Passing over Glenkindie,' which is only a bad copy of "Glasgerion" published by Percy in the Reliques, we come to the Baron of Brackley; which afforded us much gratification as exhibiting, in animated language, what we believe to be a faithful picture of the family feuds and popular disturbances, which were frequent in the northern parts of our island down to the commencement of the last century. The Baron of Brackley was John Gordon, a gentleman of amiable dispositions, a cadet of the family of Aboyne. He was in habits of intercourse with Farquharson of Inverey, a relation of his own, but of a very different character; and who, under pretext of some injury either imagined or received, surrounded the house of Gordon, who was killed in the affray. The ballad, which is formed from two copies obtained by recitation, commences thus:

• Down Dee side came Inverey whistling and playing,
Has lighted at Brackley gates at the day dawning
Says" Baron o'Brackley O are ye within
There's sharp swords at the gate will gae your

The lady raise up to the window she went
She heard her kye lowing o'er hill and o'er bent
"O rise up ye Baron and turn back your kye

blood spin."

For the lads of Drumwharran are driving them bye." "How can I rise lady or turn them again

Where'er I have ae man I wot they hae ten"

"Then rise up my lasses take rocks in your hand
And turn back the kye, I hae you at command

Gin I had a husband as I hac nane

He wadna lye in his bower see his kye taen."
Then up got the Baron and cried for his graith
Says "Lady I'll gang tho' to leave you I'm laith
Come kiss me then Peggy and gie me my speir
I ay was for peace tho I never fear'd weir

Come kiss me then Peggy nor think I'm to blame
I weel may gae out but i'll never win in."

When Brackley was busked and rade o'er the closs
A gallanter Baron ne'er lap to a horse.'

The indignation of the humble bard, perhaps a retainer of the family, afterward breaks forth in similar strains against the lady of Gordon; who, it seems, after the conflict, opened her gate, and entertained till morning the murderer of her husband. In his introduction to this piece, the editor informs us that, when Farquharson and his Catherine went on a marauding expedition for scouring the country, their visits were so sudden that the intruders were generally gone again before the poor sufferers

sufferers had warning to guard against them. If the passage be correct, a Highland Baron and his wife, probably, or mistress, riding out at the head of their clan and plundering their neighbours, form a curious picture in the history of the age. It will be unlucky if Catherine should only be a blunder of the printer for Catharins, or Ketterans, sometimes corrupted into Kerns, literally soldiers, but usually signifying free booters.

We now pass through much uninteresting matter, consisting principally of ballads poor in themselves and still poorer in Mr. J.'s editions of them; among which the reader may especially notice the before mentioned Trumpeter of Tyvie, and a very pathetic history of a Laird of Warrieston; shewing how a lady, whose waist was no larger than a willow wand, ventured some impertinent observation to her husband, who, in return, being desperately in love with her, broke her face with a plate which he threw at it for that purpose:-how she, being somewhat dissatisfied with this conjugal correction, left the room, and met at the third step from the door with no less a personage than "Man's Enemy" himself, who suggested to her the propriety of terminating their difference by murdering her husband; and who, finding that she wanted only the means, and nothing of the good will, furnished her with a halter, and even lent his hand to assist her in the use of it;-and, finally, how, being condemned to the flames, she seized the opportunity, while the fire was lighting, of explaining to the spectators the moral of her singular history.

The translations from the Danish next arrest us.- Mr.Jamieson is in possession of an hypothesis that much of our traditionary lore is derived from a Scandinavian source; and that such an origin is possible we will not deny, but Mr. J. has adduced no facts to convince us of its reality; and until we see better proof, we may be permitted to use an observation which has been quoted ever since quoting began, "quod verbo dicitur verbo refelli fas est." We see, indeed, from certain authority, that the Danes derived many tales from the Minstrels of the South; for a confirmation of which idea we briefly refer our readers to Mr. Ritson's preface to his antient English Metrical Romances: but we know not of any evidence of a reciprocal traffic in this ware. It may be that those pieces of antient Scottish and Danish popular poetry, which have any similarity, have been derived from some common source: a supposition which is at least as natural as that of the traditions of the Danes having remained so many centuries in Scotland, after the connection between the countries had almost entirely ceased.-Of the pieces themselves we have very little to remark, except that our feelings at their appearance may be 3 correctly

correctly expressed by Quince's ejaculation of surprize, "Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! thou art translated!"-Of the merit of the translation we cannot speak, because we have not the Kempe Viser lying on our table: but we trust that it is more skilfully executed than that of Göthe's Mermaid, in which Mr. J. had no reason to apprehend that he had preserved too much of the German costume. A Danish old ballad is indeed less trying than a poem of Göthe; who, whatever may be the defects of his genius, is certainly a consummate master of his language, and imposes a hard and doubtful task on the translator who undertakes at once for the simplicity and the spirit of his original.

Some of Mr. Jamieson's own compositions are decidedly superior to his Danish ballads. His smaller pieces in general possess great tenderness of thought and expression: but we are sorry that we must exclude from this praise one which, from its subject, should have been the most interesting of all. It is probable, indeed, that this subject was beyond his powers, and like every other modern poet who has attempted Fair Helen of Kirkonnel lea, (including even Mr. Pinkerton, on whose performance Mr. J. has bestowed his admiration in a very extravagant manner,) he has only disfigured his original. He has extended the old ballad by the addition of some stanzas, the ideas of which, perhaps, are natural, since we have seen them in all lovers' verses on the loss of their mistress that we recollect to have read: but the beautiful closing stanza, which is among the most precious memorials of the power of love in the poetry of barbarians, is here wantonly mangled, with a violation of taste and a defiance of feeling which almost rival the exertions of Mr. Pinkerton on the same subject.-What will a Scotchman say when, instead of his well-known,

he finds

"I wish my grave were growing green

A winding-sheet put o'er my een

And I in Helen's arms lying

On fair Kirkonnel lea"

O gin with thee, regretted maid!
I in the mools at saught were laid,
And the green truff closed o'er my head

On fair', &c.

and this wilfully substituted for the simple fervency of a feeling that is breathed from the inmost soul !-Mr. J.'s humorous poems are inferior to his others, though they are not deficientin a certain original cast of thought which in some degree redeems their faults. We must not, however, omit to remark one fault which stands in great need of redemption; the de

liberate

liberate pedantry with which the writer has frequently laboured to conceal his meaning under a mask of antiquity. We take an example at random:

The dolly lamentacioun and complentis of ane Luffar for hys Lemman, qubam byr parentis had garrit marrye till ane uthir mare ryche?'

O Lufe, qubarefoir thi sclavis leil

Have zu swa snellich all to schent?
Or quharefoir brast the stoup of hele
On quhilk twa gentil hertis lent ?
Quhan I was Jok and scho was Gyl,
And we mocht luf and wow at wyl
How seilful and how blyith wer we!
Bot ach! na langare blyith we be.'

If any reader hopes to decypher this passage by means of Mr. J's. glossary, or indeed by any other glossary, he will find himself much deceived, and it is not perhaps in any person's power to point out, in the compass of as few lines, so many difficult words and expressions, in any Scottish composition from the days of Dunbar downwards. In the most beautiful as well as the most antient Scottish songs, we are assured that not above one or two words are unintelligible to a native of Scotland at the present day: but, in order to understand the above, we must visit Denmark, turn over the Sagas, Eddas, and Kempe Visers, and explore in short the whole circle of Mr. J.'s literature, that we may return home qualified to read his songs. We tried once or twice the effect of substituting a less wondrous orthography, and of inserting here and there a more intelligible and equally antient Scottish phrase: but we shall not disclose the result of the experiment.-Mr. J. might not thank us for scouring the shield.

The most curious piece in the whole collection undoubtedly is the antient romance of True Thomas (the Rhymer) and the Queen of Elfland,' and it would give interest to a much less valuable work than the present; its merits being not only intrinsically great, but the whole presenting us with a striking picture of the nature of poetry which is preserved only by tradition. Many fragments of it are occasionally procured by recitation; yet no one of them, except in a part of the story, agrees with the original, and few copies of the same fragment with themselves. Mr. J. has used great diligence in collecting the copies which came in his way, and is indebted for other collations to his friends.-The story is not worth abridging: but the language, in which some of the Elfin Queen's prophecies are couched, is uncommonly strong. She speaks of Scotland desolated by war :

• Steeds

Steeds away, masterless shall fling

On the mountains to and fro.

Their saddles on their backs shall hing (hang)
Until the girths be rotten in two.

Then she said with heavy cheer

The tears ran out of her een (eyes) gray
Lady or (rather than) thou weep so sore
Take thy hounds and wend thy way.
I weep not for my way-walking
Thomas, truly I thee say (tell)
But for ladies shall wed lads ying (young)
When their lords are dead away.

He shall have a steed in stable fed,
A hawk to bear upon his hand,

A bright lady to his bed

That before had none in land."

The ballad of Robin Hood and the Monk, which follows soon afterward, is curious, and well worthy of preservation: but, through haste or ignorance, it is here indifferently edited. The lines

In at the durris they threly thrast

With staves full gode vone'

are eminently obscure. Threly should in our opinion be rethly, quickly such transpositions of letters being frequent, especially where many alliterative sounds occurred. Wone is a word which we have seen, though we cannot now refer to the place, and which signifies number or quantity. The Scottish word wheen is radically the same. After the stanza, ending with "He lay styl as any stone," some stanzas are evidently wanting, though the page proceeds as if there were no defect.

We do not comprehend the reasonableness of the introduction of several little pieces re-published from scarce editions, which have nothing in common with the nature of the rest of the work; and the best of which are already restored to the public in Mr. Ellis's Specimens of Antient English Poetry. (See Review for November last.)

On the prefaces and notes to the ballads, we cannot bestow much commendation. The inerudite reader will seldom be surprized in them by the results of curious research; and in a member of the Antiquarian Society, this inactivity is hardly fair. The style is inelegant and even harsh: but this fault may be more easily forgiven than the strain of flippant yet not sprightly levity which marks most pages of the Editor's prose, and is happily set off by a sort of pedantry much less to have

been