the ridicule of Wagstaff, who bestowed a like pompous character on 'Tom
Thumb'; and to the contempt of Dennis, who, considering the fundamental
position of his criticism, that 'Chevy Chase' pleases and ought to please
because it is natural, observes that 'there is a way of deviating from
nature . . . by imbecility, which degrades nature by faintness and
diminution'. . . In 'Chevy Chase' . . . there is a chill and lifeless
imbecility. The story cannot possibly be told in a manner that shall
make less impression on the mind."[35]

Nicholas Rowe, the dramatist and Shakspere editor, had said a good word
for ballads in the prologue to "Jane Shore" (1713):

"Let no nice taste despise the hapless dame
Because recording ballads chant her name.
Those venerable ancient song enditers
Soared many a pitch above our modern writers. . .
Our numbers may be more refined than those,
But what we've gained in verse, we've lost in prose.
Their words no shuffling double meaning knew:
Their speech was homely, but their hearts were true. . .
With rough, majestic force they moved the heart,
And strength and nature made amends for art."

Ballad forgery had begun early. To say nothing of appropriations, like
Mallet's, of "William and Margaret," Lady Wardlaw put forth her
"Hardyknut" in 1719 as a genuine old ballad, and it was reprinted as such
in Ramsay's "Evergreen." Gray wrote to Walpole in 1760, "I have been
often told that the poem called 'Hardicanute' (which I always admired and
still admire) was the work of somebody that lived a few years ago. This
I do not at all believe, though it has evidently been retouched by some