ordinary habits of thinking as to be unintelligible. The hero who devotes himself to death for the safety of his country, with a firmness as yet almost without example in the actual history of the race,--and the lover, who follows his mistress through every danger, and perhaps dies for her sake,--become objects on which every one delights to dwell, and models which the braver and nobler spirits are thus incited to emulate. The songs of rude nations, accordingly, and those in which they take most pleasure, are filled with the most romantic instances of courage, fidelity, and generosity; and it cannot be supposed that such delightful and elevating pictures of human nature can be constantly before the eyes of any people, without producing a great effect on their character. The same considerations are applicable to the effects of popular ballads upon the most numerous classes of society, even in civilized nations." It appears that popular songs are both the cause and effect of general morals: that they are first formed, and then react. In both points of view they serve as an index of popular morals. The ballads of a people present us, not only with vivid pictures of the common objects which are before their eyes,--given with more familiarity than would suit any other style of composition,--but they present also the most prevalent feelings on subjects of the highest popular interest. If it were not so, they would not have been popular songs. The traveller cannot be wrong in concluding that he sees a faithful reflection of the mind of a people in their ballads. When he possesses the popular songs of former centuries, he holds the means of transporting himself back to the scenes of the ancient world, and finds himself a spectator of its most active proceedings. Wars are waged beneath his eye, and the events of the chase grow to a grandeur which is not dreamed of now. Love, the passion of all times, and the staple of all songs, varies in its expression among every people and in every age, and appears still another and yet the same. The lady of ballads is always worthy of love and song; but there are instructive differences in the treatment she receives. Sometimes she is oppressed by a harsh parent; sometimes wrongfully accused by a wicked servant, or a false knight; sometimes her soft nature is exasperated into revenge; sometimes she is represented as fallen, but always, in that case, as enduring retribution. Upon the whole, the testimony is strong in favour of bravery in men, and purity in women, and constancy in both;--and this in the whole range of popular poetry, from ancient Arabic effusions, through centuries of European song, up to the Indian chants which may yet be heard on the shores of the wide western lakes. The distinguishing attributes of great men bear a strong resemblance, from the days when all Greece rang with the musical celebration of Harmodius and Aristogiton, through the age of Charlemagne, up to the