MACPHAIL'S EDINBURGH ECCLESIASTICAL JOURNAL. No. CLII. SEPTEMBER 1858. THE BALLAD POETRY OF SCOTLAND— PROFESSOR AYTOUN.* ABOUT the middle of the last century a base book-selling fashion was introduced of prefacing to good-for-nothing works the names of celebrated writers, as translators, editors, or authors. Thus we have "Cibber's Lives of the Poets," a work that, as Johnson believes, was never seen by either of the Cibbers till it appeared in print; we may add, perhaps not even then. Smollet's translation of Voltaire (to which the French traduction might have better applied as a betrayal of the author's sense) belongs to the same class. All the translations by eminent hands for about a century before the date we have indicated, were trash, badly rendered from the classics through the medium of the French; though we owe to the forgery some capital prefaces by Dryden, and one or two really eminent writers. We have now come to better times. A celebrated name has come to be the guarantee of a good book, whether written or edited. Professor Aytoun can no more afford to pass off with his name a bad work or edition, than he can afford to entrust a blank bank cheque with his signature, to the hands of a person whom he does not know to be possessed of common honesty. Accordingly we have here, from his own hands, an incomparable piece of editorship; by far the most careful and able that has ever come under our eye, if we except the classics (alas too few!) edited by Porson, and every thing edited by David Laing. The songs of Scotland have been so often edited, that it was at first to us a puzzle how Professor Aytoun meant to deal with them. We The Ballads of Scotland. Edited by William Edmonstoune Aytoun, D.C.L. William Blackwood & Sons. Edinburgh and London. 1858. VOL. XXVI. E at first suspected that a dashing preface might be all his contribution to the book, and that one of his publisher's clerks might have been entrusted with the selection of the poetry. The suspicion put us in some pain when we thought of Percy, and Ritson, and Motherwell, whose fame was fairly committed to their faithful and careful editorship. A sight of the book, almost, completely relieved us. Instead of trifling with his reader, the Professor has laboured at his work, as if he wrought for daily wages, and were overlooked by a task master. What then is there to shew for all this diligence? The most elaborate collation of editions, without exception, with which we are acquainted. A preference for the genuine and natural over the cooked and the artificial, which no judge of these matters can possibly mistake. A tact for distinguishing what could not have been said or sung by the original poet, from the pert conceit of Ramsay, whose trade it was to make periwigs of the newest imported fashion; the learned impositions of Pinkerton, who railed at all impostors but himself; and "horrescimus referentes," the enthusiastic borderism of Scott, who, rather than that a freebooter should under-act his part, or a bard undersing his praise, took the liberty of sometimes inventing the action and then resounding its glories, and debiting both to the account of originals, quite innocent of either. Not thus has Professor Aytoun discharged his duty. He has so discharged it that we trust he may be encouraged to add to these two volumes at least ten more, as carefully, as modestly, and as instructively edited. A professorship of rhetoric would have utterly spoiled, so lately as thirty years agone, any one for such a task. Now it turns out that the best rhetoric is thought to be a return to Odyssean simplicity of manners, Doric painting of nature, and the most genuine nakedness of Scotch enthusiasm for love, feud, and fellowship; the latter, by the way, of the more familiar sort in every social department. All this prefacing is, we fear, a weary sort of introduction to the threshold of an hostelry in which all the entertainment promised by the sign hung over the door, may be confidently expected. Nothing can well be more erudite, reasonable, and wise than the Professor's account of the origin and progress of ballad poetry, and the tests that he applies to its species, and characteristic value. We shall extract fragments of his Introduction, from which the reader is requested to deduce sufficient proof of what we have written. "In almost every other country in Europe, the remains of the old national poetry have been carefully brought together and consolidated. The Songs of the Cid and the Moorish romances of Spain exist to us without variations or conflicting versions. The old German ditties are preserved in the 'Volksleider der Deutschen,' edited by Friedrich Karl von Erlach; and in the 'Knaben Wunderhorn,' published by Arnim and Brentano, a most delightful book, which, as Heine has well remarked, 'contains the most beauteous flowers of the German mind; and he who would become acquainted with the German people in their most amiable aspect, must study these tradi tionary songs. At this moment,' says he, 'the 'Wunderhorn' lies before me, and I feel as if I were inhaling the fragrance of the German linden.' The Danish ballads, which in many respects bear a strong resemblance to those of Scotland, and which extend over a period of several centuries, from the thirteenth to the eighteenth, are contained in that well-known and admirable compilation, the Danske Viser,' edited by Abrahamson, Nyerup, and Rahbek. In the same way the ballads of Sweden have been collected by Adolf Iwar Arwidsson, who, so late as the year 1842, issued the third and concluding volume of his series, entitled the 'Svenska Fornsänger,' from the press of Stockholm. I am given to understand that the old Sclavonic poetry has been preserved and edited with equal care; but of that I cannot speak from my own knowledge, my only acquaintance with those ballads being derived from the spirited German versions given in the Volkslieder of the accomplished Herder. Thus the foreigner who wishes to acquire a knowledge of the early poetical literature of those nations, can at once procure a perfect and authoritative collection, which is by no means the case with regard to the Scottish ballads. These have hitherto been scattered through many volumes-some indeed common and popular, but others scarce, and one or two out of print, having been merely set in type for private circulation; and the versions which these contain are by no means uniform." This is the Professor's able, modest, and completely satisfactory account of his own undertaking. He had been characterizing, it should be kept in mind, the labours of his predecessors. "Ample as was the material so brought together by the labour and industry of the different collectors, there was yet another process to be performed before the Ballad-book of Scotland could be adequately restored. It was necessary that some one should undertake the collection of the several versions, so that each fragment might be fitted in its proper place, to the exclusion, as far as practicable, of all spurious additions, and supplementary verses, which had been added to these poems during the course of tradition. The reader will keep in mind that I am now referring only to that section of the ballads of which different versions had been preserved. A great many, having been taken from old manuscripts, required no alteration-indeed, any attempt to tamper with these, even in the slightest degree, would deserve serious reprobation. Many more have been collated by one or other of the collectors; and, in such cases, it was plainly unnecessary, when the work had been satisfactorily done, to take it to pieces for the mere sake of fanciful or conjectural improvements. The ballads, so constructed, have for the most part been generally accepted and recognised, are emphatically household words, and so should be allowed to remain. But the class of ballads to which I more particularly allude, being altogether broken and fragmentary, absolutely required restoration, for reasons which I think the candid reader will admit to be sufficient, if he has sufficient patience to peruse the following remarks, explanatory of the condition of these venerable remains. "Their number, as we have them now, without attempting to estimate the many which must have disappeared in the course of time, is a clear proof that they were not composed casually or from the caprice of the writers, but were the production of minstrels, who, in remoter times, followed their craft as a regular profession or means of livelihood-though the emol. uments may have been but scanty, and the social position of the professors not very exalted." Here the Professor begins to play the Jacobite. He seems to fancy that Presbyterianism and Poetry are wholly uncongenial and incompatible. Has he forgotten that Burns, and Leyden, and, so far as is known, Thomson, were so completely Presbyterian, that, if cause had arisen, they would very likely have laid down their lives for the good old cause? Even poor John Home lingered, to his last sand, in the General Assembly as an elder, after he had been self-banished as a presbyter. Let not the Professor forget that if the Stuart cause monopolized the poetry of Scotland during the very brief period of its enthusiastic existence, real literature was in other hands, and these not ungenerous ones. Robertson, Blair, and Beattie were liberals in their way; and so far as they dared, in their time, two of them at least were as fond of old ballads as Professor Aytoun. We desire the Professor to give up his practice of connecting the dissolution of art with the triumph of the Presbyterian cause in Scotland. We defy him to shew WHAT arts flourished in Scotland under another regimen. Who excelled Buchanan and Melville in Professor Aytoun's own department? Presbyterian Ballads were not to be expected. The Cavalier and Jacobite effervescence, however, excepted, the best ballad-makers were, at least, not the enemies of Presbytery, not the friends of Rome. With these observations we introduce with cheerful confidence the next paragraph to that which we have last quoted. "It is no shortsighted policy which suggests that the recreations of a people should be attended to as well as their physical wants; for man is a complex animal, and in the absence of all amusement to relieve the severity of his daily toil, he is apt to become sullen and morose, if not positively dangerous. The homely phrase, 'All work and no play,' implies a condition unwholesome alike for individuals and societies, and decidedly unfavourable to the development of the better propensities of our nature. Some modern philanthropists, who are entitled to credit for their zeal and sincerity, though we may be allowed to doubt the soundness of their philosophy and the extent of their discretion, have opined that the best mode of recreating the people and refreshing their spirits, lies in the alternation of severe mental and bodily exercise; the hours of leisure being devoted to study, as diligently as those of labour are dedicated to the needful exercise of a handicraft. Experience, not less than common sense, is opposed to such preposterous notions; and if there is one lesson more easily deducible from the pages of history than another, it is this-that the happiness of a people is best consulted, and their contentment most easily secured, by giving them every facility for innocent and pleasant pastime. I cannot help thinking that the severe measures of the Scottish legislature, about the middle of the sixteenth century, for checking and even suppressing the sports of the commonality, contributed largely in engendering that spirit of anarchy, disaffection, and turbulence, which, for a long series of years, gave Scotland the unenviable character of being the rudest country of Christendom. "Before that period the amusements of the people were unrestrained." We have now done with controversy. The tests that the Professor applies to the species and characteristic value of the poetry with which he deals are as good as possible "The language of a people is never perfectly fixed. Like everything human, it undergoes many vicissitudes and changes. Some words in the course of time become obsolete; others lose their direct and primary significance; and new words and new forms of speech are gradually introduced. There is, in truth, no such thing as a fixed standard; although, after the production of a considerable stock of literature which has passed into circulation, the changes are comparatively few. But, prior to that, the changes are numerous and rapid. Compare the English of Shakespeare, with that of Chaucer-what a wonderful difference, irrespective of the mere spelling, is at once apparent in the vocabulary! "Now, it seems to me quite evident that such changes in the spoken language, must have affected the floating traditionary literature also. The reciters, supposing them to be perfectly faithful, had an evident inducement to alter terms so as to suit the comprehension of their audience; in short, to modernise. This will account for many changes and varieties of words and epithets, which have puzzled critical writers, and in some instances led them astray. Thus I find that the antiquity of the ballad of Sir Patrick Spens has been challenged, because in some versions the lords are made to wear 'cork-heeled shoon;' which, say the critics, were unknown at so early a period as that assigned as the date of the ballad. Very possibly they may be right as to the date of the manufacture; but not on that account can we accept their conclusion, more especially when there are other current versions which do not contain the obnoxious phrase. Moreover, a perfectly accurate memory is among the rarest of gifts. Every writer who has attempted to quote from memory is aware of this. Let him be ever so well acquainted with the passage, he will find, on comparison with the original, that in jotting it down he has altered something; and where there is no written or printed original to consult, there is the less motive for fidelity. I think, therefore, that even in the ballads which were least altered or corrupted, there must have been many verbal changes, to the extent of modifying and modernising the phraseology, though the sense may be left intact. When I find two or more sets of the same ballad which exhibit no more than variations of this sort, I hold these variations to be intrinsic proofs of its purity, and also conclusive evidence of the antiquity of its tradition. "But there are many ballads in which the variations are more decided and perplexing. Sometimes the commencement of the story, and even its main incidents, are narrated in language nearly uniform, while the catastrophe in the one version differs altogether from that set forth in the other. In such a case it is plain that one at least of the conclusions must have been the work of a subsequent artist, and it becomes necessary to scrutinize very closely the tone, texture, and style of the parts, in order to determine which version should receive the honours of originality. It may happen, however, and I suspect it often is the case, that both the conclusions are comparatively modern-that part of the ballad had been altogether lost, and that, in order to supply that loss, different ballad-mongers had exercised their ingenuity. The art of replacing is by no means a new one. minstrels and reciters were adepts in supplying lacuna; and they could do 60 much more successfully than any artist of the present day, seeing that their memories were stored with innumerable lines and even stanzas, which, with a little dexterity, could be made to fit in and assort with almost any kind of ballad. Such ballads are nevertheless to be considered as antique. They may have been repaired, but the repairs are of ancient date, within the period of active minstrelsy; and as we certainly would not reject or even undervalue a Roman bust, because some broken part had been replaced in the time of the Caesars, so neither should we set aside as spurious, The |