The Augustan Reprint Society
Parodies of Ballad Criticism
(1711-1787)
William Wagstaffe, A Comment Upon the History of Tom Thumb,1711
George Canning, The Knave of Hearts, 1787
Selected, with an Introduction, by
William K. Wimsatt, Jr.
Publication Number 63
Los Angeles
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
University of California
1957
A Comment Upon the History of TomThumb
The Reformation of the Knave ofHearts
(Microcosm Nos. XI, XII)
GENERAL EDITORS
Richard C. Boys, University ofMichigan
Ralph Cohen, University ofCalifornia, Los Angeles
Vinton A. Dearing, Universityof California, Los Angeles
Lawrence Clark Powell, ClarkMemorial Library
ASSISTANT EDITOR
W. Earl Britton,University of Michigan
ADVISORY EDITORS
Emmett L. Avery, State Collegeof Washington
Benjamin Boyce, DukeUniversity
Louis Bredvold, University ofMichigan
John Butt, King's College,University of Durham
James L. Clifford, ColumbiaUniversity
Arthur Friedman, University ofChicago
Louis A. Landa, PrincetonUniversity
Samuel H. Monk, University ofMinnesota
Ernest C. Mossner, University ofTexas
James Sutherland, UniversityCollege, London
H. T. Swedenberg, Jr.,University of California, Los Angeles
CORRESPONDING SECRETARY
Edna C. Davis, Clark MemorialLibrary
The Augustan Reprint Society regrets to announce the death of one ofits founders and editors, Edward Niles Hooker. The editors hope, in thenear future, to issue a volume in his memory.
Joseph Addison's enthusiasm for ballad poetry (Spectators 70,74, 85) was not a sheer novelty. He had a ringing English precedent inSidney, whom he quotes. And he may have had one in Jonson; at least hethought he had. He cited Dryden and Dorset as collectors and readers ofballads; and he might have cited others. He found comfort in the factthat Molière's Misanthrope was on his side. The modern or broadsideversion of Chevy Chase, the one which Addison quoted, had beenprinted, with a Latin translation, in the third volume of Dryden'sMiscellany (1702) and had been appreciated along with TheNut-Brown Maid in an essay Of the Old English Poets andPoetry in The Muses Mercury for June, 1707. The feelingsexp