"From such sources I have obtained may of the ballads in the present
collection. Those to which I have stood godfather, and so baptized and
remodelled, I have mostly met with in the 'broad-side' ballads, as they
are called."
Although the writer here speaks of Ritson and Percy as if he were
acquainted with their works, it is very evident that he had not looked into
their contents. The name of Evans' _Collection_ had probably never reached
him. Alas! we look in vain for the tantalising "pamphlet of songs,"--still,
perhaps, snugly resting on the "pot-head," where our author in his
"poetical dream" first saw it. The "black-lettered volume of ballads" too,
in the library of the "ancient descendant of a Border family," still
remains in its dusty repository, untouched by the hand of Frederick
Sheldon.
In support of the object of this paper I shall now point out "a few" of the
errors of _The Minstrelsy of the English Border_.