Note 1009 — Chapter VII · THE EARLIEST DIFFERENTIATIONS OF POETRY

Romanisches und Keltisches, pp. 363 f. The four-line stanza, he says, is easy to compose, and one pennill suggests another; so that each is half tradition, half improvisation, belonging “to everybody and nobody.” This description approaches very closely the hypothetical description given by Ten Brink in his sketch of Old English poetry for Paul’s Grundriss, of the making of ballads in a more primitive day.