THE LYRICS AND BALLADS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.
[To 11TE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—Is not one secret of the charm of Scott's ballads their never-failing lilt? they are emphatically lyrics in the exact sense of that word—their author is always, perhaps sometimes unconsciously, a minstrel. Old Elspeth Cheyne's ballad of the skirmish before Harlaw contains a verse which would ring in the dullest ears. Speaking of the advance of Donald and his Highland host, she says, or rather sings :—
"Their tartans they were waving wide, Their glaives were glancing clear, Their pibrochs rung frae side to side, Would deafen ye to hear."
There is another instance of this power of minstrelsy in "The Fire Xing,"—a translation, not an original ballad, be it observed :— " For down came the Templars, like Kedron in flood, And dyed their long lances in Saracen blood."
And yet the mighty minstrel had no ear for music !—I am,
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