bliography of collections of ballads contains some
four hundred titles, (Child, vol. v., pp. 455-468). The most copious ballad
makers have been the Scots and English, the German, Slavic, Danish, French
and Italian peoples; for the Gaelic there is but one entry, Campbell of
Islay's _Lea har na Feinne_ (London, 1872). The general bibliography
occupies over sixty pages, and to this the reader must be referred, while
Prof. Gummere's book, _The Beginnings of Poetry_, is an adequate
introduction to the literature, mainly continental, of the ballad question,
which has received but scanty attention in England. For the relation of
ballad to epic there is no better guide than Comparetti's _The Kalewala_,
of which there is an English translation. For purely literary purposes the
best collection of ballads is Scott's _Border Minstrelsy_ in any complete
edition. The best critical modern edition is that of Mr T. F. Henderson;
his theory of ballad origins is not that which may be gathered from
Professor Child's introductions.

(A. L.)

BALLANCE, JOHN (1839-1893), New Zealand statesman, eldest son of Samuel
Ballance, farmer, of Glenavy, Antrim, Ulster, was born on the 27th of March
1839. He was educated at a national school, and, on leaving, was
apprenticed to an ironmonger at Belfast. He became a clerk in a wholesale
ironmonger's house in Birmingham, and migrated to New Zealand, intending to
start in business there as a small jeweller. After settling at Wanganui,
however, he took an opportunity, soon offered, of founding a newspaper, the
_Wanganui Herald_, of which he became editor and remained chief owner for
the rest of his life. During the fighting with the Maori chief Titokowaru,
in 1867, Ballance was concerned in the raising of a troop of volunteer
horse, in which he received a commission. Of this he was deprived owing to
the appearance in his newspaper of articles criticizing the management of
the campaign. He had, however, behaved well in the field, and, in spite of
his dismissal, was awarded the New Zealand war medal. He entered the
colony's parliament in 1875 and, with one interval (1881-1884), sat there
till his death. Ballance was a member of three ministries, that of Sir
George Grey (1877-1879); that of Sir Robert Stout (1884-1887); and that of
which he himself was premier (1891-1893). His alliance with Grey ended with
a notorious and very painful quarrel. In the Stout government his
portfolios were those of lands and nati