Poetry > Ballads in the Cumberland dialect

188
NOTES.
nacle of village fame. He had recommended himself
to the notice of the fair, like the knight-errant in the
times of chivalry, by the variety of his accomplish¬
ments. He excelled at running, wrestling, leaping,
and boxing. His stentorian voice and sonorous
sounds gained him the reputation of a singer and a
scholar. And let no person despise Matthew Macree.
He attained as much distinction as satisfied his am¬
bition ; and what greater gratification do they receive
who fill the world with their names ?
Note 30, p. 63.
I can’t, for the life o' me, get her to wark.
When love makes an attack upon us, he never
grants us a truce till he has subdued the heart. He
pursues us to our occupations, to our amusements, to
our closets, to our chambers. The whole mind is
engrossed by the object of our affections, and nothing
gives us pleasure but what has an immediate or indi¬
rect relation to it; while with the possession or loss
of it we connect our happiness or misery.
Note 31, p. 66.
Ay lad ! sec a murry-neet, &c.
The common people in Cumberland, like the
common people in all countries, have their festive
scenes, in which they mingle with ardour, and forget
awhile the toils, cares, and hardships peculiar to their
stations. Amidst their coarse and homely pastimes
their hearts expand to gaiety, and receive more
genuine gratification than is to be found among those
splendid amusements which the rich, the idle, and
the dissipated have invented to diversify life, and
remove that tedium, languor, and disquietude, which
oppress a heart enervated by luxury, and corrupted
by vice.
A Cumbrian merry-night is, as its name imports,
a night appropriated to mirth and festivity. It takes