Page:Old English ballads by Francis Barton Gummere (1894).djvu/67

Rh INTRODUCTION. Ixi sings a song, and then others sing it after him, changing what they do not like." That is all.^ It cannot be denied that this view of the matter agrees admirably with our modern habit of thought, and Bohme finds approval, im- plied or expressed, from many a minor critic of the ballad, — for example, to enlarge our borders, from a Dutch writer, who explicitly commends such a position.^ Im- plied approval, distinct enough on the main question, comes also from the scholars who just now have been handling these matters in Paul's Germanic Philology. Professor Brandl* recognizes oral tradition as the only available test of the English ballad, so far as matter is concerned, and insists further upon a set metrical form. Lundell, speaking for Scandinavia,* thinks that theories about the origin and development of ballads are still one and all hypothetical ; but he has no love for the mystery. Meier,^ for the Germans, defines a song of the people as one where " the author or authors " have no intention of a literary character, no design upon the world of letters,* — a view amiable but vague. So runs the uniform comment of these certainly able critics ; and what they assert really amounts to an identi- 1 Unfortunately for his cause, Bohme does not stop here, but goes on to define the difference between i>oetry of the people and that of the schools, whereby he brings under the second class precisely those songs of the leprous monk which he has just set up as models of the first class. Why, he asks, in contradiction of himself, why inquire for the author of a folk-song when it was never really composed {ver/asst) at all ? ** It is a masterless and nameless affair " — and he faUs to quoting . . . Jacob Grimm ! See p. xxiii ff . 2 G. Kalff, Net Lied in de Middeleeuwen, Leiden, 1884, p. 38. 6 Ibid,, II, i, 741. XXIX, 121 f. ; Burdach in same journal, XXVII, 344, and so on ; but all would be to one purpose. Digitized by LjOOQIC
 * Grundriss d. german. PhiloL, II, i, 839 f.
 * Ibid,^ II, i, 724f.
 * We might go on with examples : R. M. Meyer in Haupt's Zts.y