history and evolution of ballad-making. Mr. Child, on the other
hand, was the Grimm or Kohler of popular English and Scottish
poetry. Our objections to his theory could scarcely have been
collected in such numbers, without the aid of his own assortment of
eighteen versions or fragments, with more lectiones variae. But he
has not allowed for the possible, the constantly occurring, chance
of coincidence between fancy and fact; nor, perhaps, has he
reflected on the changed condition of ballad poetry in the
eighteenth century, on the popular love of a new song about a new
event, and on the entire lack of evidence (as far as I am aware) for
the existence of ballad-poets in the old manner during the reign of
George I. The ballad-reading public of 1719 would have revelled in
a fresh ballad of a Scottish lass, recently betrayed, tortured, and
slain far away by a Russian tyrant. A fresh ballad on Queen Mary's
Court, done in the early obsolete manner, would, on the other hand,
have had comparatively little charm for the ballad-buying lieges in
1719. The ballad-poet had thus in 1719 no temptation to be
'archaistic,' like Mr. Rossetti, and to sing of old times. He had,
on the contrary, every inducement to indite a 'rare new ballad' on
the last tragic scandal, with its poignant details, as of Peter
kissing the dead girl's head.

The hypothesis of Mr. Child could only be DEMONSTRATED incorrect by
proving that there was no Russian scandal at all, or by producing a
printed or manuscript copy of 'The Queen's Marie' older than 1719.
We can do neither of these things; we can only give the reader his
choice of two improbabilities--(a) that an historical event, in
1718-19, chanced to coincide with the topic of an old ballad; (b)
that, contrary to all we know of the evolution of ballads and the
state of taste, a new popular poem on a fresh theme was composed in