2. Guy and Amarant. By Sam. Rowlands 3. The auld good Man. A Scottish Song 4. Fair Margaret and Sweet William 6. Sweet William's Ghoft. A Scottish Ballad 7. Sir John Grehme and Barbara Alien. Ditto 8. The Bailiff's Daughter of Islington 15. A Hue and cry after Cupid. By Ben. Jonfon 159 26. The Fairies Farewell. By Dr. Corbet 216 An ordinary SONG or BALLAD, that is the delight of the common people, cannot fail to please all fuch readers, as are not unqualified for the entertainment by their affectation or their ignorance; and the reason is plain, because the fame paintings of nature which recommend it to the most ordinary Reader, will appear beautiful to the most refined. ADDISON, in SPECTATOR, No. 70. RELIDUES RELID U O F ANCIENT ENGLISH POETRY, &c. SERIES THE THIRD BOOK I. POEMS ON KING ARTHUR, &c. The Third Volume being chiefly devoted to Romantic Subjects, may not be improperly introduced with a few flight Strictures on the old METRICAL ROMANCES: a fubject the more worthy attention, as it seems not to have been known to Juch as have written on the nature and origin of Books of VOL. III. b Chivalry, Chivalry, that the firft compofitions of this kind were in Verfe, and ufually fung to the Harp. ON THE ANCIENT METRICAL ROMANCES, &C. 1.TH I.THE first attempts at compofition among all barbarous nations are ever found to be Poetry and Song. The praises of their Gods, and the achievements of their heroes, are usually chanted at their fes tival meetings. Thefe are the first rudiments of Hiftory. It is in this manner that the favages of North America preserve the memory of past events (a): and the fame method is known to have prevailed among our Saxon Ancestors, before they quitted their German forefts (b). The ancient Britons had their BARDS, and the Gothic nations their SCALDS or popular poets (c), whose business it was to record the victories of their warriors, and the genealogies of their Princes, in a kind of narrative fongs, which were committed to memory, and delivered down from one Reciter to another. So long as Poetry continued a distinct profeffion, and while the Bard, or Scald, was a regular and stated officer in the Prince's court, these men are thought to have performed the functions of the hiftorian pretty faithfully; for though their narrations would be apt to receive a good deal of embellishment, they are fuppofed (a) Vid. Lafiteau Moeurs de Sauvages, T. 2. Dr. Browne's Hift. of the Rife and Progress of Poetry. (b) Germani celebrant carminibus antiquis (quod unum apud illos memoriæ et annalium genus eft) Tuifionem, &c. Tacit. Germ. c. 2. (c) Barth. Antiq. Dan. Lib. I. Cap. 10.--Wormii Literatura Runica, ad finem. to |