Unless the poet is imbued with a deep sympathy for his subject, we would not give sixpence for his chance of producing a tolerable ballad. Nay, we go further, and aver that he ought when possible to write in the unscrupulous character of a partisan. In historical and martial ballads, there always must be two sides; and it is the business of the poet to adopt one of these with as much enthusiasm and prejudice, as if his life and fortunes depended upon the issue of the cause. For the ballad is the reflex of keen and rapid sensation, and has nothing to do with judgment or with calm deliberative justice. It should embody, from beginning to end, one fiery absorbing passion, such as men feel when their blood is up, and their souls thoroughly roused within them; and we should as soon think of moralising in a ballad as in the midst of a charge of cavalry. If you are a Cavalier, write with the zeal of a Cavalier combating for his king at Naseby, and do not disgust us with melancholy whinings about the desolate hearths of the Ironsides. Forget for a time that you are a shareholder in a Life Assurance Company, and cleave to your immediate business of emptying as many saddles as possible. If you are out--as perhaps your great-grandfather was--with Prince Charles at Prestonpans, do not, we beseech you, desert the charging column of the Camerons, to cry the coronach over poor old Colonel Gardiner, fetched down from his horse by the Lochaber axe of the grim Miller of Invernahyle. Let him have the honourable burial of a brave man when the battle is over; but--whilst the shouts of victory are ringing in our ears, and the tail of Cope's horse is still visible over the knowe which rises upon the Berwick road--leave the excellent Seceder upon the sod, and toss up your bonnet decorated with the White Rose, to the glory and triumph of the clans! If you are a Covenanter and a Whig, we need not entreat you to pepper Claverhouse and his guardsmen to the best of your ability at Drumclog. You are not likely to waste much of your time in lamentations over the slaughtered Archbishop: and if you must needs try your hand at the execution of Argyle, do not mince the matter, but make a regular martyr of him at once. In this way should all ballads be written; and such indeed is the true secret of the craft as transmitted to us by the masters of old.