MR. MAIDMENT'S SCOTTISH BALLADS.*

Mn. MAIDMENT'S two volumes, containing over a hundred of the more ancient and popular ballads and songs of the North, are in-

tended by him as an accompaniment to the works of Dunbar and Henryson, and are published in a very convenient form for private libraries. The volumes are easy to hold, the print is excellent, and the paper modestly but determinedly ambitious to be even with the subject. The ballads are many of them intrinsically, all indirectly, interesting. And no doubt they are interesting just in proportion to the cultivation of the readers into whose hands they fall. Not that Scottish history is, in its antiquarian aspects, an absolutely necessary part of some general cultivation ; but that in this country there is so large a class of refined literary gourmets, whose tastes and appetites have fed and grown upon the historical titbits, truffles, and mushrooms of the Northern and Border literature which culminated in Sir Walter Scott, that to take an interest in Scottish ballads is almost an integral part of literary good manners in the magic kingdom of English letters. A Russian, for instance, might be in a European sense, a man of general cultivation, and yet be in a state of childlike innocence

respecting Sir Patrick Spells or Dick o' the Cow. We do not know why exactly, but we fancy Mr. Gladstone may very likely be intimately familiar with Robbie Noble and the Battle of Philiphaugh, while we can hardly bring our imagination to con- ceive Mr. Disraeli caring for Conscouthart gren, Jerswighanis

head, Bonny John Seton, or Gley'd Argyle. S.) that even in this country what might be predicated of some, cannot with certainty be affirmed of all.

Nevertheless, many causes have operated to make the Border literature of this country on the whole generally popular among

the educated classes. That literature and especially its ballads are in fact precisely that,—they are popular. They are not really imaginative, on the contrary, they hug the ground, are intensely practical, intensely mediocre ; but they do embody the passions and associations of the people who furiously sided with the various leaders on one side or the other, whose names are sweet not mere to patrician pride than in the ear of the multitude. Thus, on the one hand, aristocratic vanity is flattered, while on the other, the feeling of the people is, Quorum magnet pars fui»zus. Whether one patrician is praised, or another blamed, matters little. The pulse is one between high and low, and high and low participate pas- sionately in the events recorded. Even to this day the heart of Selkirk beats to the tune of the Smilers of Selkirk, and though the ballad sings the heroic virtues of "single-soled shoon " and cries "doun wi' fause-hearted I lome!" the feuds have passed away, and left nothing but the residuum of common association :—

" Up wi' the Souters of Selkirk,

And doun wi' the tense-hearted Homo ; But up wi' a' tho brew fellows, That sew the single-soled shoon.

"And up wi' tho lads o' the Forest, That ne'er to the Southern wad yield But deil scoup o' Homo and Ilia menzie That studo sac abieghtt on the Hold.

" Fyo upon yellow and yellow, And fyo upon yellow and green; But up wi' the truo blue and scarlet, And up wi' tho single-soled sheen.

"Then up wi' the Soutors of Selkirk, For they aro baith trusty and lea!, And up wi' the lads o' the Forest,

Anti doun wi' the Morse to the Dell."

Of course the balladic and romantic feeling, which surrounds so many local names in English history, varies considerably in differ-

ent parts of the country. But even when obscured or trans- muted, it forms an incalculable element in English political life,

and explains, we think very much, why the English upper classes have withstood the shocks of the modern revolutionary tide, why they have been substantially trusted throughout by the people, and why, instead of stiffening their necks and hardening their hearts as the other European aristocracies have done against popular change, they have adapted themselves to it, slowly, it i true, but still with a reluctance always filially tempered by the

stronger inclination to be at one with those whom they have practi- cally led for so many centuries. Nowhere have we wider and more varied illustration of Sir James Mackintosh's saying about the • &WIWI Ballad: and Songs, Historical and Traditionary. Edinburgh: Patterson. t Allwling to the traditional treachery of the Itird Lord Homo to James IV. at the battle of Fiodden

laws and songs of a country than in these innumerable popular ballads. It would be a very interesting work to compare the ballads of the Continent with our own. Of course, in the feudal days, the lord's vassals abroad identified themselves with their lord more or less, as they did elsewhere ; but in this country you feel at every line that they looked upon their leaders as being substantially of themselves, and having the same passions and pleasures in common. They lived the same rough life, the castle was not so much the badge of ascendancy as the common fortress, and the clan followed the leader with the same delight with which schoolboys follow the biggest schoolboy in sport or mischief. The modern sports of the Englishman, though sadly chequered by game laws, as, indeed, they have been throughout, have still been in harmony with the popular imagination. Thus while abroad, and notably in France, the eyes of the nobility were gradually turned from the people and fixed upon the Court, in this country, with sundry qualifications and abatements, the same or similar families have lived on terms of mutual intelli- gence and varying, but, on the whole, substantial sympathy with the people all over the island without any general break of continuity — a fact of inconceivable weight in all political calculations.

We have said that most of these ballads are mediocre and practical, and the statement, though simple, will seem very sur- prising to some readers, and very offensive, if not supremely ridiculous, to others. But really, in all simplicity, let any man for a couple of hours look through these old ballads with a cool eye, and in his own mind discuss their details without prejudice, and let him ask himself honestly where the poetry lies ? Poetry, as we understand it, whatever else it may be, lies first of all in

the very marrow and essence of allusive comparison. Beautiful thought in rhythmical language is not necessarily poetry. Poetry in which fact is not married with allusion, however subtle and dis- guised, is no poetry. Poetry implies creation, and creation in

poetry is twofold ; the creation of the subject, and the creation or inspiration of new vehicles to convey that subject. So far as creation of subject is concerned in these Scottish ballads, they might as well be plain history in prose. We open the book at random, and take this illustration :—

" Upon the eighteenth day of June,

A dreary day to see, The southern Lords did pitch their camp Just at the Bridge of Dee.

"Bonny John Seton of Pitmeddin, A bold baron was he,

He made his testament ere he went out,—

The wiser man was he.

"He left his land to his young son, His lady her dowery ; A thousand crowns to his daughter Jean, Yet on the nurse's knee."

Read this in prose :—" On the 18th of June, a dreary day, the Southern lords pitched their camp just by the Bridge of Dee.

John Seton of Pitmeddin, a bold baron, made his testament ere he went out,—the wiser he. He left his land to his young son, his lady her dowery, a thousand crowns to his daughter Jean, in the nurse's arms." When and how does this differ from the bleakest, scraggiest prose? What have we omitted? The word " bonny ?" Well, that is a cheap word, and, we take it, would not make the fortune of any poem single-handed. We have put "pitched" for "did pitch "—" a dreary day" for a "dreary day to see"—" a bold baron" for a "bold baron was he "—" the wiser he" for "the wiser man was he in the nurse's arms"

for "on the nurse's knee." The friends of Mr. Tupper will tell us that these changes make the whole difference. We answer :— exactly so,—in Mr. Tupper's poetry.

Lady Wardlaw's ballad " Hardyknute " is no doubt above some others, but when we find that editors have actually compared it with "the matchless Iliad," we can only shrug our shoulders and rub our eyes. Still, without being, except in a childish way, poetry, in the true sense of poetry, all these ballads abound in interest

to the student, and we thank Mr. Maidment for the scholarly performance of his task.