Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire for the Year (Volume 23) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1871. Excerpt: ... AN ESSAY ON SONGS AND BALLADS; ILLUSTRATED BY EXAMPLES FROM SHAKESPEARE, AND THOSE CURRENT IN LANCASHIRE. By the late John Harland, F.S.A., AND T. T. Wilkinson, F.R.A.S. (read 12th Jakuabt, 1871.) In order that my lamented friend may not be held responsible for any statements or opinions except his own, my additions to the Essay are enclosed within brackets.--T.T.W. in a dissertation on Songs and Ballads it may be well to define the signification of the two terms, which, though often used as meaning the same thing, are by no means synonymous. In England, song is the older word, being derived from the Anglo-Saxon sang;--our early ancestors distinguishing male from female singers, the former by Sanger and the latter sangistere, or, as we now say, singer and songstress, in the latter case using a double feminine. As late as the thirteenth century the word ballad was not known in the English language. Though we derive it from the French balade, that word is not to be found in Kellam's Norman Dictionary, in the Glossaire Francaise of Ducange, nor even in the Dictionary of the Academie Francaise. It is most probably borrowed by the French from the Italian ballata, a ball, a dance, or ballad. The French bal, a dance, and baladin, a dancer on the stage, a buffoon; and the modern term ballet for a stage exhibition of dancing, all show that, in its original meaning, a ballad was a song sung during a dance. A ballad usually contains a story; and in its present meaning it denotes a popular song, or roundelay, generally sung in the streets. Usually it consisted of quatrains, or fourline stanzas; but a piece of poetry, or rhyme, in verses of eight lines each, was formerly said to be composed in balade-royal. We shall but briefly glance at the history of the Song and the...