metimes amiable
and sometimes odious: and as most men are at some times in admirable
frame and disposition of mind, it should be one of the greatest tasks of
wisdom to keep ourselves well when we are so, and never to go out of that
which is the agreeable part of our character.

CHEVY-CHASE.

Part One.

_Interdum vulgus rectum videt_.

HOR., _Ep._ ii. 1, 63.

Sometimes the vulgar see and judge aright. When I travelled I took a
particular delight in hearing the songs and fables that are come from
father to son, and are most in vogue among the common people of the
countries through which I passed; for it is impossible that anything
should be universally tasted and approved by a multitude, though they are
only the rabble of a nation, which hath not in it some peculiar aptness
to please and gratify the mind of man. Human nature is the same in all
reasonable creatures; and whatever falls in with it will meet with
admirers amongst readers of all qualities and conditions. Moliere, as we
are told by Monsieur Boileau, used to read all his comedies to an old
woman who was his housekeeper as she sat with him at her work by the
chimney-corner, and could foretell the success of his play in the theatre
from the reception it met at his fireside; for he tells us the audience
always followed the old woman, and never failed to laugh in the same
place.

I know nothing which more shows the essential and inherent perfection of
simplicity of thought, above that which I call the Gothic manner in
writing, than this, that the first pleases all kinds of palates, and the
latter only such as have formed to themselves a wrong artificial taste
upon little fanciful authors and writers of epigram. Homer, Virgil, or
Milton, so far as the language of their poems is understood, will please
a reader of plain common sense, who would neither relish nor comprehend
an epigram of Martial, or a poem of Cowley; so, on the contrary, an
ordinary song or ballad that is the delight of the common people cannot
fail to please all such readers as are not unqualified for the
entertainment by their affectation of ignorance; and the reason is plain,
because the same paintings of nature which recommend it to the most
ordinary reader will appear beautiful to the most refined.

The old song of "Chevy-Chase" is the favourite ballad of the common
people of England, and Ben Jonson used to say he had rather have been the
author of it than of all his w