“The air, Sir, all the downs air,” said the Doctor; “I call them Doctor Downs. Do more for the appetite in six hours than I can in a week. Here, Peter, get this gentleman some of your mistress’s walnut pickles.” And then the good-natured Doctor fell to upon his beef again, and chatted away with the scholars and me, and soon made me feel myself quite at home. I own that I had done my neighbours a little injustice; for they were pleasant enough when the ice was once broken, and I daresay didn’t mean to be rude after all. As soon as I had finished my supper, the shorter of the scholars handed me a large cigar, the first whiff of which gave me a high idea of the taste of my contemporaries of the upper classes in the matter of tobacco. Just then the verse of a song, in which two or three men were joining, rose from the other end of the tent, from amidst the hum of voices. “I wish those fellows would sing out,” said the short scholar; “I can’t make out more than a word or two.” “You wouldn’t be any the wiser if you could,” said the other; “we have ceased to be a singing nation. The people have lost the good old ballads, and have got nothing in their place.” “How do you know?” said the short scholar; “I should like to hear for myself, at any rate.” “What sort of ballads do you mean, Sir?” said I to the long scholar. “Why, those in the Robin Hood Garland, for instance,” said he. “Songs written for the people, about their heroes, and, I believe, by the people. There’s nothing of the sort now.” “What do you say to ‘There’s a Good Time Coming’?” asked the short scholar. “Well, it’s the best of them, I believe,” said the other; “but you know it was written by Mackay, an LL.D. Besides, it’s essentially a town song.” “It’s a tip-top one, at any rate,” said the short scholar; “I wish I could write such another.” “What I say, is, that the popular songs now are written by _litterateurs_ in London, Is there any life or go in ‘Woodman spare that Tree,’ or ‘The Old Arm-Chair’? and they are better than the slip-slop sentimental stuff most in vogue.” “What a discontented old bird you are!” said the short scholar; “you’re never pleased with any product of this enlightened century.” “Let the century get a character, then; when it does, we shall get some good staves. I’m not particular; a brave story, or a quaint story, or a funny story, in good rough verse, that’s all I ask for. But, where to find one? Here’s the Doctor for umpire. I say, Doctor, don’t you agree with me, now?” “Not quite,” said the Doctor, looking up from his cold beef. “I dare say you wouldn’t think them worth much; but there are plenty of ballads sung about which you never hear.” “What! real modern ballads, written by some of the masses, in this century, for instance? Where did you ever hear one, Doctor? What are they like, now?”