C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Ballads
I knew a very wise man that believed that***if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation.
Vocal portraits of the national mind.
Ballads are the gypsy children of song, born under green hedgerows, in the leafy lanes and by-paths of literature, in the genial summer-time.
A well-composed song strikes the mind and softens the feelings, and produces a greater effect than a moral work, which convinces our reason, but does not warm our feelings, nor effect the slightest alteration in our habits.
I love a ballad but even too well; if it be doleful matter, merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed, and sung lamentably.