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INTRODUCTION
I know," he continues, " a very wise man that believed if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, we need not care who should make the laws of a nation. And we find that most of the ancient legislators thought they could not well reform the manners of any city with-out the help of a lyric, and sometimes of a dramatic poet." It is certain that our songs have not only made history of themselves but for those who have sung and listened to them. Moreover, song and ballad making has ever been held in the highest repute by all classes, and still remains one of the best testimonials to man's sterling quality and literary capacity. Though, as the Russian proverb has it, " It is not every song that is sung to its last verse."
In this volume I have given as many of the Welsh as I found tolerably general; and though the information concerning American songs is surprisingly difficult to obtain this side of the Atlantic, and rather scant when secured, I think I have succeeded in saying something about most of the old favourites known in Great Britain. I have not included any songs from the Isle of Man, as they do not seem to me to be, except in a few instances, sufficiently dis-tinctive. Besides, they are mostly unknown outside the Island, and do not possess any start-
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