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The literary history of "The Death of Featherstonhaugh" naturally excited uneasiness about the touching ballad of "Barthram's Dirge," also contributed to the Minstrelsy as the fruit of the industrious investigations of Surtees. Most readers will remember this: "They shot him dead at the Nine-Stone Rig, Beside the headless cross, And they left him lying in his blood, Upon the moor and moss."
"To literary imposition, as tending to obscure the path of inquiry, Ritson gave no quarter," says this arch literary impostor. A brief account of Surtees' labour in the field of sham ballad writing may be fresh to many people who merely know him as the real author of "Barthram's Dirge" and of "The Slaying of Anthony Featherstonhaugh."
Of the third class, the romantic ballads, we have not so rich a store; yet "The Gay Goss-hawk," the "Nut-browne Mayde" and the touchingly beautiful "Barthram's Dirge" may stand amongst the best of their kind.
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