Chapter II: Part 2

'Tak down, tak down the mast o' gowd;
Set up a mast o' tree;
It disna become a forsaken lady
To sail sae royallie.

'Tak down, tak down the sails o' silk;
Set up the sails o' skin;
Ill sets the outside to be gay,
When there's sic grief within.'

Gregory then awakes:

O quickly, quickly raise he up,
And fast ran to the strand,
And there he saw her, fair Annie,
Was sailing frae the land.

* * *

The wind blew loud, the sea grew rough,
And dashed the boat on shore;
Fair Annie floated on the faem,
But the babie raise no more.

* * *

And first he kissed her cherry cheek,
And syne he kissed her chin;
And syne he kissed her rosy lips--
There was nae breath within.

The resemblance of these verses to several of the preceding ballads,[21] and particularly to _Sir Patrick Spence_, and their superiority in delicacy of feeling and in diction to all ordinary ballad poetry, is very striking. It chances that there is here, as in _Sir Patrick_, one word peculiarly _detective_--namely, strand, as meaning the shore. In the Scottish language, strand means a rivulet, or a street-gutter--never the margin of the sea.

[21] A passage in _Hardyknute_ maybe quoted as bearing a
marked resemblance to one of the above verses:

Take aff, take aff his costly jupe,
Of gold well was it twined, &c.

There is a considerable number of other ballads which are scarcely less liable to suspicion as modern compositions, and which are all marked more or less by the peculiarities seen in the above group. Several of them are based, like the one just noticed, on irregular love, which they commonly treat with little reproach, and usually with a romantic tenderness. _Willie and May Margaret_[22] describes a young lover crossing the Clyde in a flood to see his mistress, and as denied access by her mother in a feigned voice, after which he is drowned in recrossing the river; the ballad being thus a kind of counterpart of the _Lass of Lochryan_. In _Young Huntin_, otherwise called _Earl Richard_, the hero is killed in his mistress's bower through jealousy, and we have then a verse of wonderful power--such as no rustic and unlettered bard ever wrote, or ever will write:

[22] Called, in Professor Aytoun's collection, _The Mother's
Malison_; and in Mr Buchan's, _The Drowned Lovers_.

'O slowly, slowly wanes the night,
And slowly daws the day:
There is a dead man in my bower,
I wish he were away.'

One called _Fair Annie_ relates how a mistress won upon her lover, and finally gained him as a husband, by patience, under the trial of seeing a new bride brought home.[23] In the latter, the behaviour of the patient mistress is thus described:

[23] A ballad named _Burd Ellen_, resembling _Fair Annie_ in
the general cast of the story, is a Scottish modification of
the ballad of _Child Waters_, published by Percy, from his
folio manuscript, 'with some corrections.' It probably came
through the same mill as _Gil Morrice_, though with less
change--a conjecture rendered the more probable, for reasons
to be seen afterwards, from its having been obtained by Mr
Jamieson from Mrs Brown of Falkland.

O she has served the lang tables
Wi' the white bread and the wine;
And aye she drank the wan water,
To keep her colour fine.

The expression, the wan water, occurs in several of this group of ballads. Thus, in _Johnie of Bradislee_:

Is there ever a bird in this hale forest
Will do as mickle for me,
As dip its wing in the wan water,
And straik it o'er my ee-bree?

And in the _Douglas Tragedy_:

O they rade on, and on they rade,
And a' by the light o' the moon,
Until they cam to yon wan water,
And there they lighted down.

See further in _Young Huntin_:

And they hae ridden along, along,
All the long summer's tide,
Until they came to the wan water,
The deepest place in Clyde.

The circumstance is very suspicious, for we find this phrase in no other ballads.

In _Clerk Saunders_, the hero is slain in his mistress's bower, by the rage of one of her seven brothers, whose act is described in precisely the same terms as the slaughter of _Gil Morrice_ by the bold baron:

He's ta'en out his trusty brand,
And straikt it on the strae,
And through and through Clerk Saunders' side
He's gart it come and gae.[24]

_Sweet William's Ghost_, a fine superstitious ballad, first published in Ramsay's _Tea-table Miscellany_, 1724, is important as the earliest printed of all the Scottish ballads after the admittedly modern _Hardyknute_:

There came a ghost to Margaret's door,
With many a grievous groan;
And aye he tirled at the pin,
But answer made she none.

* * *

'O sweet Margaret! O dear Margaret!
I pray thee, speak to me;
Give me my faith and troth, Margaret,
As I gave it to thee.'

'Thy faith and troth thou 's never get,
Nor yet will I thee lend,
Till that thou come within my bower,
And kiss my cheek and chin.'[25]

'If I should come within thy bower,
I am no earthly man;
And should I kiss thy rosy lips,
Thy days will not be lang.

* * *

'My bones are buried in yon kirk-yard,
Afar beyond the sea;
And it is but my spirit, Margaret,
That's now speaking to thee.'

She stretched out her lily hand,
And for to do her best,
'Ha'e there's your faith and troth, Willie;
God send your soul good rest.'

Now she has kilted her robes of green
A piece below her knee,
And a' the live-lang winter night,
The dead corp followed she.

'Is there any room at your head, Willie,
Or any room at your feet?
Or any room at your side, Willie,
Wherein that I may creep?'

'There's no room at my head, Margaret;
There's no room at my feet;
There's no room at my side, Margaret;
My coffin's made so meet.'[26]

Then up and crew the red, red cock,
And up then crew the gray,
''Tis time, 'tis time, my dear Margaret,
That you were going away.'

* * *

[24]

Now he has ta'en his trusty brand,
And slait it on the strae,
And through Gil Morrice's fair bodie
He garred cauld iron gae.--_Gil Morrice._

[25]

And first he kissed her cherry cheek,
And syne he kissed her chin;
And syne he kissed her rosy lips--
There was nae breath within.--_Lass o' Lochryan._

To kiss cheek and chin in succession is very peculiar; and it
is by such peculiar ideas that identity of authorship is
indicated.

[26] That is, so exactly measured.

So far, the ballad appears as composed in the style of those already noticed--a style at once simple and poetical--neither shewing the rudeness of the common peasant's ballad, nor the formal refinement of the modern English poet. But next follow two stanzas, which manifestly have been patched on by some contemporary of Ramsay:

No more the ghost to Margaret said,
But with a grievous groan
Evanished in a cloud of mist,
And left her all alone, &c.

No such conclusion, perhaps, was needed, for it may be suspected that the verse here printed _sixth_ is the true _finale_ of the story, accidentally transferred from its proper place.

There is a slight affinity between the above and a ballad entitled _Tam Lane_, to which Scott drew special attention in his _Border Minstrelsy_, by making it a peg for eighty pages of prose dissertation _On the Fairies of Popular Superstition_. It describes a lover as lost to his mistress, by being reft away into fairy-land, and as recovered by an effort of courage and presence of mind on her part. It opens thus:

O I forbid ye maidens a',
That wear gowd in your hair,
To come or gae by Carterhaugh,
For the young Tam Lane is there.

It may be remarked how often before we have seen maidens described as wearing gold in their hair. One maiden defies the prohibition:

Janet has kilted her green kirtle
A little aboon her knee,
And she has braided her yellow hair
A little aboon her bree.

This, it will be observed, is all but the very same description applied to Margaret in the preceding ballad. The narrative goes on:

She had na pu'd a red, red rose,
A rose but barely three,
Till up and starts a wee, wee man
At Lady Janet's knee.

Remember Sir Patrick's voyage:

They had na sailed a league, a league,
A league but barely three.

Let it also here be noted that the eldern knight in that ballad sits 'at the king's knee,' and the nurse in _Gil Morrice_ is not very necessarily described as having 'the bairn upon her knee.' Why the knee on these occasions, if not a habitual idea of one poet?[27]

[27] In _Childe Maurice_, in Percy's folio manuscript, the
hero says:

'... come hither, thou little foot-page,
That runneth lowly by my knee.'

The author of _Sir Patrick Spence_, and the other ballads in
question, might have known this version, and from it caught
this expression.

The consequences of the visit having been fatal to Lady Janet's health and peace, she goes back to see her elfin lover, Tam Lane, who instructs her how to recover him from his bondage to the queen of fairy-land.

'The night it is good Halloween,
When fairy folk will ride;
And they that wad their true love win,
At Miles Cross they maun bide.'

'But how shall I thee ken, Tam Lane,
Or how shall I thee knaw,
Amang so many unearthly knights,
The like I never saw?'

'The first company that passes by,
Say na, and let them gae;
The next company that passes by,
Say na, and do right sae;
The third company that passes by,
Then I'll be ane o' thae.

'First let pass the black, Janet,
And syne let pass the brown;
But grip ye to the milk-white steed,
And pu' the rider down.'

Compare the first two of these stanzas with the queries put by the gay gos-hawk to his master:

'But how shall I your true love find,
Or how suld I her know?
I bear a tongue ne'er wi' her spoke,
An eye that ne'er her saw.'

'O weel sall ye my true love ken,
Sae sore as ye her see,' &c.

As to the latter three stanzas, they exhibit a formula of description, which appears in several of the suspected ballads, consisting of a series of nearly identical statements, apparently for the sake of amplitude. For example, the progress of the seeming funeral of the lady in the _Gay Gos-hawk_:

At the first kirk of fair Scotland,
They gart the bells be rung;
At the second kirk of fair Scotland,
They gart the mass be sung.

At the third kirk of fair Scotland,
They dealt gold for her sake;
And the fourth kirk of fair Scotland,
Her true love met them at.

Or the following, in _Sweet Willie and Fair Annie_, which is almost the same incident and relation of circumstances as the said seeming funeral; only the lady in this case is dead:

The firsten bower that he cam till,
There was right dowie wark;
Her mother and her sisters three
Were making to Annie a sark.

The next bower that he cam till,
There was right dowie cheer;
Her father and her seven brethren
Were making to Annie a bier.

The lasten bower that he cam till,
O heavy was his care;
The waxen lights were burning bright,
And fair Annie streekit there.

In Scott's version of _Tam Lane_ there are some stanzas of so modern a cast as to prove that this poem has been at least tampered with. For example, the account of fairy life:

'And all our wants are well supplied
From every rich man's store,
Who thankless sins the gifts he gets,
And vainly grasps for more.'

Without regard, however, to such manifest patches, the general structure and style of expression must be admitted to strongly recall the other ballads which have been already commented on.

Only a wish to keep this dissertation within moderate bounds forbids me to analyse a few other ballads, as the _Douglas Tragedy_, _Sweet Willie and Fair Annie_, _Lady Maiery_, the _Clerk's Two Sons of Owsenford_, and a Scotch _Heir of Linne_ lately recovered by Mr J. H. Dixon, all of which, besides others which must rest unnamed, bear traces of the same authorship with the ballads already brought under notice.

It is now to be remarked of the ballads published by the successors of Percy, as of those which he published, that there is not a particle of positive evidence for their having existed before the eighteenth century. Overlooking the one given by Ramsay in his _Tea-table Miscellany_, we have neither print nor manuscript of them before the reign of George III. They are not in the style of old literature. They contain no references to old literature. As little does old literature contain any references to them. They wholly escaped the collecting diligence of Bannatyne. James Watson, who published a collection of Scottish poetry in 1706-1711, wholly overlooks them. Ramsay, as we see, caught up only one. Even Herd, in 1769, only gathered a few fragments of some of these poems. It was reserved for Sir Walter Scott and Robert Jamieson, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, to obtain copies of the great bulk of these poems--that is, the ballads over and above the few published by Percy--from A LADY--a certain 'Mrs Brown of Falkland,' who seems to have been the wife of the Rev. Andrew Brown, minister of that parish in Fife--is known to have been the daughter of Professor Thomas Gordon, of King's College, Aberdeen--and is stated to have derived her stores of legendary lore from the memory of her aunt, a Mrs Farquhar, the wife of a small proprietor in Braemar, who had spent the best part of her life among flocks and herds, but lived latterly in Aberdeen. At the suggestion of Mr William Tytler, a son of Mrs Brown wrote down a parcel of the ballads which her aunt had heard in her youth from the recitation of nurses and old women.[28] Such were the external circumstances, none of them giving the least support to the assumed antiquity of the pieces, but rather exciting some suspicion to the contrary effect.

[28] _Minstrelsy Scot. Border_, I. cxxvi.

When we come to consider the internal evidence, what do we find? We find that these poems, in common with those published by Percy, are composed in a style of romantic beauty and elevation distinguishing them from all other remains of Scottish traditionary poetry. They are quite unlike the palpably old historical ballads, such as the _Battle of Otterbourne_ and the _Raid of the Reidswire_. They are unlike the Border ballads, such as _Dick o' the Cow_, and _Jock o' the Syde_, commemorating domestic events of the latter part of the sixteenth century. They are strikingly unlike the _Burning of Frendraught_, the _Bonny House o' Airly_, and the _Battle of Bothwell Bridge_, contemporaneous metrical chronicles of events of the seventeenth century. Not less different are they from a large mass of ballads, which have latterly been published by Mr Peter Buchan and others, involving romantic incidents, it is true, or eccentricities in private life, but in such rude and homely strains as speak strongly of a plebeian origin. In the ballads here brought under question, the characters are usually persons of condition, generally richly dressed, often well mounted, and of a dignified bearing towards all inferior people. The page, the nurse, the waiting-woman, the hound, the hawk, and other animals connected with the pageantry of high life, are prominently introduced. Yet the characters and incidents are alike relieved from all clear connection with any particular age: they may be said to form a world of their own, of no particular era, wherein the imagination of the reader may revel, as that of the author has done. It may be allowably said, there is a tone of _breeding_ throughout these ballads, such as is never found in the productions of rustic genius. One marked feature--the pathos of deep female affections--the sacrifice and the suffering which these so often involve--runs through nearly the whole. References to religion and religious ceremonies and fanes are of the slightest kind. We hear of bells being rung and mass sung, but only to indicate a time of day. Had they been old ballads continually changing in diction and in thought, as passed down from one reciter to another, they could not have failed to involve some considerable trace of the intensely earnest religious life of the seventeenth century; but not the slightest tincture of this enthusiastic feeling appears in them, a defect the more marked, as they contain abundant allusion to the superstitions which survived into the succeeding time of religious indifference, and indeed some of their best _effects_ rest in a dexterous treatment of these weird ideas. There is but one exception to what has been observed on the obscurity of the epoch pointed to for the incidents--the dresses, properties, and decorations, are sometimes of a modern cast. The writer--if we may be allowed to speculate on a single writer--seems to have been unable to resist an inclination to indulge in description of the external furnishings of the heroes and heroines, or rather, perhaps, has been desirous of making out _effect_ from these particulars; but the finery of the court of Charles II. is the furthest point reached in the retrospect--although, I must admit, this is in general treated with a vagueness that helps much to conceal the want of learning.

Another point of great importance in the matter of internal evidence, is the isolatedness of these ballads in respect of English traditionary literature. The Scottish muse has not always gone hand in hand with the English in point of time, but she has done so in all other respects. Any literature we had from the beginning of the seventeenth century downwards, was always sensibly tinged by what had immediately before been in vogue in the south. Nor is it easy to see how a people occupying part of the same island, and speaking essentially the same language, should have avoided this communion of literary taste; but the ballads in question are wholly unlike any English ballads. Look over Percy, Evans, or Mr Collier's suite of _Roxburghe Ballads_, giving those which were popular in London during the seventeenth century, and you find not a trace of the style and manner of these Scottish romantic ballads. Neither, it would appear, had one of them found its way into popularity in England before the time of Percy; for, had it been otherwise, he would have found them either in print or in the mouths of the people.[29]

[29] Robert Jamieson found in the _Koempe Viser_, a Danish
collection of ballads published in 1695, one resembling the
Scottish ballad of _Fair Annie_ (otherwise called _Lady
Jane_), and on this ground he became convinced that many of
our traditionary ballads were of prodigious antiquity, though
they had been intermediately subjected to many alterations.
Mr Jamieson's belief seems remarkably ill supported, and as
it has never obtained any adherents among Scottish ballad
editors, I feel entitled to pass it over with but this slight
notice.

Upon all of these considerations, I have arrived at the conclusion, that the high-class romantic ballads of Scotland are not ancient compositions--are not older than the early part of the eighteenth century--and are mainly, if not wholly, the production of one mind.

Whose was this mind, is a different question, on which no such confident decision may for the present be arrived at; but I have no hesitation in saying that, from the internal resemblances traced on from _Hardyknute_ through _Sir Patrick Spence_ and _Gil Morrice_ to the others, there seems to me a great _likelihood_ that the whole were the composition of the authoress of that poem--namely, Elizabeth Lady Wardlaw of Pitreavie.

It may be demanded that something should be done to verify, or at least support, the allegation here made as to the peculiar literary character of the suspected ballads. This is, of course, a point to be best made out by a perusal of the entire body of this class of compositions, and scarcely by any other means. Still, it is a difference so striking, that even to present one typical ballad of true rustic origin, could not fail to make a considerable impression on the reader, after he has read specimens of those which are here attributed to a higher source. Be it observed, when an uneducated person speaks of knights, lords, and kings, or of dames and damosels, he reduces all to one homely level. He indulges in no diplomatic periphrases. It is simply, the king said this, and the lord said that--this thing was done, and that thing was done--the catastrophe or _denouement_ comes by a single stroke. This we find in the true stall-ballads. A vulgar, prosaic, and drawling character pervades the whole class, with few exceptions--a fact which ought to give no surprise, for does not all experience shew, that literature of any kind, to have effect, requires for its production a mind of some cultivation, and really good verse flowing from an uninstructed source is what never was, is not now, and never will be? With these remarks, I usher in a typical ballad of the common class--one taken down many years ago from the singing of an old man in the south of Scotland:

JAMES HATELIE.

It fell upon a certain day,
When the king from home he chanced to be,
The king's jewels they were stolen all,
And they laid the blame on James Hatelie.

And he is into prison cast,
And I wat he is condemned to _dee_;
For there was not a man in all the court
To speak a word for James Hatelie.

But the king's eldest daughter she loved him well,
But known her love it might not be;
And she has stolen the prison keys,
And gane in and discoursed wi' James Hatelie.

'Oh, did you steal them, James?' she said;
'Oh, did not you steal them, come tell to me?
For I'll make a vow, and I'll keep it true,
You's never be the worse of me.'

'I did not steal them,' James he said;
'And neither was it intended by me,
For the English they stole them themselves,
And I wat they've laid the blame on me.'

Now she has hame to her father gane,
And bowed her low down on her knee,
'I ask--I ask--I ask, father,' she said,
'I ask--I ask a boon of thee;
I never asked one in my life,
And one of them you must grant to me.'

'Ask on, ask on, daughter,' he said;
'And aye weel answered ye shall be;
For if it were my whole estate,
Naysaid, naysaid you shall not be.'

'I ask none of your gold, father,
As little of your white monie;
But all the asken that I do ask,
It is the life of James Hatelie.'

'Ask on, ask on, daughter,' he said;
'And aye weel answered ye shall be;
For I'll mak a vow, and keep it true--
James Hatelie shall not hanged be.'

'Another asken I ask, father;
Another asken I ask of thee--
Let Fenwick and Hatelie go to the sword,
And let them try their veritie.'

'Ask on, ask on, daughter,' he said;
'And aye weel answered you shall be;
For before the morn at twelve o'clock,
They both at the point of the sword shall be.'

James Hatelie was eighteen years of age,
False Fenwick was thirty years and three;
He lap about, and he strack about,
And he gave false Fenwick wounds three.

'Oh, hold your hand, James Hatelie,' he said;
'And let my breath go out and in;
Were it not for the spilling of my noble blood
And the shaming of my noble kin.

'Oh, hold your hand, James Hatelie,' he said;
Oh, hold your hand, and let me be;
For I'm the man that stole the jewels,
And a shame and disgrace it was to me.'

Then up bespoke an English lord,
I wat but he spoke haughtilie:
'I would rather have lost all my lands,
Before they had not hanged James Hatelie.'

Then up bespoke a good Scotch lord,
I wat a good Scotch lord was he:
'I would rather have foughten to the knees in blood,
Than they had hanged James Hatelie.'

Then up bespoke the king's eldest son:
'Come in, James Hatelie, and dine with me;
For I'll make a vow, and I'll keep it true--
You'se be my captain by land and sea.'

Then up bespoke the king's eldest daughter:
'Come in, James Hatelie, and dine with me;
For I'll make a vow, and I'll keep it true--
I'll never marrie a man but thee.'

Here is love, and here is innocence in difficulties--two things of high moral interest; yet how homely is the whole narration; how unlike the strains of the ballads which have been passed before the reader's view! And be it observed, the theory as to our ballads is, that they have been transmitted from old time, undergoing modifications from the minds of nurses, and other humble reciters, as they came along. If so, they ought to have presented the same plebeian strain of ideas and phraseology as _James Hatelie_; but we see they do not: they are, on the contrary, remarkably poetical, pure, and dignified.

Here I may, once for all, in opposition to Professor Aytoun and others, express my belief that the ballads in question are for the most part printed nearly, and, in some instances, entirely, in the condition in which they were left by the author. In _Edward_, I question if a line has been corrupted or a word altered. _Sir Patrick Spence_ and _Gilderoy_ are both so rounded and complete, so free, moreover, from all vulgar terms, that I feel nearly equally confident about them. All those which Percy obtained in manuscripts from Scotland, are neat finished compositions, as much so as any ballad of Tickell or Shenstone. Those from Mrs Brown's manuscript have also an author's finish clearly impressed on them. It is a mere assumption that they have been sent down, with large modifications, from old times. Had it been true, the ballads would have been full of vulgarisms, as we find to be the condition of certain of them which Peter Buchan picked up among the common people, after (shall we say) seventy or eighty years of traditionary handling. Now, no such depravation appears in the versions printed by Percy, Scott, and Jamieson.

It may be objected to the arguments founded on the great number of parallel passages, that these are but the stock phraseology of all ballad-mongers, and form no just proof of unity of authorship. If this were true, it might be an objection of some force; but it is not true. The _formulae_ in question are to be found hardly at all in any of the rustic or homely ballads. They are not to be found in any ballads which there is good reason to believe so old as the early part of the seventeenth century. They are to be found in no ballads which may even doubtfully be affiliated to England. All this, of course, can only be fully ascertained by a careful perusal of some large collection of ballads. Yet, even in such a case, a few examples may be viewed with interest, and not unprofitably. Of the plebeian ballads, a specimen has just been adduced. Let us proceed, then, to exemplify the ballads of the seventeenth century. First, take _Fair Margaret and Sweet William_, which Percy brought forward from a stall copy as, apparently, the ballad quoted in Fletcher's _Knight of the Burning Pestle_; though subjected to some alteration during the intermediate century and a half. It is as follows:

As it fell out on a long summer day,
Two lovers they sat on a hill;
They sat together that long summer day,
And could not take their fill.

'I see no harm by you, Margaret,
And you see none by me;
Before to-morrow at eight o'clock,
A rich wedding you shall see.'

Fair Margaret sat in her bouir window,
Combing her yellow hair;
There she spied sweit William and his bride,
As they were a-riding near.

Then doun she layed her ivorie combe,
And braided her hair in twain:
She went alive out of her bouir,
But never cam alive in't again.

When day was gone, and nicht was come,
And all men fast asleip,
Then came the spirit of fair Margaret,
And stood at William's feet.

'Are you awake, sweit William?' she said;
'Or, sweit William, are you asleip?
God give you joy of your gay bride-bed,
And me of my winding-sheet!'

When day was come, and nicht was gone,
And all men waked from sleip,
Sweit William to his lady said:
'My deir, I have cause to weep.

'I dreimt a dreim, my dear ladye;
Such dreims are never good:
I dreimt my bouir was full of red swine,
And my bride-bed full of blood.'

'Such dreims, such dreims, my honoured sir,
They never do prove good;
To dreim thy bouir was full of red swine,
And thy bride-bed full of blood.'

He called up his merry-men all,
By one, by two, and by three;
Saying: 'I'll away to fair Margaret's bouir,
By the leave of my ladye.'

And when he came to fair Margaret's bouir,
He knockit at the ring;
And who so ready as her seven brethren
To let sweit William in.

Then he turned up the covering sheet:
'Pray, let me see the deid;
Methinks, she looks all pale and wan;
She hath lost her cherry red.

'I'll do more for thee, Margaret,
Than any of thy kin,
For I will kiss thy pale wan lips,
Though a smile I cannot win.'

With that bespake the seven brethren,
Making most piteous moan:
'You may go kiss your jolly brown bride,
And let our sister alone.'

'If I do kiss my jolly brown bride,
I do but what is right;
I ne'er made a vow to yonder poor corpse,
By day nor yet by night.

'Deal on, deal on, my merry-men all;
Deal on your cake and your wine:
For whatever is dealt at her funeral to-day,
Shall be dealt to-morrow at mine.'

Fair Margaret died to-day, to-day,
Sweit William died to-morrow;
Fair Margaret died for pure true love,
Sweit William died for sorrow.

Margaret was buried in the lower chancel,
And William in the higher;
Out of her breast there sprang a rose,
And out of his a brier.

They grew till they grew unto the church-top,
And then they could grow no higher;
And there they tied in a true lovers' knot,
Which made all the people admire.

Then came the clerk of the parish,
As you the truth shall hear,
And by misfortune cut them down,
Or they had now been there.

Here, it will be observed, beyond the expression, 'my merry-men all,' there is no trace of the phraseology so marked in the group of ballads under our notice. Take, also, a ballad which, from the occurrences referred to, may be considered as antecedent to the epoch of _Hardyknute_, and we shall observe an equal, if not more complete, absence of the phraseology and manner of this class of ballads. It relates to a tragic love-story of 1631, as ascertained from the grave-stone of the heroine in the kirk-yard of Fyvie, Aberdeenshire:

Lord Fyvie had a trumpeter,
His name was Andrew Lammie;
He had the art to gain the heart
Of Mill-o'-Tifty's Annie.

* * *

She sighed sore, but said no more,
Alas, for bonny Annie!
She durst not own her heart was won
By the trumpeter of Fyvie.

At night when they went to their beds,
All slept full sound but Annie;
Love so opprest her tender breast,
Thinking on Andrew Lammie.

'Love comes in at my bed-side,
And love lies down beyond me,
Love has possessed my tender breast,
And wastes away my body.

'At Fyvie yetts there grows a flower,
It grows baith braid and bonny;
There is a daisy in the midst o' it.
And it's ca'd by Andrew Lammie.

'O gin that flower were in my breast,
For the love I bear the laddie,
I wad kiss it, and I wad clap it,
And daut it for Andrew Lammie.

'The first time I and my love met
Was in the woods of Fyvie;
His lovely form and speech so sweet
Soon gained the heart of Annie.

'Oh, up and down, in Tifty's den,
Where the burns run clear and bonny,
I've often gone to meet my love,
My bonny Andrew Lammie.

'He kissed my lips five thousand times,
And aye he ca'd me bonny;
And a' the answer he gat frae me,
Was, "My bonny Andrew Lammie!"'

But now, alas! her father heard
That the trumpeter of Fyvie
Had had the art to gain the heart
Of Tifty's bonny Annie.

And he has syne a letter wrote,
And sent it on to Fyvie,
To tell his daughter was bewitched
By his servant, Andrew Lammie.

When Lord Fyvie this letter read,
O dear, but he was sorry;
'The bonniest lass in Fyvie's land
Is bewitched by Andrew Lammie.'

Then up the stair his trumpeter
He called soon and shortly;
'Pray tell me soon what's this you've done
To Tifty's bonny Annie?'

'In wicked art I had no part,
Nor therein am I canny;
True love alone the heart has won
Of Tifty's bonny Annie.

'Woe betide Mill-o'-Tifty's pride,
For it has ruined many;
He'll no hae't said that she should wed
The trumpeter of Fyvie.'

* * *

'Love, I maun gang to Edinburgh;
Love, I maun gang and leave thee.'
She sighed sore, and said no more,
But, 'Oh, gin I were wi' ye!'

'I'll buy to thee a bridal goun;
My love, I'll buy it bonny!'
'But I'll be dead, ere ye come back
To see your bonny Annie.'

'If you'll be true, and constant too,
As my name's Andrew Lammie,
I shall thee wed when I come back,
Within the kirk of Fyvie.'

'I will be true, and constant too,
To thee, my Andrew Lammie;
But my bridal-bed will ere then be made
In the green kirk-yard of Fyvie.'

He hied him hame, and having spieled
To the house-top of Fyvie,
He blew his trumpet loud and shrill,
'Twas heard at Mill-o'-Tifty.

Her father locked the door at night,
Laid by the keys fu' canny;
And when he heard the trumpet sound,
Said: 'Your cow is lowing, Annie.'

'My father, dear, I pray forbear,
And reproach no more your Annie;
For I'd rather hear that cow to low
Than hae a' the kine in Fyvie.

'I would not for your braw new gown,
And a' your gifts sae many,
That it were told in Fyvie's land
How cruel you are to me.'

Her father struck her wondrous sore,
As also did her mother;
Her sisters always did her scorn,
As also did her brother.

Her brother struck her wondrous sore,
With cruel strokes and many;
He brak her back in the hall-door,
For loving Andrew Lammie.

'Alas, my father and mother dear,
Why are you so cruel to Annie?
My heart was broken first by love,
Now you have broken my bodie.

'Oh, mother dear, make ye my bed,
And lay my face to Fyvie;
There will I lie, and thus will die,
For my love, Andrew Lammie.'

Her mother she has made her bed,
And laid her face to Fyvie;
Her tender heart it soon did break,
And she ne'er saw Andrew Lammie.

When Andrew home from Edinburgh came,
With mickle grief and sorrow:
'My love has died for me to-day,
I'll die for her to-morrow.'

He has gone on to Tifty's den,
Where the burn runs clear and bonny;
With tears he viewed the Bridge of Heugh,
Where he parted last with Annie.

Then he has sped to the church-yard,
To the green church-yard of Fyvie;
With tears he watered his true love's grave,
And died for Tifty's Annie.

Let me repeat my acknowledgment that, while these extracts occupy more space than can well be spared, they form an imperfect means of establishing the negative evidence required in the case. But let the reader peruse the ballads of Buchan's collection known to relate to incidents of the seventeenth century, and he will find that they are all alike free from the favourite expressions of the unknown, or dimly known ballad-writer in question.

Let it never be objected that, if any one person living in the reigns of Queen Anne and George I. had composed so many fine poems, he or she could not have remained till now all but unknown. In the first half of the present century, there appeared in Scotland a series of fugitive pieces--songs--which attained a great popularity, without their being traced to any author. Every reader will remember _The Land of the Leal_, _Caller Herring_, _The Laird o' Cockpen_, _The Auld House_, and _He's ower the Hills that I lo'e weel_. It was not till after many years of fame that these pieces were found to be the production of a lady of rank, Carolina Baroness Nairn, who had passed through a life of seventy-nine years without being known as a song-writer to more than one person. It was the fate of this songstress to live in days when there was an interest felt in such authorships, insuring that she should sooner or later become known; but, had she lived a hundred years earlier, she might have died and left no sign, as I conjecture to have been the case with the author of this fine group of ballads; and future Burnses might have pondered over her productions, with endless regret that the names of their _authors_ were 'buried among the wreck of things that were.'

If there be any truth or force in this speculation, I shall be permitted to indulge in the idea that a person lived a hundred years before Scott, who, with his feeling for Scottish history, and the features of the past generally, constructed out of these materials a similar romantic literature. In short, Scotland appears to have had a Scott a hundred years before the actual person so named. And we may well believe that if we had not had the first, we either should not have had the second, or he would have been something considerably different, for, beyond question, Sir Walter's genius was fed and nurtured on the ballad literature of his native country. From his _Old Mortality_ and _Waverley_, back to his _Lady_ _of the Lake and Marmion_; from these to his _Lay of the Last Minstrel_; from that to his _Eve of St John_ and _Glenfinlas_; and from these, again, to the ballads which he collected, mainly the produce (as I surmise) of an individual precursor, is a series of steps easily traced, and which no one will dispute. Much significance there is, indeed, in his own statement, that _Hardyknute_ was the first poem he ever learned, and the last he should forget. Its author--if my suspicion be correct--was his literary foster-mother, and we probably owe the direction of his genius, and all its fascinating results, primarily to her.

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