after 1680, a single popular piece which could be mistaken for a
ballad of or near Queen Mary's time.

*Lockhart, i. 114, x. 138.

The known person least unlike Mr. Courthope's late 'maker' was
'Mussel-mou'd Charlie Leslie,' 'an old Aberdeenshire minstrel, the
very last, probably, of the race,' says Scott. Charlie died in
1782. He sang, and sold PRINTED ballads. 'Why cannot you sing
other songs than those rebellious ones?' asked a Hanoverian Provost
of Aberdeen. 'Oh ay, but--THEY WINNA BUY THEM!' said Charlie.
'Where do you buy them?' 'Why, faur I get them cheapest.' He
carried his ballads in 'a large harden bag, hung over his shoulder.'
Charlie had tholed prison for Prince Charles, and had seen Provost
Morison drink the Prince's health in wine and proclaim him Regent at
the Cross of Aberdeen. If Charlie (who lived to be a hundred and
two) composed the song, 'Mussel-mou'd Charlie ' ('this sang Charlie
made hissel''), then this maker could never have produced 'The
Queen's Marie,' nor could any maker like him. His ballads were
printed, as any successful ballad of 1719 would probably have been,
in broadsides.* Against Mr. Child and Mr. Courthope, then, we argue
that, after 1600, a marked decadence of the old ballad style set in-
-that the old style (as far as is known) died soon after Bothwell
Brig (1679), in the execrable ballads of both sides, such as
'Philiphaugh,' and that it soon was not only dead as a form in
practical use, but was entirely superseded by new kinds of popular
poetry, of which many examples survive, and are familiar to every
student. How, or why, then, should a poet, aiming at popularity,
about 1719-1730, compose 'The Queen's Marie' in an obsolete manner?
The old ballads were still sung, indeed; but we ask for proof that