Under such impressions, we conceive it to be the duty of all to whom the honour of our press and the comfort of men of letters is in any degree intrusted, to arm themselves in all their judicial severity against the very earliest delinquents ;and we feel, with no slight satisfaction, from the determined antiquarian enthusiasm of the public, that we may now reprove the unprofitable intruders into this branch of learned investigation, without any hazard of discouraging a pursuit which is honourable to the character of the nation, and of some importance to its literature and philosophy. Mr. Jamieson is not only very far from requiring all the censure that an offending antiquary may provoke, but has intitled himself in many respects to considerable praise: yet even this work of a man of abilities and feeling discovers many warning traits, from which the reader may conjecture what aspect the evil is likely to assume, when the whole herd of huntsmen and whippers-in of literature is let loose into the repositories of black letter and MSS. The following passages from the editor's preface (which we have selected with some trouble, since the narrative is much diversified with small talk) contain a statement of Mr. J.'s opportunities for collecting authentic materials: In March, 1779, I-a man that acknowledges favours may be allowed to be an egotist-communicated my design to the Rev. Dr. Gerrard, Professor of Theology in King's College, Aberdeen, who, with his usual zeal where the promotion of liberal pursuits is concerned, entered warmly into my views, and not only himself did every thing he could, but obtained of Professor Scott of the same College a transcript of a large collection of upwards of twenty pieces, which that gentleman had written down a good many years ago, when he was very young, from the recitation of his aunt Mrs. Brown of Falkland. These, being almost all new to me, and none of them having ever been printed, encouraged me to proceed with spirit and confidence, and I was much gratified to find that the kind zeal and industry of my friends, and the obliging politeness of every person to whom I applied, was likely to enable me in a considerable degree to surmount the disadvantages and difficulties I laboured under, from having resided very little in the lowlands of Scotland since I was turned of fifteen, and from my being confined by a laborious employment and very limited circumstances to an inland manufacturing town in England. Anxious, however, to do the utmost in my power for my work, in the summer of 1800 I took a journey to the North of Scotland, and stopping at Edinburgh in my way, was not a little mortified to find that Mr. Scott was engaged in an undertaking of the same kind, in which he had made nearly the same progress, and that the greater part of the materials collected for both works was the same.'. In 1800 I paid an unexpected visit to Mrs. Brown at Dysart, where she then happened to be for her health, and wrote down from C 3 from her unpremeditated repetition about a dozen pieces more, most of which will be found in this work; several others which I had not time to take down were afterwards transmitted to me by Mrs. Brown herself, and by her late highly respectable and worthy husband, the Rev. Dr. Brown. "As to the authenticity of the pieces themselves, they are as authentic as traditionary poetry can be expected to be; and their being more entire than most other such pieces are found to be, may be easily accounted for, from the circumstance that there are very few persons of Mrs. Brown's abilities and education, that repeat popular ballads from memory. She learnt most of them before she was 12 years old, from old women and maid servants; what she once learnt she never forgot; and such were her curiosity and industry, that she was not contented with merely knowing the story according to one way of telling, but studied to acquire all the varieties of the same tale which she could meet with. In some instances these different readings may have insensibly mixed with each other, and produced from various disjointed fragments, a whole, such as reciters, whose memories and judgment are less perfect, can seldom produce. But this must be the case in all poetry which depends for its authenticity upon oral tradition alone.' This last piece of reasoning, which should establish the superior claim to perfection in Mr. J.'s collection of ballads, does not appear to us eminently successful; since we cannot think that people of education and abilities are the most faithful reporters of legendary tales. That which they cannot understand they are under a strong temptation to make intelligible by conjectural emendations, and fancy at times may supply the defects of recollection. It seems to us that the editor would have been more fortunate, if he could have collected his ballads fresh from their natural reporters, the country people; whose faithful memory is not exposed to disturbance in the discharge of its duty, from any intrusion of criticism or imagination. On Mr. Jamieson's arrangement we should have had little to remark, if he had adhered to it. The first volume consists of Tragic Ballads, Humorous Ballads, and Songs: the second, of Miscellaneous Ballads, Songs, and an Appendix, the latter of which contains nothing but duplicates, with some small variation. Most editors, with half the sense of Mr. J. would have troubled us with the various readings only; and not even with these, had they related to such unfortunate productions as the Trumpeter of Fyvie. In the Miscellaneous class, we have the Gude Wallace, which is certainly "as tragical a tragedy as ever was tragedized by any company of tragedians." All those relating to Sir John Barleycorn should have been com prehended among the ludicrous compositions; and we are not quite certain that the latter class has any title to the Carle of Kellieburn Braes: A woman being sent to the devil is an occurrence of such a nature, that no way of telling the story сац ean make the event humorous. The translations from the Danish, and a few original ballads, are scattered about with a dignified indifference to order; and an old ballad, Lord Wagates and Auld Ingram,' is unaccountably wedged in between a drinking song and a Christmas carol. We now come to the consideration of the materials themselves, by the merits of which the work must either stand or fall; and here we mean to select from Mr. J.'s pages those parts which appear to us most striking, either in the antient ditties themselves, or in the accompanying illustrations, adding such remarks as a perusal of them may suggest. Child Maurice.' We were much gratified on meeting with this rude original of the celebrated ballad Gill Morris; and the more because at one time its very existence was doubted. In its present state, it is a faithful transcript of the copy preserved in Bishop Percy's folio MS. so often mentioned in the "Relics of Antient English Poetry," and elsewhere. It is undoubtedly very much corrupted, and in some passages unintelligible: but its curiosity overbalances these defects. It ends thus: Sayes, wicked be my merry men all ⚫ for I have slain one of the courtesusest knights that ever bestrode a steede so have I done one of the fairest ladyes that ever ware woman's weede.' The hero's station in society is rendered decidedly clear in the concluding stanza. Late writers, and particularly Mr. Scott, (see his Minstrelsy of the Border, Vol. II. p. 20.) who enters his protest in rather confident language against the absurdity of supposing him a knight, as the denomination of Child was usually supposed to imply, must endeavour to support their argument by some other kind of evidence than that which they have produced. Sweet Willie and Fair Annie.' This ballad has been repeatedly published by former editors, and we see no superiority in this copy which should intitle it to its place. We remark one defect which is common to all editions of it: poverty is made the objection to Fair Annie as a wife for Sweet Willie'; yet, towards the conclusion, she is represented as being drest in the most gorgeous style of magnificence. Fair Annie of Lochrayan. This beautiful piece was adopted into this collection, and Fair Annie's Complaint written to accompany it, long before the editor knew any thing of Mr. C 4 Scott's Scott's intended publication.' As this is the first of nearly twenty assertions of this kind, we take the earliest opportunity of asking Mr. J. what is meant by it. Does he blame Mr. Scott; as he elsewhere tells us that his copies were transmitted to him? A clear statement ought to have been made by one of the two gentlemen, mentioning who was the original possessor of the ballads in question, in order that the public might know who was intitled to praise or blame for their appearance. As the matter stands, we are unable to settle their respective claims. In the ballad itself, we have somewhere seen or heard repeated the lines thus 6 O, wha will kemb my yellow hair 'Or wha wil kemb my yellow hair Ideas of sanctity, we believe, were formerly connected with the birchen tree; and fair Annie, who is about to undertake a long journey, naturally wishes to be fortified against spells. Mr. Scott's collection includes a wild legendary tale of the spirits of three young men who had been lost at sea, re-visiting their mother; and their hats are said to be made of the birch. Fair Annie's Complaint,' suggested by the story in this ballad, and composed by the editor, is extremely simple and tender. The line 'Dark, wild, and bitter is the night,' he has, in some others of his compositions, translated (what else can we call it?) into Mark, Wull, and goustie was the night;' which we will suppose may be the language of the terra incognita: we apprehend that it is not Scotch. From Clerk Saunders' we shall make some extracts, because we consider it as standing nearly at the head of the romantic compositions in this work. For the sake of perspicuity, we may premise (though, if our readers be in any degree balladstudents, they must now be tolerably familiar with this feature of our antient national manners,) that in old times it was not unusual for a young gentleman and lady, without any preparatory ceremonies, to take steps which we should deem more decorously preceded by the formality of a marriage licence. Clerk Saunders and Margaret, who were in this occasionally-unfortunate predicament, are discovered in the lady's bower by her brethren, who inquire the name of her paramour, and deliberate on the means of avenging her dishonour: But for this scorn that he has done This moment he shall die. But up and spak her youngest brither O but they are a gudelie pair! The sword that hangs at my sword belt Syne up and spak her nexten brither You've loed her lang and loed her weel The sword that hangs at my sword belt Should ever sinder ye!' These reasons, however, not appearing sufficiently conclusive to the rest of her brothers, they put the offender to death. The stanzas in which the appearance of his ghost to Margaret is described, and the conclusion, probably suggested to Bürger (who was much indebted to our antient poetry) the idea of his "Lenore.” 'O I'm Clerk Saunders your true love And mind for a' your meikle pride Gin ye be Clerk Saunders my true love This meikle marvels me O wherein is your bonny arms That wont to embrace me. By worms they're eaten, in mools they're rotten, And mind for a' your meikle pride Sae will become of thee. O bonny bonny sang the bird But dowie dowie was the maid That follow'd the corpse o' clay. Is there any room at your head, Saunders, Is there any room at your two sides There's nae room at my head, Margaret, As little at my feet, There is nae room at my two sides Passing |