BALLADS THE FIRST HISTORY. FROM HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION IN ENGLAND."

AT a very early

a very early period in the progress of a people, and not long before they are acquainted with the use of letters, they feel the want of some resource which in peace may amuse their leisure and in war may stimulate their courage. This is supplied to them by the invention of ballads, which form the groundwork of all historical knowledge, and which, in one shape or another, are found among some of the rudest tribes of the earth. They are for the most part sung by a class of men whose particular business it is thus to preserve the stock of traditions. Indeed, so natural is this curiosity as to past events that there are few nations to whom these bards or minstrels are unknown. Thus, to select a few instances, it is they who have preserved the popular traditions not only of Europe, but also of China, Thibet and Tartary; likewise of India, of Seinde, of Beloochistan, of Western Asia, of the islands of the Black Sea, of Egypt, of Western Africa, of North America, of South America and of the islands in the Pacific.

lads, and, instead of being considered as a mere amusement, they rise to the dignity of judicial authorities. The allusions contained in them are satisfactory proof to decide the merits of rival families, or even to fix the limits of those rude estates which such a society can possess. We therefore find that the professed reciters and composers of these songs are the recognized judges in all disputed matters, and, as they are often priests. and believed to be inspired, it is probably in this way that the notion of the divine origin of poetry first arose. These ballads will, of course, vary according to the customs and temperaments of the different nations and according to the climate to which they are accustomed. In the south they assume a passionate and voluptuous form; in the north they are rather remarkable for their tragic and warlike character. But, notwithstanding these diversities, all such productions have one feature in common: they are not only founded on truth, but, making allowance for the colorings of poetry, they are all strictly true. Men who are constantly repeating songs which they constantly hear, and who appeal to the authorized singers of them as final umpires in disputed questions, are not likely to be mistaken on matters in the accuracy of which they have so lively an interest.

This is e earliest and most simple of the various stages through which history is obliged to pass. But in the course of time, unless unfavorable circumstances intervene, society advances, and among other changes there is one in particular of the greatest im

In all these countries letters were long unknown, and, as a people in that state have no means of perpetuating their history except by oral tradition, they select the form best calculated to assist their memory; and it will, I believe, be found that the first rudiments of knowledge consist always of poetry, and often of rhyme. The jingle pleases the ear of the barbarian and affords a security that he will hand it down to his chil-portance: I mean the introduction of the art, dren in the unimpaired state in which he received it. This guarantee against error increases still further the value of these bal

of writing, which before many generations are passed must effect a complete alteration. in the character of the national traditions.

The manner in which this occurs has, so far as I am aware, never been pointed out, and it will therefore be interesting to attempt to trace some of its details.

THE YOUNG DESERTER. HE truth of the varied expression of the poets, that

THE

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Men are but children of a larger growth,"

The child is father to the man,"

finds numerous illustrations in our every-day
life, and we are quite as often surprised by
the childishness of manhood as by the man-
nishness of childhood. With the man it is
the retention of youthful follies, but with the
youth it is an imitation of the doings of older
In war-time, when men are fighting
and dying in the field, little children, boys,
and girls too, "play soldiers
play soldiers" at home with
great zest.

men.

The first, and perhaps the most obvious, consideration is that the introduction of the and that art of writing gives permanence to the national knowledge, and thus lessens the utility of that oral information in which all the acquirements of an unlettered people must be contained. Hence it is that as a country advances the influence of tradition diminishes and traditions themselves become less trustworthy. Besides this, the preservers of these traditions lose, in this stage of society, much of their former reputation. Among a perfectly unlettered people the singers of ballads are, as we have already seen, the sole depositories of those historical facts on which the fame, and often the property, of their chieftains principally depend; but when this same nation becomes acquainted with the art of writing, it grows unwilling to entrust these matters to the memory of itinerant singers, and avails itself of its new art to preserve them in a fixed and material forın. As soon as this is effected the importance of those who repeat the national traditions is sensibly diminished. They gradually sink into an inferior class, which, having lost its old reputation, no longer consists of those superior men to whose abilities it owed its former fame. Thus we see that, although without letters there can be no knowledge of much importance, it is nevertheless true that their introduction is injurious to historical traditions in two distinct ways-first by weakening the traditions, and secondly by weakening the class of men whose occupation it is to preserve them.

HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE.

of

In all periods of military history desertion has been a crime of great heinousness-not always absolute, but relative. During actual war, with us, and with most nations, it is punished with death; and it should be. It disgraces the flag and disgraces the flag and saps the very essence military strength; its example, too, is pernicious in the extreme. If the honor of the soldier does not avail, nothing can checkit but instant, extreme and impartial punishment; and thus, even when palliating circumstances are presented, when we pity the young deserter marching behind his coffin and soon to fall over and into it riddled with the bullets of the firing platoon, we acquiesce, however sadly, in what punishes the criminal and deters others from the like baseness.

This is what the fathers do and think, and what the children imitate. In what consists the exact crime of the young delinquent in the picture we need not be informed. He is a deserter, and, in the spirit of war-time, the

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