Robert Chambers

“ All those which Percy obtained in manuscripts from Scotland, are neat finished compositions, as much so as any ballad of Tickell or Shenstone. Those from Mrs Brown's manuscript have also an author's finish clearly impressed on them. It is a mere assumption that they have been sent down, with large modifications, from old times. Had it been true, the ballads would have been full of vulgarisms, as we find to be the condition of certain of them which Peter Buchan picked up among the common people, after (shall we say) seventy or eighty years of traditionary handling. ”

“ Percy, at the close of his copy of Sir Patrick Spence, tells us that 'an ingenious friend' of his was of opinion that 'the author of Hardyknute has borrowed several expressions and sentiments from the foregoing [ballad] , and other old Scottish songs in this collection.' It does not seem to have ever occurred to the learned editor, or any friend of his, however 'ingenious,' that perhaps Sir Patrick Spence had no superior antiquity over Hardyknute, and that the parity he remarked in the expressions was simply owing to the two ballads being the production of one mind. ”

“ Nor is it easy to see how a people occupying part of the same island, and speaking essentially the same language, should have avoided this communion of literary taste; but the ballads in question are wholly unlike any English ballads. Look over Percy, Evans, or Mr Collier's suite of Roxburghe Ballads, giving those which were popular in London during the seventeenth century, and you find not a trace of the style and manner of these Scottish romantic ballads. ”

“ To me it appears that there could not well be more remarkable traits of an identity of authorship than what are presented in the extracts given from Hardyknute and the entire poem of Sir Patrick—granting only that the one poem is a considerable improvement upon the other. Each poem opens with absolutely the same set of particulars—a Scottish king sitting—drinking the blude-red wine—and sending off a message to a subject on a business of importance. Norway is brought into connection with Scotland in both cases. ”

“ Regarding the Bonny Earl of Murray, the editor tells us nothing beyond calling it 'a Scottish song.' Of not one of these seven ballads, as published by Percy, has it ever been pretended that any ancient manuscript exists, or that there is any proof of their having had a being before the eighteenth century, beyond the rude and dissimilar prototypes (shall we call them?) which, in two instances, are found in the folio manuscript of Percy. No person was cited at first as having been accustomed to recite or sing them; and they have not been found familiar to the common people since. ”

“ Indeed, it might not be very unreasonable to say that these ballads have done more to create a popularity for Percy's Reliques than all the other contents of the book. There is a community of character throughout all these poems, both as to forms of expression and style of thought and feeling—jealousy in husbands of high rank, maternal tenderness, tragic despair, are prominent in them, though not in them all. In several, there is the same kind of obscure and confused reference to known events in Scottish history, which editors have thought they saw in Sir Patrick Spence. ”

“ Here is documentary evidence that Hardyknute came out through the hands of Lady Wardlaw's brother-in-law, with a story about its discovery as an old manuscript, so transparently fictitious, that one wonders at people of sense having ever attempted to obtain credence for it—which consequently forms in itself a presumption as to an authorship being concealed. Pinkerton rashly assumed that Sir John Bruce was the author of the poem, and on the strength of that assumption, introduced his name among the Scottish poets. ”

“ When we come to consider the internal evidence, what do we find? We find that these poems, in common with those published by Percy, are composed in a style of romantic beauty and elevation distinguishing them from all other remains of Scottish traditionary poetry. They are quite unlike the palpably old historical ballads, such as the Battle of Otterbourne and the Raid of the Reidswire. They are unlike the Border ballads, such as Dick o' the Cow, and Jock o' the Syde, commemorating domestic events of the latter part of the sixteenth century. ”

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

“ Now, no such depravation appears in the versions printed by Percy, Scott, and Jamieson.
It may be objected to the arguments founded on the great number of parallel passages, that these are but the stock phraseology of all ballad-mongers, and form no just proof of unity of authorship. If this were true, it might be an objection of some force; but it is not true. The formulæ in question are to be found hardly at all in any of the rustic or homely ballads. They are not to be found in any ballads which there is good reason to believe so old as the early part of the seventeenth century. ”

“ Another point of great importance in the matter of internal evidence, is the isolatedness of these ballads in respect of English traditionary literature. The Scottish muse has not always gone hand in hand with the English in point of time, but she has done so in all other respects. Any literature we had from the beginning of the seventeenth century downwards, was always sensibly tinged by what had immediately before been in vogue in the south. ”

“ Sir Patrick's exclamation, 'To Noroway, to Noroway,' meets with an exact counterpart in the 'To horse, to horse,' of the courtier in Hardyknute. The words of the ill-boding sailor in Sir Patrick, 'Late, late yestreen, I saw the new moon'—a very peculiar expression, be it remarked—are repeated in Hardyknute:
'Late, late the yestreen I weened in peace,'
To end my lengthened life.'
The grief of the ladies at the catastrophe in Sir Patrick Spence, is equally the counterpart of that of the typical Norse lady with regard to the fate of her male friend at Largs. ”

“ When we continue our search beyond the bounds of Percy's Reliques, we readily find ballads passing as old, which are not unlike the above, either in regard to their general beauty, or special strains of thought and expression. There are five which seem peculiarly liable to suspicion on both grounds—namely, Johnie of Bradislee, Mary Hamilton, the Gay Gos-hawk, Fause Foodrage, and the Lass o' Lochryan. ”

“ And fair Annie streekit there.
In Scott's version of Tam Lane there are some stanzas of so modern a cast as to prove that this poem has been at least tampered with. For example, the account of fairy life:
'And all our wants are well supplied
From every rich man's store,
Who thankless sins the gifts he gets,
And vainly grasps for more.'
Without regard, however, to such manifest patches, the general structure and style of expression must be admitted to strongly recall the other ballads which have been already commented on. ”

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

“ Still, it is a difference so striking, that even to present one typical ballad of true rustic origin, could not fail to make a considerable impression on the reader, after he has read specimens of those which are here attributed to a higher source. Be it observed, when an uneducated person speaks of knights, lords, and kings, or of dames and damosels, he reduces all to one homely level. ”

“ Having so traced a probable common authorship, and that modern, from Hardyknute to Sir Patrick Spence, and from these two to the revised and improved edition of Gil Morrice, I was tempted to inquire if there be not others of the Scottish ballads liable to similar suspicion as to the antiquity of their origin? ”

“ I'll never marrie a man but thee.'
Here is love, and here is innocence in difficulties—two things of high moral interest; yet how homely is the whole narration; how unlike the strains of the ballads which have been passed before the reader's view! And be it observed, the theory as to our ballads is, that they have been transmitted from old time, undergoing modifications from the minds of nurses, and other humble reciters, as they came along. If so, they ought to have presented the same plebeian strain of ideas and phraseology as James Hatelie ”

“ Identical with Sir Patrick's answer to the taunt of the Norwegian lords:
'Ye lie, ye lie, ye liars loud,
Fu' loud I hear ye lie.'
When the youth has been slain by Lord Barnard, the lady explains that he was her son, and exclaims:
'To me nae after days nor nichts
Will e'er be saft or kind;
I'll fill the air wi' heavy sighs,
And greet till I am blind.'
How nearly is this the same with the doleful complaint of the wounded knight in Hardyknute! ”

“ Take, also, a ballad which, from the occurrences referred to, may be considered as antecedent to the epoch of Hardyknute, and we shall observe an equal, if not more complete, absence of the phraseology and manner of this class of ballads. It relates to a tragic love-story of 1631, as ascertained from the grave-stone of the heroine in the kirk-yard of Fyvie, Aberdeenshire:
Lord Fyvie had a trumpeter,
His name was Andrew Lammie;
He had the art to gain the heart
Of Mill-o'-Tifty's Annie. ”

“ This we find in the true stall-ballads. A vulgar, prosaic, and drawling character pervades the whole class, with few exceptions—a fact which ought to give no surprise, for does not all experience shew, that literature of any kind, to have effect, requires for its production a mind of some cultivation, and really good verse flowing from an uninstructed source is what never was, is not now, and never will be? ”

“ The writer—if we may be allowed to speculate on a single writer—seems to have been unable to resist an inclination to indulge in description of the external furnishings of the heroes and heroines, or rather, perhaps, has been desirous of making out effect from these particulars ”

“ Not less different are they from a large mass of ballads, which have latterly been published by Mr Peter Buchan and others, involving romantic incidents, it is true, or eccentricities in private life, but in such rude and homely strains as speak strongly of a plebeian origin. In the ballads here brought under question, the characters are usually persons of condition, generally richly dressed, often well mounted, and of a dignified bearing towards all inferior people. ”

“ At the suggestion of Mr William Tytler, a son of Mrs Brown wrote down a parcel of the ballads which her aunt had heard in her youth from the recitation of nurses and old women. [28] Such were the external circumstances, none of them giving the least support to the assumed antiquity of the pieces, but rather exciting some suspicion to the contrary effect. ”

“ Much significance there is, indeed, in his own statement, that Hardyknute was the first poem he ever learned, and the last he should forget. Its author—if my suspicion be correct—was his literary foster-mother, and we probably owe the direction of his genius, and all its fascinating results, primarily to her.
Footnotes
[1] A Scotticism, plural of corp, a body.
[2] Permit no robbers, &c.
[3] Only omitting the five verses supplied by Mr Hamilton, as they appear redundant.
[4] Serve.
[5] Variation in Scott:
Now ever alake, my master dear. ”

“ The first hint at the real author came out through Percy, who, in his second edition of the Reliques (1767) , gives the following statement:
'There is more than reason to suspect that it [Hardyknute] owes most of its beauties (if not its whole existence) to the pen of a lady within the present century. The following particulars may be depended on. Mrs [mistake for Lady] Wardlaw, whose maiden name was Halket ... pretended she had found this poem, written on shreds of paper, employed for what is called the bottoms of clues. A suspicion arose that it was her own composition. ”

“ Both of these ballads, indeed, shew a structure and a strain of description and sentiment justifying the strongest suspicions of their alleged antiquity, and pointing to the same source as the other pieces already noticed.
The ballad of Fause Foodrage, which Sir Walter Scott printed for the first time, describes a successful conspiracy by Foodrage and others against King Honour and his queen. The king being murdered, the queen is told, that if she brings forth a son, it will be put to death likewise ”