324
��NOTES BY THE WAY.
��MSS. left by Ebsworth.
��Ballad volumes. His dear old friend Andrew Clark, the editor of ' The Shirburn Ballads,' writes to him on the 7th of December, 1907 :
" It is like your pluck to persevere with your great Index. . . . Your work is built on the true pyramidical principle, on sure and wide foundations. The final part will raise it higher, and make it more far seen, but the other parts are of themselves a lasting gift to students and lovers of English story and verse."
Among the MSS. left by Ebsworth are the Historical Index to the Roxburghe Ballads, completed A to K; An Alphabetical List of Quotations from the first seven General Indexes of Notes and Queries, with the various references made to them ; also First Lines of Songs, chiefly Scottish, with title, date, authorship, and book locality in several large collections, viz., Allan Ramsay's 'Tea Table Miscellany,' 1724-93; 'Calliope,' 1738; Herd's Collection, 1769, 1776, 1791 ; Ayles's Collection, Glasgow, 1871 ; ' The Illustrated Book of Scottish Song,' c. 1854 ; ' St. Cecilia,' 1779 ; Nimmo's edition of Robert Burns, with Remarks on Scottish Song, c. 186- ; Ritson's ' Scottish Songs ' ; and Aikin's ' Essay on Songs,' 1774. These are beautifully written in Ebsworth's clear, small handwriting, well known to all who had correspondence with him.
��LAST WORDS.
It is pleasant to think that his closing years were happily spent in the studies long dear to him. His industry to the last was sur- prising. Added to this, he was constantly receiving letters from many old friends. These included Dr. Andrew Clark, whose pre- sentation copy of ' The Shirburn Ballads ' was highly prized ; the Dunlops of Glasgow ; and Bertram Dobell, who wrote to him on the 22nd of November, 1907 : "I have always felt that there was a more than common degree of sympathy between us, and that our aims in life and literature were very much alike, in spite of the divergence of our political and religious opinions."
His over- Ebsworth's friendship was much prized by those who held it
sensitiveness, firmly, but his disposition was most sensitive, and he was wont to suspect a slight where no such intention was even dreamed of. This was so all through his life from his very earliest years, and frequently caused much pain both to himself and those dear to him. The only friends that never changed to him were the authors he loved, and he would accept no criticism of these ; for instance, he never forgave Leslie Stephen for the biographies of Burns and Byron which appeared in the ' Dictionary of National Biography.' A friend has well likened him to Carlyle in his criticisms ; there was no middle line. He was bold and full of courage in giving ex- pression to his opinions, and this would often, with those who did not know him thoroughly, lead to trouble. I can well imagine
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