid laid to have been 

 foiinil in whale, oil, but it* existence is very doubtful. 



HAI.1ST.K. I.VUTILI.EBY.]. 



BALLAD, in music, a short air, repeated to two or more stanzas, 

 simple in construction, therefore confined in modulation, and having 

 an accompaniment of a strictly subordinate kind. When an air, or its 

 accompaniment, is florid, or modulates into unrelated keys, when, in 

 short, either assumes a more elaborate form, the composition generally 

 takes the name of *mg, or cawmrt, even when several stanzas are 

 repeated to the same melody. [Soya ; CANZONET.] 



BALLAD, in poetry, a popular song or roundelay, generally sung or 

 chanted. Johnson, in his dictionary, defines a ballad as a song ; and 

 the words are very often used as synonymous. It is not perhaps vory 

 easy to define the ballad as distinguished from the song, because in t la- 

 course of many centuries it has embraced many species of poetry. As 

 our old ballads were chanted, the name of ballad-singer became in 

 course of time applied to everything sung in the street ; but the dis- 

 tinction between a ballad and a song, if any, is that the ballad has 

 more of the epic character, the song more of the lyric. The first 

 must contain a narrative, or at least relate to man and his actions ; the 

 second may embody only a sentiment or description. The ' Diet i< mnaire 

 de 1' Academic Francaise' defines the ballade as a species of ancient 

 French poetry, composed in couplets, and which must contain three 

 couplets and an envoi ; and a prior of St. Genevieve at Paris, about the 

 middle or latter half of the 16th century, wrote a system of rules for 

 ballad writing. ' L'Art de Dictier Ballades et Rondelles,' which Warton 

 terim the first Art of Poetry printed in France. Bishop Percy says, 

 the English word ballad is evidently from the French ballade, aa the 

 latter U from the Italian baltata ; which the Crusca dictionary defines 

 'lie die si canta ballando,' a song which is sung during a dance. 

 But he adds that the word appears to have had an earlier origin : for in 

 tin- decline .if tin' Roman empire, these trivial songs were allied batlistea 

 and itiltatiimn. " Ballisteum," Saliuaaiua says, " is properly ba/ : 



Gr. 3aAArriior, axil TOV oAA/ jSaAAurrfa tatlatio Bal- 



littium igitur est quod vulgo vocaiuus ballet ; nam inde deducta vox 

 nostra." (Percy, ' IteL of Anc. Eng. Poet.' 8vo, 1794, vol. i. p. xcviii ; 

 Salman. ' Not in Hist. Aug. Script.' vi. p. 439.) 



Ballads and rude poetry have been, in all countries, the earliest 

 memorials of pubUc transactions ; and in the savage state of each were 

 invariably used to rouse and perpetuate a martial spirit. Tacitus tells 

 us that Arminius, long after his death, was remembered in the rude 

 songs of his country (' Anna!.' ii. 88) ; and the same writer informs us 

 that ballads were the only annals known among the ancient Germans. 

 They have a tradition, he adds, that Hercules visited those parts, and 

 ing his praises, when rushing to battle, in preference to all other 

 heroes. (' De Morib. Germ.' sect ii., iii.) Saxo Grammaticus, speaking 

 of the Northern writers of a somewhat later period than this, says they 

 drew the materials of their history from Runic songs. The Scandi- 

 navians had their Scalds, whose business it was to compose ballads, in 

 which they also celebrated the warlike achievements of their ancestors. 

 Similar panegyrista of warrior-merit existed in Gaul, Britain, Wales, 

 ami Ireland ; and it must not be forgotten that when Edward I. formed 

 the plan of reducing Wales to subjection, he thought it necessary to 

 destroy the bards. Their compositions, however, survived; and a 

 writer as late as Queen Elizabeth's time, describing North Wales, says, 

 " Upon the Sundays and holidays the multitude of all sorts of men, 

 women, and children of every parish do use to meet in sundry places, 

 either on some hill or on the side of some mountain, where their 

 harpers and crowthers sing them songs of the doings of their ancestors." 

 (Ellis, ' Orig. Lett, of Eng. Hist.' 2nd ser., voL iii. p. 49.) Even in the 

 New World, the American savages had their war-songs and rude poetry, 

 in which they sung the praises of those who had fought and died for 

 their country. Garcilasso de la Vega says, that in writing his history 

 of Peru be availed himself of old songs and ballads, which a princess 

 of the race of their Incas taught him to get by heart in his infancy. 



In process of time, a* manners refined, the ballad in every country 

 by degrees included a wider range of subjects ; it wan no longer solely 

 employed in rehearsing valorous deeds, but included in its rhymes the 

 marvellous tale or the wild adventure, occasionally also becoming the 

 vehicle of sentiment and passion ; and no festivity was esteemed com- 

 plete among our ancestors in the llth, 12th, and 13th centuries, which 

 was not set off with the exercise of the minstrel's talents, who usually 

 sang hi* ballad to bis own or some other, harp, and was every where 

 received with respect. 



\l> 



As intellectual cultivation advanced, however, these rude pcrform- 

 anoes gradually lost their attraction with 



luit in the further program* of literary toMo. they came to be con- 

 as object* of curiosity, on account f the ii.-vht they afforded into the 

 manners and modes of thinking of remote time* ; while th, strok 

 nature with which they abounded, and the artless siuipli.it. 

 strength of their language excited the admiration of literal critics. 

 When, therefore, they had long ceased to be . i >pular song 



or recitation, they were carefully collected by poetic . 

 elucidated by historical notes; and thus a secondar e was 



attached to them scarcely inferior to that which they possessed 

 chanted to the harp of the n . - . Aikin's ' Essay 



his Vocal Poetry,' 8vo. London, 1810.) 



Among numerous other collections of our own national ' 

 Percy's ' Reliques;' Evans's ' Old Ballads, Historical ami 

 and Kitaon's ' Ancient Songs from the tim< <! II. -my III.' -M' 

 Hpicuoua. Allan Ramsay, Piukerton,Jamieson,Fiii!av,aii'l Ayioun haw 

 collected the ' Scottish lialladx ; ' and Sir Walt. 

 ' Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.' Of those of other r..nnti 

 c.mnot omit the S|nUh ballads so frequently ijiiotvd l.y \\-r\\ 

 Hi- 1 , de las Civiles Guerras de Granada,' Hadr. It! 1 .' I : " 

 leccion de Poesias Castellanas anteriores al S%lo XV..' liy I). Tomas 

 Antonio Sanchez, 3 yols. 8vo. Madr. 1779; among the Italian 

 ' Canti Camascialeschi ' of the time of Lorenzo de' V 

 and among the ancient ballads of the North, the ' Altdanis.l I i 

 liedcr, llalladen, und Mahrchen, ubersetet von Wilhelm Curl (iriimu,' 

 (TO, H. -i.li'lb.,1811. More recent are the ' Danake Viser,' of Abral. 

 and Rahbek; and the ' Svenaka Fomsanger,' of A. I. Anvi.M.-on. in 

 1842. St. Cawari and the monks of Hicrea collected the remains and 

 biographies of the minstrels of Provence ; and the canon Manesse those 

 of the Swabian poets. 



As Ritaon says, there can be no doubt that a considerable nun:' 

 our own ancient printed songs and ballads must have perished. F> w 

 exist of an earlier date than the reign of James, or even of Charles I. 

 Being printed only on single sheets, which would fall chiefly in- 

 hands of the vulgar, who had no better method of preserving their 

 favourite compositions than by pasting them upon the wall. 

 destruction is easily accounted for. The practice of collecting them 

 into books did not commence till after Queen Elizabeth's time, and is 

 probably owing to Johnson and Delaney (great ballad-mongers*, who 

 when they were advanced in years, and incapable, perhaps, of pr . 

 anything of merit, seem to have contented themselves with col' 

 their more juvenile or happier compositions into little penny books, 

 entitled 'Garlands;' of these, being popular, and often reprinted, 

 many are still extant, particularly in the Pepyaian library. (' Dim. on 

 Ant. Songs and Music,' p. Ixxii.) 



The earliest English ballad is that on the defeat of De Moutfort in 

 the battle of Eveaham, but it is written in Norman French, though 

 thoroughly English in sentiment and feeling. The next earliest ballads 

 are those of the genuine Robin Hood series, particularly the ' Ly tell 

 Geste," a series that may well bear comparison for truth and feeling, 

 with a considerable share of English humour, with those of the Spanish 

 Cid, however different in character. And we believe that England and 

 Scotland are richer than any other nation in Europe, not even ex- 

 cepting Spain, in true original popular ballad poetry, as distinguished 

 from lyrical effusions ; a fact probably arising from the free nat 

 their constitution, which has ever been gradually and surely <le\ eloping 

 itself from the time of the Norman conquest, and the con- 

 active exercise of the public mind in the discussion of all passing 

 events. They are, moreover, markedly distinguished from those of 

 Spain by a sense of personal independence, and by a frequent s.-i 

 of persons of low rank as the heroes of great achievements. The 

 ancient ballads of Germany are also marked by national peculiarities ; 

 those composing the Niebelungen Lied having more resemblance to 

 those of the Cid than to the English ballad, in treating of high 

 historical, but half or more than half fabulous, events, rather t 1 

 the social manners, habits, and feelings of the populace. Those of 

 Hans Sachs had more of these latter qualities, but they 

 any distinguished literary excellence, and indeed are hardly to lie 

 called ballads. In modern ballad -writing Burger, Schiller, (Jot he, and 

 Uhland have given many admirable specimens. 



The earliest specimen of Scottish song, after the Scots spot 

 English language, is preserved in the ' Rhyming Chronicle ' of Andrew 

 Wyntown, prior of Lochleven, written, as is generally supposed, about 

 the year 1420, in which he relates the song which was in. 

 Alexander III. who was killed by a fall from his horse in 12S6. Ritaon 

 has given it in the ' Hist. Essay ' prefixed to his ' Scottish S.mga,' v. .1. i. 

 p. xxiv. 



The earliest English ballad, separately printed upon a single sheet, 

 is believed to be one upon the downfall of Thomas Lord Cromv, . II, 

 in 1540. 



The ballad, as distinguished from song, has been successfully culti- 

 vated by modern English writers. Wordsworth, South. \ 

 still lat.'i Mi I :i. d Maoaulay in his-balla .ndnih 



and Ivry, ami his Lays of Ancient Rome;' and Mr. Ayt.nin in hi.-- 

 ' Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers,' have shown that the spirit, lid. lity.an.l 

 vigour of the old ballad-writers of Britain have not alt' Aether .1. 

 The ballad has given its name to a peculiar metre, which is that used 



