As no ballads could be given in the limited space of this volume, I may here furnish one complete specimen, which is very characteristic of the intensity and of the swift pathetic transitions of ballad style in the midst of its simplicity, the ballad of Edward, or the Twa Brothers, the ancientness and popularity of which is best attested by the large number of different versions in which it appears.

There were twa brothers at the scule,

And when they got awa',

It's 'Will ye play at the stane chucking,
Or will ye play at the ba',

Or will ye gae up to yon hill head,
And there we 'll wrestle a fa'?'

I winna play at the stane chucking,

I winna play at the ba',

But I'll gae up to yon bonny green hill,
And there we'll wrestle a fa'.

They wrestled up, they wrestled down,
Till John fell to the ground:

A dirk fell out of William's pouch,
And gave John a deadly wound.

O lift me up upon your back,

Take me to yon well fair,

And wash my bluidy wounds o'er and o'er,

And they'll ne'er bleed nae mair.'

He lifted his brother upon his back,

Ta'en him to yon well fair,

And washed his bluidy wounds o'er and o'er.
But they bleed aye mair and mair.

'O tak ye aff my holland sark,
And rive it gair by gair,
And bind it in my bluidy wounds,

And they'll ne'er bleed nae mair.'

He's taken aff his holland sark,

And rived it gair by gair,
And bound it in his bluidy wounds,
But they bled aye mair and mair.

'O tak ye aff my green sleiding,
And row me saftly in,

And tak me up to yon kirk style,

Where the grass grows fair and green.'

He's taken aff the green sleiding,

And rowed him saftly in,

He's laid him down by yon kirk style, Where the grass grows fair and green.

'O what will ye say to your father dear, When ye gae hame at e'en?'

'I'll say ye're lying by yon kirk style, Where the grass grows fair and green.'

'O no, O no, my brother dear,

O ye must not say so;

But say that I'm gane to a foreign land, Where no man does me know.'

When he sat in his father's chair,
He grew baith pale and wan.

O what bluid's that upon your brow,

O tell to me, dear son?'

It is the bluid of my red roan steed,

He wadna ride for me.'

O thy steed's bluid was ne'er sae red,

Nor e'er sae dear to me.

'O what bluid's that upon your cheek,

O dear son tell to me?'

It is the bluid of my greyhound,

He wadna hunt for me.'

'O thy hound's bluid was ne'er sae red,

Nor e'er sae dear to me.

O what bluid's this upon your hand,
O dear son tell to me?'

It is the bluid of my falcon gay,

He wadna flee for me.'

'O thy hawk's bluid was ne'er sae red,
Nor e'er sae dear to me.

'O what bluid's this upon your dirk,
Dear Willie tell to me?'

'It is the bluid of my a'e brother,

O dule and wae is me.'

'O what will ye say to your father dear,
Dear Willie, tell to me?'

'I'll saddle my steed, and awa I'll ride
To dwell in some far countree.'

'O when will ye come back hame again,
Dear Willie, tell to me?'

When sun and mune leap on yon hill,
And that will never be.'

She turned hersel' right round about,
And her heart burst into three:
'My a'e dear son is dead and gane,
And my t'other ane ne'er I'll see.'

This ballad is truly wonderful. The picture of the gay boys coming out of school; the wrestle on the bonny green hill; the accident; the tender care of the homicide for his brother, and the brother's sympathising fear of the results to him; the

agitation as he sat in his father's chair; the creeping chill which comes over his mother's heart as, question after question, she divines with more and more terrible certainty what has happened; the boy's dread of his father's anger; the burst of remorse with which he makes his wild confession; his headlong flight; and then the terrifically powerful image, unmatched and unmatchable save in Homer and the Niebelungen,

She turned hersel' right round about,

And her heart burst into three

-all these combine to give a splendid specimen of the peculiar power and excellence of our ancient ballad literature.

Pope said that it was easy to mark the general course of English poetry: Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, are the great landmarks of it. If we add the names of Pope, Cowper, Wordsworth, the list of poetic epochs is complete down to the beginning of the present generation. The dulness which I have said characterises the whole of the fifteenth century, lasted far on into the sixteenth. The first half indeed of that century had the verse of Stephen Hawes and the rugged satire of Skelton to enliven it; but Edmund Spenser, born in 1553, is its first epoch-making name. Ten years later was born the poet of all time, William Shakespeare. This is the Elizabethan age of our literature, an astonishing and unequalled period of growth. Never again till the great French Revolution was there such a sudden blaze of majesty, of genius, and of strength. The decay of scholasticism, the downfall of the feudal power, the revival of classical literature, the discovery of America, the progress of scientific invention, above all the spread of the Reformation, and the

disenthralment of the national mind from the iron tyranny and superstition of the Dark Ages, combined to stimulate the intellect of men, and to thrill them with such electrical flashes of eagerness and awakenment, as to account in part for the mighty result. The soil had been broken up, and the vegetation burst forth in tropical exuberance. In that day lived Shakespeare, and Bacon, and Sidney, and Spenser, and Surrey, and Hooker, and Ben Jonson, and Raleigh,—and the names of poet, and soldier, and statesman, and philosopher, formed often one garland for a single brow. In poetry, however, the name of Spenser is the earliest; and in spite of the tediousness of long-continued allegory, the chivalry, the sweetness, the richness of his Faerie Queene will always win him a lofty place among the lovers of true poetry. In him too, as in all our greatest, we have a steady moral purpose. His end was, he tells us, 'to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline'; and Milton said of him, that 'he dare be known to think our sage and serious poet Spenser a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas.'

But, great as Spenser was, his greatness was eclipsed by the greatest poet of that century-perhaps of any century-William Shakespeare. We cannot think of him without amazement. His works are, next to the Bible, the most precious and priceless heritage of imaginative genius. What new worlds they open to us! In one play we are in magic islands, surrounded by perilous seas, with delicate spirits singing and harping in our ears; in the next, we are sitting at the stately councilboard of kings, or listening to the roar of artillery round beleaguered cities; in another our faces are reddened by the

b