THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. WF 
Beranger, the prince of song writers; ballads from Greece, the 
land where the singer’s art sprang at once to perfection ; songs from 
Italy, where Dante shewed. that the vulgar tongue could touch the 
heart as effectively as the classic speech of the Czesars; and the 
ballads of Poe, Longfellow, Whittier, and Lowell in the new world ; 
of which no mention can be made. Regretfully one turns from 
these: for at hazard stanzas by the score might be taken, that have 
made life brighter, toil pleasanter, and the world better. 
The modern ballads by Goethe, Scott, Schiller, Wordsworth, 
Uhland and Tennyson, need no comment. Gems of song from the 
treasury of the master singers of the certury need no commenda- 
tion. They are as wine that needs no bush; and they will delight 
readers without end in the days to come. The ballads of the olden 
time, like those by and for whom they were sung, bear a composite 
character in which good and evil are curiously blended. But their 
sturdy merit bears scrutiny, and fears no criticism. ‘There is no 
cause to exaggerate their metits, or screen their defects. In some 
will be found coarseness of thought and expression ; while others are 
common-place and abound in puerilities that are wearisome. But 
in many, may be found a combination of force, sweetness, and 
pathos unsurpassed, and but rarely equalled in literature. Sir 
Phillip Sydney could be moved by Chevy Chase, however rudely 
recited, as by the blast of a trumpet; and, in this practical age, to 
thousands the past brings no remembrance of sweeter pleasure 
than that of the hours of childhood, spent at the knee of some 
venerated, though perhaps illiterate, member of the early home, who 
at the cottage hearth, in the evening gloaming, by oft-repeated recital 
of these old ballads, made the young heart dance with joy never to 
be forgotten. 
