Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyts New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Ballads
Ive now got the music book ready, Do sit up and sing like a lady A recitative from Tancredi, And something about Palpiti! Sing forte when first you begin it, Piano the very next minute, Theyll cry What expression theres in it! Dont sing English ballads to me! Thomas Haynes BaylyDont Sing English Ballads to Me.
The farmers daughter hath soft brown hair (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) And I met with a ballad, I cant say where, That wholly consisted of lines like these. Charles S. CalverlyBallad.
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. Andrew FletcherQuoting the Earl of Cromarty. Letters to the Marquis of Montrose. In Fletchers Works. P. 266. (Ed. 1749).
I have a passion for ballads. * * * They are the gypsy children of song, born under green hedgerows in the leafy lanes and bypaths of literature,in the genial Summertime. LongfellowHyperion. Bk. II. Ch. II.
More solid things do not show the complexion of the times so well as Ballads and Libels. John SeldonLibels. (Libels-pamphlets, libellum, a small book.)
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. Winters Tale. Act IV. Sc. 4. L. 187.