the Arapahoes of Northern America, to the Australian blacks, among
all of whom the people are their own poets and make their own
dirges, lullabies, chants of victory, and laments for defeat. THESE
peoples are not unpoetical. In fact, when I say that the people has
been its own poet I do not mean the people which goes to music halls
and reads halfpenny newspapers. To the true folk we owe the legend
of Lord Bateman in its ancient germs; and to the folk's degraded
modern estate, crowded as men are in noisome streets and crushed by
labour, we owe the Cockney depravation, the Lord Bateman of
Cruikshank and Thackeray. Even that, I presume, being old, is now
forgotten, except by the ancient blind woman in the workhouse. To
the workhouse has come the native popular culture--the last
lingering shadow of old romance. That is the moral of the ballad of
Lord Bateman.

In an article by Mr. Kitton, in Literature (June 24, 1899, p. 699),
this learned Dickensite says: 'The authorship of this version'
(Cruikshank's) 'of an ancient ballad and of the accompanying notes
has given rise to much controversy, and whether Dickens or Thackeray
was responsible for them is still a matter of conjecture, although
what little evidence there is seems to favour Thackeray.'

For the ballad neither Thackeray nor Dickens is responsible. The
Old Woman's text settles that question: the ballad is a degraded
Volkslied. As to the notes, internal evidence for once is explicit.
The notes are Thackeray's. Any one who doubts has only to compare
Thackeray's notes to his prize poem on 'Timbuctoo.'

The banter, in the notes, is academic banter, that of a university
man, who is mocking the notes of learned editors. This humour is