It may be demanded that something should be done to verify, or at least support, the allegation here made as to the peculiar literary character of the suspected ballads. This is, of course, a point to be best made out by a perusal of the entire body of this class of compositions, and scarcely by any other means. Still, it is a difference so striking, that even to present one typical ballad of true rustic origin, could not fail to make a considerable impression on the reader, after he has read specimens of those which are here attributed to a higher source. Be it observed, when an uneducated person speaks of knights, lords, and kings, or of dames and damosels, he reduces all to one homely level. He indulges in no diplomatic periphrases. It is simply, the king said this, and the lord said that--this thing was done, and that thing was done--the catastrophe or _dénouement_ comes by a single stroke. This we find in the true stall-ballads. A vulgar, prosaic, and drawling character pervades the whole class, with few exceptions--a fact which ought to give no surprise, for does not all experience shew, that literature of any kind, to have effect, requires for its production a mind of some cultivation, and really good verse flowing from an uninstructed source is what never was, is not now, and never will be? With these remarks, I usher in a typical ballad of the common class--one taken down many years ago from the singing of an old man in the south of Scotland: JAMES HATELIE. It fell upon a certain day, When the king from home he chanced to be, The king's jewels they were stolen all, And they laid the blame on James Hatelie. And he is into prison cast, And I wat he is condemned to _dee_; For there was not a man in all the court To speak a word for James Hatelie. But the king's eldest daughter she loved him well, But known her love it might not be; And she has stolen the prison keys, And gane in and discoursed wi' James Hatelie. 'Oh, did you steal them, James?' she said; 'Oh, did not you steal them, come tell to me? For I'll make a vow, and I'll keep it true, You's never be the worse of me.' 'I did not steal them,' James he said; 'And neither was it intended by me, For the English they stole them themselves, And I wat they've laid the blame on me.' Now she has hame to her father gane, And bowed her low down on her knee, 'I ask--I ask--I ask, father,' she said, 'I ask--I ask a boon of thee; I never asked one in my life, And one of them you must grant to me.' 'Ask on, ask on, daughter,' he said; 'And aye weel answered ye shall be; For if it were my whole estate, Naysaid, naysaid you shall not be.' 'I ask none of your gold, father, As little of your white monie; But all the asken that I do ask, It is the life of James Hatelie.'