THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 55 
special definition, according to Carlyle, that ‘“ genius is the capacity 
to take infinite pains,” he was a genius of good standing, for few 
men ever took more pains to do accurate work than he did. But 
like some men of that stamp, he had a perverse temper, and took 
an almost impish delight in pointing out the petty inaccuracies of 
other workers in the same field of labor as his own. Scott ap- 
preciated Ritson’s exact knowledge, and careful work, and rarely 
disagreed with him, though a story is told, that Ritson, when a 
visitor at Scott’s house, on one occasion became so aggressive that 
Leyden, despite his fondness for literature, could stand the irrita- 
tion no longer, and threatened to “ thraw Ritson’s neck,” and pitch 
him out of the window. Despite imperfections of temper, which in 
his later life became a grave affliction, Joseph Ritson is entitled to 
the thanks of all who take pleasure in the antiquities of English 
literature. 
Since Ritson’s day, Scott, Motherwell, Aytoun, Lockhart, 
Jamieson, Chambers, and others, have edited collections of ballads, 
and numerous British societies have printed for their members, 
ballads of particular periods. Scott’s collection of border ballads 
was just in time to save many of them from oblivion, as their oral 
transmission was then confined toa few old people, and the next gen- 
eration would have known little or nothing ofthem. The completest 
collection of old ballads is that edited by Prof. F. J. Child, of 
Harvard University. The Ballads, in 4 vols., edited some years 
since by Prof. Child, for the Boston edition of the British poets, 
made lovers of ballad literature his debtors, and the limited edition 
in 10 parts, just completed under his care, is a superb work, quite 
unrivalled of its kind. 
If the modern ballads, which have permanently enriched the 
literature of the nineteenth century, be added to those of earlier 
date, ballad literature becomes doubled in volume, and not de- 
preciated in quality. The poets of Germany following in the 
footsteps of their forbears, have turned the genius of their language 
and predilections of the Teutonic race to account, in producing 
ballads of unsurpassed beauty, and most of the English poets of 
later years have added to the value of the hoard. 
Many a garland might be strung from the beauties of bal- 
lad poetry. The limits of this paper permit only a flower or two to 
be plucked here and there. As with Sinbad in the valley of diamonds, 
