Note 356 — Chapter V · THE DIFFERENCING ELEMENTS OF COMMUNAL POETRY

In addition to the material quoted in the introduction to Old English Ballads, see Nash, Harvey, and the other pamphleteers on nearly every page. Chettle, Kind-Harts Dreame (Percy Soc., 1841), particularly pp. 9 ff., has a lively account of ballad making, printing, selling, singing, in this lower stratum. What is so lewd, he asks, that it has not been printed “and in every streete abusively chanted”? For the state of things somewhat later, see a curious publication, Whimzies, or a New Cast of Characters, London, 1631; it describes in alphabetical order, “almanach-maker,” “ballad-monger,” and so on, down to “zealous brother”; for ballad-monger, see pp. 8-15.