In 1846 the Percy Society issued to its members a volume entitled _Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England_, edited by Mr. J. H. Dixon, who gives in his preface the following account of the sources whence he collected them:--"He who, in travelling through the rural districts of England, has made the roadside inn his resting-place, who has visited the lowly dwellings of the villagers and yeomanry, and been present at their feasts and festivals, must have observed that there are certain old poems, ballads, and songs which are favourites with the masses, and have been said and sung from generation to generation." When I was a boy I was wont to ride about my native county, putting up at little village inns for the night, and there I often came in for gatherings where the local song-man entertained the company. Unfortunately I did not make any collection at the time, though snatches of the songs and wafts of the strains lingered in my head. I dare say that there are still singers of ballads in other parts of England, but my researches have been confined to the west. Somerset had its own type of songs with peculiar cadences, and Devon and Cornwall were rich to overflow in melodies. Wherever I go in quest of a song-man, I hear the same story, "Ah! there was old So-and-so, eighty years of age, died last winter of bronchitis, _he_ was a singer and no mistake." They have been struck down, those old men, and therefore we must prize the more those that are left. Anciently--well, not so very anciently either, for it was within my memory--almost every parish had its bard, a man generally the descendant of a still more famous father, who was himself but the legatee of a race of song-men. This village bard had his memory stored with traditional melodies and songs and ballads, committed to him as a valuable deposit by his father, wedded to well-known ancient airs, and the country singer not only turned from the affectation of the new melodies, but with jealous tenacity clung to the familiar words. Words became so wedded to airs that the minstrels, and their hearers and imitators, could not endure to have them dissociated. I had an instance of this three winters ago, when, at a village concert, I sang an old ballad, _The Sun was Set behind the Hill_, set by a friend to a melody he had composed for it. A very old labourer who was present began to grumble. "He's gotten the words right, but he's not got the right tune. He should zing 'un right or not at all," and he got up and left the room in disdain.