ABSTRACT
The contrast between the ‘country humour’ of ‘The Old Soldier’ or ‘The Parson and Hodge’s Son’ and the slick city wit of ‘The Camphor Bag’ is obvious enough in the ballads which follow. ‘The Resurrectionists’ belongs rather to the former type, and so on the whole does ‘The Exciseman Outwitted’, sung as it is to the well-known traditional melody ‘Derry Down’. ‘The Exciseman’ is more like a concert piece.
