It has passed through many mouths, and has been made over countless times. But once written down it ceases _virûm volitare per ora_; the invention of printing has spoiled the powers of man’s memory. We can now take up the tale at the fifteenth century; let us henceforth confine our attention to England. It is agreed on all sides that the fifteenth century was the period when, in England at least, the ballads first became a prominent feature. Of historical ballads, _The Hunting of the Cheviot_ was probably composed as early as 1400 or thereabouts. The romances contemporaneously underwent a change, and took on a form nearer to that of the ballad. Whatever may be the date of the origin of the subject-matter, the literary clothing--language, mode of expression, colour--of no ballad, as we now have it, is much, earlier than 1400. The only possible exceptions to this statement are one or two of the Robin Hood ballads--attributed to the thirteenth century by Professor Child, but _adhuc sub judice_--and a ballad of sacred legend--_Judas_--which exists in a thirteenth-century manuscript in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. During the fifteenth century, the ballads, still purely narrative, were cast abroad through the length and breadth of the land, undergoing continual changes, modifications, enlargements, for better or for worse. They told of romance and chivalry, of historical, quasi-historical, and mythico-historical deeds, of the traditions of the Church and sacred legend, and of the lore that gathers round the most popular of heroes, Robin Hood. The earliest printed English ballad is the _Gest of Robyn Hode_, which now remains in a fragment of about the end of the fifteenth century. The sixteenth century continued the process of the popularisation of ballads. Minstrels, who, as a class, had been slowly perishing ever since the invention of printing, were now vagrants, and the profession was decadent. Towards the end of the century we hear of Richard Sheale, whom we may describe as the first of the so-called ‘Last of the Minstrels.’ He describes himself as a minstrel of Tamworth, his business being to chant ballads and tell tales. We know that the ballad of _The Hunting of the Cheviot_ was part of his repertory, for he wrote down his version, which is still preserved in the Ashmolean MSS. At the end of the sixteenth century the minstrels had fallen, in England at least, into entire degradation. In 1597, Percy notes, a statute of Elizabeth was passed including ‘minstrels, wandering abroad,’ amongst the other ‘rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars’; and fifty years later Cromwell made a very similar ordinance.[6] [Footnote 6: But these were only re-enactments of existing laws. See Chambers, _Mediæval Stage,_ i. p. 54.]