NOTES. ILLUSTRATIONS OF SCOTTISH BALLADS. In the ballad of "Annan Water" (Border Minstrelsy, vol. iii.) is the following verse:— "O he has pour'd aff his dapperpy coat, The silver buttons glanced bonny; The waistcoat bursted aff his breast, He was sae full of melancholy." A very unexpected effect of sorrow, but one that does not seem to be unprecedented. "A plague of sighing... more...

NOTES. OLD BALLAD UPON THE "WINTER'S TALE." Some of your correspondents may be able to give me information respecting an old ballad that has very recently fallen in my way, on a story similar to that of Shakspeare's Winter's Tale, and in some particulars still more like Greene's novel of Pandosto, upon which the Winter's Tale was founded. You are aware that the earliest... more...

NOTES. THE BREECHES, OR GENEVA BIBLE. Of this, the most popular edition of the Scriptures in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, we meet continually with erroneous opinions of its rarity, and also of its value, which the following brief statement may tend in a degree to correct. The translation was undertaken by certain reformers who fled to Geneva during the reign of Queen Mary; and is attributed to W.... more...

NOTES. AUTHORSHIP OF HENRY VIII. In my last communication on the subject of Henry VIII., I referred to certain characteristic tricks of Fletcher's style of frequent occurrence in that play, and I now beg leave to furnish you with a few instances. I wish it, however, to be understood, that I advance these merely as illustrative specimens selected at random; as there is scarcely a line of the... more...

NOTES. TRADITIONAL ENGLISH BALLADS. The task of gathering old traditionary song is surely a pleasant and a lightsome one. Albeit the harvest has been plentiful and the gleaners many, still a stray sheaf may occasionally be found worth the having. But we must be careful not to "pick up a straw." One of your corespondents recommends, as an addition to the value of your pages, the careful getting... more...

TWO CHANCELLORS. Although neither your readers nor I are politicians enough to interfere in the changes proposed with reference to the office of Lord Chancellor, I doubt not that some of them, now the subject is on the tapis, may feel interested in a fact connected with it, which our ancient records disclose: namely, that on one occasion there were two chancellors acting at the same time for several... more...

The first of May, eighteen hundred and fifty-one, will be remembered in the Calendar for centuries after those who witnessed its glories shall have passed away. Its memory will endure with our language; and the Macaulays and Hallams of the time to come will add brilliancy to their pages by recounting the gorgeous yet touching ceremonial of this great Apotheosis of Peace. Peace has occasionally received... more...

I. "Lord, but English people are funny!" This was the perplexed mental ejaculation that young Lieutenant Skipworth Cary, of Virginia, found his thoughts constantly reiterating during his stay in Devonshire. Had he been, he wondered, a confiding fool, to accept so trustingly Chev Sherwood's suggestion that he spend a part of his leave, at least, at Bishopsthorpe, where Chev's people... more...

EACH IN HIS GENERATION BY MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT From Scribner's Magazine Every afternoon at four o'clock, except when the weather was very bad—autumn, winter, and spring—old Mr. Henry McCain drove up to the small, discreet, polished front door, in the small, discreet, fashionable street in which lived fairly old Mrs. Thomas Denby; got out, went up the white marble steps, rang the bell,... more...

COME, LASSES AND LADS. Come, lasses and lads,                 get leave of your dads,  And away to the Maypole hie,For ev'ry fair has a sweetheart there,  And the fiddler's standing by; For Willy shall dance with Jane,  And Johnny has got his Joan,To trip it, trip it, trip it, trip it,  Trip it up and down! "You're out," says Dick; "not I," says... more...