CHAPTER XL POETRY. ART. I. Scottish historical and romantic Ballads, chiefly ancient: with explanatory Notes and a Glossary. To which are prefixed some Remarks on the early State of romantic Composition in Scotland: By JOHN FINLAY. Two Volumes 8vo. OUR nation excels all others in its ballads, especially in its historical ones. The state of Scotland, when most of these historical songs were produced, was for many centuries peculiarly favourable to such compositions; the people were civilized enough to delight in music and in metrical story, and savage enough to supply perpetual themes for tragical strains. Treason on the part of the nobles, treachery on the part of the crown, cow-stealing on the border, house-burning at home, broils, private wars, barbarous murders, and more barbarous executions; these are the materials of which Scotch history is composed, and they are as suitable to the popular poet, as they are disgusting to the historian. Hence no country is so rich in local anecdotes, every ruin has its history of fire and blood; every valley has been the scene of some battle or some assassination. The causes which have in the course of one century made the Scotch the most orderly of all nations, as they were before the most barbarous, would lead to a curious investigation. There are many reasons why ballads are likely to be better than any other species of poems. As being composed for the people, they would be in the language of the people, the language of life and passion. Passing from one recitor to another, from generation to generation, frequent additions would be made, and such only as improved the poem would adhere to it. And as we heard well remarked by Mr. Coleridge; in oral recitation all the feebler parts would be dropt in process of time, and hence they have obtained that boldness with which they so frequently open, and those exquisite transitions which we so justly admire; while all other composi tions of the same age are weakened by prolixity. To Dr. Percy we are indebted more than to any other man of his generation for directing our attention to this good old school,-he has been the precursor of our reformation in poetry. More fidelity, more research, and more knowledge are displayed in Walter Scott's collection, its poetical merit is not on the whole equal to the Reliques, its antiquarian and historical value greater. What pieces have been subsequently discovered, should have appeared as supplementary to one or other of these great bodies of our popular poetry. It is provoking to take up two new volumes, like these of Mr. Finlay's, and find them, in great part, composed of republications. The poems in this collection are so few, that they may easily be enumerated. First on the list is Hardyknute. Mr. Finlay corroborates the fact that it was written by Lady Wardlaw. It never could have been believed to be ancient, by any person acquainted with the character of ancient poetry. The Norse account of the battle of Largs is prefixed, and in the annexed notes many parallel passages are traced, and Mr. Pinkerton's variations noticed. That gentleman's sequel to the story has been rejected. Sir Patrick Spens follows,--one of the finest ballads which have reached us. Mr. Finlay is inclined to think it is the most ancient of which we are in possession; this he says in his preface, but in his introduction to the ballads, he seems to qua lify the opinion, supposes that the event relates to the reign of James III., who married Margaret, the king's daughter of Norroway, and that its composition may be of a comparatively modern date. The additional stanzas Mr. Finlay has found in a recited copy. Then up an' cam a mermaid, Wi'a siller cup in her han'; "Sail on, sail on, my good Scotch lords, For ye sune will see dry lan'." “Awa, awa, ye wild woman, An' let your fleechin' be', For sen your face we've seen the day, Dry lan' we'll never see.” The editor is right both in preserving them, and in rejecting them 'from the text; where they would mar the truth of the poem. Frennat ha'. A ballad palpably and confessedly modern, upon a shocking story, which is prefixed in an extract from Spalding's shocking annals. Some curious illustrations are added from two poems of Arthur Johnston, in the Delicia Poetarum Scotorum. Why have we not a collection of the British Latin poets? The bonnie Earl o' Murray. A short and spirited lamentation for "the tallest and lustiest young nobleman within the kingdom,' who was 66 most unworthily slain and murdered," according to the custom of Scotland. There is another ballad upon the same subject in the second volume. Edom 0' Gordan. Another shocking story; "how the Earl of Huntley's brother put fire to the house of Tavoy, and burnt the lady therein, with children and servants, being twenty seven persons in all." Parts of the ballad are very fine, the conclusion is manifestly modern, as Mr. Finlay has perceiv ed. Gude Wallace: From Johnston's Scots Musical Museum, where there is no notice of its being given from a printed copy, or obtained from recitation, but it has no marks of being a late composition. stanza is remarkable. Wallace out over yon river he lap, And he has lighted low down on yon plain; And he was aware of a One a gay ladie, As she was at the well washing. This is remarkable, because we do not remember any other instance in Nausicaa's employment is thus asromance, or chivalrous story, where signed to a gay ladie. Sir Cauline. This ballad is reprinted from Percy's Reliques, "chiefly because of the great similarity some of the incidents bear to the ancient romance of Sir Tristrem; that part of it at least, which relates to Sir Tristrem's adventures in Ireland." But was there any reason for reprinting so large a poem from a book which is certainly in every library to which this collec tion will find its way, merely for the sake of this resemblance. It would surely have been sufficient to point it out. Glasgerion. Another needless republication. The little penknife is a deadly instrument in many ballads, and affords some assistance in fixing their date. Women must ge nerally have been able to write, and paper have been invented, and in common use, when they were written. The battle of Corichie. Composed it is said by one Forbes, schoolmas ter at Mary Culter, upon Dee side. It is written in the broad Aberdeenshire dialect, which we may remark is much more intelligible to an English reader, than purer Scotch, "It is Mr. Finlay characterises it as being distinguished by an astonishing contempt for historical truth. The battle of Harlaw. much to be regretted that the literary history of this ballad is involved in so much uncertainty. We possess no copy which can be proved to be a century old, and yet if internal evidence may be trusted, we may safely infer that, with a few modern alterations, it is the identical song alluded to in the Complaynt of Scotland." It is upon the model of Chevy Chace, beginning with a lamentation for the battle, and ending with an account of the slain. Whatever its date may be, it is the work of a practised writer. Lady Mary Ann. This we shall transcribe. they were green, And the days are awa' that we hae seen ; But far better days, I trust, will come again, For my bonny laddie's young, but he's growin' yet." Vol. II. James Douglas. A lathe heroine in person, and compos ment supposed to be delivered by ed as Mr. Finlay apprehends on the wife of Morton the Regent. The history which he has prefixed by no means justifies this appropriation. There it is said that she became distracted, and would not company with her husband, fancying that he had been killed, and that the person who killed him had usurped his place. The ballad, on the contrary, husband on suspicion of inconti represents her as put away by her nence. The notes state an opinion that one of the Bartons, so much Scotland, was the first who introcelebrated in the naval history of the capture of a Portugueze vessel. duced blacks into that country, from The Bonnie IIouse O'Airly, An indifferent story in bad rhyme. The Gypsie Laddie. "As Mr. Ritson had mentioned, that neighbouring tradition strongly vouched for the truth of the story upon which this ballad is founded, I resolved to make the necessary inquiries, the result of which, without much variation, is as follows: "That the Earl of Cassilis had married a nobleman's daughter contrary to her wishes, she having been previously engaged to another; but that the persua sion and importunity of her friends at last brought her to consent: That Sir John Faw of Dunbar, her former lover, seizing the opportunity of the earl's absence on a foreign embassy, disguised himself and a number of his retainers as gypsies and carried off the lady, "nothing loth" That the earl having returned opportunely at the commission of the act, and nowise to participate in his consort's ideas on the subject, collected his vassals, and pursued the lady and her paramour to the borders of England, where, having overtaken them, a battle ensued, in which Faw and his followers were all killed or taken prisoners, excepting one, -the meanest of them all, Who lives to weep and sing their fall. It is by this survivor that the ballad is supposed to have been written. The earl, on bringing back the fair fugitive, banished her a mensa et thoro, and it is said confined her for life in a tower at the village of Maybole, in Airshire, built for the purpose; and, that nothing might remain about this tower unappropriated to its original destination, eight heads, carved in stone, below one of the turrets, are said to be the effigies of so many of the gypsies. The lady herself, as well as the survivor of Faw's followers, contributed to perpetuate the remembrance of the transaction; for if he wrote a song about it, she wrought it in tapes try; and this piece of workmanship is still preserved at Culzean castle. It remains to be mentioned, that the ford, by which the lady and her lover crossed the river Doon from a wood near Cassilis house, is still denominated the Gypsies' steps. "There seems to be no reason for identifying the hero with Johnnie Faa, who was king of the gypsies about the year 1590. The coincidence of names, and the disguise assumed by the lover, is perhaps the foundation on which popular tradition has raised the structure. Upon authority so vague, nothing can be assumed; and indeed I am inclined to adopt the opinion of a correspondent, that the whole story may have been the invention of some feudal or political rival, to injure the character and hurt the feelings of an opponent; at least, after a pretty diligent search, I have been able to discover nothing that in the slightest degree confirms the popular tale.". Lammikin. Upon this story there are two ballads, the first far the best. It is popular throughout Scotland, and the editor received many copies, all of them differing in some points from one another, and some even in their versification. Had it should have suspected it to be Mr. not been for this assurance, we Lewis's, so remarkably does it resemble his best ballad manner. Sweet Willie. When the heroines of romance are delivered of their first born, every thing is comfortably managed, and the child exposed either by land or water, as may be most convenient. Ballad writers are fond of a like situation, but they make out a more pitiable case; with them every thing is mismanaged; and there is nothing but distress on the woman's part and unfeelingness on the man's. This, which is one of the clan, is pathetically told, and is probably much indebted to Mr. Finlay. The The Young Johnston. This ballad which has been often published under the title of the Cruel Knight, is here completed from the recited copies. It is not however improved by the additional stanzas. story as it appears in Mr. Pinkerton's collection was sufficiently perfect, and the omission of one stanza which occurs in his copy, renders the crime of young Johnston unintelligible. Then she's gone to her darksome bower, Her husband dear to meet, The Mermaid. Now first reco vered from the recitation of a lady, who heard it sung by the servants in her father's family, above fifty years ago. It bears so striking a resem blance to a fragment claimed by Mr. Pinkerton as his own, that it can only be accounted for, says Mr. Finlay, on the supposition that the fragnient was composed from the indistinct recollection of the story, which he may have heard in child-. hood. And anither thousand on ilka side." But earl William stampit wi' his foot, I wot an angry man was he ;"I wadna gi'e my good king's word For a' the men in Christendie, I carena for man but auld Crichtoun. An' I dinna value him a flie, • For he kens gin he frowned but whar I And full twenty feet fro the table he stood, Or touched ae hair o' my e'ebree, That my men wad level his castle and towers, An' sweep them clean into the sea. But tak the plate-jack frae aff my back, It hasna been off this money a year; An' tak the basnet frae my head, An' hing up, till I come hame, my spear; sprang When the grisly bull's head met his *The Red Douglas, is the house of Angus; the Black Douglas that of Liddesdale. "The last battell the earl Douglas was at, the earl of Angus discomfited him ; so that it became a proverb, The Red Douglas put down the Black."-Hume of GodsGatliardlie, gallantly. croft, p. 207. + Brim and wood; furious and mad. $Bleeze, blaze. Sluchen't, quench it. |