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The volume closes with a doggerel translation of one of several Gospel ballads which Carey had written in Bengali in 1798. He had thus early brought into the service of Christ the Hindoo love of musical recitative, which was recently re-discovered as it were and now forms an important mode of evangelistic work when accompanied by native musical instruments.
Meetings at fair and market, blushing betrothments, merry weddings, the joy of young maternity, the lights and shades of domestic life, its bereavements and partings, its chances and changes, its holy death-beds, and funerals solemnly beautiful in quiet kirkyards, these furnish the hints of the immortal melodies of Burns, the sweet ballads of the Ettrick Shepherd and Allan Cunningham, and the rustic drama of Ramsay.
What is certain is that the project of editing a few Border ballads a selection of his collection which might make 'a neat little volume of four or five shillings' was formed roughly in the late autumn of 1799, and had taken very definite shape by April 1800.
This is why there are so many puppet showmen in Spain, so many who go about with peep shows, so many others who hawk pens and ballads, though their stock, if they sold it all, would not be enough to keep them for a day; and yet they are to be found in taverns and drinking-shops all the year round, whence I infer that the cost of their guzzling is defrayed by other means than the profits of their business.
When the noisy party arrived at the Fleur-de-Lis, they entered without ceremony into a spacious room low, with heavy beams and with roughly plastered walls, which were stuck over with proclamations of governors and intendants and dingy ballads brought by sailors from French ports.
From these they went to ballads of the cattle-trail and the Yuba River, and so inevitably worked to the old coast song, made of three languages, with its verses rhymed on each year since the first beginning.
For diversion I dived into early English poetry and weltered in that sea of song which marks the beginnings of every literature, conning the ballads of Ireland and Wales, the epics of Ireland, the early German and the songs of the troubadours, a course of reading which started me on a series of lectures to be written directly from a study of the authors themselves.
O ruler of the Nishadhas, passing over the celestials themselves, I choose thee as my lord. It was to bring thee hither that the Brahmanas had gone out in all directions, even to all the sides of the horizon, singing my words, in the form of ballads. At last, O king, a learned Brahmana named Parnada had found thee in Kosala in the palace of Rituparna.
Then follow, as in The Deserted Village, the coloured prints, and ballads, and even The Twelve Good Rules, that decorate the walls: the humble library that fills the deal shelf "beside the cuckoo clock"; the few devotional works, including the illustrated Bible, bought in parts with the weekly sixpence; the choice notes by learned editors that raise more doubts than they close.
It spoils the primitiveness of the people, and gives them ideas below their station. They lose their simple manliness and take tips. They corrupt their autochthonic customs, and drink champagne cider. The modern hotel is a upas-tree, under whose boughs poetry withers. One looks to see the ancient ballads lose their blood and brawn. In time we may expect to find Cornwall producing vers de societe.
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