All old ballads are set to dance tunes, and derive their name from _ballet_. Where no instruments were to be had, the dancers sang the ballad, and so gave the time to their feet. The fact of ballad tunes being dance tunes has been the occasion of their preservation; for in _The Compleate Dancing Master_, a collection of dance tunes, the first edition of which was published in 1650, and which went through eighteen editions to 1728, a great number have been preserved as dance tunes, with the titles of the ballads sung to them. In the old country dances the number of performers was unlimited, but could not consist of less than six. What is the origin of our title for certain dances--"Country Dances"? I venture to think it has nothing to do with the country, though I have Chappell's weighty opinion against me. The designation was properly given to all those counter-dances, _contre-dances_, which were performed by the gentlemen standing on one side, and the ladies on the other, in lines, in contra-distinction to all round and square dances. As a general rule, foreign dances are circular or square. In Brittany is La Boulangère, and among the Basques, La Tapageuse, which are set in lines; but with a few exceptions, most continental dances were differentiated from the general type of English dances by being square or round. There were, no doubt, among our peasantry dances in a ring about the May-pole, but this was exceptional. A writer at the beginning of this century says,--"An English country dance differs from any other known dance in form and construction, except _Ecossaise_ and quadrille country dances, as most others composed of a number of persons are either round, octagon, circular, or angular. The pastoral dances on the stage approximate the nearest to English country dances, being formed longways." The song and the dance were closely associated; indeed, as already said, the word _ballet_ is derived from "ballad," or _vice-versâ_; and all our old dance tunes had appropriate words set to them. Dargason, a country dance older than the Reformation, found its way into Wales, where it was set to Welsh words; the English ballad to which it was usually sung was-- "It was a maid of my country, As she came by a hawthorn tree, As full of flowers as might be seen, She marvelled to see the tree so green. At last she asked of this tree How came this freshness unto thee? And every branch so fair and clean? I marvel that you grow so green." Doubtless half the charm of a country dance consisted in the dancers singing the words of the familiar ballad as they went through the movements of the dance, the burden often occurring at a general joining of hands and united movement.