ivision of that august body by no means quite so
diffident. Since our venerated Father Christopher paid, some four years
ago, a merited tribute to the genius of Mr Macaulay, commenting upon the
thews and sinews of his verse, and the manly vigour of his Lays of
Ancient Rome--ballad poetry in all its forms and ramifications has
become inconceivably rampant. The Scottish poetry also, which from time
to time has appeared in MAGA, seems to have excited, in certain
quarters, a spirit of larcenous admiration; and not long ago it was our
good fortune to behold in the Quarterly Review a laudation of certain
lines which are neither more nor less than a weak dilution of a ballad
composed by one of our contributors. It would be well, however, had we
nothing more to complain of than this. But the ballad fever has got to
such a height that it may be necessary to make an example. Our young
English poets are now emulating in absurdity those German students, who
dress after the costume of the middle ages as depicted by Cornelius, and
terrify the peaceful Cockney on the Rhine by apparitions of Goetz of
Berlichingen. They are no longer Minnesingers, but warriors of
sanguineous complexion. They are all for glory, blood, chivalry, and the
deeds of their ancestors. They cut, thrust, and foin as fiercely as
fifty Francalanzas, and are continually shouting on Saint George. Dim
ideas of the revival of the Maltese Order seem to float before their
excited imaginations; and, were there the slightest spark of genuine
feeling in their enthusiasm, either Abd-el-Kader or Marshal Bugeaud
would have had by this time some creditable recruits. But the fact is,
that the whole system is a sham. Our young friends care about as much
for Saint George as they do for Saint Thomas Aquinas; they would think
twice before they permitted themselves to be poked at with an unbuttoned
foil; and as for the deeds of their ancestors, a good many of them would
have considerable difficulty in establishing their descent even from a
creditable slop-seller--"the founder of our family"--in the reign of
George the Third. It is therefore a mystery to us why they should
persevere in their delusion. What--in the name of the Bend
Sinister--have they to do with the earlier Harrys or Edwards, or the
charge of the Templars at Ascalon, or the days of the Saxon Heptarchy?
Are they called upon by some irrepressible impulse to ransack the pages
of English history for a "situation," or to crib