In 1723 a collection of English ballads, made up largely, though not entirely, of stall-copies, was issued by an anonymous editor, not a little ashamed of himself because of his interest in so unworthy a subject; for although Dryden and Addison had played the man and given kindly entertainment--the one in his _Miscellany Poems,_ the other in _The Spectator_--to a few ballad-gypsies, yet poetry in general, that most "flat, stale, and unprofitable" poetry of the early and middle eighteenth century, disdained all fellowship with the unkempt, wandering tribe. In the latter half of that century, however, occurred the great event in the history of our ballad literature. A country clergyman of a literary turn of mind, resident in the north of England, being on a visit to his "worthy friend, Humphrey Pitt, Esq., then living at Shiffnal in Shropshire," had the glorious good luck to hit upon an old folio manuscript of ballads and romances. "I saw it," writes Percy, "lying dirty on the floor under a Bureau in ye Parlour; being used by the Maids to light the fire." "A scrubby, shabby paper book" it may have been, with some leaves torn half away and others lacking altogether, but it was a genuine ballad manuscript, in handwriting of about the year 1650, and Percy, realizing that the worthy Mr. Pitt was feeding his parlor fire with very precious fuel, begged the tattered volume of his host and bore it proudly home, where with presumptuous pen he revised and embellished and otherwise, all innocently, maltreated the noble old ballads until he deemed, although with grave misgivings, that they would not too violently shock the polite taste of the eighteenth century. The eighteenth century, wearied to death of its own politeness, worn out by the heartless elegance of Pope and the insipid sentimentality of Prior, gave these fresh, simple melodies an unexpected welcome, even in the face of the reigning king of letters, Dr. Johnson, who forbade them to come to court. But good poems are not slain by bad critics, and the old ballads, despite the burly doctor's displeasure, took henceforth a recognized place in English literature. Herd's delightful collection of Scottish songs and ballads, wherein are gathered so many of those magical refrains, the rough ore of Burns' fine gold,--"Green grow the rashes O," "Should auld acquaintance be forgot," "For the sake o' somebody,"--soon followed, and Ritson, while ever slashing away at poor Percy, often for his minstrel theories, more often for his ballad emendations, and most often for his holding back the original folio manuscript from publication, appeared himself as a collector and antiquarian of admirable quality. Meanwhile Walter Scott, still in his schoolboy days, had chanced upon a copy of the _Reliques_, and had fallen in love with ballads at first sight. All the morning long he lay reading the book beneath a huge platanus-tree in his aunt's garden. "The summer day sped onward so fast," he says,