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.

I had rather be a kitten and cry mew Than one of these same metre ballet-mongers.

A famous man is Robin Hood The English ballad-singer's joy.

More solid things do not show the complexion of the times so well as Ballads and Libels.

For a ballad's a thing you expect to find lies in.

I have a passion for ballad. . . . They are the gypsy children of song, born under green hedgerows in the leafy lanes and bypaths of literature,--in the genial Summertime.