ballade

balladi puhekieltä Any of various genres of single-movement musical pieces having lyrical and narrative elements.
(RQ:WBsnt IvryGt)

Thus, when he drew up instructions in lawyer language(..)his clerks(..)understood him very well. If he had written a love letter, or a farce, or a ballade, or a story, no one, either clerks, or friends, or compositors, would have understood anything but a word here and a word there.