This reads invitingly; the writer then proceeds:--

"From such sources I have obtained may of the ballads in the present
collection. Those to which I have stood godfather, and so baptized and
remodelled, I have mostly met with in the 'broad-side' ballads, as they
are called."

Although the writer here speaks of Ritson and Percy as if he were
acquainted with their works, it is very evident that he had not looked into
their contents. The name of Evans' _Collection_ had probably never reached
him. Alas! we look in vain for the tantalising "pamphlet of songs,"--still,
perhaps, snugly resting on the "pot-head," where our author in his
"poetical dream" first saw it. The "black-lettered volume of ballads" too,
in the library of the "ancient descendant of a Border family," still
remains in its dusty repository, untouched by the hand of Frederick
Sheldon.

In support of the object of this paper I shall now point out "a few" of the
errors of _The Minstrelsy of the English Border_.

P. 201. _The Fair Flower of Northumberland_:--

"It was a knight in Scotland born,
Follow my love, come over the Strand;
Was taken prisoner, and left forlorn
Even by the good Erle Northumberland."

This is a corrupt version of Thomas Deloney's celebrated ballad of "The
Ungrateful Knight," printed in the _History of Jack of Newbery_, 1596, and
in Ritson's _Ancient Songs_, 1790. A Scottish version may be found in