'ij'jNvsm^^ '^m\ o '■X:/1]'JNVS01^'^ "^/^aMINO JUV' ^IIIHRARY6>/ '^.ifojnvjjo^ '^ 9. s ,^\\EUNIVER% >- ^lOSANCElfj^ ^-OFCALIFO/?^ '^/sa]AiNn3Wv -< s ^ aMIBRARYQc, %JI1V3J0^ ^' \V\tUNIVt«V/ < '-^ CO ^OfCAllFO%, v< .^ ^OFCAllFOff^ >' ^ 3E ^. ^ ^ t <: # %J13AliNil ^UV"" I -111 . . ^^lllBRARYQ^ .\V X, ^^— ^ ■'^ ^ is: m ^OfCALIFO/?^ <§ ^. o i- \\\[ rNIVER.r//, .s.-slOSA^CFlfrA \'' .^^•1 \WE UNIVERS/^^ '.vjrrir. O ii_ nr /T ILLUSTRATIONS OF SCOTTISH IIISTOUY, LIFE, AND SUPERSTITION PRINTED BY BALI.ANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. EDINBURGH AND LONDON ILLUSTEATIONS OF SCOTTISH HISTORY LIFE AND SUPERSTITION FROM SONG AND BALLAD BY WILLIAM GUNNYON LONDON: HAMILTON, ADAMS, .V; CO. EDINBURGH : MENZIES & CO. 1877 [All riylUa reserved.] f- PREFACE. ^o- The object of tlie jircsent work is to introduce to the stores of our Sons: and Ballad literature those who may be ignorant of their riches, and to refresh the memories of such as may have once been familiar with them, Init who have now ceased to cherish their acquaintance. These stores are not only rich but varied, and if the book proves uninteresting, tlie fault is due, not to the sul)ject, but solely to defective treatment. Tlic usual collections of Song and Ballad have been carefully studied while preparing these chapters ; l)ut the extracts are generally, though not alwa3'S, taken from Chambers's " Songs of Scotland prior to Burns," and Aytoun's tasteful recension of tlie texts of tlie Ballads. Especially valuable aid has been 871 1 (]9 \1 PREFACE. liad from Burton's " History of Scotland." Alexander Smith's Essay on " Ballads " in the "Edinburgh Essays," and Professor Dr. J. Clark jMurray's " Songs and Ballads of Scotland," have been consulted, and always with profit, though the aim of the Litter work differs very materially from that of this. But the most valuable help has been had from the Songs and Ballads themselves. WILLIAM GUNNYON. Glasgow, Wi August 1S77. CONTENTS. o CHAPTER I. PAGE ■+• ISTRODUCTOET I CHArTER II. Spurious Ballads 12 CHAPTER III. part C. Historical Songs and Ballads 34 § I. Chevy Chase 34 § 2. The Red Harlaw 48 § 3. Dark Flodden 62 § 4. Minor Combats : Corrichie, Balrinnes, and DryfFe Sands 73 § 5. Historical-Tragical 87 Part I-C. The Battles op the Covenant 100 part IH. § I. Jacobite Songs and RalladH 115 § 2. Whig Songs 140 CHAPTER IV. Border Songs and Ballads 154 Vlll CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. Social Songs and Ballads § I. Love iinil Courtshij) § 2. JIarriage : The Preliniiuaries § 3. Tlie ISIurriage .... § 4. The Married Life . § 5. Convivial Sougs and Ballads . PACK 178 . 178 . • 197 . . 208 . 219 . 246 CHAPTER VL Romantic Songs and Ballads . CHAPTER Vn. Legendary Songs and Ballads § I. The Fairy Mythology . § 2. Witches and Witchcraft § 3. Brownies, Kelpies, and Ghosts § 4. Return from the Dead . 294 294 317 331 343 ERRATA. Page 6, line 23, for "Turn thy sweet will to me,"' read "Turn thee, sweet Will, to me." >j 32, )) 3, Z^'' Plauche's read Planuhe's. ,, 66, ,, 22, for Delaney read Deloney. ,, 82, ,, 16, /or Altacholyluchan reacZ Altachoylachan. „ 144, ,, 9, for ihenies read schemes. ILLUSTRATIOIS'S OF SCOTTISH HISTORY, LIFE, AXD SUPERSTITION^ FROM SONG AND BALLAD. CHAPTER I. 1 N T RO DU C TO R Y. Scottish Song has, for several reasons, a higher fame than any other European anthology. The exquisite pathos, the inimitaljle humour, the felicity, verve, and paiohiness of the lyrics themselves, together witli the celebrity of at least many of the later wiiters, and the passion with which then* names are cherished hy adventurous Scots in every region of the globe, liave combined to give our national songs a fame and a popularity exceptionally great. Song is indi.sputalily tlie earliest form of poetic — and, in- deed, of any — literature everywhere ; and though tlie oldest Scotti.sh specimens now existing are of com- paratively moderate antiquity, we know of some lliat were cun-ent as early as the days nf "\V;dlace INTRODUCTORY. and the Bruce. "The Giule Wallace," as it has come down to us, l)ears in places the stamp of great antiquity ; and " When Alexander our King was dead " — a touching lament for the wars and troubles that followed the death of Alexander III. in 1286, preserved in Winton's " Cronykil " — was undoubtedly in its earliest form contemporaneous with the events w^hich it deplores. The form in which we have it, as might be expected of a composition handed on by recitation from age to age, when printing was not as yet, and the professional antiquary not even a con- ception, is that of the age of the chronicler himself. The genuineness of the fragment quoted by Fabyan of a song represented as having been composed by the maidens of Scotland, in which they naturally, but somewhat maliciously, called on their sisters of England to mourn for their lemans lost at Bannock- burn, is attested by the St. Alban's "Chronicle," and its refrain of " heuealowe " with " rumbylowe " is found in James the First's " Peblis to the Play:"- " Hope, Ciilye, and Cardronow, Gathered ovit thick-fold, With hey and how, runibeloAv, The young folks were full bold." Fabyan has also preserved some satiric lines in derision of the alliance formed between England and Scotland on the marriage, in 1328, of David, son of the Bruce, to Jane, sister of Edw^ard. The Princess was humorously styled Jane Makepeace, and the /X TROD UC TOR \ '. 3 verses referred to are said to liave Leen affixed to the doors of York Cathedral by the Scottish Ambassadors. In his " History of tlie House of Douglas," Hume of Godscroft quotes from a song on the murder, in 1353, of the Lord of Liddesdale, while hunting in Ettrick Forest, by AVilliam, Earl of Douglas, from motives of jealousy ; and it is a cogent testimony to the practice of embalming striking events in popular song, that Barbour in his " Brus " excuses himself from relatinii- the defeat of Sir Andra Harcla by Sir John de Soulis by the blunt statement that — "Young women, wlien they will play, Sing it amang them ilk day." John ]\Iair, or Major (" De Gestis Scotorum," Paris, 1 5 2 1 ), also assigns to the First James the composition of many songs that were popiilar in his day; but if his statement be correct, the songs of the royal bard have all disappeared. The undoubted remains of ancient song are ex- tremely scanty, l)ut wliat little is extant, and the tradition of more that has been lost, prove beyond r[uestion the early prevalence of song in Scotland, and the popular delight in it. Tt is In be inferred further, that these songs were, for the most part, of lowly origin — the expression of overpowering passion inspired in a rustic l)Osom l)y the charms of some Ifebe of the farm or fold, oi- the ('iiibo(]iiiiciil in liumorous, pathetic, exultant, oi' wailing strains ofnn incident, personal or national, that liad shuck llie fancy or the lieart of some untaught baid, who — 4 AV TROD UC TOR Y. " Sang other names, but left liis own unsung." I'or when M'e come down to tlie splendid galaxy ol' poets who illustrated the sixteenth century — Henry- son, Douglas, and Dunbar — all men of culture, men of the schools — we find in their writings nothing of the nature of songs for the people. Yet with such songs they w^re all familiar. In Henryson's fable of "The Wolf, the Fox, and the Cadger," there occurs the line — " Tlie Cadgear sang, Hunt's up, up, upon liie," which contains the title of a song popular both in England and Scotland, being mentioned in "The Complaynt of Scotland" (1548), in Alexander Scot's poem on. May (about 1560), and at the time of the Eeformation converted into one of the " Gude and Godly Ballads." It is mentioned also in " Eomeo and Juliet," act iii. sc. 5 — " Hunting thee hence \vith limits up to the day." In the prologue to the Twelfth Book of Gawin Douglas's translation of the ^neid, completed July 22, 15 13, and first printed in 15 53, we find the title of a people's song : — " Ane sang, ' The schip salis over the salt fame. Will bring thir nierchandis and my leniane hame.' " Dunbar (Laing's edition, vol. i., p. 98) complains — " Your common minstrels hes no tone But ' Now the day daws,' and ' Into Jone,' — " a common minstrel being apparently in the eyes of the courtly poet, though himself a composer of INTRODUCTORY. 5 " saugis, ballatis, and playis," a person of no account. Yet in his " Lament for the Death of the Makars " we find — " That scorpioiin fell lies done infek Maister Jolme Clerk and James Afflek, Fra ballat-niaking and trigide." The popularity of the fhst of the two strains men- tioned by Dunljar is further attested by Douglas in these lines — " Thareto tliir birdis singis in tliair sliaws, As inenstrals plays Thejoly day noic daics." But we find in " Cockelbey's Sow " and in the " Complaynt of Scotland " by far the most complete list of the titles of now-forgotten songs. The author of " Cockelbey's Sow " is unknown ; but from internal evidence we gather that it is posterior to Chaucer, and anterior to the middle of the fifteenth century. It was very popular about the beginning of the six- teenth century, when Dunbar and Douglas flourished. The latter refers to it thus in liis " Palice of Honour," part iii. st. 48 — " I saw Rnf Coil\-ear willi liis tlirawin l)row, Craibit Julme the Keif, and auld Cowkellpi's sow." Dr. Irving remarks that " it contains some gleanings of curious information." Among these are the illus- trations it throws on the music, dances, and musical instruments in common use in the fifteenth century . "and what adds in iid sniall degree to its interest," says Mr. Laiiig, "is tiie consideration that the names of the greater proportion of tlie airs, dances, and O IN TRODUC TOR Y. songs enmnerated in it arc otherwise imkiiown." Some of tliese last are : — " The sone shene in the sowth,'" " Cok craw thou (pihill day," " Jolly lemman, daws it lint day," " Be yon wodsyd," "Eusty bully with a hek, and every note in utlieris nek," "Trolly lolly," &c. Dunhar refers to the poem in his " General Satire " as CoM'kelbyis Gryce, and there is an allusion to it in the " Interlude of Laying a Cihaist," in the Bannatync MS. — " To reid qvilia will this ^'eulill geist, Ye herd it not at Cokilby's Feast." The " Complaynt of Scotland," also of uncertain authorship, is a production of aliout a century later, having been first printed in 1 548. A list of popular songs is given in ]»}). 100, 10 1, Leyden's edition (Edinburgh, Constable, 1801), and among them are some of rather tantalising promise, such as : — " The briar binds me sore," " Still under the leavis green," " Cou thou me the rashes green," " Lady, help your ])risoner," "Broom, broom on hill," " Alone I w^eej) in great distress," " Trollee, lollee, lemmen dou " (this is also a title in " Cockelbey's Sow"), "The frog cam to the mill door," " Turn thy sweet Avill to me," " My love is lying sick, send him joy, send Inni joy " (evidently the model of the more modern " My hive's in Germanic, send him liame, send himhame"), &c. These lists, in the words of ]\Ir. Cunningham, " may well excite our sympathy f(jr the lost favourites of our forefathers. But it may S3ive to lessen our AV TRODUCTOK Y. 7 regret to know that some of those songs were ini- nsually licentious and indelicate." " On the whole," says Eobert Chambers, "they give us little insight into the general condition of song literature in those days." However, regret is in vain ; tliey have passed away from human memory, without the hope or the possiljility of recall. Yet many, we believe, have longed more eagerly for the simple " Bothwell l)ank, thou blumest fayre," that fell on the ear of the wanderer in Palestine as it was sung by the Scottish mother to her child beside the dwelling of her Moslem lord, and brought about a friendly recogni- tion between the two compatriots of the far-off wes- tern isle, than they ever did for " the song the sirens sang." If " The Gaberlunzie Man " and " The Jollie Beggar," two lyrics of extraordinary merit, though somewhat more outspoken than modern taste wouhl sanction, are really productions of James the Fiftli, we have mentioned the last truly national songs that enriclied our anthology for a long period. It is singular, however, that the Bannatyne MS., made in 1 568, only twenty-five years after the death of James, contains only two pieces that have been adopted ])y modern song-collectors. A remarkaljle episode in the history of Scottish song was the publication in 1597 of "Ane Compen- dious Booke of Godly and Spiritual Songs, collect it out of siindrie partes of the Scripture, with sundric of other ballates changed out of propliaine Sangis, for avoydiiig of sinne and liailoiiic," i^c. It ])ro- 8 INTRODUCTORY. bably contains many of the compositions of John and Ptohert Weclderliurn, of Dundee, the latter of whom was vicar of the town. On his return to ScotLind from Paris, Calderwood informs us that " Wedderburn turned the tunes and tenour of many profane baUads into godlie songs and hymns, which were called the 'Psalmes of Dundie;' whereby he stirred up the affections of many." The intent was excellent — namely, to aid in the work of the Eefor- mation; but the modus operandi was absurd and ludicrous. The songs, many of them originally in- decent, preserved enough of the old leaven to suggest to the mind of the singer all that might have l^een conveniently forgotten. But though obviously failures as aids to piety, they serve admirably the purposes of the historical inquirer, as they preserve in their beginnings and burdens enough of the original to give us a fan' conception of the songs that pleased in the sixteenth century. " Who is at my window, avIio, wlio ? Go from my window, go, go. Who calls there so like a stranger? Go from my window, go." A^ain, to the air " He's low down among the broom that's waiting for me," we find — " My love that mourns for me, for me, My love that mourns for me ; I am not kind, he's not in mind. My love that mourns for me." INTRODUCTORY. 9 Another is — " John, come kiss me no^v, Joliti, come kiss me no\v, John, come kiss me by and bj", And make no more ado." To the tune of " Hunt's up," previously referred to, the following words were assigned — " With hunt's up, Avith hunt's up, It is now perfect day ; Jesus our King is gane in hunting, "Wlia likiiS to speed, they may." Thus two modes of furthering the Preformation were adopted in connection with contemporary song and music. The one was singing obscene songs to the finest music of the Latin service, to discredit it ; the other, attempting to supplant obscene songs by sub- stituting pious words to the same airs. From the " ]\Ierry "Wives of Windsor " we learn that the Hun- dredth Psalm was sometimes sung to the tune of " Green Sleeves ; " and the Clown in the " Winter's Tale " exclaims, " But one Pimtan amongst them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes." A satirical effusion against the vices of the Pwomish clergy, in language remarkable at least for its plainness, to the tune of "Hay trix, tiim go trix, under the greenwood tree," occurs in the midst of these pious canticles. 'J'iie following is a si)ecimen — "Of Scotland well the iViers of Faill, The limniery king lies lastit ; The monks of Melros made gude kail I On Fryday rpilien they fastit." 10 INTRODUCTORY. Then follow two lines utterly unquotable. Such tifforts of the lleforniers must evidently have failed of their purpose. The too sensuous groundwork re- mained. ]\Ieston says of a I'resbyterian dame of exemplary piety — " She reads a letter In Rutherfonl, and seldom misses To light on those which mention kisses." Numerous extracts, that appear at this day not only ludicrous but positively blasphemous — so much has taste altered — are given in that once popular book, " Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence Displayed," from the letters of Samuel Rutherford, addressed, inter alios, to Lord and Lady Kenmure, Lord and Lady Boyd, Lord Loudoun, Lady Culross, the Earl of Cassillis, &c., &c. After the Restoration the songs of Scotland became so popular that they were manufactured in England, and afterwards accepted in Scotland as genuine. Many such are to be found in Durfey's " Wit and Mirth" and "Pills to Purge Melancholy." The accession of the House of Hanover called forth many humorous and some pathetic Jacobite songs. Ramsay's " Tea-Table Miscellany " introduced many of the old songs and airs into fashionable society, and some persons of quality wrote what must be confessed to be very frigid pastoral songs indeed. Others, how- ever, as Miss Jean Elliot and Lane Anne Lindsay, wrote songs truly Scottish in language and senti- ment. But, on tlie whole, the Scottish anthology is INTRODUCTORY. II tlie outcome of the ImmLler ranks, and the great and undisputed monarch of the Scottish lyre, Eobert Burns, gloried in the title of " the Ayrshu-e Plough- man." The songs to he illustrated in the following pages are confined, for the most part, to those preced- ing the time of Bimis ; but though thus limited, the field is wide and rich, for the national song is in- extricably interwoven with every department of the national life and historv. ( 12 ) CHxVrTEIf IT. SPURIOUS BALLADS. "While Scottish Song is in one sense conterminous with, and runs parallel to, Scottish history, how stands the case with the ballads ? It might have been expected, a jjriori, that there would have been no such loss of compositions, consisting not, as the songs do, of crystallised sentiment, but of simple and fervid narrative, with all the artificial and conven- tional aids to memory which have characterised the Ijallad lore of every age and clime, as we know to have actually occurred \x\i\\ regard to lyrics once generally popular. According to the theory of Niebhur, which Mommsen has not so much con- troverted as exhibited in another light, Livy was enabled to construct his pictm'esque history of early Eome from ballads in tlie mouths of the common people. Macaulay in his " Lays of Ancient Eome " attempted to reproduce some of those which he con- ceived most likely to have been tenaciously treasured in the popular heart ; and in liis preface he says that " it," i.e., ballad-poetry, " attained a high degree of excellence among the P^nglish and the Lowland SPURIOUS BALLADS. I Scotch during the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries." Fiu'ther on he says—" Su' Walter Scott, who united to the fire of a great poet the minute curiosity and patient diligence of a great antiquary, was but just in time to save the precious relics of the minstrelsy of the Border." That there are many undoubtedly ancient and historical ballads cannot be denied, but then- number is much less than is generally supposed. Even Sir Walter Scott, with all his sagacity and antiquarian knowledge, is anything but a safe guide in determin- ing the age and genuineness of many of the ballads he admitted into his collection. In the instances of " The Death of Featherstonhaugh " and " Bartram's Dirge," he was most ungenerously, not to say cruelly, imposed on by his friend and brother antiquary, E. Surtees, of Durham, whose own composition those two ballads were. Of the former, Scott was made to say — "It was taken down from the recitation of a woman eighty years of age, mother of one of the miners in Alston Moor, by the agent of the lead-mines tliere, who communicated it to my friend and corre- spondent, II. Surtees, Esq.," &c., ^\•ilb many more circumstances equally apocryphal. Surtees wound tij) with a note containing a reference to tlie Roman Wall, and extracts in feudal Latin from an Inquisitio and an Ullarjatio, respectively Ilenrici Svi, — baits wJiich Scott could not resist, and to tenq)t liim with whicli was as cruel as to seethe the kid in its mother's milk. Tlie latter is introduced thus — " The follow- 14 SPURIOUS liALl.ADS. ing- bcauUl'ul IVagnient was taken down by Mv. Surteos from the recitation of Anne Douglas, an old woman wlio weeded in his garden." Evidently Jonathan Oldhuck had not as yet dug u]) Aiken Drum's Lang Ladle (iV.D.L.L.) on the Kaini of Kin- prunes, nor was there any fear of Edie Ochiltree before his eyes. So that the dictum of Alexander Smith in his essay on the Scottish ballads, contributed to the "Edinburgh University Essays," and repub- lished in " Last Leaves," that it is impossible to forge an old ballad, must be not so much taken cum grano as totally repudiated ; for numerous impostors escape detection, and not every " Phalaris " has his Bentley. In truth, literary forgery, such, at least, as shall escape detection for a time, and it may be for ever, unless some peculiar audacity in the forger or some special interest in the subject-matter attracts the notice of experts, seems comparatively easy, and appears to have singular charms for a certain class of minds. In proof of this, to refer only to modern instances, who has not heard of Macpherson's Ossian, of Lauder's Milton, of Ireland's Shakespeare, and of Chatterton's Eowley Poems ? That Allan Cunning- ham should have palmed off on Cromek as antiques productions of his own is in nowise wonderful, for Cromek was not even a Scotchman, and "honest Allan's " pseudo-antiques are, after all, among the best things in the " llemains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song." But the morality of the thing was questionable ; though the enormity of the offence is SPURIOUS BALLADS. I 5 much modified, according to the spectacles tlirough which it is looked at. In " Tlie Book-Hunter," John Hill Burton characterises Cunningham's offences as so many harmless peccadilloes, so many " rises " taken out of a Cockney, who, with however excellent intentions, was intermeddling with a subject of whicli he was totally ignorant. Not so did they appear to William Motherwell, for in speaking of the "Eemains" in the introduction to his " Minstrelsy Ancient and Modern," he thus relieves liLs mind : — " There never was, and never can be, a more barefaced attempt to gull ignorance than what this work exhibits. It pro- fesses to give as ancient ballads and songs things which must have been WTitten under the nose of the editor. More pretension, downright impudence, ami Utrrary falselwod seldom or ever came into conjunc- tion." And again, when speaking of Cunningham's practice of " improving " ancient song, he breaks forth — " It is an unlioly and abhorrent lust whicli thus ransacks the tomb, and rifles the calm beauty of the mute and unresisting dead " — a procedure which a little further on is stigmatised as " the heinousnesa of liis offending." The ballads alluded to never had any extraordinary ]»opularity, were not looked upon as national heir- lorjiiis, or as in any way especially illustrative of history and manners. But there were otliers wliich had come tf) be regarded witli peculiar pride inn! affection, and were pointed to as proofs tliat Scot- land had a traditionary ballad lore not only rivalling, 1 6 SPURIOUS BALLADS. l»ut in many respects transcending, tliat of any other nationality. Among these were " Hardyknute," " Sir Patrick Spens," " Gilderoy," " Gil Morrice," " Edward, Edward," &c. In the middle of the eighteenth cen- tury British poetry had fallen into a most lethargic state. There were versifiers in plenty after the manner of Pope, with all the defects of the school of ^\■hich he was the acknowledged head, but with none of his sense, point, or vigour. The language of nature and of common life, and consequently of truth and passion, was no longer familiar to the Muse of Britain. Pope, in his " Song by a Person of Quality," an evident burlesque, gives, as it were prophetically, an exquisite exemplar of the sort of rubbish which a century later should pass among his imitators for poetry — " Fhitt'ring spread thy purple pinions, Gentle Cupid, o'er my heart ; I a slave in thy dominions — Nature must give way to Art." And the melancholy fact was now so. Now, among the first and most effective agencies in disrupting this artificial school of rhymsters was the publication, in 1765, of Percy's "Pteliques of Ancient English Poetry." Southey says — " Two works which ap- peared in the interval between Churchill and Cowper promoted beyond any others this growth of a better taste than had prevailed for the hundred years pre- ceding. Tliese were Warton's 'History of English Poetry ' and Percy's ' Pieliques,' the publication of SPURIOUS BALLADS. 1/ wliicli must form an epoch in the continuation of that history." The national taste Avas speedily- revolutionised ; once more truth and nature inspu-ed the voice of song ; once more the sunshine and the rain, the breeze of heaven and the early dew, glad- dened, stirred, and refreshed the flowers of poesy ; once more '' The common air, tlie earth, the skies, To men were opening Paradise." Among the gems of Percy's collection, the ballads which we have enumerated, and others having a certain family resemblance to them, were not the least briUiant ; to them the book owed much of its ]»opularity and influence ; to their publication was due in no small measure the revival of British poetry Ijy breathing into it a purer and fresher spirit. Of these, " Hardyknute " was early discovered to be a forgery; but in 1859 the lovers of ballad literature were startled from their propriety by the publication of "The Ptomantic Scottish Ballads: their Epoch and Authorship," by llobert Chambers, in which an attempt was made to prove "that the high-class romantic ballads of Scotland are not ancient com- ])Ositions — are not older tlian the early part of the eighteenth century — and are mainly, if not wliolly, the production of one mind ; " and tliat there was " a great likelihood that the wliole were the composition of the authoress of Hardyknute ' — namely, Elizabctli, Lady Wardlaw of Pitreavie." Here there was no lack of bohhiess of assertion: B I 8 SPURIOUS BALLADS. not by an obscure, but by an eminent person ; not by a rash mnu, but liy one known for eminent fair- ness and sobriety of judgment ; not by a dilettante dabbler in the field, but by one who had cultivated it successfully for years, and who had, indeed, in 1829, published the most admirable and tasteful collection of Scottish ballad poetry that had up till that time appeared. Among the ballads included in this sweeping charge were — " Sir Patrick Spens," "Gil Morrice," "Edward, Edward," "The Jew's Daughter," "Gilderoy," "Young Waters," "Edom 0' Gordon," " The Bonny Earl of Murray," " Johnie of Bradislee," "Mary Hamilton," "The Gay Gos- Hawk," " Fause Eoodrage," " The Lass 0' Loch Eyan," " Clerk Saunders," " The Douglas Tragedy," " Willie and May," "Margaret," "Young Huntin," "Fair Annie," "Burd EUen," "Sweet WiUiam's Ghost," " Tamlane," " Sweet Willie and Fair Annie," " Lady Maisry," "The Clerk's Twa Sons o' Owsenford," " and a Scotch ' Heir of Linne,' besides others which must rest unnamed." Of the first-mentioned seven or eight of these, Mr. Chambers adds — "In- deed, it might not be very unreasonable to say that they have done more to create a popularity for Percy's ' Pteliques ' than all the other contents of the book." If Mr, Chambers's finding be correct, it might be asked, AMiy should a person of such exquisite gifts — by far the most accomplished poet of the time — studiously conceal her light under a bushel ? AYho can account for an idiosyncrasy ? It is proved SPURIOUS BALLADS. 1 9 that Lady AVardlaw did conceal her authorship of '' Hardvkniite ; " that while she was alive her friends gave divers disingenuous and improbable accounts of its origin, or rather of its discovery; and that her authorship was not disclosed till forty years after her death. It is also pertinent to observe that, witli the exception of Burns, the greatest of all Scottish song- writers is Carolina, Baroness Nairn ; and that while "Caller Herrin'," "Tlie Laird o' Cockpen," " The Land o' the Leal," and many others no less excellent, were " familiar in men's mouths as house- hold words," the authoress was never suspected, and at her death at the age of seventy-nine only one person was possessed of her secret. Mr. Chambers opens his case thus — "In 1 7 19 there appeared in a folio slieet at Edinburgh a heroic poem styled ' Hardyknute,' written in affectedly old spelling, as if it had been a contemporary description of events connected with the invasion of Scotland by Haco, King of Norway, in 1263. A corrected copy was soon after presented in the ' Evergreen ' of Allan Ramsay, a collection professedly of poems written before 1600, but into which we know the editor admitted a piece written by himself. ' Ilardykinite ' was afterwards reprinted in Percy's ' Eeliqucs,' still as an ancient composition ; j-et it was soon after declared to be the production of a Lady "Wardlaw of Pitreavic, who died so lately as 1727. Although, to modern taste, a stiif and poor composi- tion, there is a nationality of feeling about it, and a touch of chivalric spirit, that has maintained for it a certain degree of popularity. Sir Walter Scott tells us that it was the first poem he ever learn by heart, and he believed it would be the last he should forget." o^ His mode of eliciting what he proposes to be proof 20 SPURIOUS BALLADS. of his conclusion already quoted is tliis — The author- ship of " Ilardyknute " being undisputed, from a com- parison of favoTU'Ile modes of expression, and of tlie entu'e treatment of each subject, his finding is that " Sir Patrick Spens " comes from the same hand, only, however, after having acquired a little more cunning. David Laing, the man in Scotland whose opinion on a subject of this kind is of the most value, had inti- mated a similar suspicion as early as 1839. The revised and improved edition of " Gil Morrice," from certain resemblances in diction and treatment to the two abovenamed, is attributed to the same author ; and so on with the list already enumerated. There is always a danger of a man's riding his hobliy to death, and of his becoming unconsciously the victim of a per- verted ingenuity. ISTor do we think that Mr. Chamljors has altogether escaped either of these dangers. Still he insists, not without reason, on the absence of any ancient manuscripts, or of any proof that these ballads were known or recited before the eighteenth centviry ; on their elegance and freedom from coarse- ness in the midst of ballad simplicity; and of a common confused and obscure reference to known events in Scottish history. It might be possible that his theory as to the common authorship of " Hardyknute " and " Sir Patrick Spens " should be correct, and the rest of it not so. "VVe shall state Mr. Chambers's arguments somewhat in extenso, and lay over against them the arguments that may be advanced on the other side, as these are given with SPURIOUS BALLADS. 21 much knowledge and ability in a pamphlet pub- lished at Aberdeen in 1859, entitled, "The Eomantic Scottish Ballads and the Lady Wardlaw Heresy," by Norval Clyne. These arguments have been repro- duced by Mr. Clyne in a note to his " Ballads from Scottish History," Edinburgh, 1863. That the ballads named should be of use for our purpose, it is neces- sary that Ave should have an intelligent idea of their epoch and genuineness. Still, as this is a case of probabilities, we are not entitled to call for more evidence than the case admits of Percy's folio ]\IS. was long unjustly regarded as a myth ; but we Mill not acquit Hogg, any more than Surtees, of liaving taken an occasional " rise " out of Scott. The MSS. cited by Scott under the name of Mrs. Brown of Falkland, and vouched for by Pro- fessor Thomas Gordon, King's College, Aberdeen, as having Ijeen written down Ijy liis grandson as his aunt (Mrs. Brown) sang them, Avere as oppor- tune as they were valuable. But in a case of tliis kind it is possible, as Hamlet says, to inquhe too curiously. I n " Dejection : an ( )de," Coleridge, no mean judge of poetic excellence, refers to " Tlie -rand ol!' I'liinnnii, in iienfrewshirc, not in Ayrshire, as erroneously stated both l»y Scott and Aytoun. There is a spice of ])oetry and rommce about the Douglas, which accords 44 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. well M'itli one so unselfishly chivalrous. Wlien he is informed by his page of the approach of the English he exclaims — " 1 lia'e dreamed a dreary dream Ayont the Isle of Skye — I saw a deid man win a fight, And I think that man was I." AVhen he feels his wound to be mortal, he bids his little footpage run speedilie — "And fetch my ae dear sister's son. Sir Hugh Montgomerie. " ' My nephew guid,' the Douglas said, ' What recks the death of ane ? Last night I dreamed a dreary dream. And I ken tlie day's thy ain ! " ' My wound is deep ; I fain would sleep ! Take thou the vanguard of the three. And bury me by the bracken bush That grows on yonder lily lea. " ' liury me by the bracken bush, Beneath the bloomin' brier ; Let never living mortal ken That a kindly Scot lies here ! ' " He lifted up that noble lord, With the saut tear in his e'e ; And he hid him by the bracken bush, That his merry men might not see." There is something exquisitely touching m this for- midable warrior, when stricken down in the heady fight under the clear moon, " While spears in flinders flew," HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. 45 wishing for sleep -witli tlie earnestness of a little child, and desiring to be laid in his resting-place by his " ae dear sister's son." He was not, however, buried at the bracken bush, but in Mebose Abbey, where his tomb may yet be seen. Tlie real circumstances, as far as they can be gathered from the narrative of Froissart and from other sources, were these. To inflict a blow on Eng- land, 50,000 Scottish troops assembled on the Border, in conformity with the decision of a conference held at Aberdeen. The bulk of the army was to advance by the west on Carlisle, and the Earl of Douglas, to distract the enemy's attention, was to make a fly- ing raid across the eastern border. His force, accord- ing to Froissart, was composed of 300 mounted men- at-arms and 2000 spearmen, who w^ere soon at the gates of Durham. On their return, the Scots remained tliree days before Newcastle, where Sir Henry Percy, tlie famous Hotspur, had collected a considerable force. In a skirmisli under tlie walls Douglas secured the Percy's pennon, which he swore he would display on his castle of Dalkeith. This the Percy \owed he should never do, and Douglas told him to come at night and take it from before his tent. Tlie matter became thus one of cliivahy, and the Scots, strongly entrenching themselves, awaited tlic attack of the English. These, led by Hotspur, advanced on Otterburn, their numbers being 8000 footmen and 800 mounted men-at-arms, or more than three to one. They attacked the foe, who were in 46 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. some measure taken by surprise ; but tlie Scots liaving previously arranged a very skilful mode of defence, when the attack was made swept round their camp, and took their assailants in Hank. The English strength lay in their archers, but the battle was a hand-to-hand one, and there was no room for archery. The superior weight of the English at first bore the Scots back. Douglas, perceiving this, made a rush on the foe with his battle-axe, and after performing- prodigies of valour, was stricken down and trampled under foot of horse and men. There is a tradition, however, that he was not slain by the enemy, but by a groom of his chamber, whom he had rouglily chastised the day before for some remissness in his duty. This man, meditating revenge, is said to have left a part of Douglas's armour behind imbuckled, and in the heat of the fight, watching his opportunity, to have stabbed him where his harness was loose. But this story may be dismissed as fabulous. Froissart reckoned the English taken or left dead in the field at 1040, 840 taken or killed in the pursuit, and upwards of 1000 wounded. Of the Scots, 100 were slain and 200 made prisoners, " That there was a memorable slaughter in this affair," says Mr. Burton, " a slaughter far beyond the usual proportion to the nimibers engaged, cannot be doubted; nor was there ever bloodshed more useless for the practical ends of war. It all came of the capture of the Percy's pennon. The Scots might have got clear off with all their booty ; the English HISTORICAL SONGS AXD BALLADS. A^J forgot all tlia precautions of war when they made a midnight rush on a fortified camp without knowledge of the ground or the arrangements of their enemies. It was for these specialties that Froissart admired it so." The English for a long time smarted under the issue of this battle, and their minstrels did what they could to slur over the defeat. It was a battle, however, in wliich, while there was defeat, there was no loss of honour. The descendants of those who were engaged in it look back upon it Avith a sort of pious pride, and cherish with devotion every memento of it. "WHien tlie Douglas fell, one of his dying charges was, " Defend my standard." It Avas borne by his natural son, Archibald Douglas, an- cestor of the family of Cavers, who was charged to defend it to the last drop of his blood. It is still preserved by his descendants as a glorious heirloom. The pennon of the Percy, the causa feterrima belli — carried to Scotland l)y Lord John Montgomery — Hu^h, his son, was slain in the action — is still pre- served witli pride at Eglinton Castle; and when a Duke of Northumberland asked it to be returned, the then Montgomery laugliingly answered, after the manner of the Douglas, " There is as good lea-land at Eglinton as there was at Otterburn; come and take it," The least pleasing reminiscence in connec- tion with any descendant of the combatants is thus narrated ]>y William, Karl of Shelljurne, Eh'st Mar- 'piess of Lansdowne, in his Life by Lord Edmond Eitzmaurice (London, 1873). It is to be premised 48 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. that Lord Shelburne had been introduced at Holyrood to the last Duke of Douglas, John Home, author of " Douglas," being present. " When anything was said al)out his family, he nodded to Mr. John Home to nan-ate what regarded it. I told him I had seen a house he was building in the Highlands. He said he heard that the Earl of Northumberland was build- ing a house in the North of England, the kitchen of which was as large as his whole house, on which the Duchess of Douglas observed, that if the Douglasses were to meet the Percies once more in the field, then would the question be whose kitchen was the largest ! Upon this the Duke nodded to Mr. Home to state some of the gTcat battles in which the Douglas family had distinguished themselves." Shel- burne could not speak well of our countrymen, for of Lord Mansfield he wrote that, " like the generality of Scotch, he had no regard to truth whatever." Wliat a superb English " snob " ! At the same time what he said about the Duke of Douglas was perhaps too true. § 2. THE EED HAELAW. In the list of songs and ballads already mentioned as occurriQg in the " Complaynt of Scotland," " The Battel of Hayrlau " immediately precedes " The Huntis of Chevet," which we have identified with the " Battle of Otterburn," thus reversing the order of time, though perhaps preservmg that of popularity. Otterburn was fought on 19th August 1388, and HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. 49 Harlaw on 24tli July 141 1. The greater nearness in time of the one, which is really trifling, could give it little precedence over the other in the matter of popularity, though circumstances might, and very pro- bably did, do this. The victory at Otterbm-n did not relieve the country from any fate it greatly dreaded, or to which it was unused. Experience had frequently been had of an English foe, and, in the case of Edward I., of the worst he could or would do. He had often been met in fair fight, and been found not invincible ; indeed, on one most memorable occasion — namely, at Bannockburn, when his power had cidminated and seemed iii'esistible — he had been ignominiously routed. "Wliat is familiar has com- l^aratively few terrors for us ; it is the unknown that appals. Omne ignotum ino tcrrifico. Had Percy been victorious at Otterburn, he might have fetched a prey, and the south-eastern districts suffered tem- porary inconvenience ; but to the great bulk of the nation the affair would never have been more than as a tale when it is told, bringing with it neither loss of goods nor loss of honour. Besides, the Percy, Hot- spur though he was, was a gentle foeman, who fought on rules dictated by the code of chivalry ; and soon after the foray was over, the Marchmen might have met in not unfriendly conference at tryst or hunting- match. ]3ut the Islesmen of Donald and tlieir Higldand allies were regarded in quite another light. Different in race, speech, institutions, dress, and mode of warfare, they inspired tlieir Lowland compatriots D 50 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. with a terror strange and deep in proportion as the objects of it were alien and unknown. This may help to explain the assertion of Mr. Burton, that " the defeat of Donald of the Isles was felt as a more memorable deliverance even than that of Bannock- burn." The genesis of the war, of which Harlaw was fortunately the only battle, may be thus ex- plained : — The Lord of the Isles was at this period, and had been for a long time before, regarded by the Irish or Dalriad Scots, who peopled the Western Highlands and Islands, as their natural leader and protector against the subjects of the King of Scotland, who were steadily encroaching on their territory. In fact, his power and pride were so great that he claimed to be an independent sovereign, and had even pro- ceeded, after the feudal fashion, to have feudatories under him, despite the widely divergent code of law, or rather of custom, between Celt and Teuton. In the War of Independence he was of sufficient power and importance to be courted by England as an ally, and in 1389 he was a party to the treaty of peace between France and England as an ally of the latter. As late as three years before Harlaw he was recog- nised by Henry IV. as having a diplomatic standing. The time had therefore come for a decisive strugirle for supremacy between the Teutonic and Celtic con- stituents of the population ; and the Celts, from their preference to subsist by robbery rather than by in- dustry, gave ample handle to their adversaries to HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. 5 I attempt to subject them, if not to absolute power- lessness, at least to law-abiding habits. At this time the Earldom of Eoss, to which appertained large possessions north of the Moray Firth, fell to an heiress, who took the veil, and Donald, the then Lord of the Isles, claimed it as the husband of her aunt. But it was wanted by the Eegent Albany for his second son, the Earl of Buchan. The Earl of Mar, illegitimate son of Alexander Stewart, the Wolf of Badenoch, who had once held the disputed Earldom in right of his wife — himself a nephew of Albany, and now a great feudal lord in virtue of a forcible but condoned marriage with the Countess of Mar — was naturally an interested observer of the proceed- ings of what may be called the foreign claimant. He had, besides, to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of the Government; for he himself had been a leader of Higliland caterans, and, sweeping down from the braes of Angus in 1392, liad gained the battle of Gasklune, driving the Lowlanders of Angus and Meams like chaff before the wind, as he rushed on them with his savage and impetuous mountaineers. And just as a lady of dubious virtue, who has re- tained or contrived to gain a footing in society, is the most rigid censor of an erring sister, so Mar, the ci-devant marauder, was now to show himself the stern represser of tliosc by whose aid he had formerly profited. Donald, who imagined that he was to be deprived of his riglits, prepared to assert them by the strong 52 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. hand. It was the policy of the Government to resist him to tlic utmost, for his success would have made him master of half the kingdom. With a Douglas in the south and a Lord of the Isles in the west and north, the Scottish King would have been a sovereign only on sufferance. Donald would, he- sides, have enriched his followers with whatever lands they coveted, and the clansmen would have eaten up, like locusts, all the labours of the fields. The interests, therefore, as well as the fears, of all classes united them against him ; and when, with ten thou- sand followers at his back — Islesmen, Macintoshes, Mackenzies, and Macleans — he came down through the mountains of the north to Benachie, and thence to the moor of Harlaw, in the Garioch, he was met, ten miles north-west of Aberdeen, by a small but well-equipped force of nobles and gentlemen with theu' retainers and tenants, and a force of burghers from the towns, all led Ijy the Earl of Mar. The combat was bloody, but in one respect decisive. The Highlanders rushed on their seemingly insignificant foe, time after time, like a torrent, with the most reckless prodigality of life. But in vain ; and they had to withdraw to their mountains. Both parties suffered severely, and though there was not much of a victory to boast of, the Low Country, and indeed the monarchy, were saved. On the side of Donald, the chiefs of Macintosh and Maclean were slain, with about 1000 men. Mar lost nearly 500, among whom were many men of rank, includii^ the Lords Saltoun HISTORICAL SOXGS AXD BALLADS. 53 and Ogilvy, Scrymgeour, Constable of Dundee, Irvine of Drum, and Sir Eobert Davidson, Provost of Aber- deen. The loss of tbeir Provost is said by Francis Douglas,in his "Description of the EastCoast" (1782), to have affected the citizens so mucli that they adopted a resolution that for the future no Provost should go beyond the immediate territory of the town in his official capacity — a statement adopted by Sir Walter Scott. But Mr. Joseph Eobertson, in the " Book of Bon- Accord," remarks, that " no trace of this regidation is to be found in tlie city record, and it may be therefore fairly set aside as apocry- phal." But it was absolutely necessary to meet Donald before he and his caterans should fall on the comparatively wealthy city of Aberdeen, to which he ^\•as on his direct march when he was stopped at llarlaw. " To hinder tliis proud enterprise, The stout and mighty Earl of Mar, With all liis men in arms did rise, Even frae Curgarf to Craigievar ; And down the side of Don right far, Angus and Mearns did all convene, To figlit, ere Donald came sae near The royal brugh of Aberdeen." The battle "appears," says Mr. Laing, "to have made a deep impression on tlie national mind. It iixed itself on the music and the poetry of Scotland ; a marcli, called 'The Battle of llarlaw,' conliimcd to be a popular air down to the lime oC I )iniiiiiioii(l of Kawthornden, and a spirited ballad on tlie same event is still repeated in our own age." 54 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. The ballad referred to by Mr. Laing is the well- known — " Frae Dunidier, as I cam' through," &c. He speaks of an edition printed in the year 1688 as being "in the curious library of old Eobert Myhie." But no printed copy is known to exist of older date than that to be found in Eamsay's " Ever- green" (1724), and by many it is suspected that Ramsay, though he may have had a genuine anti(iue to work upon, took, as was his wont, many liberties with it. Pinkerton thought — but, unfortunately for his authority, he was much given to think whatever suited his theory — that it might have been written soon after the event. Eitson, a most competent critic, and of inflexible honesty, said that, so far as either internal or external evidence went, it might be as old as the fifteenth century. Lord Hailes, Mr. Sibbald, and Professor Aytoun concur in the opinion that it has been at least retouched by a more modern hand, and that it is probably as recent as the days of Queen Mary or James the Sixth. In the second stanza occur these lines — " But sin' the days of auld King Harry Sic slaughter was not heard uor seen." " This slaughter," says Mr. Sibbald, " most probably alludes to some bloody engagement between the English and the Scots. If so, under what 'auld King Harry ' did this happen ? No battle answers such a description excepting that of Elodden in HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. 5$ 1 5 1 3 ; and I venture to say that the author meant no other, notwithstanding the absurd anachronism M'ith wliich he is chargeable." Aytoun supposes that the ballad is by the same author as that of the "Eaid of the Eeidswire," and the most cursory comparison of the two more than confirms his happy conjecture. "The Eaid of the Eeidswire" is con- tained in the Bannatyne manuscript (1568), which "ss'ould give an authorship not more modern than the early part of the reign of James VI. Assuming it, then, to have an origin at least as remote as this date, we may premise that the Ijallad, though pedantic, prosy, and long-winded, is historically A'aluable, as being faithful in details, and giving a minute and chcumstantial narrative of the origin and incidents of the battle — " Great Donald of the Isles did claim Unto the lands of Ross some right ; And to the Governor he came Them for to have, gif that he might ; Wha saw his interest was but slight, And therefore answered wi' disdain. He hasted home baith day and night, And sent nae bodword [notice] back again. " But Donald, riglit imjuitient Of that answer Duke Eobert gave, He vowed to God omnipotent All the haill lands of Ross to have, Or else be graithit in his grave." His purpose was to make himself master of Scotland to the Fortli, and lie issued a proclamation tliat liis adherents should assemljle at Inverness. Mar met 56 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. J him, as avc have seen, at Harlaw, and fortunately \ checked his career, the numbers being stated, pro- bably with poetic license, as ten to one. As an instance of the pedantry referred to above, the following stanza will suffice. It may be not uninteresting to note the sententiousness of the conclusion — '• This is (quoth he) the right report ^ Of all that I did hear and knaw ; Though my discourse be something short, Take this to be a right sooth saw. Coulrarie God and the King's law, There was spilled melkle Christian blude, Into the battle of Harlaw ; This is the sum, sae I conclude." - The last of the following lines, which conclude the list of the leaders slain on the side of ]\Iar, has a peculiarly modern — one would say, were it not for the anachronism, a peculiarly Byronic-ring — " The Knight of Panmure, as was seen, A mortal man in armour bright ; Sir Thomas Murray stout and keen, Left to the tvorld their last good-nicjhty This coincidence is no doubt suggested to one by the peculiarly lumbering line which immediately pre- cedes Childe Harold's farewell to his native land — "Thus to the elements he poured his last ' Good-Night.'" The Childe's " Good-Night " was suggested by Lord Maxwell's "Good-Night," first published in "The Minstrelsy of the Border." According to Alexander HISTORICAL SONGS. AA'Ll BALLADS. 5/ S'mith, it surpasses Cliilde Harold's in tenderness and pathos. He might have added that it surpasses it also in concentration and intensity, as much . as the real surpasses the imaginary^ and actual calamity dominates -a seKTConscious sentimentalism. Another line of the " Pilgrimage " may have had a, similar genesis- " And chiefless castles, breathing stern farewells.^' The date of the engagement is given with a very singnilar periphrasis, the 24th of July 141 1, being thus expressed — " In July, on St. James his even, That four-and-twenty dismal day, Twelve hundred, ten score, and eleven 01' years sin' Christ, the sooth to say." This is evidently of much earlier construction than the time of Eamsay. The ballad we have been reviewing may be the one referred to in the " Complaynt of Scotland," for the opinion of Ritson as to its possible antiquity is entitled to the gi-eatest weight. But Professor Aytoun published anotlier version, for which he was indebted to Lady John Scott, and which he designates the "traditionary version." It is still popular in Al)erdeenshire, wliere it was taken down as sung. It is an ancient ballad of a bi;jb class, and lias much greater swing and directness than (1i;it iiublishcd in the "Evergreen." Aytoun thinks it by no means improbable tliat tin's is the original. It gives the 58 Historical songs and ballads. i number of the Higlilandmen ul 50,000 — a very natural exaggeration. The ferocity of the combat is thus graphically described — " The HielanJincii wi' then- lang swords, They laid 011 us fu' sair ; And they drave back our merry men Three acres breadth aud mair." The corresponding passage in the other ballad is by no means of equal picturesqueness and strength, and has still the same fatal taint of pedantry — " There was iiae mows [jesting] there them amang, Kaething Avas heard but heavy knocks ; That Echo made a dulefu' sang Thereto resounding frae the rocks." With reference to the duration of the struggle, it says truthfully but prosaically, " The bluidy battle lasted lang." How much more poetically striking the other, though it shoots with a very long bow indeed ! " On Mononday at morning, The battle it began ; On Saturday at gloamin', Ye'd scarce ken'd who^had wan. " Of fifty thousand Ilielandmen Scarce fifty there went hanie ; And out of a' the Lowlandmen But fifty marched wi' Graeme. " And sic a weary buryin' I'm sure ye never saw, As was the Sunday after that, On the muirs aneath Harlaw. " Gin anybody speer at ye For them we took awa', HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. 59 Ye may tell them plain, and very plain, They're sleeping at Harlaw !" This last line is quite in the spirit of the best Greek epigram. It is amusing to remark in the common set of the verses how the Teutonic hatred of the Celt breaks out — "These lazy loons might well be spared, Chasit like deers into their dens, And gat their wages for reward." This battle and its legendary accompaniments powerfidly affected the imagination of Scott. Every reader of " The Antiquary " — and the name must be legion — Avill remember that powerful chapter in which Oldbuck, with his nephew Captain M'Intyre, and Edie Ochiltree, is represented as visiting the cottage of Saunders Mucklebackit, the fisherman, to glean information, if he could, from Elspcth Muckle- backit, Saunders's mother, about the lost child of Lord Glenallan : — " As Oldbuck lifted the latch of the hut, he heard the tremulous voice of the old woman chanting forth to her grandchildren snatches of old ballad poetry. Suddenly her strain changed from the romantic to the historical — ' Now hand your tongue, bailh wife and carle, And li.sten, gi-eat and snia', And I will sing of Glenallan's Earl Tliat fouglit on the Red Harlaw. * The coronach's cried on Bennachie, And doun the Don and a', And Ilieland and Lawland niav mounifu' he For the sair field of Ilarlaw.' 60 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. ' It's an liistorical ballad,' said 01dl)iick, eagerly, ' a genuine and undoubted fragment of minstrelsy ! Percy would admire its simplicity — llitson could not impugn its authenticity.' Tlie old crone con- tinued — ' They saddled a Imndred niilk-wliite steeds, They hae bridled a hundred black, "With a cliafron of steel on each horse's head, And a good knight upon his back.' ' Cliafron ! ' exclaimed the Antiquary, ' equivalent, perhaps, to " cheveron ; " the word's worth a dollar ; ' and down it went in his red book." This is the true spirit of a black-letter ballad- collector. Without enthusiasm, and a slight touch of what Horace sportively calls an amialile insanity, it is impossible to be a successful explorer in this out-of-the-way, but by no means barren, field. Elspeth IMucklebackit's " croon," under the title of " Glenallan's Earl," is in the later editions of the " Minstrelsy of the Border." It concludes thus in the words of Roland Cheyne, Glenallan's " squire so gay "— " My horse shall ride through ranks sae rude. As through the moorland fern ; Then ne'er let the gentle Norman blude Grow cauld for Highland kerne." o This contrast it was that embittered the contest — the contrast of Norman knight as against Highland kerne. It is even now difficult for men to realise the declaration of Paul that " God hath made of one HISTORICAL SOXGS AND BALLADS. 6 1 blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth." But however bitter the strife may be between nationalities, that between races is infinitely more so. During the lull of an armistice, the French and the German, the English and the Scottish knight could interchange the civilities and courtesies of the lists and the banqueting-^hall, as during the Penin- sular war the British and French outposts could exchange canteens till the trumpet sounded once more to arms. But between the soldier of the Black Watch and the soldier of King Koffee Calcalli no such civilities could exist under any circumstances. And somewhat similar was the feeling then of the Norman or Teuton to those whom the French used to call the savages of Scotland. Happily no such feeling exists now, and tlie people of this island are all the better that to the Saxon solidity have been superadded the Celtic grace and self-respect. Mr. Clyne has dii'ected my attention to some investigations of his own respecting this " brim battel of the Harlaw." Among those slain on the side of Mar was, according to the ballad — " Gude Sir Robert Davidson, Wliu Provost was of Aberdeen." Mr. Clyne shows that the Provost's kniglithood is purely imaginary ; for in the account of the Ixittle given by the contemporary author Walter Bower, the continuator of Fordun's " Scotichronicoii," as well as in the Incd records, Davidson's iiaiuc always occurs in the form of that of a simple burgess. He 62 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. kept a " Taberna," or wine dealer's booth, wlicre wine was not only sold but consumed on the premises. He was Provost, or " Alderman," the title then given to the chief magistrate, for the first time in 1402, and seems to have been a public-spirited, sagacious, hearty man, equally ready to dispense a cup of good wine, or to buckle on his armour and head the burgesses against a common foe. Mr. Clyne is not disposed to dispute Aytoun's assigning the author- ship of the ballad to a date not more modern than the early part of the reign of James VI. In fact, he shows it to be almost certain that the writer had Boece's " Historise Scotorum" (1526) before him, particular sentences and phrases in the ballad approaching to a translation of Boece's Latin. Boece was proverbially fallacious, and the author of the ballad has reproduced his errors, and, among others, that of making Robcrtus Daviclstoun, Aberdonice 'proc- fectus, a knight, or equcs auratus. § 3. DAKK FLODDEN. The battle of Flodden — called in the English despatches the battle of Brankstone Moor — was fought on the 9th of September 15 13, between the Scots, led by James IV. in person, and the English, commanded by the Earl of Surrey. The English had about 5 000 slain, and the Scots probably twice that number. But these figures, eloquent as they are, do not in any adequate degree represent the dis- HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. 63 parity of loss ; for the English lost very few persons of distinction, while the Scots, from the one extremity of the kingdom to the other, were deprived of their natural leaders. Among their dead were the King, two bishops, two mitred abbots, twelve earls, thh-teen lords of Parliament, the- provost and magistrates of Edinburgh, and the head or some member of almost every distingiiished family in the kingdom. Some of the Border towns — as Selkirk, Hawick, and Jed- bm-gh — had nearly the whole of their adult male popidation cut off, and in the ballad of the " Flowers of the Forest " we still hear an echo of the wail that arose from widow and orphan, and maiden bereft of her lover, in that region so happily described by Wordsworth as now characterised by — " The grace of forest charms decayed, And pastoral melancholy." Of the Scottish ballads commemorating this melan- choly catastrophe, a broken stanza or two are all that remain, but the ancient air is preserved in the Skene Manuscript, with the title of "The Flo^vres of the Forreste." The following lines alone are pre- served — " I've heard them lilting at the ewes' milking, The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away." And this other imperfect line, with the refrain — "I ride single on my saddle, For the Flowers of the Forest are a' wcdc away," picked up by Scott, who observes that it "presents 64 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. a simple and affecting image to the mind." The two first quoted are respectively the first and the fourth lines of the first verse of the exquisite stanzas to the air already named, written by Miss Jean Elliot of Minto. " The manner of the ancient minstrels is so happily imitated," says Scott, "that it required the most positive evidence to convince the editor that the song was of modern date." Miss Elliot was born in 1727, and her ballad was published anony- mously, probably about 1755. By many it was con- sidered old, but its recent composition was detected by Burns, who wrote : — " This fine ballad is even a more palpable imitation than Hardyknute. The manners are indeed old, but the language is of yester- day. Its author must very soon be discovered." The origin of the ballad is thus described by Mr. Laing in his Notes on Stenhouse, in the 4tli vol. of " Johnson's Museum : " — Miss Elliot's father, Gilbert Elliot of Minto, Lord Justice-Clerk of Scotland, con- versing with her one day about the Battle of Flodden, offered a bet that she would not compose a ballad on that subject. It thus came to pass .that she took up the fragments of the old lost ballad, and restored them, as it were, to life in her well-known song, which is thus in some measure the legitimate off- spring of the muse of the older minstrel. The same cannot be said of two other ballads composed to the same air, both of great merit, and both "wiitten by females. That commencing with — " I've seen the smiling of fortune beguiling," Historical soxgs and ballads. 6 3 written by ]\Iiss Alison Rutherford of Fernylee, Selkii-kshire, married in 1 73 1 to Patrick Cockburn, Advocate, does not refer to Flodden, but, as expressed by Mr. Chambers, " to a crisis of a monetary nature, when seven good lah-ds of the Forest were reduced to insolvency, in consec[uence of imprudent specu- lations," though this, if correct, was unknown to Scott, who says that " the verses were ^^Titten with- out peculiar relation to any event, unless it were the depopulation of Ettrick Forest." The following is said to have been its genesis : — A gentleman one day overhearing a shepherd x^laying a peculiarly plaintive air, made him repeat it several times till he had mastered it, when he noted it down. The air was "The Flowers of the Forest." He requested Miss Rutlierford to supply appropriate verses, which she (lid in the song just referred to. The third ballad to the same air was written by ]\liss Anne Home, sister of Sir Edward Home, and married in 1771 to the celebrated anatomist, John Hunter. It Ijcgins — " Adieu, ye streams that smoothly glide." After she was a widow she published a volume of poems at London in 1806. Mr. Laings says he cannot ascertain where the different sets of these beautiful lyiics M'ere first published. He says, further, that it is doubtful which of them should claim priority of composition. j\liss liuthuribrd's set was printed in "The Lark," p. 37, Edinburgh, 1765, Miss Elliot's set appeared in the same volume, and 66 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. Mr. Laing asserts of it that " there is not perhaps in the whole range of our lyrical poetry a finer adapta- tion of old words handed down hy tradition." In Herd's Collection (1776) both sets are incorporated as part of a long narrative ballad of inferior merit. But if the Scottish poets are silent regarding this disastrous battle, Pitscottie's prose narrative is minute, garrulous, and picturesque. The English bards, also — and this should occasion ns no surprise — have not failed to commemorate so great a triumph to their national arms. Some of them treat of the matter with something like a crow of triumph that is in exceedingly bad taste ; but others speak of the calamity to the King of Scots and his army with the respect that gallant men owe to each other. In Ritson's " Ancient Songs " there is a copy of verses on the snl)ject. His introductory note is as follows : — " The following ballad may be as ancient as anything we have on the subject. It is given from ' The most pleasant and delectable history of John Winchcomb, otherwise called Jack of Newberry,' written by Thomas Delaney, who thus speaks of it : ' In disgrace (jf the Scots, and in remembrance of the famous achieved victory, the commons of England made this song, which to this day is not forgotten of many.'" The ballad has little poetical merit. As an instance of its spirit and taste the following ex- tract will suffice — "Then bespake good Queen Margaret, The tears fell from her eye ! HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. 6/ ' Leave off these wars, most noble Kincr, Keep your fidelity. " ' The water runs swift and wondrous deep, From bottom unto the brim ; My brother Henry hath men good enough, England is hard to win.' " ' Away,' quoth he, ' with this silly fool ! In prison fast let her lie ; For she is come of the English blood, And for these words she shall die.' " T\''ith that bespake Lord Tliomas Howard, The Queen's chamberlain that day, ' If that you put Queen Margaret to death, Scotland shall rue it alway.' " Then in a rage King Jamie did say, ' Away with this foolish mome ; He shall be hanged, and the other burned. So soon as I come home.'" In this ballad the title of the battle is " Brani- stonegreen." The fullest collection of pieces on the subject is to be found in a volume entitled "The Battle of Flodden Field," a poem of the sixteenth centmy, edited by Henry "Weber, Edinburgh, 1808. It contains the various readings of the different copies, a historical narrative, a glossary, and an appendix containing ancient poems and historical matter relating to the same event. The editor says — " The autlior's object was to procure liis fellow- countrymen of the Nortli of England, particularly those attaclied, like liiin, to tlie noble House of Stanley, an accurate and niinute account of a victory in whicli they had gained so much renown." 'I'hougli the only ancient manuscript is of no latter date than 6S HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. 1636, there can l)c little doubt that the poem was produced during the preceding century, probably as early as the middle of it. It is in nine fits, and in it the battle is named Brampton. The following is a specimen of it — "But when the English archers shot, On each part tlitl so pierce and gall, Tiiat, ere they came to handy strokes, A niunber great on ground did fall. " The King himself was wounded sore, An arrow fierce in's forehead light. That hardly he could fight any more, The blood so blemished his sight. 'o' " Yet like a warrior stout he stayed, And freely did exhort that tide, His men to be nothing dismayed. But battle boldly there to bide. " But what availed his valour great, Or bold device % All was but vain ; His captains keen fell at his feet, And standard-bearer down was slain." The following stanza deserves to be quoted, as it records an interesting fact not generally known — " The Archbishop of St. Andrews brave. King James his son in base begot, That doleful day did death receive. With many a lusty lord-like Scot." This son, who must have been a very young arch- bishop, was of the highest promise. Had he sur- vived, it is surmised that the Scottish Eeformation might have been differently coloured, and this might probably have been not disadvantageous. The Dean HISTORICAL SOSGS AXD BALLADS. 6g of Westmiuster, iu an address at St. Andrews on the occasion of his inauguration as Lord Eector of the University, passed a high eulogium on liim, and referred gracefully to the fight at Flodden, in wliich an ancestor of his own had taken so promin- ent a part. The skuU of the youthful archbishop used to he sho^ii in the museum of the United College at St. Andrews, It was of dazzling white- ness, and had an ugly gash in it, inflicted doubtless by an English billman. In the "Mirour of Magistrates" (London, 1587), there is a poem entitled "The Lament of King James TV., slayne at Brampton." It is of little value. He blames the Iving of France for the disaster to himself and his people. The refrain is a Latin verse — " Miserere mei Deus et salua me." Tliere is iu the " Flower of Fame " another lament of King James of Scotland, who was slain at Scot- field. It is by Ulpian Fulwell. The following is from the first-mentioned lament, and is not without a certain pathos — " Farewell, my Queen, sweete, luvely ]\Iargai'et ; Farewell, my Prince, with whom I used to play ; I wot not where we shall together meet ; Farewell, my Lords and Commons, eke for aye. Adieu ! ye shall no ransom for me pay ; Yet I beseech you, of your charity, To the High Lord merciful that you pray — Miserere vici Deus et salua me." ^y]\^in we mention "The Laml of Muh'head," 70 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. who with 200 of his iiaiue from Torwood and the Clyde laid down their lives at Flodden, -vve have mentioned nearly all the old poetic literature bearing on the subject. There is, however, one notable exception, that is, " The Souters o' Selkirk." Eighty of the gallant Souters appeared on the fatal field, and the most of them never returned from it. It may be held a settled point that the ballad refers not to a contest at football between the Souters and the men of Hume, as has been contended, but to the different behaviour of themselves and the followers of Lord Hume at Flodden — at least to the tradition on the subject ; for Hume had nothing to gain but everything to lose by the success of the English. Sir Walter Scott, himself a " Souter," has made this matter sufficiently plain. The second of the lines we quote is unin- telligible on any other supposition — " And up wi' the lads of the Forest, That ne'er to the Southron would yield ; But deil scoup o' Hume and his nienzie, That stude sae abeigh on the field." rinkerton remarks that "the Scottish nation were so very unwilling to yield any advantage on the English part, that they seem actually to have set up pretensions to the victory." It is to this that the scmi-ilous Skelton, Henry VIII.'s poet-laureate, refers in the subjoined lines — " Against the proud Scotte's clattering, That never will leave their trattlying, HISTORICAL songs' AND BALLADS. "J I Wan they the field and lost theyr king ? They may well say fie, on that winning ! Lo these fond sottes and trattlying Scottes, How they are blinde in tlieir own miude, And will not know theyr overthrow. At Branxton nioore they are so stowre, So frantike mad, and say tliey had, And wan the field with speare and shielde ; This is as true as black as blue." The details of tlie contest are so well known tliat we have purposely refrained from mentioning them. Scott's " IMarmion " is, or ought to be, familiar to every one ; and in that poem, and in the notes to it, the events that preceded and accompanied the fight are detailed with singular vi\-idness and power. Indeed, the description of the fight is the most power- ful Lattle-scene in modern literature. To find its equal we must resort to Homer, and in no translation of the old Greek that we know of is anything equal to Scott to be-found. In " Good Words " (July 1 875), Principal Shairp discom^ses on the Homeric element in Scott, and some of his remarks are so apposite that in this connection there is no apology needed for <[uoting them : — " It is in ' Marmion ' that M'hatever was epic in Scott found fullest vent. He had chosen a national and tru]\' lieroic action as the centre or climax of the whole poem — the Ijattle of Flodden. Flodden liad been the most gi-ievous blow that Scot- land ever received. It had penetrated the )iational Iieart witli an overpowering s(jrroA\', so pervading and so deep, that no other event, e^■en Culloden, ever equalled it. And it liad lived on in remembrance 72 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. down to Scott's boyhood as a source of tlie most pathetic refrains tliat ever blended with the people's songs." If it he asked liow this great calamity overtook the nation, it will suffice to say that it was due to the character and personal popularity of the monarch. It has been remarked, that instead of being led by a general, the Scots had at their head a knight-errant bent on distinguishing himself by his personal prowess. Had the English been attacked before the whole of their army had crossed the Till, there might have been a victory equal to that gained by Wallace at Stirling. The only redeeming feature where there was so much blundering was the devotion with which the nobles sacrificed themselves for their monarcli when they discovered how fatally he had erred. This explains Sir David Lindsay's remark in his " Complaint of the Papingo " — " I never read in tragedy nor story, At ane tournay so mony nobillis slane For the defence and h;ve of their soveraine." It was a letter from the young and beautiful queen of Louis XII. of France that j^recipitated James's rupture with liis brother-in-law, Henry VIII. She believed, says Pitscottie, " that he wold raise ane army and come three foot on English gToiind for her sake ; and to that effect she sent him ane ring off her finger, worth fifteen thousand French crowns." This was attacking James on his weak side. He was so notorious for his gallantry, that in the attempt HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. JT, made to dissuade liim from Avar with England, the figure dressed up to represent St. John, that appeared to him in the Church of Linlithgow, cautioned him against frequenting the society of women and using their counsel. Even when on English ground with his army, which had gTadually melted away from 100,000 men that had assembled on the Borough Moor, to 35,000, instead of striking a decisive blow against the enemy's country, he trifled away his time in an intercourse of gallantry with Lady Heron of I'^jrd, who succeeded in diverting him from the pur- pose of the expedition till the arrival of an English army. His own soldiers sang ribald ballads in derision of his conduct, but his heroic action in the field, and his great popularity with all ranks of his subjects, made his error to be in a great measure condoned. § 4. MINOR COMBATS : CORPJCHIE, BxVLKINNES, AND DRYFFE SANDS. Tlie Scotch are a martial, not a military people, liaving no delight in " the pomp find circumstance of glorious war" as such. We scarcely rememljer an instance in the national history in which anytliing b'ke military splendour was exliibited except that gathering on tlie Borough Mooi', wliidi met (lie eye of Marmion as he drew nigh the capital, and ubich ] (receded tlie sad defeat of Flodden. The motto of the people is "Defence, not on'cnce;" and though 74 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. the doughty Earl of Doughis, and many a less con- spicuous personage, may have at times ridden into England to fetch a prey, they had no intention of annexing territory and abiding there. As soon as they had secured their beeves and driven them oft', their purpose was accomplished. And it was defen- sive in this sense, that it was a spoiling of the Ama- lekites, because by every beeve thus abstracted, the common enemy was so much the weaker. As war so conducted had little sentiment connected with it, we should not expect the idea of it to have informed much of song or poetry. And the case is so. It is not till we come to a later period — indeed, to that of the two men of whom Scotland has most reason to be proud in recent times. Burns and Scott — that we find the martial spuit expressed with power and splendour. Burns's — " Farewell, thou fair clay, thou j^reen earth, and ye skies," &c., has been much admired. There is undoubtedly great force of expression in it, and striking images of ten- derness, terror, and patriotism are combined. But it has always seemed to us too melodramatic, to savour too much of the fiddlers and the footlights. Tliis, however, may be pardoned for its uncommon power, and spirit, and from tlie fact tliat it is actually pre- sented as part of a drama. Much better, in om- opinion is — " Scots wha ha'e wi' Wallace bled ; " but better, perhaps, than either is — HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. J$ " Does haughty Gaul invasion threat 1 " It contains, indeed, what seem needless vulgarisms to the more refined — or shall we say to the more squeamish ? — taste of the present day. But it is to he remembered that it was ^ratten at a period of extraordinary excitement, and had a reference to engi'ossiug current events. Moreover, the poet had for a season been relegated to the cold shade of im- popularity with thfe influential for suspected dis- loyalty, and he may have deemed it necessary to express himself on the occasion with unusual energy. It is worth while noticing, in the present connection, that in the expression red-vxd-shod, occurring in another poem, Burns has borrowed, probably uncon- sciously, from the ballad of " Otterbourne " — *' The Gordons gude in English hlude They u-at their hose and s/ioon." Scott, again, is full of the martial sj)irit. If ever - there was a l)orn soldier he was one. His battle- ])iece in " ^Marmion" has been already commented on. But everywhere tlu'oughout his works, poetic and prose, this spirit breaks out. Tlie combat between Fitz-James and Roderick Dhu in the " Lady of the Lake" is one of the first lengthened poetic pieces tliat arrest the attention of high-sphited boys. And in liis novels, passim, are combats either on a large or a small scale, a battle or a duel, which are described as only the born soldier could do. In " The ]\Ionastery " occurs perliaps the Ijest and most inspiriting march ever An'itten — 76 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. " March ! march ! Ettrick and Teviotdale." Wlien tlie Blue Bonnets should come over tlu' Border, if they were animated individually by the spirit of their laureate, the boast — " EnL;l;uHl sliall many a day Tcil of the bloody fray," would not prove a mere hrutum fulmen. This march is modelled on what is known as " General Leslie's March to Long Marston Moor," beginning — " March ! march ! -svliy the deil dinna ye march ? " in which the Presbyterian spirit breaks out so fiercely against " Popish relics," " hoods," " the sark of God," and " the kistfu' of whistles," and asserts very char- acteristically that — " There's nane in the right but we Of the auld Scottish nation." And Thomas Campbell has proved himself a very Tyrteeus in his martial lyrics — " The Battle of Hohen- linden," " The Battle of the Baltic," and " Ye Mariners of England " — the last two of which have become national and highly-treasured inheritances ; while " Eule Britannia " is the joint production of Thomson and Mallet, or the production of one or other of them — both our countrymen. It is natural, therefore, to expect that our country- men should have conducted themselves nobly in war. And they have : — nobly on many a bloody field. P>ut we tliink it mav be confessed that the Lowland HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. 'J'J portion of them have no great natnral aptitude or taste for being soldiers, and that they requu-e to be highly disciplined, and wisely handled, before they mount into the highest rank. Led by a Bruce, whose military capacity was pre-eminent, and his action uncontrolled, they could perform wonders. Led even by a Wallace, M'hose action was cramped and thwarted by men incapable and often treacherous, they failed even against a foe not superior in numbers and appliances. On many occasions their defeats by the English were absolutely humiliating. Of this the most conspicuous example was the affair at Solway Moss. But when highly disciplined antl wisely led, they never found their victors on any- thing like equal ternxs. The Scottish Guard of the French Kings were the foremost individual soldiers in Europe ; and the Scottish battalions that fought with the great Gustavus, and were led by Munros, Leslies, Lumsdens, and many an unnoted Dalgetty, all duly registered, no doubt, in " The Scot Abroad," found no superiors in Continental armies. If we mistake not, it Avas a regiment of Erasers that covered the British retreat at Fontenoy. Had they not been subjected to proper discipline, the same men would cither not have charged at all, deeming tlieni- selves injured on some punctilio of clan honour, or having charged and vanquislied, would have dispersed in quest of plunder, and been themselves vanquished in turn liy troops under better control. Scott's description of the wan-iors of his country in " The 78 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. Vision of Don Uodcrick " is truthful and spirited ; and it sIiom's liow much public sentiment had altered in little more than half a century from Prestonpans and Culloden, that the typical Scottish soldier is the once-dreaded Highlander with waving tartans and screaming pibroch, and only he. These remarks on the Scottish soldier at his worst and best are not inappropriate here, as we have touched on the most important of the battles dealt with in our old ballad lore. We shall now notice three minor combats commemorated in ballad, and singularly illustrative each of its place and era — the battle of Corrichie, fought 28tli October 1562; the battle of Balrinnes, fought 4th October 1594; and the battle of Dryffe Sands, fought 7th December 1593. As a bloody crime resulted from this, we shall refer further to the celebrated ballad of Lord Maxwell's " Good Night," connected with that crime. The circumstances that led to the battle of Cor- richie and the result of it may be thus Ijriefly summarised : — " The Cock of the North," the Earl of Huntly, was so powerful in the North that he kept princely state in Strathbogie Castle, and his fourth son. Sir John Gordon, is said to have even lifted Ms eyes to the Queen (Mary). Huntly, being the head of the Catholic party, was obnoxious to Murray, the Queen's brother, and head of the Con- gregation ; and, besides, he held in occupancy the estates of the Earldom of Murray, It was, therefore, both the policy and the interest of Murray to crush HISTORICAL SOX'GS AND BALLADS. JC) liim, and accordingly he persuaded Mary to ac- company liim northwards with a sufficient force. Huntly, who dreaded this visit, though nominally only a royal progress, kept out of the way till the Queen and her hrother returned to Aberdeen after some rough work at Inverness Castle. However he now thought his l)est policy was to fight, which he did at Corrichie, sixteen miles west of Aberdeen. He was defeated, and was found among the slain after the battle — smothered, says Buchanan, Ijy his armour, being a portly man. Three days after, Sir John, the Queen's reputed lover, was beheaded at Aberdeen, the Queen herself being a spectator. How Mary could act thus may seem inexplicable. In spite of her high spirit the crafty Murray may have per.suaded her that it was politic. But her conduct can scarcely be determined by a reference to ordinary Scottish motives. She had learned the deepest dis- simulation in the court of her mother-in-law, Catherine de Medici. As, however, according to the ballad. Sir Jolm " Had broken his ward in Aberdeen, Thro' (b-eid o' the fause Murray," his execution may have been technically right ; but none the less was Mary's conduct not only un(jueenly hut unwomanly. Wliatever merit the ballad has, it has that of historic fidelity. It says of Murray's adherents — " ilurray gar'd raise the tardy Merns men, An' Angus, and mony ane mair ; 80 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. Erie Jrorton, ;iii{l tlic Byres Lord Lindsaj'', And caiiipit at Uie Hill o' Fair." The battle, having begun, was going against the royal forces — " Then funse i\Inrray feignit to flee them, An' they pursued at his back ; When tlie half o' the Gordons deserted, An' turned wi' Murray in a crack. Wi' heather in their bonnets they turnit, The traitoi- Iladdo at tlieir head, An' slay'd their brothers and their fathers, An' spoilit, and left them deid." These cu'cumstances are nearly identical with those mentioned in Maitland's history. Maitland informs us that ]\Iurray's foot giving way, he would certainly have been defeated had it not been for the gallantry of the cavalry under Morton and Lindsay. We have mentioned that the Earl, being corpulent, was sup- posed to have been smothered in his armour. The ballad-monger — who, by the way, is said to have been John Forbes, schoolmaster at Maryculter, Dee- side— admits the Earl's corpulency, but makes his death more befitting a warrior, probably for poetical effect — "Then Murray cried to tak' the auld Gordon, An' mony ane ran wi' speid ; But Stuart o' Inchbraik had him sticket. An' out f^usli'd the fat hirdane's bleid." o^ The author of the " Innocence of Mary " affirms that Huntly was killed by Murray's express orders. On one thing only does the soft-hearted schoolmaster HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. '8l differ from history. He exonerates the Queen. The wish is evidently father to the thought, and he seeks to harmonise fact with propriety — " But now the day maist waefu' cam', That Jay the Queen did greet her fill, For Huntly's gallant stalwart son Was headed on the headin' hill." His heart is in the right place, and he concludes with the most pious wishes — " 1 wis' our Queen had better friends ; I wis' our couutrie better peace ; I wis' our lords wadna discord ; I wis' our wars at hame may cease ! " The battle of BaMnnes was also fought by an Earl of Huntly, grandson of the preceding, and who had less than tliree years before signalised himself by killing " the bonny Earl of Murray," son-in-law of the Regent Murray, for the evils lie liad brought upon the house of Gordon. The present Earl, equally powerful with his grandfather, and, like him, the head of the Catholic party, was suspected, on the evidence of what are known in tlie history of the period as " the Spanish blanks," of having consphed with Errol, Angus, and Gordon of Auchendoun, Huntly's nephew, to introduce Spanish troops into the country to restore the Popish faith. Huntly's rival in power was Argyle, who was commissioned to attack the northern potentate — a process which suited weU the unenterprising character of James, saving liim at once trouble and expense. Tliis 82 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS, Ai'gyle, young and eager, readily undertook, and, in the capacity of King's lieutenant, soon brought ten thousand men to the sources of Spey, and marching down the haughs along the river fell in with Huntly and Errol on the Livet, with a force of not more than two thousand men. Mr. Burton notes that this small force came mainly from the district whence Mar had procured the handful of troops that defeated Donald of the Isles at Harlaw in 141 1, that the battlefields were within thirty miles of each other, and that the results were similar. Gordon and Huntly had six field-pieces, an arm long dreaded by the Highlanders. Argyle's men, after repeated attempts to break through the compact line of their enemy, were completely routed. The battle has three names — Altacholylachan, Glenlivet, and Balrinnes. The ballad, like many others narrating battles, is given in the first person by an individual who, having to proceed — '• Frae Dunnoter to Aberdeen," had risen too soon ; but — " On Towie Mount I met a man Well graithed in his gear ; Quoth I, ' What news % ' then he began To tell a fit of weir, Saying, ' The ministers I fear, A bloody browst have brewn,'" &c. ; which gives at once an idea of the structure of the ballad, and that the battle was regarded as a reli- gious one. The ballad in its complete state may be HISTORICAL SOKGS AND BALLADS. 83 found in Dalzell's " Scottish Poems of the Sixteenth Century." It is extraordinarily prolix, consisting of forty-one double stanzas, or tlu'ee hundred and twenty-eight lines. When Huntly and Errol joined their forces, there were two days of fine hearty soldierly " high jinks " — " Thea players played and sangsters sang To glad the merry Lost," &c. " They for twa days -would not remove, But blithely drank the wine ; Some to his lass, some to his love, Some to his lady fine. And he that thought not for to blyne [stop] His mistress' token tak's ; They kisst it first, and set it syne Upon their helms and jacks," "When the armies came in presence Huntly's men were for rushing to battle — " ' Gae to, assay the game ! ' said some ; But Captain Ker said, ' Nay ! First let the guns before us gae, That they may break the order.' " This Captain Ker was the real perpetrator of the atrocities mentioned in "Edom o' Gordon." There is generous mention of the gallantry of the enemy, even after they had fled — " They cried out, 0, and some, Alace, But never for mercy sought ; Therefore the Gordons gave nae grace, Because they craved it not." Tliu ]\Iaclean maintained his ground long after Argyle 84 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. had fled. Being forced, however, reluctantly to follow his leader, it was suggested that he might easily be overtaken — " But noble Errol had remorse, And said, ' It is not best ; For the Argyle has got the worst, Let liim gang with the rest. Therefore, gude fellows let him be ; He'll dee before he yield ; For he with his small company, Eade lan^rest in the field.' " o^ This is truly chivalrous. Not so much can be said of anything that occurred at the battle of Dryfle Sands, which happened the year before, between the rival houses of the Johnstones of Annandale and the Maxwells of Nithsdale. This skirmish, which belongs properly to the Border warfare, may be treated here both as a much more considerable skirmish than usual between the Border clans, and as exhibiting a ferocity — a want of chivahy — entirely at variance with that of Errol noticed above. After feuds and reconciliations the Johnstones and Maxwells were at peace, when the peace was broken in consequence of a raid, or cattle-lifting, of the Johnstones on the lands of the Lairds of Crichton, Sanquhar, and Drumlanrig, who induced Lord Max- well secretly to accept from them bonds of manrent, he, in turn, binding hunself to maintain their quarrel. This being discovered by the Johnstones, war was immediately entered into, and Maxwell, though armed with the royal authority and followed by 2000 men, HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. 85 "was defeated at Dryffe Sands, near Lockerby. Max- ■o-ell himself, unliorsed and prostrate, stretched forth his hand for quarter, which was at once severed from his body, and himself slain. Many of Ms followers were killed, and many cruelly wounded, especially by slashes in the face, such wounds being thence termed a " Lockerby lick." The hand is said to have been struck of by Willie Johnstone of the Kirkhill, his chief having before the battle promised a five-merk land to the man who should that day cut off Lord Maxwell's head or hand. Tlie origin of this petty war was a raid, as we have seen. Johnstone of Wamphray, called " The Galliard," was a noted freebooter. In " The Lads of Wamphray " it is said — " For the Galliard and the gay Galliard's men, They ne'er saw a horse but they made it their ain." The Galliard having gone to Nithsdale " to steal Sim Crichton's winsome dun," made a strange mistake for such a man ; for *' Instead of the dun, the bliml lie has ta'en. ' Now, Simmy, Simmy of the Side, Come out and see a Johnstone ride ! Here's the bonniest horse in a' Nithside, And a gentle Johnstone aboon his liide."' r>ut he had calculated without his host. His blind liorse was no match for those that at once pursued, and the Galliard being taken, was instantly hanged. His nephew Willie, who — it is not explained how — witnessed the execution, vowed revenge, Avhicli he so HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. executed by that driving of a prey that brought about the battle, defeating with slaughter those who pur- sued to rescue then- property. There was great risk in this kind of life, but great excitement, and actual fun. After boasting that " For every finger of the Galliard's hand I vow this day I've killed a man," Willie finished by this generous invitation — " Drive on, my lads, it will be late ; We'll hae a pint at Wamphray gate." Lord Maxwell, son of him whose hand was so cruelly struck off at Dryffe Sands, vowed vengeance, and in spite of the entreaties of the King — even breaking out of Edinburgh Castle, where he was con- fined — ^he executed his purpose by treacherously shooting Sir James Johnstone at Auchnamhill with two poisoned bullets in the back. He escaped to France ; but having ventured to return to Scotland, was captm'ed, tried, and executed. His famous " Good Night," which suggested that in " Childe Harold," and is much superior, must have been composed some time between 1608 and 16 13. " Adieu, madame, my mother dear, But and my sisters three ! Adieu, fair Robert of Orchardstane ! My heart is wae for thee. Adieu, the lily and the rose. The primrose, fair to see ! Adieu, my ladye, and only joy ! For I may not stay with thee." HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. 8/ The spirit of unappeasable revenge, occasionally mingled witli something like feminine tenderness, breathes throughout the ballad. His lady, sister to the ]\Iarquis of Hamilton, and whose death has been attributed — it is to be hoped without foundation — to his harsh treatment, entreats him to go with her to her brother, who will succour him with " the Hamiltons and Douglas baith." But he has a mind of his own — " Thoiiks for thy kindness, fair my dame, But I may not stay witli tliee." " Tlien he tuik aff a gay gold ring, Thereat hang signets three ; * Hae, tak' thee that, mine ain dear thing, And still hae mind o' me : But if thou take another lord, Ere I come ower the sea — His life is but a three days' lease, Though I may not stay with thee.' " The " Good Night " is a poem of a very high order. § 5. HISTORICAL-TRAGICAL. In the " Bride of Lammermoor," old Alice says to the Lord-Keeper, Sir "William Asliton, " llemember the fate of Sir George Lockhart." Sir William repudiated the parallel, but she continued, — " There- fore, I may well say, beware of pressing a desperate man with the hand of autliority. There is blood of Chiesley in the veins of liaven.swood, and one chop of it were cnougli to fire liini in the circumstances in wliich he is placed. I say Itc^vurc of him." 88 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. The circumstance alluded to liy old Alice is familiar to readers of Scottish history. Sir George Lockhart of Carnwatli, Lord President of the Court of Session, having in his capacity of arbiter in a suit for aliment raised against John Chiesley of Dairy by his wife, from whom he had been sepa- rated, decided against liim, Chiesley followed him from church on Sunday, 31st March 1689, and shot him down in the Lawnmarket, close to liis own door, in presence of numerous spectators. He made no attempt to escape : on the contrary, he boasted of his deed. " This incident," says Scott, " was long remembered as a dreadful instance of what the law- books call the perfervidum ingenium Scotorum!' In other words, the Scots were credited with having something dangerous in their blood that might impel them to the gxeatest and most unexpected atrocities. A still more appalling instance of this phase of national character was that exhibited by John Mure of Auchindrane, in Ayrshire, on whose strange atro- cities Scott based liis Ayrshire tragedy, by far the finest of his dramatic efforts. "Yet I doubt," says Mr. Lockhart, " whether the prose narrative of the preface be not, on the whole, more dramatic than the versified scenes." Scott says of Mure that he was " bold, ambitious, treacherous to the last degree, and utterly unconscientious — a Richard the Third in private life, inacessible alike to pity and remorse." Such crimes as those of Mure, horrible as they may HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. 89 Le, are redeemed from the category of mere vulgar atrocities, inasmuch as they are motived not by the love of gold or of sensual indulgence, but by ambition and love of vengeance. In the case of Mure, given the first crime, the rest of the series are the necessary corollaries; and having taken the' devil's erles, he could not be let off without doing the devil's work. About such a criminal there could be nothing weak — no nervous tremors; no compunctious visitings. Having formed a carefully-deliberated plan, from which impulse was eliminated, he would work it out remorselessly to the end, however bitter for himself and others. Every obstacle had to be removed from his path at however great a price. Ballad lore furnishes at least two instances of this same strange and almost inconceivable pcrfer- mdum inr/enium, in its most cold-blooded and fero- cious aspect. We refer to " Edom o' Gordon " and " The Burning of Frendraught." In the battles of Corrichie and of Balrinnes the Gordons were principal actors, and in both of the two ballads mentioned they are conspicuous, either doing or suffering. " Edom o' Gordon " was Adam Gordon of Aucliendoun, brother and deputy of the Marquis of Huntly. After having gained several successes over the clan Forbes, the neighbours and feudal enemies of the Gordons, the chronicler of the history of King James VI. remarks of liim, that "what glory and renown he obtained by these two victories were all casten down by the infamy of his next attempt ; fur 90 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. iniuiodiatuly after his last cunllict he dh'ucted his soldiers to the Castle of Towie, desiring the house to be rendered to him in the Queen's name, whilk was obstinately refused by the lady, and she burst forth with certain injurious words. And the soldiers being impatient, by command of their leader, Captain Ker, fire was put to the house, wherein she and the number of twenty-seven persons were cruelly burned to the death." This happened in 1571. One or two points may here be noted. In the ballad Edom o' Gordon is charged as the perpetrator, while the chronicle saddles the guilt on Captain Ker. Ker was the real culprit, but as he was acting under the commission of Gordon, and was never even called in question for his inhuman conduct, Gordon with true poetic justice is himself branded as the criminal. In some versions of the ballad, the " Castle of Towie," called in Archbishop Spottiswoode's " His- tory of the Church of Scotland" Tavoy, appears as the " House o' the Eodes," which is in Berwickshire. Such changes of name, says Aytoun, " deserve note, as they indicate the district in which the poems were taken down, though they afford no evidence as to the part of the country in which they originated." The ballad is not a Border one, but belongs to the North Countrie. It deserves to be mentioned that in Percy's folio MS. it is entitled Captain Adam Carre, and is in the English idiom. Edom 0' Gordon is represented as saying to his HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. QI men in the cold, windy T\'eather of the Martinmas time that they must repair to a shelter, the most convenient heing the Castle of To^vie. The lady, standing on the battlements, and seeing the host of mounted men -purring towards the castle, thought that it was her husband returning with his retinue. She accordingly ^\ ithdrew to attire herself suitably, and to welcome licr lord with a comfortable repast — " She had nae suner buskit hersel', Nor putten on lier goun, Till Edom o' Gordon and his men Were round about the toun. " They had nae suner supper set, Nor suner said the grace, Till Edom o' Gordon and his men Were light about the place." The lady ran to the tower to see if she could pacify him with fair words, but the ruffian replied to her with the most insulting proposals. Her womanly pride was offended, and she gave utterance to injurious language, Gordon's reply to which was — " ' Gie owre your house, ye ladie fair, Gie owre your house to me, Or I shall burn yoursel' therein, But and your babies three.' " On this she discharged two bullets at him, which missed his heart but grazed his knee — " ' Set fire to the house ! ' quo' the false Gordon, All wude \vi' dule and ire ; ' False ladie ! ye sliall rue that shot, As ye burn in the fire.'" 92 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. She beholds among the savages below " Jock," her man, who had pulled out the " grund-wa-stane," and let in the fire to her, and upbraids him with his perfidy. " O then bespake lier youngest son, Sat on the nourice' knee ; Says, ' Mother, dear, gie owre this house, For the reek it smothers me.' " ' I wad gie a' my gowd, my bairn, Sue wad I a' my fee, For ae blast o' the westlin' wind To blaw the reek frae thee ! ' " The following verses are unsurpassed in popular poetry — " then bespake her daughter dear — She was baith jimp and sma' — ' O row me in a pair o' sheets. And tow me owre the wa' ! ' " They row'd her in a pair o' sheets, And tow'd her owre the wa' ; But on the point o' Gordon's spear She gat a deadly fa'. " O bonnie, bonnie was her mouth, And cherry were her cheeks ; And clear, clear was her yellow hair, AVhereon the red blude dreeps. " Then wi' his spear he turned her owre, gin her face was wan ! He said, ' You are the first that e'er 1 wish'd alive again.' " He turned her owre and owre again, gin her skin was white !j ' I might hae spared that bonnie face. To hae been some man's delight. HISTORICAL SO AGS AND BALLADS. 93 " ' Busk and boiin, my nierrie men a', For ill dooms I do guess ; I canna look on that bonnie face, As it lies on the grass ! ' " Two snatches of criticism are subjoined — the one from Burton's " History of Scotland," the other from Alexander Smith's essay on " Scottish Ballads," his earliest published composition in prose. " The scene supposed to have passed within that burning house — a scene in which the heroic mother is tortured between the duty of feudal hatred and the appeals of her smothering childi-en — is one of the finest among the touching and beautiful pictures in the popular ballads of the Scots people." " The writer of ' Edom 0' Gordon ' had no theories of art. He uttered only \\hat he saw and felt ; but what words could add to that picture of the burning tower, the unutterable sigh of the mother for ' ane blast o' the western wind,' and the mute reproach of the face on the grass, more terrible to the marauder than the gleam of hostile spears ? " The ballad was first printed at Glasgow by Eobert and Andrew Foulis, 1755, 8vo (twelve pages). Percy improved and enlarged it with several fine stanzas from a fragment in his folio MS. Even Mr. Chambers admits that it is old, though modernised and im- proved, of course, by Lady Wardlaw. He says, " All that can be surmised here is that the revision was the work of the same pen with the pieces here cited," And it must be confessed that there is great 94 HISTORICAL SONGS AXD BALLADS. similarity of workmanship between portions of this ballad and others of " Young Waters," the " Bonny Earl of Murray," " Sir Patrick Spens," c^c., of what he designates the Wardlaw group. But a deed even still more diabolical than that of Captain Ker is commemorated in " The Burning of Frendraught," which occurred as late as 1630 — pro- vided the interpretation put upon it by the Gordons be correct, and it was universally accepted at the time. The last ballad represented the Gordons at feud with the Forbeses ; the one under review repre- sents them at feud with the Crichtons. Charles I, had rather been encouraging the Crichtons, that they might have sufficient power and influence in some measure to balance the local feudal power of the overgrown house of Huntly. In a skirmish between the Crichtons and some of the Gordons, January i, 1 6'i) o, Gordon of Eothiemay was killed. The Marquis of Huntly succeeded in getting the matter com- pounded, the Crichtons agreeing to pay to the widow and children of the slain Eothiemay an assythment, or compensation, of 50,000 merks. On Thursday, October 7th, all parties to the arrangement were present in Huntly's Castle of Strathbogie, but Fren- draught had in the meantime got himself into fresh difiiculties by severely wounding the son of Leslie of Pitcaple, who had vowed revenge. In fact, it was known that Pitcaple was lying in wait with an armed band to attack Frendraught on his way home. Huntly, therefore, thought it advisable to send a HISTORICAL SO.XGS AXD BALLADS. gi, strong convoy ■with Frendrauglit, commanded by his son and heir, Yiscount Aboyne. The son of the slain Eotliiemay also accompanied the party. On reaching the stronghold of the Crichtons, the Gordon leaders were strongly pressed, especially by the lady of the house, to spend the night, and partake of liospitality in turn. They consented, and spent a jovial evening. The square tower of Frendraught was assigned to them for sleeping-quarters, and it was remarked that none others slept in it. It con- sisted of three wooden-floored chambers, one above the other. The lowest of the three, in which Aboyne with two servants slept, was over a chamber vaulted with stone, in which there was a round hole for communicating with the floor above by means of a ladder. Immediately over Aboyne's chamber slept Rothiemay with some servants beside him, and three others occupied the topmost chamber. At midnight of October 8th according to Spalding, October i8th according to the ballad, the conflagration of the tower was visible for miles around, and its occupants were soon all reduced to ashes. And herein this crime exceeded the other in atrocity — it was pre- meditated, and it was a direct violation of the laws of hospitality, generally held sacred in the most unoi- vilLsed communities. To a man of the evidently irascilile and passionate temperament of Frendraught, with his brain never clear at the best as to moral distinctions, probably at the time inflamed with wine, and smarting' under the humiliation and lo.ss of hav- 96 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. ing to pay a ransom-money so large, the temptation presented by circumstances was overpowering. The son of the judge who had mulcted him, the heir of his great feudal enemy, and the man who was to profit by the penalty to be exacted, were both under his roof. The Gordons asserted that the whole affair had been planned, and that the vaulted chamber had been filled with combustibles. The fastenings of the doors and windows were carefully secured, and Lady Frendraught is said to have mocked the wretches from the outside as they tore in vain at the window bars. Aytoun says there is no reason to suppose that Frendraught and his lady originated the fire. Be that as it may, Ichabod was thereafter written on their door-posts ; they became a common prey ; even the famous Gilderoy brought his band to plunder from the distant Loch Katrine, and at the Eevolution the family disappears. " This ballad," says Aytoun, " was supposed, both by Eitson and Finlay, to have been lost, and they gave instead of it an acknowledged modern composi- tion called Trennet Ha.'" It was, however, still current in the North, and versions differing very little from each other have been given by Mr. Motherwell and the editor of the " North Countrie Garland." Even Mr. Chambers admits it to be a genuine unsophisticated production, a contempora- neous metrical chronicle of the event it describes. The events are detailed in the ballad somewhat as we have given them above — HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. 9/ " They had not long cast off their clothes, And were but new asleep, When the weary smoke began to rise, Likewise the scorching heat, " ' waken, waken, Eothieinay, O waken, brother dear ; And turn ye to our Saviour — There is strong treason here ! ' " Having risen and dressed, they found the doors and windows fast, and " the roof-tree burning down." " Wlien he stood at the wire-window. Most doleful to be seen. He did espy her, Lady Frendraught, Who stood upon the green. "Cried, ' !Mercv, niercv ! Ladv Frendrauglit ! Will ye not sink Avith sin ? For first your husband killed my father, And now you burn his son ! ' " then out spoke her. Lady Frendraught, And loudly did she cry, ' It were great pity for good Lord John, But none for llothiemay, But the keys are casten in the deep draw-Avell — Ye cannot get aAvay ! ' " She was a genuine she-wolf. If a woman becomes untrue to the kindlier instincts, her lieart waxes liarder than tlie netlier millstone. Tlic, tt-nder mercies of the wicked are said to be cruel, but never )uore cruel than when the wicked one is a female. "While he stood in this dreadful J'b'ght, Most pitf;ous to be seen ; Then called out his servant Gordon, As he hail frantic been, G 98 HISTORICAL SONGS AXD BALLADS. " ' O loup, O loup, my dear master, O loup down frae tlie tower ; I'll catch you in my armis two ; But Rothiemay may snioor ! ' " This last lino is conjectural. It is to l)e hoped that the 'reading is erroneous. On the other hand, the sentiment is quite in keeping with the feeling of the time and of the subject of it. The faithful servant and retainer was indifferent to everything hut the safety of his master. The response, how- ever, is noble — " ' The fish shall never swim the flood, Nor com grow through the clay, If the fiercest fire that ever was kindled Twine me and Rothiemay. " ' But I cannot loup, I cannot come, I cannot win to thee ; My head's fast in the wire-window, My feet burning frae me ! " ' My eyes are southering in my head, My flesh roasting also ; My bowels are boiling with my blood ; Is na that a Avoeful woe ? " ' Take here the rings from my fingers. That are so long and small ; And give them to my lady fair, "Where she sits in her hall. " ' So I canncjt louj), I cannot come, I cannot loup to thee ; My eartJdy i)urt is all consumed, My spirit hut speaks to thee ! ' " This is all too dreadful. We are made to sup our fill of liorrors. We know of nothing in the whole HISTORICAL SOXGS AND BALLADS. 99 range of poetry more weird and powerful tlian these verses of an obscure ballad by an unknown poet. Neither Dante nor Shakespeare has transcended the conception of them. In parts the ballad- writer is as prosaic as a bulletin, but here he rises into the sub- limest region of poetry, exhibiting an imaginative power of almost unique vividness and splendour. To the enthusiast about ballads such a passage as this is a reward at once and an excuse for his toils, and his apparently trivial pursuit then acquii-es in his eyes an importance and a dignity that differentiate it favourably from the most eager pursuit of the ruck of contemporary facts by the most complacent quid- nunc of the day. The Marquis of Huntly, instead of avenging hmi- self by reprisals, appealed to the law, and John Meldrum, at one time a servant of Frendrausht's, and who afterwards married a sister of Pitcaple, was tried at Edinburgh, and condemned, on merely presumptive evidence, to be hanged and quartered. A'iscountess A})oyne, Sophia Hay, the "bonnie Sophia" of the ballad, did what she could to bring the perpetrators of the crime to justice. Spalding says that, like tlie turtle-dove, she all her after-life disdained the company of man. Arthur Johnston wrote her I'laint for the death of lier husband — "Querela Sophiie Ilayie de morte mariti," ])ublislied in "Delitiic Poetarum Sootorum," Amst., i C37, torn, i., pp. 585, &c. 100 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. Part II. THE BATTLES OF THE COVENANT. The battles of the Covenant may be ranked in two classes — first, those fought when the Covenant was powerful, and the leaders of its armies the foremost nobility of the kingdom, in the time of Charles I. ; and, second, those fought in the reign of Charles II., when the Covenant was discredited by the nobility, and its supporters were mainly the rural populace of the Western shires. So far as ballad literature bears on these, to the first class belong " Lesley's March " and " The Battle of Philiphaugh ; " and to the second the battles of " Eullion Green," of " Loudon Hill," and of " Bothwell Bridge." We have already referred to "Lesley's March," first published by Allan Eamsay, and " played," says Scott, " in the van of this Presby- terian crusade " — that is, when the Scots sent a well- disciplined army of upwards of twenty thousand men, under Alexander Lesley, Earl of Leven, to the assist- ance of the Parliament of England. Eeference to the destination of this force is thus made in the " March "— " Front about, ye musketeers all, Till ye come to the English Ijorder. Stand till't, and fight like men, True gospel to maintain ; The Parliament's blythe to see us a' coming." Lesley's army bore a distinguished part in the battle of Long Marston Moor, fought 3d July 1644; and, HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. lOI iu the words of ]\Ir. Laing, " the victory was equally due to Cromwell's irou brigade of disciplined Inde- pendents and to three regiments of Lesley's horse." These were led by General David Lesley, a man of greater military talent even than his chief. He commanded that portion of the Scottish army that was despatched from England to check the advance of Montrose after his victory at Kilsyth, 15 th August 1645. Lesley entered Scotland by the way of Berwick, and completely surprised the army of Montrose at Philiphaugh, near Selku-k, 13th Sep- tember 1645. Lesley's force consisted of five or sLx thousand men, chiefly cavalry. Under cover of a thick mist, he attacked Montrose's infantry, between whom and his cavalry ran the Ettrick, and gained a (•omplete victory, Montrose himself escaping with difficulty. Scott says— " Upon Philiphaugh Mon- trose lost in one defeat the fruit of six splendid victories; nor was he again able effectually to make head in Scotland against the Covenanted cause." The ballad, preserved by recitation in Selkirkshii^e, has little merit as a poem, but is valuable as an accurate record of facts. " Sir David frao the Border cam', Wi' lieurt an' luiiid cam' he ; Wi' him three thousand bonny Scotts, To bear him company. " Wi' him three thousand valiant men, A noble sij,'ht to .see ! A cloud o' mirit them weel concealed, As close as e'er might be. 102 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. " When tliey c.im' to the Shaw Bum, Said he, ' Sae weel we frame, I think it is convenient That we should sing a psalm.' " The singing of a psalm was a favourite prelude to battle witli the " saints," as they were called, whether Independents or Covenanters. "We may, therefore, credit some malignant Cavalier with the various reading, " That we should take a dram." " The glory of the victory," says Aytoun, " was sullied by an indiscrimmate massacre of prisoners." The common soldiers were shot in cold blood in the courtyard of Newark Castle, and their bodies hastily interred at a place called, from the circumstance, " Slain-men's Lee." This is said to have been done by the com- mand of Lesley, and with the approval of the ministers, some of whom were spectators of the butchery. But this evidence is given by "VVisliart, chaplain to Montrose, in his " Memoirs " of that hero, and must be taken with proper deductions. Eight of the most distinguished Cavaliers w^ere, at the instigation of the clergy, condemned by the Parliament to be executed — a sentence carried out in the case of seven of them, Lord Ogilvy, the eightli, having escaped from prison in his sister's clothes. But for the neighbourhood of Ilairhead Wood, in which the fugitives found shelter and concealment, the prisoners, and consequently the executions, would have been much more numerous. This wood is referred to in the first verse of the ballad — HISTORICAL SONGS AXD BALLADS. IO3 " On Philiphaugh a fray began, At Hairhead Wood it ended ; The Scotts out o'er the Graemes they ran, Sae merrily they bended." The severity exercised on these prisoners may in some measure explain the terrible retaliation of the next reign. There can be no doubt that the preachers were satisfied of the righteousness of their counsel, and in all probability would have expected similar treatment had they been on the losing side. But the chief interest of the battles of the Cove- nant centres in the three engagements referred to above as occurring in the reign of Charles II., both from the religious enthusiasm of the persecuted people and the marked individuality of several of the leaders on both sides, such as Dalziel of Binns, Graham of Claverhouse, Hackston of Rathillet, antl Balfour of Burley. The struggles of that time have an extremely racy and valuable literature of their own, including AVodrow's " History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, from the Eestoration to the Ilevolution ; " the " Biographia Scoticana," better known a.s the " Scots Worthies," of honest John Howie of Lochgoin; "The Cloud of Witnesses," " The Hind let Loose," " Faithful contendings Dis- played," "Peden's Prophecies," "The Life and Death of Three Famous Wortliies," by Peter Walkei', at the Bristo I'ort ctf Edinburgli, pedlar, a notable person in tlie eyes of douce David Deans of St. Leonard's, «&c., &c. Two of the battles of the Cove- 104 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. iiant — those of Druinclog and of liotliwell Bridge — have been described with his usual power and picturesqueness by Scott in " Old IMortality." They are also chronicled in the " Memoirs of Captain John Creichton, collected from his own materials, by Dean Swift." Creichton was as pronounced a fanatic, in his own way, as any field-preacher among the Cove- nanters, and had the lurking-places of what he con- ceived to be sacrilegious rebels revealed to him in dreams, after, it may be supposed, a night's hard drinking. Swift compares Creichton's Memoirs to those of Philip de Comines, as being " told in a manner equally natural, and with equal appearance of truth." Scott, no friend to the Covenanters, reproves Swift for his hardness of heart and deadness of feeling. " That a soldier of fortune like Creichton, bred up, as it were, to the pursuit of the unfortunate fanatics who Avere the ol)jects of persecution in the reions of Charles II. and James II., should have felt no more sympathy for them than the hunter for the game which he destroys, we can conceive perfectly natural ; nor is it to be wondered at that a man of letters, overlooking the cruelty of this booted apostle of Prelacy in the wild interest of his narrations, should liave listened and registered the exploits which he detailed. But what we nnist consider as shocking, and even disgusting, is the obvious relish with which these acts are handed down to us in Swift's own narrative." The three ballads relating to the three battles HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. lO^ alluded to were first published in " The Minstrelsy of the Border." "The Battle of Pentland Hills/' other^^'ise known as " The Battle of Eullion Green," was taken down by ]\Ir. Livingston of Airds from the recitation of an old woman residin^f on his estate. The insurrection which it commemorates had its beginning at Dairy, in Galloway, on Tuesday, November 13, 1666. Four "hill-folk," who had come down to the village to get some refreshment, rescued an old man from some soldiers who were about to torture or maltreat him. They knew they had committed themselves, and, resolving to proceed to extremities, they surprised and disarmed twelve soldiers at a neighbouring post. Their number hav- ing increased to fifty horsemen and a considerable ])arty of footmen, they marched to Dumfries, and seized the notorious Sir James Turner, then levying tines from the Nonconformists, disarmed his soldiers, and possessed themselves of a considerable sum of money which he had collected as cess. An unsup- ]toited tradition represents this money as having 1 leen carried off by " one Andrew Gray, an Edin- burgh merchant, who immediately deserted them." Tlieir luimbers rapidly increasing, they resolved to march on Edinburgh, in the expectation that their friends in that quarter would join them. At Lanark iheir numbers reached 3000; but by the time they reached liullion Green, cold, want of provisions, the marked antipathy of the peasantry of Lothian, and the arming of the city of Edinburgh against them. I06 HISTORICAL SONGS AXD BALLADS. had reduced their numbers to uhoiit 900. Their leader, Colonel Wallace, an experienced soldier, drew up his men on the ridge of a hill to await the attack of General Thomas Dalziel, wdio, having gone as far as Lanark to intercept them, returned on his foot- steps, and found them thus posted. Two attacks hy detachments on the position of the Covenanters having failed, Dalziel charged with his whole force, and succeeded in breaking and dispersing them. Comparatively few were killed in the attack and rout, which Scott accounts for l>y the cavalry of Dalziel being chiefly gentlemen, who pitied their oppressed and misguided countrymen. It w^ould be pleasing to believe this, and it may be in some measure true ; but darkness had come on before the ranks of the hill-people were broken, and to this is chiefly to be attributed the comparative bloodlessness of the engagement. The remnant of tlie army of the Whigs suffered more from the peasantry in th(! vicinity of the field of battle than from the troopers of Dalziel, ruthless as that General was justly held to be. The battle was fought 28th November 1666. It was here that the Covenanters first discovered that Dalziel had sold himself to the devil, for they ima- gined that they saw the leaden bullets rebounding, harmless, from his buff coat. The ballad is evidently a Royalist production, and if by "the gallant Grahams from the West" of the initial stanza ht; meant the troopers of Graham of Claverhouse, it must have been written some considerable time after HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. 10/ the event it chronicles, as Claverhouse was then an officer in the Dutch service, and did not hokl an independent command in Scotland till nearly twelve years later. The Eoyalist bard represents the "Wliigs as gaining accessions to their numbers principally from "souters and taylors," and makes merry over their robbing the pedlars of their packs. He states their number at Maucliline Muir to have been ten thousand — a gross exaggeration. " General Dalyell, as I hear tell, Was our Lieutenant-Generul." He is represented as addressing the Whigs in the following moderate terms : — " ' Lay down your arms, in the King's name, And ye shall all gae safely hanie ; ' But they a' cried out wi' ae consent, ' We'll tight for a bruken covenant.' " ' well,' says he, ' since it is so, A wilfu' man never wanted woe ; ' He then gave a sign unto his lads, And they drew up in their brigades. " The trumpets blew, and tlie colours flew, And every man to his armour drew ; The Whigs were never so mucli aghast As to see tlieir saddles toom sae fast. " The cleverest men stood in the van ; The Whigs they took their heels and ran ; But such a raking was never seen As the raking o' llie lluUion (Jrecn." These last two lines make the blood run cold. Dalziel of Binns was a singular character, as sincere a fanatic in his loyalty and religion as tliose whom lOS HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. he oppressed were in their attachment to the Covenant, and this made him all the more ruthless in his treat- ment of them. He had been taken prisoner at Worcester, and committed to the Tower, whence escaping, he proceeded to Muscovy, and entered the service of the Czar. Tliis service increased his natural ferocity, and we learn from Fountainhall's " Decisions," that he struck a man under examination at the Council-table on the teeth with his sword-hilt for calling him " a Muscovy beast who roasted men." After the Eestoration he was made Commander-in- Chief of the Forces in Scotland, a situation he held till his death, with the exception of a fortnight, during which he was superseded by the Duke of Monmouth some days before the battle of Bothwell Bridge. In token of his loyalty he never shaved after the execution of Charles I., and liis beard, white and bushy, reached almost down to his middle. Creichton gives a grraphic description of his ap2')earance in London, with a crowd of boys after him, whom he always thanked for their attendance, and informed them when he would next appear. Wlien he accom- panied Charles II. in the Park, " the King could liardly pass for the crowd ; upon which his Majesty bid the devil take Dalziel for bringing such a rabble of boys together to have their guts squeezed out, while they gaped at his long beard and antique habit ; requesting him at the same time (as Dalziel used to express it) to shave and dress like other Christians, to keep the poor bairns out of danger." HISTORICAL SOXGS Ai\D BALLADS. IO9 In tlie trials that foUo"\ved this battle the boot and thumbkins were freely used as instruments of torture, to the disgrace of the criminal jurisprudence of the country. Tlie courts were so oppressed with work that a separate justiciary was appointed in the West. Business was facilitated by the illegal procuring of convictions in absence, and the convenient " bonds of lawburrows " were resorted to to maintain peace in the West, so that Dalziel and other functionaries were soon by process of law gifted with forfeitures and fines. The battle of Drumclog, or of Loudon Hill, was the solitary gleam of success that gilded the cause of the Covenanters at this crisis in their affairs. It was fought on Sunday, ist June 1679, shortly after the assassination of Archbishop Sharp on Magus Muir, and sprang in some measure from that tragical event. Shaq) was detested by the Presbyterians as a Judas wlio had betrayed their cause ; and their hatred was intensified by their dread of his ruthless nature, and their horror of him as one who had made a compact with Satan. Accordingly, when Balfour and his con- federates despatclied him in tlie presence of his daughter, shortly after iiu liad enjoyed his last pipe with the parson of Ceres, in the belief that he was linllet-proof by favour of his master they haggled him M'itli tlieir Ijroadswords — the confession is their own — three-qjiarters of an linm' before life was extinct. l'.;dfoiir and Hackston having escaped to the West, joined tliem-selves to a jtarty of eigbty lumsemen commanded bv Robert Hamilton, brother of the no HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. Laird of Preston, mIio at Eutliergien, on the 29th of May, extinguislied the bonfu-es blazing in honour of '• the happy Eestoration." They proceeded thence to Loudon Hill, -vvliere a great conventicle was to be helil. "While the services were proceeding, information was given by the watchers that Graham of Claver- house, with the Guards, was at hand, and tlie wor- shippers proceeded to form in order of battle, the ground being chosen with singular skill. The result is well known. Graham and his Guards were defeated, thirty-six of his force being killed, and amongst them his nephew. Cornet Graham, while only three of the Covenanters fell. Claverhouse himself escaped with difficulty. In his despatch to the Earl of Liidithgow he says — " With a pitchfork they made such an opening in my rone horse's belly that his guts hung out half an elle, and yet he carried me af an myl." Creichton says the rebels were eight or nine thousand strong — a ridiculous exaggeration to palliate an unlooked-for and humiliating defeat. Claverhouse further said that when he came upon them " they wer not preaching, and had got away all there women and shildring." Tliis justifies Scott's description of Graham's spelling as that of a chamber- maid. This presence of women and children is re- ferred to by Guild in his " Bellum Bothuellianum," which contains an account of the skirmish at Drum- clog — " Turba ferox, matres, pueri, innupteque puelloe." The mishap to Claverhouse's horse is thus noticed — HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. I I I '• Vix dux ipse fuga salvus, namque exta trahebat Vulnere tardatus sonipes generosus hiante." The ballad commemorating the battle is the com- position of one of the Covenanting party, and is singularly free from the least suspicion of poetry. After wishing for prosperity to the Gospel lads of the West Country, and invoking malisons on wicked Claver'se, he proceeds to describe the engagement — " But up spak cruel Claver'se then, Wi' hastie wit an' wicked skill ; ' Gae fire on yonder TVestlan' men : I tliink it is my Sovereign's will.' " But up bespake bis cornet then, ' It's be wi' nae consent o' me ! I ken I'll ne'er come back again, And mony mae as weel as me. " ' There is not ane of a' yon men. But wha is worthy other three ; There is na ane amang them a' That in his cause will stop to die. "' An' as for Burly, him I knaw ; He's a man of honour, birth, an' fame ; Gi'e him a sword into his hand, He'll fight thysel an' other ten.' " The rest of tlie ballad is equally prosaic and feature- less. But tlie Ijallad (m the battle of Bothwell Bridge, also a Covenanting production, is a strain of a higher mood, and informed with botli pathos and poetry — '• ' billie, biliie, bonny biliie, Will ye go to the wood wi' me ? We'll ca' our horse liame niasterless, An' gar them trow slain men are we.' 112 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. " ' O no, O no ! ' says Earlstouii, ' For that's the thing that luaimna be ; For I am sworn to Botliwe-ll Hill, Where I maun either gae or die ! ' " Earlstoiin, who lias a prcinonitinn of his dcatli, tlius takes leave of liis family — " Now, fareweel, hither, and fareweel, mother, An' fare ye weel, my sisters three ; An' fare ye weel, my Earlstoun, For thee again 111 never see I " TuU justice is done to the humane character of the vacillating and undecided Monmouth, who com- manded the Eoyal troops on this occasion, and whose lenience provoked the ire of the more pronounced and firmer-charactered Eoyalists. Dalziel arrived in the camp the day after the battle, armed wjth a com- mission to supersede Monmouth as eommander-in- chief. Creichton says that Dalziel upbraided the Duke publicly with his lenity, and heartily wished his own commission had come a day sooner, when, as he expressed himself, " these rogues should never more have trouliled the King or country ! " Monmouth, adds Creichton, though publicly rebuked before the whole army, sneaked among them at the town of Bothwell till the following Saturday, when he set out by Stirling to Fife on a visit to the Duke of Rothes. Claverhouse was especially hot in pursuit of the rebels, as he called them, to avenge the death of his nephew, Cornet Graham, and in retaliation of his defeat at Drumclog. In tlie 1)allad Monmouth is represented as upbraiding him for his cruelty — ■ HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. 113 " Then ■\vickeJ Claver'se turned about, I wot an angrj' man wa:? he ; And he has lifted up his hat, And cried, ' God bless his ^lajesty ! ' " Then he's awa' to London town, Ay e'en as fast as he can dree ; Fause witnesses he has wi' him ta'en, An' ta'en Monmouth's head frae his bodie" — a gross historical perversion. Graham at Killie- crankie, as Viscount Dundee, achieved a victory and met a fate that raised him from the category of a heartless oppressor of a singularly intelligent, high- souled, and devout peasantry, into that of a hero. Yet his memory will ever, in the minds of his Pres- byterian countrymen, be associated with blood and violence. Scott, with whom he was a favourite, tliough unable to deny the charge of seeming effemi- nacy in his hero, accords to him the possession of "such a countenance as limners love to paint and ladies love to look upon." Burton, in comparing the two Grahams, Montrose and Dundee, says : — " "VVe have good portraits of both heroes, preserving faces that haunt the memory." Of Dundee, who is repre- sented as not having enough of the common intel- lectual culture of the day to save him from ridicule a.s a blockhead, he says, " Remove from his likeness aiiytliing identifying tlie soldier, and we have in llesh and lineaments a woman's face of brilliant conij)k'.xiou and finely-cut features, lint there is in it noliiingof feminine gentleness or com])assion — it niiglit stand for the ideal of any of the classical herouies who ha\ c H 1 14 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. been immortalised for their hatred and cruelties." A fanatic of this complexion could not but prove a scourge of scorpions to the adherents of the Cove- nant. The Cavaliers give their version of the current of events from Kullion Green to Bothwell Bridge in " AVluirry, Whigs, awa' " with such inimitable candour that the reading of it suggests some curious psycho- logical questions. It is evident that from their point of view Cavalier and Covenanter belonged to two different genera, and that the Covenanter was made to be hunted down as much as a fox or a badger, or any other denizen of fu-th or forest. There is a cool ferocity about the subjoined extract that could have been engendered only by political and religious animosity — " The restless Whigs, with their intrigues, Themselves they did convene, man, At Pentland Hills and Bothwell Brigs, To fight against the King, man ; Till brave Dalvell came forth himsel' "With loyal troops in raws, man, To try a matcli with ])Owther and ball : The saints turn'd windlestraws, man. " The brave Dalyell stood i' the field, And fought for King and Crown, man ; Made rebel Whigs perforce to yield, And dang the traitors doun, man. Then some ran here, and some ran there, And some in field did fa', man. And some to hang he didna spare, Condemned by their ain law, man. " Yet that would not the carles please. Did you not hear the news, man, HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. II5 How, at Drumclog, behind the bog, They gae the deil his dues, man ? With blessed word and rusty sword They wrought a wondrous feat, man ; For, ten to ane, they wan the day, And wow but they were great, man ! " But, wae's my heart ! it was nae sport, Though they were set on ill, man, To see them fa' like silly sheep That day on Botliwell Hill, man. The Royal Duke his men forsook, And oe'r the field did ride, man, And cried aloud to spare their blude. Whatever might betide, man. " But Colonel Graham, of noble fame, Had sworn to have his will, man, No man to spare in armour there, While man and horse could kill, man. O then the Whigs from Botliwell Brigs Were led like dogs to die, man ; In Heaven's might they couldna fight, But raised a horrid cry, man." Part III. § I. JACOBITE SONGS AND BALLADS. TiiK term .Jacoljitc means an adherent of JacoLus, or James, that is, of James II. of England and VII. of Scotland, after his abdication of tlie British throne by his flight to France in 1688, and is consequently tlie direct opposite of a Williamite, or adherent of William, Prince of Orange, James's son-in-hiw and successful rival. It, liowever, was extended to the adherents of James's unfortunate son, the Chevalier Il6 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. de St. George, better known as tlie Old Pretender, and to those -of Ms son, Prince Charles Edward, the Young Chevalier, and in the two latter instances is opposed to Hanoverian, or adherent of the House of Hanover. Hogg, in his "Jacobite Eelics," and others, sometimes give it a retrospective signification, and it is then used as synonymous with Royalist or Cavalier, Whig becoming equivalent to Eound- head, or Puritan, or Parliamentarian. The main interest of the Jacobite struggles, apart from James's campaign in Ireland and Dundee's victory at Killie- crankie, centres in the abortive rebellions of 171 5 and 1745 ; and the best of the lyrics bearing on the struggles of the party are connected with the opera- tions of those rebellions and their results, especially of the latter. But so numerous are the songs dealing with every stage of the contest, that the first volume of HofTo's "Jacobite Ptclics" is confined to songs previous to the battle of Sheriffmuir, 1 3 th November 171 5, and yet his collection does not contain above one-fifth of the lyrics that he might have admitted. The ill-success of the Jacobites in all their efforts is attempted to l)e explained by representing them as singers and sentimentalists ■ rather than workers and men of the world, like their opponents the Wliigs. But this only half explains the matter. The non- success resulted in great measure from the total incapacity of the Stuarts. Had they had a tithe of the ability of William they must have succeeded, for the peo^de were ten to one against the Revolution, HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. 11/ and the Cliui'ch to a man was violently active against the House of Hanover. We subjoin two remarkable passages from the life of William, Earl of Shelburne, Ijearing dii-ectly on this point : — " It is commou to attribute the happiness and comfort which this country enjoyed from the period of the Bevolution till the commencement of the present reign to the excellence of our Constitution, to the Whigs, and to a variety of other causes ; whereas, I conceive the true cause to have been the existence of a Pretender with a very just right to the throne upon all Tory and Monarchical principles, and all old pre- judices, but without sufficient capacity to disturb the reigning family, or to accommodate himself to the new principles which have been making a slow but certain progress ever since the discovery of the press. The Hanover family never imagined they would continue, and, as their only chance, threw them- selves into the arms of the Old Whigs, abjuring the rights and the manners of Koyalty — in other words, telling the people, 'We are your slaves and blackamoors.'" — Vol. i, pp. 21, 22. Again — " Foreigners attribute all this [national prosperity] to the English Constitution, which, in fact, was owing to the single circumstance of a Pretender, who kept the reigning family in perpetual awe, supported as they Avere by an immense body of property among the Tories, a considerable party among the Lords and Commons, Scotland almost entirely devoted to lliem, and a great part of Ireland by means of the Catholics. Tlii.-i obliged the Hanoverian family not only to be on their guard, but to support Revolution doctrines and principles, \\\\ii\\ wliicli ground they stood." — Vol. i, pp. 33, 34. Tlie Jacobite feeling died liard. A good deal of sentimental Jacobitism existed in tlu; ((niiitry down to a comparatively late period, and i)ersons perfectly loyal to the Hanoverian dynasty passed their glasses over the water-decanter when llic toast of "The IlS HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. King" was given, thus drinking to "the King over the water," even after the death of Henry, Cardinal York, the last legitimate scion of the Stuart family. Dr. Johnson, though a pensioner of George III., was an avowed Jacobite. Indeed, the feeling was heredi- tary with him, for his father, Michael Johnson, was so decided in his faith on this head that when he was elected a Magistrate of Lichfield he had to take the oath of fidelity and allegiance, and disavow transub- stantiation, cu'cumstances carefully minuted in tlie records of the Corporation. Of himself Johnson said — " Now that I have this pension, I am the same I man in every respect that I have ever been ; I retain the same principles. It is true that I cannot now d curse the House of Hanover ; nor would it be decent for me to drink King James's health in the wine that King George gives me money to pay for. But, sir, I think that the pleasure of cursing the House of Hanover, and drinking King James's health, are amply overbalanced by three hundred pounds a year." His defence of Jacobitism, though evidently a piece of humour, is singularly ingenious : — '' A Jaco- bite, sir, believes in the divine right of kings. He that believes in the divine right of kings believes in a Divinity. A Jacobite believes in the divine right of bishops. He that believes in the divine right of bishops believes in the divine authority of the Chris- tian religion. Therefore, sir, a Jacobite is neither an Atheist nor a Deist. That cannot be said of a Whig, for Wliifjgism is a negation of all princijyles." HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. I I9 Scott, also, though the familiar of " The First Gentleman in Europe," was one of these sentimental Jacobites. He had lived much with persons who had taken a share in the '45, and his chivalrous nature prompted him always to sympathise with those who had staked and lost all on a desperate game, especially where self was sacrificed to loyalty. Accordingly, he is nowhere more happy or more at home than when treating either directly or inciden- tally of some detail in the history of Jacobitism. In " The Bride of Lammermoor," Frank Hayston of Bucklaw, who had come to the far end of a fair estate, and was being promised a commission in the Irish brigade by Captain Craigengelt, an agent from St. Germains, one of those slippery desperadoes who sold then- secrets indifferently to either party, says to his tempter — " And now I shall be obliged, I suppose, to shelter and shift about like yourself — live one week upon a line of secret intelligence from Saint Germains — another upon the report of a rising in the Highlands — ^get my breakfast and morning ih'iiught of sack from old Jacobite ladies, and give them locks of my old wig for the Chevalier's hair." " Wavcrley" is full of the '45, and the description of the battle of I'restonpaiis is a masterpiece. " lied- gauntlet " deals with the expiring struggle of Jacobit- ism in these islands, and the character of Eedgauntlet iiimself is tlie male type of that of Flora Maclvor in " Waverley." He is the man of one idea, wlio will stick at nothing to accomplish it. I'>ut vile self 120 IlISTORlCAl. SONGS A.\D BALLADS. iicvi'v steps ill. His loyalty is iinmaciilate. Pate Max-well of Suniinertrees, or rate-in-Pcril, is a character of quite a different stamp. He is selfish to the backbone, and, though still as malignant a Tory at heart as ever, had contrived to make his peace with the Government. Mrs. Crosbie, the wife of the Provost of Dumfries, is a Tory of a good common- sense type : — " Come, come," said the lady, " we will have no argument in this house about Whig or Tory; the Provost kens what he maun say, and 1 ken what he should think ; and for a' that has come and gane yet, there may be a time coming when honest men may say what they think, whether they be Provosts or not." The great store-house of the lyrical poetry of the Jacobites is Hogg's " Ptclics." " The extent of this literature," says Dr. Murray, " is indeed extraordinary — perhaps unequalled by the polemical songs of any other contest in the history of the world." And he adds — " I know of no contest which has produced such a number of songs equal to those of the Jacob- ites in defiant resolution, in reckless satire, in subduing pathos, and in exuberant mirth." Many of the tunes also to which they are set are exquisitely beautiful, and are prime favourites at the present day. The songs themselves are a distinct species, in nowise related either to the old ballad or to the modern Ipic. They took their rise from a j^eculiar class of circumstances, by which their structure and sentiment were moulded, and these circumstances HISTORICAL SOXGS ASD BALLADS. 121 having ceased to be similar songs are no longer produced. Tlie chief historical event in Scotland during the remainder of the life of James in which the Jacobites were engaged was the battle of Killiecrankie, fought on Saturday, 27th July 1689, between the forces of James commanded by Dundee, and the Eoyal troops commanded by ]\Iackay. The Eoyal troops were ignominiously routed, but Dundee fell in the moment of victory. His death more than counterbalanced the success of the day. Tliree accounts of tlie battle may be consulted with pleasure and profit — that of Sir "Walter Scott in the " Tales of a Grandfather," that of Lord Macaulay in his " History of England," and that of John Hill Burton in liis " History of Scotland." Admirable as the others are, the last 1 tears away the pahn. There are two songs on the suljject. The oldest begins thus — '• Clavers and liis Highlandmen Cam down upon the raw, man, "Wlio, being stout, gave moiiy a clout, Tlie lads began to claw, then. AVi' sword and targe into their hand, \Vi' wliich they were na shiw, man, Wi' niony a fearfu' heavy .sigh Tlie lads began to claw, llien." A characteristic verse descriptive of the Highland mode of fighting is the follow ing — *' Ilur skept about, hur leapt about. And flang aniang them a', man. Tilt; Engli.'ih bUule.s got Inoken heads, Their crowns were cleaved in twa, then ; 123 Historical soxgs and ballads. The 'lurk uiul dutir made tlieir last lnnii-, And proved their final fa', man : They thought the devil had been there, Tliey play'd them sic a pa', then." In describing their attack on the Cameronians, tin; singer says — " But her nainsell, wi' mony a knock, Cried, ' Furich,' AVhigs awa', man." The other song on the same subject is given in Johnson's " jMuseum," as an old song with altera- tions. The chorus is old ; the rest of it was written by Burns — " Wliare ha'e ye been sae braw, lad \ Whare ha'e ye been sae brankie, I Whare ha'e ye Ijeen sae braw, lad l Cam' ye by Killiecrankie, O ! An' ye had been whare I ha'e been. Ye wadna been sae cantie, ; An' ye had seen what I ha'e seen, r the braes o' Killiecrankie, 0. " I've faught at land, I've faught at f^^ea, At hame I faught my auntie, ; But I met the devil and Dundee On the braes o' Killiecrankie, O." There is also a rhymed Latin poem on the subject, styled " Prffilium Killicrankianum," said to be the composition of a Professor Kennedy of Aberdeen. It is to be sung to the air of the song first quoted — " Grahamius notabilis coegerat Montanos, Qui clypeis et gladiis fugarunt Anglicanos : Fugerunt Vallicolaj, atque Puritani ; Cacavere Batavi et Cameroniani, &c." HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. 1 23 Tlie chiefs of the party never ceased to plot, but by some strange fatality their plots were always futile. Only two circumstances between the victory at Killiecrankie and the setting up of James's standard at Brae-Mar, on the 6th of September 171 5, by John, Earl of Mar, deserve note here. The one is the sail- ing from Dunkirk, on March 1708, of a French squath'on, commanded by the Comte de Forbin, hav- ing on board ]\Iarechal Matignon and some French troops, with the Chevalier de St. George himself Though they reached the Firth of Forth, they were compelled by the British fleet, under Sir George Byng, to bear away for France, the Admu-al refusing to disembark the Chevalier, though he urgently desired it. The other is the death of Queen Anne on the ist of August 17 14, just when the Tory Ministry firmly believed that she meant to nominate her brother as her successor. The Jacobites were found to be unprepared and irresolute, while the Whigs were firm and unanimous. King George I. was immedi- ately proclaimed king. The sonss whicli date between Killiecrankie and Sheriffmuir are, as might be expected, grossly abusive of William III. and George I., but display in many instances superlative powers of sarcasm. Unfortu- nately they sometimes descend to the calling of names. William, as a Dutchman, is generally styled Ilogan Mogan, and is occasionally made to express himself in a gibberish which Hogg happily terms " Aljcrdeen- 124 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. shire DuU'li," as in tliis stanza of " 'Willie Wiiikie's Testament " — " Take you, beside, dis ragged coat, And nil de curses of de Scot, ])at dey did give nie voiider veil, For Darien and dat Macdonell. Dese are de tings I fain void give. Now dat I have not time to live ; O take deni oil' mine hands, I pray ! I'll go de lighter on my vay." The two things that rendered William most unpopular in Scotland were the English opposition to the Darien colonisation scheme, and the IMassacre of (Jlencoe, both of which are alluded to in the lines quoted. These subjects were too sore not to be repeatedly alluded to. In "The Rebellious Crew" we find — " Our Darien can witness bear, And so can our Glencoe, sir ; Our South Sea it can make appear, What to your kings we owe, sir. We have been murder'd, starved, and robb'd, By these, your kings and knav'ry, And all our treasure is stock-jobb'd, While we groan under slav'ry." Attain, in " Charlie Stuart " — " On Darien think, on dowie Glencoe ; On Murray, traitor ! coward ! On Cumberland's blood-blushing hands. And think on Charlie Stuart." As a companion to the extract from " Willie Winkle's Testament," we subjoin one from " Geordie Wlielp's Testament " — HISTORICAL SOXGS AND BALLADS. 12$ " Ane auld black coat, baith lang and wide, Wi' snishen barken'd like a hide, A skeplet hat, and plaiden hose, A jerkin, darted a' wi' brose, A pair o' sheen that wants a heel, A periwig wad fleg the deil, A pair o' breeks that wants the donp, Twa cutties, and a tiinmer stoup." On the 2otli February 1701, "William's favourite liorse Sorrel stumljled on a mole-hill in Hampton Court Park. Tlte King was thrown and broke his collar-bone. He died early in the following March. The Jacobite songs contain unfeeling allusions to this accident — " But Willie's latter end did come. He broke hia collar-bone, man." The famous quarrel-scene in " Waverley," after the banquet at Tullyveolan, was occasioned by the drunken lah-d of Balmawhapple demanding a bumper " to the little gentleman in black velvet who didsucli service in 1702 (it should be 1701), and may the white horse break his neck over a mound of his own making." (Jilbert liurnet, Ui.sliDp of SaKsbury, William's favourite chaplain and adviser, was an object of especial detestation to the Jacobite muse. " Bishop Burnet's Descent into Hell " is not without humour — " The devils were brawling at Burnet's descending, But at his arrival they left ofT contending ; Old Lucifer ran, his dear In.shop to meet, And thus the arch-devil th' apostate did greet : 126 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. * My dear Bishop Burnet, I'm glad beyond measure, This visit, unlook'd for, gives infinite pleasure ; And O, nn' dear Sanun, how go things above ? Does George hate the Tories, and Whigs only love ? ' " The character and antecedents of the First George made him a fan- mark for satire. Wliile Electoral Prince he had married his cousin, the Princess Dorothea, who had imprudently permitted some free- doms, which are not supposed ever to have culminated in criminality, to the handsome Swedish Count Koningsmark, who was in consequence put to death somehow — probably strangled — and his body l)uried under the floor of the Electoral Princess's dressing- room. The Princess herself was removed at once and for ever from her husband's dwelling, and was thenceforth known as the Duchess of Halle. Allusion to Koningsmark's murder is made in the foUowin": lines — " "We might ha'e weel Icend he wad never do good, He was aye sae fond o' the knuckling o't ; At hame, in Hanover, he kill'd, in cold blood, A pretty young Swede, for the cuckling o't." A more sordid motive is elsewhere assigned IVir his making away with the " pretty young Swede " — " Wae worth the time that I came here, To lay my fangs on Jamie's gear ! For I had better staid at hame. Than now to bide sae muckle blame. But my base, poltroon, sordid mind, To greed o' gear was still inclin'd. Which gart me fell Count Koningsmark For his braw claise and holland sark." HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. 12/ The poverty of the Electoral Coiu-t was a favourite theme — " Wlia the deil ha'e Ave gotten for a king, But a wee, wee German lairdie ? And when we gade to bring him hame. He was delving in his kail-yairdie ; Sheughing kail, and laying leeks, But the hose, and but the breeks ; And lip his beggar duds he cleeks, The wee, wee German lairdie." George had two mistresses — Madame Schuleu- 1 lerg, afterwards created Duchess of Kendal, who was iis thin and scraggy as a May-pole ; and Madame Kielmansegge, Countess of Platen, afterwards created Countess of Darlington, who was as corpulent and ample as the Duchess was long and emaciated. She was dubbed by the Jacobites "the Sow;" hence such songs as " The Sow's Tail to Geordie," of which tlie following is a sufficiently ample specimen : — " It's Geordie he gat up to dance, And wi' the sow to take a prance. And aye she gart her liurdies flaunce, And turii'd her tail to Geordie." " At St. James's Palace," says Macaulay, " on the moining of Sunday, the loth of June 1688, a day long kept sacred by the too faithful adherents of a bad cause, was born the most unfortunate of princes, destined to seventy-seven years of exile and wander- ing, of vain projects, of honours more galling than insults, and of liopes such as make the heart sick." The reference is to tlie Chevalier de St. George — 128 HISTORICAL SO.VGS AND BAU.ADS. James Ylll., as his adherents styled him — the Pre- tender, in tlie nomenclature of the enemies of his house. The term " Pretender " originated thus : — His mother, ]\Iary of Este, was reported to be preg- nant, but by most persons the report was received witli derision as a fraud of the Jesuits, who were naturally anxious to exclude the Princess of Orange from the succession. Mary's calculations proved wrong by a month, and when her hour came she was conveyed in a chair from Whitehall to apartments hastily fitted up in St. James's Palace. To secure purity of succession, the great dignitaries of Church and State are wont to be present at a Royal birth. In this instance, when suspicion was rampant, it was more than usually necessary that unimpeachable witnesses should assist, and that those whose interests were thus unexpectedly imperilled should be at hand either in person or by deputy. But such was the fatuous stolidity of James that these most necessary precautions were neglected, and there were circumstances which made it appear as if he had purposely removed those most interested from the scene. The Princess Anne, who had conceived strong suspicions, and who had resolved to be present, had been advised by her father to go to Bath ; the Dutch Ambassador should have been invited as the repre- sentative of William, the husband of the Princess Mary, but was not ; the Primate Sancroft, whose especial duty it was to attend, had been sent to the Tower a few hours before ; and the Hydes, the uncles HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. 1 29 and natural protectors of the two Princesses, M^ere not sent for, though one of them lived within two hundred yards of St. James's. The principal wit- nesses present of both sexes Avere Papists, and the report spread that a new-horn child had been intro- duced into the royal bed by means of a warming- pan. Nobody now doubts the genuineness of the descent of James, but the perverse folly of his father procured for the son the title of Pretender, instead of which, however, the "Wliigs generally called him " Perkin," to which more particular reference will be made under " "WHiig Songs." James received the worst possible education, in a .sham court, without any of the realities or respon- sibilities of royalty. His talents, besides, were de- fective. He is said, however, to have been kind, good-natiu-ed, and courteous, and had a noble coun- tenance, with a tall, thin person, whence in the Whig songs he is often styled " the slim young man." The poet Gray describes hhn as " a thin, ill-made man, extremely tall and awkward, and has extremely the air and look of an idiot." The two sons impressed bim more favourably. "They are good, fine boys, especially the younger (Henry Duke of York), who lias the more spirit of the two." The elder was Prince Charles Edward, the young Chevalier, avIio proved himself a man of much gi'eater capacity and resolution than his fatlier. But his education had been strangely mismanaged. He had been brought up a Papist, and had not been taught to abjure one of those eiTors 130 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. ■which had proved so fatal to his ancestors. His features, Avhicli those of her present Majesty are said to resemble, evincing tlieir common Stuart origin, were tinged with an expression of melancholy even in the hour of triumph. Dr. Carlyle, who saw the Prince twice after the battle of l*restonpans, as he passed from the Palace to visit his troops, says, " He was a good-looking man, of about five feet ten inches ; his hair was dark red, and his eyes black. His features were regular, his visage long, much sunburnt and freckled, and his countenance thoughtful and melancholy." The splendid summer of his Scottish campaign was followed l^y a dreary winter of sordid, solitary di'unkenness, the result, perhaps, of disaj)- pointed hopes, and absolute exclusion from a blood- stirring career. During his wanderings among the Highlands and Islands, he was oftener familiar with usquebaugh than with nourishing food, and this, with his short, black pipe, frequently had to supply the place of a meal. So much for the two Pretenders. Dr. William King, Principal of St. Mary's Hall, Oxford, is credited with the authorship of the folloM-- ing pithy epigram : — " God ble.-3s the King, God bless the Faith's Defender ; God bless, no harm in blessing, the Pretender : "Who that Pretender is, and who that King, God bless us all, is quite another thing." John, Earl of Mar, who displayed the royal standard at Castletown, in Braemar, on September 6, 171 5, had been Secretary of State during the last years of HISTORICAL SONGS AXD BALLADS. 13! Queen Anne, and had actively promoted the I'niou and the passing of the Act of Succession. He was then, of course, a Whig, but he passed over to tlie Tories. On the accession of George I. he was readv to turn his coat again, but George commanded him to deliver up the seals, and informed him that he had no further use for liis services. ]\Iar, who was am- bitious, and an arch-intriguer, resolved on revenge, and hastened to Scotland to rouse the clans in favour of the Pretender. His time-serving character was well understood. His English footman said of him — " Let my Lord alone ; if he finds it necessary, he can turn cat-in-paw with any man in England." And in " Perkin's Lament " it is said of him — " Mar, robbed of place aiul pension, Eebels through fortune's frown." The first operation of any consequence was the battle of Sheriffmuir, fought on a common about two miles from tlie village of Dunblane., 13th November 1 71 5. The clans were connnanded by Mar, who dis- ])layed no single qualification of a general — not even the vulgar one of personal courage. The royal forces were connnanded by the iJuke of Argyle, Captain- General of the troops in Scotland. Mar out inniil)ere(l Argyle nearly as three, some say as four, Lo one. The left wing of each army was routed, and Hed, so that there was the singular a]ipearance of a cliase going both nortli and soutli. Both sides claim('(l (lie \i(;tory, but as Mar was prevented from moving to the west, and as Argyle retained a position bv \\lii«li he was 132 HISTORICAL SONGS A\D BALLADS. euiiLk'd to (lelV'iuI the Lcndands, the triumph was substantially Argyle's. The double th'j^ht of this confused affray is alluded to in the contemporary ballad — " There's some say that we wan, and some say that they Avail, And some say that naiie wan at a', man ; But one thing I'm sure, tliat at Sherramuir, A battle there was, that I saw, man. And we ran, and thej' ran, and they ran, and we ran, And we ran, and tliey ran, awa', man." Scott notes a curious incident in connection with this battle : — " IMucli noble and gentle blood was mixed with that of the vulgar. A troop of volun- teers, al)out sixty in number, comprehending the Dukes of Douglas and Roxburgh, the Earls of Haddington, Lauderdale, Loudon, Belhaven, and Eothes, fought bravely, though the policy of risking such a troufc dorde might be questionable. At all events, it marked a great change of times, when the Duke of Douglas, whose ancestors could have raised an army as numerous as those of both sides in the field of Sheriffmuir, fought as a private trooper, assisted only liy two or three servants." This troupe dor6e is thus alluded to in the ballad — " Lord Ro.xburg]i was there, in order to share With Doughis, who stood not in awe, man ; Ynhinteerly to ramble with Lord Loudoun Canipljell ; IJrave Ihiy did suffer for a', man. The celebrated Rob Roy, who was a dependent of Argyle's, was present at Sheriffmuir with Mar, in HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. I 33 command of a large body of ]\IacGregors and Mac- Phersons. But he looked coolly on, and took no part in tlie engagement. Not even taunts could induce liini to order his men to charge. Whether this arose from un-odllingness on the part of his men, or from a desire not to disoblige his patron Argyle — or, as the ballad hints, from motives of plunder — it is now impossible to tell. But Eob Eoy was always a diplomatist — " Rob Roy there stood watch on a hill, for to catch The booty, for ought tliat I saw, man ; For he ne'er advanced from the ]>hace he ■was stanced, Till no more was to do there at a', man." " Dialogue between Will Lickladle and Tarn Clean- cogue, twa shepherds wha were feeding their flocks on the Ochil Hills on the day the battle of Sheriff- muir was fought," is sung to the tune of the " Camer- oriians' March," and is merely an expanded state- ment of the incidents mentioned in the foregoing song. The circumstance of the llight, both north and south, is thus alluded to — " Will. Now, how deil, Tarn, can this be true I I saw the cliase gae nortli, man. " Tam. But weed I wat they did pursue Them r-vcii unto Fnilli, man. Frae Dumlilane they ran in my own sight, And got o'er the bridge wi' a' their miglil, And tlioHc at Stirling took tlieir flight ; Gif only ye had been wi' me. You had Heen tliem llee, of each degree, For fear to die wi' sloth, man. 134 n/sroK/cAL songs a.wd ballads. '■ AVii.i,. My si.sler Kate came o'er tlie hill Wi' crowdie unto me, man ; Slie swore she saw theui riuiuiiig still Fnve Forth unto Dundee, man." Will adds at the close of the song — " But Scotland has not much to say For such a fight as this is, AVhere baith did fight, baith ran away," (fee. The miserable se(|iiel of Mar's rebellion is well known. Brigadier Macintosh, having crossed over from Fife to Lothian with 1400 Highlanders, effected a junction with Forster and Kenmiire at Kelso. After much disputation and dissent, the Highlanders agreed to accompany Forster into England, the result of which was tliat the Jacobite forces were blockaded in Preston by Generals Willis and Carpenter, and com- jielled to yield at discretion. Lords Derwentwater and Kenmure were executed; Macintosh and Lord Winton effected their escape from the Tower ; and the libera- tion from prison of Lord Nithsdale by the romantic and affectionate ingenuity of his Countess is one of the most touching incidents in history. On the other hand, Mar having fallen back on Perth from Sheriffmuir, was daily experiencing a defection from his ranks, as well of men of rank as of the clansmen. Meanwhile the Chevalier, having landed at Peter- head, proceeded to Perth, which he found was likely to be abandoned. His manifest dejection dispirited his followers, and Argyle having arrived within eight miles of Perth, a retreat was determined on. When HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. I 35 the clans reached Montrose, the Chevalier, "with Mar, Lord Driinimond, and a few others, stealthily em- barked in a vessel prepared for their reception and sailed for France. The entu-e proceedings of the insurrection were a MTetched fiasco. Of a totally different complexion was the rebellion of 1745 — as different as was tlie dejected, spiritless Chevalier de St. George from his adventurous and high-spirited son. It liad brilliant gleams of success, and though it resulted disastrously, the actors in it could regard its operations and their share in them with no unpardonable pride. The three most im- portant incidents in it were the battles of Prestonpans, Falkirk Moor, and Culloden or Drummossie Moor. X\\ animated narrative of these battles will be found in " The Tales of a Grandfather." The pusillanimity or defective judgment of Sir John Cope, the com- mander of the royal forces in Scotland, liaving left the passage to the Lowlands open, Prince Charles Fdward marched southward, and got possession of I'^linburgh. Cope, anxious to repair the effects of his blunder, embarked his troops at Aberdeen and landed at Dunbar. The Prince liastened to fdve liiiii battle, and history does not record a more ignominious defeat than that of Cope at Gladsmuir or Prestonpans. There is no song more popular in Scotland tlian " Johnnie Cope," witli its burden — " Hey, Johnnie Cope, are ye wuuking yet \ Or are ye .sleeping I would wil / hiwte ye, get up, for the drums do beat, fie, Cope, rise in tlie morning." 136 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. There are two sets of the song. The refrain of the second set is slightly different from the above — " Hey, Johnnie Cope, are ye uauking yet ? Or are your drums a-beating yet ? If ye Avere -wauking I would wait, To gang to the coals in the morning." From the second set we quote — " Cope sent a challenge frae Dunbar : ' Charlie, meet me an' you daur, And I'll learn vou the art of Avar, If you'll meet me i' the morning.' " When Charlie looked the letter upon, He drew his sword the scabbard from : ' Come follow me, my merry, merry men. And we'll meet Johnnie Cope i' the morning.' " Sir John having reached Berwick with the greater portion of his discomfited dragoons in a most dis- orderly and disreputable condition, he was taken smartly to task by Lord Mark Kerr, of the Lothian family, " A house," says Scott, " which has long had hereditary fame for wit as well as courage." We quote from the first set — " Says Lord Mark Car, ' Ye are na blate To bring us the news o' your ain defeat ; I think you deserve the back o' the gate : Get out o' my sight this morning.' " This account of the affair, however, does Sir John scant justice. In the course of his flight he made some effort among the stragglers he overtook to regulate the retreat. But Brigadier Fowlks and Colonel Lasselles reached Berwick without once HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. I 3/ having looked behind them, and it was to them that Lord Mark Kerr remarked— " Good God! I have seen some battles, heard of many, but never of the first news of defeat being brought by the general officers before." See letters from Dr. AVaugh, 2d October 1745, referred to by Mr. Burton, vol. viii. p. 457, of " History of Scotland." Another metrical effusion, " The Battle of Preston- pans," is the production of Mr. Skirving, a Lothian farmer, father of the eccentric Mr. Skirvmg, a painter of some note, one of his productions being the well- known portrait of Burns. We subjoin the following lines for the sake of the anecdote connected with them — "Lieutenant Smith, of Irish l)ii'th, Frae whom he [Major Bowie] called for aid, man, Being full of dread, lap o'er his head, And wadna be gainsaid, man. " He made sic haste, sae spurred his beast, 'Twas little there he saw, man ; To Berwick rade, and falsely said The Scots were rebels a', man. But let that end, for weel 'tis kend His use and wont's to lie, man ; The Teague is naught ; he never fanght When he had room to flee, man." Througliout the wh(jlc song tliere is the same caustic spirit displayed. Smith, to wipe off the stain of the lampoon, sent a challenge to Skirving from Had- dington. "Gang awa' ])ack," said Skir\iiig ti) the messenger, " and tell Mr. Sniitli that 1 liavena time to come to Haddington ; but tell him to come here, 138 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. and I'll tak u look o' liim, an' if I think I'm fit to fecht liim, I'll fecht him ; and if no, I'll do as he did —I'll rin awa'." The brave and })ioiis Colonel Gardiner was cut down by a Highlander armed with a scythe fixed on a pole, close by his own park wall. The day before the battle he invited young Carlyle to dine with him. Carlyle writes — " He looked pale and dejected." Speaking of the soldiers of his regiment, he said — " I'll tell you in confidence that I have not above ten men in my regiment whom I am certain will follow me." And so the event proved. The course of events from Prestonpans to Falkirk may be briefly stated thus : — Charles having resolved, in spite of urgent advice to the contrary, to march into England, soon arrived in Carlisle, and took both the town and castle, in which he left a garrison. He proceeded through Lancashire, expecting a rising in his favour, but only about two hundred of the lowest populace of Manchester joined his standard. Having reached Derby, Lord George Murray, much to the chagrin of Charles, counselled a retreat into Scotland, which was carried into effect in good order. Being joined by reinforcements from Perth, Charles at- tempted to reduce the Castle of Stirling, his troops now numbering about nine thousand. Meanwhile the royal troops under General Hawley had reached Falkirk, and it was resolved to give them battle. Hawley, who was reputed a natural son of George II., had conceived a supreme contempt for the HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. 1 39 Higliland soldiery, and when liis troops were before the enemy was wasting his time at Callander House with the Countess of Kilmarnock, who was evidently using her blandishments to make him neglect hi.s duty. Wlien summoned by a messenger to the field, he was in such confusion that he set off without his hat. The forces on each side were about equal, but victory remained with the Highlanders, and Hawdey retreated to Edinburgh, with his troops thoroughly demoralised. His base birth is alluded to in the following stanza, and twice in the same song his amorous propensities are made the subject of a jeer. The title of the song is " The Battle of Falkirk .Aloor." " Up and rill awa, Hawley, Up and rin awa, Hawley ; The philaUefjs are coming down To gie your Uigs a claw, Ilawley. Young Cbarlie\s face, at Dunipace, Has gi'en your mou' a thraw, Hawley ; A blasting .sight for Lastard wight, The war.st that e'er he saw, Iluwley." This battle was fouglit on the 17th January 1746. The rebellion was extinguished at Culloden by tlie Duke of Cumberland, i6th Ajjril 1746, and the hopes of the adventurous young Chevalier for ever fpienclied. Tlie atrocities that followed the victory jirocured for the Royal Duke the well-earned epitliet of the " Butcher Cumberland." These atrocities are too well known to all patriotic Scotclninii to ixMiuire recapitulation. A tlirill of indignation shot tlnouLih 140 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. the veins of lueu of all parties. "Witness " The Tears of Scotland," by Dr. Smollett, who was not a Jacoljite. The last stanza is full of generous indignation — " Whilst tlio warm lilood hodews my veins, And luiiiupaired remembrance reigns, Resentment of my conntry's fate "Within my filial licart shall beat ; And, spite of her insulting foe, My sympathising verse shall flow. Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mourn. Thy banished peace, thy laurels torn ! " There are numerous accounts of the sufferings, wanderings, hairbreadth escapes, and final getting off of Charles after the defeat of Culloden ; and the fidelity of the many poor men who imperilled their lives to protect his, disdaining to be bribed by thirty thousand pounds set on his head, has been the theme of universal praise. The well-known " Wae's me for Prince Charlie" is a comparatively modern pro- duction — " A wee bird cam' to our ha' door. He warbled sweet and clearly, And aye the o'ercome o' his sang Was 'Wae's me for Prince Charlie ! ' " § 2. WHIG SONGS. Our illustrations of the Jacobite struggles, and of the sentiments from which they arose, and which were strengthened by them, from contemporary Jacobite song, would be defective if not supplemented by illustrations from the lyrical literature of their adver- HISTORICAL SO.VGS AXD BALLADS. \\\ saries. Dr. J. Clark Murray says — " It is not sur- prising that there should have been few songs, and these few of small poetical merit, on the side of the "Wliigs." This can refer only to the AAliig songs con- tained in the first series of the " Jacobite Eelics," and of these Hoctw savs — " There is not one that I can trace to be of Scottish original." They possess no great merit, but are valuable as indicating English, especi- ally London, feeling on a struggle that might have ended disastrously for the Hanoverian djmasty and the AVhig party. They lack the enthusiasm and defiant spirit of the Jacobite songs, ajid are mainly sarcastic, often mere parodies of popular ditties, and tlie composition of men too prosaic to stake life and fortune for an idea. Of the "Whig songs appended to the second series of tlie " Eelics," Hogg says — " They are altogether ratlier respectable, and some of the true Scottish ones very good." For the best of them Hogg was indebted to ]\Ir. David Laing. ISTeither are "WHiig songs so scant in number as Dr. Murray imagines, and as they are less known tlian their Jaco- 1 lite brethren, we .shall give copious extracts. In reference to James's losing three kiujijdoms for liis obstinate attachment to the Eoman Catholic faitli, in wluch obstinacy he was encouraged by his wife and liis confessor, tlie " Song on the Thirteenth of January 1696" say.s — " Tlie furious Jaiue.s usurped iho tlirone, To pull reli;,'ioii down, O ; IJut by lii.i wife and i»nest undone, He rj[uickly lost his crowu 0. 14- HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. To France the wanilcriiig iiioiiurch Irudgeil 111 hopes relief to find, O ; Wliicli lie is like to have from thence, Even when the devil's blind, O." One of the many fatal blunders of the Stuarts, fioiii James I. down to Prince Charles Edward, was their Mind belief in the doctrines of the divine right of kings, and the duty of passive obedience in their subjects. In the " Tories' Lamentation " occur these lines — " Keep out, keep out Hanover's line, 'Tis only James has right divine, As High Church parsons cant and whine." And again, in " The Truth at Last," the pulpit- physician is represented as saying — "Now I do affirm t'ye, these men do design To unking the Queen and keep out the right line, Damn passive obedience and our right divine, "Which nobody can deny." Queen Anne was believed by the Jacobites to have had the intention of establishing her brother on the throne, and before her death the friends of James talked openly of his succession, and drank his health (they were adepts in drinking) publicly as James the Third. It was believed that he had twice had a private interview with his sister before her last ill- ness, having come over in the retinue of the Duke d'Aumont, who had also been closeted with Anne. The Duke was an especial bugbear to the Whigs — HISTORICAL SOXGS AND BALLADS. 1 43 " Attend and prepare for a cargo from Dover ; Wine, silk, turnips, onions, with the peace are come over, Which Duke d'A;imont has brouglit to make room for a rover, Which nobody can deny. "O Lewis ! at last thou hast pLiyed the best card ; Lay heroes aside, and tricksters reward ; Thou hast got by D'Aumont wliat tliou lost by Tallanl, Which nobody can deny." He seems to have been of luxurious habits. How- ever, the claret may have been mentioned merely because it was the national beverage of Frenchmen. The reference is in the " Earee Show " — " Here be de Due d'Aumont's whole cellar of claret, Burnt by de plot laid as high as de garret." The Tories had their October and their March Clubs, in which they pledged each other, and drank success to their schemes in mighty ale of the brew- ings of these two favourite months. The Wliigs got up rival clubs, in which beer of a different quality was drunk, but their success was at the best equi- vocal. In " Hey, Boys, up go we," the Tories are represented as singing — "We'll broach our tubs and ])rinciples Of October passive growtli. And till our tubs and bottles fail, We'll stand and fall by both." The close of a parody of " The First Psalm " is as follows — *' So shall not tlie Pretender's crew ; They shall be nothing so, 144 HISTORICAL SONGS A.\D BALLADS. But as the dust uliicli from the earth The wiuil drives to and fro. '* Therefore shall not the Jacobites In jiulgiuent stand upright, Nor Papishes ^vith Protestants Come into jdace and sight. " For why ? The friends of Hanover At Westminster are known ; And eke the shenies at Bar-le-Duc Sliall (juite be overthrown." The Chevalier de St. George, when obliged to leave France, was permitted to take up his residence in the territories of the Duke of Lorraine, who had the temerity to disregard an application from the British Government to extrude him from his dominions. Hence the reference to Bar-le-Duc, formerly the capital of the Duchy of Bar, in Lorraine. This ex- plams also the following stanza — " Here's a health to the King, sound the trumpet and the drum, And let Perkiu with all his renegades come ; Let the Devil and the Pope advance in his train, "We'll soon send him back to sup in Lorraine. " On the actual breaking out of the rebellion in 1715, the Whigs, though greatly alarmed, pretended to be only surprised, and reiterated their stale charge of spuriousness of blood against the Chevalier de St. George — " Sure England's now grown mad, sir, And Scotland with frenzy possesst, Thus to strive against the stream, And, deluded by a dream, To endeavour mighty George to molest. HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. 1 45 A bastard for king they set up, sir, Forsooth, by hereditary right ; Though, when all is said and done, He's but a tailor's son. And will gain but a halter by 't." Overlooking the fact that Mar had been deprived of office by George I. immediately on his arrival, and told that his services were no longer required, the \Vliig song-WTiters exactly reverse the situation, and represent him as a Judas who forsook his master, in Aaolation of oaths and the sacrament. They also allude to his personal deformity, for, like Eichard III., he was as crooked in his person as he was tortuous in his policy — " This crooked disciple pretends he will bring A Popish Pretender whom he calls a king, For which both himself and his master may swing, Which nobody can deny." Allusion has already been made to the proneness of the Wliig muse to parody. One of the best of these is " Perkin's Lament," based on a well-known ballad in Gay's play of " What d'ye call it ? " The irrepressible warming-pan is of course there in all its glory— " 'Twas when the seas were roaring With blasts of northern wind, Poor Perkin lay deploring, On warming-pan reclined \ Wide o'er the foaming billows He cast a dismal look, And shivered like tlie willows, That tremble o'er the brook." The "Ablution" is a humorous adaptation of the K 146 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. story of Acliilles's being dipped in the Styx to render him invuhieraLle ; but the liquor having missed the heel by which he was held during ablution, he received his death- wound in that part of his body. Jemmy, that he might proceed to war in safety, requested His Holiness to dip him in holy water. The Father, having made him strip, fastened a gold collar about his neck, to which a rope having been attached, the ablution was performed, three plunges having been given him. Jemmy went to Scotland, and was in Perth with Mar when Argyle was press- ing forward to that city. Both were in high glee because of James's supposed invulnerability — " But one cloudy day, as Mar chanced to stray With his monarch a space from the rest, Of a sudden he cried, ' An ill omen I've spied, That foretells we shall sore be distressed. " ' Eound your royal neck quite there's a mark very white, Wliich I fear from the water was kept. Achilles just so, though 'twas further below, Was in danger of death ' — then they wept." The white mark round the neck was ominous of hanging or decapitation. This discovery of Mar's quite altered the complexion of affairs, and completely damped the courage of the Chevalier, the sequel being the pusillanimous embarkation at Montrose. The " Earee show," in the Somersetshire dialect, is con- ceived in atrociously bad taste. It lampoons St. John, the Duke of Ormond, Mar, Nithsdale, Derwent- water, and the Pretender himself, of whom, in refer- ence to his supposed deficiency of courage, it says — HISTORICAL SONGS AXD BALLADS. 1 47 " Zee how he does zit wid vinger in eye, And would Tor a kingdom not vite, zur, but cry." " The Eight and True History of Perkin " is a long satirical poem, of considerable smartness. It gives the history of Perkin, from the warming-pan to the flight from Montrose, including the negotiations of D'Aumont with Anne for the succession of her brother,' the campaign of ]\Iar in Scotland, of Brigadier Macintosh and Forster in England, and the march of the prisoners taken at Preston to London, to the tune. of "Traitors aU a-row." Like the most of the \Yhig songs, it is a very heartless production. It contains a reference to the elevation of Mar to a dukedom — " He told 'em they migiit all for mighty honours look, For he that was before a lord was now become a duke." At the commencement of the insurrection of 1 7 1 5 Mar felt some embarrassment from the want of a formal confirmation of his authority as generalissimo. This, " given at our court of Bar-le-Duc, the 7th day of September 171 5, and in the fourteenth year of our reign," was brought over by Ogilvie of Boyne, and he was said to have in addition T)rouglit with liini a patent raising Mar to a dukedom. Argyle comes in for his meed of praise as a resolute and vigilant commander — " At the battle of Dumlilane, Where ye knf>w it was true Tliat Mar liad many men, And tlifc Duke had very few ; 148 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. But the cause it was gootl, And I tell you true, Heaven fought for Argyle to a wonder." His advance from Stirling towards Scone, which caused " each mother's bairn to scamper to Montrose," and Mar and the Chevalier "with panic fear" to embark for France, is also the subject of eulogium. The pusillanimous flight from Montrose is injmiously commented on in " l*erkin's Last Adventure ; or, A Trip through the Back-Door." The remaining Whig songs have much greater interest, as deaUng with the more spirit-stirring incidents of the insurrection of 1745, headed by the Young Chevalier. In " 0, Brother Sandie, hear ye the News ? " his intended descent on Scotland is announced — " The Pope sends us over a bonnie young lad, Who, to court British favour, wears a Highland plaid." The incident of the Young Pretender landing at Kinloch-Moidart, 25 th July 1745, attended by a retinue of seven persons, is thus alluded to in " Few Good Fellows when Willie's awa'." Willie is the " Butcher Cumberland," in comparison with whom the other generals engaged to suppress the rebellion — Cope, Wade, and Hawley — are but as the small dust in the balance — " Then landing in Moidart, a favourite den, By seven attended, no Greeks ye may ken ; He nibbled at Britain as did his papa. But weel kend the mouse that the cat was awa'." HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. I49 Cope's ignominious discomfiture at Prestonpans is got over as deftly as may be — " But Cope's schemes, both here and at Preston decline, By marching the circle and not the straight line ; The best were fatigued, and the rest -were but raw ; Great Gard'ner fell bravely while Will was awa'." The same song admits that even Hawley's renown had its flaws at Fallvirk, while in "The Battle of Palkirk" his misconduct is more chcumstantially, though still apologetically, described — " Five platoons we gave in their face, Which beat the bravest out of his place ; If Hawley had rallied and come to his stance, We had beat our foes to death and to France." Notliing coidd be more naive than the excuse made for the retreat of the Koyalist forces to Edinburgh. It was a piece of necessary and far-sighted policy — " To Edinburgh, then, we posted in haste, For fear that the rebels had gone to the east : And we in Falkirk, if they had gone there. We had been ashamed for evermair." It is not surprising that the Whig muse is compara- tively silent aljout Culloden. The horrors and atro- cities of that day were a disgrace not only to soldier- ship, ])ut to humanity. The poltroons who lied, without striking a blow, from the field of Prestonpans, with all the malignity of base and little souls, avenged their own disgrace and innominious terroi's 011 tlic wounded and dying on 1 )i uimiiossie Moor, on lidplcss women and clnhheii, on old nu'ii, wlio, bkc Triam, could no longer bear tlie weiglit of their armour. The 150 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. proceedings of that day tarnished the name and fair fame of English sokliery, who comported themselves with the savagery of a Tartar horde. The few refer- ences to it are intentionally colourless — " As great Nassau the Boyne, brave Cumberland's sword Has dinted Culloden in deathless record." A false and ungenerous lling is made at Charles on the score of personal timidity. The fact is he was rash to foolhardiness : — " Charlie may mourn Culloden Muir, Where a' his stoutest friends did fa', An' he stood safely in the rear, Amang the first to rin awa'." After hinting that Culloden had- converted many Tories to Wliig principles — though, after all, they were not honest Wliigs — the singer proceeds — " But softly, Sir Perkin, a word in your ear, Remember Culloden field, tremble and fear." Culloden is handled very daintily : the matter would not bear near inspection. The Chevalier is several times advised to turn priest, like his brother Henry Benedict, and get himself elevated to the Cardi- nalate — " For dancing you were never made, Bonnie laddie. Highland laddie ; Then while 'tis time leave off the trade, Bonnie laddie. Highland laddie. Be thankful for your last escape, Bonnie laddie. Highland laddie ; An', like your brother, take a cap, Bonnie laddie, Highland laddie." HISTORICAL SOXGS AND BALLADS. I5I ACTaiu — o "But you think that your brother may try us upon it, A cardinal's cap looks as fine as a bonnet." The popularity of the Duke of Cumberland with the "\\'liigs after Culloden is aLnost incredible, for he was not a man to be loved. Macaulay says, " His nature was hard; and what seemed to him justice was rarely tempered with mercy." A\Qiether he ordered the atrocities that followed Culloden, or merely permitted them, he is equally inexcusable, though an excuse has been attempted. It is said that Lord George Murray, the chief of Charles's staff, issued an order on the morning of the battle to give no quarter to the Eoyal forces. The Jacobites deny that the Chevalier either sanctioned or knew of this order, though it seems to be established that such a general order was given. Be that as it may, the severities practised by the Hanoverian forces can in no wise be justified. Cumberland, like all his family, was constitutionally intrepid, but his temper was naturally severe. He distinguished himself at Dettingen and Fontenoy ; but he lost all the battles he fouglit except Culloden, and his single victory loaded him with more disgrace than all his defeats. In " Fame, let thy trumpet sound," the following prayer is offered up for the Duke — " grant that Cumberland May, l;y God's mighty hand, iluke our toes fall. 152 HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. From foreign slavery, Priests and their knaver}', And roi)ish revery, God save iis all. Of a more lively strain is the following — " Our Willie is a warlike prince, The bravest hero e'er ye saw ; In martial fields he nobly dares, And justly bears the gree awa. His coat is of the scarlet red. An' O but Willie he looks braw ; An' at his side he wears a sword, An' briskly wields it best of a'." Further on it is said — " He freed us from a foreign yoke. An' rebel clans has chased awa ; Where Charlie thought to wLn a crown He's gi'en him a cauld coal to blaw." Here again the non-inventiveness and want of ori- ginality of the Wliig Muse are apparent. The song quoted from is built on the lines of " Willie was a wanton wag," as the following one is on those of another equally lively and popular ditty — " Now tune your pipe, and dance your fdl, Wi' mirth and meikle glee, laddie, For Cumberland is now come down Frae Rome to set us free, laddie. Up an' waur them a', Willie, Up an' waur them a', Willie, Thou'st (lone thy best to come in haste, To save us ane an' a', Willie." In the case of the Stuarts, it would almost seem HISTORICAL SONGS AND BALLADS. 1 53 as if Providence had been directly opposed to them. " Tlie stars in their courses fought against Sisera." Everything they projected failed, and, in addition to their own unwisdom and cliildish obstinacy, their advisers were, for the most part, plotters and not statesmen. ( 154 ) CHAPTER lY. BORDER SONGS AND BALLADS. Scott was just in time to save his valuable collection of the " Border Minstrelsy." Wlien he set out on his raid over hill and dale after old songs and ballads, he went in the spirit of the enterprising mosstroopers, about whom he thought and wrote so much, deter- mined not to turn his face homeward without some spoil. Wliether living hard with drunken writers or jolly stock-farmers, he never forgot his ol)ject ; and though his collection is of unequal value, and he was sometimes imposed on, carrying off as an antique what was a modern production, the publishing and editing of the " Minstrelsy of the Border " was not the least of the many services he rendered to his beloved " Caledonia, stern and wild." He was a true .Borderer in spirit, and had he lived at an earlier day, would have lifted stock with as much energy and as little compunction as old Wat of Harden himself. William of Deloraine of the " Lay of the Last Min- strel," the riever of Westburnflat of the " Black Dwarf," and Christie of the Clinthill and his ruffianly chief, Julian Avenel, of " The Monastery," are de- BORDER SONGS AND BALLADS. I 55 picted not only with inimitable truth and spuit, but with a certain sympathy with those wdio could back a horse, wield a lance, and take and hold by the strong hand what they needed. " Chevy Chase," abeady reviewed, is strictly a Border ballad. The incident it commemorates re- sulted naturally from the condition of the Border community — a condition which arose gradually but inevitably out of the geogi^aphical position of the district. During the "War of Independence, when the Governments of the two kingdoms were engaged in internecine strife, the Borderland was the theatre of continual trouble, and by conquest of territory from weaker neighbours powerful families grew up — such as the Douglasses — rivalling in magnificence and resources the Koyal House. To these, in course of time, was naturally confided the defence of the several marches, and they formed alliances with other great families to obtain then" assistance and that of their followers in times of difficulty. Some of these families possessed lands wrested from England, and having acquh-ed them by the sword, Ijy which they fcjuiid themselves able to retain them, they thought little of securing a feudal right to them by charter. Tliis is exemplified in the " Song of the Outlaw Murray," wliich has probably no historical basis, but tliere could be no l^etter illustration of local feeling. A king, said indifferently to have been James II., James III., and James IV., summons James Boyd, Earl of Arran, represented as his brotlier-in-law, to 156 BORDER SONGS AND BALLADS. l)roceed to Ettrick Forest, held without title from the crown l)y the outlaw Murray, and ask him to come to Edinburgh under promise of safe warrant. Tlie King addressed the Earl in the following terms — " ' Wellcome, James Boyd,' said the noble King, ' A message ye maim gae for me ; Ye maun hie to fair Ettrick Forrest, To yon outlaw where dwelleth he. Ask him of whom he holds his lands. Or man wlia may his master be ; Desire him to come, and be my man. And hold yon fair forrest of me.' " Boyd proceeds on his mission, and finds the out- law hunting in the forest with five hundred men clad in Lincoln green. Having explained the object of his visit — " ' Thir lands is mine ! ' the outlaw said, ' And I ken no king in Christantie ; Frae Soudron I this forrest wan, When the king and his men was not to see.' " '& This feeling of might constituting right was not confined to the great teiTitorial proprietors, but descended to the lowest stratum of society ; and the freebooter, owning nothing but his horse and lance, his jack and steel-cap, thought himself justified in " conveying " to himself, if he could, whatever he set his heart on. The principal objects of plunder were horses and cattle, and the chiefs of clans had gener- ally places of security to which they could drive their booty, and retain it till necessity should send them out on a new raid. Females of the highest BORDER SONGS AND BALLADS. 1 5/ rank regarded this marauding in the most complacent spirit. When her larder was exhausted, the Flower of Yarrow, wife of Walter Scott of Harden, placed before her six stalwart sons covered dishes containing only clean spurs, a hint to them to procure in the usual way a further supply of provisions. A rhym- ing prayer, chanted by the Borderers when they were setting out to harry some unfortunate owner of cattle, is extremely naive. There is nothing like what is known as conscience in Border morality — " He that ordained us to be born, Send us niair meat for the morn : Come by right, or come by wrang, Christ, let us never fast owre lang, But blythely spend what's gaily got — Ride, Rowland, hough's i' the pot." Persons holding sentiments like these were very troublesome neighbours, as those who liad anything to lose found to their cost. In the humorous " Com- playnt " of Sir Eichard Maitland of Lethington " against the Theivis of Liddisdail " it is stated — " Of Liddisdail the common thiefis Sa peartlie stellis now and riefis, That nane may kelp Horse, nult, nor scheip, Nor yett dar sleip For tlieir mischiefis." These were a lower order of marauders than the ordinary mosstrooper, if wliat follows is truth and not mere exaggerated satire — " They sp>iilye puir men of their paki.s, Thay leif them nocht on bed nur hakis ; 158 BORDER SONGS AND BALLADS. Baitli lien mul cok With reil ami rok, The Lainlis Jok All with him takis. " Thay lief not spindell, spoone, nor speit ; Bed, bolster, blanket, sark, nor scheit ; Johne of the Parke Kyps kist and ark ; For all sic wark He is richt meit." John of the Syde, of whom we shall hear further, Clement's Hob, Will of the Lawis, and Hab of the Schawls, for " ilk ane 0' them has ane to-name," are also mentioned in terms equally complimentary. A state of morality like this, permeating all ranks of the community, is not only dangerous to indi- viduals, but disgraceful to the Government which permits it to exist. About 1529 matters had come to such a crisis on the Borders that James V., the " King of the Commons," whose energetic suppression and punishment of violators of the law made his people say of him that he made " the rush-bush keep the cow," paid a flying visit to the Borders with an army of eight thousand men, under the pretext of hunting, but in reality to suppress turbulence and to punish misdoers. The principal culprit was Johnie Armstrong of Gilnockie, the brother of the chief of the Armstrongs, who inhabited the " debatable land," belonging strictly to neither kingdom. At the head of a formida])le band of maurauders Johnie levied black-mail over an extensive district, and his name was a terror as far as Newcastle. Though policy BORDER SONGS AND BALLADS. 1 59 made him attach himself to Scotland, that the richer territory and populace of England might yield him tribute, he regarded himself rather as the ally than the subject of the Scottish King. "VVlien James arrived in Armstrong's neighbourhood, he was met in the most amicable and confiding spirit by the free- booter at the head of twenty-four well-mounted gentlemen, richly apparelled — a sight which so irritated the King that, ordering " the tyrant," as old Pitscottie calls him, to be taken out of his sight, he exclaimed, " '\Vhat wants that knave, that a king should have ? " and ordered him and liis followers to instant execution. Armstrong, after making in vain many great offers to the King, said very proudly, " I am but ane fool to seek grace at a graceless face ; but had I known, sir, that ye would have taken my life this day, I should have lived upon the Borders in spite of King Harry and you both ; for I know King Harry would downweigh my best horse with gold to know that I was condemned to die this day." Accordingly Johnie and his followers were hanged on trees at Carlinrigg Chapel. The trees are said to have all withered away, in token of the unjust execu- tions of wliich they had been made the instruments. Mr. Burton says, "The chronicles and the ballad literature of Scotland treat the affair with tlie sad- ness pertaining to the fall of power — to its fall by unworthy means." The copy of tlio ])allud of " Joliiiie Armstrang" given in the " Border Minstrelsy," and wliich is l60 BORDER SONGS AND BALLADS. given also by Aytoun M'ith a sliglitly modernised orthography, is taken from llamsay's " Evergreen." An inferior version was published by Eitson in his " English Songs," vol. ii. One account makes it that the Armstrongs were decoyed into James's presence by a friendly letter under the King's own hand. Tlie ballad sanctions this statement — " The King has written a loving letter, With his ain hand sae tenderlie ; And he has sent it to Johnie Armstrang, To come and speak witli him speedilie." This is probably, however, only a vulgar error, the vulgar being prone to believe that when a popidar hero has come to grief at the hand of superior power there has been entrapping of one kind or other. The bravery of Johnie's appearance is thus described in the ballad; and it is to be remembered that such characters, like the modern brigands of Italy, delighted more in personal finery for themselves, but especially for their females, than in handsome furniture and delicate arrangements for eating or sleeping — " Johnie wore a girdle about his middle, Embroidered o'er wi' burning gold, Bespangled with the same metal, Maist beautiful was to behold. " There hung nine targats at Johnie's hat, And ilk aue worth three hundred pund." Among the many fair offers made by Johnie to His Majesty, if he would only grant him his life, were the following — BORDER SONGS AND BALLADS. l6l " Full four-and-twenty milk-white steeds, Were a' foaled iu a year to me," with as much English gold as foui' of their broad backs could bear ; " Gade four-and-twenty ganging mills, That gang through a' the year to me," with as much good red wheat as theii" hoppers could bear ; to which were to be added four-aud-twenty bold sisters' sons to fight for him to the death, and to make aU the country as far as Newcastle tributary to liim. One of the offers, as given by Pitscottie, is singular — " Secondly, that there was not ane subject in England — duke, earl, lord, or baron — but within ane certain day he should bring any of them to His Majesty, either quick or dead." The popular view of Jolmie's death closes the ballad — " Jolmie murdered was at Carlinrigg, And all his gallant companie ; But Scotland's heart was ne'er sae wae, To st-e sae mony brave men die — Because they saved their countrie dear Frae Englishmen ! none were sae bauld, "While Jolmie lived on the Burder-side, None of them durst come near his liauld." It was during tliis memorable expedition also that James had Adam Scott of Tushielaw and Cockbui-n of Ilenderland executed — the latter Ijciug hanged over the gate of his own tower. It has generally been supposed that the touching ballad of "The Border Widow's Lament " refers to tlie latter event. Motherwell first (questioned tlie correctness of this L 1 62 BORDER SONGS AND BALLADS. liypothesis, and Aylromising to pay him for his lodgings the next time he met him on the Border siile — "Then ehoulder high, wi' shout and cry, We bore him down the ladder lung, 176 BORDER SONGS AXD BALLADS. At every stiidc Red Eowan made I wot the Kimuont's aims played clang ! " ' mony a time,' (juo' Kiniuoiit Willie, ' I've ridden a horse baith wild and wud, But a rougher beast than Red Rowan I weeu my legs have ne'er bestrode ! " ' And mony a time,' quo' Kinmont Willie, ' I've pricked a horse out ower the furs ; But siu' the day I backed a steed I never wore sic cumbrous spurs ! ' " They make good their retreat to the Eden, flowiiij^' " frae bank to brim," which they swim just as Lord Scroope came up with a thousand men, horse and foot, at whom Buccleuch flung his glove, and asked him to visit him in Scotland if he disliked his visit to merry England. Elizabeth was greatly offended at this exploit, and insisted that the perpetrator of it should be put into her hands. After some negotia- tion, Buccleuch Avent voluntarily to England, where he was treated with honour and soon dismissed. In the ballads illustrated, Scotland and Scotsmen generally come off victorious. But all the Border ballads are not of this strain ; for example, the humorous " Dick o' the Cow," and the savage " Fray of Suport." The Border life was one of great excitement. People inured to rapine and violence do not readdy settle down into peaceful and law-abiding ways. The radical cure is extirpation. Buccleuch led to Holland a legion formed of the most desperate of tlie Border rievers, and the Graemes of the debatable BORDER SONGS AND BALLADS. l"/"/ laud were transported to Ireland. Of Buccleucb's legion few ever saw theii- native laud .again ; and the Graemes were prohibited to return under the pain of death. But the hardy, daring, and enterprising spirit of the old marauders has not died out among their descendants. Instead of lifting their neigh- hours' cattle, they are now sedulously raising stock for themselves; instead of enriching themselves by sword and spear, thousands of looms are bringing wealth to the district. The old wild spirit still breaks out at fairs and trysts, and Dandie Dinmont and Jock o' Dawston Cleugh retm-n from Staneshaw- V)ank or other gathering, where tliey still combine business and conviviality with broken heads and bruised bones, come by in a dispute about their respective marches, or something less intelligible. The character wears weU. It is the old self-assertive, ruii-and-rive one, sweetened and toned down to modern tastes. .M ( 178 ) CHArTEE V. SOCIAL SONGS AND BALLADS. § I. LOVE AND COUllTSIIIP. The name of the love-songs of Scotland is legion. They date from a remote period, and their number is being constantly added to, for the humbler classes of Scotchmen, especially in rural districts, are so satu- rated with the spirit of their country's Muse, that they hasten to chronicle in verse any access of passion, pleasing or the reverse, and thus live their bliss over again, or lull the demon of disappointment to rest. The great master of Scottish song in this department is Burns, whether he describes the over- mastering passion of two humble lovers who are to each other all and all, -whom no thought of world's gear ever fashes, and whose passion, warm as tropic suns, is pure as the virgin snow on the mountain-top, or the more questionable intercourse of a couple of warm-blooded rompers, enamoured of moonlight walks "amang the rigs o' barley." Exquisitely tender and passionate examples of the former class may be found in " My Nannie, 0," and in " Mary Morison ; " while of the latter class there is absolutely SOCIAL SONGS AND BALLADS. 1 79 no end. "\Miat courtier ever described with greater grace and delicacy the titled beauty whom he sought to win, than does this country lad, this simple ploughman, the maiden of low degree whose daily task it was to do the roughest of country work ? " Her face is fair, her heart is true, As spotless as she's bonnie, ; Tlie opening go wan, wat wi' dew, Nae purer is than Nannie, 0." In " Mary Morison " he ^viites — " How blithely wad I bide the stoure, A weary slave frae sun to sun, Could I the rich reward secure, The lovely Mary Morison." The same self-denying feeling finds expression in "The Bonnie Lass o' Ballochmyle," inspired by a lady of high birth, whom he had encountered in her brother's woods on the banks of the now classic Ayr— " Oh ! had .she been a country maid, And I tlie happy country swain, Though sheltered in the lowest shed That ever rose on Scotland's plain, TiiTough weary winter's wind and rain, With joy, with rapture, I would toil; And nightly to uiy bosom strain The bonny la.ss o' Ballochmyle." To return to "^lary Morison," according to Ilazlitt, one of those songs " which take the deepest and most lasting hold of the mind " — " Yestreen, when to the trembling string The dance gaed through the lighted lui', I So SOCIAL SONGS AND BALLADS. To tluH' my fancy took it>; wing — I sat, Imt iieitlicr heard nor saw ; Tliough tliis Avas fair, and that was braw, And yon the toast of a' tlie town, I sighed, and said aniaiig tliem a', ' Ye are na Mary Morisoii.'" The song concludes witli two lines of peculiar delicacy. Adjuring Mary to accord him pity if slie cannot accord him lo\'e, he says — " A tliought ungentle canna Ije The thought o' Mary M orison." This shows the native chivalry of Burns ; it shoM's also tlie original purity of his soul, ere he M'as corrupted by intercourse with the world, and before the fame of his genius, and his bewitching social qualities, had made him be sought out by all sorts and conditions of men. The two songs referred to were written at Lochlea, when he was not much above twenty. Though outside of our plan to notice the songs of Burns, it would be indefensil)le to pass over entirely the love-songs of the greatest master in that line, ancient or modern — it would be like ex- hibiting " Hamlet " with the part of Hamlet left out. The finest compliment ever paid to the sex is his song of " Green Grow the Eashes " — "What signifies the life o' man, An 'twere ua for the lasses, 0. "Auld Nature swears tlie lovely dears Her uohlest work she classes, ; Her 'prentice han' she tried on man, An' then she made tlie lasses, 0." SOCIAL SONGS AND BALLADS. l8l 111 this song, as in so many others, Burns improved an old ditty to the same air ; Lut he transmuted lead into gold, out of a sow's ear making a silk purse. The conceit in the last verse resemhles a passage in " Cupid's Whirligig," a comedy published in 1607, \\-hich it is prolmble Burns never saw. There is no greater nuisance than your hunter-up (»f parallel passages. If we were to credit some of these wooden pedants, there is scarcely an original idea, image, or expression in the " Paradise Lost." The Scottish love-song has a distinctive character, 1 »eing generally a story, wliile its English analogue is a sentiment. It is for the most part the production of a person in the humbler walks of life, who, wlien swayed by a fervent and pure passion, lavishes on its object all beauty and loveliness, and associates what is fairest and purest in her with whatever is fairest and sweetest in the scenes of their meeting — in the stars above them, in the flowers under tlieir feet, in the hoar hawthf)rn under which they sat, and in the gurgling stream wliicli, as it flowed past them, kissed its peb])led IkmI. Tlie English love effusion, on the other hand, is generally the production of an indi- vidual of the liigher ami mnrc. cvdtured ranks, and i.s cliaracterised l»y fancy rather than by passion, by courtlinf!Ss r;itlier than l)y warmth, by reticence rather tlian by impetuous caiidoiir, l)y conceit intlicr than by the unfettered language of tin; lic;ii(, Tlir Scottish lovci- is absorbed in liis love, takes his fellow.s into his confidence, and publishes the name of 1 82 SOCIAL SONGS AND BALLADS. the l)elovecl. Tlie English lover is self-possessed, and disguises the loved one under a classic name. This unnatural practice was imitated by some Scot- tish songsters, chiefly those of higher rank, who imitated their brethren of the South. Such were AVilliam Crawford of Auchinames, William Hamilton of Bangour, Lord Binning, and others. In a word, the English Muse is cold and stately — the Scottish, warm and natural; the English Muse refined and graceful — the Scottish, dealing with its subjects dramatically, occasionally too familiar, and sometimes coarse. One characteristic of the humble singer must not be overlooked. He often creates the charms which he celebrates. We have seen what a sweet picture Burns draws of his Nannie. It is the quintessence of beauty and purity. " Nannie " was Agnes Eleming, the daughter of a farmer in Tarbolton parish, and not at all a beauty, though, like " Bonnie Jean," she had a good figure and carriage. But passion clothes its object in " A lij^lit tliat never was on sea or shore ;" and the first flush of youthful affection is eminently enthusiastic and unselfish. It has transformed many an essentially prosaic character into a poet for the nonce, and some of these single-birth songs are among the finest we have. It is not the being of flesh and blood that walks by his side or is enfolded in his arms that the youthful lover sees, but an ideal. SOCIAL SONGS AXD BALLADS. I S3 fancy -born, and coloured with the hues of heaven. " Years, that bring the philosophic mind," cool his enthusiasm ; but amid the triumphs of after-life, when his soul may have been sated "with riches, and every ambitious longing gratified, he looks back with regret to the bright dreams of his golden prime. The sexual passion has been refined and idealised by the vast collection of songs that treat it as pure, and sacred. The earliest love-song we possess is entitled " A Song on Absence," preserved in the Maitland MS., and by both Pinkerton and Maitland ascribed to James I. of Scotland. The orthography of the sub- joined lines is modernised — " As he that swims, the more he ettle fast, And to the shore intend, The more his feeble fury, tlirongh wind's blast, Is backward made to wend ; So worse by day My grief grows aye ; The more I am hurt, The more I sturte. cruel love ! but deid thou has none end." The royal singer, if James be really the author, sighs for death as a termination to his pains, but finds a solace to his grief in the exercise of his poetic gifts. In our ballad literature many love-tragedies are recorded. Among tliose specially deserving of notice are " The Lass of Lochroyan" (one of the Ixillads which Mr. Chambers asserts to have been tampered with), on which Burns based his song of " Lord t84 social songs axd ballads. Gregory;" "Willie and May Margaret;" "The Dowie Dens of Yarrow," &c. The author of the liallad last mentioned must have heen a poet of the hiirhest order. " Helen of Kirkconnel" is known to every one. Of the songs expressing the feelings of lovers suffering from an unrequited affection, those of the male generally breathe resentment rather than sorrow. In " Fient a crum of thee she faws," by Alexander Scot, the Scottish Anacreon, who flour- ished during the reign of Mary, we find the following naive lines — " Eeturn thee liumewartl, heart, again, And hide wliere thou was wont to be ; Thou art ane fule, to suffer pain, For luve oF her that hives not thee." Sir Eobert Ayton of Kinaldie, Fifeshire — a gentle- man of the bedchamber to James I. of England, and private secretary to his Queen and to the Queen of Charles I., a friend of Ben Jonson and of Hobbes of ]\Ialmesbury, and buried in the south aisle of the choir of Westminster Abbey, where there is a marble and copper monument to his memory — also expresses, in ]iure and forcible English, his resentment at the fickleness of an unfaithful fair one — " Yet do thou glory in thy choice, Tliy clioice of his good fortune boast ; I'll neither grieve, nor yet rejoice, To see him gain what I have lost : The height of my disdain shall be To laugh at him, to blush for thee ; SOCIAL SOXGS AND BALLADS. 1 85 To love thee still, but go no more A be"£;in" at a bees^'ar's door." This cavalier way of treating a lady recalls some verses of the great Marquis of Montrose, not, however, to be intei'preteil literally, but allegorically, as refer- ring to the unwavering loyalty due by the state to its King by right divine — " Like Alexander I will reign, And I will reign alone ; My thoughts shall ever more disdain A rival on my tlirone. II' in the empire of thy heart, Where I should solely be, Another do pretend a part, And dares to vie with me ; Or if committees thou erect, Or go on such a score, I'll sin<' and lau<'h at thv nef'lect. And never love thee more." It is comparatively easy for a man, immersed in affairs, his thoughts prevented from lieing morbidly concentrated on one theme l)y the distractions furnished by the battle of life, to shake himself free (jf any painful feeling originating in unreciprocated affection, for few are of such fragile tissue as the milksop hero of " Barbara Allan." But it is entirely different in the case of a woman. Slie has centred her affections on a single object, the possession of whicli is the one aiin of life, and if slie loses it, to lier " The bare heath of life presents no bloom." Tlie heroines of .song and ballad too (jllcii give lS6 SOCIAL SONGS AND BALLADS. their lovers the last proof of affection, and when they are deserted, there remains for them nothing but the slumber of the grave. This is finely illustrated in " "VValy, waly up the bank," the deserted one in this case being a traduced and discarded wife, and not a ruined maid — " I leaned my back unto an aik, I thoucht it was a trusty tree ; But first it bowed, and syne it brak, Sae my true love did lichtly me. " wherefore should I busk my heid, Or wherefore should I kame my hair ? For my true love has me forsook, And says he'll never love me mair. " jSTow Arthur's seat shall be my bed, The sheets shall ne'er be fyled by me : Saint Anton's well shall be my drink, Since my true love has forsaken me. " Martinmas wind, when wilt thou blaw. And shake the green leaves all the tree ? O gentle death, when wilt thou come ? For of my life I am weary. " Oh, oh, if my young babe were born. And set upon the nurse's knee. And 1 mysel' were dead and gane, For a maid again I'll never be ! " '"o" " Auld Eobin Gray," the finest of all modern Scottish ballads, embodies an affecting love-tragedy, but it is so familiar that to quote would be a work of supererogation. It is the production of Lady Ann Lindsay, daughter of the fifth Earl of Balcarres. There is also a comic, or at least a humorous, side to the lyrical histories of disappointed love on both SOCIAL SOXGS AND BALLADS. 1 8/ sides, as in ]\Irs. Grant of Carron's " Eoy's Wife of Aldivallocli " — " 0, she was a canty quean, Weel could she dance the Highland walloch ; How happy I had she been mine, Or I been Roy of Aldivalloch ! " And in " My Heart's my ain " — " 'Tis nae very lang sinsyne That I had a lad o' my ain ; But now he's awa' to anither, And left me a' my lain. The lass he's courting has siller, And I hae nane at a' ; And 'tis nocht but the love o' the tocher That's ta'en my lad awa'. But I'm blyth that my heart's my aiu, And I'll keep it a' my life. Until that I meet wi' a lad "Who has sense to wale a good wife." Many songs express the exultant feelings of lovers who are happy in the objects of their choice and in their unswerving fidelity. These are as healthful and refreshing as a mountain breeze. The harmony between our Scottish love-songs and the varying aspects of external nature has been already alluded to, and numerous scenes over the length and breadth of our land have become classic from their association with happy humble loves. Before proceeding to notice in detail the specialties of a Scottish rustic courtship we sliall give two quo- tations, as modernised by Allan Cunningham, from Alexander Montgomery (fl. 1570), author of " The iSS SOCIAL SOXGS AND BALLADS. Clicirv ;iii(l llui Slao," an amatory poet of birth and scholarship, mIio (k'liglitt'd in strange measures, in conceits, in aHegory, ami in idle learning. Had he Avritten in simple hallad measure and in his native Doric, his genius might have caused him to he ranked as one of our purely national poets. But he seems to have considered departure from the ordinary form of verse a merit, and the merit by so much the greater as that departure was more complete. His admiration of the sex was not so much passionate and absorbing as chivalrous and calculated ; and such love as he did or could bestow must be carefully differentiated from that of the honest rustic, whose heart-history is for the time the Alpha and Omega of his existence. Montgomery has sufficient self-possession and equa- nimity to tag on the dead bones of classical mythology to his otherwise admirable lyrics, thus divesting them of all human interest. In the following quotations " but " means " without "— " Without love woukl be strife, Nor kindness could endure ; Without love what is lil'e ] A pain that nought can cure ; But love, where is delight ? A dool that nane now dree ; But love, how could I write My sang sae sweet and free 1 " Take this by way of contrast — " But freedom, what is life ? Tlie night without the moon ; But freedom, what is love ? A light that's saunted soon. SOCIAL SONGS AXD BALLADS. iSq A kiss is but a touch, Too pleasant far to last ; Oh ! lasting joys for me — I'd ratlier be free tliau fast." From both of these extracts it appears that Mont- gomery was too self-conscious to reacli the ideal of abnegation exhibited by the lover of rural life. As " ilka land has its ain laucli," so in every country there are variations in the mode of courting, and some of the Scottish customs are curious, and to foreigners seem bizarre. Much of the courtship of our rustics is, from the deficiency of house accom- modation, conducted under the canopy of heaven, or M'hat shelter is most convenient. Ikit of this anon. A touching instance of a modest rural courtship is presented in tlie " Cotter's Saturday Niglit." Jenny, woman grown, the eldest hope of the cotter, in service at a neighbouring farm, visits the paternal homestead on Saturday night. Tin; priest-like father is giving lugh-toned moral L'ssons to his olfspring — " But, hark ! a rap conies gently to the door ; J(;nny, wlia kens tlie meaning o' the same, Tells huw a neebor lad cam' o'er tlie moor, To do some errands, and convoy her hame. The wily mother sees the conscious flame Sparkle in Jenny'.s e'e and llu.sh her cheek. With heart-slruck aii.xious care inS7iC is the sluggard and the waster, there- fore the production belongs rather to the region of satire than to that of the poetry of ordinary life as it should be; but unfortunately the "dame "has had, and will have, too many sisters to keep her in coun- tenance. She refuses to rise and make herself "boune" SOCIAL SONGS AND BALLADS. 22 5 for the market ; objects to " bake her bread by auy man's shins " — that is, to take her pattern in rising from her neighbours ; and, generally, ad^dses her hus- band and her neighbours to mind their own affairs, liinting that his importunity for her rising proceeds from his deshe to " be at the tother can.". "' Guithvife, ye mami needs tak' a care To .save the geare tliat we hae wuu ; Or lay away bo;h plow and car, And hang up Ring [the dog] when a' is done. Then mav our bairns a-berryinf' run. To .'ut .gie nie your wife, man, for her 1 nuist have. Anil the thyme it is withered, and rue is in prime.' " ' welcome, moat kindly,' the blithe carle said, (Hey, arid the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme), 'But if ye can matcli her ye're waur tlian ye're ca'd, And the thyme it is withered, and rue is in prime.'" Satan having got the auld wife on his back, carried lier home " to his ain hallan-door," and ordered her to go in, shotting his speech meanwliile with a few complimentary expletives. In the clap of a hand he turned out fifty chosen fiends on her guard — "But the carline gaed through them like ony wnd bear, Whae'er she got hands on cam' near her nae mair." The fiends were so alarmed that they cried for help to their master, as she was likely to ruin them all. Satan swears by the edge of his knife that he pitied the married man, and thanks Heaven that he was not in wedlock, but only in Tartarus, to ])ut it mildly. He then carried the old woman back to her iiusband, and remarked, when he gave delivery of her, that though he had been a devil for the most part ( if his life, he had never known truly what Tartarus Avas till he met Avith a wife. Cunningham's version (contains one or two superior touches. The old man's glee at the surprise his Satanic Majesty would get from the tantrums of his wife, and his certainty that he would not keep her long, are well conceived. But liis glee was of short duration, for — SOCIAL SONGS AND BALLADS. 239 " In sorrow he looked up, and saw her and said, ' Ye're brini^in!:^ me back mv auld wife, I'm afraid.'" On this song Dr. J. Clark JMurray remarks, " One might almost be justified in surmising that a faint trace of the pre-Christian origin of the story is re- tained in the conception of the devil, which hears a similarity to the conception with M^hich we are familiar in the Norse tales." And he subjoins the following c^uotation from Dasent's "Tales from the Norse " — " Whenever the devil appears in these tales, it is not at all as the arch-enemy, as the subtle spirit of the Christian's faith, but rather as one of the old Giants, supernatural, and hostile indeed to man, but simple and easily deceived by a cunning reprobate, whose superior intelligence he learns to dread, for whom he feels himself no match, and whom finally he will receive in hell at no price." It has been remarked that the idea of tamins a shrew, so famihar from PetrucMo's subjugation of Catharine, has not many counterparts in the lyrical poetry of Scotland. On the contrary, where conjugal differences arise, the grey mare generally proves her- self tlic better liorse. An amusing instance of this is exhibited in " Tlie Honeymoon," the title given by Ilitson to a strange old ballad, preserved in a volume of miscellaneous poetry among tlie Cotton Manu- scripts in tlie r>ritisli ]\Iuseuni. Wv. Laing suggests tlie title "Ane IJallat of Matrimonii;," l»u( Ivitson's title is in itself a satire, and deserves to be retained. " The poem," says Aytouii, " is evidently of Scottish 240 SOCIAL SOIVGS AND BALLADS. origin ; but I suspect that the transcriber has altered many words, so as to render it more easily intelli- gible to the English ear." Two young people had not been fully three days married when the husband asked liis wife to M^ork, which she peremptorily refuscil to do, vowing to God that she would not M'ork for him — " 'All' il' tliou wilt not work,' quoth he, ' Tliou drab, I shall thee drive ! ' ' I would to God, thou knave,' quoth she, ' Thou durst that matter pryve.' The gudeman for to beat his wife In hand apace he went — lie caught twa blows upon his head For every one lie lent Indeed ; He never blan., beating her then — Till baith his eyes did bleed." The humour of the thing is that all the while the battle lasts, in which she is infinitely and out of sight the winner, she is crying for mercy, and while he is boasting what he will do, he is being most unmercifully mauled, and can scarcely squeeze his valorous threats from a throat which his beloved's hand has nearly closed. She kissed his mouth with her fist as fast as it could wag, though all the while she was fearful, and nothing l)old ; and when she had him on his back, standing over him, she cried him mercy, at the same time peeling the bark from his face with her " ten commandments." The neighbours, alarmed ]jy the hurlyburly, pressed to the door, which was firmly fastened. However, SOCIAL SONGS AXD BALLADS. 24 1 they heard the wife exchaim, " Out, alas !" while her prostrate husband swore that he Avould anon beat her stUl better than he had done. Dreading that he would kdl her outright, they implored him to " stint and leave liis strife." " ' Nav, nay,' quoth lie, ' I sliall her teach. How she shall be sae short With me'— Yet on his face she laid apace, And cried him still, ' Mercie ! ' " Sorely pitying the injured woman, lier neighbom's cried to the gudeman, " For shame 1 no more ! " but he ordered them about their business, as he was not a person to cease chastising his wife for them — " ' Let her,' quoth he, ' another time Not be with me sae bauld ; For suredly an owght I were, To bide her taunt or check.' — But he could scant the same declare, She held so last his neck In a band ; ' Alas ! ' quoth she, ' will ye kill me ? Sweet husband, hauld your hand ! ' " Xo bowels could stand this longer. So the neighbours broke up the door, when the gudewifc got out of sight apace for shame, and the gudeman, well-bl(jwn about the face, began to stand upright, full of joy for his timeous release. Tiie pair sLill continued to act in charactei-, I'm' llir wife repaired to her chamber manifesting dreail, iiml tin' Imsliinnl made meiTy, swearing tliat liad tliey not come he would have slain lier there and tlicu. Q 242 SOCIAL SONGS AND BALLADS. 1 11 the Avliole rantie of our ballad literature there is nothing more thoroughly humorous than " The Wife of Auchtermuchty," which is preserved in the Bannatyne MS.-, and is supposed to be the production of a Sir John Moffat, a *' Pope's Knight," and was therefore probably composed about 1520. It has suffered no alteration or. corruption. A copy printed by Mr. Laing and the version given by Herd contain additional matter, which fits so well into the Ban- natyne copy that it is probably genuine. The story has a theme common to many literatures. The husband, or farmer, of Auchtermuchty is depicted in tlie ballad as not unmindful of creature comforts, for he was one — " Wha -weel coiikl tipple out a can, And neither lovit luniacchanalian songs are among the best ever ]i(!uned. " f,Mii1e ale conies, and gnde ale ^'oes ; Giulf; ale pars nie sell my hose, Sell my liose ami jtawii my shoon ; Gude ale keeps njy heart aboon. 250 SOCIAL SONGS AND BALLADS. " I lunl six owseu in a pleiicli, And tliey drew teucli and Avell eneucli ; I drank llicni a' just ane by ane ; (}iide ale keeps my heart aboon." Ill the song of " Tlio Miller," which appeared in the "Charmer" in 175 1, and is attributed to Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, a Baron of the Scottish Court of Exchequer, who died in 1755, there is a pretty pic- ture of rustic comfort — "111 winter time, Avhen wind and rain Blow o'er the house and byre, He sits beside a clean hearthstane, Before a rousing fire : " O'er foaming ale he tells his tale, Which rows him o'er fu' happy ; Who'd be a king, a petty thing. When a miller lives so happy 1 " A very rollicking effusion is " Hey for the mill and the kiln ; " and its refrain, " While the happer said tak' it, man, tak' it," is an oi^en, fair confession which scorns a lie. But the hierophant of this species of lyrical composition is Burns. And here, again, for intelligible reasons, we must for a space violate our original plan. Wliat innocent enjoyment has not " Auld Langsyne " given to tens of thousands of old and young, of male and female joyous revellers ! " And surely ye'Il be your piut-stoup. And surely I'll be mine : And we'll tak' a richt guid willie-waught, For auld langsyne." It was an astute remark of an Irishman at a Burns Festival gathering in America, that the stipulation SOCIAL SONGS AXD BALLADS. 25 I for a return of the pint-stoup revealed the nationality of the songster. An Irishman would never have thouo-ht of such a condition. " AVillie Brewed a Peck o' Maut " is the ne plus ultra of happy effort in this line — " It is tlie moon, I ken lier liorn, That's blinkin' in the lift sae hie ; Slie smiles sae sweet to wile ns liame, But by my faith she'll wait a wee ! For we are na fou ; we're no that fou — But just a wee drap in our e'e. The cock may craw, the day may claw, But aye we'll taste the barley bree."' In " Death and Dr. Hornbook " the stanza — " The clachan yill had made me canty ; I waena fou, but just had plenty ; I stachered whyles, but yet took tent aye To clear the ditches, And hillocks, stanes, and bushes kent aye Frae ghaists and witches," — is, like Wanton Willie himself, " without a clag." The jolly rustic is the incarnation of canty good- humour, and too "comfortable" to care even for ghaists, though not forgetful of their existence. In two of his poems Burns has outdone himself — in "Scotch Drink" (especially in this), and in "Tlu; Author's Earnest Cry and Prayer to the Scotch liepresentatives in the House of Commons." He writes with a will, and his verses "rattle in their ranks " with glorious vigour and freedom — " liiou, my Muse ! guid auld Scotch iJrink ; Whether through wimplin' worms thou jink, 252 SOCIAL SONGS AND BALLADS. Or, rii'lily lirowii, iciiiii o'ur the brink, In L^'lorious facni, Inspire nie, till I lisp and wink, To sing tin' name ! " The apostrophe to -lohii I'aiieycorn is superb — " On thee aft Scotland cliews her cood, In sonple scones, the wale 0' food ! Or tuniblin' in the boiling tlood Wi' kail and beef ; But when Ihnii pours thy strong heart's blood, There thou shines chief. " Food fills the wame and keeps us livin'; Tliough life's a gift no' worth receivin'. When heaA'y dragged wi' pain and grievin' ; But oiled by thee, The wheels o' life gae doun-hill scrievin', Wi' rattlin' glee," Admirable for its humanity is the following — " Aft clad in massy siller weed, AVi' gentles thou erects thy head ; Yet humbly kind in time 0' need, The poor man's wine, His wee drap parritch, or his bread. Thou kitchens fine." The rest of the poem is equally fine ; and the stanza in which he ascribes his inspiration to whisky, the soul of plays and pranks, is especially noteworthy for its plain-spoken vigour. The concluding lines, in which he invokes Fortune, and professes that his Avishes from her are limited to — " Hale breeks, a scone, and whisky gill. And rowth 0' rhyme to rave at will," liave been much admired. The other poem, which SOCIAL SO.XGS AND BALLADS. 253 may be regarded as a sequel to tlie foregoing, is not less vigorous. Its postscript is especially so. These pieces seem to have come from the bard at a single heat, and to have been conceived and composed very much as they at present appear. Burns never surpassed them. The phraseology is particularly happy. The vernacular came to his pen in his early efforts with such readiness and propriety, that to alter a word would spoil a whole poem. In his epistles to his brother bards the prospect of a meeting is always attended with an anticipation of a modicum of his favourite beverage. To Lapraik he MTites — " Tlie four-gilled chap we'se gar him clatter, And kirseii him wi' reekin' water," But probaljly these symposia M-ere like Barmecide's feast; for though he addressed to Pitt the promise that on certain conditions he would — " Drink his health in aukl Nanse Tinnock's Nine times a week," the bard was, on the evidence of Nanse herself, a very infrequent visitor at her hostehy. lu an unquotable verse in his "Lines on Meeting Mitli Basil, Loid Daer," he mentions among his bacchanalian exploits his having been at drucken writers' feasts, sickened his drouth with mighty squires]ii])S of the quorum, uiid occasionally exceeded to no small extent wilh godly priests. This poetical exaggeration reminds one of I )i-. Carlyle's Autoljiogi-aphy. In his time there was a race 2 54 SOCIAL SONGS AXD BALLADS. cif jolly parsons, especially in the Lotliians, who lived on familiar terms M'ith the country gentry and the conspicuous members of the legal profession, affected clubs, and loved a glass of sound claret. The Doctor himself was a professed hon vivant, and his social charm must have been very great ; for, according to Lord Cockburn, though he never exhibited much talent in any capacity, he possessed extraordinary influence Mith his brethren, and with the best society of the day both in Scotland and England. As to Churcli matters, he was very Moderate indeed. In fact, he prided himself on his sound sense, freedom from enthusiasm — or, as he termed it, fanaticism — and knowledgje of the world. His economics as to in- stituting weekly dinners, where good claret and good conversationalists should assist, were highly diplo- matic. "V^^len Principal Robertson and he were once on a time visiting at Lord Bute's at Mountstuart, there happened to be set before them a remainder of some superlative claret, which the divines imbibed with much gusto. Unfortunately it went done. On this Carlyle took llobertson aside and cautioned him not to exhibit any falling-off in his potations, lest it should be attributed to the inferior wine on the table. These men had sound heads and stomachs, and gave a wide berth to weak-headed babblers who could not carry their liquor discreetly. They never forgot that they were clergymen, and above all gentlemen. The incident in " Waverley " of the Baron of Bradwardine retiring with his guests, after a solemn dinner at Tully- SOCIAL SONGS AXD BALLADS. -03 Yeolan, to -svind up the day's proceedings by a debauch in Luckie Macleary's change-house, is happily i] lustrated Tty a passage in Cockburn's " Memorials of his Times." When a boy, he happened to be with his father, who was Convener of the County, in a humble roadside inn, when the Duke of Buccleuch and the chief landed dignitaries of the neighbom^hood — all o^Yners of luxu- lious houses — arrived to have a relaxation of a simi- lar kind over steaming punch. They put young Cockburn in the chair, and the Duke drank his health as the young Convener — " May he be a better man than his father. Hip, hip, hurrah ! " &c., &c. The liigh jinks of Pleydell and his cronies, in "Guy ^Mannering," were only somewhat more elaborate and less natural than the proceedings of the distinguished topers on this occasion. A strange custom of last century in Edinburgh was that of ladies and gentlemen of high rank repamng to oyster-cellars, mere lai(jh shops or dives, to regale themselves with raw oysters and porter, set on a coarse table in a dingy room lighted with tallow candles. Much of the conversation was what would be deemed to-day hnproper — in fact, naughty. After the oysters and porter were despatched, brandy or rum-punch was introduced, and a dance was got up, in which oyster-women of known disreputable character were sf)raetimes allowed to mix. As late as 1824, Lord Melville, the Duchess of Gordiui, and other persons of rank, renewed the experiences, of their youth l)y having a frolic in an oyster-cellar. Luckie 256 SOCIAL SOX OS AXD BALLADS. Middlemass's tax mi in llio Cowgate was the favourite scene of tliese questional )le meetings. Robert Fer- guson, who loved frolic not wisely but too well, says of this favourite resort — "When big as lnuiis llie gutters rin, If ye hae catdied a droukit skin, To Liickie Midillemist's loup in, And sit I'll' snug, Owre oysters and a dram o' gin, Or haddock lug." The convivial literature of Scotland is rich and racy, and quite sui generis. It might imply that, as a nation, we were more given to the bottle than others. In one sense this has a semblance of truth, for spirit- drinking nations are more demonstrative over their cups than muddle-l leaded beer-drinkers or placid wine-bibbers. But that is the worst of it. In France at the present day, drunkenness is largely on the increase, brandy being preferred by many to wine, and the favourite absinthe is more deleterious even than whisky. It is for the credit of every people, as of every individual, to have a reputation for sobriety. In this country our reputation is worse than our desert, but, on the whole, sobriety is on the gaining side. It is not long since the usual sequel of a dinner-party was a debauch, but this has been altered entirely. Convivial literature will never die; and the time may come when sober gentlemen over some innocuous tipple will be found joining hilariously in " Auld Langsyne " or " AVillie Brewed a Peck o' Maut." SOCIAL SO.VGS AND BALLADS. 2$/ In " Peblis to the Play " we have a graphic picture of tavern life in the reign of the First James of Scot- land, 1424-36. The party of merry-makers having retired to the tavern to dine and dance — " Ay as the goodwife brought iu Ane scorit upon the wauch, Aue bade ' Pay ! ' Another said ' Nay, Bide while we rakin our lauch ! ' The goodwife said, ' Have ye uae dread. Ye sail pay at ye aucht' A young man stert upon his feet And he began to lauche For heyden Of Peblis to the Play. " He gat a trencher in his hand, And he began to count. ' Ilk man twa and ane happenie ; To pay thus we were wont.' Another stert upon his feet, And said, ' Thou art o'er blunt To take such office upon hand ; I vow thou servite ane dunt Of me ! ' Of Peblis to tlie Play." This irives rise to a tavern brawl, which is described witli infinite humour. The indignation of the good- wife at the person scoring the items on the wall t( » check her reckoning, and her remark that they shoidd pay just what tliey owed, as she would not cheat them, are both very natural. Another pliase of national conviviality must be noticed. In his "Traditions of Edinburgh," after describing the bacchanalianism of tin; last century, Robert Chambers adds — It 258 SOCIAL SONGS AND BALLADS. " It is hardly surprising that habits carried to such an extravagance among gentlemen should have in some small degree allccted the fairer .and ]nirer ]iart of creation also. It is an old story in Edinhurgh that three ladies hud one night a mei'ry meeting in a tavern near the Cross, where they sat to a very late hour. Ascending at length to the street, they scarcely remembered where they were, but as it was good moonlight they found little difficulty in walking along till they came to the Tron Church. There, however, an obstacle occurred. The moon, shining high in the south, threw the shadow of the steejjle directly across the street from the one side to the other, and the ladies, being no more clear-sighted than they were clear-headed, mistook this for a broad and rapid river, which they would retjuire to cross before making farther way. In this delusion they sat down upon the brink of the imaginary stream, deliberately took off their shoes and stockings, kilted their lower garments, and proceeded to wade through to the opposite side ; after which, resuming their shoes and stockings, they went on their way rejoicing as before ! " — " Traditions of Edinburgh," p. 158. An anecdote is subjoined, on the authority of an ancient nobleman, to the effect that the officers of the Crown having procured some important intelli- gence affecting the Jacobites during the rising of 171 5, resolved to forward the same to London by a certain man of rank. Those interested having scented the affair, two tall, handsome ladies, in full dress, and wearing black velvet masks, accosted the messenger on his way to the Canongate to take horse. He proposed to treat them to a pint of claret at an adjoming tavern, an offer wliich the ladies re- ciprocated. After a heavy debauch of several hours, the gentleman sank beneath the table, when he was at once robbed of his papers. For the honour of SOCIAL SONGS AND BALLADS. 259 Scottish womanhood, however, it is only fau* to mention that the robbers were believed at the time to be young men disguised in women's clothes. In a note there is a quotation from a curious paper in the "Edinburgh Magazine" for August 1817, from which it appears that at the period in question, " though it was a disgi'ace for ladies to be seen drunk, yet it was none to be a little intoxicated in good company." Similar testimony is given by Mr. Burton — "Hist, of Scotland," vol. vii. p. 93. " The bacchaoalian song still asserts its supremacy, but the feats it records are all performed by the male sex. In the Scotland of the seventeenth century, what is so often called the gentle, and might in later times be called the sober, sex, indulged to some considerable extent in hard drinkin'f and its feats were celebrated in genial rhyme." Some specimens of the songs in which this feature of the national character is exhibited we shall by- and-by adduce. Meanwhile we may remark, that the treatment of such cases in song is wholly humorous, and suggests nothing of the repulsiveness, vulgarity, and utter demoralisation characteristic of the female who indulges at the present day. The thirsty heroine of song is Ijy no means repulsive to a healthily constituted mind. Tliere is a fund of life and geniality about lier that is irresistible. Even her liusband narrates his domestic ddsagrdmens with a rogui.sh twinkle in his eye. Though forced to confess of the " wanton wee thing " that — "She selled her coat, and she drank it ; She selled her coat, and she drank it ; 260 SOCIAL SONGS AND BALLADS. She rowed hersel' in a blanket ; She winna be guiiled by me ; " he is reconciled to the circumstauce from the fact that he "took a rung and clawed her" till slie became " a guid bairn." The guidwife of " Ilooly and Fairly," referred to previously, seems to have been fastidious in her potations, for she drank nothing but sack and canary ; yet though she beggared her husband of his substance, that good- natured, long-suffering man was more affected by her unfair mode of drinking than by her wasting of his goods — t3 " First she drank Cruniniie, and syne she drank Gairie, And syne she drank my bonny grey marie, That carried me through a' the dubs and the lairie — Oh, gin my wife wad drink hooly and fairly ! " She drank her hose, she drank her shoon, And syne she drank her boniiie new goun ; Slie drank her sark tliat covered her rarely — Oh, gin my wife wad drink hooly and fairly ! " My Sunday's coat she's laid it in wad, And tlie best blue bonnet e'er was on my head ; At kirk and at mercat I'm covered but barely — Oil, gin my wife wad drink hooly and fairly ! " He is, besides — unfortunately, perhaps, both for himself and his wife — a man of peace, averse to wrangling and strife, and willing to allow her what ilorace calls " the gifts of a moderate Bacchus." She, however, is a virago, who keeps the purse, and scrimps her facile husband — the "grey marie," whether " bonny " or not, being unquestionably th(3 SOCIAL SONGS AND BALLADS. 26 1 better horse. " Todlin' Hame " presents an instance in which there is no over-reaching, scrimping, or ■^Tangling. The pair imhibe on a principle of per- fect equality, using measures of equal capacity, and doubtless containing beverages of equal potency — " My kinuuer and I lay douii to sleep, And twa pint-stoups at our bed's feet," &c.* These female bacchanalians are from the humbler walks of life; not the squalidly poor, indeed, but people with such rustic wealth as a couple of cows and a good grey mare. And it is usual to associate this habit with the humbler class of females only. In Dunbar's " Twa Maryit Wemen and the Wedo," however, the three compotators who " wauchtit at the wicht wyne," were of the higher class ; for — " Kemmit was their cleir hair, and curiouslie sched Attour their schoulderis doun schyre, schyning full bricht ; With kurches cassin tliame abone, of krisp cleir and thin. Thair niantillis grein war as the grass that grew in May sesoun, Fastnet with thair quhyt fingaris about thair fair sydis !" If some of our medical journals are to bo trusted, there is an insidious habit gaining ground among many matrons of higlier and middle life and their daughters of consuming much surreptitious sherry, medicinally, of course, and with the sanction of the family physician, who no doubt finds In's account in prescribing a medicine so nuidi to tin; patient's mind. The craving and believed necessity for this * See ante p. 227. 262 SOCIAL SONGS AND BALLADS. stimulus proceed from a depressed condition begot of idleness and listlessness, and entirely differentiate the recipients from the females of song, who are full to overflowing of vitality and geniality, their excesses being occasional, and mere episodes in a laborious life. There is nothing dreamy about them; they proceed to the work in hand with the same spirit of thoroughness and heartiness with which they perform their ordinary avocations, and get as much joviality out of the occasion as good liquor and high health and spirits can extract. Nor with all the plainness of speech of these bacchanalian chronicles is good taste violated ; they are redeemed from vulgarity by the finest humour, and transferred to the region of genuine comedy. The topers are not soakers, like their modern representatives, who are quite insipid, and entirely devoid of the game or " go " which characterised their sisters of old. In the "Anti- quary " Scott gives us a presentment of a gossiping female party whose tipple was " sinning water " — a corruption of cinnamon water — fortified, no doubt, by sterner stuff. Mrs. Mailsetter, Mrs. Shortcake, and Mrs. Heukbane, the wives of the postmaster and of the chief baker and chief butcher of Fairport, are shown up, as far as Scott's good nature would allow him, to our conceptions of the vulgar " cosy " party of ignorant, uneducated females, whose husbands are possessed of a little substance, and whose symposia are apart from their husbands' knowledge. " Andro and his Cutty Gun," printed in the " Tea- SOCIAL SOXGS AND BALLADS. 263 Table Miscellany," was a great favourite witli Burns, who described it to Mr. George Thomson as the work of a master. Elsewhere he describes it as " a spirited picture of a country alehouse, touched off with all the lightsome gaiety so peculiar to the rural muse of Caledonia." It seldom fails to be sung at rustic bridal-parties and house-heatings — " Blithe, blitlie, and merry was she, Blithe was she but aud ben ; And weel she lo'ed a Hawick gill, And leuch to see a tappit-hen." A Hawick gill was a measure peculiar to that district, and equivalent to half-a-mutchkin. Authorities differ as to the capacity of a " tappit hen," so named from the resemblance of the knob on the top of the measure to a crested fowl. According to Mr. Cham- Ijers, it implies a quart-measm-e, but according to the author of "Waverley" it contained at least three English quarts. Mr. Burton says, "The brief air devoted to this blithe toperess was wanted for a fairer spirit, and Burns addressed to a reigning beauty of his day the well-known — ' Blitlie, blithe, and merry was she. Blithe was she but and ben ; Blithe by the banks of Earn, But blither in Glenturit Glen.' " Witli all deference to the opinion of the historian of Scotland, and witli all respect for the nmse of r.urns, his song by no means equals its prototype. The loss of it would be a matter of little moment ; 264 SOCIAL SONGS AND BALLADS. the loss of the older one would cause a serious gap in the convivial poetry of Scotland : — " She took me in, she set me douii, Anil hecht to keep me lawin-free, But, cunning carline that she was, She "art me Lirle mv hawbee. " We lo'ed the liquor weel eneuch, But, wae's my heart, my cash was done Before that I liad quenched my drouth, And laitli was 1 to pawn my slioon. When we had three times toomed our stoup. And the neist chappin new begun. In started, to heeze up our liope, Young Andro wi' liis cutty gun. " Tlie carline brought her kebbuck ben, Wi' girdle-cakes weel toasted brown ; Weel does the canny kimmer ken They gar the scuds gae glibber doun." The next verse contains an expressive monosyllabic word, perfectly harmless, but which Mr. Chambers (considers naughty, for he expunges the line and sub- stitutes another for it, which has the double merit of getting quit of the homely word and making nonsense of the verse. The "canny kimmer," to make her ale more in demand, brings her bebbuck ben — that is, her cheese — with well-toasted girdle-cakes. According to Burns, who may be presumed to have despatched a (quantity of them in his day, " these oatmeal cakes are kneaded out with the knuckles, and toasted over the red embers of wood on a gridiron. They are re- markably fine, and a delicate relish when eaten warm SOCIAL SONGS AND BALLADS. 265 with ale. On winter nights the landlady heats them, and drops them into the quaigh to warm the ale." The hlessincc of the hero of " Todlin Hame " falls on the cniidwife because — " She gi'es us white bannocks to relish her ale." Every country and condition of sooiety has its own relish for its liquor. The Spaniard and Italian relisli tlieir wine with olives, while the homely Englishman of old made his ale more palatable by dropping into it a roasted crab. Lever's military heroes spur their flagging appetites with broiled bones and devilled kidneys; while the humble Scot given to toping is too often in the same category with Hugo Arnot of facetious memory — like Ids meat — for he devours raw speldrins with his whisky. In " Twelfth Night," to Sir Toby Belch's famous query to Malvolio — " Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale ? " the clo-sm responds — " Yes, 1 jy Saint Anne ; and ginger shall be hot i' the mouth too." Sir Toby's cakes and ale correspond exactly to the " girdle-cakes " and " scuds " of the song under review. The toperess proceeds with her nar- rative — " We ca'eJ the bicker aft about," nor did they cease till they were completely up- set — " Ami aye the cleanest drinker out Was Andro wi' his cutty gun. " Ho did like ony mavis sing, And, as I iu his oxter sat, 266 SOCIAL SONGS AND BALLADS. He ca'ed me aye his boniiie tiling, And many a sappy kiss I gat. I liae buen east, I hae been west, I hae been far ayont tlie sun ; But the blithest lad that e'er I saw Was Andro wi' his cutty gun." The autlior, whoever he was, was a man of true genius. He has handled a subject having all the elements of vulgarity and pruriency without being in the least degree vulgar or prurient, and with such spirit and liveliness that the whole scene is before us. Well might Burns ask Thomson, " Are you not quite vexed to think that those men of genius, for such they were, who composed our fine Scotch lyrics, should be unknown? It has given me many a heartache." In the prologue to " The Wife of Bath," Chaucer makes that very astute and managing female avow her love of wine — " Then couthe I daunce to an harpe smale, And synge y-wys as eny nightyngale, When I had dronke a draught of sweetd wyn. Metellius, the foule cherl, the swyn, That with a staf byraft his wyf hir lyf For sche drank wyn, though I had been his wyf Ne scluild he nought have daunted me fro drink." ^D' The unknown Scottish lyrist has represented his toperess enjoying the caresses of the gallant Andro without suggesting anything indelicate, which is more than can be said of the father of English poetry in the passage just quoted, at least in its sequel SOCIAL SOXGS AND BALLADS. 26/ The late Charles Kii-kpatrick Sharpe so greatly admired the following picture of feminine joviality that he printed some copies of it, with the music, for presentation to his friends — " There were four drunken niaiclena Together did convene, From twelve o'clock in a May morning Till ten rang out at e'en, Till ten rang out at e'en, And then they gie'd it ower. And there's four drunken miiideus Doun i' the Nether Bow. " When in came Xelly Paterson, With her fine satin gown : * Come, sit about, ye maidens, And give to me some room, And give to me some room, Before that we gie't ower.' And there's four drunken maidens Doun i' the Nether Bow. " When peacock and pigeon, And hedgehog and hare, And all sorts of fine venison. Was well made ready there. And set before the maidens Before they gie'd it ower. And there's four drunken maidens Doun i' the Nether Bow," &c. We remember no similar lyrical literature belong- ing to England. In " Martin Chuzzlewit" there is a female compotation naiTated in prose, which from certain adjuncts has become classical. The com- potators are Mrs. Gamp and Betsy Trig, in tlie apart- ment of the former. Their tipple is poured from u 268 SOCIAL SOXGS AXD BALLADS. teapot; tlie pair are iiiefiiiltly vulgar, and ])etsy Prig- tries to overreach her hostess hy helping herself, unconsciously as it were, to more than her share of the T)anquet. There is no joviality, nor geniality ; nothing but sordid soaking, characteristic perhaps of the age and vocation of the pair. How unlike the boisterous merriment and abandon, the geniality and exuberant vitality of the heroine of "Andro and his Cutty Gun ! " And tlie drinking has been pre- ceded, more Anglico, at least according to Scotch opinion or prejudice, by gross feeding. The heroines of the last two songs quoted are unmarried. The " four drunken maidens " are necessarily so, and we infer as much of the heroine A\lio nestled so cosily in Andro's " oxter." Marriage would — at least should' — put an end to such unpro- fitable daffin. Indeed, the guidwife with the cares of a family on her head has not only, as a rule, no inclination for dissipation herself, but is apt to inter- fere with that of her husband. This sometimes elicits censorious remarks, not from the husband himself, but from his drouthy cronies — " Tliere's Jolmie Smith has got a vife, Wha scrimps him o' his cogie ; If she were mine, upon my life, I'd douk her in a bogie." The doings of ladies of high rank during last century in the oyster-cellars of Edinburgh, noticed above, may appear incredible to ladies of the present day, who hear them for the first time. But of their SOCIAL SONGS A\D BALLADS. 269 literal truth there is not the slightest doubt. To-day the least coarse form of these orgies would not be tolerated for a moment, and any female, however high her rank, who should patronise it, would find herself at once in Coventry. But manners may change for something more decorous, without it being a necessary corollary that the morals are improved. The safety and comparative harmlessness of these frolics lay in their openness. There was no attempt at conceal- ment, and no consciousness of indecorum. Wherever there is premeditated and cautiously-guarded secrecy, there is criminaUty, more or less, and a, sowing of the seeds of possiljle shame and grief. ( 270 ) CHAPTEE VI. ROMANTIC SONGS AND BALLADS. It is not unusual to class Eomantic and Legendary- songs and ballads under the same head. But there is a difference : Legendary poems contain a super- natural element, and deal with popular superstitions ; while Eomantic poems have for their subject some striking event, of a heroic or tragic cast, and for the most part piu-ely imaginary. The Eomantic ballad literature possesses high poetical merit, and of seven Scottish ballads of this class named by Mr. Chambers, that accomplished critic of the old national literature says that their publication by Dr. Percy did more to create a popularity for the " Eeliques " than all the other contents of the book. Unfortunately, these seven are challenged by Mr. Chambers as being spurious antiques, unable to give a good account of themselves. Percy printed them either "from a manuscript copy sent from Scotland," or " from a written copy that aj)pears to have received some modern corrections," or from copies of ballads printed at the instance of Lady Jean Home, or of Sir David Dalrymple, or from some equally suspicious source. We might admit, without impugning their genuine- ROMANTIC SONGS AND BALLADS. 2/1 ness and antiquity, that they may have received, and probably did receive, some amendments and refine- ments. Eomantic songs and ballads appeared early in British literature, and they at once acquired un- bounded popularity. The oldest Scottish romantic poem is the Sir Tristrem of Thomas the Ehymer, discovered in the Advocates' Library by Eitson, and edited and published by Scott in 1804. The subject of Sir Tristrem was exceedingly popular. He is supposed to have been one of the Knights of the Eound Table, and his exploits have been celebrated in French, Italian, Spanish, and German. Eaynouard informs us that a romance of Tristrem and Yseult once existed in the language of the troubadours; while the Welsh annals refer to a romance on the same subject of a much earlier date, and represent the hero as belonging to authentic history. Conti- nental Eomantici-sts make Sir Tristrem a native of Bretagne, but the Ehymer assigns his birth to Corn- wall, and makes no reference to the history of King Arthur. The cycle of Arthurian romance is of high antiquity and deep interest, and has recently acquired exceptional importance and prominence from its liaving been taken by Mr. Tennyson as the basis of some of the finest, most polished, and most musical jioetical compositions in the English language — " What resounds, In faljle or romance, of Utlier's son Begirt with Briti.sh and Armoric knights." 272 KOMA.\'T/C SONGS AND BALLADS. The ]iordci' scums to have been tlie cradle of Koiuantic fiction in Britain, and the pre-eminence of Scottish poetry in tliis department nnist be ascribed in great measure to the exertions of those wandering- minstrels who sang in l)ower and hall the exploits, triumphs, and defeats of imaginary, or at least tradi- tional heroes, and the beauty, love, constancy, or infidelity of their mistresses or wives. Carlisle, the Carduel of the Arthurian romances, and the favourite residence of the Kinu' himself, was at that time in- eluded in Scotland ; his " Eound Table " was between Carlisle and Penrith ; his " Seat " was at Edinburgh ; Galloway belonged to Sir Gaw\ain ; and Merlin was buried at Drumelyier on the Tweed. There is, besides, a strong dash of romance in the Scottish character, which could hardly fail to be reproduced in the popular poetry. Even the stern and some- what repulsive form in which Scottish superstitions developed themselves, though partly due to the sterile and savage aspect of the country, was also the result of the liigh-strung romantic temperament of the people, still as rampant as of yore. " Eomantic " may be opposed to " Prosaic." A prosaic man moves in a rut, lives conventionally, and would recoil from doing anything that might l)e considered eccentric as he would from contact with a leper. He is one of what are called " safe men," and nobody would ever dream of his setting the Thames on fire. The romantic man, on the contrary, despises conventionalities, hews out a path for himself, and, ROMANTIC SOXGS 'AND BALLADS. 2/3 Mliile not imfrequently looked on as a dangerous character, is one of tliose whose enterprise keeps society from stagnating. A prosaic man will submit to conditions of restraint and monotony that would fret a romantic man to death, for he must be free and unfettered as the winds of heaven. The War of Independence ; the struggles and ultimate triimiphs of the Reformers, who did not, like their brethren of England, accept a reform made to their hand by the sovereign, but modelled theirs after their o^-n de- sign, allowing no interference therewith ; and, above all, the Jacobite struggles, from which the English Jacobites, from the more prosaic natm-e of the English character, kept aloof, are all proofs of the inherently romantic character of the Scot. The sacrifices made Ijy the several denominations wlio have hived off from time to time from the National Church, are further proofs, if further were needed, of this peculiar trait. " Hardyknute," once a general favourite, and per- haps still so, is now known to be spurious ; and " Sir Patrick Spens" we have already dealt with as an historical Ijallad. " Gil Morrice," a second edition of which appeared in 1755, bad an advertisement pre- fixed to it setting forth that tlic preservation of the poem was owing " to a lady who favoured tlic printers with a copy, as it was carefully collected fiom tlie mouths of old women and nurses;" and "any reader lliat can render it more correct or com])lete" was requested to favoni' (Ik; ]iul)b(; willi llicsc iin])rove- nients. Owing to the success of Home's tragedy of s 274 KOMA.VTIC SONGS AND BALLADS. " Douglas," Mliicli wiis Lruuglit out on the Edinburgh stage in 1756, and the composition of which -was sug- gested liy " Gil Morrice," the ballad acquired great popula^it3^ Percy adopted it into his "Eeliques," ■svith four additional verses which had been produced and handed about in MS. These were evidently some of the improvements advertised for, and formed part of " ingenious interpolations," admitted by the Bishop himself to have been introduced in the process of revisal. Their style is florid, and does not at all resemble that of the genuine old ballad. In Percy's MS. collection there was a very old, imperfect copy of this ballad, having the leading features the same — namely, a baron killing, under the influence of jealousy, a young man who had sent a message to his lady to grant him an interview in the green^VN'ood, and wdio was not a gallant plotting an intrigue, but a son l:)y a former connection, whose existence she had kept concealed from her husband. Percy permitted Mr. Jamieson to transcribe the old imperfect copy re- ferred to above, which he published in his " Popular Ballads and Songs." In 1827, Mr. Motherwell, in his " Minstrelsy," gave a version taken from the recitation of a woman, then seventy years of age, who had carried it in her memory from her youth. Probably her version, though divested of many modernisms, and altered into something really resembling the genuine old ballad, was an unconscious transforma- tion by the common people of the highly ornate printed version of 1755 into what better pleased ears ROMANTIC SONGS AND BALLADS. 2/5 accustomed to tlie measure aud diction of our old poetry. Aytoun's version is foimded on that of Motherwell, and contains some stanzas from the old imperfect version published by Jamieson ; while others, transferred from "Lady IMaisry," are elimi- nated. The indiscretion of the messenger, who divulged his mission before the " bauld baron," could not be checked by the lady, though she stamped with her foot and winked with her eye, and though the bower maiden, to screen her mistress, asserted that the message was to her ; for — " Trifles light as air Are to the jealous confirmation strong As proofs of holy writ ;" and so Oil ]\Iorrice was done to death as he sat gaily singing in the greenwood, " kaiming his yellow hair." Instead of " Gil Morrice," " Childe Maurice " should, perliaps, be substituted as the more correct title. From the resemblance of parts to "Hardy- knute " and " Sir Patrick Spens," ]\Ir. Chambers fixes on Lady Wardlaw as the author of the im- proved revisal. " Edward, Edward," printed l)y Percy in the " Pielifpies," from a copy sent to him by Sir David Dalrymple, Lord ILiiles, is also cliallenged as a modem fabrication by some person of culture, and as of no older date than 1700. It is strikingly melodramatic, and consists of a dialogue between a youtli who has killed liis I'allici-, ami his mother, on whom lie imprecates the curse il)le. Brand informs us tliat a young man in the Orkneys used to lirew and read iu liis ]5ible, which last was brownie's eyesore. He refused the usual sacrifice to brownie, who spoiled liis first and second brewings, but of IIk; third lie had very good ale, though lie bad )iot saciiliced to lndwiiie, wlio thereupon took his departure ami timibltd him no more. A similar story is told of a lady iu Uist, 334 LEGENDARY SONGS AND BALLADS. who refused the usual perquisite and lost two "brew- ings, though the third succeeded, upon which the drudge ahandoned the house. It seems, therefore, that though brownie midit be offended with the offer of food or clothes, he rather loved a drink. According to Olaus ]\Iagnus, the Swedish mines were haunted by a class of spirits similar to brownies, and as useful in forwarding mining as brownies were in forwarding agricultural operations. The last brownie known to have laboured in Scotland had his residence at Bods- beck," in Moffatdale. He was borrowed or hired away by the ofl&cious and indiscreet kindness of an old lady, wdio, to reward his services, placed in liis retreat a porringer of milk and a piece of money. He was heard crying and howling the whole night, " Farewell to bonny Bodsbeck," and was never seen more. This incident forms the subject of a tale by the Ettrick Shepherd. William Nicholson, the " Galloway Poet," is the author of a poem of great merit, entitled " The Brownie of Blednoch." The brownie's name is Aiken-drum. We suspect the name was suggested to Nicholson by a popular rhyme which will be found in the " Jacobite Pteliques " — " There was a man cam' frae the moon, Cam' frae the moon, cam' frae the moon, There was a man cam' frae the moon, An' they ca'd him Aiken-drum." Nicholson, who was eccentric to the verge of in- sanity, led a wild, dissipated life, and died a pauper LEGENDARY SONGS AND BALLADS. y:^'^ iu 1 849. We liave often conversed witli a lady -wliG remembered liim travelling through Ivii-kcudbright- shire with a small pack ; and, according to the cus- tom of the time and district, he used, when his roimds brought him that way, to join in the family supper in her father's house, and sleep in the barn. He does not homologate the legend of the brownies' being offended with the offer of meat, for Aiken stipulates for " a cogfu' 0' brose," but is ultimately huffed off the premises by a pair of mouldy breeks being placed beside his supper. " There cam a strange ■night to our touii en', An' the femt a body did him ken ; He tilled na huig, but lie glided beu Wi' a dreary, dreary hum. " His face did glow like the glow o' the vest, When the drumly cloud has it half o'ercast. Or the struggling moon "vvhen she's sair distrest. ' Oh, sirs ! 'twas Aiken-dnim.' " After describing his matted head, his long blue beard, his glaring eyes, liis hauy form, clad with nothing but a philabeg of green rushes, his knotted knees, and his " wauchie arms " tipped with three claws, which were so long that they trailed on the ground Ijy his toeless feet, the poet tells us that the "auld gudeman did sweat;" that he drew a score and sained himself; that the auld wife clutched lier l>ible as a strong fortress against the Evil One ; and that the young wife clasped her wean more closely to lier breast. IJeing conjured to tell what lie wants and whence he comes, he answers tlie last (question ^T,6 LEGENDARY SONGS AND BALLADS. first, and then asks if they have work fur him. He describes his qiialitications thus — " ' I'll shiel ;i' your sheep i' the moriiin' suiie, I'll beiTy your cmp by the li.Ljht o' the moon, An' ba' the bairns \vi' an uiikeiined tune, If ye'U keep pair Ai ken-drum. " ' I'll loup the linn when ye cauna wade, I'll kirn the kirn, an I'll turn the bread ; An' the wildest filly that ever ran rede I'se tame't,' quoth Aiken-drum. " ' To wear the tod frae the flock on the fell, To gatlier the dew frae the heather bell. An' to look at my face in your clear crystal well, Might gie pleasure to Aiken-drum. " ' I'se seek nae guids, gear, bond, nor mark ; I use nae beddin', shoon, nor sark ; But a cogfu' o' brose 'tween the light an' dark Is the wage o' Aiken-drum.' " The aukl wife had sufficient worklly wisdom to realise the advantages offered by tlie brownie, and in spite of the skirling of the wenches, whom she silenced with a stamp of her foot, she invited Aiken to " sit his wa's doun." The brownie did not belie his promises ; he performed prodigies of work by moonlight or by the streamers' glance, and was an especial favourite with the children. " But a new-made wife, fu' o' frij^pish freaks, Fond o' a' things feat for the first five weeks, Laid a mouldy pair o' her ain man's breeks By the brose o' Aiken-drum. " Let the learned decide when they convene. What spell was him an' the breeks between — For frae that day forth he was nae mair seen. An' sair missed was Aiken-drum." LEGENDARY SONGS AND BALLADS. 33/ Eobin Goodfellow, already alluded to, called also l)y Shakespeare, in the " Midsummer Night's Dream," Hobgoblin and Puck, was a mischievous, merry spirit of the earth, fond of mixing with mortals, and given to rough practical joking. He was the clown and jester of the Faiiy Court — " I jest to Oberon and make him smile." In reply to the fairy who asks him whether he be not that shrewd and knavish sprite called Eobin Goodfellow, who frightens village maidens, skims milk, makes the breathless housewife churn in vain, the drink to bear no barm, and misleads night- wan- derers, he replies — " I am that merry wanderer of the night," and he laughingly proceeds to enumerate some of liis knavish pranks — " And sometime lurk I in a gossijj's bowl, In very likeness of a roasted crab ; And, when she drinks, against her lips I hob, And on her wither'd dew-lap pour the ale. The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale, Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh nie," and in consefiucnce comes to gi'ief. However, Eegi- nald Scot, in his "Discoverie of Witchcraft," 1584, has left it on record, nine years before the era of the "Midsummer Night's Dream," tli; it the "liobin Good-fellowe ceaseth now to l)e much feared." The water-kelpie was a much luoro ])otent and malignant being than the brownie. He haunted the fords of rivers in ilood, and laughed wildly when 338 LEGENDARY SONGS AND BALLADS. horse and rider were swept away. Dr. Jamieson, the learned coiu^nler of the Scottish Dictionary, pub- lished in I S I o, contributed to the " Minstrelsy of the Border " a ballad, entitled " The Water-Kelpie," " descriptive of the superstitions of the vulgar in the county of Angus, the scene of which is laid on the banks of the South Esk, near the Castle of Inver- quharity, about five miles north from Forfar." From this we shall give an abstract of the qualities of the sprite, without quoting, as the phraseology is stu- diously arcliaic. The poet, reclining on the river bank beneath the dreary shade of the castle, falls into a slumber. An eerie " wliush " along the river made his members quake, when suddenly the deep pool was cleft in twain, and the kelpie upreared him- self. Wliat seemed his hair consisted of rushes and sedges, entwined with ramper-eels; his eyebrows were of filthy mud, lined with newts and horse- leeches ; for eyes glared two huge horse-mussels ; while a torrent flew from his mouth and drenched his reedy beard. Two slimy stones formed his shoulder-blades ; his broad breast was a whinstone ; his ribs were of laminated rock, and each arm was a monstrous fin. From his belly downwards he be- came a fish covered with shells, and his tail surj)assed in power that of the grisly whale. Tliis may be the popular conception of the kelpie, but it is given with the detailed minuteness of an inventory, and is as dull as a sale catalogue. It wants the graphic power, the broad and vigorous touches of the old LEGENDARY SONGS AND BALLADS. 339 ballad, which, few and uupretending, are yet so elo- quent and tell so much ; and it shows what a wide and impassable gidf separates the antiquary, however learned, from the poet, however unlettered — the mere man of books from the man Avitli " The vision and the faculty divine." The poet, though mortally afraid, gathers strength enough to interrogate this fearful apparition, who shook himself thrice, thrice snorted loud, while " fire-flauchts " flew from Ms eyes and flashed along the floods. When he found words, their hideous sound, like the northern blast, affrighted bird, fish, and quadruped. Upbraiding the poet for his temerity in desiring to speak to him, he promises to spare his life and give him the information desired — " That worms like thee mae ken." The gist of the information may be thus embodied : — The rivers from their spring-heads to the sea obey his laws ; he scampers on the waves like a wild horse, and becomes the servant of him who succeeds ill l»ridling him — as proof of which he points to a bridge for which he had quarried and carried tlie stones ; he friglitens the lads and lasses watching the clothes on the river banks, and engaged in amorous dalliance; none can be smothered in pool or ford if lie be not there ; and lie knows (h(! ]iivd(;stined spot wliere each is to meet his fate. For weeks before sucli a catastroplie his lights, dancing down the stream, wani the peasant of aj^proaching disaster, and all iim 340 LEGENDARY SONGS AND BALLADS, from the danger save those whose fate is thus pre- dicted, M'hose destruction is to him a source of joy. Like a crocodile on the hanks of the Nile, he seems to mourn the fate of which he is the cause. The doomed, inspireil hy him, are deaf to all counsel, and the night hefore this interview, though the w^ater was in ilood, a man, " nae stranger to the gate," and warned that it would not ride, and also that the kelpie had been heard, took the ford, for the water- sprite had prepared his shroud. Sometimes he assumes the human shape, and delights to frighten mortals — on a starless night leaping on behind a horseman, grasping him in his arms, and not letting go his hold till the terrified rider's threshold is reached. His very name acts as a spell, and is used by the nurse to still the crying child, who forthwith sinks into a sleep. This said, he raised a horrid howl — " Thrice with his tail, as with a flail, He struck tlie flying pool ; A thuuder-clap seem't ilka wap Resouiidin' throu''h the wude. The fire thrice flash't ; syne in he plash't, And sunk l^eneath the flude." All this is very minute ; probably the legend is cor- rectly given ; liut it is immensely dull, and, instead of inspiring horror, induces yawning. In the "Flyting of Polwart and Montgomery," "bogles, brownies, gyre-carlingis, and ghaists" are associated in a single line. The belief in the three first-mentioned classes of beings has all but evapo- LEGEXDARY SOXGS AXD BALLADS. 34 1 rated, but the belief in giiosts still maintains its ground more or less in all climes and in all conditions of society. Crabbe calls this belief " the last linger- ing fiction of the brain." Ghosts are seldom seen but by those who were interested in the party while alive, as by the son, the husband, the lover, or the murderer. The apparition is doubtless due to memory acting on an excited imagination, or to some functional derangement, such as a disordered stomach, or to a diseased nervous system. Even the sceptic Lucretius, while denying the existence of the human soul, ad- mits that the fact of ghostly apparitions was too well established to be impugned. Of course, the general belief in ghosts gave room for much imposture. "When the Commissioners of the Long Parliament came down to dispark the ancient palace of Woodstock — 13th October 1649 — they were frightened out of their wits by the appearance of spectres and the operation of forces apparently from the infernal world — all which was but a trick of a clerk of then- own, Joseph Collins, of Oxford, alias Funny Joe, a concealed Loyalist, who, having been brought up in the neighl)Ourhood, was intimately acquainted with all the intricacies of the palace. For an interesting account of the tricks, and an explanation as to liow they were performed, see Scott's "Woodstock." Tlie Cock Lane Ghost (1762) created a great stir in Lon- don. Dr. Johnson, who was constitutionally super- stitious, was supposed to believe in it, and Cliurcliill, in a poem entitled " The Ghost," caricatured him, under 342 LEGENDAKY iiOXGS AND BALLADS. the name of I'omposo, as having credited the fraud. Tlie fiict is, that he and Dr. Douglas, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, detected the imposture. The story of the apparition that is said to have appeared to Thomas, the second Lord Lytteltou, hovers in the doubtful borderland between truth and fiction. It is still believed by many that his Lordship, a worn-out man of pleasure and an invalid, was convinced of its reality. It is said, on the other hand, that he had determined to take poison, and hence it was easy for him to predict the time of his decease. Lord Fortes- cue, who was in the house with him at the time, denied that there was any truth in the supposed visitation. Ghost stories are so numerous, and have such a striking likeness to each other, that it is un- necessary to multiply them here. "Mary's Dream," "a song which few have equalled and none excelled" — such is the dictum of Allan Cunningham — is the production of John Lowe (Mr. Chambers calls him Alexander, but this is surely a mistake), tutor in the family of Mr. M'Ghie of Airds, in Galloway. The lover of one of the daughters of the family having been lost at sea, his ghost appears to Mary in a dream. It is moonlight, which is ex- quisitely descriljed — " Mary laid her down to sleep, Her thoughts on Sandy, far at sea ; "When soft and low a voice was heard Say, ' Mary, weep no more for nie.' " She from her pillow gently raised Her head, to ask who there might be : LEGENDARY SONGS AND BALLADS. 343 She saw young Sandy sliiv'ring stand, With visage pale and hollow e'e. ' Mary, dear, cold is my clay. It lies beneath a stormy sea ; Far, far from thee, I sleep in death ; So, Mary, weep no more for me.' " After describing the shipwreck, and Lidding her pre- pare to meet him on the shore where doubt and care had no existence, the shadow fled at the crowing of the cock. " Mary's Dream" was an especial favourite with Allan Cimningham. He says of it, " I scarcely know a song that contains so many popular qualities — a moving tale, with all its natural and supernatural accompaniments, steeped in a stream of melody." Glover, the author of " Leonidas," wrote an admirable party song entitled "Admii-al Hosier's Ghost." § 4. RETURN FROM THE DEAD — CONCLUSION. There is a class of Scottish Ijallads of exquisite beauty and pathos, the subject-matter of which is a return from the dead. In one of them the apparition is called l)y the poet a ghost, but the persons to whom the apparitions appear evidently regard them as personalities, and really rescued I'lnni the realm Df Death. These are "Sweet William's Ghost," fir-st publislied in Ramsay's "Tea-table Miscellany;" "Clerk Saunders," publislied in the " I5order i\Iin- strel.sy" from ^Ir. Herd's ]\ISS., its conclusion hhk h resembling the ballad first mentioned. Professor Aytoun gives a version compacted from those of 344 LEGENDARY SONGS AND BALLADS. IMessrs. Kinlocli and Buchaii, which is more coherent than that given by Scott. "The Wife of Usher's Well," a fragment, first puhlished in the " Border Minstrelsy," Mr. Chambers considers as merely a. continuation of the " Clerk's Twa Sons of Owsenford," Avhich in his edition of the ballads he incorporated with the foregoing. Hence some editors would reduce these four ballads to two, while others are of opinion that each is the composition of a different author. Mr. Chambers has, however, put himself out of court: in the development of his hypothesis he assigns all of them to Lady Wardlaw. The version of "William's Ghost" given I)y Aytoun was obtained by following in the main that of Motherwell, and collating it with that given by ]\Ir. Kinloch. It differs so much from the ballad as printed by Eamsay, especially towards the close, that the collater was inclined to regard it as a composition distinct from " Clerk Saunders." We shall adhere to Aytoun's version. " The ballad," says Mr. Chambers, " is important as the earliest printed of all the Scot- tish ballads after the admittedly modern 'Hardy- knute.'" And he observes further on, that it " appears as composed in the style of those already noticed — a style at once simple and poetical — neither showing the rudeness of the common peasant's ballad nor the formal refinement of the modern English poet." The last two stanzas, however, were evidently patched on by some contemporary of Eam- say, and they are as stiff, prosaic, and pretentious as LEGENDARY SONGS AND BALLADS. 345 the productions of the minor poets of the beginning of the eighteenth century usually are. Both in " William's Ghost " and " Clerk Saunders/' the apparition requests a restoration of the faith and troth that he had formerly given to the lady of his love. "We give a short analysis of each hallad. " Tliere came a ghost to Marjorie's door, Wi' mony a ^'rievous maeii ] And aye lie liiied at the pin, But answer made she nane." Ultimately she asks if it is her father Philip, her brother John, or her true love Willie, new come home from England. Being informed that it is her love Willie, she interrogates him as to whether he has brought her certain articles of female ornament, which she particularises, when the ghost replies — " ' I've brouglit you but my winding-sheet, And that you wouldna wear ! " ' Oh, sweet Marjorie, oh, dear Marjorie ! For faitli and cluiritie, Give me again the faith and troth That I gave once to thee.' '"Thy faith and troth T will not give Nor yet sliall our true-love twin', Till that you come within my bower, And kiss me, cheek and chin.' "'How should I come within your bower, That am nae earthly man ; If I should kiss your red, red lips, Your days would not be liiu".' " ' The cocks are crawing, Marjorie,' he says, ' The cocks are crawing again ; 34(3 LEGENDARY SONGS AND BALLADS. It's time tlie deid suld part frae the quick — Marjorie, I must be gane.' " He again pleads for restitution of his troth, which she refuses to accord till he take her to his " ain ha'- liouse," and wed her with a ring. His reply is that his house is a lonesome grave, and that it is but his spirit that is speaking to lier. She then kilted her robes of green, and followed the corpse of her lover the live-long winter night, till she came to the green kirkyard, where William lay down in the open grave. She inquu'es at him what are the three things stand- ing at his head, to which the answer is that they are three maidens whom he once promised to marry. Next, she asks what are the three things that stand at his side, when she finds that they are three babies born to him by the three maidens. Lastly, in reply to the question, what are the three things that lie close at his feet, she is told that they are three hell- hounds waiting to keep his soul — " Then she's ta'en up her white, white hand, And struck him on the briest ; Saying — ' Have there again your faith and trotli, And I wish your soul good rest.' " In 1724 there appeared in Hill's periodical, " The Plain Dealer," an exquisitely simple ballad, entitled " William and Margaret," composed by David Mallet (his proper name was Malloch) at about the age of twenty-two. In a note to the ballad Mallet says that the plan was suggested to him by the following LEGENDARY SONGS AND BALLADS. ^47 stanza of an old song, quoted in Fletcher's " Knight of the Burning Pestle " — " "When it was grown to rlark midnight, And all were fast asleep, In came Margaret's grimly ghost, And stood at "William's feet." " These lines," says Dr. Percy, " have acquired an importance by giving birth to one of the most beauti- ful ballads in our own or any language." But we agTee with Scott that, however the ballad was suggested. Mallet had " Sweet William's Ghost " in his eye, the resemblance between it and his own ballad being too striking to be accidental. IMargaret, who had been deceived by "William, asks back her maiden vow and her troth, and blames his cruelty and infidelity as the cause of her death. At cock-crow she bids liim a long and last adieu, and charges him to come and see the grave of her who had died for his love. Thither he repairs, and stretching himself on the grass- green turf, yielded up his soul in tears. In a publica- tion entitled " The luiends " (1773), an unsuccessful attempt was made to deprive IMallet of the credit of the authorship of tliis, one of the finest compositions of the kind in our language. Tlie tale of " Clerk Saunders," of which some sup- pose "William's Ghost" to Iju a mere variation, is, according to Scott, " uncommonly wild and Ijcautiful, and apparently very ancient." Alexander Smith, in an essay in his " l)reamtlir(»i»e," entitled "A Shelf in luy Bookcase," speaks of it with boundless enthusiasm. 348 LEGENDARY SOXGS AND BALLADS. " If you should happen to lift the first volume of Pro- fessor Aytoun's ' Bcallads of Scotland,' the book opens of its own accord at ' Clerk Saunders/ and by that token you will guess that the ballad has been read and re- read a thousand times. And what a ballad it is ! The story in parts is somewhat perilous to deal with, but with wliat instinctive delicacy the whole matter is managed ! Then what tragic pictures, what pathos, what manly and womanly love ! Just fancy how the sleeping lovers, the raised torches, and the faces of the seven brothers looking on, would gleam on the canvas of Mr. Millais ! " But this is presupposing more knowledge of the tale than we have yet supplied— " Clerk Saunders was an Earlie's son, Weel learned at the scliule ; May Margaret was a King's daughter : Baitli lo'ed the other weel." As they walked together over " yon garden green," Clerk Saunders makes a proposition that would now be reckoned indecorous, to which Margaret demurs on the score that they are unmarried, and that if she yielded to his wishes her seven bold brothers might come in, with torches burning bright, and discover them. As a clerk, and consequently skilled in casuistry, he proceeds to reconcile Margaret's con- science to what she apparently only half disapproved of, her own inclination proving a traitor to her — " ' Then take the sword from my scabbard, And slowly lift the pin ; And you may swear and save your aith, You never let me in. LEGENDARY SONGS AND BALLADS. 349 " ' And take a napkin in your hand, And tie up baith your e'en ; And you may swear, and save your aith. Ye saw me na since yestreen.' " Wliat Margaret had dreaded soon came to pass. At the midnight hour, when the lovers were fast asleep, the seven brothers entered IMargaret's bower and stood at her bed-feet. The first, touched with com- passion, counselled that they should depart and let them alone. Other five, equally compassionate, framed excuses, and bespoke mercy for them, on the several pleas that Clerk Saunders was the only child of his father ; that he and Margaret were lovers dear ; that for many years they had loved each other ; that it were a sin to twain true love, and that it would be a shame to slay a sleeping man — " Tlien up and gat the seventh 0' them, And never a word spake he ; But he has stripeil his Ijright brown brand Through Saunders' fair bodie. " Clerk Saunders he started, and Slargaret she turned Into his arms, as asleep she lay ; And sad and silent was the night That was atween thir twae." We are now in a position to give Mr. Chambers's reasons for assigning " Clerk Saunders " to tlie list of suspicious ballads. Having, as he conceived, detected l.ady Wardlaw's toucli in tlie " Gay Gosliawk " and "Gil Morrice," he reasons thus: — In tlir Iniincr l)allad, tlie lady having feigned death alter the device of Juliet, her seven brethren rose up and hewed 350 LEGENDARY SONGS AND BALLADS. to her a bier ; and lie remarks, " It is further very remarkable, that in ' Clerk Saunders ' it is seven brothers of the heroine who come in and detect her lover." The mode, also, of the doing to death of Saunders is suspiciously like that by which Gil Morrice is carried off, and the resemblance is more complete in Scott's version — " Now he has ta'en his trusty brand, And slait it on the strae, And throu<;;h Gil Morrice's fair bodie He garred cauld iron gae." These are but slender foundations on which to base an hypothesis. At the dawn, Margaret, who knew not of her lover's murder, warns him to be gone, but receives no answer. Wlien she discovers that he is dead, she invokes woes on her brothers, who had slain the true lover who would have married her. Her father, coming softly into her bower, attempts to comfort her by the prospect of a higher match, but Margaret declares that she shall never be wedded. Wlien she had mourned within her bower for a twelve- month and a day, a knock and cry came to her win- dow, which she at first thought proceeded from a robber, but Clerk Saunders announces that it is he come to speak with her. He cannot rest in his grave till she has restored him his plighted faith and troth. She answers in almost the identical terms employed by Margaret to William, and to these Clerk Saunders replies almost precisely as William does. She LEGENDARY SONGS AXD BALLADS. 35 I proceeds to say that she will not restore him his troth till he tell her Avhat becomes of women who die in travail — " ' Their beds are made in the heavens hi"h. O 7 Down at the foot of our good Lord's knee, Weel set aboi;t wi' gillyflowers ; I wot sweet company for to see.' " Gillyflowers formed part of the popular conception of heaven — " The fields about this city faire Were all with roses set — Gillyflowers and carnations faire, "Which canker could not fret." This is from the " Dead Men's Song," as published by Eitson in his "Ancient Songs." Margaret restores his troth, and he tells her that if ever the dead come for the quick he will come for her — " Sae painfully slie clam the wa', She clam the wa' up after him ; Hosen nor shoon upon her feet, She hadna' time to put them on. " ' Is there ony room at your head, Saunders ? Is there ony room at your feet ? Or ony room at your side, Saunders, Where fain, fain, I wad sleep ?'" Mr. Smith observes — "In that last line tlie very lieart-strings crack. Slie is to be pitied far more than Clerk Saunders, lying stark with tlie cruel wound beneatli liis side, tlie love-kisses lianlly cold yet on his lips." They must have been cold after a twelvemontli and a day of tlie grave. Indeed Clerk Saunders says himself — " ' My moutli il is lull cold, Margaret.'" Over tlie companion ballads of " The AVife of Usher's Well " and " The Clerk's Twa Sons of Owsen- ford " we shall not tarry long. The former was first published in the " Border Minstrelsy." It is a frag- ment, and is by some, but we think erroneously, considered to be in some measure identical with the latter portion of the second-mentioned ballad. The wealthy wife of Usher's Well sent three stalwart sons over the sea, who perished within a few days. "When told this, she wished that the wind might never cease " nor freshes in the flood " — " 'Till my three sons come hame to me. In earthly flesh and blood ! ' " It fell about the Martinmas, When nights are lang and mirk, The carline wife's three sons cam' hame, And their hats were o' the birk. " It neither grow in syke nor ditch, Nor yet in ony sheugh ; But at the gates o' Paradise That birk grew fair eneugh." The carline, rejoiced at the return of her sons, feasts all her household, and prepares for her fond ones a bed large and wide, beside which she seated herself wrapped in a mantle. At cock-crow the eldest said to the youngest that it was time they were away, because if they were missed out of their place they would abide a sore punishment. The youngest, touched with compassion for his mother, who had fallen asleep, pleads for some delay, on the LEGENDARY SONGS AND BALLADS. 353 plea that their mother would immediately go mad when she awoke and discovered theii' absence. They hung their mother's mantle on a pin, saying it would he long ere it happed them again, and with a farewell to their mother, to barn and byre, and to the bonny lass, the household servant, they returned to their dread abode. The " Clerk's Twa Sons of Owsenford " is thought by Aytoun to be very ancient, and to be referred to a period anterior to the Eeformation. Owsenford is probably Oxenford, now a seat of the Earl of Stair in Mid-Lothian, though some identify it with Oxford. The two sons went off to Paris to study, wliich renders it improbable that tliey belonged to the University town of Oxford. They had an amour with the two daughters of the mayor, who, having discovered it, swore that he would hang them. Their mother having ascertained that they were bound in prison, urged tlie father to hasten to effect their pardon. But the haughty mayor was inexorable. He would free the prisoners neither for gold nor fee, nor for Christ's sake, but would hang tliem to-morrow at noon. The two daughters begged their father to set their lovers free, even on condition of taking thdr lives. But he scourged them witli a whi]i, and witli an opprobrious epithet ordered Lliem Lo llieir bowers, liefore their fatlier's face each kissed her lover twenty times, giving him lii.s faith and troth as he liad given her. Aytoun's version ends here; Init there is a second part in wliicli tlie mother is represented as 354 LEGENDARY SO.XGS A.VD BALLADS. sitting o\\ her castle wall awaiting the return of her husband and her sons. She sees her good lord return- ing alone, and having welcomed him, she inquires after her sons. He informs her that they are put to a deeper learning and to a higher school, and that till the hallow days of Yule they will not be home. " The hallow days o' Yule were come, And the nights were langand mirk, When in and cam her ain twa sons, And their hats made o' the Lirk." Tlie rest of the ballad corresponds closely with the conclusion of " The Wife of Usher's Well." A feast is prepared because her two sons were well — " ' eat and drink my merry men a', The better shall ye fare, For my ain twa sons they are come hame To me for evermair.' " And she has gane and made their bed. She's made it saft and tine ; And she's happit them \vi' her grey mantel, Because they were her ain." At cock-crowing they disappear for ever. ]\Ir. Chambers doubted the genuineness of this ballad as an antique. He did not always do so, for in a note to it in his "Scottish Ballads" (1829) he says— "This singularly wild and beautiful old ballad is cliieHy taken from the recitation of the editor's grandmother, who learned it when a girl, nearly seventy years ago, from a ]\Iiss Anne Gray, resident at Neidpath Castle, Peeblesshire." Other superstitions might be noticed, such as when LEGENDARY SONGS AND BALLADS. 355 a water-sprite woos a woman to her destruction, or when female elves try to lure men to theii^ abodes. Tlie " Mermaid " was a formidable beins^, beautiful above as Aphrodite, wath blue eyes, ruddy lips, a smile sweeter than the bee, and a voice surpassing the songs of birds. Doomed was the luckless knight whom her fascinations induced to seize her hand. Soon his drowning scream was heard from the whirling eddy. Here end our chapters on the " Songs and Ballads of Scotland." The literature which we have attempted to illustrate is of a high order ; not, it may be, polished like the literature of scholars, but fresh and healthy, breathing of wood and liill, of stream and sea, of strong passion, of love stronger than death, of horrid cruelty, openly confessed and exulted in, as resulting from a spirit of vengeance supposed to be legitimate, either from private or tribal wTongs, and of an abso- lutely tumultuous delight in adventure. We have given a list of the titles of old songs and ballads from that beautiful pastoral, " The Complaynt of Scotland." There also will be found the names of tlie instruments played on by the eight shepherds, and the names of the dances in whicli the happy Arcadians engaged, as well as the titles of numerous rnmaiitic tales wliich are now irretrievably lost. INDEX Adams, Jean, 221. Addison, 36. Admiral Hosier's Ghost, 343. Afflek, James, 3. Alcmena, 327. Alison (jrosg, 296, 324. Alison Pearson, 302. Andro and his Cutty Gun, 262. Ane Ballnt of Matrimome, 239. A Sew Book of Old Ballads, 317. Anne, Queen, 123, 142. Anthony d'Arcey, Seigneur de Lt Bastie, 164. Antiquary, The, 262. Apuleius' Golden Ass, 327. Archie 0' Ca'fi'ld, 170. Argyle, Earl of, 81. Duke of, 131, 147. Armstrong, Johnie of Gilnockie, 158. Amot, H>j>fo, 265. Arthurian Romance, 271. A Song on Absence, 183. Ay ton. Sir Robert, 184. Aytoun, Professor, 55, A'c. A aid Lang Syne, 216, 250. Auld Kohin Gray, 186. Babity Boicster, 215. Uaillic, Lady Grizzel, 196. Joanna, 212. Balfour, Jamie, 248. Ballads from Scottish History, 1y Norval Clyno, 21. Bannatyne MS., 6, Ac. Barbara Allan, 185. Barl>our'H Brus, 3. Bitav'.e, Citiiipiifines de, 163. iiest Man and Best Maid, 207. Biile yt yet, 237. Billy Blind, 327. BLackfoot, The, 192. BoglcH, 340. Boiardo'« O'lando Innmnrafn, 326. Borderers, The, character of, 163 et set/. Bower, Walter, 61. Broosc, The, 217. Brown. Mr«., of Falkland, 21. Bcpwnic, Tlic, 337, -140. Buccleuch, Sir SValter Scott of, 174. Buchnn's Ancient Hallndt, 4c , 27. Buckl«'« lliitnry of Civititalion, 318. Buniet, Bifhop, 125. Bums, 178, 180, 6ic. Burton's Eistory of Scotland, 46, 30' Ac. Butcher Cumberland, 148. Byng, Sir George, 123. Cameronians, The, 122. Caniiichael, Sir John, 163, 166. Carlyle, Dr. Alexander, 130, 253, 254. Chambei-s, Robert, 7, 17, Ac. Changelings, 30T. Charles Edward, Prince, 135. Charmer, The, 250. Chaucer, 5, 266. Chevalier de St. George, 116, The Young, 116, 129, 139, 151- Chevy Chase, 33, 133. Christie's IVill, 169. Christ's Kirk on the Green, 212. Churchill, 341. Clerk Saunders, 343, 347. Sir John, of Penicuik, 250. Clerk. Jnhiie. 3. Clyne, Norval, 21, 61, Cockbum, Lord, 246, 234. Cockburn's Memorials of his Times, =55- Cockelbey's Sow, 5. Collins, Joseph, alias Funny Joe, 341 • Complaynt of Scotland, 4, 6, Ac. Complayiit against the Thitrcs of Liddisdail, 137. Constable, Arcldbald, 249. Cope, Sir John, 135, 149. Cotter's Sfilurdai/ A'if/ht, 189. Cotton MSS., 239. Crabbe. 341. Crcichton, Captain John, Memoirs of, 104. Cries or Hanns of Maniago, 207. Criniiual Trial.s, 324. CuUoden, Dattle of, 139, 130. Cumberland, |)ukcof, 139. Cunninglmiii, Allan, 6, 13, 194, Ac. Dal/.iel'M Scottish I'nems of the Six- teenth Century, 83. Dalzicl, General Thomas, of Binns, 107. Dame, do the thing vhilk I desire, 224. Darien Scheme, The, 124, Daneiit'H Tales from the Sorse, 244. Daviilson, Robert, Provost of Aber- deen, 53, Oi. 358 INDEX. Jieail Men's Song, 351. Vtttth and Pr. Hornbook; 251. 1)0 Quincoy, Tlioniii-s, 247. J)oi(o Tinnock'M, 253. Newton, I.,ord, 247. Nlcliolsiin, William, 334. A'ort/i C'oiiiilry (iarlaiid,'fhe, 225. Kow the day da irt, 4, 5. 0, an' ye were diod, fjuidman, 232. O.guid ale coma and {/aid ale yoe<, -49 Old Wodrling-Day, Tlio. 208. Orpheui CaUdontw, 201, 202. Othello, 224. Our ffudeman cam' hame at e'en, 230. Police of Honour, Gawin Douglas, 5. Peblis to the Play, 2, 257. Penny Pay-Wedduig, The, 203. Percy's Riliques, 224, &c. Perkin, 129. Perkin's Lament, 131, 145. Pinkertou, 54, 183. Pitcaim's Crimiyial Trials, 323. Pitscottie, Lindsay of, 72, 159. Pretender, The, 129, Psalms of Ihuidie, 8. Puck, 337. Jiaf Coilyear, 5. Ramsay's Tea-table Miscellany and Ereryrten, 10. 54, &c. Reformation, The, 4, 8. jUdiques of Ancient English Poetry, 16, &c. Remains of Ailhsdale and Gallotcay Song, 14. Ritson, 54, 66, &c. Rob Roy, 132, 133. Roberts, J. S., The Legendary Ballads of England and Scotland, 245. Robertson, Principal, 254. Robin Goodfellow, 332, 337. Borneo and Juliet, 4. Ross, Alexander, 206. Boy's Wife of Aldivatloch, 187. Rutlierford, Miss Alison, 65. 67, Allan's Chronicle. 2. Salkeld of Corby Ciistle, 174. Schulenberg, .Madame, 127. Scot, Alexander, 4, 184. Scot, Reginald, Discoverie of Witch- craft, 337. Scotch Drink-, 231. Scotch Prisbyterian Eloquence Dis- played, 10. Scott, Sir William, of Thirlstain. 212. Scott's Letters on Uemonology, 321. Scott ami Jacobitism, 119. Scroope, Lord Warden, 174. Sccly Court, The, 325. Sempill, Francis, of Heltrces, 210. Sharp, Archbi.-ihop, log. Shai-pe, Charles Kirkiiatrick, 267. Sheale, Richard, 35. Shelburno, William, Earl of. Life of, 47. 117. _ She's yours, she's yours, she's nae viair ours, 218. Sibbald, 54, Simoiid, .M., Tour in Scotlandi^^Z. Sir Patrick Sjiens, 20, 273. Sir Tristrem, 271. Skelton, 70, Sk Irving, .Mr, 137. Smith, .Mexaniler, 14, 57, 93, 162. Smith, Lieutenant, 137. Smollett, 140. Sony of lite Outlaw Mui-ray, 155, Sony on the Thirtunth (if January, 1696, 141. \6o IXDEX. Sietft Witliam't OhnsI, 343. Tales of the Tlirei' /'riists 0/ Peblis, 31. Tales 0/ a O'ranii/ather, 121, 135. Tai>i,o' Slianter, 331. T(tL-' ifnur nuld ciiiali about ye, 223. Tlie Aiicliiiiilniiio TraRctly, SS. Tlie Battle of floddm JudU, edited by Henry \Vel)cr, 67. The BiUllf of (Mtei-bourne, 42, Tmc Battle of liarlaw, 48 Floddeii, 62. L'urrieliie, 78. iSahinnes, 81. Dryfife SuikIs, 84. Pliilipliau)^h, loi. RulIioii'Green, 105. l)ruiiic'liig, loq. Hi.tliwell Bridge, 111. Killiecvaiikie, 121. ShorilTiiuiir, 131. rrestonpuns, 135, 137. 1 Falkirk, 135, 139. The Bli/thsoiiie Bridal, 210. The Boatk Jimcs, 220. The Bonny Jarl of Murvay, 280. The Bonny La^K o' Balloclimyle, 179. The Border Widow's Lament, i6i. The Brisk Young Lnd, 205. The Broicnie of Bod.iOeck; 334. - — ^^■^— Blednoch, 334. The Burning of Frendraught, 94 The Carle of Kellybarn Braes, 237. Tlie Cherry and tli£ Slae, 188. The Clerk's Two. Sons of Owsenford, 344, 353- The Courtship of Jock the Weaver and Jenny the Spinner, 198. The Devil's "teind," 311. The Douglas Tragedy, 291. The Eirr-buchls, 196. 201. The Floaers of the Forest, 63, 191. The Friends, 347. The Gaberlunzie Man, 190. TIte Gay Gos-hawk, 285. The Gade Wallace, 2. The Honeymoon, 239. The Husband who loas to mind the House. 245. The Jew's Daughter, 276. The Jolly Beggar, 190. The King of Elflancl, 310. 7he Lads of Wamphray, 85. The Laidley Worm of Spendehton Heugh, 326. The La/ird of Muirhead, 69. The Lass 0' Lochryan, 290. The Lee Rig. 193. Tlie Miller, 230. The Queen of Elfland, 306. The Raid of the Reidswire, 166. Tlic Rebellious Crew, 124. The Romantic Scottish Ballads, their F/toch and A ulliorship, by liobert Clianil)or8, 17. Tbc Romantic Scottish Ballads and the Lady Wardlau) Controvcrty, by Norval Clyne, 21. T),e Shepherd's Wi.fe, 215. The Souters 0' Selkirk, 70. The .Sow's Tail to Geordte, 127. The Tears of Scotland, 140. The Tempest, 320. The Trumpeter of Pyvie, 292. Tlie Twa Corbies, 162. The Tyrannical Husband, 245. The Water-kelpie, 3^8. The Weary Fund o' Tow, 235. The Wife of Auchtermuchty, 242. Usiier's ICc//, 344, 352. The Wolr', the Fox, and the Cadger, 4. The Wooing of Jenny and Jock, 199. • the Maiden, 217. The Young Tamlane, 312. There's nae luck about the house, 220. There were , four drunken maidens, 269. Thomas the Rhymer, 271, 305. Thomas. Lord Lyttleton, 342. Tibbie Fowler, 204. Tiidlin' Haiiie, 227, 248. Traditions of Edinburgh, 257. Traquair, Earl of, 169. Tied f Ik Night. 265. Wile's me for Prince Charlie, 140. Walkingshaw, William, 213. • AVardlaw, Lady Elizabeth, 17, &c. Water-Sprite, 355. Watson's CoUection.of Scottish Poems. 212. Waverley, 233, 254. Wedderburn, John and Robert, 8. AVehrwolf. The, 323. Wliurry Whigs awa', 114. William, Prince of Onuge, 115. l\'illiam's Ghost, 344. William and Margaret, 346. ■Williamite, 115. Willie brewed a peck o' maut, 251. Willie was a wanton wag, 213. If^iUie Winkle's Testament, 124. WiUie's Ladye, 326. Winter's Tale, 9. Winton's Crom/kil, 2. Witch, The Hcottish, 322. Witch of Endor, 321. Wood and married, and a', 206. iroodslock, 341. I ' Ynir's Charmer, 234. Yoii/ng Hantin, 291. ■Young Waters, 278. V) PRINTED BY HALLANTYNE. HANSON AND CO. EDINBirUGH AND LONDON UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on tlie last date stamped below. 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