The Ancient Ballad of the Nut Brown Maid [pp. 161-169]

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.
A MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO LITERATURE, SCIENCE AND ART.
RICHMOND, MARCH, 1860.
THE ANCIENT BALLAD OF THE NUT BROWN MIAID.
We cannot help thinking, that Professor Child, by the publication of his excellent collection of "English and Scottish
Ballads," has performed an acceptable
service to all admirers of antique and
original poetry. It is the pioneer effort,
by ain American, to introduce to his countrymen in a comprehensive form, this curious, interesting and now voluminous
literature. The reception whicl4 it is destined to meet remains undecided, and is
mingled with uncertainty.
It has been said, with more truth than
fiction, that the American people are deficient in strong attachments for what is
venerable; or rather, that they lack veneration for old things, merely because
they are old. This want of a characteristic, so universal to the rest of mankind,
is the result of circumstances which surround them in all their pursuits,-and
whatever their social position. Every
object about them is new; laws, institutions, government, peoples. Their inland
seas and mighty rivers; their primeval
woods and luxuriant soils; the great continent, on whose bosom they have reared
their homes,-all have a newness and a
freshness which can be found under no
other sky. Besides, individuals, whose
energies are expended in hewing down
forests and in building up cities in the
wilderness, and whose daily toils are accompanied by privations, opposed by obstacles, and environed by dangers, have
little leisure for contemplation or for
looking back. A reason, perhaps as potent, may also be discovered in the fact,
VOL. XXX-11
that they claim no long line of ancestry,
around whose names and memories the
frosts of time have clustered firom age to
age. Thus the tendency of the outward
world is to render them active-to make
them self-reliant, and to wed them to the
present; whilst that of the inward its to
shut out the past, unless a connection can
be traced with the real and the practical.
Hence, it is hardly to be expected that
the "Old Ballads" will take as deep a
hold upon the popular heart in this coun.
try as they have taken in the British Isles;,
or the lay of the Niebelungen has in Germany, or the songs of the Provincials in
France. Indeed, it is questionable whether Americans can be aroused to enthusiasm by any poetry that is not rendered
eminently attractive by the didactic style,
or that is destitute of the brilliant and
life-like graces of the drama, or that fails
to sustain with even wing the lofty
flights of the great epics; and vas.tly
smaller is the probability that they will
become deeply enamoured of a poetry
which, in language and the structure of
its verse, is obsolete; which is hallowed
by no remembrances, and linked with no
associations of theirs; which tends to illustrate no era of their civilization, and
which delineates neither scenes nor incidents" nor persons, with which they are
familiar: Nevertheless we have faith to
believe that they can respect strong ideas
and manly words, even when clothed in
the rugged old dialect of the "North
Countrie;" that they can appreciate what
is beautiful, love what is loveIble, and