Balladry furnishes the third source of Mr. Scollard’s singing impulse. The Oriental poems have somewhat of this phase of his work, though more especially inclining to the narrative style; and the epic poem “Skenandoa,” while written in a story-lyric, shows the ballad-making qualities, which in their true note had been heard earlier in “Taillefer the Trouvère,” and have been heard more definitely in _Ballads of Valor and Victory_, recently written in collaboration with Mr. Wallace Rice, and reciting the heroisms and adventures of soldier, sailor, and explorer from Drake to Dewey. Ballad-writing is an art calling for distinct gifts. The dramatic element must predominate. The story first—and if this be colorless, there is no true ballad; the verse next—and if this be flaccid, or if it swing to the other extreme and become too strained and tense, there is no true ballad; for the essence of ballad-writing is in the freedom of the movement, the swing and verve with which one recounts a picturesque story. Mr. Scollard’s contributions to the volume are sung with spontaneity and with a virile note, and in the matter of characterization, fixing the personality of the hero before the mind, the work is especially strong; witness “Riding With Kilpatrick;” “Wayne at Stony Point;” “Montgomery at Quebec;” the picture of Thomas Macdonough at the Battle of Plattsburg Bay, or in more recent times of “Private Blair of the Regulars,” the modern Sidney, who, dying, gave the last draught of his canteen to his wounded fellows. “The White November” and “The Eve of Bunker Hill” are among the best of the ballads. The former brings with it a well-known note, but one newly bedight with brave phrase; indeed, all the celebrated ballad measures appear in these song stories, but well individualized in diction and dramatic mood. They differ of course in the degree of these qualities; some have too slight an incident to chronicle; some might with better effect have been omitted, particularly “War in April,” by Mr. Rice; but for this he atones by “The Minute-Men of Northboro” and other vigorous contributions to the collection. The ballads have the merit of structural compactness. While the necessary portrayal of the incident renders many of the best of them too long to quote, there are, in Mr. Scollard’s contribution to the book, few superfluous stanzas; each plays its essential part in the development of the story. They may not, then, be quoted without their full complement of strophes, which debars us from citing the “White November,” “Wayne at Stony Point,” and others mentioned as most representative; but here is the tale of “Riding With Kilpatrick,” not more valiant than many of the others, but celebrating a picturesque figure. There are certain reminiscent notes of “How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix” in this galloping anapestic measure; and its graphic opening line calls to mind that instantaneous picture, “At Aershot, up leaped of a sudden the sun.”