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Breitmann Ballads
The Breitmann Ballads
by
Charles G. Leland.
This Work is Dedicated
by
Charles G. Leland
This Project Gutenberg Editionis dedicated to:
Poul and Karen Andersonwithout whose inspirationit would not exist.
Geoff Kidd
Krista Rourke
Ad Musan.
"Est mihi schoena etenim et praestanti corpore liebsta
Haec sola est mea Musa meoque regierit in Herza.
Huic me ergebo ipsum meaque illi abstatto geluebda,
Huic ebrensaulas aufrichto opfroque Geschenka,
Hic etiam absingo liedros et carmina scribo."
Rapsodia Andra, Leipzig, 17th Century
Preface
To the Edition of 1889.
——
Though twenty years have passed since the first appearanceof the "Breitmann Ballads" in a collected form, the author isdeeply gratified — and not less sincerely grateful to the public— in knowing that Hans still lives in many memories, that hecontinues to be quoted when writers wish to illustrate anexuberantly joyous "barty" or ladies so very fashionably dressedas to recall "de maidens mit nodings on," and that noinconsiderable number of those who are "beginning German"continue to be addressed by sportive friends in the Breitmanndialect as a compliment to their capacity as linguists. For as ayoung medical student is asked by anxious intimates if he has gotas far as salts, I have heard inquiries addressed to tyros inTeutonic whether they had mastered these songs. As I haverealised all of this from newspapers and novels, even during thepast few weeks, and have learned that a new and very expensiveedition of the work has just appeared in America, I trust that Imay be pardoned for a self-gratulation, which is, after allreally gratitude to those who have demanded of the Englishpublisher another issue. My chief pleasure in this — though itbe mingled with sorrow — is, that it enables me to dedicate tothe memory of my friend the late NICHOLAS TRUBNER the mostcomplete edition of the Ballads ever printed. I can think of nomore appropriate tribute to his memory, since he was not only thefirst publisher of the work in England, but collaborated with theauthor in editing it so far as to greatly improve and extend thewhole. This is more fully set forth in the Introduction to theGlossary, which is all his own. The memory of the deep personalinterest which he took in the poems, his delight in being theirpublisher, his fondness for reciting them, is and ever will be tome indescribably touching; such experiences being rare in anylife. He was an immensely general and yet thorough scholar, andI am certain that I never met with any man in my life who to suchan extensive bibliographical knowledge added so much familiaritywith the contents of books. And he was familiar with nothingwhich did not interest him, which is rare indeed among men whoMUST know something of thousands of works — in fact, he was awonderful and very original book in himself, which, if it hadever been written out and published, would have never died. Hiswas one of the instances which give the world good cause toregret that the art of autobiography is of all others the oneleast taught or studied. There are few characters moreinteresting than those in which the practical man of business iscombined with the scholar, because of the contrasts, or variedplay of light and shadow, in them, and this was, absolutely top