It is not ballads only that are stored in their memories--many ballads that go back for their origin to before the reign of Henry VII., but also songs that breathe the atmosphere of the time of Elizabeth. Mr. R. Bell, in his introduction to his _Songs from the Dramatists_, says, "The superiority in all qualities of sweetness, thoughtfulness, and purity of the writers of the sixteenth century over their successors is strikingly exhibited in these productions. "The songs of the age of Elizabeth and James I. are distinguished as much by their delicacy and chastity of feeling, as by their vigour and beauty. The change that took place under Charles II. was sudden and complete. With the Restoration love disappears, and sensuousness takes its place. Voluptuous without taste or sentiment, the songs of that period may be said to dissect in broad daylight the life of the town, laying bare with revolting shamelessness the tissues of its most secret vices. But as this morbid anatomy required some variation to relieve its sameness, the song sometimes transported the libertinism into the country, and through the medium of a sort of Covent Garden pastoral exhibited the fashionable delinquencies in a masquerade of Strephons and Chlorises, no better than the Courtalls and Loveits of the comedies. The costume of innocence gave increased zest to the dissolute wit, and the audiences seem to have been delighted with the representation of their own licentiousness in the transparent disguise of verdant images, and the affectation of rural simplicity." Very few of the songs of the Restoration have lingered on in the memory of our minstrels, if ever they were taken into their store. Many of the songs of that period were set to tunes that have passed on from generation to generation, up to the present age, when they are all being neglected for wretched, vulgar songs, without fun and without melody. The ballad especially is death-smitten. Folks nowadays lack patience, and will not endure a song that is not finished in three minutes. The old ballad was a folk-tale run into jingling rhyme, and sung to a traditional air; it is often very long. One I have recovered, _The Gipsy Countess_, runs through over twenty verses. The very popular _Saddle to Rags_ runs through some twenty-two, _Lord Bateman_ has about fifty, and _Arthur of Bradley_ has hardly any end to it. A ballad cannot be pared down greatly, as that destroys the story, which is set to verse to be told leisurely, with great variety of expression.