song in your edition is another song altogether, which my mother hath mostly likewise, and I am persuaded from the change in the stile that she is right, for it is scarce consistent with the forepart of the ballad.  I have made several additions and variations out, to the printed songs, for your inspection, but only when they could be inserted without disjointing the songs as they are at present; to have written all the variations would scarcely be possible, and I thought would embarrass you exceedingly.  I have recovered another half verse of Old Maitlan, and have rhymed it thus—

Remember Fiery of the Scot
Hath cowr’d aneath thy hand;
For ilka drap o’ Maitlen’s blood
I’ll gie thee rigs o’ land.—

The two last lines only are original; you will easily perceive that they occur in the very place where we suspected a want.  I am surprised to hear that this song is suspected by some to be a modern forgery; this will be best proved by most of the old people hereabouts having a great part of it by heart; many, indeed, are not aware of the manners of this place, it is but lately emerged from barbarity, and till this present age the poor illiterate people in these glens knew of no other entertainment in the long winter nights than in repeating and listening to these feats of their ancestors, which I believe to be handed down inviolate from father to son, for many generations, although no doubt, had a copy been taken of them at the end of every fifty years, there must have been some difference, which the repeaters would have insensibly fallen into merely by the change of terms in that period.  I believe that it is thus that many very ancient songs have been modernised, which yet to a connoisseur will bear visible marks of antiquity.  The Maitlen, for instance, exclusive of its mode of description, is all composed of words, which would mostly every one spell and pronounce in the very same dialect that was spoken some centuries ago.

Pardon, my dear Sir, the freedom I have taken in addressing you—it is my nature; and I could not resist the impulse of writing to you any longer.  Let me hear from you as soon as this comes to your hand, and tell me when you will be in Ettrick Forest, and suffer me to subscribe myself, Sir, your most humble and affectionate servant,

James Hogg.

In Scott’s printed text of the ballad, two interpolations, of two lines each, are acknowledged in notes.  They occur in stanzas vii., xlvi., and are attributed to Hogg.  In fact, Hogg sent one of them (vii.) to Laidlaw in his manuscript.  The other he sent to Scott on 30th June 1802.

Colonel Elliot, in the spirit of the Higher Criticism (chimæra bombinans in vacuo), writes, [31a] “Few will doubt that the footnotes” (on these interpolations) “were inserted with the purpose of leading the public to think that Hogg made no other interpolations; but I am afraid I must go further than this and say that, since they were inserted on the editor’s responsibility, the intention must have been to make it appear as if no other interpolations by any other hand had been inserted.”

But no other interpolations by another hand were inserted!  Some verbal emendations were made by Scott, but he never put in a stanza or two lines of his own.

Colonel Elliot provides us with six pages of the Higher Criticism.  He knows how to distinguish between verses by Hogg, and verses by Scott! [32a]  But, save when Scott puts one line, a ballad formula, where Hogg has another line, Scott makes no interpolations, and the ballad formula he probably took, with other things of no more importance, from Mrs. Hogg’s recitation.  Oh, Higher Criticism!

I now print the ballad as Hogg sent it to Laidlaw, between August 1801 and March 1802, in all probability.

[Back of Hogg’s MS.: Mr. William Laidlaw, Blackhouse.]

OLD MAITLAND
A VERY ANTIENT SONG

There lived a king in southern land
   King Edward hecht his name
Unwordily he wore the crown
   Till fifty years was gane.

He had a sister’s son o’s ain
   Was large o’ blood and bane
And afterwards when he came up,
   Young Edward hecht his name.

One day he came before the king,
   And kneeld low on his knee
A boon a boon my good uncle,
   I crave to ask of thee

“At our lang wars i’ fair Scotland
   I lang hae lang’d to be
If fifteen hunder wale wight men
   You’ll grant to ride wi’ me.”

“Thou sal hae thae thou sal hae mae
   I say it sickerly;
And I mysel an auld grey man
   Arrayd your host sal see.”—

King Edward rade King Edward ran—
   I wish him dool and pain!
Till he had fifteen hundred men
   Assembled on the Tyne.
And twice as many at North Berwick
   Was a’ for battle bound

They lighted on the banks of Tweed
   And blew their coals sae het
And fired the Merce and Tevidale
   All in an evening late

As they far’d up o’er Lammermor
   They burn’d baith tower and town
Until they came to a derksome house,
   Some call it Leaders Town

Whae hauds this house young Edward crys,
   Or whae gae’st ower to me
A grey haired knight set up his head
   And cracked right crousely

Of Scotlands King I haud my house
   He pays me meat and fee
And I will keep my goud auld house
   While my house will keep me

They laid their sowies to the wall
   Wi’ mony heavy peal
But he threw ower to them again
   Baith piech and tar barille

With springs: wall stanes, and good of ern,
   Among them fast he threw
Till mony of the Englishmen
   About the wall he slew.

Full fifteen days that braid host lay
   Sieging old Maitlen keen
Then they hae left him safe and hale
   Within his strength o’ stane

Then fifteen barks, all gaily good,
   Met themen on a day,
Which they did lade with as much spoil
   As they could bear away.

“England’s our ain by heritage;
   And whae can us gainstand,
When we hae conquerd fair Scotland
   Wi’ bow, buckler, and brande”—

Then they are on to th’ land o’ france,
   Where auld King Edward lay,
Burning each town and castle strong
   That ance cam in his way.

Untill he cam unto that town
   Which some call Billop-Grace
There were old Maitlen’s sons a’ three
   Learning at School alas

The eldest to the others said,
   O see ye what I see
If a’ be true yon standard says,
   We’re fatherless a’ three

For Scotland’s conquerd up and down
   Landsmen we’ll never be:
Now will you go my brethren two,
   And try some jeopardy

Then they hae saddled two black horse,
   Two black horse and a grey
And they are on to Edwardes host
   Before the dawn of day

When they arriv’d before the host
   They hover’d on the ley
Will you lend me our King’s standard
   To carry a