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THE PAISLEY MAGAZINE.

No. 13. DECEMBER 1, 1828 Vol. l

ANCIENT BALLADS OF THE NORTH OF SCOTLAND*

Touching ballads and ballad-makers so much has been said or sung by various worthy and ingenious spirits within this last half century, that, honestly speaking, we find little remains for us to do than briefly to report to our readers the sum of their learned labours on this interesting topic. For your modern foisonless poetical inventions, called ballads, we care not a doit; but for the old traditionary, romantic, or heroic strain, which, like the shibboleth of free masonry, has lived upon the memory without the intervention of written character, and has been transmitted from sire to son, from generation unto generation, from the remotest times to the present graceless days, we profess a sincere and perfect love. When, therefore, we meet with a goodly volume of ancient ballads, purporting to be for the first time set forth in print, we are ready to hail the choice blessing in these words which an early dramatist puts in the mouth of that wicked and unnatural jade Ragan: As gold is welcome to the covetous eye, As sleepe is welcome to the traveller, As is fresh water to sea-beaten men, Or moist’ned showres unto the parched ground, Or any thing more welcomer than this,† So, and more welcome we repeat to our literary affections, are these poetical monuments of our fathers.—So, and most welcome to us are these volumes, for in honest verity they contain many admirable and most valuable remains of the early song of our native land. Barbour, in his great Gest Historial of the Bruce and his Chivalry, has well expressed in verse, what we could but indifferently have told in homely prose when he says: Storyss to rede ar delitabill, Supposs that thai be nocht bot fabill: Than suld auld storyss that suthfast wer, And thai war said in gud maner, Haive doubill plesance in heryng. The first plesance is the carpyng, And the tothir the suthfastnes, That schawys the thing rycht as it wes: And such thingis that are likand,

* ANCIENT BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE NORTH OF SCOTLAND; hitherto unpublished, with explanatory notes by Peter Buchan, corresponding Member of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. W. &.D. Laing, and John Stevenson, Edin. 1828. 2 vols. 8vo. † The True Chronicle Historic of King Leir and his three daughters. 643

Tyll mannys herying are plesand. Sincerely believing that most of the auld storyss which are the subjects of our traditionary ballads, are based on fact and suthfastness—and knowing that they generally are said in gud maner, we enjoy in that case the “doubill plesance” which our poet imagines to be so desirable. Few indeed of them we look on as being “nocht bot fabill.” But to minds of choice invention fiction is a source of deep pleasure. “Fabularum narratio cur delectet” is a small section of Dr. Jerome Cardan’s folio “De Subtilitate,”* but we have not time to enter upon his arguments, which, so far as we remember, have little subtility about them on this point. “It is opportune,” says Sir Thomas Browne, “to look back on old times and contemplate our fathers.” Every one according to his liking. The learned physician discoursed on incinerated bones, and funeral urns, choosing to contemplate our forefathers, rather by the modes in which they contrived to make their escape out of the world, and accommodate themselves to their graves, than by their acts and deeds upon life’s stage itself. Our sympathies are more circumscribed. Death bounds them. The line of life is the tether-length of our affections, and beyond it we do not wish to speculate. It is an object of merest indifference to us whether fire, earth, or water receives the untenanted fabric of flesh. The empty cellar has no interest. The drained tun serves no purposes of honest fellowship. When the curtain falls our curiosity ceases. We care not to know whether the king, or the hero, whom we wept to see falling in the senate house or the field, gathers up his legs afterwards, and becomes a new and an ordinary man again in the green-room. We had rather have Yorick, the fellow of infinite jest, alive, and seated with us at the social board, than indulge ourselves in the melancholy humour of Hamlet, with a moralisation on his disinterred skull. Hence, and for many more reasons which we could give, were it not that their exposition would make us tarry too long in the porch, we prefer contemplating our forefathers in that glass which so perfectly represents their mind, manners, habits, customs, moral feelings, virtues, vices, superstitions, and prejudices—their traditionary song—their popular poesy. One many well be excused making this election when the chivalrous Sidney—the erudite Selden, and the patriotic Fletcher, each according to his peculiar idiosyncrasy, has borne testimony on the same behalf. And, in our own day, a greater than these, Sir Walter Scott, has somewhere declared that these old ditties have been to him a source of never-failing inspiration, and that to their influence upon his early feelings the world may stand indebted for those wonderful and gorgeous creations, which have exalted, enlarged, and glorified the literature of this century. Is there one who has dipped into the pages of the Universal Shakespeare, or refreshed his mind by letting it sojourn for a tide with Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Marlow, Marston, Middleton, Webster, Ford, or any of these early dramatists, can be blind to the fact that they all have had a lurking affection for, and a perfect enjoyment in these primitive strains of national poesy. This love of theirs for vulgar minstrelsy breaks out like a gleam of soft sunshine over the dewy grass. The same may be said of all our good poets—of all those who had one smack of natural unsophisticated feeling in their composition. Nay, even poets of the highest order, however much they might scorn these lowly strains as efforts of art, have nevertheless shown how much they admired them by incidentally mentioning their titles or attempting writings in the same vein. Chaucer, if we

* Lib. xii, p. 291, Nuremb. 1550. 644

suppose him to be the author of “The Coke’s Tale of Gamelyn,” has left us a true minstrel ballad, worthy of laud and reverence—and in his “Rime of Sir Thopas” a specimen of what he could do, had he turned his mind to the Chivalrous Romance. We question the truth of what some commentators have said as to this latter being written in ridicule of such compositions. It appears to us founded on no sufficient reason. But the poet, true to his description of manners, has wisely laid the interruption given to the Romance of Sir Thopas, on the host of the Tabard, a coarse grained, rough-hewn, merry hearted rouge, That hadde levere a ribaudye Than to here of God, other of seynte Marie, Other to drynke a coppe ful of ale Than to hear ony god tale. None other of the pilgrimers to the shrine of Canterbury wag a tongue in despite of it. But we are libelling the worthy host, for, indeed, though he loved his “coppe,” he loved good tales passing well also, and in fact suggested to his guests this rational mode of spending their time by each one telling in his turn Of aventures that whilom han befalle. We beg his pardon then, though we cannot forgive him, for interrupting Sir Thopas, nor agree with him in calling it a “drafty ryme,” or appreciate it so very vilely as he does, but which, for decency’s sake, we will not mention. Though we will not “praise a rime of Robyn Hode, for as excellent a making as Troylus of Chaucer,” lest we should “straightwise be counted madde therefore,” we must contend for the superior and the living interest which the one has over the other, in as far as our mere feelings are concerned. The one produces the effect on us that the touch of life and blood can only communicate, the other that which exquisite statuary excites in the moral and intellectual of our being. The same with all these old ballads. We feel they are what men say, and do in reality, while with the laboured efforts of poetical genius, we feel that these men say and do only what they may or should, or can be fancied to say or do in certain circumstance. In the one case we hear and see as it were it in our own person—in the other we seem to derive all through the rehearsal of another. In our whole acquaintance with old ballads, we never remember of one which contained above a verse appropriated to the mere descriptive, either as regards human action or external nature. Yet their simple touches are strikingly effective when they do occur, and positively satisfy the mind more than the finely finished pictures which art and genius have combined to elaborate. We cannot better express what we mean than by simply saying that when the sun is said to shine we feel his warmth on our cheek, and see plainly his radiance streaming over meadow, river, and tree—when the rain falls, we both hear and feel it pattering on us—when the wind blows, the veritable sough deafens our ear, and nearly drives us off our feet—when the wood is said to be green, we find ourselves in very sooth “lustily raking under the shaw,” and the same feeling of living presence and reality pervades every slight description these ditties contain. A thousand illustrative examples could be given, but it is much better for the reader to select them for himself than to trust to our taste. It is an exercise that will give health to his mind. That some ballads are supremely beautiful in themselves, and besides possess, in the eyes of the historian, the antiquary, and even the philosopher, a value equal to their beauty, is a 645

fact that stands in need of no demonstration. That there are others of as little value, in every point of view, as they are utterly destitute of poetic ornament, is alike true. But be they worthless or no, be they good or bad, or indifferent, still we must repeat that such is the infirmity of our nature—such our unquenchable love for this first species of intellectual food—this first blossom of the human mind, that we bear a kindly, and even reverent feeling towards them all. We dearly venerate what our forefathers delighted in; and we are not so preposterously warped up in the conventional forms and factitious feelings of our own day, as to despise the simpler, and we think even the grander shapes in which our common nature cast itself in elder and less polished times. The rudest ballad strains, if they possess the slightest smack of genuine heart feeling and nature, be their narrative never so barren of incident, exert an influence over us, sometimes more commanding than the highest exertion of poetic art in the most brilliant era of a nation’s literature. They fall upon our heart like a genial dew, they tinkle in our ears like the music of some distant waterfall, heard in the depth of a wooded glen—they have a renovating effect upon our intellectual frame, as the fresh cool air of the morning has upon our physical structure. In short, they possess indescribable charms in our eyes. We pretend not to be so much of the philosopher as to be able satisfactorily to explain to others the principles on which our admiration is founded, or distinctly to analyse the elements of the pleasurable sensations they uniformly excite in our minds, any more than we can satisfy ourself or others, why, when the rarest floral exotics of the hot-house, and the richest perfumes of the cultured parterre, have ceased to please, the meanest wild flower that gleams in solitary beauty by cleugh or crag, or river side, fascinates the sense, and fills the soul with delicious thought. Ballads, to be felt thoroughly, must be sung. To read them off the printed book, without allying them to the slow, simple, monotonous, and wildly melancholy airs, to which they are usually found united, robs them of half their charms. Their airs have preserved them, and these should be as diligently collected as the words themselves. We could never arrive at any thing like graceful elocution in reading an old ballad. Our mode of reading them is a recitative—a downright sing song, and this imperfectly supplies to us the absence of the genuine air. It is to be regretted that no attempt on a large scale has been made to gather all our ballad tunes. They are unquestionably the earliest specimens of national music we have, as the ballads may themselves be safely deemed the earliest specimens of national poetry. This objection applies with force to the Border Minstrelsy, the collections of Herd, those of Jamieson, and the present volumes. They lack the music, they lack the salt which preserved these ballads—the very atmosphere in which they lived and breathed, and had their being. It has been the good fortune of Mr. Buchan, the most industrious compiler of these volumes, to recover a number of ancient and valuable ballads from tradition, which had wholly escaped the notice of former collectors,—and we have been informed that the tunes to which they are sung could also be recovered. This we look on as an acquisition of materials to the history of our national melody that should not be lost sight of by those who can speedily secure it, by making some slight pecuniary sacrifices for that purpose. In collecting the words we believe Mr. Buchan has already sacrificed too much time and labour, and money, ever to be fairly remunerated by his countrymen for what he has done. To ask of him more, therefore, would amount, on our part, to the covetousness of ingratitude. We put the case, however, to the wealthy and patriotic of Edinburgh to enterprise it—to use the means, and secure to their country a body of ancient and genuine 646

melody, which it yet lacks, and the time for retrieving which may soon elapse. We put it to the Six Feet Clubs—to the Kilted Clubs—The crazed Phrenologists—The Toxopholites—The Mons Meg Admirers—the Parthenon men—the Castle-cropping and bridge-building dilletanti— the singing men, the rhyming men—the Parliament sweeping men—the Burke and Hare men— Review men, Magazine men, Newspaper men—to the talking, stalking, wrestling, wrangling, fiddling, piddling, nibbling, drivelling, and whole Popery-loving community of the Modern Athens, forthwith to emigrate, man, woman, child, to the north, and to spare nor pence, nor pains, till they return with the whole treasures of sweet sound which may be gathered betwixt the Dee and the Don, under the direction of him of Peterhead. They may take an honest man’s word for it, that it will prove a most delightful labour. It is one of which they will never tire, and regarding which they may sing with truth as Petronius did of innocent kissing, Hoc juvit, juvat, et diu juvabit: Hoc non deficit, incipitque semper. Ere we go farther in our notice of this choice collection of early Scottish Ballads, we deem it right to give our readers some authentic information regarding its enthusiastic and ingenious compiler, Mr. Buchan. We can throw more perfect light over his history and writings than any other organ of public intelligence, and we rejoice to do so, because we have observed with pain, that the Newspaper press, when it failed to review his volumes, deemed itself perfectly competent to write much of an apocryphal and fanciful nature touching the author himself. Anxious to set the world right in this respect, and circumstances having placed in our power the copy of a letter addressed by Mr Buchan to the late venerable Earl of Buchan in answer to some enquiries made by his Lordship, who had kindly interested himself in Mr. B.’s welfare and manifold undertakings, we gladly present to our readers the whole of this authentic and interesting document. We are sure that in the wide range of present or past literature, there never was a more curious and characteristic autobiographic sketch penned; or one which afforded a more felicitous and accurate reflex of the writer’s mind, and of its whole moral and intellectual bearings. With sentiments of corresponding interest, it will be perused by every student of mind and manners. They, as we were, will be astonished and gratified to find Mr. Buchan at one time rivalling the Marquis of Worcester in rare, wonderful, and useful inventions; at another time using with equal dexterity the graver of the artist, the pen of the historian, and the stick of the compositor; at one time wooing the reluctant muses to his embrace; at another time, with no less ardour, accommodating himself to the sterner graces of grave philosophy and psychological science; while last, and most pre-eminently, to our simple apprehension, he stands forth the single hearted, sincere, indefatigable, and patriotic collector and illustrator of our national antiquities and traditionary literature. But let the author speak for himself:— My Lord,—Since I had the honour of being first introduced to your Lordship, you have often requested me to give you in writing some account of my life and history. The task to me was rather an unpleasant one, particularly at my early age, when I had nothing of interest to offer, not having been much known to the literary or scientific world: consequently, I always found means to ward off the impending and frightful storm, by palliating my carelessness with an honest plea—by giving your lordship a verbal outline of my history. I now find I can keep my secret, nor hiding place no longer. I have been dragged before the merciless tribunal of a censorious public, by at least half a 647

dozen of the hireling scribes and pharisees, who make it their trade to vomit vengeance weekly. I would readily allow a little latitude to these caterers for the public amusement, but when you give them an inch they will take an ell. As that Colossus of literature, the learned Editor of the Edinburgh Quarterly Review, once remarked when writing me on this subject, “Public men are liable to these impertinences and some allowance must be made for the acuteness of provincial wits.” The real arcanum of my life, however, has yet escaped their Argus eyes, even in spite of all their watchings and pryings. But, that they might not seem deficient of the secret, and to give zest to their dull told tale, like the heterogeneous mass in the witches’ cauldron of Macbeth, they have added of their own wity &c. &c. here a little and there a little, to make the medley “slab and good.” I was not aware that I had become so notorious, till reading the piquant remarks of these pseudo-writers. It appears, therefore, that the knowledge of my history, trifling as it is, and always seemed to me, is of more real value than I was aware. Having, then, this day spare upon my hands, I shall employ part of it in throwing together a few desultory sentences, by way of auto-biography, which may be relied on. I admit that it is public property, and liable to be treated as such; but surely every man of honour ought to have a decent regard for truth, and the feelings of a brother labouring in the same vineyard. Calumny is a sword that wounds the soul, and a poison that corrupts the inward vitals. Detraction of every kind, particularly of one looked upon as a friend, is doubly severe. You know, my Lord, what Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Iago to say on the robbery of a good name:— “Who steals my purse, steals trash; ‘tis something, nothing; Twas mine, ‘tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name, Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed.” And another author adds, “An insult offered to a respectable character is often less pardonable than a precipitate murder; he who can indulge himself in that, may bear assassination on his conscience.” As my time is limited, I must be brief, and will not trouble your Lordship by recalling to mind and exposing and confuting the follies and falsehoods of those who have made such pretences to an acquaintance with my life and character; suffice it therefore to say, that Peterhead, in the County of Aberdeen, a burgh of barony, on the most eastern point of Scotland, had the honour of giving me birth. My father and grandfather and his father, as well as my mother and her father and grandfather on the one side, are all of one stock and pedigree of a General Buchan, who had at one time large possessions, and kept a good Castle, modishly called a house, at Rattray, parish of Crimond. He was a scion of the Cumyns, Earls of Buchan, who had changed the name to that of their title. My grandmother, on the mothers side, Margaret, or, (as she was complimentarily called) bonny Peggy Irvine, was lineally descended, and nearly related to the ancient and renowned house of Drum, Aberdeenshire. But, by the bye, my Lord, I have been sadly digressing; you did not want their history, it was my own. Well, how shall I begin to tell it?—Yet I have it now!—I was put early to school, made considerable and rapid progress in my learning, was accounted clever, and—and,—O, I have forgot the rest—what shall I say now? But I think I hear your Lordship whisper—No longer excuses, you must proceed. Then kind angels assist me in this trying hour! When I was about twelve years old, I had a wish to accompany my father to Ross and Sutherland shires, where he had been wont to go in summer for the twenty years preceding, as factor or superintendant of a concern held by a London Company in these parts. During my four months residence in the land of field and flood, and mountain heath, among a poor but hospitable race of hardy strangers, I picked up a few words of their ancient language, as they fell from their tongues; but as the soil in which they were sown was of a barren kind, in a few years they withered, and the place where they were first exposed known no more. On my return, having, young as I was, a taste for mechanics, I occasionally visited a most ingenious young man, who was not only a machinery 648

maker, but a round and square wright, brass founder, black, white, and copper smith, with, I know not how many etceteras I might add in addition, before I did him justice; and being so much taken with his amenity of heart, and suavity of manners, as well as his wonderful talents, I resolved to dedicate three or four years of my life to his service gratuitously. On making known my intention, I was kindly greeted by all concerned, particularly by a little fellow of my own age, who sadly wanted a juvenile companion. Here, I continued for twelve months with this worthy man, for I was not bound apprentice, but one at will. I would have remained longer, but like too many honest souls, he found the cold frowns of fortune so chilling, for his warm heart, in Peterhead, that his constitution could bear it up no longer; so, at a tangent struck off. I followed him to the place of his retreat; continued with him other twelve months, and was happy. By this time I had made myself Master of Arts, which I never intended to use. Having had a wish to try my fate at sea, I got a midshipman’s commission in the navy, but on the eve of my going away, my parents, who had never given their consent, would not sanction my proceedings, nor allow me a penny to purchase necessaries. I was therefore obliged to abandon my favourite scheme, and for a few years afterward, as the boatmen term it, “Hung upon my oars.” During this cessation, I amused myself occasionally by making musical instruments, engraving copperplates, &c. Yes, and falling in love too, the worst amusement of all. It was then, my Lord, that the mania of writing poetry, or rather of making words to jingle, first seized me in earnest. I got married, and was a father about the time other young men think of leaving the nest. The first fruits of our connubial happiness has already attended three sessions at Marischal College, Aberdeen, and was only half-past eleven when he commenced his studies as a bursar and public student. He too, seems to have an itch for rhyming, as some of his verses have appeared in a printed form three years ago. In 1814, I published a small volume of songs and verses, being part of my early recreations. They were well received by some, and, I believe, as indifferently by others; but cannot positively say, as my friends only shewed me the sunny side of public opinion. I must not, however, forget to add, that this publication, young as I was, and innocent as I thought it, brought upon me, in my townsmen, a myriad of foes, “In various shapes of parsons, critics, beaux.” I was sadly taken to pieces, not one particle of soul nor body that could be anatomized but what was laid under the scalpel, or dissecting knife, of these enemies to innovation, for daring to disturb the still gloom of pensive contentment that reigned over all. I rose like the phoenix from among the ashes of departed parents,—when looking around me, the place seemed full of creatures of a different species, who regarded me as a non-descript, not belonging to their community, but fanned into existence more to vex than to please. Having made a copper plate press from some engravings I had seen, and shown it to, and asked the opinion of one of my earliest friends, who is now in the silent bed of the grave,—”Light be the earth upon his breast,” James Arbuthnot, Esq. one of his Majesty’s Justices of the Peace for the county of Aberdeen, &c. a gentleman of great natural talents, and a friend to genius, rich and poor. I was strongly urged by him to prosecute with vigour the plan I had proposed of establishing something like a printing concern in Peterhead. Poverty, however, is often an unconquerable bar in the way of improvements: and, although my father possessed some landed property, and was well able to assist me, I having married more to please myself than to please him, he determined not to give me a single sous, and to this day has kept his word as sacredly as any of the drab-coated generation; so for sometime I had to struggle against wind and tide, to accomplish, as some thought, a visionary project. Yet, although no one put their hand to the plough, I would not go back, but mastered the malady, went to Edinburgh, the city of friends, with a pocket full of flattering introductory letters, and an almost empty purse. You, my good Lord, when I recall your kind heartedness and affability, as my first and best friend besouth Kinghorn, my heart still leaps light with gratitude and respect. You were pleased to take me under the shadow of your noble wings, in many cases making me an equal, and treating me with that becoming familiarity so very characteristic of your venerated and 649

noble name. When I had the pleasure of visiting you last season, at your beautiful and romantic seat on the classic banks of the Tweed, Dryburgh Abbey, I was grieved to see the havock and inroads that age had made on a disposition once so cheerful and gay. Age does not come single handed. I need not bring to your Lordship’s recollection the very many letters which you were pleased to write in my behalf to your noble and literary friends, all of whom proved of service to me. The marked attention I met with in Stirling, where I went for ten days to learn the mysteries of printing, particularly from the amiable and highly respected family of Daniel Wingate, Esq. M.D. was very great. This worthy gentleman was the first means of making me acquainted with another of your Lordship’s friends, and my most valued friend, the learned and much prized author of the life of Johnson, &c. &c. As your Lordship was pleased to make me a present of Dr. Wingate’s letter, and may by this time have forgot its purport, permit me to give you an extract. “My Lord,—Please to accept of my thanks for the opportunity you have afforded of making me acquainted with Mr. Buchan, who certainly is a most meritorious young man. The few opportunities I have had of seeing him, have afforded me much satisfaction, and I hope the astonishing progress he has made here, will materially promote his future projects, which must every day expand more and more from the great diligence and modesty he inherits. “Stirling, 19th July 1816.” After having completed my ten days’ service, I composed and printed a song, as a specimen of my work, then returned to Edinburgh, and received, by way of fee from one of your Lordship’s friends, about fifty pounds sterling. This money was laid out in the purchase of types, &c. with which I commenced business in my native town, on the 24th of March of the same year. For sometime I had to struggle with the opposition of prejudice and use and wont, being the first attempt of the kind ever made in Peterhead. However, the general utility of the establishment was so apparent to all, that the unsophisticated part of the community soon acknowledged, and recommended it to those who were not capable of thinking for themselves, as many are, so that the tedious method of advertisements, &c. soon gave way to the more speedy and agreeable plan of printing them. In 1819, I made a new printing press, wood, iron, and brass, and with this press I printed the “Annals of Peterhead,” which were chiefly composed while I was standing at the cases, and never was in manuscript. The book was accomplished with half a dozen of copperplate engravings, all of which I engraved without ever having received a single lesson in the art. The work, by the curious, was soon bought up as a rare piece of ingenuity. My next literary production was, “An Historical Account of the Ancient and Noble Family of Keith, Earls Marischal of Scotland, with the attainted Noblemen, &c.” Since that time, a week has scarcely passed over my head without being employed in some literary pursuit or another, whiles of my own, and whiles assisting some ill- fated wight like myself, who has had the misfortune to be born under an unlucky planet, and madly turned author; left the substance and followed the shadow of the skirt of fortune’s draggled garment. Young and inexperienced as I am, not yet being much above thirty, I have given eight or ten different volumes to the public, besides having occasionally cast my mite into the treasury of periodical literature, and dragged on a never ceasing toil of manual labour for the support of those I was the means of bringing into the world, as I was always fortunate enough to be a day or two’s journey behind, when posts and pensions were dividing. My last publication was the “Ancient unpublished Ballads and Songs of the North of Scotland, with Explanatory Notes,” 2 vols. 8vo. The Ballads and Songs were all taken down from the recitation of very old people, during a ten or twelve years siege that I stormed their straw-covered citadels, and by many good judges they have been considered the most original and best collection hitherto published, having been given in their primitive truth and order. The task was really laborious and expensive, as I kept a wight of Homer’s craft, an old Senachial veteran, constantly in pay, looking out 650

for these fine fragments of our early ancestors, besides making considerable tours myself, through various parts of the country, catching wherever they lingered, the falling and fast dying echoes of antiquated song. Although the work has met with the most marked attention of all ranks, that is to say, the sensible part, being patronised by the principal noblemen and literary gentlemen of Scotland, still it has come short of rewarding me for the time, trouble, and expense I have been at in creating it out of a chaos of rude materials. Yet the day, I hope, is not far distant, when I shall reap a plentiful harvest of shining sovereigns, as I have already done of honours: the first edition having been nearly all sold in a few months. It has been most graciously reviewed by all the admirers of the Scottish muse in England, as well as in Scotland. And some very flattering compliments paid it by the first literary characters of the age, among whom may be mentioned yourself, and Sir Walter Scott, whose verbal opinion, as well as his written testimony, while I had the honour of sitting with him in his study at Abbotsford, are very gratifying. The sting of the most envenomed critic has lost its power on this occasion, and he that sat down to rail and ridicule, saw unexpected beauties, knew how to appreciate their value, and rose with such a sapid feeling that nought was heard but praises— such have been its charms and attractions. I am at intervals preparing a second series, or additional volume of the same magic lore; but when it will be ready I cannot to a certainty say; having at present two irons in the fire. The one is on a subject, which, to the best of my knowledge and belief, no mere man ever published; but if he did, it never reached the east nook of Scotland, so I may say it will be purely original. As I am but half through it, and know not how I may be able to give it the finishing blow, pardon me, my Lord, should I decline giving any particulars for the present. Should it ever appear before the bar of a public tribunal to undergo the ordeal of criticism, it will appear, if health permit, very soon. For many years I have been honoured with the confidence and correspondence of several noblemen and gentlemen of the highest literary acquirements in England and Scotland, whom to name would be presumption in me. Even the worthy and much lamented Prince, his Royal Highness the late Duke of York, did not consider writing me any degradation to his persons and honours. He wrote in the most polite and gentlemanly manner. That learned and highly respected body of noblemen and gentlemen, the Society of Scottish Antiquaries; and that most useful establishment, the Northern Institution for the promotion of Science and Literature, both have done me the honour of electing me a corresponding member, &c. This is an outline of my public, I shall next say something of my private history, for I have two.—I have waged with fortune an eternal war; have felt all her favours and found them decay, and I may say with the Poet,— Good heavens! why gave you me A monarch’s soul— And crusted it with base plebeian clay? Why gave you me desires of such extent And such a span to grasp them; sure my lot By some o’er hasty angel was misplac’d In fate’s eternal volume. Although cradled in the lap of plenty, I began the world under very unpropitious circumstances. I was set a drift in the middle of a tempestuous ocean, in a small skiff, with but one oar to guide it, and have ever since been tossed on its relentless billows without finding a haven of rest. I hinted before that although my father had considerable property from the day I left his domicile to the present, I never had a shilling from him directly nor indirectly, in any manner of way. Though poverty, in many cases, have made my proud spirit to bend beneath its galling chain, it never could be brought to that state of humility as to ask his assistance. Still I have contrived to support, in an honourable and respectable manner, my first bosom friend, and half a dozen of the images of old father Adam, king of the universe. Their education has been such as would not disgrace the sons of any of the wealthy cits of the good town of Edinburgh: they have got the best of every kind that the 651

place can afford: and four of them are preparing to follow the example of their eldest brother, by wearing a scarlet gown, the badge of Mareschal’s Alma mater. By this time, your Lordship will be well tired as well as I, of such sickening stuff; or, I would have entered more minutely and circumstantially into the narrative. I have but slightly touched upon some things, and upon others not at all—Egotism I hate, or I would have told your Lordship how I studied Greek and French, &c. while rocking the cradle; got a situation of L.150 a year in London, but the confinement of this mighty Babylon broke my health, and I was obliged to return. I invented a new printing press which was wrought with the feet instead of the hands, and was not confined to the printing with types alone, but took impressions from stone, copper, wood, and types, in the most distinct, and easy manner, all of which specimens I have past me, printed in the presence of several of the most respectable gentlemen in Peterhead, and have no doubt but it would answer equally well all the purposes of one for printing on cloth, on a small and cheap scale. Many advantages could be pointed out in this press superior to those in common use. The first, being much easier and quicker wrought by the feet. The second, that it answers all the purposes of a lithographie, a copperplate, and letter press, at about the one-half of what one of the others would cost. The third is, that a person doing business on a small scale in a country place or little town, could combine all the three branches at little expense. The fourth is, that a saving of three fourths of rent could be made by using this press in preference to all the others, as it would only occupy one fourth of the space. Other advantages could be pointed out, but I hope, the preceding will satisfy your Lordship for the time. I invented another most useful machine connected with printing. It was an index for keeping an account of the number of sheets printed in any given time. I have kept one of them going on one of my preses for these several years past, and never knew it, in any one instance, to give a false report: in fact it is impossible, owing to its nature and construction. A patent press maker in Edinburgh once wrote me to send him one, and held out a great reward. He acknowledged its receipt and utility, then went to America, and with him my machine and golden hopes. I began another press, different from the former, but woe is me! I never was able to finish it. Your Lordship may guess, but need not tell the cause, as I do not wish it told in Gath, nor published in the streets of Askelon, for I hope to live to see better days yet, and end my auld days in renown: for as the Rev. Mr. Forbes says in his favourite song, “Iff I be spared I’ll be a laird, And she’ll be Madam ca’d lassie.” I am heir to my ungenerous father, and he cannot live for ever; (although, God knows, I wish him to live long and happy) still I must admit that, a bird in hand is worth two in the bush; for often while the grass is growing green the hungry steed pines and dies. A few other things, such as the patronage, the “Ballads and Songs of the North of Scotland,” has met with among the sons and daughters of their native hills and glens; and what interest and trouble the editors of the Aberdeen newspapers (for there are now a kind of three) took in introducing and recommending the same to their readers as the first collection of the kind ever made in the north, or at least since Forbes printed the “Aberdeen Cantas.” Not one of them ever wrote a line on the subject, while many of the London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Paisley, Perth, Elgin, &c. &c. presses were teeming with praises of the work. So much, my Lord, for the good taste and encouragement of the Aberdeen literati, for all the pretensions they make, and the hope that one may expect to flourish in the North. No wonder, indeed, that the North has been considered unproductive of genius: or that, when one arises, he should immediately, like the heliopetrium, turn his head where the sun shines, and bend his way to the south, a clime, more congenial to the feelings of one who makes literature his gain. O Edinburgh, Edinburgh! how happy may thy sons and daughters be who dwell in thy sanctuary, where maybe hourly obtained the enlivening light and heat of the learned converse and friendly patronage of noble and generous minds; compared to those frigid mortals who are lone dwellers on the icy and barren rock of cold disdain, and where nought but the chilling frown of 652

envy and detraction reigns. I am proud, however, to say, that there has lately sprung up in Elgin, (I need not tell you that it is the Courier newspaper,) a work of great merit, which does honour to the site of the once beautiful cathedral of that name, conducted by a young man of liberal principles and great natural acquirements. I must also do Mr. Chalmers, the proprietor and editor of the Abderdeen Journal, the justice to say, that he most readily gave insertion to an excellent written article on the merit of the ballads, by a gentleman of fortune, and one who would, as an artist, rank with the first in Scotland, were he to make his amusement his profession. Mr. C. gave the work his support in another more substantial form; he was a purchaser, and several of his friends. I could mention several gentlemen of the highest respectability in Aberdeenshire, who took an active part in promoting the sale of the ballads, among whom I beg leave to notice William Gordon, Esq. of Fyvie Castle, a gentleman, not better known for his princely fortune, than for his amiable and fascinating manners, his knowledge in every thing connected with Scottish History, and his patronage to the man of genius: Hugh Irvine, Esq. Drum, whose talents and good taste need only be known to be duly appreciated: The learned, the kind and good hearted Professor Melvin, of Marischal College: The generous and obliging Forbes Frost, Esq. and the esteemed antiquarian, William Kennedy, Esq. late Sheriff Substitute, and author of that truly laborious and useful work, the Annals of Aberdeeen, &c.; and I must not forget many of my own worthy townsmen of the higher class. In short, there was not a gentleman of any opulence or respectability, but what became a purchaser of the ballads. I must not, however, my Lord, forget to say, that in Peterhead, as in every other place, there are a few dwarf minds, who pique themselves upon being gentlemen, merely because they go finely dressed, and have more impudence than their neighbours, both in public and in private; but I must add, their gentility does not consist in the dignity of their birth and parentage, their own honourable actions, nor their fluency of speech, but wholly in the fineness of their coat, and white neckcloths— strip them of these, and you will have meanness in perfection; those whose words are no more to be regarded nor relied on, than the braying of an ass’s colt. The kind patronage and attention I have met with from several noblemen and gentlemen of the south, as well as in some parts of the north, viz. Banff and Elgin, would be too tedious to mention. My Lord, as it is just now only twenty minutes from three A.M. on my cronometer, and my eyelids nearly closed, I shall wish your Lordship a sound sleep on your downy pillow, and such a dream as may be remembered with pleasure when waking, while I have the satisfaction of going to bed myself, and concluding this hurried and imperfect sketch, for the honour of being as usual, my Lord, your Lordship’s most obliged and obedient Servant, PETER BUCHAN.

So closes the account of his life and literary labours, which our author has written propria manu to an illustrious friend and patron, now gathered to ancestral dust. Cold-blooded must the pitiful rascal be, who can read without emotion, this narrative of the struggles of an ingenious and towering spirit against an unrelenting and untoward destiny. The acerbity of temper into which the writer is occasionally betrayed, may well be excused, when we take into view the one thousand and one provoking circumstances which must attend the path of one devoted to the elucidation of neglected literature. The patience of a saint might be outworn by them. He sees his labours contemned—his industry sneered at—his abilities called into question by every saucy boy who can quote common-places from the dead languages—and last and worst, he beholds a public, whose effeminate and vitiated taste cannot appreciate researches, which referring to earlier and more masculine times, minister nothing to the fleeting vanities and idle puerilities of the present day. For our own share, had he written less teethily, we ought rather to say less honestly, we would not have liked him half so well. Your miracles of suffering patience, and imperturbable equanimity, under 653

all the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” are mere lumps of snow—creatures without one drop of mans blood in their shrunken veins—their hearts are but indigest masses of dull phlegm, and duller clay—mere boulder stones, not living and louping things, trembling with feeling and swelling high with vigorous and healthful life and action. Such poor dumb creatures, have not had a solitary spark of sterling genius in their whole microcosm. They are of the earth earthy—soil bound slaves—knaves born for no other purpose than to hew wood and draw water—Gibeonites, pluckless Gibeonites.—On the other hand, we find that true genius has ever a gallant insolence about it, that will kick against the pricks to the last, give blow for blow, till it either tramples under foot all opposition to its impetuous career, or is slain outright like a true knight under shield. Stiffly as Mr Buchan has stood the stour, and dearly as we love to see him fighting his way to glory through hosts of senseless critics, yet, for his own sake, and for the sake of our national literature, we fervently hope, that his evil days have departed, and that brighter destinies now await him. His volumes, we observe, are dedicated to his Grace the Duke of Buccleugh, a nobleman who cannot be ignorant of the proud distinction which arises from being deemed the friend and patron of learned men, nor so utterly destitute of national feeling, as not to cherish and uphold the spirit of him who has laboured so assiduously and successfully in preserving and illustrating the fast-fading monuments of Scotland’s traditionary song—the lays of her chivalrous and romantic ages. Having ranged himself under the banner of the “Bauld Buccleugh,” we should feel grieved and disappointed indeed, did its star not shine forth the harbinger of good fortune—did it not lead him on to honourable advancement, and well merited reward. From the author we shall now turn to his work, and devote a few pages to a candid examination of its claims on the notice of the public. And here, as honest critics, having a good conscience before our eyes, we are bound to say that these claims are neither few nor unimportant—a fact of which we daresay all will be convinced, ere we have laid down our pen. We need scarcely remind our readers, that for the transmission of the greater bulk of our ancient ballads to the present times, we are solely indebted to oral tradition. We are not aware of any early MS. or printed collection of these being extant; and though it is not improbable that some such may exist, and may yet, in some remote nook of the country be brought to light, certain it is that no precious collection of this description has hitherto crowned the labours of any one of our most zealous and industrious antiquaries. Should we prove the discover of any such valuable volume, we are certain our piety and gratitude would equal that of honest Thomas Hearne.* One reason for the rare occurrence of these ballads, in our old poetical MSS. may be that they did not fall exactly within the province of those professional scribes and copyists, who, ere the introduction of printing, ministered to the literaiy appetites of our ancestors. Their labours seem to have been chiefly confined to the transcription of ghosdy legends, tedious

* The following prayer, written by Thomas Hearne, after some such windfall, is curious and characteristic:—“O most gracious and merciful Lord God, wonderful in thy providence, I return all possible thanks to thee for the care thou hast always taken of me. I continually meet with most signal instances of this thy providence, and one act yesterday, when I unexpectedly met with three old MSS. for which, in a particular manner, I return my thanks, beseeching thee to continue the same protection to me, a poor helpless sinner, and that for Jesus Christ his sake.” 654

romances, and metrical chronicles, of length too formidable to be committed to memory. The slighter effusions of the minstrel muse, they either deemed beneath the dignity of their weighty pens, or, what is perhaps more consonant with fact, they believed that to transcribe ditties which were in every one’s mouth, and chaunted around every hearth, and at every sport and pastime of the people, would be a work of absolute supererogation. Moreover, by such labours they would interfere with the vocation of those numerous bands of singers and tale-tellers who strolled through the country, and by singing or reciting short metrical narratives, commemorative of ancient deeds of arms, domestic incidents, and popular superstitions, contrived to gain a livelihood, while they amused the humbler classes of Society. Our earliest typographers seem also to have contemned the ballads of the people. We have no old printed collections of these, and yet from the numerous allusions made to popular songs and ballads, and romances, by our early writers, we cannot persuade ourselves that such collections were entirely unknown. A contemporary of the Reformer Knox, while giving his reasons for endyting “A memorial of the Life of Two Worthie Christians” says: So we find deeds of vassalage Set forth by Poets in all age, Even of Grey-steill wha list to luke There is set forth a meikle buke Of that rank Rover Robene Hude. Of Robene Hude and Little Johne, With sik like outlawes many one: As Clim of the cleugh and Cliddlisie, Because of their fine archerie. But though we have no printed collections extant, this does not take away the probability that such were at one time common. Passing into the hands of the lower orders, an edition would soon be worn out, without leaving a vestige to guide the steps of the bibliographer. In our times we see this occurring every day, and what occurs now, must have chanced before. From supposition, however, we proceed to fact, and here a recent inspection of Mr. Laing’s valuable and curious fac simile reprint of the first labours of the Edinburgh Press, in part confirms the opinion we have hazarded.—Chepman and Myllar’s volume has obviously been got up to suit the taste of all descriptions of poetical readers in their day. For the lovers of chivalrous adventure, we have the knightly tale of Sir Gawen and Sir Gollogras, &c.— for those who delighted in tales of Fœrye, we have the romance of Orpheo and Euridice— for clerkly wits, whose taste may be considered more chaste and classical, we find Chaucer, Dunbar, Henryson, &c. have been laid under contribution, while for the “lewde vulgare,” we have imprinted a notable geste of Robyn Hode. Hence it is no improbable surmise that they, as well as those who succeeded them in the typographic art, did not entirely overlook the popular songs and traditionary ballads of the country. Were more of the works which issued from their press by any lucky chance discovered, we daresay it would be found that they indulged still more largely in the ballad strain. Perhaps the most valuable notice we have of the popular literature of Scotland and her ancient Song, is to be found in the “Complaynt of Scotland”. The description there given of the Shepherds and their wives dancing to certain songs, agrees perfectly with the curious account we have in Debes’ Ferœ Islands of the amusements of the inhabitants of 655

these remote regions: “They are not, says the venerable author, inclined to any unprofitable pastimes, but delight themselves most in singing of Psalms on holydays, except in their weddings and at Christmas, that they recreate themselves with a plain dance, holding one another by the hand, and singing some Old Champion’s Ballad.” To the love of these ballads, and the care with which they preserved their memory, our author in another part thus alludes: “This I must blame in our people of Ferœ, that almost all of them know the most part of the old Gyants ballads; not only those that are printed in the Danish Book of Ballads, but also many more of the Champions of Norway, that may-be are forgotten elsewhere, here in fresh memory, being usually sung in their dances. But they have so absolutely forgotten that gracious and useful song of the true champion of Israel Jesus Christ, that I could not amongst many of them find one person that knew it wholly. If our countrymen of Ferœ had as carefully preserved it as they have kept their Gyants ballads: they had not been much to blame for the last; for the praise of our ancestors ought neither to be put in oblivion, though it may be the number of New Psalms hath brought this in contempt, and driven it into the land of forgetfulness,” p. 338. In Scotland, we believe, Psalm singing tended greatly to eradicate the memory of our old Champions’ ballads, as well as our songs of humour and sentiment. Indeed, from the resemblance which exists between parts of our Church Psalmody, and some of our old ballad airs, we are inclined to hazard the opinion that the one was borrowed from the other. It was an ingenious device, for it reconciled the people to the new channel given to their vocal powers. The airs of the lighter lyrics were more intractable and little suited to the gravity of church music; hence the indifferent success which seems to have attended the pious labours of Wedderburn, or whoever was the author of a Boke of Godlie Ballads, and Spiritual Songes. The publication of Dr. Percy’s Reliques had, independendy of its wholesome influence on the character of English literature, the happy effect of directing the attention of learned men in this part of the country to the state of its traditionary poetry, and stimulating them to compass its preservation. Prior to this, Allan Ramsay had done a little in the same field, and coeval with Dr. Percy, Lord Hailes had recovered a few ballads which were generally printed singly in quarto by the Foulis’s of Glasgow, and subsequently in the volumes of Percy. The spirit which called up could not be again laid. Lord Woodhouslie, Pinkerton, David Herd, Ritson, Burns, Dr. Leyden, Sir Walter Scott, Jamieson, Finlay, Sharpe, Burns, Cunninghame, Kinloch, Motherwell, &c. followed hard, baud passibus æquis, the beckoning finger, as it gleamed through the mists of antiquity. Poets, antiquaries, scholars, and men of taste joined heartily in the patriotic task of collecting and illustrating our early national song. Glancing over their manifold labours, it was scarcely to be hoped that farther acquisitions could be made. The largest contributor out of sight to this species of literature, as he has subsequently been in other departments of letters, was Sir Walter Scott. Deriving the bulk of his collection from the border counties, Sir Walter Scott claims for that district the merit of being the cradle of Scottish Song—of being the place where the strains of the heroic muse were first and latest heard; but subsequent researches have shewn, and none more than those which are now before us, that this claim rests on very 656

narrow grounds. The finest ancient ballads, excluding always those of a strictly local character, and referring to historical incident, the scene of which is laid on the marches, are to be found in every part of the island where our Scoto-Saxon dialogue is spoken. And in those districts most remote from large towns, and not cumbered with huge cotton- mills, steam engines, and rumbling machinery, they are ever preserved in their greatest purity, and completest form. The collections of Jamieson, Kinloch, and our author, gleaned principally along the north east coast, supply us with a strong infusion of Scandinavian song, exceedingly valuable, as their counterparts still to be found in the languages of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, help us to trace with something like philosophic accuracy, the history of traditionary poetry. One quarter that we should like to explore for traditionary poetry is the province of Ulster, in Ireland. Being an early Scottish colony, it is not improbable that several of our finest old ballads are preserved there in greater purity than in the mother country. According to the shewing of a recent writer, who seems to have bestowed considerable labour on the subject, we have now extant in our various printed collections, some 200 old ballads. His work fixes the amount of positive contributions made to our ancient song by each successive collector, and following out his plan, it will be seen that in point of number, and we may add, value of its articles, the present work must, to the student of traditional and national poesy, be ranked next to the Border Minstrelsy. In simply mentioning the titles of the Old Ballads Mr Buchan has recovered, we do him more justice than if we were to waste a ream of foolscap in writing vague panegyrics on his labours. The following Table shews their amount as nearly as our knowledge of the subject enables us to judge, and it may prove a useful guide to others less conversant in these matters than ourselves. 657

VOL. I. Ballads for the first time recovered from Other, or more perfect Versions of Ballads tradition. already printed. The twa Magicians. Sir Patrick Spens. Child Owlet. Young Aken. The Bent sae Brown. Young Waters. Leesome Brand. Death of Lord Warriston. Clerk Tamas. Rose the Red and White Lillie. The Queen of Scotland. The Courteous Knight. Earl o’ Mar’s Daughter. Sweet Willie and Fair Maisry. Earl Crawfurd. Young Prince James. Burd Isbel and Sir Patrick. The Three Brothers. Charles Graeme. Young Hunting. Darlington. The Drowned Lovers. The Holy Nunnerie. Gight’s Lady. White Fisher. Willie and Lady Maisry. Yonderdale. Clerk Sandy. The Knight’s Ghost. The enchanted Ring. The Maid and Fairy. Broom o’ the Cowdenknowes. Brown Robin’s Confession. Jean o’ Bethelnie. Blancheflour. Lord Dingwall. Lady Isbel. James Herries. Earl Richard’s Daughter. Lord Ingram and Childe Vyet. Willie and Fair Burd Ann. Lang Johnnie More. Proud Maitland. Blue Flowers. New Slain Knight. Casdeha’ Willie’s drowned in Gamery. The Clerks of Oxenford, VOL. II King Malcolm and Sir Colvin The Birth of Robin Hood. Young Allan. Lord John’s Murder. Lord Livingston. The Duke of Athol’s Nourice. The Millar’s Son. Burd Helen. Jock the Leg, and the merry Merchant. Lord Lundy. Earl Douglas and Dame Oliphant. Earl Lithgo. Water of Wearies Well. Warreston and the Duke of York’s Chil Ether. Daughter. May-a-roe. The Minister’s Daughter of New York. Auld Matrons. Cruel Mother. Willies Fatal Visit. Hynd Horn. The twa Knights. Willie’s Lykewake. 658

Young Ronald. Auchanachie. Hynd Hasting. The Scottish Squire. Brown Robin and Mally. Jock o’ Haselgreen. The Broomfield Hills.

Besides these there are many more, which, though Mr. Buchan appears to consider have for the first time been committed to print, we can assure him have been long so conserved. We may mention May Colvin—The Lass of Englessie—Lizie Lindsay—Argyle’s Courtship—Portmore—Captain Johnston’s Farewell—The Blue Flowers and the Yellow—The Trooper and the Fair Maid—Lizie Bailie—Lord Winsberrie, &c. &c. While we are noticing some few mistakes of our author, we may express our astonishment at his admitting into his ancient pieces so silly and so modern a thing as Sir Niel and M’Van. Its very first offgo might have satisfied the critical ear, that it had neither “The curious perfume, nor most melodious twang,” which distinguish the vanishing apparitions of Ancient Song, as well as Spirits of another sort. Far in yon Isle beyond Argyle, Where flocks and herds were plenty, Liv’d a rich heir, whose sister fair Was flower ower a’ that country, This nap in which Mr. B has indulged, we might have overlooked, had he not inflicted a note upon us, in which we are informed that Sir Niel of the ballad may have been Sir Niel Campbell, a follower of Sir William Wallace! The trumpery thing in question was sung about the streets some five years ago, and may be had in any number of reams from the classic presses of Stirling or Falkirk any day. It is out and out modern, whatever Mr. Buchan may think, and it was in print years before he had it in MS. The whole duty of a collector of traditionary ballads is to print them exactly as they were said or sung to him; to mention the district of the country where he recovers the version, and to abstain from all conjectural emendation on the text, till, as we have said, he has first given it faithfully as he found it. Now, we have scanned the present volumes with no little care, and we honestly believe that Mr. Buchan has rigidly acted up to the specified conditions, and he has, if he deem them worthy any thing, our unfeigned thanks for the manner in which he has discharged his duty. Of the difficulties and labour attendant on his favourite pursuits, our author appears to entertain a due sense, and knowing some of these from our own personal experience, we can safely aver, that he presents us with no exaggerated picture of their number and magnitude. On this subject he thus writes:— “No one has yet conceived, nor has it entered the mind of man, what patience, perseverance, and general knowledge are necessary for an editor of a Collection of Ancient Ballads; nor what hosts of enemies he has to encounter; and what myriads of little-minded quibblers he has to silence. The writing of explanatory notes is like no other species of literature. History throws little light upon their origin, or the cause which gave rise to their composition. He has to grope his way in the dark; like Bunyan’s pilgrim, on crossing the valley of the shadow of death, he hears sounds and noises, but cannot, to a certainty, tell from whence they come, nor to what place they proceed. The one time, he has to treat of fabulous ballads in the most romantic shape; the next legendary, with all its exploded, obsolete, and forgotten superstitions; also history, tragedy, comedy, love, war, and so on; all, 659 perhaps within the narrow compass of a few hours,—so varied must his genius and talents be.” Our own notion is, that if in the days of chivalry and romance, there ever did exist that self-constituted body of mounted police, cleped Knights Errant, who generously devoted themselves, without fee or reward, to right the wronged, and punish the oppressor—who, scorning toil, hunger, thirst, lack of comfortable raiment and lodging, and all the numerous ills to which flesh is heir, wandered with enduring activity over the face of this terraqueous globe, redressing grievances, sharply chastising powerful villany—defending disconsolate widows and mourning orphans—rescuing delicate damsels from the cruel clutches of ogre- faced and carnivorous mawed ravishers—spitting and splitting up huge giants with lance and sword, and ridding society of all such evil-disposed monsters, and wicked landloupers— storming castles, in whose dungeons fair ladies pined in unsunned loveliness, and wept themselves to mere skeletons, and where divers unfortunate knights who had undertaken their delivery, failed in the emprize, and were themselves immured in loathsome pits, Ml of noisome damps, and fetid smells, where every kind of ugly reptile, as well “As the bauld rotten Crawled through their yellow hair.” and made life a burden to their haughty hearts.—Who swimming through lakes of fire, and dashing aside raging floods, held in utter abeyance every species of guile, force, or magic spell—who confronting peril and wanchance, terrible and unearthly, shrunk not from their high resolves, but went on in their career of heroism, through every shift and change of circumstance—through good and bad report, like destiny itself, shaping their course of glory, till perfect execution crowned their labours, and the purpose of their being was fully accomplished. If such men ever were, and for the honour of our race we trust such men did once exist, we say that in our honest belief their legitimate descendants, their true print and portraiture are to be found in the pains-taking and faithful collector of our old traditionary songs and ballads. The collector of these, like his worshipful archetype, hath to wander, heaven wots, through mazes of doubt—forests of confusion—regions of sterility—and many strange lands belike in remote Ind, whose very atmosphere is drugged with potent enchantments. He has to resist the blandishments of fancy, and the pruriencies of imagination, and to seek only for the poor naked anatomy of Truth.—Alas, too, it is not always in a clear chrystal fountain that that shy maiden chooses to hide herself, but in some sullen pool, or miry hole, out of which whoever souses in, must rise, if rise he can, a droukit and a draiglit body, at whom the nose of refinement will be upcurled, and the finger of ridicule be directed. He has to abide this, and much more. He has toil after toil to overcome, privation after privation to endure. Slumber must not sheath his eyes, nor seal his ears. He dare not trust to another the duty of watching the Brazen Head, on whose oracular responses the whole fate of his being hinges. When its massive lips syllable forth “Time is,” then must he be all alert, and question it tightly: and as it rolls forth the voice of the past, each echo, however faint, must be registered with fidelity and care. This moment of solemn communing omitted, and All the voyage of his life, Is bound in shallows and misfortunes. He falls from the elevation and beauty of a poetical existence, and shrinks into a degenerate and common place man. 660

But say that he has accomplished all that his heart was set upon and that after toils and troubles past, he returns home, as it were, to enjoy within the silent chapel of his own virtuous thoughts, the pleasing reflection that he has done his duty well, and not perfunctorily; the worthy knight-errant collector hath sorrows still in store, and other enemies to deal with. No sooner is he well seated by his own hearth, and has begun to uncase himself of his rusty and sword-dinted habergeon, than around him spring up some thousand or more of mischievous yellow-cheeked pucker-skinned elves, with fiery eyes and wrinkled fronts, who settle with fiendish avidity on every bit of raw flesh that the griding armour has produced upon his body. There they sting and bedevil him worse than a shirt of hair, till his whole body is one blister of pain, one mass of bepoisoned humours. These elves be critics, a malign and ill conditioned race of dwarfs, most inimical to generous and knightly deeds. Happy, thrice happy are they who have thick skins, when they happen to sit down upon a nest of hornets, or to fall asleep on an ant hillock. From these and all such virulent imps, we say heaven shield the volumes of our friend Mr. Buchan of Peterhead, and long preserve him to collect and illustrate the traditionary literature of his native land. Our similitudes may look somewhat far fetched, but they are not the less correct and forcible. It is the fashion of the day, for book-making men to decry the labours of the mere ballad gather, and to treat as light and insignificant, his pursuit after oral song. They prize the pearl, but they have not a word of praise for the poor fellow who risked life and limb to fish up the oyster from its ocean bed. After the thing is got, however, they will prove that it is a gem of the purest water, and lavish learning, and what they style research and sentiment, and twaddle upon it without end—they will make it a nail on which to hang all the sweepings of their studies, all the tag-raggery of their miscellaneous reading, and every scrap and shred of history or anecdote that lies uppermost in their mind, as well as all the idle gossip of scholarship, that form the stock in trade of a thorough paced maker of books. These are our ballad commentators, and their labours may be characterized as Ascham has done those of a French writer: “I must needs remember, says the author of Toxophilus, a certain Frenchman called Textor, that writeth a book which he nameth Officina, wherein he weaveth up many broken ended matters, and set out much rifraff pelfery, trumpery, baggage, and beggary ware, clampered up of one that would seem to be fitter for a shop indeed, than to write any book.” There are many features peculiar to the genuine old ballads of the land that we might enumerate, and the due value of which are well understood by the critic and the antiquarian. These however we need not allude to, farther than by merely directing the readers attention to the identity of expression, where identity of action occurs in these ancient compositions—their perpetual use of the same imagery—betraying, as one might suppose, a poverty of invention, but which we believe was a device, ingenious as it was judicious, to fix them in the memory of the people, as well as to assist the professed minstrel on those occasions, when circumstances might call on him to produce extempore narrative of passing event. The frugality of Scotland is proverbial, a frugality belike the result of stern necessity. It was no uncommon thing in our father’s day, perhaps it is not so even now, in some secluded districts, to see such of the higher order of the peasantry as are emphatically termed “bein bodies,” arrayed at kirk or market in the antiquated habiliments of some great grandfather or great grandame—in garments that have been handed down for a generation or two with the greatest care, and may yet clothe a third, were simplicity of manners and old 661 customs to suffer no change. The same spirit of frugality seems to have ruled the inspirations of the Harper of the “North Countrie,” for we find them with the happiest indifference, making one ballad to suit many persons, and many occasions by slight change of name and locality. This, it is to be confessed, creates some confusion, and renders our path indistinct, when we seek to connect the events detailed in traditionary song, with historical personages and real incidents. We find innumerable ballads referring to the same story, and one is left in doubt whether they should be considered as separate compositions, referring to similar events, happening in different places and times, or only as variations of narrative, produced by transmission to other lands—the corruptions of time, and the carelessness of reciters. Supposing that they are distinct ballads, it may be urged, that in human events, we mean those which most nearly affect our sympathies, and imprint themselves on our memory, the range is more limited than could well be imagined. Indeed, in all mundane affairs, there is a perpetual recurrence of parallel lines—a singular identity of circumstances created by each revolution of the great master wheel of fate. The events detailed in the domestic tragedy of Gil Morrice, may have happened as well in the 6th century, as in the 16th, and in centuries yet to be, as in either. In certain ages too of the history of Society, there must always happen a degree of uniformity in the character of its outward accidents—the principles of human action are the same and undeviating throughout, but their manifestation is modified by the conventional forms of society. Granting then, that at an early period in our history, there existed a series of poems detailing sundry chances that had befallen the heroes of older days, or visited with sorrow their noble dames and fair daughters, each of these would stand out as the archetype of particular classes of events, and would in after times be adopted as the ground plot for rearing another narrative, which embraced a similar range of subject, ingrafting in it perhaps some individuality of circumstance, such as a name or a locality, so as to fit the day, and the men of that day. Hence we have a theory perhaps not far removed from truth, which accounts satisfactorily for the number of ballads whose narratives are not dissimilar, and whose mode of expressing them presents few varieties. The more ancient class of our ballads, such as are supposed to have been current among our forefathers from the remotest times, critics and antiquarians have agreed to distinguish by the epithet Minstrel Ballads. To one versant in traditionary poetry, it is next to impossible that he could confound the truly old narrative with one that is the creation of modern fancy. Be the learning or discriminative powers of a modern writer ever so extraordinary, we believe it is a mere impossibility that he could produce a ballad, which to a person skilled in such matters, would be received as the oral ballad of elder days. When a taste for these indigenous growths of national genius took root, a plentiful crop of imitations arose, in which we find either the pride of the poet so fairly overdid the skill of the antiquary, or the knowledge of the latter was so very inadequate, that with none but the ignorant and careless can the counterfeits pass current. In Scotland the imitation of the heroic ballad was recently superseded by ballads, embodying religious feeling peculiar to the sect of covenanters, as if ever a grain of profane fancy could find harbourage in the relentless and iron bosom of a stiff anti-prelatist and anti-monarchist. Happily this kind of ingenious trifling has passed away, and our ballad antiquaries are not necessitated now to sweep down, with a rude hand, the cobweb fabrications of contemporary genius. These traditionary ballads, a large portion of which we are inclined to regard as veritable history, are, and have been the peculiar literature, and mental inheritance of the peasantry 662 of our native land. We remember when round the blazing hearth, the long nights of winter, were beguiled with these ancient ditties. Maidens while carding wool, or turning their spinning wheels, made the blackened kebers of the roof to ring with plaintive elegy, or warlike note—and well we remember the anxiety which youngsters had to learn the true way that some favourite ballad should be raned from the auld wife ayont the fire, whose fresh memory could still supply the genuine edition, as it was chaunted by her elders in her younger days. Her authority in these matters was supreme and indisputable, and from her words there was no appeal. For some of our romantic and historic ballads, a high antiquity is claimed, a claim, however, which the sticklers for the authentic are unfond to admit. Shew us them in MS. of a given age, and we will believe that the ballads are of that time. But to all matters of human knowledge, except merely the subjects of demonstrative science, the same objection would apply—all is traditionary—the very medium of thought—language, depends for its existence solely on tradition. To push the argument to extremes, would place the laudators of documentary evidence as superior to every other species in difficulties, from which no dialectic skill, or sound reasoning could deliver them. For our own part, we like to have faith as our fathers had in the song-records of our native land, and are in most cases inclined to rest as much weight on traditionary, as on written testimony. Of ballads and the facts they communicate, we may say as it is said in Cockelbie’s Sow, I reid not this in story autentyfe, I did it leir at ane full auld wyfe My grit grandame, men callit her Gurgunald, Sche knew the lyfe of mony faderis ald, Notable gestis of peas and weiris in storye Fresche in hir mynd and recent of memorye. It is remarkable enough, however, that none of the old ballads commit themselves by blending the manners of past times with the present. Their representations of the frame of Society differ toto calo from any thing like what it is now a-days. We never find them referring to the ritual of the reformed church; but uniformly to that of the Roman Catholic, and in some cases we are not sure but their allusions refer to heathen worship, and the mythic fables of the Scandinavian tribes. In a peculiar degree this collection illustrates what we are now stating. We do not think we are asking too much, when we desire our readers to believe that the curious ballad of the “Twa Magicians,” which certain reasons prevent us from giving, has evidently connection with Northern Fable. To our apprehension it is nothing else than the story of the seduction of Nidung’s daughter by Volandr or Velent, the celebrated smith. Again, in the ballad of the “Bent sae brown,” we find the hero has with him materials which fit him out with a boat, as useful as the ship Freyr, called Skidbladnir—a ship which easily transported a whole tribe of people, and yet when need required, could be folded up and carried in the pocket. Willie, when he visits his love Annie says: Of my coat I’ll make a boat, And o’ my sark a sail, And o’ my cane a gude topmast, Dry land till I come till. 663

Again, in the ballad of Young Allan, which is altogether a singular production, and resembles in some degree Sir Patric Spens, we find his ship like the bard Ellide, mentioned in Icelandic Song, understood human speech. During the storm Young Allan thus addresses his “comely cog,” If ye will sail my bonny ship Till we come to dry land, For ilka iron nail in you Of gowd there shall be ten. The ship she listen’d all the while, And hearing of her hire, She flew as swift through the saut sea, As sparks do frae the fire. This faculty was also enjoyed by the fleet of Alcinous, for which fact Homer is our authority. As corroborative of what we have said regarding the internal evidence these ballads have of their antiquity, so far as religion is concerned, we select BROWN ROBYNS CONFESSION. It fell upon a Wednesday, They’ve tyed him to a plank o’ wud, Brown Robyn went to sea; And thrown him in the sea; But they saw neither moon nor sun, He didna sink, tho’ they bade him sink, Nor star-light wi’ their e’e. He swimm’d and they bade lat him be. We’ll cast kevels us amang He hadna been into the sea See wha the unhappy man may be; An hour but barely three; The kevel fell on Brown Robyn Till by it came our blessed Lady, The master man was hee. Her dear young son her wi’ Its nae wonder, said Brown Robyn Will ye gang to your men again? Altho’ I dinna thrive; Or will ye gang wi’ me? For wi’ my mither I had twa bairns, Will ye gang to the high heavens, And wi’ my sister five. Wi’ my dear son and me? But tie me to a plank o’ wud, I winna gang to my men again, And throw me in the sea; For they wud be fear’d at me; And if I sink, ye may bid me sink, But I would gang to the high heavens But if I sink just let me bee. Wi’ thy dear son and thee. Its for nae honour you did to me Brown But a’ is for your fair confession Robyn, You’ve made upon the sea. Its for nae guid ye did to me;

The collection before us is also valuable, inasmuch as it contains many romantic ballads referable to eastern fiction, or which can be traced as existing in a more enlarged form, in some of the romances of the chivalrous ages. The story of the Earl of Mar’s Daughter, has its prototype in Arabian Fable. The Queen of Scotland is probably part of an old romance—it occurs to us that a similar stoiy is related in the Gesta Romanorum, or some such similar collection. Troy Muir, however, should obviously be changed to Triamoure. Blancheflour and Jellyflorice, is just a part of the metrical romance of that name; and “Young Ronald,” we think, is a balladised form of the lost romance, to which allusion is made in Roswall and 664

Lillian in the lines: For blither was not Meledas, When as she married Claudias: Nor Belsant that most pleasant flower, When she got Ronald to paramour, As was this Lady Lilian. Under the class of ballads referring to a Northern origin, we are inclined to think that the following should be reckoned:—Young Akin, The Twa Magicians, the Bent sae Brown, Lang Johnny Moir, Young Allan, Young Hastings, Bearwell, Kemp Owen, Hynd Hasting, &c. One ballad we consider as peculiarly valuable, viz. King Malcolm and Sir Colvin, as it helps to shew us what ballads lose by transmission from one age to another. In Percy’s Reliques we find the same ballad under the title of Sir Cauline. A writer, who comments on the ballad as it appears in the Reliques says: “How much it owes to the taste and genius of its Editor, we have not the means of ascertaining; but that his additions and interpolations have been considerable, any one acquainted with ancient minstrelsy will have little room to doubt. We suspect too, that the original ballad had a less melancholy catastrophe, and that the brave Sir Cauline, after his combat with the “hend Soldan,” derived as much benefit from the leechcraft of the fair Christabell, as he did after winning the eldridge sword.” The sagacity of the critic is amply confirmed by the set of the ballad, as traditionally preserved in Scotland. The ballad agrees with the remarkable narrative, which Hollingshed quotes from Gervase of Tilbury De Otio Imperiali, of one Osbert of Barnewell, who vanquished the Eldridge Knight of Wandleburie Hills.—Hollingshed, Vol. I., p. 216, new edition. But it would be no surprising thing to us, though this ballad referred to the rise of the family of Comyn in Scotland, and was founded on this incident. “Malcolm causid one of his brothers to be beheded, and put out the yes of another of his bretheren, and kept hym in Gedworth Castel yn pryson, fering lest they should put hym from his kingdom. He that was blynd got a mayd childe of a launder that wold never leve on tyl he had married her. This daughter was after given with landes in marriage by Malcolme, on to a sunne of the Countie Comyn of Fraunce, the which young Comyn at that tyme dwelled with King Malcolme.” Notable Things translated into English by John Leylande, oute of a Booke called Scala Chronica. Collectanea, Vol. I. p. 529. Among other good versions of ballads which Mr Buchan has recovered, we find an excellent one of Sir Patrick Spens, which clearly establishes that the unfortunate voyage it records, was on the occasion of the daughter of Alexander III. marrying Eric of Norway. As we wish this perfect version to supersede all made up, or somewhat imperfect ones that have hitherto appeared, we now present it to our readers. 665

SIR PATRICK SPENS The King sits in Dunfermline town, But mony a dreary thought had hee, A’ drinking at the wine; While hee was on the main. Says, Where will I get a good skipper They hadna sail’d upon the sea Will sail the saut seas fine? A day but barely three; Out it speaks an eldern knight Till they came in sight o’ Noroway, Amang the companie— It’s there where they must bee. Young Patrick Spens is the best skipper They hadna stayed into that place That ever sail’d the sea. A month but and a day, The King he wrote a braid letter, Till he caus’d the flip in mugs gae roun’, And seal’d wi’ his ring; And wine in cans sae gay, Says, Ye’ll gi’e that to Patrick Spens, The pipe and harp sae sweetly play’d, See if ye can him find. The trumpets loudly soun’: He sent this, not wi’ an auld man, In every hall wherein they stay’d, Nor yet a simple boy, Wi’ their mirth did reboun’. But the best o’ nobles in his train Then out it speaks an auld skipper, This letter did convoy. An inbearing dog was hee— When Patrtick look’d the letter upon Ye’ve stay’d ower lang in Noroway, A light laugh then gae’d he: Spending your king’s monie. But ere he read it till an end, Then out it speaks Sir Patrick Spens,— The tear blinded his e’e. O how can a’ this be? Ye’ll eat and drink, my merry men a’, I ha’e a bow o’ guid red gowd But see ye be weell thorn; Into my ship wi’ mee. For blaw it weet, or blaw it wind, But betide me will betide me wae, My guid ship sails the morn. This day I’se leave the shore; Then out it speaks a guid auld man, And never spend my king’s monie A guid death mat he dee,— ‘Mong Noroway dogs no more. Whatever ye do, my guid master, Young Patrick hee is on the sea, Tak’ God your guide to bee. And even on the faem; For late yestreen I saw the new moon, Wi’ five-an-fifty Scots lords’ sons, The auld moon in her arm. That lang’d to bee at hame. Ohon, alas! says Patrick Spens, They hadna sail’d upon the sea That bodes a deadly storm. A day but barely three; But I maun sail the seas the morn, Till loud and boistrous grew the wind, And likewise sae maun you; And stormy grew the sea. To Norway, wi’ our king’s daughter,— O where will I get a little wee boy A chosen queen she’s now. Will tak’ my helm in hand, But I wonder who has been sae base, Till I gae up to my tapmast, As tauld the king o’ mee; And see for some dry land? Even tho’ he ware my ae brither, He hadna gane to his tapmast, An ill death mat he dee. A step but barely three; Now Patrick he rigg’d out his ship, Ere thro’ and thro’ the bonny ship’s And sailed ower the faem; side, He saw the green haw-sea. 666

There are five an-fifty feather beds It’s even ower by Aberdour Well packed in ae room; It’s fifty fathoms deep, And ye’ll get as muckle guid canvas And yonder lies Sir Patrick Spens, As warp the ship a’ roun And a’s his men at his feet. Ye’ll pict her well, and spare her not, It’s even ower by Aberdour, And mak’ her hale and soun’. There’s mony a craig and fin, But ere he had the word well spoke And yonder lies Sir Patrick Spens, The bonny ship went down, Wi’ mony a guid lords’ son. O laith, laith were our guid lords’ sons Lang, lang will the ladyes look To weet their milk-white hands; Into their morning weed, But lang ere a’ the play was ower Before they see young Patrick Spens They wat their gowden bands. Come sailing ower the fleed. O laith, laith were our Scots lords’ sons Lang, lang will the ladyes look to weet their coal-black shoon; Wi’ their fans in their hand, But lang ere a’ the play was ower Before they see him, Patrick Spens, They wat their hat aboon. Come sailing to dry land.

It were easy to multiply examples of the skill and industry with which our author has gathered these old pieces. The field he has made accessible to us is exceedingly rich and varied. The spirit which has animated him throughout, is entitled to our warmest admiration, for we do well know how little substantial remuneration can ever be hoped for by the man, who devotes himself, soul and body, to patriotic labours, such as he has so well executed. It has long been our wish to see a knowledge in these matters widely diffused among our countrymen, and a taste for them created more general and decided than there is in the present day. To minds vitiated by the blandishments of art, it is long before they can be brought to relish the simple beauties of these early strains; and it requires some study ere their value, either as illustrative of history, or national character, can be duly appreciated by the man of letters, the moralist, or metaphysician. But their beauties and value will be discovered in time, and the quickening effect this perception will communicate to the mind of the people, must prove as salutary to their moral, as to their literary character. In glancing over what we have written, we observe many things have escaped us, which in justice we should say of these volumes. What we have said, however, may suffice to satisfy all of the esteem in which we hold them. The notes we may dismiss with stating, that they principally tend to connect the ballads with matters of history, or are of an explanatory nature regarding their subjects. We are not sure that in his positions Mr. Buchan is always correct, or that in his comments he is uniformly happy. This much, however, we can safely vouch for, that they are abundantly curious, and that to many, the volumes without them would be deprived of a great portion of their interest. To conclude, no one bearing an honest affection towards the Song of his father-land, should lack for a moment the “Ancient Ballads and Songs of the North of Scotland.”

667

DUGALD GRAHAM.

A HISTORY of Vulgar Literature, from the earliest to the present times, we believe, would form a valuable acquisition to the libraries of the curious. We projected a work of this kind sometime ago, but the difficulty of obtaining materials, and the little leisure we could devote to the interesting subject, compelled us to relinquish the undertaking. Sorry should we be, however, were some work of the sort we allude to, not attempted by one more qualified to do it justice, whose facilities of obtaining copious and accurate information, were more enlarged than ours; and who could animate the whole with a spirit of philosophy, sufficient to elevate it to the due rank it should hold in the scale of moral and literary enquiry. Induced by considerations of the influence which Chap books, and Vulgar Facetiæ, exert in forming the mind of a people, and how these again are modified by national peculiarities,— we shall, in this article, introduce to the notice of the public, one of the most prolific writers, that last century produced, in this unambitious walk of letters. We remember the time, when we enjoyed his works with a lively relish, and we are not yet so diversly constituted from the bulk of our countrymen in the humbler walks of life, as to refuse a laugh, even now, to some of his fat jokes, and grossly indecent, though true portraitures, of Scottish life and manners.

The writer to whom we allude, is the individual whose Vera effigies, fronteth this page, and which we copied from the third edition of his Metrical History of the Rebellion in 1745. Dugald Graham, the product of whose brain, has formed the staple of the Saltmarket press of Glasgow, and subsequently of the classic presses of Paisley, Stirling, and Falkirk, filled for many years the notable office of “Skellat” Bellman of Glasgow, and was honestly, we believe, one of the most ingenious, witty, and learned men, that ever congregated the leiges by tinkle of Bell, or sonorous Oyes.

That a man who, in his day and generation, was so famous, should have left no dear recollections behind him; some Boswell to record his life, actions, and conversation, need be subject of admiration to no one who has reflected on the contemptuous neglect with which Time often treats the most illustrious Dead. Men, who deemed that in their works they would be remembered, till the thick rotundity of this globe was flattened by the lightnings of the latter day, would, were they to return to this nether sphere, be sadly mortified to find that their name had been lost in the shadows of non-entity—their fictions deemed the offspring of the imagination of a fabulous antiquity, and the authorship of their noblest works a matter of eternal dispute and error with curious scholars and men of research. 668

It is about forty years ago since Dougald Graham moved and lived, indited his comical stones, and rang his Skellat Bell within the Royalty of Glasgow, and yet how apocryphal is his fame! how little of his whole eventful history is known in this day. There is not a pedlar who traverses broad Scotland with a pack on his back and an ellwand in his hand, but in all likelihood disposes of some of Dougald’s works at every cottage he rests in for the night, or 669

at every Country fair he visits, in the course of his peregrinations. When he retails the adventures of John Cheap the Chapman—Leper the Tailor—John Falkirk’s Carritches— Granny M’Nab’s Lectures to clashing wives and witless dochters—Simple John and his XII. misfortunes, every one enough to break the heart of a giant—or the whole proceedings of Jockie and Maggie’s Courtship, does he bestow one thought on their humourous author? Is he aware of the fact, that the Scottish Rabalais, who penned these inimitable stories, was Dougald Graham, Skellat Bellman of Glasgow?

For the few particulars we know of Dougald Graham and his writings, we have been chiefly indebted to the friendly communications of the late George Caldwell, bookseller in this town, and Dr. Cleland of Glasgow.

In consequence of the notices we had received from Mr. Caldwell, we addressed a letter to Dr. Cleland, containing a few queries respecting the date of Graham’s appointment as Bellman, and as to the period when he died. To this we received the following answer:— ”With regard to Dougald Graham, I may safely say there is nothing in the Records concerning him. This, from my own knowledge, corroborated by Mr. Thomson, one of our Town Clerks, who lately made an Index of every thing in the books for 150 years back. We have a very sensible old Town Officer here, a good way above 80, with whom I have conversed, and have received from him the following information. Turner does not know the time either of his appointment or death. Turner was appointed a Town Officer 41 years ago, at that time George Gibson was bellman, better known by the name of Bell Geordie. When Turner was a boy of about 10 years of age, Dougald was bellman, and being very poetical, he collected a crowd of boys round him at every corner where he rang the bell. Turner says that Dougald was ‘a bit wee gash bodie under five feet,’ Till lately, Turner had a pamphlet of Dougald’s about two dogs quarreling.” Dr. Cleland’s letter is dated Oct. 1828.

The late Mr. Caldwell, who died here on the 4th Aug. 1826, at the advanced age of 62 years, was intimately acquainted with Dougald. In fact, Mr. Caldwell was an extensive dealer in penny histories and bawbee ballads, as will be known to every one who has made any collection of these things worth while. “Printed for Geo. Caldwell, Bookseller in Paisley,” occurs in the titles of hundreds of the copies we have amassed. Many of the works of popular entertainment which, Dougald wrote, were printed for, and sold by Mr Caldwell.

About the time, (30th April 1824,) we were forming a collection of materials for our projected history, we called on Mr. Caldwell, and had a conversation with him on the subject of Dougald. We may state that it is on the authority of Mr Caldwell, that we ascribe to Dougald the penny histories which will be afterwards enumerated. Besides these, there were many others, the titles of which Mr. Caldwell did not remember at the time;—and before we had leisure to resume our enquiries, that intelligent individual had paid the debt of nature.

In the conversation alluded to, Mr Caldwell said, and we quote his very words:— “Dougald was an unco glib body at the pen, and could screed aff a bit penny history in less than nae time. A’ his warks took weel—they were level to the meanest capacity, and had 670

plenty o’ coarse jokes to season them. I never kent a history of Dougald’s that stack in the sale yet, and we were aye fain to get a haud of some new piece frae him. Dougald was a lang time, skellat bellman o’ Glasgow, and wrate the maist pairt o’ his histories there. He died abune thretty years ago. In his youth, he was in the Pretender’s service, and on that account, he had a sair faught to get the place o’ bellman, for the Glasgow Bailies had an illbrew o’ the Hielanders, and were just downright wicked against ony body that had melled wi’ the Rebels; but Dougie was a pawkey chield, and managed to wyse them ower to his ain interests, pretending that he was a staunch Kings man, and pressed into the Prince’s service sair against his will, and when he was naithing mair than a hafflins callant, that scarcely kent his left haund frae his richt, or a B frae a Bull’s fit.” Thus far Mr. Caldwell.

Supposing that “the abune thretty years” of Mr Caldwell was 35 years prior to 1824, this would fix the date of Dougald’s demise in 1789. According to Turner’s statement, Dougald must have resigned the bell before 1787, when bell Geordie, it seems, wielded the civic clapper tongue, and if we suppose Dougald was 65 when he died, this will make his birth to fall in the year 1724, and he must have been in Prince Charles’ Army when a lad of 21 or 22. The precise date of his election as bellman is uncertain, nevertheless, we find him, agreeably to the statement of Turner, enjoying the whole emoluments of office about 1750.

The first great work which Dougald gave to the public, was His Impartial History of the Rebellion, a metrical chronicle, containing somewhere about 6256 lines, which is thus noticed by Campbell in his History of Scottish Poetry. “In 1787, An Impartial History of the Rebellion in Britain, in the years 1745 and 1746, by Douglas Graham,” (the fifth edition) was printed at Glasgow by John Robertson. This history is in Hudibrastic metre. This is a sorry performance.” Campbell’s brief character of Dougald’s history may very well apply to his own more operose compilation. The third edition of his poem is now before us*. It is embellished with the frontispiece which we have transferred to this article. Few chap books are more common than this, and we believe it has now arrived at the twentieth edition. When the first edition was published, we have not been able to discover. However slightingly we esteem his metrical powers, we really believe he has conscientiously and honestly detailed the events which came under his observation. It is not, however, on the merits of this work, that Graham’s fame rests. Had he only written it, we believe he never would have occupied our thoughts for a moment; but as one who subsequently contributed largely to the amusement of the lower classes of his countrymen, we love to think of the facetious bellman. To his rich vein of gross comic humour, laughable and vulgar description, great shrewdness of observation, and strong, though immeasurably coarse sense, every one of us, after getting out of toy books and fairy tales, has owed much. In truth, it is no exaggeration when we state, that he who desires to acquire a thorough knowledge of low Scottish life, vulgar manners, national characteristics, and popular jokes, must devote his days and nights to the study of John Cheap the Chapman—Leper the Taylor—Paddy from

* An Impartial History of the Rise, Progress, and Extinction of the late Rebellion in Britain, in the years 1745 and 1746. Giving an Account of every Battle, Skirmish, and Siege, from the time of the Pretender’s coming out of France until he landed in France again; with Plans of the Battles of Prestonpans, Clifton, Falkirk, and Culloden. With a real description of his Danger, and Travels through the Highland Isles, after the Break at Culloden. By D. Graham. The Third Edition with Amendments. Glasgow: Printed by John Robertson. 1774. 671

Cork—The whole proceedings of Jockie and Maggie’s Courtship—Janet Clinker’s Orations—Simple John, &c. all the productions of Dougald’s fertile brain, and his unwearied application to the cultivation of vulgar literature. To refined taste Dougald had no pretentions. His indelicacy is notorious—his coarseness an abomination—but they are characteristic of the class for whom he wrote. He is thoroughly embued with the national humours and peculiarities of his countrymen of the humblest classes, and his pictures of their manners, modes of thinking and conversation, are always sketched with a strong and faithful pencil. Indeed, the uncommon popularity the chapbooks above noted have acquired, entitles them, in many a point of view, to the regard of the moralist, and the literary historian. We meet with them on every stall, and in every cottage. They are essentially the Library of Entertaining Knowledge to our peasantry, and have maintained their ground in the affections of the people, notwithstanding the attempt of religious, political, or learned associations, to displace them, by substituting more elegant and wholesome literature in their stead.

We fnd that Dougald was in the practice of printing all his various works in parts. He wrote only when he was in the vein, and he always wrote pithily. We have seen his John Cheap, Leper the Taylor, and Jocky and Maggie’s Courtship thus printed, and regret that the want of a date in the imprint renders it out of our power to gratify bibliographers, by giving them the date of the editio princeps of any one, excepting the second part of Leper the Taylor*.

Of some of Graham’s penny histories we had a fair assortment at one time, principally printed by J. & M. Robertson, Saltmarket, Glasgow, which we believe might well be esteemed first editions, but some unprincipled Scoundrel has bereaved us of that treasure. There are a number of infamous creatures, who acquire large libraries of curious things, by borrowing books they never mean to return, and some not unfrequently slide a volume into their pocket, at the very moment you are fool enough to busy yourself in shewing them some nice typographic gem, or bibliographic rarity. These dishonest and heartless villains, ought to be cut above the breath whenever they cross the threshold. They deserve no more courtesy than was of old vouchsaved to witches, under bond and indenture to the Devil. From the scanty wreck that is left to us, we shall give the titles of the earliest editions we now have of Dougald’s works:—

The whole proceedings of Jockey and Maggy. In Five Parts. I. Jockey and Maggy’s Courtship as they were coming from the Market, II. The wonderful works of our John, showing how he made Janet like an Elshin shaft, and got his ain Maggy wi’ bairn forby. III, The wonderful works of our John made manifest before the Minister. IV. How Jockey and his mother went away to see his bastard child. V. How Jockey had another child, and cou’d not get it baptised until he mounted the stool: with an account of his mother’s death and burial; also, an Elegy on the same occasion.—Carefully corrected and revised by the Author.—Glasgow: Printed for, and sold by the booksellers in Town and Country. 1783.

* Fun upon Fun; or, the Comical Tricks of Leper the Taylor, Part II. Glasgow: Printed for the Company of Flying Stationers in Town and Country. 1779. This Part has the following N. B.—“The Third Part will contain a variety of his Witty Tricks in the different periods of his Life.” 672

Of this there is a mutilated version in three parts, common now a days, which nobody should buy.

The Comical sayings of Pady from Cork, with his Coat button’d behind. Being an elegant Conference between English Tom, and Irish Teague. With Pady’s Catechism, his opinion of Purgatory, and state of the Dead; and his Supplication when a Mountain Sailor. To which is added, his Creed for all Romish Believers.—In all its Parts, carefully Corrected by the Author.—Glasgow: Printed for George Caldwell, Bookseller in Paisley. 1784.

The History and Comical transactions of Lothian Tom. In six parts. Wherein is contained a collection of Roguish Exploits done by him, both in Scotland and England.—Glasgow: Printed by J. & M. Robertson. 1793.

The History of John Cheap the Chapman, containing above a hundred merry Exploits done by him and his traveller, Drouthy Tom, a sticked weaver. In three parts.—Glasgow: Printed and Sold by J. & M. Robertson. 1786.

The Comical and Witty jokes of John Falkirk the merry piper, when in Courtship to an old Fiddler’s Widow, who wanted the teeth, &c.—Glasgow: Printed in the year, 1779.

The Scots pipers Queries, or John Falkirk’s Cariches for the trial of Dull Wits, and instruction of Ignorant people, (no date)

Janet clinker’s Oration on the virtues of Old Women and the pride of the Young, (no date.)

These three are frequently found printed together. The last is sometimes printed as a separate publication, with this title:—“Grannie M’Nab’s lecture in the Society of Clashing Wives, Glasgow, on Witless Mithers and Dandy Daughters, who bring them up to hoodwink the men, and deceive them with their braw dresses, when they can neither wash a sark, mak parritch, or gang to the well.”

To John Falkirk’s Cariches (Catechism), there is the following prefix, which we quote, as we believe John Falkirk was a nick-name which Graham assumed on various occasions, when he stood forth the Vulgar Juvenal of his age:—

“AN ACCOUNT OP JOHN FALKIRK, THE SCOTS PIPER.

“John Falkirk, commonly called the Scots Piper, was a curious little witty fellow, with, a round face and a broad nose. None of his companions could answer the many witty questions he proposed to them, therefore he became the wonder of the age in which he lived. Being born of mean parents he got no education, therefore his witty invention was truly natural; and being bred to no business, he was under the necessity of using his genius in the composition of several small books, of which the following Cariches was one, which he disposed of for his support. He became author of many small Tracts, and the following curious and diverting pieces are said to be of his composition, viz.:—The History of John Cheap the Chapman, The History of the Haverel Wives, Janet Clinker’s Oration, John 673

Falkirk’s Witty Jokes, Jockie and Maggie’s Courtship, the Proverbs of the Pride of Women, History of Lothian Tom, with many others, which are well known in Scotland, England, and Ireland. In a word, he was

“The wittiest fellow in his time, Either for Prose, or making Rhyme.”

Leper the Tailor we have mentioned before. Whether a third part ever appeared we have not yet ascertained; but modern editions, in their titles, generally run thus:—“Fun upon Fun, or the Comical merry tricks of Leper the Tailor, in two parts: to which are added, the Grand solemnity of the Tailor’s funeral, who lay nine nights in State on his own shop-board, together with his Last Will and Testament.”

“The Comical History of Simple John and his Twelve Misfortunes. Giving a particular account of his Courtship and Marriage to a scolding wife, which has been a mortifying misery to many a poor man.”

Thus far have we inventoried the labours of Dougald’s pen. We shall not attempt to present our readers with any extracts, though we can assure them, that for graphic painting, good mother-wit, shrewdness, humour, and observation, we could select many samples. Dougald, to be sure, with all his originality, plunders most unmercifully from other sources; his incidents and jokes are to be found, for the most part, in the facetiæ of every age and country, still they have a wonderful freshness and flavour about them, from the manner in which they are brought out, and the strong vernacular style in which they are conveyed.

Though we have not authority for ascribing any other of our popular chap books to him, we would not be surprized to find that we are also indebted to him for the Merry Exploits of George Buchanan, The Creelman’s Courtship, and The History of Buchaven, containing the Witty and Entertaining Exploits of Wise Willie and Witty Eppy.

This, however, is mere conjecture on our part, and we shall be happy to renounce it, whenever an edition of either one or other of these penny histories is shewn us, of a date prior to the era in which the Bellman of Glasgow flourished. In thus directing public attention to the obscure labours of this caterer for vulgar taste, we think ourselves entitled to some credit, for sure enough the little information we have been enabled to give respecting them, would, in a short while, have been wholly lost, and in some hundred years hence, to ascertain the author of the tracts we have enumerated, would have been as idle an endeavour, as it would now be for a book collector to attempt the recovery of the famous library of Captain Cox of Kenilworth.

William Motherwell.