However, to return to the Query:  the term pale is applied to the yellow-tinted skin; fair, to the red or pink; brown, to the mixture of red and yellow, with either blue or such darkness as above described; sallow, to yellow and darkness; and the only close approach to whiteness that we ever see, is in the sick room of the long-suffering fair complexion.  In death, this changes to a “blackish grey,” a mixture of white and darkness.

The pale complexion indicates a thick, hard, dry skin; the fair, a thin and soft one; and all the shades of dark skin render a large amount of ablution essential to health, comfort, or agreeableness to others.  If any of your readers should feel curious about the characters of the wearers of these several skins, they must inquire of Lavater and his disciples.

D.V.S.

Home, April 1. 1850.

* * * * *

BALLAD OF DICK AND THE DEVIL.

Looking over some of your back numbers, I find (No. 11. p. 172.) an inquiry concerning a ballad with this title.  I have never met with it in print, but remember some lines picked up in nursery days from an old nurse who was a native of “the dales.”  These I think have probably formed a part of this composition.  The woman’s name was curiously enough Martha Kendal; and, in all probability, her forebears had migrated from that place into Yorkshire:—­

  “Robin a devil he sware a vow. 
    He swore by the sticks[2] in hell—­
  By the yelding that crackles to mak the low[3],
    That warms his namsack[4] weel.

  “He leaped on his beast, and he rode with heaste,
    To mak his black oath good;
  ’Twas the Lord’s Day, and the folk did pray
    And the priest in cancel stood.

  “The door was wide, and in does he ride,
    In his clanking gear so gay;
  A long keen brand he held in his hand,
    Our Dickon for to slay.

  “But Dickon goodhap he was not there,
    And Robin he rode in vain,
  And the men got up that were kneeling in prayer,
    To take him by might and main.

  “Rob swung his sword, his steed he spurred,
    He plunged right through the thr_a_ng. 
  But the stout smith Jock, with his old mother’s crutch[5],
    He gave him a woundy bang.

  “So hard he smote the iron pot,
    It came down plume and all;
  Then with bare head away Robin sped,
    And himself was fit to fall.

  “Robin a devil he way’d[6] him home,
    And if for his foes he seek,
  I think that again he will not come
    To late[7] them in Kendal kirk."[8]

Y.A.C.

    [2] The unlettered bard has probably confused “styx” with the
    kindling, “yelding,” of hell-fire.