Auld Scots Bel/ants. Edited by Robert Ford. (Alexander Gardner.)—This is
not merely a collection of Scotch ballads in the ordinary sense ; the author describes it not inaccurately—if to the English reader also not quite intelligibly—as "a 'reel-rall' budget, comprising a number of rare and curious ' binds ' of verse, together with the pick and wale' of the more popular of the ancient ballads of Scotland." Of this budget, some of the more modern pieces are the most interesting, if not the best. As an example of this, take " Thrummy Cap," which is probably as unfamiliar as "Gil Morrice " is the reverse, and to which there attaches a curious personal interest, from its author being a cousin-german of Robert Burns,—one John Burness, who led a very chequered life, being in turns a baker, a Militiaman, and a book canvasser, and who finally perished in a snow-storm. It is a simple Scotch ghost-story, told in fairly good Scotch, -though it does not indicate that John Burness possessed much of the family talent. A number' of the " ballants " given here are very familiar, such as the tragic "Sir Patrick Spens," the pathetic "Bessie Bell and Mary Grey," and the humorous "Wife o' Auchtermuchty." Others are quite as good, though less known, such as "Archie Allan," "The Murder of King Kenneth," and "Will and Jean," although, by-the-way, we are told that the last was at one time so popular that ten thousand copies of it were sold in one month. The perfection of Scotch pathos is to be found in the lines which Mr. Ford gives under the title of "The Marchioness of Douglas," which he very properly cuts adrift from the bulk of the ballad that bears this title, and which gives the wail of a Desdemona separated from her husband by the lies of a Scotch Iago. We have at least a premonition of Mr. R. L. Stevenson in "o had I wist before I kissed
That love had been Bae ill to win. I'd locked my heart wi' a key o gold, And pinned it wf a Biller pin."
Mr. Ford has done his work as collector and editor with scrupulous care; the explanatory notes which he prefixes to his " ballants " are models of succinctness and accuracy.
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