PREFACE.

If any one of those mysterious autocrats who “do” the reviews “on” some newspaper or serial shall, in his condescension, deign to inform public opinion what he may think about Mirth and Metre, that autocrat, unless he be in an unhoped-for state of benignity, will, doubtless, commence with the agreeable remark that “the work before us consists of certain Lays and Legends, written in paltry imitation of the productions of the inimitable Thomas Ingoldsby.”

Admitting the imputation without cavil, (except at the word “paltry,” which really is too bad, don’t you think so, dear reader?) the authors would inquire whether such an admission legitimately exposes them to hostile criticism? When the late Mr. Barham produced the “Ingoldsby Legends,” he, as it were, founded a new school of comic versification. That this is not a mere ipse dixit of our own is evinced by the fact that, in common parlance, a man who adopts this style of composition is said to have written an “Ingoldsby,” as he might be said to have written an Epic, had he chosen that form instead.

To assert that only a very small shred of Mr. Barham’s mantle has fallen upon any of his imitators (a fact to which none will more readily assent than the present writers), is simply to state that the standard we have proposed to ourselves is a high one, and proportionately difficult to attain.

is a fact which does not appear to have checked the energies or paralysed the ambition of the “king of men;” nor was Waterloo the less a great victory because Julius Cæsar had a few centuries before successfully invaded Gaul.

To our thinking, however, the common sense of the matter lies (after the usual fashion of that inestimable quality) in a nutshell. A servile copy of any particular style—a hash of old ideas, or want of ideas, served up after the manner of some popular writer—is a bad thing, against which all true lovers of literature are bound to raise their voices whenever they meet with it; but if a young author, imbued with admiration of, and respect for, some man of genius who has lived before him, sees fit to embody his own thoughts and feelings in a form which experience has approved, rather than confuse himself and his readers, in his frantic strivings after originality, by torturing words out of their natural meaning, and marshalling them in a metre against which the ear rebels, we conceive no just canon of criticism can forbid his doing so. To which of these categories the Lays and Legends in this Volume are to be assigned, we leave it to our readers to determine.

Frank E. Smedley. Edmund H. Yates.

CONTENTS.

[1]

Part the Second.

L’ENVOI.

MORAL.

Frank E. S.

FOOTNOTES

[1] The following legend is founded on a story current in the part of Herts where the scene is laid; the house was actually burnt down about ten years ago, having just been rendered habitable.

[2] The name of a lonely common near Harpenden, formerly a favourite site for prize-fights.

[23]

“YE RIGHT ANCIENT BALLAD OF YE COMBAT OF KING TIDRICH WITH YE DRAGON.”

Ye Peroration.

Ye Right Ancient Ballad.

Frank E. S.

[Should any reader wish to learn more of the various personages here mentioned, we refer him to the “Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, from the earlier Teutonic and Scandinavian Romances,” to which we are indebted for our information on the subject.]

FOOTNOTES

[3] King Tidrich, Dietrich, or Theoderic, the son of Thietmar, king of Bern, and the fair Odilia, daughter of Essung Jarl, was, as it were, the central hero of that well-known, popular, and interesting work the “Book of Heroes,” which relates the deeds of the champions who attached themselves to him, and the manner in which they joined his fellowship.

[4] Tidrich of Bern was also king of Aumlungaland (Italy); he espoused Herraud, daughter of King Drusiad, a relation of Attila.

[5] These three champions were among the eleven heroes who accompanied Tidrich in his memorable expedition to contend against the twelve guardians of the Garden of Roses at Worms.

[6] They had a weakness for naming swords in those days, just as in the nineteenth century we delight in bestowing euphonious titles on “villa residences,” puppy dogs, and men-of-war!

[7] Sigurd, or Siegfried, son of Sigmond, king of Netherland, is the chief hero of the Nibelungen Lay. There are various accounts of his death, one of the least improbable supposes him to have been destroyed by a dragon.

[31]

ST. MICHAEL’S EVE.

E. H. Y.

ST. MICHAEL’S EVE.—p. 36.

[38]

THE KING OF THE CATS. A RHINE LEGEND.

E. H. D.

[43]

THE LAPWING.

E. H. D.

[45]

THE ENCHANTED NET.

Frank E. S.

THE ENCHANTED NET.—p. 51.

[53]

A FYTTE OF THE BLUES.

(Air—“The Old English Gentleman.”)

MORAL.

Frank E. S.

[55]

THE FORFEIT HAND; A LEGEND OF BRABANT.[8]

Fytte ye First.

DE RODON. Heraldic work furnished to order.

Fytte ye Second

Ye Last Scene of All.

Frank E. S.

FOOTNOTES

[8] The facts (?) of this Legend are taken, by poetical licence, from “Legends of the Rhine,” by the author of “Highways and Byways.”

THE FORFEIT HAND.—p. 60.

[71]